Keeping the Faith Among the Faithless

BILLY GRAHAM, among all the myriad preachers who have dotted the American landscape preaching salvation through Jesus Christ, was arguably the most compassionate, astute, and politically savvy. The other preeminent ones, including Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mather, and Billy Sunday, among others, were more inclinded to preach a message of hellfire, damnation, and divine retribution. Edwards' metaphor in which even the most devout Christian, while alive, dangles perpetually over the flaming pits of hell, held back and hanging by only a gossamer thread of the thinnest kind, in constant peril of the thread snapping at the first trace of sin, exemplifies this darker, terrifying brand of the Christian faith. Billy Graham did things differently. Rather than try to frighten people into accepting Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, he preahed a message of love and compassion, beckoning folks to join the flock with love and kindness, in keeping with the message of Jesus. Noteworthy is that through his entire career, not a hint of corruption surrounded or sullied him; for all appearances and in evident fact, Graham was spotless in terms of personnal comportment, personal morality and financical conduct. He avoided the temptation of enriching himself at the expesnse of those seeking salvation by giving money to his minsitry. Few others can say that with honesty. Himself, like most devout Christians a conservative, he saw , well in advance of the evangelical political avalanche-like entry into the political arena of the late seventies and early eighties. He predicted and saw the advent of the "moral majority", the pitfalls of a marriage between religion and politics, especially the politics of the far right. He said, paraphrased, that he had deep misgivings about the possibility of a union of evangelical Christianity and the far right wing political community, because, as he put it, the far right political community has no real interest in religion. He didn't spend a great deal of time elaborating on this, peferring, as always, not to alienate anyone by disparaging them, but it seems apparent the the reverend Graham undrstood one salient,irrefutable fact: that whereas left wing people are far less likely to embrace the Christian religion than are conservatives, they are nonethelsss, in their political ideology, much more compatible with the actual teachings of the savior. Render unto Caesar. Pay your taxes to the government, give your heart and love to God. Give unto the poor. Embrace voluntary personal impoverishment. Was he talking about, in spirit, tax and spend redistribute the wealth bleeding heart liberals,or make your own way by hard work and get wealthy conservative Republicans? The answer seems evident. Barry Goldwater, as conservative as it gets and a man of deep religious faith, had the same misgivings. He said that he lamented and feared the day that the Republican party would be takon over by "preachers", meaning that a political party which combined conservative politics with evangelical Christianity was not something to be desired. Such a marriage would limit the party to a single religious ideology and costituency, in a nation with growing religious diversity. And, by pinning the evangelical religious movment to a single political party, the evangelical Christian community would be similarly constrained and limited. And yet, their warnings were not heeded, it happened, religion and politics were formally mixed together, and here we are, with an extremist mainstream political party, extremist in religious and political ideology both. On the surface, at this moment in history, it seems to be succeeding. But it is a ticking time bomb, an explosive stewing poison which cannot endure. The inherent contradictions are too great, the internal stress too great. But the line has been crossed, and the problem is, how to keep the faith while joined at the hip to a political agenda which represents essentially the diametric opposite of what the Prince of Peace preached. For those intent on trying, good luck.

Playing the Blame Game

THE STOCK MARKET is up, unemployment is down. Wages are up, inflation is down. And yet, we are told by the experts that surveys indicate that the economy, stupid, is the primary reason for Kamala's defeat at the hands of a convicted felon and his political party of insurrection-approval. As Festus Hagen used to say on "Gunsmoke": "I have my doubtfuls". Three fourths of the American people disapprove of their personal finances, and at fault is the American economy, and thus, American political leadership. Four years ago, only half of us the American people said this, at the end of Trump administration number one. Questioning the experts is not necessarily a matter of far right wing populist revolt. Sometimes it makes sense,especially when expertise is predicated exclusively upon opinions gleaned from Americans. A friend and neighbor of mine, from Guatemala, told me that he has noticed that for Americans, somebody else is always responsible for their hardships and unfortunate circumstances. During the fifty years I have been buying my own groceries, the price increase in food has been constant, relatively steady, and inexorable. No U.S. president has ever, by his lomesome, been held responsible for it. When prices rise, on anything, they rarely if ever go back down, despite Trump's campaign promises. Inflation has always been accepted as a fact of life. As one of my professors in graduate school put it: "they always clipped coins". Grover Cleveland-like, Don the Con J.Trump reenters the White House for a nonconsecutive presidency residency redux. Is it really the econcomy that got him there? Or are we really so infatuated with gangster like Al Capone and Jesse James that we prefer perfidy to virtue? If indeed the Democrats have gotten out of touch with the American working class it was by virtue of advocating for stronger labor unions, higher wages for blue collar workers, and improved working conditions across the board. The federal minimum wage remains a seven bucks and a quarter an hour, since 2009, not because of legislation sponsored by Democrats, one can rest assured. One can hardly imagine a stranger, less predictable way for a politcal party to get out of touch with the working class. If the Republicans party has for the first time ever has gotten itself in touch with the working class, it did so on the backs of resistance to labor unions, opposition to increase of the federal wage and wage increases for hourly blue collar workers, reduced corporate taxes, and tax breaks for billionaires. What a way to endear one's politcal party and economic agenda to the hard workers of America! One senses, if one is objective, that something else is going on. But what? Overwhelmingly, those defecting from decency to Trump are white. That's a start. Increasing numbers of Latin Americans legally in the United States resent the influx of their illegal countrymen. Okay, fine. So they voted for Trump. Why not? He promises to get rid of all eleven million of them, a promise neither he nor anyone else can keep, without creating mass chaos and sinking the American economy. Send several million farm workers and construction workers packing and see what happens to the price of eggs and houses. Why has there been a shift among African-Americans from Democrats to Trump? Well, its only a slight shift, and its black men, not women. We'll have to keep trying to figure that one out. Meanwhile, white men will continue to support Trump, and women of all shades will continue to oppose him, though in insufficient numbers to matter, and we can all comfort ourselves by pretending that racism and misyogyny have nothing to do with it.

Strangely Stinking Animals

FROM THE BEGINNING, I thought Kamala would win, big. But of course, I thought the United States would win the Viet Nam War, and that the Yankees would win the 1964 World Series. As a great ancient Chinese philosopher adroitly said,"only fools predict the future". I can't recall exactly when I, listening to National Public Radio Tuesday night, first realized that Trump would be elected. Seems like it was rather early. Assuming the Republicans win the House, and that seems likely as of this writing, NPR might well be among the better things in life which becomes extinct, along with the worst, the human race. I can scarcely imagine what mental and moral contortions of pretzel logic one must put one's self through to convince one's self to support Donald Trump. Despite troves of material available on the subject, despite my ruminations over the past nine years, I still just don't get it. His supporters are perfectly well aware of what a reprobate he is; the trick is to realize that they support him in spite of this, perhaps because of it. Morally and intellectually, his supporters remind me of him. I tell them that, and they don't seem flattered. When Trump was elected the first time, I congratulated him. I did the same thing this time. That's what people of high moral character do, rather then deny their election defeat and attempt to violently overthrow the government. You give people a chance. Donald Trump had his chance, the first time. Trump admires tyrants, and has promised to become one. He won't find it very difficult. More than sixty five million Americans have given up on democracy, and want a "strong man". Moral character matters not. One sixth of all Americans who believe that Trump will be an authoritarian president voted for they tyrant-elect. Not long after Putin attacked Ukraine, the twice yearly congregation of latent fascists, CPAC, met. The crowd chanted: "Rush-uh..Rush-uh"! Russia, formally, is a republic. So is the United States. Like 1933 Germany, we have elected our tyrant. Donald Trump, like any other American president, can lower the price of groceries only by visiting thousands of grocery stores, strutting up and down the isles, and marking down the prices by hand. Aside from an impending criminalization of LGBTQ people, the construction of holding pens for brown skinned immigrants, the engraving of The Ten Commandments upon the Lincoln Memorial, and changing sides in the Russo-Ukrainian War, there is the matter of climate change. We have switched sides, and are now allied with he forces of global destruction, fossil fuel billionaires and all. Look for the atmospheric carbon content to exceed 500 parts per million by the year twenty thirty. December will become a summer month in the northern hemisphere. Already the multi billionaires, Musk, inc., are relocating to Washington D.c.. The great American plutocracy, always extent but long hidden in murky realm of smoke filled room pseudo anonymity, shall now come out into the sanitized light of high noon. The cockraoches will scatter, but gather together elsewhere, to aid and abet the new tyrant. Officialy, the United States will be a plutocracy, as it has always been informally. It gets worse before it gets better. Like all illness, this one must run its course. "In the earthquakes to come, it is to be hoped I shan't allow bitterness to quench my cigar's glow", wrote Bertolt Brecht. He also wrote: "I make friends with people. and I wear a derby on my head, as others do". I say: "They are strangely stinking animals". And I say: "No matter, I am too".

Voting

ON FACEBOOK, in response to the question of whether I had voted early, I responded that indeed I had, early, and often. Aside from the fact that I was making an obvious joke, some too serious liberal told me that I should not have said "often", because ("coz") by so doing I was "playing into the hands" of MAGA folk. Instead of answering, I posted an emoticon depicting the shutting of my big mouth, and then another, depicting a rolling of the (my) eyes, which I intended as an expression of ridicule of the suggestion not that my comment had been unwise, but that I was playing into someone's strategic, ideological hands, stoking flames. I heard, read nothing further. The exchange was, apparently, complete. In fact, playing into MAGA hands was precisely my intent. Stir the pot a bit. Lookit. If Kamala wins there will be a civil war, or something closely resembling one, vote joke or no vote joke. What I say has little bearing on this dreadful circumstance, since Trump and his basket of deplorable insurrectionist mobsters is already foaming and forming at the gate, foaming at the mouth, ready to spring into action and pounce at the first indication of a Trump electoral loss. And spring and pounce it surely will. Nobody cares, nor needs to care, what I think, say, or do, about anything, including our roiling American body politic. As for me, I, like Neil Diamond sang, am "like a man with a tiger outside of his gate", who "not only could'n't relax but could'n't relate." Safely so ensconced I sit, awaiting the election results like everyone else, willing to come out and engage, tiger or no tiger, but preferring not to. My voting often reference was quite obviously a humorously intended reference to the enduring Trump mob of gangsters and their continuing outlandish accusations of election theft, then and now, which I in fact find not only deplorable, but, verily, garbage. As for Hillary Clinton's infamous "basket of deplorables' comment in 2016 which probably cost her political capital and votes; she, in my humble opinion (imho) was, at the beginning, middle, and end of the verbal scandal, was in fact, quite right. As I recall, she made no retraction, nor, imho, should she have. And now lame duck president Biden clearly referred to Trump's supporters, in toto, as a (presumably immense) floating pile of garbage, then, under pressure, took it back by "clarifying" it, which, imho, he should not have nor need have. After all, at this point, what's he got to lose? And why not stick to the truth, to what he clearly meant and intended? After all, when Der Trumpster, his mind ever in the proverbial dumpster, referred to beautiful lovely Puerto Rico as a "floating pile of garbage", did he not, as they say in John Grisham novels and television law dramas, "open the door"? This, aside from the simple geological fact that neither Puerto Rico nor any other island "floats". But how can we expect a person who claims that George Washington captured airports, windmills cause cancer and psychiatric distress among whales, and that Italy and the United States have been allies for thousands of years be expected to understand basic geological reality? But show me a Trump supporting evangelical Christian who refuses to consign folks with religious differences or opposition to Trump to hell, and a Trump supporter who openly acknowledges that Trump's great election lie of twenty twenty was indeed a lie,and that the subsequent well planned and orchestrated violent and nearly succesful insurrection was a terrible idea, and maybe, just maybe, I will cease to refer to the MAGA movement as a basket of deplorable pile of garbage, or whatever. Maybe, but don't count on it.

Eating Chickens

SOMETIMES you need a week off work, and this website, which is indeed work but not a "blog", took a week off. We are back just in time to respond to the election results. But that is for another day. For today, our thoughts turn to chickens. A good friend of mine at the senior center, with whom I sing in the gospel group, refuses to eat chicken. She told me that when whe was young, killing, preparing, and eating chickens was too much a part of her life, that she tired of the process, and that, at a rather early age, she abandoned the practice of consuming chicken, but did not become a vegetarian. She eats meat, if it isn't chicken. When chicken is served at the senior center, she gives hers to me, generously, if pragmatically. I have known other people who shared her approach. Youthful over exposure to chicken processing often leads to early abandonment of dietary chicken, even among farm folks. As for me, when I'm driving in my car, and I see a truck loaded with small cages packed and stuffed with live chickens, I become saddened, I feel for the animals, and I feel a bit guilty about eating chicken, as if I could stop or even influence the corporate processing of chickens with my restraint. And now new research very strongly indicates, to the point of proof, that not only are chickens animals who feel pain and fear, but that they are in fact highly intelligent creatures, who think and feel a great deal more than we arrogant humans had ever imagined. A lady has written several books about chickens, and was recently interviewed on National Public Radio. I forget her name and the book title, but she laid it out succinctly and convincingly. Chickens have a complex language, with which they freely communicate with each other. They have names for each other. They have names for every human being with whom they come in contact. This was discovered by very closely listening to and deciphering the various sounds chickens make, a combination of clucking sounds familair to almost everybody. These clucking noises are not gratuitous. They have meaning. As the late not so great Rush limbaugh (remember him?) inarticulately said: "words mean things". None of this is fabricated. The sounds were recorded, over and over again, sounds made by thousands of different chickens from various locations, and were carefully analyzed by competant scholars in linguistics as well as animal agriculture. The research can be replicated, the results confirmed. I could easily enumerate other aspects of chicken behavior which support this conclusion. Chickens feel love and hate, they develop cultures within their communities, and so forth. So now, as one might suspect, I am confronted with the choice of whether to continue eating chicken. I tend to be a vegetarian at home, and only eat meat "when in Rome" at the senior center or someone else's home. That, of course, is merely an excuse. Then, quite naturally my thoughts turn to other animals, including fish. Fish, quite obviously, do not enjoy being hooked on a fishing line. Their inevitable struggle on the hook clearly conveys terror and pain. A lady who works in the kitchen at the senior center and who with her husband and family owns and operates a small cattle ranch recently informed that that when a calf is taken away from its mother, the other invariably walks up and down the fence line, looking for her vanished baby. Hell, even my outdoor cats don't appear to do anything resembling that. We humans have always, or at least in modern times, given thought, to some degree or other, to the moral implications of how we treat other animals. Perhaps we should give much more. Well, and then, today we are having brisket at the senior center. I flat out love brisket. I wonder what I will do. I'm almost afraid to find out.

Reaching the Summit

SUMMIT CARBON SOLUTIONS, a relatively new business enterprise, is up and running, fighting, or beginning the fight, against the atmospheric inundation of carbon which is causing climate change. They are already installing carbon capture facilities at no fewer than thirty seven ethynol production plants around the United States, with pipelines and all, with which they intend to store collected carbon deep underground in some remote place in South Dakota. There is impending litigation intended to stop the building of pipelines in places like Iowa, as one might expect. If there is sufficient wisdom within the American federal judiciary, the litigation will fall flatter than Donald Trump;s attempt to use it to overthrow the United States government, the pipelines will be built, and the planet will be saved, or, if nothing else, will be a bit closer to salvation. Interestingly, the sequestered carbon will be converted from gas to liquid for transport in the pipelines. Whether it will be transformed again into solid material before burial is unclear; chances are it will be. More coal to use again, or to lie forever buried beneath the surface, harmlessly. Perhaps it will even be drastically transformed into diamonds, which, due to their actual profusion, are, in fact, far less inherently valuable than we tend to believe. So, there is hope, hope for a clean planet upon wich our descendants might frolic and thrive. Carbon needs to be removed from land, air, and water. Much of it is deposited at the bottoms of oceans, much of it in the soil, in surplus quantities. Photosynthesis is the natural, traditional method of keeping earth's carbon content in balance, but, alas, we the human species have long since replaced too many trees with to much parking space to keep this delicate balance in effect. How many more versions of Summit Carbon Solutions will be necessary to complete the task? That, of course, will depend largely upon how wisely or stupidly humanity proceeds in its seemingly frantic race to destroy itself and the planet it inhabits. As we approach the four hundred and fifty parts per million level in atmospheric carbon (its supposed to be two hundred parts per million), we are warned that we have already surpassed our ambitious goals for keeping excess carbon out of the atmosphere, and are at risk of surpassing the level needed to prevent catastrophic future warming of the atmosphere. It is still possible that by the end of this century the Earth's atmosphere will have exceeded the deadly five degrees of average temperature increase world wide. Still standing in the way, as always, of our fondest ambitions, as you might have guessed, are the climate change deniers, stopping relevant legislation, crushing our hopes for survival. Most climate change deniers are American, period, although the benighted community persists globally. The possible election of Donald Trump to the presidency, with his coal burning oil drilling agenda and seventy five million Americans who apparently support this insanity, is seen by scientists and concerned citizens as a make it or break it moment in human history. Much the same thing was said in 2016 and 2020, when Donald Trump's election brought forth a bevy of climate denying leaders and advisors, and yet, we somehow managed to survive, and here we are. This time, however, we mean it. To continue to pump and pry coal and oil out of the ground and into the atmosphere will only exacerbate what is already an unsustainable amount of heat absorbed into the atmosphere. The choice, as always, is ours.

Becoming, and Remaining, a Yankee Fan, Uncloseted

I BECAME A YANKEE FAN in 1961, when I was six. I saw my father watching televsion (it was the 1961 World Series), and started asking questions. When I found out that he, my mother, and all our neighbors hated the Yankees, I reasoned that the whole world was against them, and they needed help. I felt sorry for the New York Yankees. I was a compassionate litle guy, if a bit confused. After smooth sailing in 1961 and '62, they were in the fall classic once again in 1963, playing the Dodgers. Of course I confidently assumed they would win. They didn't, of course. They got swept in four games, scored only four runs, and suffered he worst defeat, up to that time, in their storied history. For four consecutive days I walked to school,wondering how the game was going all day while I was in class.. I walked home, and, upon my arrival home, found out that Koufax and/or Drysdale had once again done them in. With Koufax on the mound, Mickey Mantle didn't even see any reason to walk up to home plate, as he told Roger Maris. My father disappointed me a couple of other times in first grade. A neighbor gave me a beautiful brown baseball bat, my father made me give it back. I saw my father reading a book, asked him to notify me when he reached page "one hundred" so that I could see what that inconceivably enormous number looked like on paprer, and he forgot to do it. (I found out on my own later). He took me to my first baseball game when I was seven. The batter hit a foul ball, and a gentleman in the crowd caught the ball on the fly. I asked my father if the batter was out. Rife with misconceptions, I was an adult when I found out that an error does indeed count as a time at bat. I never should have become a Yankee fan. I'm an underdog kind of guy. But how was I to know? Our family enjoyed going to doubleheaders, two baseball games on the same day. My dad kindly took me to all Yankee doubleheaders, and we would often follow them around the country, taking in games one or two at a time. In those days, the second game of a doubleheader would begin about twenty or thirty minutes after the completion of the first, and you paid for one game. One ticket,one price,and got two games in return, a real bargain. I believe good tickets cost about three or four dollars. Now, of course single admission doubleheaders are a rarity; most often,they empty out the stadium after the first game,and refill it, with a new crowd for the second game, which is usually several hours later. Single game admission can be hundreds of dollars, sometimes, thousands. This split doubleheader arrangement imposes an inconvenience upon the players, and of course, makes it twice as expensive for the fans. In our modern economy we squeeze every possible penny out of our customers. Afer all, with players making millions of dollars per year, it becomes necessary. We always arrived as early as possible, for both doubleheaders and single games, to watch batting practice. I understand now that they no longer take batting practice on the field before games. Evidently they do it underneath the stadium, using pitching machines. Or, when they practice on the field, they charge a separate admission, believe it or not. Paying to watch batting practice. Whatever it takes to get that last dollar. Sometimes the Yankees still have single admission doubleheaders, much to their credit. I remember how proud I was as a nine year old, in 1964, when dad took us to see the Yankkes play, and on another trip, took us to see the St.Louis Cardinals, who played each other in the World Series that year. Until the Cardinals beat the Yanks to win the chamionship that year,I had pretended to be Cardinal fan, to fit in with the Cardinal fans in my hometown in Missouri. I was afraid of possible repurcussions of openly rooting for the Yankees, when the principal of my grade school announced, joyfully, that the Cardinals had won the World Series, every kid in the class cheered, except me. I put my head on my desk and cried. I was out of the closet, no longer able to deny my love of all things Yankee. That must be what its like to be gay, closeted at first, then, "out". Being a Yankee fan in the closet is a terrible way for a child to grow up.

Vance, Seeing Scandal, Trump, Seeing...Nothing...

VICE PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL J.D.VANCE finally, generously, shared with us his view, and thus the truth, about the notorious, infamous election of twenty twenty; rigged it was, by the most obvious suspected culprit possible; something Vance calls "big tech". Now, we know, at long last. "Big Tech" could possibly be an offensive limeman majoring in computer science, or, more likely, a secretive, conspiratorial consortium of large corporations involved with computer and other forms of technology. Folks like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and so forth. They,a bunch of Silicon Valley pointy headed elite liberal Trump hating intellectuals, somehow riged the election, and stole it from Trump. The soon to perhpas be Vice President of these United States did not elaborate on precisely how theyaccomplished this massive, seemingly infinitely complicated high crime; nobody ever does. Of all the massive fraud conspiracy theories about the mythological stolen election, put forth and widely supported by Trump supporters, not a single shred of evidence has ever been produced supporting the theory. Failure to provide evidence ultimately resulted in the FOX News corportions, a big Trump supporter, paying more than seven hundre million in damages to the Domininon voting machine of Venezuela. Maybe the "Big Tech" conspiratorial consortium should consider organizing for real, and filing a federal lawsuit againt Vance, for slander, and get a court order that he either provide evidence to support his claim, or forever shut the hell up. First and foremost, do we the American people really want to be led by an administration whose two leaders, president and V.P., claim that the twenty twenty election was rigged, that millions of criminals, rapists and murderers, immigrate here daily from Mexico, that immigrants in Ohio eat dogs and cats, and that climate change is a hoax? Is that what we want? For most of us, the answer is no. But Donald Trump was elected president with only a minority of American popular support in 2016, and there are emerging indications that he might well do so again, on November 5th. Trump's supporters desperately want to believe that immigrants are criminals, to jsutifu mass deportation of a huge part of America's dark skinned population; the motive is racism, pure, and simple. If they're going to eact our dogs and cats, they must go. Note that the cannibalistic accusations have been repeatedly refuted by public officials and many other people, that no evidence of it has been provided, that the accused have very dark skin, and that they are entirely legal, not illegal, immigrants. Legality isn't really the point, after all. Most alarming of all is that the election is very close to happening,to concluding, is very close in terms of the polls being taken and prediction being made, and that, as of now, Trump appears to be slightly ahead. If Trump wins, the United States is going down the rabbit hole of authoritarian, right wing government, lock, stock, barel, and Bible. And if Trump loses, we are headed for another violent insurrection, even, heaven forbid, a civil war.If Trump loses, he will once again refuse to accept defeat, and claim that the presidency has once again been stolen from him, by the same people, presumably, who stole it last time. He is going to feign outrage, and use poisonous, angry, incendiary rhetoric to motivate his easily motivatable, very devoted, and extremely violent supporters to form violent mobs, and take over America by destroying it with fire and violence, if necesssary. Our only chance is to be ready.

Surviving Electing Trump

IN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, according to some polls, Donald Trump has an oh so narrow lead over Kamala Harris, something like one hundreth of a percentage point, composite. This does not mean that he will win, or is even likely to win, but it does prove that he might win. In the event of this unthinkable, horrible possibility, we who despise Trump, his agenda, and his supporters with a passion must be prepared for the worst. The worst day of my life, as far as I can recall, was the day after the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. I simply refuse to endure anything that horrible again. This time, if Trump wins, I intend to have a more positive attitude about it. I will hate the outcome no less, and perhaps more, but this time I aint gonna shrink up like a shrinking violet and hide. (Not that I did that in 2016. I just felt like doing it). Actually I am proud of the way I responded to Trump's first election win, and fully intend to be proud of myself again. As Goethe said" "There is no situation which cannot be ennobled through achievement or endurance". In 2020, I congratulated Trump and his supporters, and promised to be a good loyal American, and to give Trump a chance. This I did, and, of course, it didn't work out well. If Trump gets elected in three weeks, I insist that everyone who voted for him openly acknowledge that Trump lost the twenty twenty election, and that the entire election lie fiasco was tragic, unnecessary, and unpatriotic. If Trump is elected in twenty twenty four, it will be because of the same people who have claimed for the past four years that the last election was stolen from Trump. I can and will simultaneously congratulate them on once again electing their candidate, after which I will immediately insist on an election lie retraction from them and an apology, and will formally designate anyone who fails to provide it a traitor. I wonder whether Jeff Bezos will resurrect his project of printing every lie Trump utters as president in his Washington Post newspaper - I hope and suspect he will, in the awful event of a new Trump presidency. I for one shall personally resurrect my project of keeping tabs on Trump's daily lies, which, during his first administration, averaged approximately twenty two point five per day. In the faces of Trump supporters I shall thrust the lies, and insist on a response. What I get back will, I am convinced, supply more than enough incredible material to fill volumes. By "incredible",I mean incredibly delusional, false, idiotic, ignorant, and so forth. Anyone who can intelligently defend Trump I will listen to. If, heaven forbid, they win, Trump and his criminal gang of supporters, having regained power, are without doubt going to be more arrogant, more aggressive, and more determined to implement their malignant agenda than ever. Digging for coal, drilling for oil, persecuting gays and Transgender people, neo-liberal pro-corporate economics, American isolationism, the whole tragic, idiotic, harmful agenda, every last item. This, especially, if they win back one or perish the thought both houses of Congress. If that happens, as they say, we're toast. women will become brood mares again, minorities will cease all progress towards human equality, and once again America's allies and adversaries alike will laugh and grimace in amazement at the sheer stupidity of the president of the United States. Our saving grace, perhaps our only one, is that we have been down this road before, this isn't our first rodeo, as they say,we survived it the first time, and, if nothing else, we can cling to the diminishing hope that we can survive it again.

My Dying Church

AT CHURCH YESTERDAY, we had nine people in the building, including the pianist-organist, the minister, and the "liturgist", who sits sideways on stage and helps the minister with the routine stuff. There were six of us in the congregation. We didn't even reach double digits, which is our first goal nowadays. I'm sixty nine, and was the second youngest person in the building. the wife of the keyboard man is about sixty. We all sit in the same place every Sunday, which I suspect most people do in most churches. Sitting nearest to me are four people over the age of ninety. Soon, all too soon, our congregation will be halved by the inexorable attritition of life. A group of three teen aged boys evidently has quit coming for good. They used to ring the bell before the service; now, I do it. Too bad. Our loss. And, maybe, theirs too. The minister gave another good, reasonably short sermon, mixing together scripture bits and pieces with personal anecdotes. At the end of it he apologized for having failed to pray for rain, and promised to so so on his way home. I would have been happy to do it right there on the spot. None of us is perfect, but if we trust Jesus, we are forgiven. I would respectfully add mention of the importance of forgiving yourself. He reminded us that our church is only four years short of reaching its two hundreth birthday, having been founded in 1828 just donw the road. The current building was built in 1890, and is a true treasure of antiques architecture and building materials. Its nineteenth century brick, wood, and stained glass loveliness helps draw me to it on Sunday mornings. A quaint, lovely chapel in the midle of the woods, the middle of nowhere. He, the minister, mentioned that church membership is declining all over the United States, and has declined drastically in Europe, where religion seems to be almost extinct. A hundred years ago our little Presbyterian church had a congregation of about one hundred; only twenty five years ago thirty or forty people would show up most Sundays. Reverend Bruce says he doesn't know whether our church will live to see its two hundreth birthday, but that he hopes that it does. He seemed to imply that its chances, our chances, would be better if the members conributed more to it, "more", presumably, meaning money. I beg to differ; what our church needs is not so much money, but people. The money will come with the people. I don't put much cash into the collection plate; I live on Social Security, after all, and have several cats to feed. And, actually, as much as I Like this church and the few people who go there, I cannot consider myself an actual "member", since I am definitely not a "Christian". I don't meet the requirements. I can honestly say that I personally don't have the faintest idea whether "my" church will exist four years from now, sadly. Bruce indicated that he hopes the Christian religion continues to exist in the world, notwithstanding its currently stagnant and shrinking numbers. Im not so sure I agree with that. In fact, I know I don't. Cultural evolution is as fundamental to human existence as physical evolution, and that means change. People invented religion, religion did not invent people. Organized religion has definitely served a purpose in human historical evolution, but will there come a time when it no longer has a purpose, having completed it? To me, the answer to that question seems obvious, Yes, there will. And in fact, it seems to me that this process is beginning now, and is actually well underway, the process of religion evolving out of existence as human civilization has no further need of it. Still, I tend to hope that my little church lives a little while longer.

Trump, Seeking An Evil Place

I'VE BEEN TO DENVER, but not to Aurora, which, like Denver, must have grown a lot over the last few decades. Evidently, in terms of population, its similar to Detroit. Trump visited both cities in the last couple of days, and insulted both, which to any sane person might seem like a terrible campaign strategy. Trump, playing to his base. Word is he is going to have a rally in California soon, proving that all he cares about is playing to his base, perhaps laying the groundwork for another mass violent uprising and insurrection after another election loss. It may be that Trump realizes that all he was lacking on January 6, 2021, the day of his first attempt to overthrow the government, was numbers, sheer numbers. According to the twice impeached former president, Aurora, Colorado is overrun with Venezualian gangs, who in effect control the city. Trump ignores the reality that in today's world, everybody carries a smart phone in his or her back pocket, and photographs everything. There are nearly half a million peeps in Aurora ready, willing, and able to document and confirm the existence of ubiquitous Latin American gangs, infesting, poisoning the blood of, and governing the city, There is, however, no such confirmation. Only Donald Trump seems to have noticed this problem. Trump has notably slandered the cities of Milwaukee, Philapelphia, and Detroit, all of which have a high percentage of African-American residents. Trump's racism is so obvious that it is not at all unfair to openly label him a "racist". If Norwegian gangs were overrunning and controlling Minneapolis or Duluth you wouldn't hear a peep out of Trump about it. If they wore "MAGA" ball caps and "Norwegian gangsters for Trump" T shirts he would praise them, and call them great American patriots. Trump must be given credit for his uncanny ability to abandon his racism the moment a dark skinnned person expresses support for him. Trump supporters, no matter how dark their skin, are simply incapable of "poisoning the blood" of America, as Trump made it clear all other dark skinned immigrants otherwise indeed do. Trump's self serving behavior he tries to disguise as patriotism, and his believers go along with it, since their values match his. It is almsot as if together, Trump and his cult are steadily ascending a mountain of pure evil perfidy. Trump is not content to launch merely one vicious line of attack with lies; he must multi task. His other target is the government relief effort following hurricanes Helene and Milton. Claiming the the Biden-Harris administration has deliberately bankrupted FEMA, that the current massive relief effort is a total failure, and that Biden and Harris care more about illegal immigrants than victims of hurricanes, and proves it by transferring money from the natural disaster fund directly to those criminal, murdering, raping dark skinned immigrants from the Latin American south. As always, all of this nonsense, all of these false claims are blatant lies, intended only to stir up his hateful MAGA voter base, and to discredit his political opposition, dishonestly, for personal gain. The tragedy is that in truth Trump and his supporters would be happy to watch the hurricane relief effort fail miserably, to watch blame for it being given to Biden and Harris, and to watch millions of people suffer because of the failure. Millions of homeless, shelterless people, hungry, thirsty, miserable, a welcome sight to MAGA Trump supporters, it would be. And, as always, the true tragedy of this is not that Donald Trump is an ammoral, vicious criminal, but that his supporters are no better than he.

Killing Ourselves With Trump

DONALD TRUMP is a bit more worrisome the last couple of days, because he seems to be trying to speak more sensibly, getting away from the pure ranting and raving and actually talking about issues, problems, policies, and solutions. Or trying to. Invariably, he reverts to raving. He can't help it. His social skill haven't improved though; he warned that if Kamala Harris is elected, all of America will become like Detroit. Problem is, he issued the warning in Detroit. The mayor responded that Detroit is alive, healthy, and growing, no thanks to Mr. Trump. That had to sting. Another problem is that Trump's proposed policies and solutions range from highly questionable to totally insane. As expected, he wants to cut taxes on billionaires and billion dollar corporations, as always. Precisely why tens of millions of working class Americans are evidently Okay with this is among the greatest mysteries in nature. Dubiously, falsely, Trump claims that the Amerian automotive industry is in dire peril, on its deathbed. He proposes tax breaks for them, government handouts, essentially socialism for the wealthy, as the solution. The Republicans have never really abandoned trickle down Reaganomics, and Trump is on board with it. Trump's other major policy proposal is nothing less than suicidal, on a planetary level, for it would ane still might lead to the extinction of all life on Earth. Right beneath our feet, says Don the Con, is an unlimited treasure trove of wealtlh , in the form of oil, coal, and natural gas. Dig, baby dig. Drill, baby drill. Bring it up, burn it, make money on it. Eliminate all government protections for the environment, all agencies and regulations. Stop production of those silly electric vehicles. Global warming, climate change, is a hoax, nothing to worry about. It has recently been reported that only a small percentage, about ten percent of we the American people actually are climate climate change deniers. I beg to differ. Not only is Donald Trump a climate chcange denier, but so are millions, tens of millions of Republicans, especially of the evangelical Christian conservative kind. If Trump gets elected, which over the past few days has begun to seem strangely possible, we can forget about the United States fighting climate change. Under Trump and the Republicans The United States will vastly, deliberately increase climate change, which will bring about the extinction of all life on Earth surprisingly quickly. Polls indicate that a slim but definite majority of Americans think Trump has better solutions for immigration, the economy, and Gaza, which once again causes intelligent, discerning people to wonder what they (Trump supporters) could possibly be thinking. However, on the vital issues of protection of democracy and women's reproductive rights, most Americans favor the Kamala Harris agenda. The American people must be awakened and educated to the fact that allowing the government to regulate the economy, including the behavior of big corporations and billionaires, is urgently necessary to keep the billionaires from rigging the economy to suck wealth and power, from the bottom to the top, which has resulted in an American society and country largely owned and controlled by the ultra wealthy elite few. Our corporate masters, as Gore Vidal called them. Ultra conservative populism results in an elite ruling class, falsely claiming to represent the interests of everyone. Its what Hitler stood for, its what Trump stands for. We dont want concentration camps for immigrants, abortion bans, book bans, A Christian country, corporate hegemony, U.S. isolation, nor cultural conformity. We want D.E.I.; Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, and we want a totally woke United States of America, thank you.

Refusing To Ruin A Pretty Day With Reality

THE LUNCH LINE at the senior center moves fast; the kitchen ladies keep those blue trays sliding through the window. One at a time the hungry old folks snatch 'em up, and head for the lunch room tables. Not much time for conversation in line. So the guy behind me, a nice guy and a friend of mine, says to me "beautiful day". Standard, innocuous, lunch line stuff. And in fact it was a beautiful day; bright sunny, mild, but not hot, about eighty degrees, calm wind. The sort of day which once not so long ago this time of year have been considered a marvelous fluke, a great blessing of a pretty day in a normally blustery, chilly season, mid October. These days, where I live, in lower midwest America, eighty and ninety degree days in October are no longer flukish, or nonexistent. They have become the norm. Over the past couple of decades, around here, October has become a summer month. The guy behind me didnt seem to mind. The normal response would have been to simply smile and agree, yes, it was a beautiful day. Only I didn't do that. Sometimes I do what is expected of me, more often, I do not. Instead I sile t my buddy, and said: "True, it is a beautiful day, but I have at least two problems with it. For one, its too hot for October. It shouldn't be eighty or ninety degrees every day in October, and secondly, it hasn't rained around here in six weeks." I can't remember whether I actually used the term "climate change", or mentioned it at all, but he apparently understood my meaning, for he replied. "I can't take on the problems of the world. I have enough of my own." I also understood his meaning, what he was trying to say. He can't worry about climate change, and he can't spend valuable time fretting about war, disease, famine, or natural disasters,or any of the world's other perpetual problems which he cannot solve; he can't affored to worry about whatever it is that causes climate change, whether its real or not; either way, he has to live his own life, the best he can. It wasn't so much that he was disagreeing with me, or questioning my right or my intent is making my climate change comments. But he simply wasn't going to worry about it.The thought came to me that I might do well to learn a lesson from my friend; maybe I could use a little less fretting about the problems of the world, all of which are entirely beyond my capacity to solve, as a means of reducing the self infliced stress and anxiety in my life. Still, something about his point of view disressed me. It brought to mind all the millions and tens of millions of people who undoubtedly have the same attitude he does. Would we humans be doing a better job of addressing climate change if more of us were deeply, overtly concerned about it? My thought is that if all eight billion people on planet Earth were believers in and terrified of climate change, like I am, then maybe we humans would have the political will, as they say, that we seem to currently lack, to collectively solve the climate change problem through concerted, organized planning and action. What I wanted to say to my friend, and perhaps what I should have said, is: "You dont have to worry about or care about climate change. It doesnt matter either way what you do, or what you think. Because, sooner, rather than later. No, my friend, you indeed do not have to take on the problems of the world. Soon enough, sooner rather than later, the problems of the world, including climate change, will come straight, directly to you. Lunch, as always, was delicious, on this beautiful, summery October day.

Building A Democracy

YOU NEVER KNOW what kind of American history will be taught at your local high school. It could be evangelical Christian American history, written and taught from a purely Christian point of view, it could be conservative history, or, it could be liberal progressive history, which, upon closer scrutiny, turns out to be the most accurate version. It all depends on what state you live in, whether you live in a conservative "red" state or a progressive "blue" state, and, of course, a lot depends upon the politics and religion of your local community. Surely there are certain things, certain facts, upon which all the various and sundry versions can and do agree. Surely, one of these is that the founders of the political system of the United States did not intend to found a democracy, and indeed did not, but rather, a representative republic. They, people like Madison and even to a certan extent Jefferson, among many others, wanted and designed a system in which the people in general, the general population, would be represented by more intelligent, better educated people; namely, wealthy white Christian land owning men. The "better sort" and the "lesser sort" as Madison eloquently put it. The lesser sort, the unwashed masses, would have some limited choice in selecting their representatives, but only a limited amount of choice; these decisions, ultimately, concerning the possession of actual political power, would remain forever in the hands of the wealthy powerful few. And so it remains for us today, where we live not in a true democracy, with real power in the hands of the people in general, but rather, in an oligarchy, a plutocracy, in which real power is possessed by the folks Gore Vidal used to call "our corporate masters". We must bear in mind that until rather recently the very word "democracy" had as much of a negative cannotation as a positivie one. In the eigtheenth and nineteenth centuries the term was associated with mob rule, with political chaos, governance by a huge unruly mob of poorly educated people incapable of governing themselves, let alone a huge nation state. Today we use the word "democracy" with admmiration and veneration; such was not always the case. As we all know all too well, the problem with democracy is that, particularly in a large country, it is unwieldy, messy, cumbersome, ineffecient, and, as we see so clearly today, vulnerable to corruption, especially with money. My father, an attorney, once told me that in his opinion the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. Maybe he was right. Even today, there are many among us who prefer forms of government other than democracy, even though in the United States, almost all Americans claim to prefer and cherish democracy. Clearly, many if not most Trump supporters want so strongly to install Trump as president in order to enact their own conservative political agendas that they are perfectly willing to do so undemocratically, even violently, with a violent insurrection. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion are important values with today's progressive community, but not so much the conservative community. Cultural conformity is a consrvative value, but only has limited value; a thriving, healthy human global culture must be diverse, that it not be stagnant. And it must evolve. Human equality (I prefer the word "equality" to "equity") in a comprehensive sense is a modern concept, as is inclusion. But whether these values, including democracy itself, will continue to seek and gain acceptance throughout the world as well as the United States is an ongoing question, still unanswered. Our task is to help answer it.

Teaching the Right Bible

THE REPROBATE REGRESSIVE STATE OF OKLAHOMA hs decided that it needs to buy fifty five thousand Bibles for the state's public schools, to implement recently passed legislation requiring that the Christian bible be taught in public schools, perhaps, high schools primarliy. According to requirements imposed by the leglislature, the Bibles must be the king James version, and must include copies of several seminal founding documents in American history, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I vaguely seem to recal that there was one other..was it the "Gettysburg Address"? Probably not. It turns out that the only avaialbe bible which could supply this many copies and meet the requirements for inclusion of patriotic documents happens, just happens to be...Donald Trump's golden Bible, the one he is peddling, with his autograph on it. One of the main proponents of all this religious zealotry illegally imposed upon the public school system is a state legislator who describes Oklahoma public schools as "atheist indoctrination centers", and described teacher's unions as "terrorist organizations". It is beyond dispute that many if not most far right wing extremist conservative evangelical Christian Trump supporters agree with these descriptions, ardently, to the point of harboring a deep distrust and hatred of American public schools generally. To these unreasonable brainwashees the traditional, sacred seperation of church and state is actually a war against Christianity, and secular schools, or secular anything, is anti-Christian, reprehensible, and dangerous. Proponents of the "Bibles in school" project in Oklahoma ansd other states claim that they are merely acknowledging the reality that the Bible is central and fundamental to human history and culture, and should be taught in schools for that reason. Whereas it is perfectly true that the Bible is of fundamental importance, the most important and influential book in world history, this fact has absolutely nothing to do with the true motives of those religious political conservatives, mainly Republican Trump followers, who want to force the Bible into public schools. They actually want to force their entire religion into public schools. They want to make America's public schools Christian, again. Among these Bible pushers are many "Christian Nationalists", who want to make the entire country a Christian nation, with Christianity the official, mandatory religion of the United States. The true "terrorist organizations" are not teachers unions with educated, progressive members, but rather, regressive reprobates who want to force the Christian religion and the Bible into pubic schools, while prohibiting any mention inside the schools of LGBTQ people, racism, wokism, socialism, or climate change. The "vast right wing conspiracy" as Hillary Clinton so eloquently and accurately put it, is strong as ever and will stop at nothing to impose its unrealistic, delusional agenda on the entire country, by force, if necessary. Climate change, racism, wokism, socialism, atheism, gay people - all actually exist in the real world, and will not go away by playing make believe that they do not. Ironic, that they so fervantly want to force down the throats of America's children that most make believe thing of all - the Christian religion, as revealed in the most popular book of fiction ever written.