Striking Out

THE MOST MONEY I ever made in a single year was, I believe, about forty six grand, teaching. since I never maried nor had children, it was enough. I was happy, happy to live in one small apartment after another, depending on where I happened to be teaching. By the time I turned fifty, I wa able to afford to build a nice, small house, pay for it, and retire there fifteen years later, so, no complaints. Unabashedly I assert this: that in one year of teaching (I taught for forty years) I did more good for America, contributed more to society, and had a far greater positive impact on society and humanity than a professional athlete - any professional athlete - does over his or her entire career. And I never even taught first grade. For my money, the first grade teachers, the true rocket launchers, life launcher of lives well lived, deserve the big bucks, bigger than anyone who ever threw a pass or hot one over the fence. My opinion on this matter is in context with the fact that I am a life long sports fanatic, especially a baseball fan, having becoming one in first grade, when my dad told me that everybody hated the Yankees, and I, the compassionate one, decided to love them, out of pity. I still love my Yankees, my Sixers, my Bears, my Blackhawks, and my Razorbacks, not necessarily in that order. And I understand capitalism, well. Supply, demand, all of it. I strongly believe in our socialistic public school system; teaching should not be undertaken for profit, but for service and personal fulfillment. Since I understand capitalism, I feel impelled to remind the Major League Baseball Players Union that the multi-billionaire baseball team oowners are doing nothing other than behaving exactly as capitalists behave in a capitalistic economy: they are attempting to maximize profit, partly by reducing labor costs as much as possible. The players are behaving like workers; trying to get their fair share, and unionizing to do so. Nobody should really have any complaint wth either group, yet everybody seems to. As if we the American pro capitalistic public suddenly expects business people and workers to act in the public interest, as if both owners and players, by remaining deadlocked in a locked out industry, are somehow depriving us the American people of something to which we have an inalienable right; entertainment. To wit: if they work it out, fine. If they don't, they both lose far more than you or I, and American capitalism trudges ever onward, chewing people up and spitting them out, as per usual, just as we intended. John Maymared Keynes, perhaps the most insightful economist ever, said, insightfully: "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men operating with the nastiest of motives will function in the best interests of all." Well, and then, I'm a socialist. I think baseball players should be paid no more, or perhaps even less, than first grade teachers, by government edict if necessary. (It would be necessary) My opinion is not based on ignorance. I can name every World Series and Super Bowl winner. I can give lectures in economic, political, political, and artistic history. In fact I did so, for many years, at colleges, universities, and high schools. I assert that every American is partly a socialist, no matter how adamantly most might deny it. To renounce American socialism one must renounce Social Security, public highways and bridges, public police and fire departments, and about a million other socialized by necessity American goods and services, provided by government. Yes, all the aforementioned are in fact products of socialism, which, I assert, meshes well with well regulated capitalism. Kudos to the ten year old and his lemon ade stand. I'm still glad I was a teacher, but as much as I love Major League Baseball, since it insists on using a capitalist economic model, I favor letting it sink or swim in the free market, like any other nasty money grubbing business enterprise. I can always go grab a good high school basseball game, played by guys who do it for the love of the game only.

Insecticiding, Disastrously

FOLKS WITH A FEW DECADES under their belts will recall then a two hour road trip along any of America's numerous scenic highways culminated with a mass massacre, and a windshield smeared from left to right, top to bottom with the remains of formerly flying insects. When one hit, another would, within seconds. You could count on it. We kids in the back seats had the option of counting cows, out of state license plates, or trying to outguess each other when and where on the glass the next victim would meet its automotive match. It was either that, or a board (bored) game. The prevailing joke at the time was: "What did the bug say when it hit the windshiled?...Oops, that's me, all over". We laughed every time. In all fairness, this was the mid nineteen sixties, a much simpler time in American pop culture. People would stop at the gas station to refill their tanks at fifteen miles and twenty five cents a gallon, and the young man would fill the tank (nobody filled their own gas tanks in those days, it was illegal, and still is, but only in New Jersey). Then, the teenaged boy would clean your windshield, bugs, or after short trips no bugs, with one of those long handled thingies with the long rubber thingie, which looked like a windshield wiper because it was, attached to it. (The service was automatic; nobody had to ask for it). No longer is this the case. Gone is good service at gas stations, now we must do our own labor, gone is twenty five cent gas, and gone are the insects, but not for good, if entomologist Oliver Milman and millions of enironmental activists have anything to say about it. It now takes a drive all the way across these United States of America to produce a windshield heavily stained by bug guts, and results are not even certain then. Someone told me that you can still get a good haul by driving at night; at my age, I try to avoid driving at night, so, wouldn't know. The intuitive conclusion is quite correct: insects on planet Earth are drastically diminished in numbers, and at their present rate of disappearance, are threatened with extinction. That is, all insects. All of the millions of species, all of the trillions upon trillions of countless individual bugs. This, due to climate change, the rampant, irresponsible use of pesticides, and, the usual villain, habitat destruction at the hands of sprawling human urban development. Deforestation for purposes of raising cattle play a role too. In his new book "Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires Which Run the World" Milman confirms that there are fewer and fewer splattered bugs on your windshiled, explains why, explaining that scientists in Europe have experimented by making the same drive along the same highway every day for decades, and have kept careful count of bug guts, and are finding them wanting, having gradually diminished in numbers with each...passing...year....and...decade...for decades. He also points out what is well known by the entomological community, as articulated repeatedly by the recently deceased famed Harvard entomologist E. O. Wilson; that if insects go extinct, so do we. In fact, Wilson is famous for his contention that if the red ant by itself goes extinct, so go we. Unlikely though that seems, general insect extinction seemd equally improbable; until just recently. But Milman is hopeful, and says so should we all be, because all over the world people are starting, albeit a bit belatedly, to do something about it. People are starting to cultivate colonies of bees world wide, as they too are greatly diminished in recent years. In Germany, one third of all agricultural land must now be set aside as insect habitat. The Germans mean business, and are leading the way in saving the insect kingdom. Skyscraper rooftops in major cities around the world are being turned into grassy, weedy, wild flowery mini pastures, where insects of all kinds prefer to hang. What can you, the average American suburban homeowner do to help? You can stop trying to make your lawn look like a putting surface, or like green carpet, with everything pulled out of the ground except your chosen type of grass neatly mown to the exact same length once every week. Cut your grass, but let it grow a bit before you do. Stop thinking of weeds and treating them as life's worst enemies. Maybe even let a few wildflowers grow, or set aside a space for them to flourish, amidst your rubbery looking green carpet of perfect grass. All this will mean much less work, time, and money for you, and your yard will begin to look like it is actually a living thing instead of a parking lot painted green, and when your neighbors ask about your suddenly imperfectly manicured, messy lawn, simply say: Hey, I'm just contributing to the survival of the human race. Want to join me?

Using Intel, Intelligently

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE, using information gathered by all sixteen military intelligence intel ops agencies, had been warning for weeks that the Russians were not bluffing, and that Russia was indeed going to lauch an attack-invasion on the Ukraine. Biden listened. Trump wouldn't have. Trump would have taken Putin's word for it, that no ivasion was forthcoming, that the CIA was full of it, seeing as how Trump was and remains Putin's errand boy and resident boot licker. Gathering together more than one hundred and fifty thosuand well armed folks hard on the Russian-Ukrainian border was good enough evidence for American intelligence, not undertaken for the purpose of having a picnic or reunion, U.S. spies adroitly figured. Many others, including "expert" analysts in America and Europe, figured otherwise, and were wrong. The same people who predicted and warned of impending Russian aggression told us in 2016 that the Russians were infiltrating the U.S. elections, trying to get Trump elected with a massive Russian top down online propaganda project, and that they succeeded, providing Trump's margin of illegitimate "victory". If you wish to argue the point, do it with the CIA and FBI, and good luck. True to form, head in sand for the sake of face saving convenience, our American conservative community, led by its radioactive icon Donald Trump, is supplanting reality with its own fantasy, revisionit propaganda. Russian election interference in 2016 thus becomes a liberal hoax, a hit job on Trump by the mainstream media, liberalism, the Chinese, and the CIA and FBI, all working in conspiratorial concert, the two intelligence agencies infested with radical left wing activists. Now, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, the ghost of Rush Limbaugh, among others of the unwoke sort, promulgates the false narrative on Faux TV that Russian aggression against Ukraine is irrelevant to American concerns. Trump calls Vladimir Putin, long his idol, "savvy", and "a genius", and brags: "I know him very well". Its a low bar, as they say. Barking the word "attack" into a secured telephone qualifies. Trump knows Putin well enough to lick his boots and kiss his ass, it seems. We may assume that a majority of the conservative community embraces all this nonsense. In fact, it is confirmed that Vladimir Putin has the approval of America's far right. But, of course, so does Adolph Hitler. They have a penchant for embracing nonsense, like stolen election theories, and such. Thus is clearly revealed, yet again, the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American conservative community, formally manifested in the Republican party, made up mainly of white evangelical conservative Christians. Forty years ago perceptive people pointed out that the "moral majority" was, and still is, neither. The evangelical conservative Trump supporting community can justifiably claim to be, if not both Christian and Trumpist, then at least one, that being Trumpist. Unlike Donald Trump and presumably his supporters, sane, moral Americans consider the late Senator John McCain a hero, and consider Vladimir Putin a punk criminal, an unintelligent one at that.

Splitting the Difference

I RECALL A TIME WHEN the two major political parties were somewhat like "tweedle dee twedle dum", scarcely distinguishable versions of each other. This was in the post World War Two era, the nineteen fifties, sixties, and seventies. During the nineteen thirties the difference was indeed great: the Republican party of business as usual, the status, quo, the free market of Herbert Hoover, versus the new dealing Roosevelt Demmocrats. There's nothing like winning a world war or two to inspire national unity of purpose, nothing like national economic prosperity to inspire national popular contentment, nothing like external enemies to engender unity of purpose for pureply defensive purposes, with a little imperialism thrown into the mix. The Soviet Union filled the bill nicely. The period between 1945 and 1970 was, according to concensus economic history and historical thought, the most prosperous era in American history. A minimum wage income could feed a family of four. Because of sharply progressive income tax laws, there were relatively few wealthy people, and relatively few poor people, if you don't include the black underclass, which, in those days, didn't count. Then came Reagan, and the great national consensus began to unravel, and the great unraveling, in the great big ball of yarn that is America, continues to this day, but surely, is nearly complete. According to some it will culminate in civil war. Its happened before. Stranger things have happend, as we like to say. Under Reagen, neo-liberal economics, the philosophy that the less government involvement in and regulation of the economy, the better, was insinuated into national policy, and American culture began its great divide, between the very wealthy, and the very poor, the middle class shrinking, as it continues to do today. Corporations noticed the great national prosperity of the post World War Two era, decided that they, the ownership class, was not getting its fair share of the credit or pie, and thus began the era of corporate "share holder dividend maximization". Jack Welch, CEO of GE from 1981 to 2001, deserves credit for this "innovation". His rise to power coincided with Reagan, the rise of corporate power, and the death of the American middle class, internal harmony, and national unity. As the twentieth century ebbed, gone were the days when labor and managment worked hand in hand for their mutual prosperity, when folks worked for the same company their entire working lives, and retired with a healthy pension. Retirenement pensions were replaced with worker financed 401Ks, labor unions and wages became the enemmies of economic growth, and since 1980 both have been suppressed mightily, aided and ebetted by big corporate government, paid for by our corporate masters, as Gore Vidal called them. The Democrat party became the party of minorities and the poor, the Republicans the party of the corporate wealthy and such as remained of the middle class. The magic formula of Trump was in his ability to lure white working class men away from their true natural party, the Democrats. This he accomplished by posing immigrants, government, and corporations all as the enemy, a multi billionaire, or rather a self proclaimed alleged multi billionaire, suddenly the champion of the working man. Its a sham, we now know, we always should have known or did know, based on white Christian anger at an ethnically diversifying, secularizing culture, changing, and changing forever. The bottom line, to use that horrible cliche, is: if you're poor, working class, or middle class, you have nothing to gain from voting Republican, and everything to gain from voting Democratic.

Everybody Voting

AMONG THE MANY GREAT THINGS about living in the United States is that no matter when or where, you're never far away, in real time and space, from an upcoming election. My father, who once said that the best form of governemnt, ultimately, is probably a benevolent dictatorship, also regularly proclaimed his love of voting. "Hell, I'll vote on anything", I believe is the way he put it. I agree with him. In fact, the older I become, the more convinced I am that we the people in our great self-described-democracy-actual-plutocracy simply do not vote often enough, or on enough issues and questions. James Madison made it clear that we the people do not possess the intelligence or education to govern ourselves, which is why he gave us a republic, a representative democracy, rather than a more direct democracy. Annother member of my family, when confronted with this historical fact, responded: "Well, he sure was right, wasn't he?". And, to an extent, yes, I suppose he was. Before Trump, for instance, I never in my wildest most dystopian imaginings woud ever have believed that we the American people would elect a man like that as president. Now, I'm ready for anything. More than ever before, I understand how Hitler came to power; alarmingly similar to the method used by Trump. But I still think we the people should be making more of the decisions which direcetly concern us and which profoundly effect our lives, rather then leaving them to elected politicians. I propose a national reforendum on women's reproductive rights. The legal and judicical systems of our great country are obviously inadequate to the task of providing wise guidance and decisions concerning this funcamental issue. While we're at it, let's vote on a national marijuana law. Stat's rights and state's sovereignty are all well and good, but in many areas of life it is confusing, inconvenient, and chaotic to live in a nation with a patchwork of laws depending on the fifty states; a national voter rights act, something along the lines of the voting Rights Act of 1965 would be desirable as well; again, congress and the courts have been useless in this endeavor; put it before the people directly. Under the current arrangement, we have the choice between two political parties, neither of which necessarily reflects the beliefs of the citizenry. It has been determined that in nearly every state, there is a constituency of environmental activists, people who want strong action on climate change and environmental restoration immediately, at any cost, to elect a strongly pro-environment congress and state governments in all fifty states. Tragically, much of the environmental movement stays home during the midterms, and only bothers to vote during national presidential elections. Arguably, the reason why the United States does not have an adequate environmelta restoration and climate change policy is not because of conservative Republcians or corporate interests, but rather, because of themselves, because of the failure of environmental champions to get out, and vote. The greater irony is that if climate change and the environment were submitted to us the people for a national referendum, and if everybody voted, the U.S. would soon have a strong, activist national policy. The dirty little secret is that on all major issues, the progressive point of view is in the majority, but, alas, we do not have a system of government which reflects the will of the majority.

Preserving Democracy

MY FATHER once said to mte that overall, the most effective, efficient, satisfactory form of government is probably a benevolent dictatorship. I can see his point. Most Christians would probably prefer an earthly kingdom of Christ. The fight for democracy is difficult. Democracy by its very nature is cumbersome, ineffecient, and chaotic. It requires a lot of hard work by a lot of people; another argument against it. Its worth remembering that Alexandere Hamiltion wanted George Washington to be king, not president, and many people agreed with him. Washington refused, which is the only reason why we have anything remotely resembling a democracy in the United States, or ever have. Its worth remembering that Alexander Hamilton wanted George Washington to be a king not a president, and many people agreed with him. Washington's refusal was and perhaps the only real reason why anything even remotely resembling a democracy has ever existed in the United States. Throughout American history, people have had to fight like dogs to get the right to vote, and it now appears that many more people will have to soon do the same - fight like dogs, to keep their right to vote. We Americans have a hard, if not impossibile time tryng to get away from, to evolve something better than, plutocratic oligarchy, and we still haven't done it, despite the best efforts by many good democratically leaning people. Not only did wemon and men of color have to wait centuries before being allowed to vote, they had to actively protest and fight for the "privilege' for nearly a century before white patriarchal America finally relented. The current quite serious attack on democracy began innocuously enough, with the president of the United States elling a lie. What else is new, right? But this lie was bigger and more obviously false than most; the one about the election having stolen from Trump. Trump's big lie was and remains so totally, completely, obviously false that it remains ever amazing that more than seventy million Americans believed it, or still do. Or at least they pretend to. Tragically, widespread belief in this insane, nonsensical lie led directly to the current highly undemocratic voter suppression movement dominating American conservatism, and the Republic party, in more than half the states, especially those governed by Republicans. They try to brainwash themselves into believing that rampant fraud in American elections resuires election reform, election reform consisting of making it much harder to vote, reducing the number of people voting. Even if voter fraud actually existed in American elections, which it almost entirely does not, the lawws being enacted and proposed will do nothing to eliminate it. Trump and the Republicans stole the election of 2020 by receiving Russian assistance, they tried and are still trying to steal Biden's election, and are already passing election laws making it easy for them to steal the election(s) of 2024. These laws, such as those reducing mail-in voting and early voting hours and drop boxes must be overridden by Congress. The truth is that if all eligible voters in the United States started voting, the Democrats would dominate. Government of, for, and by wealthy white men would be replaced by a truly American ethnically diverse democracy. In order to win, the Republicnas must decrease the number of people voting, any way they can. They are trying, and in many places succeeding, to do exactly that now. They must be stopped, to save American democracy.

Deciding What Kind of Democracy

OF THE THREE basic forms of government; government by a single person (autocracy), government by a small group of people (oligarchy), or government by the people (democracy), democracy is by far the most cumbersome create and maintain, the most difficult to operate, to function properly. Historically democracy doesn't dneure: it is always ripped apart, frittered away, dragged down by combinations of dark, undemocratic forces. Democracies seem doomed to devolve into authoritatian dictatorships. In any democracy, the big, single question being constantly asked and answered is: how much democracy should we have? A little bit, or a whole lot? The ancient Greeks and Romans confronted and dealt with this basic question in a variety of ways and in both instances, democracy devolved to tyranny. The "founders" of the United stats, by whom we usually mean the people (wealthy, educated, land owning white men) who designed and implemented the American system of government, wrestled unendingly with thiw question, and left of a system within which we continue the wrestling today. The essential questions are: how strong to make the central government, and, how much actual power to give the people in general? America's founders tried to answer both questions by striking a balance between possible extreme answers. The American constitition, our constitution, gives very little actual power to the American people, by design. James Madison, the main author of the constitution, firmly beleived that ninety nine percent of Americans were insufficiently intelligent and educated to govern themselves, and probably always would be. After the constitution was ratified, each state was free to establish its own voting requirements and election systems. Benjamin Franklin was chosen to design the system for Pennsylvania, and he eliminated the requirment that a man must own land to vote, written into the federal constitution by Madison, the first state ever to do this. In his famous parable of the man and the jackass, Franklin cleverly demonstrated that land ownerwhip requirments for voting in essence made land, and the jackasses on them, not men, the actual voters. John Adams was chosen to design the constitution in Massachusetts, and was thoroughy appallad at the idea of eliminating land ownership voting requirments. He claimed that allowing more people to vote by making it easier to vote would be a slippery slope down which the new country must never go; eventually, people with no money or education would be voting, or, very young people, or, horror of horrors, women. Mob rule would be the result, exactly what the founders were most afraid of. What the founders were most afraid of was true democracy. Thus, they created a democratic republic. Throughout American history Americans have been arguing about how much democracy to have; women's voting rights and African-American voting rights and eighteen year old people's voting rights have been hotly debated, and still are. We are currently experiencing yet another wave of big tent democracy versus small tent republican democracy, asking ourselves how many people do we want to vote, how large or how small we want our American democracy to be; in all states controlled by Republcians laws are being passed making it more difficult to vote, with more obstacles and barriers. If these laws go into effect and are not eliminated by Congress, which has the constitutional right to override state voting laws to prevent states from infringing on voting rights, then, fewer people will vote, which is the intention of the laws being promulgated by Republicans, thoguh they usually claim otherwise. We the American people must force Congress to protect our voting rights, or we will lose them, again.

Fleeing The Surging Sea

ALL HER LIFE she worked and planned for her dream home. Finally, she got it. High on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the beach and the Pacific ocean. A modest three bedroom home with a spectaculor view. Perfect for her and her daughter. One night in the middle of the night she thought she heard a faint rumbling, and felt a bit of shaking. When morning light arrived, her front yard was gone, and her house was closer to the edge of the cliff than ever before. Her patio and one of the bedrooms was completely separated from the rest of the house, and dangling by a thread. The rest of the hosue was precariously perched on teh extreme edge of the cliff, much of which had collapsed onto the beach during the night, leaving a huge pile of dirt and sand. The rising water table, caused by rising sea levels, had weakened the underlying ground, which could no longer support the weight of the land. The entire family got out without injury. Later on, the rest of the cliff and house crashed onto the beach. With a lot of help from friends, family, community, and insurance companies she was able to recover financially with a new home, one considerably farther from the beach. The same thing happens to many people every year, in increasing numbers every year. Climate change is causing the sea level world wide to rise fast; it has already risen about six inches during the last century, and is predicted to rise by as much as a foot more by the middle of this century. The world's oceans are rising rapidly and significantly. All over the world ocean front property is threatened, doomed by sea level rise. Land owners along Chesepeake Bay have noticed the water creeping ever higher onto their land, covering it. Pacific Islands are sinking beneath the waves. The number of people who live close to the ocean, and the number of busineses and amount of infrastructure close to the ocean is huge beyond measure; a large percentage of all human activity occurs within a few feet of the water; all becuase of humanity's love of and affinity for the ocean. Humanity will have to undergo a massive relocation project, which has already begun, but, like current efforts at fighting climate change, isn't nearly enough, is, in fact, much too little, much too late. Billions of people, businesses, and megatons of infrastructure, must soon be moved away from the rising oceans, costing the human race trillions of dollars. Already at every high tide in Miami, Florida, the sewer system floods, and the Atlantic Ocean rises up and covers coastal roads and property. Rain events along the U.S. East Coast are becoming more frequent and severe; they regularly turn coastal land into swamps and threaten low lying cities like Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, among many others. Most of the world's biggest cities sit right on the ocean front, and will require huge dams, levies, and dykes, and will, ultimately, simply have to be relocated. Its unavoidable, becassue the sea level rise already guaranteed for the next several decades is being caused by carbon already in the Earth's atmosphere, carbon which has been in the atmosphere for decades, with no removal in sight. Not only is the world not reducing the amount of carbon already suspended in the atmosphere, it is adding ever more, as much as thirty billion tons per year, although some countries have begun to reduce and level off their carbon emissions. The world isn't even planning on reaching net zero carbon emissions until the year 2050, by whith time damage done by global warming caused by previous carbon emissions will have proved disastrous, including ocean level rise. We must change directions; the one we are going in is taking us nowhere except to extinction.

Honking On For Freedom and Death

AS THE DEATH TOLL from Covid 19 in the United States approached the previously uniimaginable one million mark, folks all across the fruited plain and up into Canada became increasingly weary of being told to get vaccinated, to wear masks, and social distance. So much so that at the national, state, and local level all vaccination and mask mandates, rules, and regulations were beginning to fall by the way side, as mandates were allowed to expire among much controversy, arguing, and confusion concerning the best way to fight Covid 19 on a societal scale. People are tired of wearing a mask for two years, tired of sending their children to school wearing masks, tired of keeping their children home from school, tired of having businesses closed and store shelves Empty. Especially tired of being told that if they can just hang on a litttle longer, this will all be over, and life can get back to normal. People are starting to plainly see that the old normal isn't coming back. The next stage appears to be that the virus will settle into a yearly routine, like the good old annual flu, and be with us forever, with annual vaccinations available, thank goodness. The big semi tractor-trailor get together north of Detroit, in southern Canda, focusing on blocking the bridge across which merchandise is shipped between the two countries, was blocked long enough by horn honking trucks and drivers to disrupt the economy, make the trucker's point, and arouse the anger of enough people to summon law enforcement into action to dispell the "truck in". A great deal fo support for the vehicular protest came from within the United States, in the form of participants, trucks, and money. This is in a sense amazing since soon the one millionth american victim of Covid 19 will die; one night think by now that all Americans would understand the necessity of vaccine and makase mandates from government and business, and would kindly refrain from participation in mass anti-vax & mask protests. Without such measures, the American death toll might have been many times the current number, into the many millions. Describing such rules and regulations as "tyranny" is a considerable stretch, considering that the vaccine and mask mandates are only temporary, were always intended to be only temporary, that is isn't as if people's possessions or freedom are being stripped from them and they are being flung into dungeons to rot and die, but rather, are only being subjected to minor inconveniences for the sake of the public health and safety. Overwhelmingly, the protets, including the recent big one in Canada, are coming fro within the ranks of right wing libertarian types, the same people who have all along promulgated crazy wacko anti-vax conspiracy theories and refused to get vaccinated. Unsurprisingly, they are the ones who are now sickening and dying in the greatest numbers. Tragic though this is, its predictable and explainable, and, all things considered, the situation could be far worse.

Opposing Lies, Changing Society

SOMEWHERE I saw a sign that said: "Normal Isn't Coming Back, But Jesus Is"...OK....sure.... Well, in the first place, "normal" never comes back, because like society generally, it, normal, is constantly changing. Then too, Jesus isn't "coming back", because, in the hearts and minds of millions, he is already here, and always has been. Two false statements; needless mournful lament, and needless joyful hope. The sign's meaning of "normal" is "pre-pandemic", and probably pre civil rights, pre secular humanism, and pre New Deal, conservative norms and traditions all. Both false messages included on the sign reflect a white Christian conservative viewpoint. This means opposition to abortion rights and social programs, opposition to critical, factual American history, support of guns and gun owner's rights, strict voting requirements,teh insinuation of Christian values into government, neo-liberal trickle down economics, social and economic Darwinism, and Trumpism to name a few. (To those awaiting the imminent return of Christ in a fiery chariot with sword not olive branch, to rapture the saved into heaven, good luck with that.) The term "white evangelical christian conservative" honestly, accurately, and relevantly describes a readily identifiable mainstream American demographic plurality, its importance being, among many other things, its overwhelming support of Trump, over eighty percent, according to all polls. This support of Trump, many people believe, is the single most reprehensible characteristic of this demographic. Arguably, deeply embedded within white Christian conservativism there are so many reprehensible sub groups, ideoplogies, policies, and people that, on the whole, white Christian conservatism is extremely harmful to society. The Republican party, in its present state, can be described with reasonable accuracy as the "white Christian conservative" party, and arguabely can be described as detrimental to the United States and the world, and as the msot harmful and dangerous organization in human history, as Noam Chomsky claims. Obviously, inarguably, indisputably the KKK and its ideology not only falls squarely within white Christian conservatism, the organization itself requuires that it does, and is a main pillar of white Christian conservatism and racism. Many highly questionable arguably harmful beliefs are deeply embedded within white Christian conservative ideology, such as: denial of climate change, opposition to vaccinations and masking, opposition to the welfae state and government intervention in the economy on behalf of the poor, but not on behalf of the wealthy, belief in social Darwinistic racial relations, Christianity in government, uncontrolled gun owner's rights, and opposition to women's reproductive rights, among others. Fortunately there exist counter balancing forces to these malignant ideologies, including progressive Christian denominations, Christian liberalism, democratic socialism, the environmental movement, the pro choice movement, and Black Lives Matter, which, contrary to standard false right wing slander, is neither violent nor advocates for anarchy, but rather, advoctes racial equality within a framework of government support for racial equality. The direct link between American racism and American Christian conservatism is extant and strong. History clearly proves this, as do present day realities. We cannot change history. We can, however, change society.

Empathizing

THE RUSSIAN VIEWPOINT is that the United States and NATO want to dominate and control Ukraine, and fill it with weapons and military, missiles and bombs, to expand NATO power and influence ever eastward, thereatening Russia. If you think about it, you can understand this viewpoint. It an understandable point of view. It shouldn't be all that difficult for the United States and NATO to promise never to put foreign troops or weapons into Ukraine, to never invite nor encourage Ukraine to join NATO, while pledging to open mindedly and fairly giving due consideration to applications for NATO membership to Russia, Ukraine, or any other country. Russia in return could promise to neither attack, invade, harm, or threaten Ukraine, nor any member of NATO, and to demonstrate peaceful intentions by downgrading the Russian military presence near Ukraine, by moving its military back and farther away from Ukraine. Limits to future military deployment in NATO countries and Ukraine could be bargained for limits to the same thing in western Russia, near Ukraine. From this computer screen to the world's eyes and ears. By Valentine's Day, Russia's behavior seemed for all the world to indicate that the decision to attack and invade had been made before the military buildup ever began, and that an attack was therefore imminent. By suddenly promising to never place foreign (NATO or American) military or weapons in Ukraine, and to neither encourage nor invite Ukraine to join Nato, but to merely give due consideration to applications for NATO membership, with conditions, to Russia, Ukraine, or any other country applying for NATO membership, in exchange for a clear demonstration of Russia's peaceful intentions consisting of a removal of its military forces from Ukraine's border, the United State and NATO could keep the logistical advantages they already enjoy geo-politically, assuming that the NATO alliance is indeed, as all concerned have always and forever proclaimed, purely defensive. The eternal difficulty in establishing and maintaining peace among humans is of course, that true and stated intentions are usually not the same. Put another way, actions seldom match words. For the sake of present day European peace and security, we must hope that this time its different; that this time words and actions are the same, to wit, that Russia has no plans to invade, and NATO has no ambitions other than the preservation of defensive security.

Leaving It To Beavers

MY DENTIST happens to be surnamed after a certain large North American mammal which builds dams, and has throughout much of the past two hundred years been gravely mistreated by human kind. I love my dentists office, because the walls of the waiting room are outfited with huge flat screen TVs, and on them motion picture vidoes of incredibly gorgeous natural scenery, usually taken from on high, float constantly, hypnotically, in high def. Scenes of culturally rich European cities are thrown in, narrow, winding brick streets in places like Florence and Venice, and I am often tempted to arrive terribly early and to stay after my appointments just to watch TV, and to drop in unannounced, but that would be uncouth. On the partition between the waiting room and the administrative assistant's desk is a great big, light tan beaver, forever frozen with its head upturned in a look of rapt attention, a taxidermitological masterpice to be sure. Its sheer size is amazing. I had never had any idea that beavers got that big; it must have weighed a hundred pounds. I wish it were alive, and in the wild, or at the very least had been allowed to live out its full life thusly; I'm not a big fan of taxidermy, under any conditions, no matter how skilled the artist. This, notwithstanding that one of my best friends forsook a career as a building contractor to pursue a career in taxidermy. I admired his gumption, if not his profession. My friend died early of a rare form of cancer. I wish he were still living, and doing whatever he damned well (no pun intended) would like to do. During the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties was the era of the "mountain men", when pioneers like the famous Jim Bridger made a living trapping beavers in the Rocky Mountains for the market in Europe and the U.S. East coast, in which a beaver hat craze was raging. The mountain man era only lasted about fiftten years; the beaver were trapped and killed nearly to extinction, settlers looking to farm and mine moved in in droves, and the beaver hat craze gave way to other forms of human cultural craziness. The books I read as a child about the American frontier west and the mountain men intrigued me and filled me with wonder, if also a vague sense of misgiving about the way the pioneers treated each other, native Americans, and nature, misgivings I harbor to this day. Humans relented, and the beaver returned to the land. Then, as the west got partitioned off into farms and ranches, Farmers and ranchers once again began besieging the beavers, who had the audacity to build their infernal dams where people didn't want them, upsetting the agrarian economy. However, now, sanity is once agian prevailing. Beavers are being allowed to thrive, and their numbers, depleted in recent decades, are again on the increase. Environmentalists have successfully convinced our rapacious culture that beavers are great irrigationists, that their damming projects, which range from modest stream blockades to huge constructions miles long, are a desirable part ot the natural process, providing water collections in a western United States growing increasingly dry and thirsty and water depleted. Farmers and ranchers are working with the beavers, not against them. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, this is indicative of mankind's future relationship with nature, generally. I'll keep going to my dentist, not only because he does a good job with my teeth and accepts Medicare, but to watch a little TV, although I'll probably henceforth only glance at the dead beaver quickly, partly sad, partly happy.

Gambling

TIME WAS when folks would put pencil to paper and fill out a form, often under cover of darkness for legal considerations, and, in the company of a shadowy, shady character known as a "bookie", make a wager or two. Those days are, if not entirely gone, archaic. Enter computers, smart phones, and liberalized, legalized gambling laws, and, as they say, its off to the races, pun intended. Or, as they used to say, "Katie bar the door". By the end of Super Bowl Fifty Six, Americans will have gambled, most of it away, what.....hundreds of billions of hard earned ill spent money? The cheapest ticket, in real space and time, for a ticket to said game, is..what...six grand? I recall my Boy Scout master, a nice middle aged man now doubtless long dead, who told me on the way to a troop meeting that they had decided to merge the AFL and the NFL, and to create a new championship game called "The super Bowl". I didn't believe him at first. Why would they do something cazy like that? How could the obviously inferior AFL teams even hope to compete? And who in his right mind would name a big game something goofy sounding like "The Super Bowl"? The first Super Bowl ever, if memory serves, had a top ticket price of no more than twenty five dollars, and the game, in the L.A. colliseum, was not sold out. Back then gambling was strictly illegal, except in Vegas, and there it was limited. Back then Victorian people were still alive, and we baby boomers were small children, mostly. Now, the goal post has been narrowed by at least fifty percent and moved ten yards back, and fifty yard field goals and three hundred and fifty pound limeman are the norm. Back then, the "aitch" goal post was on the goal line, was very wide, players had to dodge around it, and your average NFL line went about two sixty, tops. We no longer have kickoff returns; games begin at the twenty five yard line, to reduce brain damage. (It doesn't help much). On the first play from scrimmage millions of young American men will punch a few numbers into their cell phones, and bet on whether the first play from scrimmage will be a run or a pass. Trillions of electrons representing actual currency will flow across the net and through the atmosphere, and if its an RPO (run pass option), the internet will crash, Vegas will go broke, inflation will soar even higher, and the American economy will languish in disrepair, if only for minutes. Marriages may dissolve, even before dozens of spicy chicken wings are washed down with gallons of brew. Billions of dollars will change "hands" over a four hour period during an interminable, surpassingly clever commercial which will be regularly interrupted by blocks and tackles. In football, huddles should be outlawed, and might well be in some Orwellian future. Oddsmakers who offer organized gambling as a service to humanity carefully structure it so that they profit greatly, while most people lose money, much like lotteries and casinos. Hope springs eternal; people never learn. You're much better off betting your spouse that Stafford goes deep on the first snap of the first drive than texting outside the home in search of improbable monetary gain; at least the money stays in the family. But into the great cyber black hole beyond will go everyman's money, most never to return, and will be emailed into bulging bank accounts by dark shady men wearing cigar's and cheap suits. Most things change. Some never do.

Raising Right

PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP weren't raised right. That has long been evident, and becomes increasingaly so daily. The facts are basic, and unassailable. When you lose an election, or when your candidate does, you approach the winner with a warm smile, extend your hand, offer heartfelt congratulations, and offer to help the winner going forward in any way possible. You don't refuse to accept the election results, claim the election was stolen from you, without showing any evidence that it was, then, as time goes by, continue to make the same false claim, and under pressure, concoct phony evidence. Had I been a Trump supporter, heaven forbid, and failed to accept defeat graciously, failed to congratulate Biden and his supporters, failed to generously offer support for the new administration, my parents would have come out of their graves, turned me over their knee, and given me a good old fashioned whuppin'. During my decades long, stellar tennis career, the moment the match ended, win or lose, I approached the net, hand outstretched. No other approach was even remotely thinkable. I regarded losing as horrible, but also as an opportunity. To the winner, I always said: "You're obviously a good player, and could help improve my game. I woud love to get together with you often, and practice." It worked every time. I made friends, turned lemons into lemonade, and collected a solid crew of good tennis players with whom to play and practice. I was a Trump supporter for two weeks, in 2015. By the time he had called Ted Cruz "lyin' Ted" about fifty times, I was done. The Access Hollywood tape confirmed my unrelenting hatred of the man. Decent people never talk like that, let alone even think like that. Nobody in locker rooms anywhere does. If somebody in the New York Yankees locker room started talking like that (she was married, but I still wanted to fuck her..etc), he would be traded the next day. By late summer 2015 Trump's immorality was so blatantly obvious that I was convinced that he could never win the election, and in fact, the RNC tried to force him off the ticket, but they backed down to his bullying. I have freinds who still support Donald Trump, more than a year after the Capitol insurrection. Like Abagail Adams wrote in a letter to President Thomas Jefferson after Jefferson's people smeared John Adams in the election campaign of 1800: "I still love you, but there was a time when I respected you". I no longer respect my friends who still support Trump in twenty twenty two. Each day of his administration his personal behavior, as well as his policies, was deplorable. His incessant lying alone revealed his low character and unfitness for office. The day after Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the election of 2016, because of the electoral college only, despite getting three million fewer votes than she, despite receiving assistance from the nefarious Russians, I, like many people, was devastated. Shocked, surprised, and devastated. One of my friends, a real smart ass, said to me: "So why aint you wearing no Hillary Clinton campaign button no more"? I responded by saying something very unpleasant. He looked at me and said: "Why, you're bad loser". I said: "No, I'm not". He said: "yes you are". I said "No, I'm not." He said, "Yes, you are". I said: "No, I'm not. Congratulations to Mr. Trump, and I wish him nothing but the very best". My friend said nothing further. I had disarmed him, with class and good grace. I had also shown good character and high class, which my parents raised me to do. I was raised right. I wish Trump supporters had been.

Hating, Discriminantly

HATE CRIMES in the U.S. against Asian-Americans are up three hundred percent during the pandemic, as if folks with almond eyes are somehow responsible for the deaths of a million mostly unvaccinated Americans. Hate crimes against the standard victims of good ole tradtional American bigotry have similarly multiplied in the era of Trump; to be black, brown, Islamic, female, gay, or transgender in these United States of Animosity is a risky business with conservative extremists lurking under every rock and cesspool. Likewise, there is a highly traditional flavor to the usual hate criminals; white, conservative Christian mainstream American mad men. For the reality deniers, as Casey Stengal said: "You could look it up". In America, hatred against ethnic non conmormity is a way of life, firmly, deeply rooted in tradition. Hopefully, thankfully, white Christian conservatism no longer enslaves black African men and women, nor lynches them, thanks only to the power of the United States government and decades of liberal activism, which conservative traditionalists hate, for depriving them of their legitimate racist fun and white supremacist delusion of grandeur... In their place the shooting death by police every few days of suspicious looking African-American men will have to do. White Christian slave owners used to say that among the many beneficial and redeeming aspects of black enslavement is that it brought poor ignorant savages to Christ. Native American genocide achieved the same end: cut the savage's hair, toss the feathers, stuff the savages into neckties and top hats, hand them a Bible, and you have instant Christians, and God's flock increases White Christian patriarchy, making the world safe for..white christian patriarchy. Never mind welcome the stranger, do unto others, render unto Caesar, or give unto the poor. The white Christian God in the sky, American version, ordained Trump, like David the reformed reprobate, to power, that he might spread white Christian free market economics to the four corners of the flat Earth. Never mind that Trump is wholly unfamilair with the Bible, has rarely attended church, or that Trumpism and populist conservative Christian values are the very antithesis of the teachings of the apocalyptic interant preacher Joshua ben Joseph, aka Jesus, who was neither white, nor capitalistic, and who never advocated for the TEA party nor corporate control, but rather, was a brown skinned liberal socialist who said things like "go thy way, and sell whatsoever thou hast, and give unto the poor"....and.."welcome the stranger"....and..."the wealthy man shall not enter unto the kingdom of heaven"...and.."render unto Ceaser"....and did not say things like "white power" and "Jews will not replace us".