Last night was “garbage night” in our rural neighborhood. A beautiful night, strangely insect free, made taking out the garbage cans as great an experience as taking out the garbage cans can be. I dragged some cans and boxes up the driveway; my spouse also dragged up a can. It was a shared experience, but not one that we need to share. Basically whoever remembers that it is “garbage night” puts the cans by the mailbox, and whoever is out by the mailbox the next day drags them back down the driveway. For all the years of our marriage, we’ve simply taken on the task at hand, one carrying out when the other is otherwise occupied. Mutual volunteerism.


But there are all those old stereotypes of women “assigning” the task to men. The task is bothersome but necessary in a world that produces so much garbage while simultaneously trying to clean itself up for the neighborhood. So, we understand that in some households taking out the garbage is a chore that sometimes leaves the occupants miffed. The miffing comes for two different reasons: One miffs that the task is his; the other miffs that she has to tell him to do it. At least, that’s the stereotype.


Two online headlines caught my attention this morning. The first is “Can humans ever understand how animals think?” By Adam Kirsch. The second is “CNN: Women marrying themselves as a symbolic expression of self-love” by Katherine Hamilton.*
You’re going to ask now, “What can the two have in common?”


First, if there’s any animal whose thinking is beyond complete understanding, that animal is the human one. Second, proof of the last statement lies in the second title.


So, I learned a new word today: Sologamy. And as a man, I’m perplexed by the female brains that engage in its practice. Marrying oneself seems to be fraught with as many problems as it is with solutions. The problems include taking out the garbage on garbage night. The solution is that there can be no argument about who is responsible for the task.


The woman who marries herself—and if you read the article, you’ll see she goes through the whole ceremony thing—has vowed to stay with herself for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health, till death undoes her. This is one marriage in which one spouse never outlives the other. I assume that none of these public ceremonies is a simple elopement. Why run away, after all, when you can buy an expensive dress and throw an elaborate party so you can walk down some aisle to greet yourself? (Are there mirrors included in this ceremony? Does the bride kiss the bride’s reflection? So many questions…)


Certainly, the movement of those seeking to marry themselves is a logical progression of our times—or at least of our occidental affluent times. Selfies galore, pics of what we are about to eat at a restaurant, tens of thousands of pics and videos on our phones, every moment captured for a memory chip so full it has to be supplemented by the Cloud: This is the contemporary world in which westerners live (I can’t speak for those in societies with less affluence and more adherence to tradition). Are we so enamored of our selves that we have become modern Narcissuses? Or are we narcissistic because we have been convinced that we are victims incapable of dealing with injuries of any kind, believing as we do that the Cosmos has handed us specifically a bad life that requires some spiraling inward for solace?


Whatever the motivation of women who marry themselves, they still face the problem of taking out the garbage. The seemingly “ugly” parts of life, the unwanted but necessary chores, remain. We all have to deal with “bad hands,” bad events, sometimes even outright evil people. And whereas it is true that all such episodes can leave lasting marks on the hippocampus, they do not have to drive us to acts that defy both common sense and reasonable social norms.


What has brought us to this seeming aberration other than our inability to understand how the human animal thinks? Or why it thinks the way it does? Should we embark on a longterm study of sologamists? What would we discover? That they live marriages that are argument-free? That they tend to have many nights-out until their friends are all occupied with their own marriages? That they have a lower divorce rate than traditionally married couples?


Did the rise of the modern world in which we do not grow our own food, have more luxuries than ancient kings could dream of, and wallow in more idleness and leisure than 200,000 years of humans have had bring us to this point? Should we blame people like Robert Burton for starting us down the path of self-wallowing with his 1628 book Anatomy of Melancholy, a book whose culmination in our times is excessive concern for feelings, especially hurt feelings? Should we point to Freud for initiating in our culture a new quest, the quest for Identity in a burgeoning population? Or is sologamy merely the natural outgrowth of teenage confusion enhanced by confused mentors and acquaintances who “never found themselves”?


See, I guess I’m one of those who cannot understand how the human animal thinks or why the human animal thinks the way it does. People wanting to assert their Identity have for generations adopted various fashions and rejected commonality. Teens in Goth black, bikers acting tough, gang members defying reasonable law, and professors in tweed jackets—we humans are a strange lot because of our need to be different as a way to establish Identity. And now, we find ourselves marrying ourselves.


I’m befuddled. I’ll never understand the human animal.






*https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/may/30/can-humans-ever-understand-how-animals-think and.https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/30/cnn-women-marrying-themselves-as-symbolic-expression-of-self-love/  Both accessed May 31, 2023.

Addenda aren't a recommended way of making thoughts complete. They (like their relatives the postscripts) indicate the need to say, "Oh! Shoot, I forget to say (or add) that...." A need for an addendum might indicate a shortcoming in planning the main body of an essay or letter. Anyway, here's proof that I didn't fully complete the thought of the previous blog.

There's an interesting parallel between government officials and their constituents and coral polyps and algae. Corals live symbiotically with zooxanthellae (algae). The zooxanthellae provide food for the polyps while the polyps give the algae a place to live. So, algae are important to the polyps. But not all algae are important. Those algae that blanket a coral reef actually kill by smothering (not in the sense of covering a victim's mouth and nose with a pillow as in the movies). One can think of the analog I'm drawing by labeling constituents as polyps and officials as the two kinds of algae, those necessary for the survival of individuals in a society and those that choke off the individualism of those constituents. 'Nough said. Addendum over. 

Coral reefs grow in clear warm water. They can be threatened by churned up sediment and algal blooms that cover the rather helpless stationary polyps that sit and wait for food to pass by. They aren’t completely defenseless, however; they have a trustworthy army of maintainers that remove algae. Sea urchins. In the eastern Mediterranean, black sea urchins.


But currently, spiky little sea urchins seem to be suffering from an epidemic in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Yep, there’s an as yet inexplicable die-off of the critters that clean coral reefs. The pathogen hasn't been identified as of this writing. 


Landlocked Sea Urchins


I guess I’m the equivalent of sea urchins on land. Algae and mold have been insidiously covering my wooden deck that lies in the shadow of tall trees both deciduous and evergreen on my wooded property. Sections of the deck of treated wood have been battling shade-sheltered organisms for a couple of decades, particularly when all those tall trees are in full leaf. If I don’t do something, my deck ecology will take a turn for the worse, becoming a surface that is slippery when wet, for example. And it will begin decaying as unseen fungi and maybe lichens take advantage of what algae have started to do; lichens affording the fungi and algae to do their destructive work in unison. I blame myself for putting off staining or waterproofing the deck for years. “Hey, I’ll get around to it—maybe in August when dry weather is more or less guaranteed.” And then August turns inevitably to the following August and the one after that.


Taking Charge


WELL, no more! Yep. I stained one section of the deck yesterday. Looks all right, but in the process I discovered some boards I’ll have to replace before someone steps on a rotten one and falls. Merely discovering the need for maintenance doesn’t, however, translate to actual maintenance.


That’s life when you put yourself in charge of stuff. Maintenance is key, endless maintenance. But on occasion we transfer our responsibility to maintain to some trusted “urchin.” Ultimately we alone must care for our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and our political freedoms and well-being, but sometimes we put the job out for hire: Physical fitness trainers, teachers, counselors, and politicians become those urchins. Yet, transferring responsibility for maintenance is a chancy thing; giving away responsibility means having to trust others to do the jobs we relinquish. Look what is happening to the eastern Mediterranean’s reefs right now: The urchins can’t do their job because they are infected with some unknown pathogen.


Trust Interrupted


Trust a trainer to maintain your body? You know that particular maintenance requires a 24/7 janitor, not a part-time mentor. A teacher or counselor? That’s maintenance requiring your going to the maintainer, a cost in both time and money. How about a politician—or any politician currently responsible for maintaining your political freedoms and the country? You’ve put off staining that deck for decades. And why? Because they promised they would do it for you. Have they? Or have they become either willingly or unwillingly subjected to debilitating pathogens? 


Pathogens, Pathogens, Everywhere


The pathogens are out there, decimating the very maintainers we trusted. They aren’t killing organisms. They are, however, insidious, and they have interrupted the maintenance. Those pathogens are creeping socialism, overspending, kowtowing to special interests from big business to the culturally fashionable idea du jour, and corrupting self aggrandizement, not to mention (but here’s the mention) the tendency to believe that as a politician, one is somehow more important than constituents and deserving of a lucrative job that is devoid of accountability save for occasional re-elections. 


The very sea urchins into which we put our trust for maintaining the health of the country, to keep the stationary constituent polyps clean and safe, are subject to those and other pathogens.


Stain Your Deck


Take responsibility. Stain your deck. Today. Stain your deck. The algae are insidious. 

Sisyphus, condemned in Greek mythology to roll a boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down, renewing his endless task, is the perfect model for our times—or at the minimum for businesses and government agencies in our times.


Take the current kerfuffle over Bud Light and the Dodgers. Not aware? Well, Budweiser steeped itself in controversy by having a declared “trans” person advertise Bud Light, causing the majority of its consumers to switch beers. And the Dodgers? They invited, disinvited, and re-invited an anti-Catholic trans group called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to appear at the stadium during their Alphabet Night, causing uproar among the team’s many Catholic fans and leading to a million-buck boycott campaign by CatholicVote.


The Equity Boulder


So, Budweiser, the Sisyphus of Beers, and the Dodgers, the Sisyphus of sports teams, tried to woo back irate customers by offering appeasements: Budweiser trying out a campaign of “Folds of Honor” and the Dodgers trying some version of a Christian Pride Night (though that term, my invention, would be a definite oxymoron in light of Christ’s call for humility). “Here we go, Sisyphus. Here we go, Sisyphus.” Or should the cheer be “Defense, Defense, Defense”? For certainly, both Budweiser and the Dodgers now have to defend themselves and their actions. Roll that rock back up the hill. Anyway, both businesses, now plus Target and some clothing companies, find themselves trying to undo what some manager thought would put them in a light favorable to a specific audience—but not their traditional audiences. The problem is that at their outset years ago, all these companies were in the business of business, you know, selling as much of a product as it could to make an ever-increasing profit. They have now become manifestations of Seinfeld’s famous Soup Nazi, the chef who had a good and popular product, but who limited the sale to those who followed his strict code; otherwise, “No soup for you.” No beer for you, no baseball games for you, no off-the-rack clothes for you—unless you are willing to acquiesce to a specific perspective even though it might run counter to your long-held views and the very reasons you shopped where you shopped and bought what you bought, beer, tickets, clothes and stuff.


So, what happened to these businesses? They find themselves condemned to rolling a perspective out only to find they have to roll it back by trying to roll a counter perspective uphill to their former customers. Can anyone say “Boycott”? Can anyone say “Gross miscalculation”?


Taffeta Bullets


And the same can be said for government agencies like the Pentagon and particularly the US Navy that are now seemingly immersed in gender education while enemies of the state are immersed in learning ways to break our things and kill us. Gender soldiers? Isn’t the primary purpose of our military the prevention of actual physical harm to the citizenry and the nullification of any enemy foreign or domestic? Sisyphus in uniform is still Sisyphus relegated to Enslavement to the Boulder of Gender Equity.


Boulders, Boulders, Everywhere Boulders, and Most Are Artificial


Given what some government managers see as a way to mesh their agencies with “the times,” federal and state agencies find themselves pushing boulders up hills, such as Mt. Climate Change, Mt. Electric Cars, Mt. Gender Indoctrination, and Mt. Title IX. All those mountains are so steep that the gravity of antithesis, a natural force, makes the task increasingly difficult, increasingly controversial, and increasingly futile, ineffective, and inimical to the perspectives of the constituents—call them consumers of government controlled programs.


Title IX


Take that Title IX business, also known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. Its purpose was to provide greater opportunities for women in education. It resulted in the proliferation of women’s college sports teams. In some universities, the athletic departments had to either eliminate or downgrade certain men’s sports to meet the needs of “equal opportunity,” meaning that scholarships previously spent on male athletes went to the growing population of female athletes. AND THEN THE TRANSGENDER BOMB HIT. Goodbye women’s sports for females—sorry, that is goodbye “cis” females only. Now women must compete with biological males. The boulder that Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink worked so hard to roll up the hill, rolled down. And right now there are people in government who are pushing a new rock uphill, the rock of “It doesn’t matter whether you were born male and are stronger and faster; you get to compete with humans born female.” “Go team, go, but shade your eyes in the locker room if you don’t want to see naked males in your shower.”


The Mountain Called Climate Change


Do I have to point out that humans have cooked with fire for maybe all of their 200,000-plus years or that even pre-Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens species might also have cooked their food? But Bud-Light-like, some in government want to ban gas stoves. How’s that boulder moving uphill? What will replace those stoves? Wood-burning fireplaces in New York City polluting the air as it was polluted during the time of coal furnaces in every home? There go the forests whose burning will increase the dreaded carbon dioxide and denude landscapes that will become victims of erosion. Or will the gas stoves be replaced by the boulder of green energy technologies with their attendant downhill roll caused by the gravity of more mining of rare earths and more overfilled landfills with toxins and windmill blades—all while being subject to the downhill pull of bad weather like cloudy days and calm air? Nevertheless, state and local government Sisyphuses will roll their special agenda boulders based on the cultural movements du jour up hills of their own making until they realize that the weight is too great; the boulder will roll back down, and they will be required as necessity dictates to roll another boulder, like burning fossil fuels to supplement insufficient energy networks, back up the hill.


Horace Mann Would Be Horrified


And what of education? Could there be anymore pertinent example of Sisyphus in action? Decade after decade some new group of Sisyphuses tries to “improve” upon simple hard work, analytical thinking, and, yes, rote learning, by pushing some “new” boulder uphill. Critical race theory comes to mind; its an equity boulder that ignores the commonsense reality of individual differences and the dignity of individuality. You’re white, you’re corrupt. You’re black, you’re victimized. The so-called Outcomes Based Education (OBE) program, one of those “improvements” rolled out in the 1980s required schools to re-administer a test when 70% of a class failed to make at least 70% on that test. Yes, the boulder of learning pushed up the hill by students who made a 100% on the first test rolled back down the hill, requiring them to roll it back up by retaking the test they aced. Fortunately, that rock of OBE rapidly fell down the hill of pedagogy. 


Education managers and their proponent Sisyphuses recently discovered that a special interest foisted on the population of “consumers” who desire a “plain and good” product leads to an inevitable downhill roll. The gravity of commonsense centered on equality of opportunity makes the boulder of equity very, very heavy, especially since in most instances it inordinately favors favoritism and instilled laziness in those told they are victims who deserve an easy or even a free ride. Eventually, as education managers  who are caught up in the fashion of the times discover, the Gravity of Commonality pulls the boulders of exclusive special interests back down the hill of humanity.


Is There Any Hope That the Rock Will Remain at the Top?


Can the Sisyphuses of our time not learn this lesson? Probably not. For just as the boulder reaches the bottom of futility, so another Sisyphus tries to push a new boulder up the same hill. Condemned to constant repetition, we humans find ourselves incapable of dealing with the avalanche of boulders, even after we caution new Sisyphuses about rolling the boulders of special agendas uphill.


The Modern Sisyphuses Are an Angry Lot


Disturbed that everyone won’t help push the next special agenda boulder uphill, the modern Sisyphuses become angry and vindictive. They shout whatever derogatory term they can at those who won’t help roll the rock they choose to roll: Racist, Misogynist, Fascist, Supremicist, Homophobe, Transphobe, and…I can’t name them all, mostly because there appears to be a new special interest group each week.
    But you have to have a bit of empathy for all the Sisyphuses. They are addicted to rolling their boulders uphill, regardless of the inevitable downhill roll. Caught in an unavoidable repetition, they continue to push the boulders of conformity upward to the top, trying to pass over a mountain of chaotic individuals who just won’t help.




*About the title: For whatever reasons scientists deemed necessary to abandon the designations for the time before and after Christ’s birth (Before Christ, BC, and after Christ, AD, or Anno Domini, “in the year of [our] Lord”) and replace both with BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era), they failed to realize that their new designations still centered on the birth of Christ. We can blame Johannes Kepler for starting the usage of “common era,” but it snowballed in twentieth century academic papers, when it was anathema to give any hint of religious affiliation lest one be dismissed as “not a serious scientist.” But using both BCE and CE still makes the birth of Christ a special moment in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history. What does the supposed secularization accomplish? An objectivity devoid of any religious connotations while still centering time’s division—which is, indeed, arbitrary and an artifact of Christianity and the calculations of Dinoysius Exiguus—on that birth. Why not, if scientists wanted to be secular, designate some other event as a “starting and ending point” or “pivotal point in time”? Say, the birth of Rome, for example. After all, the Romans did that. They would not have labeled the death of Caesar as the Ides of March, 44 BC or even BCE. Figure it out: For the Romans, the first year was by our reckoning 753 BC (BCE). Forty-four from 753 puts Caesar’s assassination in the Roman year 709 AUC (Ab urbe condita or Anno urbis contitae, essentially designations for “in the year since the city’s founding” or “from the city’s founding”). Ah! Will wokeness ever have a rational reckoning? Why have any such division or pivotal point if there were records of more ancient people, such as the Egyptians or even older Sumerians along the timeline of humanity? Ramses II was a king. Why not use his coronation as a start for a “common era”? That would make this year 3302, not 2023.

The decision to retire is forced upon us by decreasing abilities, arthritic knees, for example, that prevent one from running down steps—and that make even walking down steps painful. It’s been the bane of all athletes; someday retirement is inevitable; reflexes slow regardless of attempts to maintain brain and body; muscles become less flexible; occasionally, mind forgets what mouth started: “Where was I? Shoot, it was on the tip of my tongue. Hold on; it’ll come back to me.”


Don’t I recall that even the late great tenor Luciano Pavarotti failed to hit a high note at La Scala, prompting the loggionisti to boo him? I suppose the greater the reputation earned in youth, the worse the penalty for failing to maintain what once was. And the worst of penalties seems to be pity; or maybe, others making excuses and ignoring the consequences and the performance.


But decline seems to be as inconsequential in politics as failed policy is. Diane Feinstein is the prime example. And maybe Joe Biden is, also. Both have shown themselves to be a bit forgetful and confused at times—not what one wants to see in leadership, especially on a stage with a worldwide audience. Certainly, the latter seems to apply to Feinstein’s much younger and stroke-and-depression-afflicted Fetterman. But who could suggest retirement for the young? Who among supporters will acknowledge that brains after strokes aren’t what they were before strokes? It’s no shame on Fetterman that he continues a wobbly political career; the shame lies in those whose desire for power or hate for political opposition encourage the lame horse to compete in the Preakness.


We’re not talking Tommy John surgery here. This isn’t a matter of coming back from an ACL tear to play football. Once the brain goes, no one truly returns to form. Politics as much as any other human endeavor, is a brain game that manifests power over the citizenry, and it requires anticipating the actions of enemies foreign and domestic, as well as using or allocating resources derived from the commonwealth. Ideally, the job requires quick and rational thinking, an analytical mind, and foresight.


It seems, however, that the Press so enamored with the story of Tom Brady’s retirement-not-retirement-retirement can’t wrap their own fatigued intellects around the story of Feinstein, Fetterman, Biden, or any other aging or ostensibly incapacitated politician from the Democrat political party. And it doesn’t matter, it seems, that Feinstein, Fetterman, and most likely Biden will merely echo the words written by staff members who see themselves as subtle manipulators of the elderly or mentally wounded leaders they assist. They get, after all, a job in the most prestigious political house on the planet and a salary that a high-level company manager gets after years of striving and accomplishing. "Hey, someone has to prop up these people. Why not me?"


My own aging brain just remembered that Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s after he left office, but as “old” as he was during his terms, he still wrote his own Saturday radio speeches and exhibited a wit and ability to entertain critical reporters’ questions without a show of grouchy old man. I suppose true wit is the best indicator of intact mental facility. I am still waiting for Feinstein, Fetterman, and Biden to show such wit.


Not everyone is capable of wit and wisdom, of course. Nor is inflexibility the bane of aging brains exclusively. All of us possess a certain fixation on singular perspectives. All of us show a bit of inflexibility in our moral and political philosophies. The only cure seems to lie in humility gained from experience: If what hasn’t worked as we anticipated is still our mode of thought and action, then we are as infirm as the demonstrably infirm. That we don’t retire old thinking that produced more pain than gain, is a mark of that inflexibility—regardless of our age or affliction.


Is pride, that sin of sins, the motivator? Is hubris the reason that both old and infirm politicians seek an interminable office? Of course, there are the perks like Feinstein’s two-decade-long driver with links to the Chinese. There are the staff members who serve as an army of go-betweens to ward off challenging questions and answer constituents’ letters. And then there are salaries and junkets and dinners galore. Why retire from such a life regardless of effectiveness or ineffectiveness? One gets locked into a term for two, four, or six years of financial security, fame, and power.


And much of what a politician, aged or young, does is done without personal consequence. Take that health care plan passed under Obama as an example. Didn’t Congress opt out, favoring the benefits provided under a separate plan?


I suppose there have always been people with declining abilities in leadership positions. The Merovingian royalty comes to mind; King George III, also. But the difference between elected officials and entrenched royalty lies in the nature of their office, one by primogeniture and the other by election. So, if those who show declining ability are re-elected, then the real mental infirmity seems to lie in the electorate regardless of its diverse ages.


Tom Brady can still throw a football with great accuracy and distance. He can still recognize defenses and run through a receiver sequence. That’s great. God bless him with more years of physical prowess and mental ability. But he’s probably exerted great discipline and exercise to continue a high level of performance. Yet, even he seems to recognize that “there is a time to call it quits.” No doubt, however, some of his fans would like to see him still calling and executing plays on the turf. 


The football of American fate lies in the hands of less capable quarterbacks at this time. The signal callers get their plays from the sidelines. Assistant coaches are running the game, trying to find plays that keep players with declining skills in the game. And the fans keep supporting the team.  

If you are an American, you are probably both unaware of and unconcerned about violence in Balochistan (aka Balūchistān). Whaaaat? Where?


Okay, it’s a far off place. Does “near the place where America recently and catastrophically withdrew its military” help? No? How about east of Iran and Afghanistan and north of the Arabian Sea? Still drawing a blank? Does "between the Sulaiman Range on the east and the Makran, Khan, and Chagai on the west" help? Come on, something in there has to ring a bell from junior high geography. How about the name Baloch? Isn’t that the bad guy’s name in the first Indiana Jones movie? Well, the Baloch people, also found in Iran, are one of the major groups who inhabit Balochistan, which has its counterpart in Iran’s Baluchistan. Somewhat tribal in nature, not industrial at all by western standards. No state university until 1970. Poor transportation network. Lots of sheep—the wool’s good, by the way. They grow some wheat and sorghum that they call jowl. Rice, too. But sheep are the focus, so textiles are important. Anyway, confused? Sorry I brought it up. Did I say there was no university there until 1970? Well, this land of shepherds didn’t have one until 1970.


I mentioned Balochistan because I was thinking that the recent violence between army outposts and rebels might be of concern simply because they are people with differences, even in a country with a limited cultural diversity. And in some very recent attacks, at least one soldier and four separatist rebels died. Surely and regardless of your unfamiliarity with the Pakistani province and its politics, you can empathize with the families of the dead. Couldn’t the differences be resolved peacefully? Who associates shepherds with violence? Did I mention Balochistan had no state university until 1970?


“Well, what can you expect from ‘people over there’ and in the Middle East? They aren’t like us,” you say. “Americans are a sophisticated lot. We’re civilized. We can resolve differences in a rational setting of debate. We've had universities since the founding of Harvard.”


Actually, there’s a link, and it has to do with the dark side of human nature, the side that just can’t get along with the other side and that seeks unity of thought through violence. A recent American story comes to mind, not surprisingly nowadays from the world of Academia, the supposed haven of differences. You’ve probably heard or read about the Hunter College (CUNY) professor who seems to have “gone berserk” over some students advocating their pro-life stance. (Then, again, if you haven’t heard about the Balochistan violence…)


So, here’s the story. Art professor Shellyne Rodriquez, miffed that students would sit at a table covered by pamphlets about abortion and pro-life, approached the table, did a bit of scolding, and then knocked the pamphlets onto the floor. To imitate Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi: “No free speech for you.” She said something about “triggering her students,” and that “this [The table? The pamphlets?] is violence.” To which, by the way, a student at the table said, “Sorry about that” and “This is about abortion.” But the story doesn’t end there. A NY Post reporter and his cameraman went to Rodriquez’s apartment to ask her about the incident. She opened the door, put a machete to the reporter’s throat, and threatened to chop him up. The two left, only to be followed into the street by Rodriquez, still wielding the machete. *


“Come on. Are you trying to connect the incident in New York with the violence in…what’s that…Balloonistan?”


Balochistan. B-a-l-o-c-h-i-s-t-a-n. Kind of…Well, consider that the product of the two encounters, the one between the separatists and the army and the one between Rodriquez and first the students and then the reporter involved violence—though no one died in the latter encounters. (Why, by the way, does an art professor in New York have a machete? Does she need to hack her way through dense foliage to get to class? Maybe that’s the instrument of her artwork…I can see hacking a log to sculpt a dog)


“Far stretch. There’s really no connection between the New York and Balochistan incidents.”


No, there’s a link. Humans who don’t get their way can behave very badly, regardless of their supposed level of civilization. Maybe the Baloch people are “primitive” and unsophisticated by New York Academics’ standards—though the academics might actually wear their wool or step on their carpets in their studio apartments. But reactions to differences are rather similar in both places and among both groups. It’s difficult for many humans to accept differences, and that especially applies to belief systems and, ironically, to academics.


So, the students at that table full of pamphlets believe that abortion in general is an evil, and Rodriguez seems to believe that the mere profession of that belief is “violence,” her term, not mine. And the irony is that the students she attacked verbally merely stood by while she berated them, just as the reporter stood quietly while she threatened to chop him up with her machete touching his neck. Hmmm. Bet, given the recent history of professors threatening students, she has her supporters. ** Bet there’s a group that sees nothing wrong in her threatening violence and stopping free speech from occurring on a university campus. And what of Hunter College of CUNY? Its professed mission includes seeking “students from all backgrounds.”


Seems that the Hunter College administration appears to have taken no action against Rodriguez's berating the students and throwing their pamphlets on the floor. But it did, probably because of the video and the possibility of a charge filed by the reporter, fire Rodriguez. I don’t know her, but if her actions against the students are an indication of her personality, then I might guess that her current emotion involves “fuming” and justifying. She’ll probably get support from the like-minded, the “sophisticated” academics who see free speech that is not conforming speech as a threat of, if not actual, violence.


The data change by year, but about a year ago, attacks on pro-life entities like Catholic Churches, pregnancy centers, and political organizations numbered over 100. *** Mind you, the professed purpose of these organizations is maintaining the sanctity of life and the support of pregnant women. If humans can attack other humans just because they support “life,” then how are the sophisticated New Yorkers with all their paved roads, fine restaurants, and many academic institutions different from the shepherds from Balochistan who only got a state university in 1970? Wonder how the Balochistani academics act when they encounter differences in opinion. Wonder whether the academics in that young university for shepherds--in contrast, Hunter College goes back about 150 years--perpetrate any violence against their students. **** 


Is Academia in America a haven of differences where peaceful debate reigns? Or are all those mission statements proclaiming the virtues of difference just an attempt to pull the Balochistani wool over our eyes?


Shepherds and academics. Seems there is very little difference regardless of what in their hubris academics might believe.


*Emily Crane and Georgette Roberts. May 25, 2023, for the NY Post online at https://nypost.com/2023/05/25/nyc-professor-shellyne-rodriguez-surrenders-after-threatening-post-reporter/


**https://www.westernjournal.com/professor-faces-years-prison-allegedly-bloodying-face-anti-vax-mandate-student/ ; https://www.thecollegefix.com/professor-threatens-to-fail-student-who-balked-at-anti-trump-assignment-college-wont-say-if-it-punished-him/


***Jonah McKeown. July 21, 2022, for CNA online at https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251553/map-vandalism-attacks-continue-at-pro-life-centers-across-us


****Shah Meer Baloch. October 19, 2019, for The Guardian online at https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/22/university-vice-chancellor-stands-aside-over-blackmail-claims-in-pakistan Sadia Baloch (obviously, a common name and one shared by the article’s author) said, “We live in a tribal society and no girl would ever come forward to report harassment for fear of being killed in the name of honour. The harassers have used this fact to harass and blackmail girls when found mingling with male students, and threatened to send the compromising video footage to their families.”

Grief is difficult for most of us. I know of some who continue to grieve many years after losing a loved one. Like so many others, I have felt the pang of loss and a wish that maybe I should have spent more time with this or that deceased friend or loved one. Did I say enough? Did the deceased one tell me all he or she wanted to say? Did I miss out on wisdom or advice that might have made me a better me? I also realize the futility of wishing for more time, quality time. Gone means “gone” even though the permanence of the departure is difficult to accept, not so much rationally, but definitely emotionally.


Before he died, Gene tried a seance in an effort to reconnect to his deceased wife. Some others I know claim to have seen apparitions of lost loved ones. Letting go is among the most difficult of human conditions, but it might not be limited to our species. Yes, it’s human to grieve, but I’ve seen animals grieve, also, and I believe strongly that I’m not just anthropomorphizing them. It seems that more than one species embodies a mythical Orpheus seeking Eurydice; many, if not all animals, seek in some way the return of a lost one.


The Anecdote


Take a starling I once saw risk its own life over another starling hit by a car. I was on my way to the university one spring day when the driver in front of me unavoidably hit a bird that flew low and directly into his car’s path. The stricken bird flopped onto the road just as I passed, steering to avoid squashing it. For whatever reason, I looked in my rearview mirror to see the bird, most likely dead I thought and irretrievably lost to the planet. As I looked, another starling flew onto the road and stood over it, flapping a wing, apparently trying to revive the stricken bird. “Come on; get up. You can’t just lie here in the road.” A whole scenario of drama ran through my mind. Now, yes, I’m attributing a human reaction to the starling. With no traffic on the neighborhood country road, I paused to watch. The starling remained over the dead bird, flew off briefly, and then returned to perform the same action before flying off, I assumed, for good—for that I didn’t hang around, the comedy of my life driving me out of that theater and away from the tragedy I stopped to watch.


Anthropomorphizing? Projecting human reactions onto the bird? Maybe. I know birds can use tools, build complex nests, protect their young, and partner as doves do, for life. But the act of the bird standing over the stricken bird convinced me so thoroughly of a parallel between what humans do after a loss and what that starling did, that I—as this retelling indicates—continue to remember the event. The mnemonic device of driving over the same road almost every spring occasionally brings the incident to mind. And since that incident many years ago, I have witnessed other birds seem to act similarly in the presence of a loss.


Was P. T. Barnum or Whoever Right?


And dogs? Surely, at some time you have witnessed the “depression” in a dog that has lost an owner or a companion dog. Moping and not eating seem to be clues that sadness has somehow overwhelmed a once cheerful pet. Are we just anthropomorphizing? Should anyone who claims to be an animal psychologist just put a small-print disclaimer on the office shingle? Is anyone who hires an animal psychologist just another “sucker” in the words ascribed to P. T. Barnum? With eight billion of us, all destined to live lives too short for wisdom, maybe one really is born every minute. Animal grief and depression? Certainly, there’s enough evidence from history to demonstrate that gullibility is a human characteristic exhibited in both holding a seance and ascribing human nature to other species. Nevertheless, call me a “sucker.” Animals do seem to have psyches that respond in human-like ways to loss (But I wouldn’t befriend a shark).


Enter the Age of Computers.


And now, given the nature of our nature that drives some to seek profit from every human experience in the mode ascribed to Barnum, I discover that an AI company is offering seances for loved ones. Reported by Maggie Harrison for Futurism online, the story centers on a company called Seance AI that offers communication with the dead. Maggie says she tried it, finding that after she gave the AI information about her lost loved one, it carried on a brief conversation that was for a brief time a little reassuring. But in her attempt to pursue more conversation, she found that the AI merely reiterated the information she supplied, making the experience stilted. *


The Nature of Grief


Grief is a wave phenomenon like other emotions. It can also collapse into a particle at any moment. As a wave, its recurrent pattern manifests itself in crests and troughs; in cresting, it becomes an isolated particle of obsession. In that dual role, grief imitates the quantum world of duality.


But grief is also like the disturbances we see in the ocean. It can begin as storm waves large enough to sweep some of us toward a rocky headland to be crushed against an unforgiving wall of depression. Fortunately for our species, most who suffer from initial grief know how to swim out of danger or find a lifeguard to pull them to safety, eventually reaching gentler, but never completely placid, waters.


And then, unexpectedly intensifying through memory, the sea of grief responds to the winds of a different storm. Grief can be re-stirred to roughness throughout our lives, those winds being some chance circumstance, some symbolic reminder, or some conversation or self-talk in the quiet of the night. Maybe even some phenomenon we take as an apparition.


The AI Counselor and Clairvoyant


That AI can only briefly and stereotypically bring back the dead reveals its difference from us. First, it cannot understand grief, a complex of emotions sometimes shared and sometimes kept in the recesses of the brain. The sharing that occurs alters the nature of the grief and the psyche of the griever. Second, given the task of taking all recorded correspondence—letters, texts, emails, videos, photos, and audio recordings of the deceased plus those experiences in the memories of those left behind—AI is unlikely to put together a running communication in the indefinite number of likely circumstances and actual historical context humans experience. And third, AI cannot account for or mimic what human grief and empathy do: Unexpectedly renew itself with inexplicable and variable intensity.


At best, AI probably can’t do much more than what that starling did. Could AI develop  algorithms that mimic human grief or its consoling empathy? That’s an enormous task because every grieving person grieves for a specific person known in a variety of contexts, many of them nonverbal; some of them just a brief glance of understanding.


Are we to send in AI Grief Counselors after a traumatic event like a mass shooting? A car accident that takes the life of a classmate? A youth taken by leukemia?


“Grieving With” Requires Algorithms So Complex They Took Billions of Years to Write


Are starlings and humans connected somehow? Is there a relationship of response that goes to the early days of life on the planet, maybe running back more than three billion years? If so, the animal response to death in both “higher” and “lower” organisms shows some unity that might not be just a projection from the human perspective, not an attempt to anthropomorphize. If there is a connection, it stands as evidence of grief’s complexity and animal empathy.


Sometimes one empathetic person sitting beside the grief stricken and quietly holding a hand, is all the support a grieving person needs. No words. Could AI ever mimic that? Is it possible to get such solace from a computer in standby mode? Think about handholding for a moment: It’s not just one kind of physical contact; it involves moving pressure, just the right amount of pressure that says without words, “I’m here for you.” It can be coupled with a look, a lean toward, a hug, and, of course, with a tear in the eye of the empathizer. It might even pass on a hint that the lost one is still around, still communicating through a mutuality born of empathy.


In the Darkness of Computation


There will be others who will try reconnecting through AI seances. P. T. Barnum has assured us of that. Some might even walk away happy and feeling reconnected. I suppose one could say that “if it works, it works.” But in reality, it only works insofar as the grief stricken wants it to work. One could just as easily read a book on grief or some academic article and walk away saying, “Oh, I feel better now.” That is, better until that next storm raises the waves.


If language, spoken language, alone could lessen grief, then the association of human and bird responses to death could easily be dismissed. But I’ll reiterate. Empathy expresses itself in an indefinite—and that means “living”—number of ways. The starling’s response is ultimately unfathomable, even for an animal psychologist, because no one can follow the bird through its later experiences, its sleep, or its memories. If that starling, presumably long dead these many years later, were to fly over the same road this spring now long after the loss, would it, like me, remember? Would it, like me, still feel the loss?


Could AI?


*Harrison: AI Company Says It'll Perform a Seance on Your Dead Loved Ones. Online at
https://futurism.com/ai-seance  Accessed May 23, 2023.

Martha Stewart, 81, wearing a swimsuit and modeling for SI? Harrison Ford, 80, sporting a younger face in his new Indiana Jones movie? Donald, not as nifty looking an octogenarian, a bit arthritic but still capable of moderate physical activity and still writing blogs for his few readers? Will wonders never cease?


As a child just barely past the age of reason in the late 1940s, I asked my dad, who lived to be 97, how long I would live. At the time, he had returned only a few years earlier from surviving the intense battle in Okinawa that took the lives of many of his fellow Marines. People in their sixties, I recall, worn down by the Great Depression and two world wars just “looked older” than many sixty-year olds scampering around in their electric cars in The Villages today. Pickle Ball playing seniors today seem relatively young, but the American male’s lifespan in the late forties was about 68, or ten years shorter than his lifespan today. While watching an episode of Twilight Zone in my youth, I heard a character say something like “I’m an old man; I’m 64.” Given that background, you should know that my dad said that I would probably live to about the year 2000, a year that seemed to my young brain a long way off.


To my older brain, 2000 seems a long way back. I certainly am thankful that I didn’t pass away 23 years ago and that I lived to be as old as vibrant Martha Stewart and swashbuckling Harrison Ford. Of course, I could be hit by a truck today, so I’m somewhat careful to avoid unnecessary risks. I’ve gone to too many funeral homes to pay respects for those who died young not to realize the transitory nature of life and the good fortune to prolong it. I recently saw the passing of two centenarians, friends whose lives were rich and full of goals and vibrant until their last moments. Good for them. They did what so few—though today in increasing numbers—achieved simply by living.


Certainly, Stewart and Ford are entitled to their vanity. They are, as we all know, marketable entities whose marketability requires constant renewal in the public eye. But let’s not kid ourselves: Age only works as long as it works. Anyone who becomes the “oldest living person” isn’t gong to hold that title long. I suppose it’s better to be the “second oldest living person” or someone farther down the list than to be top dog. That first-place trophy isn’t a piece of hardware that sits on the mantel of its recipient for long.


So when those first creaky-bone moments occur or a previously unknown pain surfaces in your nervous system, when you don’t remember where you put your phone or keys or glasses, you’ll understand how remarkably fortunate Martha and Harrison are. No doubt they have experienced some decline as evidenced by some photo touching, but the basics of their young adulthoods are still there in quantities sufficient for minor adjustments to mask. They definitely look good for their age.


But are there any comments more subtly telling than “You look good for your age”? Or, “You’re how old? I would never have guessed.” I suppose “retouching” and “minor adjustments” must be the inevitable fate of all, so there’s no reason to let vanity engender sadness or depression. It’s a common fate for those who survive. Some are just a bit more fortunate than others.


Neither my father nor my mother, who died at age 95, had many wrinkles. He still had his curly hair, albeit turned grey. Certainly, neither of them looked as old as that Twilight Zone actor who claimed old age at 64. If COVID hadn’t taken a chunk of us and slightly reduced the average age, there might be other Stewarts and Fords, and maybe even more Donalds capable of reasonable functioning and looking good at such an advanced age. I hope, however, never to be older than the second oldest person. If I reach that age, you can be sure that I will cheer on the first place person to keep winning that race.

“Customer goes on violent rampage over taco order at DC Chipotle.” That was a May 19 headline in the New York Post. * The guy was upset that his order took longer than he expected. Fortunately, he hurt no one, but he did frighten the server behind the counter. Chipotle: The War Zone. I can see the book and the subsequent movie. No, probably not. There are other risky situations more deserving of coverage, situations that not only pose risks, but also concretize them to the detriment of individuals and groups.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, eruptions, sinkholes, landslides, floods, tornados, hurricanes, straight-line winds, falling trees, heat waves, and cold spells haven’t done you in so far. It’s safe to emerge. What could possibly ruin your day? A trip to Chipotle? What might have happened had you been in Chipotle trying to buy tacos that May Day?

How about a missing 30 tons of ammonium nitrate, the stuff that Timothy McVey used to bomb the Murray Federal Building, killing 168 people in 1995. Yeah. It’s missing. ** Seems that it was shipped via railcar from Cheyenne, but went missing either before or at a rail stop in the Mojave sometime before April 26 this year. Is there some madman, mad group, or terrorist group out there intending harm? Should you be on the alert for a truck full of ammonium nitrate?

Or did it just end up fertilizing some farmland? If it was stolen, it’s a worry, for sure. But maybe not. Dyno Nobel says it’s likely that the railcar had a “leak,” so the stuff just kept dropping out of the car as it traveled. In which case, maybe Whew! Another potential day spoiler not on the horizon. And of course, some train track might now be so well fertilized it will become a thousand-mile garden of weeds.

Natural disasters coupled with human disasters make living chancy at best. The human ones are especially concerning. No one has to live in an earthquake or volcanic zone. No one has to live beneath a potential avalanche.  But all those gang members thinking nothing of firing guns of revenge and neighborhood hegemony make some cities “war zones,” and those are places where people live in great numbers. And all those mass shootings motivated by who knows what’s next on the list of grievances make shopping or going to church or school potentially hazardous. Then there are those intoxicated or high drivers that make an ordinary trip to the pharmacy or a birthday party a potential danger. Did I mention the careless janitor who forgot to put up the “Slippery When Wet” signs outside the restroom door? Well, at least you are perfectly safe in your home. What are the chances of a home invasion in your neighborhood? Just make sure to use the handrail when you descend the stairs—or, if you are the President, ascend them to enter Air Force One. Sometimes trips in the home are as dangerous as trips to Tijuana.

So, how do we deal with the risks we face? Some of us wallow in anxiety: “Something bad will happen.” Some of us wallow in resignation: “Hey, if something happens, it’s just my time.” Some keep their “head on a swivel,” concerned that any moment of laxity might result in an attack. And some ignore or even take risks, climbing an active volcano, for example, climbing an ice wall, or swimming among sharks. In either hubris or ignorance, some of us even ignore travel warnings or refuse to do their State Department homework before selecting a destination. A trip to Sudan or Ukraine might not be a good idea at this time. Certainly, Americans in Russia or China must walk a very narrow line lest they face charges of espionage. Traveling to Wuhan during the coronavirus pandemic or to the Democrat Republic of the Congo during the Ebola outbreak would not have been wise—unless taking needless risk is one’s thing.

We have, if we are attuned to the news, constant reminders that the world is a risky place. But it has always been risky to live. Surviving as you have is worth some gratitude. Maybe it’s just good fortune, but maybe it’s a matter of Providence.

If you are either atheist or agnostic, you probably ascribe your survival in the midst of so much risk to chance. You’ve never been “in the wrong place at the wrong time”; you never leave the casino slots down by much and often walk out a winner. You might even ascribe your good luck to personal intuition or careful planning. But no matter how you frame your good fortune, just because you selected the slot machine or picked the card table doesn’t indicate a rational control over your destiny. Its only hindsight after loss or gain that establishes the validity of perception and insight. “I had a feeling I would win.”

If you are excessively proud, you might even ascribe your survival to your superiority over those less fortunate, less capable, less intelligent. Just be careful in your hubris. Keeping your head in a cloud of pride might lead to a misstep on a loose edge of carpet and a fall down the stairs. You know the old saying in King James English that “pride goeth before the fall.” (Could there be a counter for successful entrepreneurs? Pride goeth before the rise)

If you are a believer, you might ascribe your good luck to Divine Providence that has spared you serious injury or disease. “Someone up there” is watching over you, intervening for you against the forces of Risk. For reasons unfathomable to others, you are “the chosen one.”

Belief in yourself or belief in God? Certainly, you have a choice. But if you choose the former over the latter, recognize your limitations. As an occasional scuba diver, I was always concerned that my mask limited my peripheral vision in an environment foreign to my land skills. I was essentially wearing blinders like a parade horse, able to see straight ahead, but limited to seeing laterally without turning my head like a fixed-eye owl. Some critter with teeth could easily sneak up on me or attack with rapidity. Of course, like other scuba divers, I tried to be vigilant, and I dived without incident in tropical waters. But, in fact, I had little control over the randomness of placement: On a given dive day no hungry shark or barracuda swam near enough to seek satiation.

An argument against Providence that atheists and agnostics might make centers on the story of Job, the blameless, once wealthy and healthy Old Testament patriarch who suffered numerous tragic losses. Why did Providence treat him so? And that brings us to an associated problem, the problem of evil. In the story of Job, the Adversary (aka Satan) gets permission from God to inflict Job with loss of children, wealth, and health. Eventually, Job is restored to a semblance of his former condition, with God intimating the incomprehensible nature of His actions. Paltry humans are just incapable of seeing the big picture, we learn. Job wasn’t around, as the biblical text notes, when God made the Leviathan. Job’s story makes challenge a divine motivation. Hear the voice of God? What if Providence wants to challenge and not provide the means for an easy, risk-free life?

And here, believers are caught in a justification scheme.“Accept this challenge. Accept that bad things can happen to good people, good atheists, good agnostics, and good believers. Accept, also, that good things, at least in the short term of a finite life, can happen to bad people. Essentially, life’s ills are a test, and the test derives not from an adversary (Satan), but rather from a benevolent Providence that gives permission to the adversary.” The justification has even led some to posit a positive: In eighteenth century optimism as expressed by Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide, “This is best of all possible worlds.” For modern physicists and theologians, that has become “a world fine-tuned for humanity,” a somewhat circular argument for the Many World hypothesis. You are what you are here, slightly different there, and some ten to the six-hundredth plus power (10^647) universe elsewhere exactly the same in all aspects of your life history, your doppelgänger a precise replica. But in all other worlds you would already be injured or dead, a Job upon the dung heap, maybe even nonexistent. Thus, Providence has fine-tuned the universe not just so humanity could exist, but so that you, specifically, could exist. And your having survived all the near misses, all the life-taking accidents or evils, is a further argument for Providence’s care.

Personally, I don’t like attributing the randomness of survival to Chance in Chaos. I do see a kind of human existence that extends beyond the merely physical existence of an organism. But I have only anecdotal evidence and supposition to support my view. The “meeting of minds” is a one example of such evidence for me. Tales of “out of body” experiences, though driven by infusions of neurotransmitters, also seem to support a nonphysical world. That two people in love can “hear bells” and experience a momentary mingling that occurs outside their bodies is a rare but reported experience. Is it just coincidence that both have infusions of neurotransmitters at the same intensity simultaneously? That both experience an out-of-body moment that joins them? With billions of us walking the planet, sure. Lots of things can occur in human interactions. Coincidences and synchronicity abound in a world of eight billion conscious and semi-conscious organisms. But are we just basically perceptions of ourselves?

Then there’s the strange case of the unexplainable, the miracles. And I don’t mean the appearance of Mary on a piece of toast or a stained glass window, both such types of “miracles” attributable to our penchant to organize, to see patterns, to analogize. I mean those rare occurrences when no accounting can be made for the anomaly, regardless of however exhausting an investigation one makes. Can I give an example? No. Do I need to believe in miracles? No, also. But many accounts seem to support their occurrence. Why should I in hubris say that those who investigated were just too gullible to see underlying physical causes? Or even that reality is perception?

Is it by chance, coincidence, or synchronicity that a family member just sent me a viral TikTok video of two doctors saving a heart attack victim in a theater? The narrator says something about a miracle that two doctors were in the audience and that they immediately began slapping the inner elbow of the victim who recovered. The mechanism of slapping the inner elbow isn’t part of the American practice of pumping the chest, but it seems to have worked. Yet, there’s no scientific evidence that the treatment actually works. Would the victim have survived anyway? Inner-elbow slapping might, in fact, be a useless waste of a victim’s last moments that could be thwarted from being the last moments by pumping the chest while calling for help. That both doctors were present in a large audience might also be just a happy coincidence. China has more than four million doctors. Surely, some might coincidentally go to the theater; some might even be friends who plan to go to the same show. But what if, just what if, in Earth’s 4.5 billion-year history and 3.8 billion-year evolution of life, all the Cosmos conspired to have those two doctors present at the moment the man suffered the heart attack? Of course, one might say “pure luck.” What of the millions who have died without the presence of such doctors armed with a technique involving the slapping of arms? Surely over a billion Chinese could not have the good fortune of having a heart attack in the presence of doctors, folk or otherwise. Isn’t scientific methodology a better miracle-worker than folk medicine? Swallow an aspirin. Slap a glycerine patch on an arm. Pump without breaking ribs.

You and I know that the Sun is big, almost a million miles in diameter. We also know that it is far away, 93,000,000 miles away on average. And we know that Earth is little, just eight thousand miles in diameter. Yet, I have friends who on a pilgrimage swear that they saw with others the Sun appearing to swirl and to come toward their bus as they returned from Međugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We thought it was going to hit the bus. People screamed.” Skeptical, I said, “That’s impossible.” And then I explained the differences in sizes, temperatures, and character between Earth and Sun.

Nevertheless, they stood by their claims, even when I suggested a mass hysteria or a group misperception of some sort among like-minded believers. Still, they insisted that no one was expecting or looking for an anomalous behavior of the Sun—though such similar incidents have been reported at other pilgrimage sites and vague memories of those incidents might have lain in their brains. I can’t reiterate enough how adamant they were about what they saw in a bus filled with people of many ages from many lands and many cultures.

One might easily argue that though the people on that bus were politically, linguistically, and culturally different, they were religiously similar. After all, didn’t they just go on a pilgrimage that suggests a common belief? I offered that argument, also—to no avail.

And probably like you, I have experienced some anomalous physical occurrences, most of them just fleeting and soon forgotten, but occasionally one that suggested a link to whatever one wants to call a different level of existence, God, Spirit, or a George Lucas Force—some form of existence that ties individuals to the universe on the grandest of scales, and I don’t mean dopamine wonder or drug-induced euphoria.

Does that mean that Providence does play a role in human existence? That we are more than perceptions of reality? Certainly, perception is important, and it might even be the reason that artificial intelligence will not  easily rise to the level of human existence. Perception always takes place in a context. Whereas it is true that like a computer that receives bad data and outputs bad results, we humans have been imbued with ways of seeing the world, some of them determined by our native language, that lead to limited numbers of behaviors and responses. No Providence necessary, here.

Is there a reason that a tornado destroys one house in a neighborhood and not another? Chaos theory would justify the randomness. What do you think? Your neighbor’s house destroyed, yours spared; your house destroyed, your neighbor’s spared. Chance? Providence? A challenge or a test?

Not easy to answer. Is there a compromise between a universe fine-tuned for your existence and a universe haphazardly producing your existence? Must we choose one or the other? If you choose chance, then all is rather meaningless save what you personally make meaningful. Your perception is then reality. But with your passing, that meaning passes. All meaningfulness becomes mere perception under the aegis of hubris. Is that view any different from the perception that the Sun approached a bus full of pilgrims? Does that perception make the atheistic view better than the religious view?


*Patrick Reilly. https://nypost.com/2023/05/19/customer-goes-on-rampage-over-taco-order-at-dc-chipotle/


** Ted Goldberg for KQED.

So, Congress—or should I say, Republican Congressmen—listened and questioned FBI whistleblowers on May 18, officially uncovering some rather disturbing information that ties into the Durham report on the FBI and the abuse of power. I qualify “Congress” above, because Democrat congressmen seem to be uninterested in hearing about possible corruption in a government agency. What motivates them? Could I just be another conspiracy theorist in this, or is that alleged abuse of power solely aimed at conservative voices and causes? (I suppose conspiracy hyopthesist is the term to coin here since theories bear the weight of proof and predicability. But maybe not: The Durham report does point to actual abuse of power)


Isn’t the impartial pursuit of justice a process that serves the interest of all Americans? Aren’t there Catholic Democrats, for instance? Oh! Yeah, Joe is one. I’ll bet there are others. Isn’t any Democrat offended by the FBI’s needless call for spying on Catholics in churches and parents at school board meetings? Gotta bet that some Catholic Democrats are also parents with kids in schools. Isn’t any Democrat concerned that the FBI participated in an actual coup, a coup planned and executed under the name “Russian Collusion” at the insistence of and with the cooperation of the Democratic Party under the guidance of Hillary Clinton? Are there no Catholic Democrats? No Democrat parents? Surely, there must be some Democrat parents other than “the big guy.”


During the May 18 hearing, Democratic Congresswoman Sanchez, hoping to spring a “gotcha” on one of the whistleblowers ascribed a statement on a Twitter account to one of the whistleblowers who declared that neither the statement nor the account was his. Nevertheless, having proved herself to be both a fool and a tool of the party and even after the whistleblower declared that the account and the statement were not his, she continued to press on the matter. To what purpose? Didn't she want to know whether a government agency had abused its power? Was a statement made by someone other than the whistleblower germane to the hearing? Sorry, but this is more than embarrassing. This is an affront to the integrity of the whistleblowers, the integrity of the government, and the integrity of all Americans. Why should a Congresswoman not want to know about possible corruption in an agency? Whose purpose does her goofball question about the Twitter account serve? We’ve been reduced on the international stage to a performance of melodramatic clowns afraid either to admit truths or determined to stuff them in oversized shoes they are not fit to wear. 


Regardless of the Democrat Party’s obedient minions in Congress who tried to discredit the whistleblowers, the truth seems to be, especially after the Durham report, that the FBI has perpetrated a lie and has conducted illegal operations on citizens. Maybe the agency should change its designation to FIB, not an acronym and not initials, but an actual name because fibbing is apparently its modus operandi.


All of us have short memories when government scandals are the issues. By the next election, few Americans will probably remember the actions of FIB in the last election and will pull the lever as they have always pulled, voting along party lines. No one is talking about Operation Fast and Furious, the gunwalking operation during which the Obama Adminstration that put guns in the desert for Cartels to find and use against Mexicans and Brian Terry, the border agent slain by one of those cartel members using one of those guns. No one is talking about Benghazi or smashed Blackberries that belonged to Hillary Clinton. Ancient history? Think about Nicaragua and Iran- Contra. Even more ancient? How deep do our memories go? It’s short term at best. Does any Democrat remember the Afghanistan debacle and the gift of weapons to the Taliban? Not many Americans are talking about Afghanistan today. And probably no one in a couple of years will talk about the violations of law by a Justice Department’s agency, the FBI turned FIB. About the only government scandal that just about everyone has remembered or heard about was the Watergate episode aimed to get Democrat election strategy. How does that compare to FIB’s trying to overturn an actual election with the compliance of congressmen who ignored it, overlooked it, or facilitated it (Think Adam Schiff).


In a government of enormous size and reach, there are just too many scandals to track. Would any of us have known about the $800,000 party in Las Vegas thrown by the General Services Administrators in 2010 if the Washington Post had not uncovered the details? And those many scandals cross agencies and congressional members under all administrations. * Some of the scandals affect only a few Americans; others, millions. Some derive from personal debauchery and self-aggrandizement. Others derive from sinister abuses of constitutional rights. The current scandal in the FIB falls in this latter category. It is an agency now apparently given to abusing the rights of those with whom the agency members personally disagree or dislike: Republicans, Catholics, parents. To abuse those rights it has adopted fibbing on the grandest scale.


FBI? I think not anymore. FIB is more like it.


* For examples see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Congressional_scandals  and Google List of federal political scandals in the United States . You might be shocked to see how many scandals run through American history, but then, maybe you won’t be shocked.