SMALL STANDING

(From an e-mail exchange, July 2, 2013.)

Obama may have SAID he "won't scramble jets to get Snowden," but he''ll surely use drone bombs or agents to kill him if he can.  Same with Assange.  Obama is an established murderer (bin Laden).

The man won a Nobel Pruze!!

I can't bring myself to type it.

That would be the Nobel PEACE (piece? peas?  piss? pizza?) Prize!

... to the first Negro-in-Chief, for his outstanding work toward World Piss!

Certainly defines the validity and worthiness thereof!

It's a damned shame that the spineless pseudo-journalists out there won't unanimously boycott any further reporting of the now-utterly-discredited Peace Prize, given that Obama has shamed and degraded the thing so blatantly, almost DARING "the press" to hold him fully accountable for his absurd actions to the contrary! Snowden and Assange best stay out of sight and out of reach.  Of course, they would get a "fair trial" (as defined by The Security State) before they are strung up like Xmas decorations!

The mostly-hermaphrodite chickenshit White House Press Corps couldn't hold their own dicks "accountable"!  Where is Helen Thomas when we REALLY need her?  She had more "balls" (ovaries?) than all the pussy male correspondents put together!

I ALWAYS try to listen for what the subject is NOT saying!  "Scrambling jets" is the least of my worries!

It's like Obama's repeated assurances that they are not listening to our phone calls, etc.  OF COURSE NOT!  They don't care about the substance of the messages. They just want to know who in govt. is calling the AP, etc., and they want the potential whistle-blowers to know that is EXACTLY what they are looking at so they will stay quiet and let the massive bipartisan presidential cover-up continue!

Watch the birdie!

Can you say, "Guantanamo"?  I knew you could!

THE Flag

(From an e-mail to a friend, 6/24/13)

I no longer fly the American flag nor recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  I even refuse to stand while it is being recited.  (I get a lot of hateful glares!)  Given the essence of Article VI, my sole allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States, as amended, as I swore some 40 years ago (October 6, 1973, Va. Supreme Court).  That is the only general oath or "pledge" I shall ever take.

The flag is a mere "graven image" that means whatever the particular displayer wishes it to mean, or it means whatever those who have been crushed by it take it to mean, e.g., all the hapless dead folks at Ngo Gun Ri, Wounded Knee, My Lai, Iraq, etc., and like the Japanese-Americans who were summarily stripped of their property and herded into concentration camps during WWII.

It is well to note that Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Jefferson Davis, et als, were all graduates of West Point and had sworn as incoming cadets and as US military officers to "defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic...."  I recognize their right to resign their US military commissions rather than to take up arms against their states, but I do not understand their further taking up of arms AGAINST the US, they supposedly being men of honor.  There were ONLY two days between Robert E. Lee resigning his US military commission and his acceptance of command of the Army of Northern Virginia!  Many assert that his US oaths died when he resigned his US commission, but I believe that oaths stick with one for life, which is why they should not be taken lightly or carelessly.  I think every rebel who was once a former US military officer was a traitor!  However, I think it was wise of Grant and Lincoln to not punish them as such.

I am obliged to acknowledge and defend the rights of those who wish to display the flag (ANY flag, including the Nazi flag!), but for myself I swear my loyalties to IDEAS, not "things."  I find it interesting that so many armchair patriots want to punish those who would burn the flag in a spirit of protest but who would honor those who would burn the flag to "properly" dispose of it!  The irony that the same identical act is differentiated ONLY by the mere internal intent of the person performing the act is lost on most.  That amounts to punishment of a "thought" crime in my view, which is why I am opposed to codifying or differentiating criminal offenses based solely on the perp's internal state of mind, like "hate" crimes.  Are not all crimes "hate" crimes?  Is beating a black person or homosexual or Jew any worse, really, than beating a hetero "WASP"?  (I remember a deceased friend who used to assert that "WASP" was redundant, since there are no Anglo-Saxons who are not "white," so they really should be identified instead by the most suitable acronym of "ASP"!)

I also remember that some time ago, some folks tried to get people in downtown Richmond to sign a short-form expression of the Bill of Rights manifest as a petition, and they could not get any signatures!  It is really sad how so few people are cognizant of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but they would readily beat the shit out of anyone who would "de-sacrate" THE flag!  Would throwing away or burning envelopes with canceled flag stamps constitute "desecration"?  What constitutes a "flag" to be protected by law?    What about modifying a digital photo of the flag with offensive graphics, or even deleting it?  Would printing it out make a difference?  What if it was attached to an e-mail and sent to a recipient who became offended?  The Supremes were divided 5-4 to strike down the law providing criminal punishment for "desecration"!  ONE vote would have changed the course of history!  Two of the four dissenters are STILL on the Court, Scalia and Thomas as I recall.

Many years ago I decided to instead fly the "Gadsden Flag" (the yellow "Don't Tread On Me" rattlesnake flag) from time to time.  It has since been taken up by the "tea-baggers," so now I can't stand to fly that flag anymore!  I was proud of that flag.  Several years ago I carried it to the "March on Washington" in support of women's "right to choose" their own birth control methods, and even wound up on national TV! 

I think it is telling that the Founders did not include a flag pledge (there was no flag to pledge to at the time, the "Betsy Ross" legend being but apocryphal), but they presciently provided in Article VI that all public-office-holders need pledge only to "support" the Constitution, much as Moses clarified that Yahweh was not to be shackled or confined as a "thing" (graven image) by the mere imagination of mankind.  Thus, the Constitution is THE supreme law of the land, and so it should be.  You will note that there is no empowerment of the Executive Branch in Article II to keep secrets from the citizens under criminal penalty of law, and no provision in Article III allowing the government to direct that courts refuse to hear actions where the interest of "national security" is merely invoked.  But, the Supremes have utterly fabricated such empowerments, and they get the last word.  But for the unlawful imperialistic machinations over the years by those in the Executive Branch, most such secrets would not really be necessary!

If someone (like myself) were suddenly "rendered" to some secret base in Romania, who would possibly know the whereabouts?  How do we know such stuff is NOT going on?  Whom should we trust?

Remember General Westmoreland's inflated Viet Cong body counts?  "The Trickster's" many denials during Watergate?

I have totally lost trust in our govt.  I now refuse to believe ANYTHING said about such matters!  THAT is sad!

Yet, I will NEVER abandon my oath to support the US Constitution and its guarantee of fundamental liberties!  Even if I wind up living in another country!

WRONG? (Joke)

There was an article in the newspaper recently about the advertising and marketing world finally realizing that the gay community has a lot of money, so they decided to develop ads and commercials that might appeal to gay couples.

So, I got to thinking about this.  Consider, for example, a TV commercial promoting some consumer product and presenting two married gay guys discussing the product.  One may determine who the "husband" is in the couple because he is always WRONG!

OR:

If two gay guys get married, they both usually refer to each other as "husband."  Therefore, are they both WRONG at the same time?

KEEPING & BEARING (ONLY)

(The following appeared as a Letter to the Editor of the Richmond  [VA] Times-Dispatch on Monday, May 6, 2013.)

Donald W. Bartlett of New Kent (April 29) takes President Obama and Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine to task for their support of the gun-control bill that failed to proceed because of a failed cloture vote (not "filibuster").  In his letter, Mr. Bartlett declares that they have failed to honor their oaths to "uphold and defend" the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Mr. Bartlett further states that the Constitution prohibits interference with one's "right to own whatever arms they see fit to protect themselves...."

I have never read the bill that failed to pass, but I assumed it dealt with regulation of gun sales and purchases only.  The Second Amendment does not protect any right to "buy" or "sell" arms.  No such right exists.  The word "own" does not appear in the Second Amendment either.  It only protects a right to "keep and bear arms" already owned.  There is nothing in the US Constitution that prohibits the Congress or the states from regulating the purchase or sale of arms and ammunition as desired, or even banning the same altogether.

Both proponents and opponents of "gun control" have ignored this distinction.

NEVER SAY "DIE"!

I have had some issues with the death penalty recently.  I am opposed to the death penalty, but not for moral reasons.  I think a lot of folks deserve to die, horrible deaths actually, but since my list (of those who should die) is not the "official" list, I must oppose all other such lists since my name may be on one of them!

I also don't like "the state" (any government) having the power of life or death over anyone.  An imposed penalty of death is irreversible, and government makes mistakes, so anything less than perfect should NOT be allowed with regard to imposing the death penalty.

So, my concerns are purely practical, not moral.  For example:

Most folks adhere to the biblical injunction about "an eye for an eye."  That is really stupid and counter-productive, because it obscures the VERY REAL deserving nature of those who SHOULD die so they cannot contaminate the gene pool. Consider those who shamelessly use the following words and phrases, to-wit:

"irregardless"
Those who use this (non-)word are just stupid beyond belief.  There is no such word as "irregardless."  It is a thoughtless merger of "irrespective" and "regardless," both of which imply valid alternatives.  So, "irregardless" becomes sort of a double-negative, validating the very thing that the speaker is seeking to invalidate!  I think ANYONE who uses this (non-) word is a prime candidate for the death penalty and should be taken out of the gene pool BEFORE (s)he can breed and replicate his/her OBVIOUSLY broken DNA!

"reform"
Obviously, anyone who dares to suggest they favor "reform" is a lying scum-sucker, intending to employ the police state into enforcing anything that does not resemble the "reforms" demanded!  No one is safe from the indiscriminate use of this word, including anyone who sincerely wishes to "reform" whatever and thereby reduce government intrusion, as the enforcement thereof would certainly require MORE government intrusion!

"bipartisan"
This is a dead giveaway.  There is no such thing as "bipartisanship," it being the lousiest ship that ever sailed the seas (to paraphrase the father of a college classmate).  P. J. O'Rourke, a "conservative" humorist (that is NOT an oxymoron) said that was the most dangerous word in the English language, and I agree!  Anyone promising "bipartisanship" is certainly not to be trusted!

"for the children"
This predicate is one of the most dangerous concepts in the mind of man!  It presupposes that anything done "for the children" can be excused if otherwise unacceptable for adults.  This sort of illogic should not be allowed to go unchallenged.  Of course, it is very risky to be seen as opposing ANYTHING "for the children," but the "children" mostly don't give a damn, and those who utter the phrase are quite aware that what they are about to propose is so manifestly unacceptable they are hopeful they can sell that nonsense by invoking "the children."  It is a dead giveaway and should set off alarm bells very quickly!  Children are much more sophisticated than the minds of mere adults can conceive, so they deserve to be given the same respect as adults.  Such people should, by all means, be given a sentence of death!

There are so many more evil words that merit the death penalty for the users:  "preservation," "taxpayer," God," "trust," "America(n)," "enlightenment," "benefit," "assistance," "help," "challenge," "truth," "message," patriot"!

How can ANYONE be against those pious concepts?  Well, I can!  Because, I know them to be false gods!  Too many half-wits worship at the altar of such foolishness!  They should be put to death, too, lest they contaminate the gene pool, too!

The utterance of any of those words should be an alarm bell to put the listener on guard!  Anyone who invokes those concepts should AT LEAST be avoided like the plague, if not put to death!

The short rule is that ANYTHING uttered that makes one feel "good" or feel satisfied is NOT to be trusted!  Talk is cheap!  Action is everything!  Do not be deceived, and focus your support of the death penalty where it is so richly deserved!

FINALLY, allow me to also include for the ultimate sanction those folks (including many women, unfortunately) who persistently hang in the left lane of the interstate while talking on their mobile phones without using cruise control (which their expensive cars and SUV's obviously have) such that their speed varies up and down, yet they are oblivious to the traffic desperate to get around them.  Must society continue to tolerate these extremely selfish people?  I think not!  I would also like to put to death anyone who has not voted in at least three of the last five elections!

Yes, the death penalty is a terrible sanction for society to tolerate, and mere government cannot be trusted to employ it correctly.  However, I remain ever hopeful that my list shall become the list to use!

TAX SMACKS

(Excerpts from an e-mail to WAMU's Diane Rehm, 12/10/12:)

You have had a number of shows recently that have taken up some aspect of resolving the fiscal "cliff," and I commend you for it.  I seem to recall one not too long ago where a guest brought up (all too briefly) the FACT of another mortgage-interest deduction for so-called "second" homes, including beach cottages, mountain cabins, RV's and yachts, all of which may be classified as "second homes" and thus interest thereon is deductible.  Now such resources are not usually available for those other than the "well-to-do."  I think it is safe to say that even if a "working stiff" (wage-earner) has a home mortgage-interest deduction, he or she won't likely have a SECOND.

Yet, out of the 15 or 20 people (at least) I have heard address the issue on your show or elsewhere, pontificating one way or the other about the elimination of the home mortgage-interest deduction, only that one recent guest of yours has mentioned the SECOND-home mortgage-interest deduction!  I think it is ludicrous to debate the issue of eliminating the FIRST-home mortgage-interest deduction and to say nothing about the costs of the SECOND-home deduction!

FINALLY, I must ask why don't workers get to deduct residential rents paid?  Wealthier folks get not one but TWO mortgage-interest deductions, while said "working stiffs" who don't own their homes get nothing except the piddly Standard Deduction.  It makes no ECONOMIC sense, as more multi-family housing will be needed as we Baby Boomers age.

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Another serious tax issue NOT being discussed is the negative impact of the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax on the economy.  There has been almost NO discussion of this separate tax, despite the fact that it (12.4%) is assessed on gross wages and salaries up to about $110,000 and on no salaries higher than that.  Nor is FICA assessed on dividends, interest or capital gains, all of which are federally taxed at a measly 15% DESPITE the marginal bracket of the recipient.  FICA is in addition to the state and federal income-tax burdens on workers, it is not deductible from taxable income, so it is levied on GROSS earned income (up to about $110K) without any deductions allowed against it.  It is nominally split between the worker and the employer, but the workers bear the entire economic burden of the FICA tax because ALL available employers must pay it, and those employers will eliminate wages and salaries if they can swap laid-off workers for machines.  After all, there is no payroll tax levied on machinery!

As a result of the utterly stupid BIPARTISAN tax cuts back in 2001, workers and lower-income salaried personnel now pay a disproportionate share of their gross incomes in taxes, when measured as a ratio of after-tax-and-living-expense net income to gross income.  In other words, the more gross income someone realizes, the higher PERCENTAGE (not just total dollars) retained after taxes and living expenses.  This is the TRUE measure of the impact of income taxation: not which share of the population as a group pays the most aggregate dollars.  That is a red herring intended to distract the credulous and ignorant from the serious issue of too much taxation on lower incomes.  I worked out spreadsheets back then that showed the validity of my assertions.  That tax cut was rammed through the Congress so fast I was unable to complete my spreadsheets and study them before the bill became law!  Democrats have been almost incoherent when discussing this matter!

Note also that over half of all households in the US are now grossing less than $60,000 a year.  With two earners therein, that is an average of less than $30,000 each GROSS (pre-tax) income, which is chicken-feed!  Coupled with the widespread reduction or elimination of benefits, it is clear that over half of all Americans and/or their small-scale employers are bearing stupendously heavy burdens.  How many more households supposedly earn more than $60K but less than $75K?  I don't know, but I would bet it's a lot.  Yet we are absurdly debating the horrifying impact of modest income-tax increases on incomes above $250K!  Where is the reality in any of this?  How dumb must people be to even TOLERATE this stupid debate?

I wish to question, as the FICA tax is levied on gross (not after-tax) incomes at the time it is assessed, and the future value of those withholdings (inclusive of earned return) are what is doled out later as Social Security, why is it justifiable for SS receipts to be taxed twice as income?  The withheld FICA previously earned was subjected to the income tax at the time it was withheld, and now people are proposing to tax it again!  That is ludicrous, ESPECIALLY when measured against the one-time 15% levy on dividends, interest and capital gains!  Further, there are current proposals being discussed by the "experts" to defer retirement payouts of Social Security and/or to increase the FICA bite so there will be less need to raise INCOME taxes on wealthier folks (or to cut the Pentagon budget)!  All of that is absurd beyond belief!  Why should the lower-income folks bear an onerously disproportionate FICA burden in order to relieve the wealthy of the additional pittance being asked of them?

There is a lot of Chicken-Little doom and gloom being parroted about the decline of Social Security and the looming bankruptcy of the system, yet the system is currently flush with value (albeit federal IOU's).  Most commentators have gotten their lemming-like "fear factor" from reading the Trustees' Report SUMMARY published in 2009 raising the spectre of eventual bankruptcy of the Social Security Fund.  However, I downloaded both the Summary and the actual Report, and the Report paints a far less gloomy picture than does the Summary.  It pays to go to the source, for the Trustees concluded in the actual Report that future FICA receipts were PREDICTED to be insufficient merely because of their projected declining future birthrate of potential workers!  Also, much agony has been expressed about us Baby Boomers draining the SS Fund, but as I was born in 1946, I will be 89 years old if I live to 2035, the projected year of disaster.  I don't think I will live that long, and I expect the youngest Baby Boomers (at age 74 then) will have also experienced a significant "thinning of the ranks."  I was unable to find anywhere in the 2009 Trustees' Report any discussion of the likely mortality rate of Baby Boomers which would REDUCE the likely claims on the SS Fund!  Their projections seem to assume that ALL OF US will be alive and perniciously draining the Fund of its dwindling resources.

Finally, one should not conflate the maliciously fabricated Social-Security panic with the very real problems with Medicare.  Too many people are jabbering away about "entitlement reform" without being specific and without making any distinction between Social Security and Medicare.  There are important distinctions.  It would also be nice if the "experts" would read the actual Trustees' Report and not rely on just the Summary when pontificating their dreadful conclusions.  I hope you might get a chance to explore all these issues with your future guests.  I hope to be listening.

As you can see, none of this would have fit very well in a phone call!

CONSERVATISM = STUPID?

I have been wrestling with the notion that conservatives have embraced anti-intellectualism as proof of their adherence to the litmus test of biblical "Truth."  The flap over Sen. Marco Rubio's recent GQ interview comments about the age of the Earth (roughly 10,000 years) has revived my thinking on this matter.

Back in college I was president of the Young Republicans and a fervent Goldwater "conservative," even though I was not old enough to vote.   My first vote, however, was cast when I was only 20 years old in the summer of 1967 at an American consulate in Munich, Germany.  I was due to turn 21 by the general election, so I was allowed to vote in the Va. Democratic primary that summer.  Back then there were no more than 5 or 6 Republicans in the House of Delegates, and most Democrats were pretty "conservative" back then.  (Most of them later migrated to the Republican Party, including Gov. Mills Godwin.  George McGovern's opposition to the Vietnam War drove a lot of them out of the Democratic Party.)

But also back then, conservatives like myself did not identify with know-nothing anti-intellectualism.  In fact, "conservatism" was itself considered somewhat intellectual, bolstered by the rising prominence of William F. Buckley, Jr.  In any event, I recall no quarrel with what was assumed to be scientifically-based FACT.  Conservatism was about POLITICAL ideas and opinions, not science.  With the presidential advent of the incredible "Know-Nothing-in-Chief," Ronald Reagan, who cleverly welcomed the religiously disaffected into the Republican Party, the definition of "conservatism" evolved quite differently from what I had thought it to mean.  Some smarter, more educated Republicans were dismayed by that but, unfortunately, they went along with it because it meant more votes and more political power.  About that time, and consistent with what was happening generally in the Republican Party, Buckley enunciated his support of anti-choice pregnancy policy and the attendant criminalization thereof, and a breach seemed to be forming in the conservative notion of individual liberty.  Ronald Reagan embraced those policies to get elected President, with the help of the anti-intellectuals, and thus the Republican Party was transformed, for the worse.

It seems to me that conservatism has always had a legitimate role in promoting its ideas in areas of opinion and government policy, like regulating or limiting government benefits, taxation, war policies and financing and the merits or demerits of a social "safety net."  That has traditionally been the most fertile ground for the creative aspects of conservatism.  But when the redefined "conservatism" picks fights with fairly settled scientific fact, it is way off-base, as Senator Rubio's initial comments about the age of the Earth indicate.  Rubio later quickly revised his remarks when confronted with overwhelming scientific opinion to the contrary, but he then "hedged" by asserting that parents should be free to teach their children utter pseudo-religious nonsense if they wished.

To the extent that "conservatism" is seen as embracing notions hostile to fairly well-settled science, it deserves to be called "stupid."  Even Republican La. Gov. Bobby Jindal has recognized that.  Those anti-intellectual notions include asserting coexistence of humans and dinosaurs (thus disputing Evolution and the much older age of the Earth than as described in Genesis), asserting homosexuality as a choice and its "reversibility," denying the human contribution to "global warming," asserting the unlikely possibility of pregnancy by rape, proclaiming the innate intellectual inferiority of other races, and disputing other biological and scientific matters for which exist considerable amounts of contrary empirical data that are consistent in their support of scientific "theory."  Plus, there is also the notion that scientific "theory" is nothing more than "opinion" or "hypothesis," like the theory of gravity.  Therefore, as it is OK to have differing opinions on matters of government policy, so may one have differing opinions about scientific matters if they are contrary which what is claimed to be written in the Bible, which is definitely NOT a scientific treatise.  Scientific "theory" is a lot more certain and is more backed up by empirical evidence than mere "hypothesis," a distinction lost on the know-nothings, most of whom have no more than a high-school education and harbor barely concealed jealousy of the more-educated among us.

President George W. Bush, a graduate of both Yale and Harvard Business School, famously said that "the jury is still out" on Evolution.  Now, whether or not he really believes that to be true is less important than the mere fact that he said it.  Whether he was stating a matter of personal opinion is no more important (nor reliable) than if he was merely pandering to the religiously intolerant know-nothings who abound in the Republican Party.  There are those know-nothings who believe that Evolution asserts human descent from apes when, in fact, it asserts that humans and apes likely had a common ancestor from which both lines are descendant.  Similar beliefs fail to distinguish between the research and conclusions of Charles Darwin ("natural selection") and the larger issues within Evolution.

I believe most of this know-nothing anti-intellectualism is attributable to the fact that most well-educated folks are perceived as "liberal" (like Al Gore); thus, neither they nor their "theories" are worthy of respect.  The hostility is real, actually on both sides, as the well-educated understandably scorn the know-nothings who yet express such absurd opinions about scientific matters.  I know that I do.  In the New York Times recently there was an op-ed piece about the Rubio matter by Charles M. Blow that laid out the following statistics: 

Only 6% of scientists identify themselves as "Republican";

Only 15% of college professors identify themselves as "conservative," thus reinforcing the notion of "liberal bias" on college campuses;

58% of self-identified Republicans believe "God" created humans in their current form less than 10,000 years ago.

It utterly escapes those True Believers that the reason so few scientists and college professors self-identify as "conservative" might be because credulous know-nothings are not welcome in such circles!  They are called "dumb-asses" for a reason!

According to Blow, taxpayers in Louisiana are being assessed the costs of private education (under notions of school "choice") for children to be brainwashed with such hyper-religious nonsense as that dinosaurs roamed the Garden of Eden, that Evolution is merely an unreliable crackpot "guess" about the origins of humans, that the Loch Ness monster really exists, etc.  Where does this crap come from?  WHY is the Republican Party home to such foolishness?  Fortunately, a state judge recently ruled as unconstitutional the Louisiana statute that Gov. Jindal signed that overtly promotes Creationism with those "choice" vouchers.  But, it's also going on in several other states.  The state of Kentucky (which Mitt Romney won) has recently approved diversion of $44 Million of taxpayer money as tax incentives for the building of a Creationist theme park.  Jesus wept!

This foolishness is blatantly unconstitutional, anti-intellectual and it must stop.  So long as the Republican Party, however, is held hostage to such nonsense by its members and leaders, it will continue.  Arguably, Barack Obama could have been defeated this year had the Republicans not been seen mostly as a pack of slavering idiots.  The insults and horrific nonsense thrown at Obama and "liberals" by many Republicans certainly helped generate sympathy and votes for Obama.  Republicans need only look in the mirror to see who is most at fault for the loss.

So long as Republicans fail to distinguish those matters which may be addressed by opinion and the matters concerning settled scientific fact, they will and should be dismissed as "stupid."

DAVE BRUBECK, d. December 5, 2012

Dave Brubeck died yesterday at the age of 91.  I think there was no other musician who gave me a sense of what the 1960's could be about. listening to his very sophisticated use of 5/4 time in "Take Five" or his other famous jazz pieces, "Blue Rondo a la Turk," "Three To Get Ready," "Bossa Nova USA," etc.

Even though he was almost as old as my parents, I thought of him as an ultra-cool almost-contemporary, expressing both youth and sophistication at the same time with his extraordinary music.  I thought both he and I would live forever.  Reading about his death abruptly jerks me into the reality of knowing how much older I am now, as when the person you once knew as a baby now stands before you as a college graduate, or even a parent herself!

My musical tastes and preferences have changed over the years, from rock 'n' roll, to soul, to beach music, to the Beatles & Stones, to bluegrass, to (traditional) country, to psychedelic, to Little Feat, to Big Band, to jazz, etc.  Those are not sharp delineations, they all just "evolved" into each other.  (I NEVER liked rap "music"!)  But, I have always enjoyed listening to Brubeck.  Now, I somehow find myself smack in the middle of trying to sell blues music in a shrinking market, knowing I'll never be as good a sax player as Jr. Walker or Paul Desmond.  Instead, I SHOULD just be collecting my Social Security, taking my numerous pills and trying to figure out which Medicare supplemental insurance plan to choose by December 7!  And, with frost on the ground, there is definitely going to be a "nip" in the air tomorrow!  (I never liked doing what I SHOULD!)

Thanks to modern technology, Dave Brubeck's music will live forever, even as he has died.  I am just amazed that my iPod, smaller than a soft book of matches, stores over 3500 songs!  Some of those songs and albums are Dave Brubeck's music.  I can and will be listening to Dave, until I die.

December 6, 2012.

HOLY WINDSPRINTS, BATMAN!

There is, truly, nothing more pathetic than some fat kid running wind-sprints in full-dress football regalia.  But, that was my fate for being a smart-ass in Sunday School.  I played defensive tackle on the JV football team, a position just about as depraved as anything might be for a 15-year-old kid.  I was big and fat and not very fast.  I absolutely HATED football!  (Still do!)  Defensive tackles get hit on almost every play and rarely, if ever, get to score points for the team or with girls.  If the defensive tackles make tackles on opposing runners, that is just doing one’s expected job.  Utterly unremarkable.  MISS a tackle, and you are the worthless scum of the Earth!

The assistant football coach, a man of rigid moralities and rectitude, was ALSO my Presbyterian Sunday-School teacher as well as being an English teacher in the high school.  One day in Sunday School he made the unfortunate mistake of trying to explain “Predestination,” a core tenet of the Presbyterian Church in which I was raised.  I am sure it substantially contributed to my ultimate decision to become an atheist.  I really could not stand the notion of having my life (eternal or otherwise) so certainly planned out!

After “Coach” had taken an initial stab at explaining the core doctrine of Predestination, I leaned back in my chair and, with a poorly concealed smirk on my face, I suggested that as our souls’ ultimate fate of doom or saving had already been determined, then it should make no difference at all how we behaved in life, since the die of salvation had already been cast!  That seemed VERY logical to me!  “Coach” quickly backed up and reproached me for blatant illogic!  He pointed out that, while our salvation might well be predetermined in an ordinary sense, we might well fulfill the predicted course of conduct that would take us straight to Hell, thus dooming our souls to deserved eternal damnation!  On the other hand, if we struggled in righteousness, we might yet be forgiven our sins and be able to sneak through the portals of Heaven, just ahead of the iron grasp of Satan!  WHEW!

Nevertheless, sensing no danger, I pressed my case.  I insisted on arguing the point that if we could, somehow, foil the predicted outcome, then that would surely impeach the notion of Predestination, as our self-actuated salvation could not possibly be “predetermined” if we had the power to change it!  “Coach” was not amused.

In fact, “Coach” was annoyed.  And, it did not occur to the 15-year-old mind with the foresight of a garden slug that the righteous man before him would actually indulge in petty revenge for a 15-year-old being a smart-ass!  But, he did!  The next day, Monday, football practice was scheduled after school, per usual.  After I had turned out on the field and run the obligatory warm-up laps with my teammates on the track surrounding the practice field, “Coach” ordered me to take a few WIND-SPRINTS on the unused portion of the practice field!  By myself.  I got an uneasy feeling for being alone in this venture.

I finished about 5 round trips and announced that I had done so, quite winded from the experience and having set no land-speed records in doing so.  “Coach” then ordered me to provide further evidence of my invincibility!  I could not believe my fate (nor understand it) as I had not (yet) linked my Sunday queries with my current misfortune.  I threw my helmet on the ground and shuffled off to the Zone of Death again, sort of dragging my feet along as I “pranced” half-heartedly up and down the field.  “Coach” yelled at me to “pick it up”!

Upon my return, I breathlessly announced that I had completed another 5 round trips, and “Coach” ordered me back down the field again, telling me THIS TIME that my destiny to run wind-sprints was PRE-determined, as I would surely eventually realize!  At that point, the horror of my ways dawned on me!  I could not go much further and, after another stretch, shuffled over to the area where my teammates were laying about, collapsed on the ground and almost fainted.  “Coach” walked over and looked down condescendingly at my limp body and told me that one day I would be thankful that the Lord was helping me build a strong body!  I have to say that I did not share his gratitude.  I actually wondered if “the Lord” might make me run wind-sprints in Heaven!  Satan probably would in Hell!

I was much more circumspect thereafter, seeking to curb my smart-ass ways in Sunday School, but after the end of football season, I was back to my usual heathen existence.

JEWISH GUILT

(From an e-mail sent September 14, 2012.)

One is obliged to separate the nation of Israel from the ethnic identity of Jews.  They are not synonymous.

HOWEVER--

If there is any group of people anywhere in the world who know how to instill guilt, it is the Jews!  They seemingly learn this from their mothers, and the US has been atoning for the Holocaust ever since WWII, even though blameless!  Of course, the post-war Allied moguls made sure that the State of Israel was created for the Holocaust Jews so that the Jews would go there and not come to THEIR countries!

Now the "Holocaust Guilt Package" has been further augmented by the Republican doctrine of the "End of Days" when (as witless, bigoted evangelicals are convinced), during the Rapture in the "Holy Land," i.e., border-expanded Israel, Jews will surely all convert to Christianity and be saved by Jesus then be swept into Heaven (along with all the Jew souls that have, thankfully, been converted, post-mortem, by the Mormons), and the rest of us schlubs (including known Muslims like Barack Obama) can just burn in Hell forever!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  I can't wait!

So, we were recently assured that the Republican platform was righteous enough to mention "God" at least 5 times and also reinforced their political-theological embrace of the State of Israel, unlike the proto-atheist heathens in the Democratic Party who were finally "brave" enough to railroad a platform amendment from the floor of the Convention to mention "God " and "Israel," despite the firmly hostile "NO" vote clearly heard on the issue!  Now, the Democrats are clearly stand-up kinda guys for principle, just like their feckless, spineless, betraying leader, Barack Obama, who was reportedly the engineer of the locomotive on that "railroad"!

We know that Israel ALREADY has nukes, so why should not Iran seek a strike-back capability to discourage a pre-emptive strike by Israel?  The threats have been levied time and again, and we also know that if it happens, the US government and Obama won't do one single thing about it, except "tsk-tsk."  All the heated rhetoric from US government sources about Iran's ALLEGED nuke capability justifiably invites Israel's first-strike against Iran!  Scare the Hell out of everybody, then do as you please!  A strangely familiar climate following 9/11/01!  Neat!

Some years ago in his book on the subject, former President Jimmy Carter compared the policies of Israel toward Arabs and Muslims as "apartheid," and that stuck in the craw of the political leaders of Israel and the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).  It is way past time for the US to decouple its Middle East policies from Holocaust guilt.