We

 “We” went to the moon. The first astronauts on the moon reported that when they went around the world people of all countries talked about how “we” went to the moon. Certainly, it was NASA, American scientists and engineers and astronauts who went to the moon. But the real story was recognized by everyone - we, the human race, went to the moon. We opened up to creative exploration beyond previous imagination. 

In the same way, “We” built the bomb.  Certainly, it was Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project scientists and engineers that built the bomb.  But the real story is that we, the human race, built a weapon that can destroy the human race. We opened up to destruction beyond previous imagination. (The Oppenheimer movie is excellent, showing the complex ambiguity of Oppenheimer and some of the scientists involved - it’s the last thirty seconds of the movie that punched me in the gut)

Also, “We” have created Artificial Intelligence.  Certainly, it was/is scientists around the world doing this.  But the real story is that we, the human race, have created an intellectual power beyond previous imagination.  And the very scientists that created it are giving us terrified warnings that AI could destroy the human race. And, it can achieve great things for the human race. (The James Olmos TV series Battlestar Glactica is a great series and explores this complexity)

“We” need to develop something now that may be beyond our imagination. We need to develop wisdom, maturity, caring, non-dogmatic spiritual connections with nature, with the Divine Oneness, with our humanity, with each other. 

Or “We” are toast. 

Trump admits guilt in top secret documents theft

Isn’t covering up direct evidence of guilt the same as an open confession of guilt?

new charges

"...explosive claims that he asked an employee of his Mar-a-Lago club to delete security camera footage sought by investigators probing his handling of classified documents."

Prison please. 

Toxic effect of football on manhood

 I used to love football.  Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, OJ Simpson, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice… loved them all. 

But then OJ slaughtered his ex-wife and her new lover…what?  

I turned more and more to golf, which I played, and which had an amazing moral code of sportsmanship where players called penalties on themselves, for example. 

And then I saw the documentary “League of Denial”, and later the movie “Concussion” and all I could see when looking at football was endless brain damage - CTE - Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis - brain death, personality change, high agitation, early and torturous death.  I can’t watch. 

But this post is about something more toxic about football than the damage to the brains of the players. It is about how the domineering win at all costs ethos of football has poisoned America’s vision of what it is to be a man. 

First, to be a man is to be BIG.  The average weight of men has skyrocketed since TV football took over the sports world in the ‘60s.

Also, to be a man was to be scary, intimidating, domineering. Pound and punish and push and humiliate your “opponent” (enemy).

And, to be a man was to do anything to win, win, win, win, win…just look at the two most famous football quotes - 

“ Winning isn’t everything; it's the only thing”. Vince Lombardi. Green BayPackers - actually first said by Red Sanders. UCLA 1950. “

“Just win, baby”. Al Davis. Oakland Raiders. 

I think these are toxic messages to American boys and men. It substitutes domination for legitimate masculine virtue. It is counterfeit masculinity - just be scary. 

And we have a large part of one of our political parties where the men are big and fat and wear camouflage outfits and carry pistols and assault weapons and drive huge pickup trucks with giant American and confederate flags from them and do their best to be threatening. 

And, let’s not forget that they elected a mentally disturbed wanna be dictator/king who never never never never admits that he made a mistake or that he lost. And is calling for violence now to stay out of prison. 

I choose a much better, and more deeply spiritual version of sport and of manhood. The great sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote in a time that honored sportsmanship:

For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But HOW you played the Game.

"Alumnus Football” 
― Grantland Rice

Amen 

The future - authoritarian dystopia version

 Venezuela shows the world what happens when an authoritarian takes over and dominates a country - expertise and competence is replaced by ignorant, incompetent, and untouchable political loyalists. Venezuela had a thriving oil industry. It is in shambles:

“ Soon after President Hugo Chávez rose to power in the 1990s with promises to use the country’s oil wealth to lift up the poor, he fired thousands of oil workers, including engineers and geologists, and replaced them with political supporters, took control of foreign-owned oil assets, and neglected safety and environmental standards.”

Chavez was a left wing, socialist authoritarian.  But the problem was getting rid of the experts more than socialism itself.

Putin went to war because no one could tell him what he didn’t want to hear.  But his military was in bad shape and the country he was invading is fighting fiercely to drive him out. Surprise surprise. 

Trump listens to nobody- that is, he listens to nobody that knows anything. He listens to toadies who tell him what he wants to hear.  And he lost the election, and his Trump endorsed election denier crazies lost their elections in 2022, and he will lose the election in 2024.  And he will be convicted of his multiple crimes. Because is not a king. He is ignorant, and not smart, and cruel, and panicked, and delusional.  

Authoritarian rulers plant the seeds of their own destruction by surrounding themselves with self serving sycophants who are incompetent and often not too bright. 

He wants to be an authoritarian, and he believes he is an authoritarian, but I believe he is just a deluded old man who is on his way to prison.

I just hope and pray he doesn’t convince his cult crazies to kill people on his last sad little journey. 

Climate refugees

The terrible heat dome that has been smothering Houston and the Gulf Coast for about a month is only part of the story. There is a world wide crippling heat wave, and the northeastern U.S. has gotten a month’s worth of rain in a day or two resulting in terrible floods. 

This is not going to stop until we stop using the atmosphere as a sewer for fossil fuel burning and soil killing factory farming. And that is going to take some time, and dramatic political change, to happen.

So, the question is, when do we start seeing millions of Climate Refugees?  How can the Middle Eastern deserts support life going forward?  The same for the muggy Deep South and scorching desert West in America?  And that is just thinking about the places becoming too hot to live in. What about places that become too cold?  Or blizzards too violent?  Or coastlines that get too flooded?

I firmly believe that today’s kids see this problem very clearly, and they will grow up and they will vote,  and they will invent and innovate. 

My Boomer Generation created amazing personal freedoms, currently being attacked by other Boomers. But we have left an environmental disaster for others to deal with. 

I am hopeful and optimistic. I think they will. 

Right wing extremist authoritarian tactics

 How do right wing extremist authoritarians take over a country?  There is a playbook that is used over and over again.  You see it in Russia, Poland, Hungary, China, Saudi Arabia, and.... MAGA/Tea-Party/Freedom-Caucus extremists in America as well.

A basic move is to destroy the free press.  Drive it out of business.  Take over the media space with authoritarian controlled/authoritarian colluding pretend free press.

Then, of course, control the brains of the country with endless, repetitious, insistent propaganda and lies -- 

• blame liberals by calling them socialists and communists, 
• gaslight the news by claiming the news is fake, 
• pump lie after lie after lie into the brains of the country, 
• accuse the opposition to the authoritarian takeover of the same crimes the authoritarians are actually committing
• claim that only the right wing extremist authoritarians can save the country from the corruption and debauchery
• demonize all who aren't right wing authoritarian white supremacist men - 
• gays
• transgenders
• blacks
• browns
• reds
• yellows
• women
• flood the media avenues with crime after crime, corruption after corruption, lie after lie - just wear the country out so as to make them turn away and shrug in confusion and despair
• Take over the judiciary - put right wing extremist judges throughout the judiciary, including the Supreme Court
• Take over the military and put right wing extremist soldiers and leaders in the military
• Prevent those that oppose the right-wing extremists from voting

We have seen The Former Guy do these things for eight years.  Just because we are sick and tired of it doesn't mean that we can afford to turn away.  Now, and now, and now, and now is the time to see the authoritarian attempts to destroy American democracy. And we need to stay sane, and to insist on the truth, the truth, the truth - and to stop these domineering men from ending the American experiment in self-government.

A key to it all is having a country that is governed by the rule of law, not the rule of a "king".  The Former Guy still hasn't figured out that he is not a "king".  But he'll get it, eventually.

I am so sorry America is learning this lesson via the hard path of internal experience.  I just hope and pray we don't have to take it to the logical conclusion of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy in the '30s and '40s.  Or of Putin today, who is likely to have a bad ending to his extremist, corrupt, domineering rule.

Prison please.

Understanding MAGA

I endlessly try to find ways to understand the Republican Party.  I used to be Republican but the Tea Party (Freedom Caucus) drove me out because it seemed to me they were dedicated to destroying needed government services, regulations, standards, and expertise.  Then came the Former Guy and he developed the MAGA following which drove me into the Democratic Party.  

But who are MAGA?  Why do the so unquestioningly follow such a man?  David French, Christian conservative and former Republican gives some remarkable insight.  I quote most of his recent article here:

What outsiders often can’t see about the appeal of Trumpism

By David French

I’ve shared this fact with readers before: I live in Tennessee outside Nashville, a very deep-red part of America....This is the world of my friends, my neighbors and many members of my family. ...

It’s hard to encapsulate a culture in 22 seconds, but this July 4 video tweet from Representative Andy Ogles accomplishes the nearly impossible.... the tweet features Ogles, a cheerful freshman Republican from Tennessee, wishing his followers a happy Fourth of July. The text of the greeting is remarkable only if you don’t live in MAGA-land:

Hey guys, Congressman Andy Ogles here, wishing you a happy and blessed Fourth of July. Hey, remember our Founding Fathers. It’s we the people that are in charge of this country, not a leftist minority. Look, the left is trying to destroy our country and our family, and they’re coming after you.

....It’s no coincidence that one of the most enduring cultural symbols of Trump’s 2020 campaign was the boat parade. To form battle lines behind Trump, the one man they believe can save America from total destruction, thousands of supporters in several states got in their MasterCrafts and had giant open-air water parties.

Or take the Trump rally, the signature event of this political era. ... you see the anger, but you miss the fun. ... the Trump superfans who follow Trump from rally to rally the way some people used to follow the Grateful Dead....They are major life events: festive opportunities to get together with like-minded folks

... The consistent message from Trumpland of all ages is something like this: “They’re the worst, and we’re awesome. Let’s party, and let’s fight.”

Why do none of your arguments against Trump penetrate this mind-set? The Trumpists have an easy answer: You’re horrible, and no one should listen to horrible people. ... they know that you’re horrible and that horrible people are capable of anything, including stealing an election.

At the same time, their own joy and camaraderie insulates them against external critiques that focus on their anger and cruelty. Such charges ring hollow to Trump supporters, who can see firsthand the internal friendliness and good cheer that they experience when they get together with one another. They don’t feel angry — at least not most of the time. They are good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand.

Trump’s opponents miss the joy because they experience only the rage. I’m a member of a multiethnic church in Nashville. It’s a refuge from the MAGA Christianity that’s all too present where I live, ... “If you ain’t ready for death threats, don’t live in Franklin,” he said.

Trump’s fans, by contrast, don’t understand the effects of that fury because they mainly experience the joy. For them, the MAGA community is kind and welcoming. For them, supporting Trump is fun. Moreover, the MAGA movement is heavily clustered in the South, and Southerners see themselves as the nicest people in America. It feels false to them to be called “mean” or “cruel.” Cruel? No chance. In their minds, they’re the same people they’ve always been — it’s just that they finally understand how bad you are. And by “you,” again, they often mean the caricatures of people they’ve never met.

... Many of them will never know that their progressive neighbors have faced threats and intimidation. And even when they do see the movement at its worst, they can’t quite believe it. So Jan. 6 was a false flag. ...” It couldn’t have really been a violent attempt to overthrow the elected government, because they know these people, or people like them, and they’re mostly good folks. ... The real crime was the stolen election.

It’s the combination of anger and joy that makes the MAGA enthusiasm so hard to break but also limits its breadth....It’s one part Battle for the Future of Civilization and one part booze cruise.

The battle and the booze cruise both give MAGA devotees a sense of belonging. They see a country that’s changing around them and they are uncertain about their place in it.... they know they have a place at a Trump rally, surrounded by others — overwhelmingly white, many evangelical — who feel the same way they do.

Evangelicals are a particularly illustrative case.... it’s hard to feel a true sense of belonging unless you’re ideologically united with the people in the pews around you.

.... You can’t replace something with nothing. And until we fully understand what that “something” is — and that it includes not only passionate anger but also very real joy and a deep sense of belonging — then our efforts to persuade are doomed to fail. I have long believed that the glue that holds MAGA together is a need to belong felt by people who feel left out in today's America.  I never saw the FUN and PARTYING involved in this belonging.   Logic and facts have very little role to play in trying to convince our MAGA neighbors to let go of the Former Guy.  They cannot see us or hear us.  But... I believe the bubble will eventually burst. I don't know what it will take to dissolve the veils or delusion, but I have a deep hope and faith in the truth, the rule of law, and a persistent attempt to reach out to all Americans ...  ...and maybe most of all, if they can see the goodness in those of us they have been told to fear and hate....

EVs need infrastructure

 To combat global warming and climate change the auto industry is moving toward Electric Vehicles. EVs emit no pollutants from the vehicles, but of course, they have to be charged with electricity that comes from power plants.  As I understand it, that reduces CO2 emissions by about two thirds.  This is very welcome.

The fly in the ointment is there is not enough power generation available in the nationwide grid today to charge all the EVs that are coming down the road.  It is not just Tesla, but Ford, Nissan, Volvo etc. are making big commitments to produce EVs.

The main reason I don't have an EV is what seems to me to be the unreliability and accessibility of charging stations for longer trips.  A problem being worked on, I am sure.

The hope is that green sources of energy will skyrocket, and I hope that as well.  But at this time the vast majority of power is generated by natural gas, coal, and nuclear, with only about 11% generated from wind, solar, and geothermal as of 2020 per the EPA.  

These numbers have likely grown a bit but natural gas, nuclear, and coal remain the primary sources of power, and it takes time to build power generating sources.  Will power generation keep up with a big spike in demand that is coming from EVs?

I think the transition is not going to be smooth.  However, I am sure that the smartest kids at MIT, Stanford, England, India and around the world are dreaming of coming up with green energy breakthroughs rather than more efficient fossil fuels fuel plants.  

Energy storage?  I believe China is developing rechargeable Sodium batteries rather than the environmentally damaging Lithium batteries.  

Nuclear power?  My dream has been modular nuclear fusion plants scattered around the country where the power is needed locally.  The big tokamak research plants look like they are too expensive and will take too long to build.  I believe other forms of plasma generation are being explored and I have hopes for these.

Geothermal power?  Currently, I believe most of the available geothermal sites are already generating power in the U.S., New Zealand, and around the world.  However, I have read that there is a "cold geothermal" power being developed by deep drilling to hot rock far below the current hot geo near the surface.  It boils CO2 not H2O.  If that proves out, geothermal power plants can be built anywhere, near the need for power and not just where steam comes out of the ground already.

Plus, what unimaginable to me today power sources are being explored and yet to be imagined?

The political power of the fossil fuel industry is enormous, of course, and they will do all they can to keep their grip on power generation.  But even at the heart of the fossil fuel industry in America, Texas, the power demands of this latest month long triple digit heat dome, which overwhelmed the grid, was rescued by wind and solar power generation to keep the lights, and air conditioners on.

New power is coming.  Old power will still be needed.  All hands on deck.  Global Warming and Climate Change are real and disastrous to human and all life on our beautiful planet.  

As a parenthetical thought, I have long wanted Hydrogen powered transportation and power generation.  Maybe that is a parallel path?

Faster please.

The snowball of bigotry only gets bigger if you let it roll downhill

 Today the White Christian Nationslist Supreme Court has sanctioned homophobic bigotry in the name of “religious freedom” by granting a person not to make a website for a gay marriage since since they see gay marriage as opposed by their religion. Really?

Golly, what else is opposed by their White Christian Nationalist religion.?  Jewish bar mitzvahs?  Birthdays of Down Syndrome children?  Serving “inferior” races?

Is it against their White Christian Nationalist religion to serve black and brown people?  We know that these types of “Christians” used the Bible to justify their slavery, didn’t they?  And I have no doubt they used their twist of the Bible to justify the Jim Crow laws of the south prior to being forced to end them by the Voting Rights laws and other laws of the Civil Rights Movement. Well, they ended the Jim Crow laws but it seems they have not abandoned them. Those laws are alive and ill in the hearts of White Christian Nationalists today, and they are charging full speed ahead to establish Jim Crow America.

Here is a helpful sign from the past to help us see the future they are aiming for:

Civilized people need to stop this snowball of bigotry now, because if we let it roll downhill it will only get bigger, and then bigger, and then bigger. All in the name of “Religious Freedom”, in the name of purifying and cleansing the country of the many “filths” they see from their pulpits and pews. First - reproductive freedom of women and couples - now gay marriage - next…..

We need to stop this. We can see where it’s going.