Defining Jazz

LOUIS ARMSTRONG said that if you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. I decided to ask anyway, because I didn't know, and, in truth, still don't. I asked my father, who was a jazz lover and passable keyboard and drum man. What he said was: "American music". To me that seemed a bit,shall we say,vague. Louis Armstrong narrowed it down a bit, suggesting that jazz should be defined as "negro music". If we turn up the political correctness a bit, we get "African-American" music, and perhaps sastify both my father and Louis Armstrong, bless their swingin' hearts, may they rest in peace. One thing I do know about jazz,something that if my father and Louis Arstrong knew they had the restraint to never mention,is that the word "jazz" in its African language, maybe Swahili, means "to have sexual intercourse". A verb, as in, to get down and do the dirty thang. Namely,the "eff word". In sixth grade, I had the temertiy to suggest in music class that rock n roll was a form of jazz,and was immediately shot down by my very attractive young single music teacher, upon whom I had a crush, and who assured me that I was dead wrong. I thought I would soon be a little of both. I survived, good grade and all, perhaps because I played a mean trumpet in the grade school band. The hot young music teacher went on to mention Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and my curiosity was piqued by the fact that a couple of black guys could simultaneously reign as members of the European nobility and play boogie woogie at the Hammond keyboard. I got that misconception corrected too. Among African-Americans, a little grandioise nick naming helps dispell second class citizen status bestowed automatically by American racist society, the birthright of dark skin pigmentation. Louis, Count, and Duke never got together much, never performed together. They all three knew that each one individually took up all the air in the room. They each needed their space, their stage. They respected one another from a distance. Instead, they joined temporary forces with the likes of Sinatra, Benny Goodman, a vertiable who's who list of music celebrities. Sinatra hated racism, and hung out with Sammy D. But never together, these three incons of modern American African-American music, jazz culture, American culture. They changed America. Upper middle class ladies, whose only contact with black folks was at the country club where the ladies enjoyed clean toilets, and the very sight of black men would motivate the ladies to quickly cross to the other side of the street to avoid eye contact with those darkies, instead went home after brunch at the club, kicked off their high falutin' high heels, and put Louis, Duke, or Count on the vinyl hi fi, and shook it a bit, strictly in private, hubbies at the office. Louis wore his big heart on his sleeve, and smoked marijuana, which he called "gage", twice daily, until its criminalization in 1933 forced him to give it up; supposedly. Duke was all aristocrat,with a plethora of paranoid superstitions,and Count was all Kansas City, and addicted to gambling, which kept him perpetually broke, and working. Like most poweful men of their era, they married early and often, and had more affairs than marriages. They snuck in and out of back door kitchens to and from their concerts. Ten thousand honkies would file out, exhausted, and in the parking lot, a well dressed gentleman would hand Duke, Count, or Louis his car keys, expecting valet service. Colored restaurants, colored restrooms, colored drinking fountains, for all three. Precisely what did this marvelous trio do for America, to change America? President Eisenhower had no intention of sending the national guard to Little Rock, until Louuis Armstrong called him "gutless". Then,Ike sent in the troops. America fell in love with negro music, remains in love to this day, and always shall remain therein. The racism that has always plagued and characterized freedom's land has ameliorated somewhat, but not as much as we honkies like to pretend, like to think. What Count, Duke, and Louis did more than anything else, was to show us exactly how idiotic and unjustified our lingering racism is, by showing us how to make good music out of suffering. As if we need to be shown.

A Hollow Faith, Keeping Us In Line

CAN YOU IMAGINE a religious faith so hollow that its adherants staunchly, relentlessly struggle to force formal,organized prayer into America's public schools, despite the obvious unonstitutionality of it, while resisitng efforts by the governemnt to provide funding for free lunches for children of poor families? And, to make matters worse, all the while thinking that they are following the desires and intentions of Jesus? Imagination isn't needed. One only needs to examine the agenda of the Republican party, as promulgated by its most dominant base,the white evangelical Christian conservative community. Opposition to increased government funding for public school free lunch programs, support for the insidious insinuation of organized Christian prayer into civic, secular public schools. The form of Christian doctrine without the substance. Christian prayer, but nothing, no provision for prayer for any other religious tradition. To include prayer in public education is nothing than a form of Christian grooming, blatant Christian indoctrination, and clearly violates the sacred constitutional principle of seperation of church and state, as reinforced by the Surpreme Court ruling in 1962, which removed such prayer. Grooming, of the Christian kind, no less than gay or LGBTQ "grooming",(a form of grooming which is pure fiction, an invention of the sordid, salacious sexual suppression of the Christian conservative mind.) Another phenomenon demonstating conservative Christian hollowness and hypocrisy stands out. All across America's fruited plain, conservative Christians are falling all over themselves forcing "The Ten Commandments" onto the walls of public school classrooms, enacting legislation in conservatives states and communities to that effect. The same for courtrooms and other public places, such as on monoliths on the well groomed lawns of state Capitol buildings. Moses,not Jesus. However, you never about nor see the results of any attempt by this same community to place upon walls and monuments anything from the "Sermon On the Mount" or from the beatitudes, or from the other peaceful, beautiful teachings of Christ? The most direct, most profound, most seminal, most enduring, meaningful teachings of Jesus Christ himself, ommited from the public square and schools. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth?" Never seen, never heard. "Blessed are the peacemakers?" No way. Or what about" go thy way, and sell whatsoever thou hast, and give unto the poor?" Not in evidence. Never. The Lord's prayer is likewise missing. One can scarcely if at all imagine "forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us" engraved in stone or wood on the walls of American court houses, and,indeed, you don't see it there. Instead, you see the stark, authoritarian, harsh, negative Ten Commandments,compelling us in an ominous threatening manner, with threatening understones, keeping us in line, like sheep,rather than inspiring us as sentient, benevolent, loving human beings. But, of course, keeping us all in line, like passive sheep, is, after all, among the most important functions of highly structured, highly organized religion, is it not?

Hunting, Hounding Hunter Biden

HUNTER BIDEN IS A HERO, for one simple reason; he had a terrible, serious disease,a self inflicted disease, and he had the courage and integrity to stand up to it, fight it, and, apparently defeat it, although it is commonly believed within the medical community that one never totally conquers an addiction, one merely manages it and keeps it at bay, one hopes, for the rest of one's life. So it is with all drug addictions; alcohol, heroin, and caffeine. Anyone with a drug addiction is a medical patient,or potential should be medical patient, and shouldn't be regarded as a criminal, but rather, as a person with a serious medical problem, a disease. Perhaps the enlightened day will come when society as a whole realizes and understands this vital distinction. Biden was indeed guilty of attempting to purchase a firearm illegally, by lying about his drug addiction.The purchase of firearms should be closely regulated; allowing drug addicts to purchase them would be a serious mistake. What Hunter Biden deserves is probation, with community service,a prohibition against his ever again owning a firearm, and most important of all, sustained medical attention and drug treatment therapy. Prison time would be irrelevant,counter productive, harmful to society, in that a potentially productive reformed citizen would be prohibited from being productive, and instead would be consigend to unproductive incarceraton at public expense. Hunter Biden at this point is perfectly positioned to become an exellent counselor against drug use and addiction; if anybody knows about the perils and pitfalls and roads to recovery, from drug addiction, surely it is he. Former criminals, reformed criminals, make the best criminal counselors. What Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden will instead receive, are already receiving from America's reprehensible conservative evangelical Christian Trump supporting community, is ridicule, condemnation, sanctimonious lecturing. What he should recieve from these alleged but fake Christians is admiration and congratulations, support, well wishes and help, but they are utterly incapable of rendering these things,utterly incapable of compassion, understanding, and forgiveness,the very virtues they so falsely, hypocritically espouse. This,all because the victim of a terrible disease and poor judgment is the son of their hated enemy, president Biden. One can imagine the total difference in their reaction if the victim, for instance, happened to be a child of their criminal felonious icon cult leader,Donald J.Trump. In that case, they would doubtless ignore the situation, and accuse the media of attacking Trump through his diseased child, even if the media downplayed the situation, just as it has magnified and constantly talked about Hunter Biden's difficulties. Accusations would be made that Trummp was under attack, that the drug abuse and addiction was being misrepresented,and that the poor unfortunate child of Trump was being abused by an uncaring biased media and by hateful liberal Democrats. The justice system is rigged against Trump, but effective in dealing with Hunter Biden. Whereas Hunter Biden is taking responsibility for his behavior, and his father is refusing to pardon him, Trump denies all his criminality, and his supporters cry foul, while Trump promises revenge on the justice system, and promises to pardon himself if he can. A stark difference indeed. Just like almost every public affair in America is being distorted, abused, lied about and used for perceived political advantage by the far right extremist community, no matter what the circumstance, never underestimate the ability of conservative evangelical Trump supporters to find the best way of injecting their vile hateful ideology into every possible situation.

Inventing the Bad Ass Jesus

PEOPLE WHO PAY ATTENTION to recent trends in American culture, especially policical trends, can not help but notice that the white evangelical community has come to play an outsized role in American culture and politics. This, despite its relatively small numbers: less than twenty percent of the general population self identifies as "white evangelical Christian", and the number is decreasing. And yet this is precisely the demographic which is widely given credit for spearheading Donald Trump's political career,for electing him to the presidency. The accuarcy of this assessment is revealed by the fact that more than eighty percent of the white evangelical community supported Trump in 2016, and the same percentage still supports him, despite everything. A fascinating new study: "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith and Fractured A Nation" provides a much needed, sweeping revisionist overview of the white evangelical movement over the last seventy five years, and explains much about the phenomenon, politically, culturally, religiously. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, the author, is a profesor of history at Calvin University, and a renowned scholar of modern American religious and cultural history, who has written mainly about women's issues for the Washingtion Post, as well as various Christian publications. She dispells the commonly held notion that white evangelicals support Trump out of any "practical" considerations, and instead posits the notion that their support is predicated primarily upon the reality that indeed Trump is the very embodiment of their most deeply held ideals and aspirations. The Jesus of the New Testament gospels has been cast to the side, and a new, more virulent, more masculine version has taken his place. Contemporary popular American culture is central in shaping the reformed image of Jesus. The new and improved all American Jesus Christ, tough guy bad ass conquering warrior for God,virtue,purity,and the bad ass American way. Christian movies, books, merchandise, and music play a vital part in the promulgation the new image as virule, masculine, featuring a patriarchal family framework, ardently opposed to the LGBTQ community, suspicious of movements such as "Me Too", and "Black Lives Matter", and strongly opposed to immigration into the United Stats by brown and black skinned people which, according to Donald Trump, are "poisoning the blood" of America from, as he put it, coming from "shit hole" countries. Conservative Christian icons such as Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, the "Duck Dynasty" clan, stand at the forefront of the conservative Christian culture, with the duke hiself, Marion Morris, aka John Wayne, taking center stage. The author ties all this together, clearly showing how the new born again bad ass Jesus has corrupted and divided the Christian faith in America along ideological lines, and has similarly fractured the entire nation, primarily politically,along similar lines. The Republican party has bought in, and has become the white conservative Christian party, epitomized by Trump, its icon con in chief. It is now an organization which would be utterly unrecognizable to Billy Graham and Barry Goldwater, and indeed to Ronald Reagan himself. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, there will come a time, not soon emough, when it and the movement it embodies are utterly unrecognizable, indeed unkown, to the American people.

Christianity, Waging War

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

Being Petty, Floating Dung Across the Border, Mooning

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

The Preventing Of Religious Indoctrination as Punishment

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

Carbon, Accumulating, Dangerously

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

Needing A New Constitution Part II

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

Needing A New Constitution Part I

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

Obstructing, And Pretending Not To

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

Including, Excluding All Religions

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

Believing, Disbelieving, Self Deceiving

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

Seeing the Stones

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

Grilling the Good Doctor, Yet Again

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