I can’t believe a year’s gone by.
Alarmists gather in Dubai
King Charles among those merry men
John Kerry’s sure; He’s back again.
And maybe Gore will show up, too.
He’ll have new people he can woo.
They’ll rant and rage about the heat
Which in Dubai is tough to beat.
They’ll say the tipping point's been reached
“We failed in Egypt when we last preached,
“The end is near; act now or die;
“The heat is building in the sky.”


COP28 like those before
Will draw the rich like Albert Gore.
They’ll talk and say the damndest things,
How you and I make hotter springs;
They’ll do this as they shop for stuff
And eat until they’ve had enough.
They’ll live the high life while they can.
Why not? Heat’s up. The death of Man.
They’ll say again what we must do
To save the earth from cows that moo
“It’s flatulence and C O two!”
In posh Dubai they’ll have a steak
Blame all of us and then eat cake.


So every year the conference grows
As thousands claim we’re in death’s throes.
They’ll fly to places most exotic
Away from home; it’s quite erotic.
If you’re not there, please be aware
That climate is the biggest scare.


The Conference of the Parties now *
Is quite a show, a big powwow
With dignitaries in one group.
And lesser folks outside the loop.
No equity in how they meet
The Heads of State in their conceit
A separate group not quite main street.
The former meeting with the Sheikh
The latter in a room or suite.


You’ll never guess what they’ll discuss:
Some topics quite superfluous.
Here is the list of things they’ll do:
Gender stuff is in the queue;
Because as all now know is true
When PC words are not taboo,
The heat will rise in dry Ganzu.
And innovation’s on the list,
Green tech, we know, can’t be dismissed.


COP will come and then will go
Participants will leave aglow.
They’ll plan to meet again next year
To save this tiny heated sphere.
And in the meantime Earth will do
What it has done sans me and you.

*See:  https://unfccc.int/cop28 and related sites. 

When my youngest child was four, he had white running shoes that had a tiny blue stripe about a centimeter long on the sides. He called those shoes his “blue” shoes. Perspective is everything, isn’t it? Whereas I saw the shoes as white because they were all white except for those little blue stripes, he saw the little blue stipe as the identifying characteristic of those little shoes. But it isn’t just little kids who identify the whole by a part.


Hate groups think in synecdoches. So do angry people. So do partisans. 


I don’t think I need to give examples if you have been paying attention to current events.

You’ve asked it yourself, and Cat Stevens sang it, “Oh! Very young, what will you leave us this time?…There’ll never be a better chance to change your mind/And if you want the world to see a better day/Will you carry the words of love with you…?”


The answer is either, “Probably not,” or “Maybe, but not highly likely.”


So, where in ten years or so will the minds of those students who demonstrated and threatened a teacher at NYC’s Hillcrest High School be? Will they still linger in the show of hate they recently exhibited toward one of their teachers, a female who attended a pro-Israel rally? Will they carry their indoctrinated antisemitism into their twenties, thirties, and beyond, maybe to their graves? Will they actively seek a better day?


The students at the Queens high school staged at bit of a riot that had the teacher hiding behind a locked door. They staged a walk out; they demanded her removal. They carried Palestinian flags.*


Whereas it might be noble to wish for a better life for Palestinians caught in the oppressive grip of Hamas, it isn’t noble to support the cause of Palestinians’ oppressors. And if you asked those students to point to Israel on a map…(or for that matter, even point to Queens on a map…)…or ask them to consider that Queens is the most diverse genetic accumulation on the planet, a true “melting pot” of the world’s genome…Well, let’s not stress the frontal cortexes when the amygdalae are at work.


See, the answer to the question posed by Cat Stevens is apparently, “Probably not.” Indoctrinated minds are hard to change, especially in the absence of knowledge about world realities and in the presence of social media that drive teen emotions and spread ideas. The teens at Hillcrest High will believe they have marched for some worthy cause unless they experience what it means to live under a tyrannical terror group. In walking out, they imprinted their own minds with antisemitism while evading both class and homework.


The mayor of NYC has expressed his outrage, but he’s as helpless to stop the seed of hate from growing as he is to stop each generations’ bullies from bullying. The young are molded by causes and emotions that they rarely contemplate. They act without considering consequences save those grounded in inescapable realities, like living within the realm of brutal  tyrants.


If Mayor Adams wants to educate NYC’s students in the affairs of other countries and the realities of groups like Hamas, then he needs to start an exchange program, one that sends Hillcrest walkouts to Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and Syria. But, of course, no such exchange program will exist, and students reared in the midst of the world’s most diverse gathering of Homo sapiens sapiens, will never see a better day.   


*https://nypost.com/2023/11/25/metro/mayor-eric-adams-rips-vile-show-of-antisemitism-at-nyc-school/   

Depending on the translation of Psalms 8:5, “man is a little lower than the angels” or a “little lower than God.” Let’s use the former.


The Great Chain of Being and the Human Chain of Being


In the metaphor of the Great Chain of Being that has literally dominated Western Thought for more than two millennia, humans stand high on the scale of existence. That “chain of being” runs from Deity at the top to rocks at the bottom, or from intangible Spirit through organic life down to inorganic objects. And even today, in spite of efforts by PETA and other groups to raise animals to humanity’s position on the chain, most of world of opposable thumbs still ranks people above other life-forms. Be honest now. Did you ever think of yourself as somehow “less than” animals? Cole Porter said it best in his lyrics: “You’re the Top” * At least, you’re the top on Earth, the Coliseum of buildings, the Nile of rivers, the Mickey Mouse of cartoons, the Derby winner, a Botticelli painting and a poem by Shelly, as the song goes..


The “Chain” says nothing, however, about what that hierarchical position means for individual humans. It speaks nothing about human folly, contradiction, depravity, and downright absurdity. It relates nothing about concerns and human economic and human status save that in all monarchical and feudal systems, it transfers esteem and rights to a few through ideas like primogeniture and “royal” blood. But those transfers of value beg a question: Why do we still establish hierarchies of importance within our own ranks when, in truth, we’re all in this together, and we’re all in this world for just a blink of an eye?


Why do we make so much of others’ lives, particularly the lives of those who walk upon the stages of politics and entertainment? Take, for example, the petty controversies centered on actors. You realize, don’t you, that as humans they are just others that with you and everyone else make up a single link on the Great Chain of Being? God-angels-humans-animals-plants-rocks: If you picture that chain hanging from “heaven,” all humanity is a single link. But that’s not how humans think, is it? No, we see differences and levels. And those levels aren’t necessarily linked to genius or talent. Whims, propaganda, traditions, and fortuity are the dominant drivers of human hierarchies. To those drivers we can add a need driven by the search for identity through a kind of virtual communion or a “virtual cannibalism” of “spirit” that connects idolized human with idolizing human that often results in the accumulation of relics in the form of souvenirs and signed photos that clutter the rooms of fans. At the top are links in the human chain that have been forged from glitter and gold and at the bottom are those simply plated with base metal filings found in a waste pile alongside the smelter of humankind; one forged in five-star adulation and the other plated in ridiculed People of Walmart photos.   


In every century, that metaphor of a chain within the Chain marked the differentiation between owner and slave, king and peasant, lord and serf, and believer and barbarian. In the minds of nineteenth-century Christian fundamentalists like the captain of HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Darwin to his discoveries, humanity was divided. Robert FitzRoy, believed the Tierra del Fuegians were “lesser human beings,” mostly because they were in his mind a people farthest removed from the supposed site of the Garden of Eden that he assumed was located somewhere between the Tigris and Euphrates valleys and the westernmost branch of the Fertile Crescent. Like FitzRoy, most see a chain within the Chain, one hanging from those idolized humans at the top to disdained humans at the bottom.


Appropriating Other Links and the Artificially Positioning Lower Links


Not too long ago, vaudevillian Al Jolson (d. 1950), painted in black face, entertained audiences that thought his imitation of a minstrel was worth the price of admission. That a whole segment of the American society might have been offended by his act meant little to mainstream reporting at the time. It was an age before social media and talk shows. It was an age before the Civil Rights movement and modern wokism and virtue signaling. And Jolson entertained in a time when the roles that African-American men and women played for Hollywood studios was typically stereotypical and secondary, often roles like maids and butlers. Main characters?


DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy, based on the life of Samuel Smalls, was an early look at the African-American population without caricature. George Gershwin, insisting on having Black singers rather than white people wearing Al-Jolson-type blackface, turned the novel and subsequent libretto into a Broadway musical, elevating a segment of the entertainment population to a status above secondary roles.  But it took Hollywood decades to recognize the talent and dignity of people like Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington, both becoming renowned for their acting, and both helping to advance the cause of African-American actors. For so long, Hollywood had its own “chain of being,” a pyramid of importance on which African-American actors were “a little lower than Caucasian actors.” Take, as an example, the first major filming of Othello (1965) that starred Laurence Olivier, 30 years before Laurence Fishburne played the lead.


And Native Americans were lower still on the artificial human chain of Hollywood. I remember seeing “cowboy and Indian” movies in which the roles of “chiefs and Indians” were filled with Caucasian actors in body paint and feathers: Rock Hudson in Winchester ’73 (1950), Henry Brandon in The Searchers (1953), and even Audrey Hepburn in The Unforgiven (1960). Oh! My gosh! Can you imagine those actors getting those roles in today’s woke and virtue-signaling world in which only actors of a particular ethnicity or race can play roles of humans of similar heritage? With the exception of Johnny Depp as Tonto in the satirical Lone Ranger, of course. Woe to the writer, producer, and director who casts a Laurence Olivier as Othello or a Rock Hudson as Taza, son of Cochise (played by Jeff Chandler, another white guy).


Acting


That Hollywood was given to portraying stereotypes isn’t surprising, nor it is surprising that it passed over actors of “different ethnicities and races” for key roles. After all, writers, producers, and directors probably grew up under cultural influences like those that motivated FitzRoy. The pervasive premise is that humanity was a link divided, a chain unto itself. And today, that chain within a link has in itself many links, as protestors around the world demonstrate by shouting for genocide of those they envision standing far below them on the scale of value.**


We’re all screen writers and actors in a way. We script and play the role that fits our culture, or we play a role that runs counter to culture in a show of defiance. As Shakespeare has Jaques say in As You Like It,  


            All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…


Funny How the World Sees Actors


Recall from your high school lit class that only male actors played roles in Shakespeare’s time. That film Shakespeare in Love portrays an era when males commonly took the roles of females. To cast a woman as a woman was scandalous. But today, casting a woman as a man or a man as a woman is ordinary. And that Hollywood concession has altered the human links throughout society as male athletes dominate women’s sports. We’ve added links to our human link on the Great Chain.


But Acting Is Pretending, Isn’t It?


Everyone pretends at some time. Think of giving a toddler a “horsey-back ride,” or of pretending to be a character represented by a puppet, or of simply saying “Mooooo” in imitation of a cow. Where’s PETA when this last violation of animal dignity is being portrayed? How dare a parent appropriate cow language and mannerisms!


Most people (Note bene: I never took a survey) realize that acting is pretending. So, this “appropriation outrage” is just an example of people removing themselves from the reality that humans can imitate any link in the Great Chain of Being, even the topmost link. Think Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty, 2003), Alanis Morissette (Dogma, 1999), and George Burns (Oh, God! 1977). Did anyone think that such appropriation was anything more than pretending? Should only God play God in movies?


Trans athletes pretending to be women seems to be another story. There are consequences, mostly detrimental ones for biological women competitors. Years of all that testosterone coursing through those arteries and veins of the transitioned athlete have made such actors truly different from the characters whose roles they play on court, in field, or in pool. There’s another link added to the chain of human links, one that never before existed, not even if one counts the soprano-voiced eunuchs of eras gone by.


Men participating in women’s sports is the ultimate appropriation. Well, maybe not the ultimate if one considers those actors who played God. That’s gotta be the biggest appropriation. But then, we’ve never heard God complain about it—although that applies only to this life and not to the afterlife. (Can you imagine Freeman, Burns, and Morissette at the Pearly Gates seeking entrance to an eternal life with God and having to account for appropriating Him in a film? “Sorry, Lord, but it was just an act. I really didn’t claim to be You as though I were some man claiming to be a female athlete”)


Pretending? We all do it in some manner occasionally: Maybe it isn’t a role playing God in movies, but rather a daily role of playing one who knows more than others, a role in which the actor dismisses as irrelevant the knowledge and logic, even the history that others not to their liking know. Or maybe it’s a matter of standing in judgment like some King Solomon—only without the accompanying wisdom.   


Is There Some Point to This?


When Carl Sagan wrote that “we are star stuff,” he meant that everything save the hydrogen in our bodies (in water) came from the process of fusion inside stars that eventually went nova or supernova or even hyper nova. Everything in the visible universe is related by composition—let’s ignore Dark Matter for this. And among the grand interrelated Cosmic entities made from star stuff, the Great Chain of Being separates that which is conscious from that which is not. Then the only conscious link in the chain, humanity, divided and still divides itself into the valued and less valued, or the highly valued and the valueless.


The danger we impose upon ourselves stems from the assumption of greater or lesser worth, of idolized individuals vs. idolizing individuals. And almost every time we make the distinctions, we find ourselves causing problems we cannot solve, such as the disdain of groups that believe themselves to be higher on the human chain than others. Serfdom, slavery, abuse, disabuse, and depravity result. The links within the link also mean that we take the opinions of some to be of greater value than the opinions of others, even when the opining top of the chain speaks with little knowledge and even less logic, and even when some at the top in their bias reduce others to caricature and stereotype.


But nothing in this practice of making a human chain of value will change as every generation becomes infused with bias before it has the time to consider the commonality of our species. The effect will be a continuing bias and a constant resurfacing of disdain or disrespect. The effect will be college students and others like famous actors and politicians denying that atrocities occurred when Hamas massacred Israelis. Those standing on the stage of public opinion will forever choose whom to support and where to put those they support on the chain of value.


Come on, now, be honest: Do you impose a chain of value? Are you the top link?




*Cole Porter’s 1935 song “You’re the Top” offers a number of metaphors. You can read the lyrics here: https://www.bing.com/search?q=Lyric%20You%27re%20the%20top&FORM=ARPSEC&PC=ARPL&PTAG=5330 You can also see the song performed by Cary Grant and Ginny Simms in the 1946 movie Night and Day in a YouTube clip or hear it performed on other YouTube clips, such as the one from the 1956 movie Anything Goes with Bing Crosby, Donald O’Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, and Zizi Jeanmaire.


**Thus, the recent comments of actors and actresses equating the massacre of Israelis to payback for some perceived offense against Palestinians whose governing Hamas leaders kept in check and poverty, comments represented by the those of Susan Sarandon who seems to ignore two millennia of antisemitism and events like the pogroms of 1391, those massacres in and around Castile and Aragon, the Alhambra Decree of 1492 that exiled Jews from Spain or forced them to convert to Christianity, and, of course, the Holocaust of WWII. She said, “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.”
    

Now, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai  *
Beneath the waves sent heat up high;
The magma’s up; the water’s hot;
El Niño and volcano wrought
A rise in temps; and that’s a lot,
Some two degrees—or so it’s thought.
Some sixty K olympic pools
Of greenhouse vapor ignored by fools.


In just one blast what Hunga did,
It boiled water; shot its lid
Into the upper air on Earth
And raised the temps around its girth.


Oh! No. What can volcanoes show
That climate people do not know?
That in a micro moment, too,
They raise the temps in Celsius two. **
“How do they do that,” you might ask.
“Does it mean in heat we’ll bask?”


The teragrams of boiled sea;
Sent skyward, heating you and me,
Increased the vapor up on high
By ten percent. “Will we all fry?”


“Oh! Yes, we will,” alarmists cry.
“Oh! Save us, Lord, so we won’t die.”


“No worries, children, Biden’s near,
“He’ll soothe your mind and calm your fear.
“He banned gas stoves to save your life;
“It will, he said, help chef and wife
“Prepare a meal and cause no strife.
“Electric stoves will heat your food
“Alarmists say the move is shrewd."

We know their answer about the climate;
​The problem is the human primate.
“Why cook with fire while windmills churn?
“Electric stoves like gas can burn.
“As POTUS knows, gas fire’s an evil;
“Let’s eat in manner most primeval."

“Cooking food with gas you say?
“We have electric’s better way.
“We’ll power up with solar panels
“And we’ll be praised in future’s annals.
“We’ll save the planet and all its life;
“We’ll make our sushi from alewife.”


But then, at night, when Sun goes down,
He’ll say to Jill with furrowed frown,
“My dinner’s cold, I fear, my dear.
“I liked it when you used to sear
“And cook my dinner just such so
“The meal was hot and still aglow.”


“I’m sorry, Joe, it’s not my fault;
“Just add some pepper and some salt.
”You wanted me to cook with pow’r,
“That solar can’t provide this hour.
“And yesterday the wind died down
“You’ll eat cold food in your nightgown.”


“But Jill, this meal is cold as Hell,
“It doesn’t have that broiled smell.
“And what’s this gooey chewy stuff,
“Some unbaked bread? I’ve had enough!
“I didn’t know that banning stoves
“Would keep us all from eating loaves.
“I’ve done all this to save the Earth
“And not just here, around its girth.”


Then Jill the loving faithful wife,
Informed him of the natural strife.
“Have you not heard what Hunga did
“When it this year did blow its lid?”


“No, tell me Jill, what’s that about?”


“Beneath the waves it did blow out.
“And sent its heat into the water
“Already warmed; it made it hotter.
“And sent that water into the sky.”


Bewildered POTUS turned and said,
“It’s carbon that will make us dead.
“What greenhouse gas is water vapor?
“After all, it’s just some water;
“Don’t mention it or Hunter’s daughter.
”And doesn’t water put out fire?
“Some more of it is not so dire.
“It’s carbon gas that is the threat
“To raise all mankind to a sweat.
“So banning gas will save us all
“Keep winter cold and cool the fall.
“What would a warmer world entail
“If we don’t act? Or if we fail?”
“Hunga bunga smunga what?
“I rule by science and my gut.
”And where’s my dinner nice and hot?”


“The power’s out; the stove we bought
“Runs on the wind; the grid is out.
“You have no choice but eat cold trout.”


“Now, Jill, you know that I am wise;
“I will not let the temperature rise.
”I won’t let climates change a bit
“I am no fool and no half-wit.”


“Yes, dear, she says, and turns away,
“Lord, help me through another day.”


And as she goes, she hears him say,
“I like my meals hot every day.”






*https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/


*https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-11-20/earth-surpasses-critical-warming-threshold-officials-say

Five Lessons from College Football


1)  Take nothing for granted. The game is over when it’s over.
2)  Trust your opponent to be untrustworthy.
3)  Be mindful of where you are. Proprioception in sports is key to victory.
4)  Know and employ an optimal strategy.


1)  Take Nothing for Granted


No victory is ensured until the clock reads zero. In the November 18 game between Florida and Missouri, the Gators scored the go-ahead point in the fourth quarter with under two minutes left in the game, elating the players and their fans. After the ensuing kickoff a Florida victory seemed assured because the Tigers had a long field to traverse with little time. But they did regain the lead. With five seconds left, Missouri kicked a field goal to win the game.


2)  Trust Your Opponent to Be Untrustworthy


Where big money is coupled with unscrupulous pride, cheating is often assured. The University of Michigan with more football victories than any other university, got into sign-stealing during its current rush to the playoffs. Sending spies whose travel is supported by “supporters” to steal opponent’s signs is a practice forbidden by the NCAA and the Big Ten.


3)  Be Mindful of Where You Are


In consecutive weeks, two football players, one for Washington and the other from Alabama, purposefully dropped the football in premature celebration just before they entered the end zone. The drops negated their assumed scores, raised the ire of coaches and fans, and put the mark of “idiot” on the back of their helmets. As the Alabama coach said, “Every coach says score the touchdown and hand the football to the ref.” The victory dance started long ago by Billy White-Shoes Johnson has become a practice that has led not just to failed attempts to score but also to after-score penalties for excessive celebrations and chest-thumping.


4)  Know and Employ the Optimal Strategy to Ensure Victory


In a game awhile back, the University of Miami, ranked 17th at the time, lost to Georgia Tech when the Hurricanes chose to run the ball instead of taking a knee to run out the clock. Miami fumbled, and GT went on to win with only seconds left.


Is This about Football or Politics?


I remember hearing both my algebra teacher and my football coach say that what we were engaging in was a preparation for life. I know both cliches are common, and I can see that football is a good preparation for “life” because life’s tough and football requires toughness. I have my doubts about the relevance of algebra, but the persistence of the belief in its relevance doesn’t do any harm. Anyway, football is the topic here, so let’s see whether it applies to today’s politics.


1)  Take Nothing for Granted

The Israelis have attempted to negotiate ceasefires with Hamas and Hezbollah over the past decades, each of which has been broken by rockets fired into Israel and by terror attacks. The recent attack and massacre by Hamas indicates that a lax Israel took its safety a bit too much for granted. The conflict between Israel and its sworn enemies won’t be over until it’s over. Hamas will endeavor to make a comeback.


My father, a Marine who fought on Okinawa, told me when I was a child that one should “never give a sucker an even break.” By that, he meant one should never turn his back on an opponent under the assumption that the opponent will not strike back. It’s a common lesson that every “professional” wrestler learns when he turns to the audience to celebrate a victory prematurely. The downed opponent always rises in the ring to attack the celebrant. We know it’s all fake, but it is also a life lesson.


The Biden Administration took for granted that the Afghanistan army would sustain the peace bought by American lives. It turned its back to the Taliban. It celebrated even as the Taliban rose to dominate the country once again, probably with the eventual re-emergence of Al Qaeda.


2)  Trust Your Opponent to be Untrustworthy


Almost immediately after the Iranians signed “treaties” barring them from developing nuclear weapons, they stalled on allowing unfettered inspections of their nuclear facilities. They developed and deployed strategic missiles contrary to agreements and restrictions, and they exported weapons for terrorists to use against Israel and the West. In the interim, both the Obama and Biden Administrations fed the Iranian billions of dollars once retained as a punishment for their international bad behavior. The Iranians continue to prove themselves to be untrustworthy, and the Biden Administration continues to treat them as if they are trustworthy.


3)  Be Mindful of Where You Are


Joe Biden never seems to know where he is. That applies on different scales, from his having no idea where to stand on a stage of foreign dignitaries to his having little idea about the nature of the energy-rich country he leads. America has inordinate energy wealth, but he has played a large role in making the country oil dependent—and oil dependent on nations that are neither democratic nor friendly. Coming off four years of burgeoning oil independence under the Trump Administration, Biden took office and immediately shut down a major pipeline and instituted other restrictions. America was just on the cusp of dominating world economies and oil production when he “dropped the ball.”


4)  Know and Employ the Optimal Strategy for Victory


Running with green energy in spite of its limitations has led to numerous fumbles: Windmills that don’t operate in cold weather, inadequate power to power both electric transportation and homes, inadequate mileage from electric vehicles to facilitate the flow of commerce, and the biggest fumble, a minuscule return on “controlling” world temperatures. Yet, Biden and company keep pushing a strategy that will likely not result in any victory over world temperatures when countries like China and India continue to burn fossil fuels. In addition, the strategy of green energy can easily be overwhelmed by natural swings in climatic conditions, as evidenced by the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warming, and the Younger Dryas, all of which occurred in the absence of (or before) humans began using fossil fuels. In addition, the green wave requires not only a restructuring of American energy, but also an enormous expenditure of tax dollars, diverting them from needed expenditures like defense and decreasing the national debt.


OH! And One More Lesson: Recruit Players with the Skills to Win


In football, coaches place players suited to positions in those positions. A lightning-fast wide receiver can’t play defensive center or tackle. A 350-pound lineman can’t go deep for a long pass. Players play where their skill sets and physical attributes coincide with the demands of the position and only with proof of success at that position. Coaches can’t play favorites in this; and the moment a player can’t perform to the standard, coaches bench, dismiss, or trade the player. Choosing a player because of political leaning, race, religion, or gender isn’t wise. The best-at-what-they-do is the ideal. But look at the Biden Administration: A Secretary of Transportation chosen because of sexual orientation, not because of expertise in transportation; a Press Secretary who stumbles over reading notes, chosen for who knows what reason—sexual orientation, race, quota demands?— and a Secretary of Homeland Security who thinks an open border is a closed border and whose policies have facilitated, not limited, the illegal drugs flowing into the country, the number of cases of child abuse and enslavement, the rapes, and murders all attributed to his enabling cartels to exploit an open border.

​What kind of a team does Biden coach? One with players ill-suited to their positions. One that employs feckless strategies. One that drops the ball before scoring the touchdown. 



Bet you won’t watch football the same way this coming weekend.

Do you really care about who’s arguing with whom? With squabbles among celebrities, for example? If so, why so? Do you want to be just like them?


Those brains of ours are just like cars that line up in the traffic. Entrained, they are, though separate cars, obliged to go quite slow. With engines running and drivers fuming, each wastes its fuel just by sitting.—Okay, enough of the sing-songy prose; that’s not how the rest here goes.


Mirror Neurons


I don’t think I needed neuroscientists to tell me that my brain had mirror neurons. I recognized their effect long ago, first as a teenager with poor high-jumping skills competing at a track meet and then as a yawner, yawning after seeing someone else yawn, and finally as a smiler, smiling in the midst of others’ laughter. Made me wonder back then how much of me was really me. We see; we imitate. As I stood and watched competitors jump, I noticed that my own body reacted as though I were jumping. It wasn’t much, just a leg twitch, a partial jumping motion. And, of course, yawning and smiling—those imitative actions are self evident. Want another example? Watch a baby’s face when you say a long “Ohhhhhhh.” Watch a golfer or a baseball player swing, a boxer punch, a juggler juggle…


To imitate Macbeth:


Imitating, imitating, imitating
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.


In short, much of what we do is in imitation of others. And much of what we believe, likewise. It’s tough to separate out that which is the individual in us when so much of what we are is a shadow of others.


Mirror Responses


It seems that in our addiction to social media and 24/7 news, we seek to activate those mirror neurons. If you read through news stories or listen to entertainment reports, you’ll note that some petty controversy, one wholly unrelated to your life, pops up here or there, often a tale of idiots or sometimes an argument between two celebrities from any walk of life. You might stumble across an accusation of ill treatment of employees by someone famous, an argument among British royals, or a controversial tweet on X. Whatever it is, it really has nothing to do with you. Maybe in your addiction to social media and 24/7 news, you consciously seek to activate those mirror neurons buried in your subconscious mind.


So why get your emotions fluffed up in imitation of someone else? Why raise your blood pressure when you aren’t personally involved? Stop viewing that which you will mirror to your own emotional detriment. The imitation is guaranteed. That’s how our brains work.


Just know that in seeking out that which is, in fact, irrelevant to your life and well being, you are unnecessarily filling your mind with sound and fury that signify nothing that is truly about you.

Not everyone who bullies knows
That some he hurts can break his nose.
It’s only when the victim shows
That he can also break a nose,
A bully yields and runs away
So peace abides another day.


So, what’s going on in the Middle East? Seems that Iranian-backed militias in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen have attacked American forces dozens of times. Where’s all that appeasement talk that the Obama and Biden Administrations believed would bring Iranian leaders into the fold of peaceful mankind? Is it possible that the only solution to the attacks is a counterattack, maybe even a preemptive strike on Iranian proxies coupled with the toughest enforceable sanctions possible?


Lessons from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, the Isis Caliphate, Hamas’ Gaza


Piecemeal responses to attacks only postpone the need for punching the bully in the nose. That sounds reductionist, even simple-minded, but when has the piecemeal process worked? Iran has a systematic approach to the West, one that involves disruption whenever and wherever opportunities arise, as they have in uncivilized vacuums within the Middle East. In contrast, the West, meaning of course the United States and its allies, have taken an unsystematic approach that Iranian leaders see as the weakness of appeasement.


Over and over, voices in the West arise to remind politicians that Neville Chamberlain failed miserably with appeasement. The bully victimizes until the bully is victimized. Millions had to die in Europe because of that appeasement before WWII and Europe’s piecemeal approach to Hitler. Since that time, untold millions have suffered because of the West’s approach to people intent on destroying and killing.


Remember Truman and MacArthur? The latter wanted to use greater force and invade the source of the conflict, namely, Chinese supply lines. Truman said, “No” and fired the general. The war dragged on. Remember the piecemeal development of the Vietnam War effort? Initially just some military advisors. Then some regular troops. Then a draft that sent Americans to fight a piecemeal, defensive battle that enabled the North Vietnamese to funnel fighters and weapons to the Viet Cong through the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Appeasement and ceasefire? Lyndon Johnson said on October 31, 1968, "I have now ordered that all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam cease as of 8 a.m., Washington time, Friday morning. I have reached this decision on the basis of the developments in the Paris talks. And I have reached it in the belief that this action can lead to progress toward a peaceful settlement of the Vietnamese war.” Well, how’d that work out? North Vietnam used the cessation as an opportunity to send men and supplies down the Trail. Was Johnson not alive during the Korean and the earlier WWII conflicts? Did he not remember that the Japanese had diplomats discussing peace with Americans at the very time their fleet was sailing toward Pearl Harbor?


Remember Iraq? Two wars, not one. Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan? Remember Obama’s comment that ISIS was a “JV team” as they were initiating their deadly march through the Middle East to establish a caliphate? And, of course, I can ask whether anyone remembers the appeasement attempted by Israel to accommodate Palestinians that recently ended in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies on Israelis and American troops. Bullies. Seems like a simple-minded solution, but there really is historically only one successful way to deal with them. One has to bloody their noses.


But No Retaliation or Defense Occurs in a Vacuum


The problem of course is Western Ethics, that is, in the belief that human life has both dignity and sanctity. Bullies don’t care about harm to others. Ethical Westerners begin every defense with care. But because of amoral, or immoral, or unethical bullies, any defense has its collateral harm. A big roundhouse swing at a bully’s nose can by chance hit a bystander. And when bullies hide in the midst of bystanders, such collateral harm is inevitable.


That’s reason enough to argue against any piecemeal appeasement at the outbreak of threats. Before a bully hides in a crowd of innocents, his nose is isolated. It’s easier to bloody the guilty early on than it is after the bully entrenches in a crowd and recruits a gang among the innocents.


Globalization Entails Global Responses for Civilization’s Sake


Isolationists beware. If you don’t get involved in international affairs, those international affairs will become involved in you. It’s virtually impossible to separate countries bound by essential trade. Yes, it is unfortunate that the British and other western countries became involved over oil. But, like water under the bridge, that’s petrol burned in combustion engines running in the twentieth century and long before North Sea oil gushed into European engines. It’s also unfortunate that western nations divided Middle Eastern countries once dominated by distinct tribal units into “western-style nations.” But that’s the past. Today’s realities pit disruptive forces against the needs of a global economy.


Reductionist thinking, yes. But if the West chooses to continue its dependence on Middle East oil, then the inevitable conflicts will arise. And in an age when drones and rockets can reach well beyond a particular border, confinement of conflict is almost impossible. No war is “Napoleonic” anymore. Every war becomes an asymmetrical battle; every war has its proxy contenders. And in an age of drones and rockets, no one can afford to allow ill-intentioned people to wage an off-and-on conflict.


Hate to Say It, but There’s Only One Way to Stop a Bully


It’s only when the victim shows
That he can also break a nose,
A bully yields and runs away
So peace abides another day.

Y(oung) and O(ld) talk.


Y: That gathering in D.C. on November 14 was large, one of the largest ever.


O: Are you serious?


Y: Sure, whenever did 300,000 people gather like that?


O: What about that “Women’s March on Washington” after Trump was elected? Lots of screaming, angry Young people like you. Weren’t you there? Some 500,000…


Y: Oh! Shoot. I forgot about that one; but no, I wasn’t there.


O: And What about that 1969 march on D.C. I think that one was at least twice as large as the recent pro-Israel protest.


Y: I wasn’t alive then. You’re the Old person.


O: The “Million Mom March”? Forgot that one; three-quarters of a million marching against gun violence. You were pretty young at the beginning of this century, so that’s another march you wouldn’t have paid attention to.


Y: I’m sure you’ll tell me there were others.


O: “Million Man March,” same size group as the “Million Mom March”; LGB march of about a million back in ’93, just three years before you were born. Lots of other big marches, though those with more than 300,000 were the most notable I can think of, and I wasn’t around for others, like the 50,000 KKK march on D.C, but I have read about them.l


Y: Still, that march yesterday was…


O: You know what you Young people exhibit?


Y: I’m sure you’ll tell me.


O: Dissociation disorders.


Y: You should be careful about whom you label. Often people project; I’ll bet that whatever you tell me next will be a projection of you onto me.


O: I’ll admit that many descriptions fit the projection model. But give me a chance here.


Y: Fire away. Then I’ll comment.


O: I didn’t want to make this political, but it seems that the young are led by Left-leaning media, both social and mainstream. The prevailing media moguls control what’s kept in memory or what’s forgotten. The power to control memory is a power that controls belief. I just saw that MSNBC discussed how wonderful Biden has been in bringing the world together. That’s selective thinking and a bit dissociative. Who has been brought together? The Taliban and Al Qaeda? Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemeni, Iran, and Russia? China and Russia? If there’s an agenda in the mainstream media, it’s an agenda of mind control, and much of that is achieved by selective dissociations, by removing people, places, and activities from memory either by ignoring incidents as they occur—like the Hunter Biden laptop story or the Biden garage classified document story—or by a bombardment of negative coverage of whatever the Press doesn’t want you to know. How many reports on the annual “March for Life” have you ever seen in the mainstream media? Were you even aware of that annual march? It’s a forced amnesia.


Y: Sorry, I have to interrupt. What’s this got to do with those marches? What’s this have to do with political stances?


O: Give me a chance.


Y: Okay.


O: The folks who label our psyches say there are three kinds of dissociated disorders: Depersonalization/derealization disorder, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder. That reference you made to the march was an example of the amnesia kind.


Y: Hold on a minute. I’ve read about those disorders in psych class. That kind of amnesia is brought on by some traumatic event. Dissociation is not a group thing, I learned. It’s personal, individual, and isolated.


O: Yes, it is for psychiatrists, but it’s time for a new qualifier: Dissociative group amnesia brought on by persistent and pervasive social and mainstream media. Brainwashing, so to speak. I’ll give you an apolitical example. Take the O.J. Simpson trial. It got national attention; people were glued to the actual trial proceedings shown daily for 37 weeks, and the verdict received the attention of the final episodes of Mash and Seinfeld. And, here’s my point: It was labeled “Trial of the Century.” Like your reference to the large pro-Israel march, it occurred in the vacuum of forgetfulness and ignorance.


Y: Ignorance of…


O: What about the Sacco and Vanzetti Trial? That one sparked protests and motivated writers. Kids still write research papers on the 1920 trial. You realize there were a half dozen plays written on that trial. Numerous TV programs, too. Even poems and songs. And the books. Oh! the books. More than a dozen of them, and at least one making mention of the trial as recently as a year ago * O.J. Simpson? Sure, those who were alive in the mid-90s remember it. He’s still known for it; just saw a pic of him in the media, so the paparazzi are still out there looking for him, keeping him and the idea of “the trial of the century” in our minds. But that Sacco and Vanzetti trial? There’s a “trial of the century” that the uneducated modern Press forgot about or were ignorant of. And that one is matched by a trial that occurred a dozen years later, the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, accused of kidnapping and killing the child of one of the most famous men in modern history, Charles Lindbergh.** Like the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, the Hauptmann trial inspired authors, also. But what of the arguably biggest trials of the twentieth century, the Nuremberg Trials? I think some 20 or more Nazis were put on trial for their genocidal actions.  Did the American and British Press have no one old enough to either remember or to study the twentieth century, the very period of their births? How could the Press label the O.J. Simpson trial the “Trial of the Century”? it’s because of a dissociative amnesia brought on not by trauma, but rather by ignorance, or laziness, or narcissism that makes the people believe that the world began with their births and that only the Now is what counts. That, my friend, is a dissociation. In fact, it’s two kinds, both amnesia and derealization dissociation. And it’s not much different from your position on the recent march. That’s also an indication of how revising history controls the present and influences a future long after an original incident.


Y: Okay, I see your point. I’ll admit to a tendency to see the world only as a Now and only in light of a constant barrage of media. But that works both ways. You Old people are just as guilty, or were just a susceptible to such manipulation in your youth.


O: I guess I have to admit you’re right about that. In fact, just about everyone seems to selectively dissociate. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a world of continuous warfare. The people recruited for terrorist organizations would understand that their causes will cause their own deaths just as previous generations of fighters willingly sent themselves on a continuous death march. The dissociation of depersonalization and derealization accompanies the group amnesia imposed by unscrupulous leaders.


Y: Yes. I got your point, and I know that my contemporaries do lack both historical knowledge and the ability to see when they are being dissociated from reality. That’s one of the reasons that even though I am young, I have made a decision not to participate in spur of the moment marches. Besides, I don’t know that they accomplish anything positive if they aren’t covered by news outlets with audiences of opposing views. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a report on MSNBC about the “March for Life,” and I guess I wouldn’t see one unless there were some incident that the network could blame on extremists.


O: Oh! In fact, there was such an incident. Remember Nicholas Sandmann, the Catholic school youth from Covington, Kentucky? *** The mainstream media took a video of Sandmann and blew it into a negative story about the march. CNN, the Washington Post, and NBC Universal ended up losing law suits over that manipulation of the news in their attempt to dissociate reality from their common agendas. Little Nick won millions from those media outlets for their defamation of character. The point you make is correct. Take the Occupy Wall Street protest movements. They generated positive news coverage by the Left-leaning media and social media even though those movements were marred by numerous arrests, more than 8,000 of them. And among the crimes committed by the “occupiers,” were rapes and assaults. Not much of that got covered by the mainstream Press. But, lo-and-behold! When the Tea Party marched peacefully in protest, the media made them out to be terrorists, even though there were only some seven misdemeanors. Seems that grandpa and grandma are prone to violence when they march.


Y: Yeah, I see the manipulation now. I see that the pro-Israel march was viewed differently from the pro-Hamas marches in the Leftist media. I guess they do effectively promote a dissociation between their audiences and reality.


O: All of us need to learn about dissociations imposed on us by people with an agenda. We see group dissociation amnesia imposed by textbook writers who want to change history. We see it imposed by reporters lost in the vacuum of ignorance about the past. We see it in ourselves when we choose to ignore reality.




*Laurie, Margo. 2022. The Anarchist’s Wife.


**Benjamin, Melanie. 2013. The Aviator’s Wife. Was this the inspiration for Laurie’s novella published nine years later?


***https://nypost.com/2020/01/07/cnn-settles-defamation-suit-with-covington-teen-nick-sandmann/

Ever go to SeaWorld? Did you see the orcas perform? Though not as big as baleen whales, those toothy monsters are big. Their dorsal fins stand to the height of six feet above a body that outweighs my Ram 1500 by three tons.


They seem playful and quite intelligent, but we know from videos that they kill large white sharks and even sink boats. So, there’s really no sense in putting complete trust in their big brains, that is, the kind of trust that Dawn Brancheau placed in the orca Tilikum till it killed her.* Some have suggested that Tilikum was merely playing with his trainer and didn’t realize that she couldn’t stay underwater or take the toss-about that broke her back and other bones, leading to her drowning.


Brancheau was an enthusiastic orca trainer who performed with the beasts before her death in 2010. She wasn’t the first human killed by a seemingly “friendly orca.” And some people suggest that in at least one other death, one at SeaLand, Tilikum played a role, making the orca a serial killer.


In comparison with an orca, humans are feeble critters. That means any human who ventures to swim with them risks limb and life. Orcas might seem playful, but they can turn on their human playmates.


In comparison with one another, some humans are orcas, whereas others are still feeble humans. Swimming with such beasts can be hazardous.


Biden Swims with a Human Tilikum at San Francisco Bay


So, who thought it was a good idea for a visibly feeble old man to jump into the waters of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)? Swimming in those vast waters will be Xi, the leader of a nation that sent a spy balloon larger than a blue whale across the ocean of American airspace without a response from the President. Will the President believe, like Brancheau and others, that there will be no dangers? That this orca is friendly and harmless and that playful overtures indicate a beast no longer intent on doing harm?


Will Xi and others merely play with POTUS and inadvertently cause an injury to onlooking Americans’ economic fortunes? Will Xi and others purposefully take advantage of a noticeably feeble human whose mental capacities seem woefully diminished since he took office (not that he was the paragon of wisdom before the election)?


*https://nypost.com/2010/02/25/seaworld-whale-mauls-and-kills-trainer-in-front-of-audience/ See this plus numerous related stories.