"Dust"

I loved "The Twilight Zone" when I was a kid.  There are about 150 episodes, of which I still remember some.

In recent years and even decades, some TV network or other has shown "Twilight Zone" marathons on New Years' Eve day and New Years' day.

Many people who became famous later acted in some of those episodes.

Recently, I bought from ebay the whole series.  And I've been watching them, maybe three or four 24-minute episodes in a sitting.

Many of these episodes were written by Rod Serling, who I read developed "The Twilight Zone" after his proposal to write something about the murder of Emmett Till was rejected.  You can see some of that hopeless tragedy in a number of "Twilight Zone" episodes.

An episode I watched today, and which I didn't remember, was called "Dust."  It was the story of a Mexican man who was despairing over the misery of his life, got drunk, accidentally ran over and killed a young girl with his horse-drawn wagon, and was to be hanged.  The villagers came out to watch the spectacle.  One man brought his wife and children.

Serling introduced the episode this way: "This village had a virus shared by its people.  It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith.  With the faithless, the hopeless, the misery-laden, there is time -- ample time --to engage in one of the other pursuits of men: they begin to destroy themselves [and each other]."

Thomas Gomez, whose character was a hustler, a drinker himself, and an opportunist and conman, had sold the village the rope to hang the convict, and sold the convict's family, at a highly inflated cost, of course, "magic dust" (which he simply scooped up from the ground), which he told the convicted man's father would turn the villagers' hate into love.

When an attempt to hang the convict was made, the rope broke.  The parents of the accidentally killed girl, who had come to see "justice" done, decided one death was enough, and gave the sheriff permission to let the convict go, instead of trying again to hang him.  If the convict's family were deeply relieved, it was Thomas Gomez's character who was unspeakably puzzled.  He gave the money he took from the convict's father to the convict's children.

Maybe My Friend Was Right

I was having an e-conversation with a lawyer friend, and somehow, we wound up talking about some of the differences between lawyers and doctors.  I did not point out that an important difference is that doctors have to get it right, but lawyers only have to win an argument.  But we did talk about the difference in how much post-college training lawyers get (three years) versus how much post-college training doctors get (10 years for me), and noting that lawyers charge vastly more than do doctors.  My friend said the amount of training was deceptive, because lawyers continue to learn after law school.  I pointed out that precisely the same is true of doctors, and of other professionals, and that's why they call it "practice."  I said that with respect to the very different number of years of learning after college, either lawyers are smarter than doctors (and can learn what they need to know in much less time), or doctors have to learn a lot more than do lawyers.  I told my friend he could choose.  He said lawyers are smarter than doctors, except for me.  I told him that was cleverly diplomatic.

A woman I know, who was herself a doctor, until she retired recently, has had a number of medical and orthopedic problems.  Her problems have been impairing, and it's taken a toll on her emotionally.  I just saw her at Thanksgiving, and she told me her PCP suggested the possibility of an antidepressant.  She wanted to know if I thought an antidepressant would help her feel better.  (She had been skeptical, and declined the offer.)  I told her no, an antidepressant would not help her feel better, and she'll feel better when she gets better, which I have reason to assume she will.

I also told her, as a matter of perspective, that it is true now, and it has always been true, that the vast majority of prescriptions for psychotropics (medications used to treat psychiatric problems, even including depression and anxiety) have been written by people who are not psychiatrists (doctors whose specialty is not psychiatry, or people, like nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants, who are not doctors.)  And studies have shown that psychotropic prescribing by non-psychiatrists is comparatively inefficient and ineffective.  I've seen some horrible results of psychotropic prescribing by non-psychiatrists who couldn't even recognize the problem.  So doctors, and other people authorized to write prescriptions, are, in effect, not smart enough to know that they don't know what they're doing, or how to do what they intended to do, at least if they're not psychiatrists, but they're trying to treat psychiatric problems.  I am proud, and perhaps a bit relieved, to note that psychiatrists very, very rarely attempt to treat conditions they were not trained to treat.  If that means that psychiatrists are (it's complicated, but we now have to say used to be) smarter than non-psychiatrists, or non-doctors, then so be it.

Lawyers, on the other hand, tend to settle into specialties, and they tend not to try to practice in areas of the law that are different from the special areas in which they honed their skills, and learned the rules and relevant laws and landmark cases.  Or at the very least, they know there are relevant laws and landmark cases, and they find out what they are, if they're stepping into an area which is not typical for them.

So, maybe my friend was right.  Maybe lawyers really are smarter, or less foolish, or less cocky, than doctors.  Do I get to cling to "some" lawyers, and "some" doctors?  There are some pretty incompetent examples of the former, and some excellent examples of the latter, too.

"We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us."

You have to be as old as I am to remember this line from Walt Kelly's "Pogo."

If you remember Brad Kern, who was one of the BP adjunct police officers, I saw him this morning.  He's my chiropractor.

While I was in the car, I was listening to the news, and they had a story about Qatar.  Qatar occupies a unique position in the middle east, because they seem to get along with everyone.  They get along with the Arabic countries and with Israel.  One part of the story said that Israel actually supported Hamas, like with money.  If you just fell off your chair, I'll wait for you to get back on it.  This, of course, ended abruptly on October 7 this year, when Hamas attacked Israel.  The story was about Qatar, so they didn't get into why Hamas, which was supported by Israel, would have attacked Israel.  Like, what was their beef with Israel?  But they did talk about Palestinians who had worked for Israeli companies, until October 7, and how they had to be careful at work not to talk about anything political.  And how many of them got fired after October 7 for displaying banners pleading for a cease fire.  One person even talked about getting fired for not talking about this crisis, as if not talking about it signaled inner hostile feelings, or even collusion.  So, Qatar managed itself to get along with everyone, but everyone else didn't necessarily get along so well with each other.  Although well enough that Palestinians could get good jobs working for Israeli companies.

All of this raises a question.  If Qatar could get along with everyone, and even possibly effect some countries' getting along, at least somewhat, with each other, why couldn't the commonly classified greatest country on earth get along with everyone?  To be a bit harsher about it, what's our failing?

As best I can evaluate it, we have two.  One is our tendency, under some US governments more than under others, to be belligerent.  We seem to like hostility.  (And I'm setting aside that hostility is very good business for military contractors, who pay off electeds to keep the Pentagon budget as inflated as possible, and who might very well suggest that conflicts in other countries are a great way for us to supply, and try out, weaponry.)  But even setting that aside, we just like hostility.  We like fighting.  In our own country, we like shooting each other up with guns.  The rich like impoverishing the less rich, until they're poor.  We just have a very bad attitude, and it prevents us from striving for peace.  Anywhere.  Yeah, OK, Jimmy Carter was an exception.  And once we found out he liked peace, and solar panels on the White House, we voted him out.  Jimmy Carter was simply unAmerican.  We replaced him with Ronald Reagan, who lied, didn't make any sense, handed us a large deficit, and got us mixed up in Iran Contra.  That's what we like.  And now, the worst, stupidest, most dishonest president we've ever had is running to try to get elected again, and he's reportedly polling ahead of the incumbent, who is notably imperfect, but vastly better.  Poll reports like that are unbelievable, but I do keep seeing them.  How bad, and destructive to ourselves and everyone else, are we?

Our other failing is quirky.  Despite all the antiSemitism in this country, it turns out that the public, including the antiSemites, accuse anyone who doesn't blindly and automatically take Israel's side in anything, of being antiSemitic.  That sentence was no easier to write than it is to read.  The public wouldn't permit the US government to get along with, let's say, the Palestinians.  If our government tried to do that, Netanyahu would protest, and our government would be accused, including by antiSemites, of being antiSemitic.  (I simply can't make these sentences make any sense.  Because we don't.)  Imagine the opportunities for negotiating and peace-making if the supposedly great US of A was like Qatar.  Alas, we're not.

I also listened to a story about AI, and how maybe the most powerful AI creators and purveyors would come to rule the world.  I suppose if it's just all about money and capitalism, that might be true.  But if it's about decency and ability, and will, to find peace, maybe Qatar will rule the world.  The United States has given up on that kind of good will and peace-making.  But bring us a fight we can have with someone...

Unimaginable Gymnastics

I have not seen "Killers of the Flower Moon."  My sister is urging me to see it.  But my sense is that it's very depressing (she says the ending is upbeat, but from what I know today, I doubt it), and it's 3 1/2 hours long.

The story, as I understand it, is that the Osage Nation, which may have been consigned to a reservation in Oklahoma, somehow discovered that "their" land had lots of oil below it, and they tapped the oil, and got extremely rich, and the Caucasians (most prominently represented by Robert DeNiro) decided they should take the oil, and the money, for themselves.  As I understand it, this even involved killing members of the Osage Nation, not to mention tricking them into marrying Caucasians (Leonardo DiCaprio), who would presumably take ownership of the land, and the money.

The latter is interesting, because it recalls Arthur Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles," which involved a half brother, who stressed out the reigning Baskerville until he died of a heart attack, and when his half sister got engaged to Baskerville's next heir, he tried to kill the younger Baskerville (by having a hound attack the younger Baskerville).  He had discovered through genealogical research that he was a distant Baskerville relative, and he presumably planned to kill his half sister after she married the younger Baskerville, so he could have the estate for himself.  I guess he's not a believer that "no one lasts forever."

If you're thinking that all of this is insane, I agree.  But that, in a sense, is the problem.  It's insane, but it's prevalent.

I was listening to a "Lever" presentation called "Movies vs Capitalism," and they were discussing "Killers of the Flower Moon," and also segueing into discussions of the problems of capitalism (yeah, imagine if capitalism was a problem), and referencing Marx's Das Kapital for a contrasting view.  (The fact is that we don't have a capitalist system in this country.  We have a blend of capitalism and socialism, as do most developed and civilized countries.)

It's not hard to recognize the problems of communism, as we've seen it played out in the XXth and XXIst centuries (not as described by Marx), but there are massive problems with capitalism, too.  (Not the charming and peaceable capitalism fictionalized by Ayn Rand.)  To the extent that anyone thinks communism suffers from the possibility of laziness, capitalism suffers from overpowering greed and selfishness, and the criminally bad behavior that actualizes them.  We read and hear about it every day, from bloated corporations that work hard, and spend a lot of money, not to pay workers properly, (and not to pay taxes,) to inhibit them from unionizing to protect themselves, to mistreat workers, including children, and to take as much money as they can possibly get, regardless of whom they're disadvantaging.

People who are fierce advocates of undiluted capitalism should be ashamed of themselves?  They are ashamed of themselves.  They don't want anyone to know how they behave, or what's of primary importance to them.  That's what the book-banning, and censoring of what's supposed to be taught, and government based on payoffs are about.

And they'll tell you that.  They'll tell you that if school children, for example, had to learn about slavery (you know, you get to own other people, and have them work for you for free, and you can [mis]treat them any way you want), the children might feel bad, or feel badly about themselves.  If capitalism was so wonderful, the students should feel great about themselves and about their forebears, who made the very best of the capitalist dream.  But they don't.  And everyone knows it.

And on another note, Donnie-Boy Trump is unable to stop shooting his mouth off, commonly about precisely the things judges tell him to belt up about.  And his excuse for himself is that he thinks he has unlimited freedom of speech.  But when he ran for president, and the public wanted to see his tax returns, he whined that he was restrained from releasing them, because, as it appears he invented, he was under audit.  So Donnie-Boy gets selective about when his authorization to communicate is restricted, and when it's not.  He appears to make up these rules himself.  Imagine a fat thing of his age engaging in such gymnastics.

Skylands, The Gentle Barn, and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary. There Might Be Others.

I know for a fact about the first three organizations.  They get/collect/buy/plead for what we would call "farm animals," not infrequently meant for slaughter or to produce dairy, and they provide expansive places for these animals to live out their lives.  They have many or hundreds of acres of land, and they make these pastures home for these animals.

Obviously, not only do the owners of these properties make caring for these animals their full time jobs, but they also need hay and other normal food for the animals during the winter, and they need veterinary access for the ones that are acquired unwell.

Skylands is in New Jersey, The Gentle Barn is in California, Missouri, and Tennessee, and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary is in (Citra) Florida.

I'm not being subtle here, and the point is that they need income.  If you care, they're all non-profit, and they all rely on donations.

The Gentle Barn is unique, in a good way, I hope, in that they have a program where the public (your children, you) can pet and interact with the animals.  That's not a meaningful feature unless you're there, but it might create an excuse for a vacation destination.

If you participated in Give Miami Day, you might be relatively tapped out just at the moment.  But even if you are, none of these would turn up their noses at a modest monthly donation.  I just got an e-mail from Skylands today.  Their barn is empty of hay.  The good news is that hay only costs $6 a bale.  The bad news is that cows, for example, eat 200 bales a day.  Mike, from Skylands, asks donors to provide "a bale or two (or three) during [the] Thanksgiving Food Drive."  Clearly, it will take a lot of people donating 1-3 bales of hay to provide 200 bales (for one cow).  Mike says his goal is to fill at least one empty barn before Thanksgiving, and that will amount to 150,000 pounds, which will cost him $12,500.

You can ignore this, because it's just someone else who wants money.  Or you can feel bad for the animals.  Or appreciative of Mike, and of the people who run The Gentle Barn and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary.  Or this can lead you to think of non-human animals, and the industry in which they're stuck, in a different way.

I donate $20 a month to Skylands.  (That's just over the three bales Mike requested.)  I give the same to The Gentle Barn.  I haven't yet committed to Kindred Spirits Sanctuary, but I probably soon will.  And I reduce pressure on the other end by restricting to a vegan diet.  So there's that much less reason to raise non-human animals to be slaughtered for food, or used for dairy.

Anyway, it's something to consider, if you're moved to share your money.  You can "google" these organizations, or you can go to Skylands' site at skylandssanctuary.org.  The Gentle Barn is gentlebarn.org.  Kindred Spirits Sanctuary is kssfl.org.

True, But Incomplete

Research reveals which Americans are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories (msn.com)

The proposal here is that Christians are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories.  The two that are mentioned are vaccines against the coronavirus, and who won the 2020 presidential election.  And the repeated explanations for naming Christians are "biblical literalism" and "Christian nationalism."

It's true that Christians have a unique burden when it comes to being rational and open-minded: it is their understanding that there's such a thing as "god," and that Jesus is the Messiah, but they long ago reneged on their commitment to Jesus as Messiah in what they originally proposed to be the meaning of the concept, and they're now waiting for a "Second Coming."  Frankly, who knows what they're waiting for, or how they would know if the wait was over?

But there are two other problems.  One is that it is in no way only Christians who are susceptible to believing in conspiracy theories.  All religions are built on nothing but fantasies, and anyone who believes in any of them is available to believe in anything else that is built on nothing.  That would very definitely include the sampling of conspiracies.  Anyone who takes literally something that cannot possibly be taken literally, and that is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, is painfully easy fodder for conspiracy theories.  And that's a lot broader than fantasizing that this country was built on "Christian nationalism," which the Constitution (the First Amendment, anyway) explicitly says it was not.  I know plenty of non-Christian religious people who breathe a combination of oxygen and conspiracy theories.  It's true that there are far more Christian people than non-Christian religious people who live in this country today, but no other reason is given in this article to single out Christians as uniquely susceptible to conspiracy theories.  This article came from msn.com, which is not always high quality, and gets lazy, and maybe Christians for them were just low-hanging and juicy fruit.

So, one broad group of people who are susceptible to conspiracy theories are religious people, who insist on taking as "truth" something that is not at all true, and most certainly not confirmable.  But there's another group of people who are susceptible to conspiracy theories, and we talked about them some time ago.  They are people who are comparatively uneducated, or who don't have professional educations.  They literally, as it is said, "don't know what they don't know."  These are people who have not had to learn something rigorously in a way that holds them responsible for finding and understanding the truth of it (and challenging what's questionable), or at least understanding what, outside its own assertions, supports it.  And once you agree to believe something just because you do, or because someone on TV said it, you have departed any concept of solid ground, and you can believe, or refuse to believe, anything.  If you wish to believe a certain candidate won an election, and the election mechanism doesn't support your preferred belief, and all 61 court cases brought in the matter go against you, you can tell yourself everyone is wrong, and lying criminals, and only you and like-minded people are right.

So, it's fair to say that some categories of people -- Americans and otherwise -- are "most likely to believe in conspiracy theories," but this article doesn't go far enough, and work hard enough, to clarify and explain what those categories are.  And why some people are so susceptible.

Give Miami Day

Two of the things I've said often include that if I gave the minimum requested amount to every cause that I myself consider very worthy, I would go broke fast.  There are loads of them, of various kinds, and I can't donate to everyone.  My choices are admittedly arbitrary: I choose some, I don't choose others (because I can't choose them all), and I hope and assume someone else chooses the ones I don't.  And their choices will be arbitrary, too.

A second thing I've often said is that most of my credit card bill every month is automatic monthly donations.  It's easier for me, so I don't have to think about it, and whatever organization it is gets a predictable donation from me, which they need.  Some organizations don't want to pay the credit card commission.  If they ask donors to pay just a little more, to cover the commission, I do it.  If they ask to be able to withdraw the donation from my bank account, so there is no commission, I agree to that.

By far most of my donations are $5-$20 per month.  The amount depends on a number of things.  I almost never add a payee (there would be no end to adding payees), and I never donate extra when they say they have an emergency, which they all always do.  I have a number of areas of devotion, so there are various kinds of payees.

I have two payees that are less than $5 per month.  One of them is Wikipedia ($1 per month), which has a massive number of people who rely on it, and the other is NowIKnow, which I recently increased from $1 per month to $2 per month, because the owner and publisher made a reasonable-sounding case that he needed more of his readers to donate, or those of us who do donate to donate a little more.

It is extremely well known, by the way, that the vast, vast majority of the "audience" of many things do not donate.  They just get what they get from listening or watching, and it's for free for them.  You do not need me to opine whether or not I think this is childish and irresponsible.

Some of my donations are more than the total of $5 to $20 per month.  I'm on the board of directors of Orchestra Miami, and I donate $1000 per year to them.  I have a special fondness for Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami, and I donate $1000 per year to them, too.  Dance Now! Miami is an almost identical organization, and I don't have a good argument as to why I don't donate $1000 a year to them, too.  I think I just think they have a larger following, so they have more access to ticket-buyers and donors.  I could be wrong.  I don't remember if I donate $250 or $500 a year to them.  I donate $500 a year to GableStage, because I think they don't need as much.  I used to donate $2500 a year to musimelange, because the connection was personal, and the experience was incomparable, but it's not clear to me they survived the pandemic in a reliable way.  When my income was stronger (I used to have more work, and I had one job that paid way too much, and I couldn't get them to lower the pay, so I just gave away what was excessive, and I didn't need it), I used to donate about $2000 a year to Miami Symphony Orchestra and about the same to Nu Deco.  But I couldn't keep it up, and I had what amounted to artistic differences with each of them, and Nu Deco has a very devoted and well enough heeled following, so I stopped those donations.  But I always host visiting Nu Deco musicians, so that saves Nu Deco money.  I still donate about $1000 a year to Seraphic Fire (I buy my season tickets, which come to around $500, and tell them to round up to $1500), although I think they're doing pretty well, but they're off the charts artistically, and my connection to them has come to feel personal.  I also used to donate $1000 a year to Miami Light Project, but I've sort of lost parts of the connection, and it's not as clear to me what they're doing now.  And whenever I get reminded, I give a yearly membership fee, of about $100 or $50, to MOCA.  It's beyond curious, and heart-warming, by the way, to note that lists of donors revealed in programs for at least some of these organizations list performers, who are paid by the organizations to perform.  Talk about "giving back."

It is critical to note, by the way, that cultural organizations (all of them) cannot meet their budgets by selling tickets.  I used to have the impression that ticket sales satisfied around 25-50% of these organizations' budgets.  But one of my friends who was a tenor, but now consults to cultural organizations, told me that any of these organizations that are particularly successful earn not more than 30% of their budget by selling tickets.  We're talking here about local organizations in Miami, the Louvre, the NYC Ballet, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or any of them.  The rest of their budget is met by grants (federal, state, local, and funds like the Knight Foundation down here) and donations from people like me and you.  None of this happens just by selling tickets.

And then, there's Give Miami Day.  This year, it's slated to occur on November 16, but apparently, it started early: today (11/13).  Give Miami Day is extensive, somewhat disorganized in who are the available payees, and why they're available payees, and a little bit mysterious (to me) in terms of how much payees get.  There are loads (possibly hundreds) of possible payees (non-profits), and they're of many kinds.  I guess/assume that what they all have in common is that they're all non-profits.  I used to assume that Give Miami Day took some amount of the money donated (do you know that GoFundMe takes 25% of what's donated?!), but in more recent years, I've heard reports that payees actually get more than what was donated, because of Give Miami Day.  If Give Miami Day can somehow pay payees more than donors donate, then I have no idea from where they get the extra money.

I donate to several non-profits on Give Miami Day.  Most of the donations are about $250, and maybe the occasional one is about $100.  I think I donate $500 to Catalyst Miami on Give Miami Day.  I used to send them my donation personally, but now, I do it on Give Miami Day.  All Give Miami Day donations are via credit card.

Please take a look at Give Miami Day.  You can find them at givemiamiday.org.  It'll take you some time, because it's a long list (several or many pages).  There are all kinds of non-profits.  Whether you like culture, like people, have children, have feelings for non-human animals, adhere to some religion, or any of many possibilities, you'll find non-profits it will be your pleasure and your honor to support.

Not One Whit of Disrespect for Brian Cohen

I've watched many videos of Brian Cohen's presentations.  I see them either on youtube, or on atAdvocacy, which republishes them from youtube.  Curiously, Cohen, if you look him up, is described as a comedian.  He was also a high school or college wrestler.  He talks too fast, but he's a dramatically intelligent guy.

But I have said many times, and I will always say, that on the average, women are smarter than men.  They're socialized to act as if they weren't smarter, or to be secondary, submissive, or subservient, but their "brain power" makes them smarter than men, if they're given an unimpeded opportunity to exercise their capacity.

And here's one of those women: (140) MUST-SEE: Nancy Pelosi takes on new Republican Speaker - YouTube.  She's beyond smart, she's classy, and she's charming.

"You Can't Handle the Truth."

It's remarkable about that line from "A Few Good Men," because Jack Nicholson was so into his character that he spoke this line even though it was not part of the script.  But it was such a perfect line for the character and the situation that it was preserved in the movie.

Nicholson's character hasn't been the only person to reveal truths many people don't want to hear.  And the rest of them have not been fictions.  But the message is always the same: "you can't handle the truth."

GHWB, who referred to Reagan's "trickle down" money theory as "voodoo economics," which it was, stopped complaining about it once Reagan tapped him as VP.  And after Reagan's second term, GHWB ran for president, and got elected.  He vowed "no new taxes."  But by the end of his term, he could see how right he was when he ran against Reagan in the primaries 12 years before, and he got himself unelected when he revealed that tax increases would be necessary to preserve the economy.  The voters couldn't handle that truth.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, championship-winning quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, kneeled while most others on his team stood during the national anthem.  Setting aside that a national anthem has nothing to do with a football game, Kaepernick knelt in protest.  He was protesting the large swath of racism in this country, police brutality against African-Americans in particular, or both.  Kaepernick was soon benched, dropped from the team, and despite spending all of every year keeping himself in excellent condition, and wanting a spot on a team, has been black-balled from American football.  Many teams have needed, and hired, quarterbacks since then, and almost all of them have been unsuccessful.  But no one will touch Kaepernick.  Because Americans, and football fans, can't handle the truth about Kaepernick's protest.  And setting aside what we generally like to claim is our commitment to the US Constitution and law and order, the plain fact of the matter is that Kaepernick was, and still is, right.

Chris Christie Rips Into Hostile Crowd at GOP Summit (msn.com)  Erstwhile Trump enabler and sycophant, and now Trump critic, Chris Christie found the crowd at the GOP Summit to be hostile.  There was no mention of what Christie said, unless the complaint about him was just that he was no longer a Trump enabler and sycophant, but when the crowd booed him and tried to silence him, he said "The problem is you fear the truth.  You want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear."  And there it is again.  Even if someone argued that whatever Christie said wasn't the truth, the fact is that Americans can't handle hearing anything that doesn't comport with their presumptions.  (And frankly, if I had to choose what was more likely true -- something said by Donnie Trump, or some different thing said by more or less anyone else -- it wouldn't be a very hard choice to make.  Yeah, absolutely, I'll bet money that whatever Donnie says is wrong.)

It's a longer list, and we've been through various other parts of it: whether or not someone is "pro-life," whether or not the "Second Amendment" has anything to do with guns, whether or not the founders, and the "Founding Fathers," of this country intended it to be religious/Christian, etc.  But the fundamental fact is that Americans "can't handle the truth."  What makes these truths Americans can't handle more tragic is that they're either very clearly and explicitly stated, or they're obvious.  But Americans can't handle them anyway.

An Inability to Read, an Inability to Comprehend, Presumed Other Intellectual Impairments, and a Breathtaking Disrespect for the Principles of This Country and Its "Founding Fathers."

It started recently with Antonin Scalia and his stooges.  Scalia decided that the "Second Amendment" to the Constitution, that says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," had nothing to do with militias.  Yeah, it says it's about militias, but Scalia et al decided that whoever wrote that didn't really mean it, or didn't know what they were talking about.  He didn't say they were all intoxicated with something, but he might have thought so.  For Scalia, neither the "Amendment" nor the relevant Federalist Paper had anything to do with what they very clearly stated.

And now, there's this: “Christianity Will Be the Law”: High-Profile Advocate for Ending the Separation of Church and State Is Well Acquainted With Speaker Mike Johnson (msn.com).

Where the "First Amendment" "clearly states that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,'" some suggest that the "Amendment" might clearly state that, but it doesn't remotely mean it.  The way Mike Johnson and David Barton "read" this "Amendment," what it really means, although it says the opposite, is that the Union will(/did) without question make a law (not quoted, but supposedly, according to people like Johnson and Barton, overwhelmingly tacit) imposing religion on Americans.  And that religion is Christianity, and the choice Americans are, according to Johnson and Barton, allowed to make is which branch of Christianity.  (If you've never listened to Emo Philips' religion joke, I very highly recommend it, so you know which choices Johnson and Barton have decided you have.  Apparently, according to Philips, they're a lot more restricted than you think they are.) Barton says "We would best understand the actual context of the 'First Amendment' by saying 'Congress shall make no law establishing one Christian denomination as the national denomination.'"  How does Barton know this?  Is he over 250 years old, and was he one of the "Founding Fathers?"

So, here's the question: the US Constitution and its amendments are straightforward.  They're not subtle.  How have Johnson and Barton, and Scalia, read them so dramatically differently than they were written?  Or, did they bother to read them at all?  Johnson, for example, is said to believe that despite extensive science and geology, he believes the earth is 6000 years old.  Frankly, I don't mind if Johnson believes that.  He can believe that there's such a thing as "god," or Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy, or that the Holocaust didn't really happen, or anything he wants.  The question is what beliefs like these have to do with anyone else.

Barton says that the "'Founding Fathers' were orthodox, evangelical Christians."  I don't know what leads him to think so, but I gather he's not including the atheists among them.  Yeah, oops.

If Johnson and Barton endeavor to get their wishes, what do they propose to impose about women's rights, including the right to vote?  And get educated?  As far as I know, Amy Barrett agrees with Johnson and Barton.  But she got extensively educated, agreed to be a judge, and is now a Supreme Court Justice.  Why isn't she serially barefoot and pregnant, with a couple dozen children, giving all that intellectual stuff up, and tearing up her voter registration?  It would complicate this discussion if we had to consider that some people who adopt a position are hypocrites or dishonest, and say things they don't believe.  Or if they were just unbearably self-centered, and wanted the United States to be a Christian country, because they themselves personally happen to believe in Christianity.

I have said this many times, and I'll say it again: religious people do not understand religion.  They do not understand that religions are called beliefs and faiths, because there's no evidence for any of them, and you just have to believe in them and have faith in them, if you want to.  You can think there's no such thing as "god."  Or you can think there's such a thing as "god," but that Jesus is not the Messiah. Or you can think there is such a thing as "god," and Jesus is the Messiah, but it didn't work out the way you thought you were promised, so now, you're waiting for the "Second Coming."  And you've decided you don't agree with the Rastafarians, and Haile Selassie is not the "Second Coming." Or you can think Jesus is the Messiah, +/- "Second Coming," but Mohammed is not the Prophet of Allah.  Or you can think Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah.  Or you can believe in all the Hindu "gods."  It's fine.  "Knock yourself out."  But understand that this is pleasing and satisfying to you, but it has nothing to do with anyone else.  (Frankly, I think people who believe in the religions are skating on very thin ice, and they sort of know it, and their apprehension, or misery, loves as much company as they can try to corral.)

Almost Everyone Was Wrong Almost All the Time

After WWII, the majority of the world community decided to dedicate a safe home for Jews.  That was right

They considered a number of possible places, and settled on Israel, under heavy lobbying from Theodor Hertzl.  That was complicated, because there were already people living there.  1M Palestinians were displaced from their homes.  Not only did they not want to be displaced, but no neighboring country absorbed them.  That was wrong.

Having essentially lost a decision to the world community, and indirectly to the Jews who first settled Israel in 1948, the aggrieved Palestinians, who were very clearly overpowered, did not accept the state of Israel.  That was wrong.  They were allotted the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which could have been enough for them.

Before terribly long, the new Israeli Jews began to stretch their territory into the West Bank, mostly, and they erected illegal settlements on land designated for the Palestinians.  And some of them attacked Palestinians.  Generally speaking, the state of Israel mistreated the Palestinians, and relegated them to second class citizens.  The word "apartheid" has been used with some frequency.  That was wrong.

All this time, the world community is mostly inclined to express support for the Israelis (wrong) in part at risk of being accused of anti-Semitism (wrong).

The Israelis claim to be counterattacking Hamas (right, if true), but they are destroying extensive structures and people, including things like women and children, and hospitals and ambulance convoys (wrong), while supposedly advising non-Hamas Palestinians to go to south Gaza, where they have no way of getting (wrong).  Egypt has begun letting some, but not nearly enough, non-Hamas Palestinians in (wrong that it's not enough) so that Israel can continue destroying north Gaza (wrong).

At the same time, some countries, like ours, has tried to get provisions and other life supports to the civilians in north Gaza (right), but the Israelis won't allow them/us (wrong).  Shortly after the October 7 Hamas attack, Netanyahu said openly that it would take the Palestinians "generations" to recover from what the Israelis intended to do to them.  Clearly, Netanyahu was not talking only about Hamas (wrong).

It is possible that between the advocates of one country and the advocates of another, the middle east is on the verge of exploding, because no one is willing to intervene.  The last person who intervened (successfully) in the middle east was Jimmy Carter, who brokered peace between Israel and Egypt.  But Carter is way too old, and in hospice now, and no one else is motivated enough and "man" enough.  And everyone now is distracted by the political "optics" (wrong).