“Legally Blonde” is one of my favorite films. I only wish the powers running Harvard were as smart as the film portrays. But alas, Elle getting into Harvard and the really feel good ending to the story remains a fairy tale. Life doesn’t usually work that way and not every girl is a very intelligent, beautiful and talented Elle from a doting and wealthy family.

However, while recently watching the film again I was reminded there was a time in America when we had hope of fairy tales coming true in our lives, when the children of my era were raised to believe in fairy tales because America held so much promise of such fairy tales coming true. The Attack on Pearl Harbor changed all that.

There aren’t many of us who recall inkwells in our school desks, of having to use those pens with their black wooden handles of so many years past. But some may have read stories of little boys that would mischievously dip the pigtails of some little girl into an inkwell who had the misfortune to be sitting in front of such a boy.

This memory of long ago came to me as I sit here at my desk writing with the morning sunlight streaming in through the windows. The wonder of it is that at my age I still find wonder and magic in the sunlight, in so many things of Nature that remain since childhood so full of wonder and magic. That such memories are tinged by thoughts of little boys dipping a little girl’s pigtails into their inkwells seems a perverse twist of the way our minds work. No sooner does a pleasant memory come to mind but some other less pleasant or at odd intrudes.

Among the treasures I possess is a scrapbook my mother began keeping in 1939, in which are many artifacts and photos from this date through the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor (mom being there during the attack) and for some time thereafter. When my mother passed away, I unexpectedly found myself the remaining “patriarch” of our family and the scrapbook became mine.

The memorabilia in the scrapbook of my mother’s time in Hawaii includes a matchbook cover featuring the U. S. S. Medusa. My stepfather Joe Brown was a machinist aboard this ship. He made the two beautiful lamps in the shape of lighthouses that are also now in my possession. There are many items of historical interest in the book, things like the daily paper put out to the passengers aboard the S. S. President Taft, the ship in which my mother returned to the states following the attack on Pearl.

The paper’s masthead reads: “Matson Line Wireless. Matson Navigation Company. The Oceanic Steamship Company.” The paper is quite comprehensive, covering the daily reports of the war and includes a warning to passengers not to throw it overboard after reading since to do so might result in being picked up by Japanese submarines. The threat of submarine attack was all too real, and another cause for worry to those awaiting the return of loved ones from Hawaii. To go through my mother’s scrapbook of this era of American history is not only a journey back in time, it is a historical document of the greatest importance, a personal window into that period of enormous upheaval for America and a world suddenly finding itself at war.

For example, there are the many items having to do with the actual attack on Pearl including photos. Mom had also kept a photo album of pictures she took while living in Hawaii, some of beautiful buildings and parks, some showing her with various friends while traveling about the Island. The photos following the attack showed the stark change; there are photos of bomb shelters hurriedly erected and mom and some friends wearing gas masks, a stark and chilling contrast to the previous pictures of an enchanted island suddenly finding itself gripped by fear, the terror of the deadly sneak attack made obvious in the pictures.

I have the RCA Radiogram mom saved in her scrapbook sent by my grandparents with the stark words “Let us know at once if you are safe.” But following the attack America was suddenly in “Lockdown” nationwide with little personal information about loved ones or conditions in Hawaii, and because of the numerous emergency requirements and procedures instituted immediately following the attack my grandparents could not even send the radiogram until December 16. This meant we did not know for many days following the attack if mom was even alive. I well recall how worried we all were until mom was able to send a reply, all the while we were listening intently to every radio broadcast and reading everything possible about the conditions surrounding Hawaii immediately following the attack.

Then there is the “Questionnaire To Be Completed By Evacuees” my mother had to fill out before being assigned transport back to the states. Being a Navy Wife, the questionnaire required particular information of my mother not required of those who were not attached in some way to the military. But among the many things in mom’s scrapbook there are those that tell of a period in American history when the future was bright and full of dreams and hopes for a very beautiful young woman, a wife and mother with a limitless horizon of such dreams and hopes of a future. Then in a violently abrupt instant all these were thrown into the maelstrom of the infamous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a shell actually exploding in mom’s kitchen injuring her. Suddenly and unexpectedly hopes and dreams were blasted by that infamous instant of time that threw America into a world war for which neither mom nor any of us were prepared.

As I write, mom’s scrapbook is open here on my desk before me. I look at these bits and pieces of my mother’s life, the many items and photos so important to her, that she believed significant enough to include, though precious to me on a personal level I realize how very important this actual history is. Her scrapbook is something of great historical significance, so much so that it belongs in a proper place housing the artifacts of actual American history ever as much as those of any other. Mom’s scrapbook is worthy of a book being written about it.

However, the keeping of a scrapbook is one of those things like inkwells in school desks and the pressing of flowers in a book that belong to a bygone era. Few children or young people today keep a scrapbook, and I believe this to be most unfortunate. You see, a scrapbook is kept for the sake of memories of family, something one expects to be meaningful to others as well as yourself. But such a thing presumes there is a family to which the scrapbook will become part of a legacy.

It seems at times that, like Ishmael of Moby Dick, I alone am left to tell the tale of my mother’s America, of the America I knew as a child that held so much promise of a future for our nation filled with the hope of fairy tales coming true. And mom’s scrapbook containing the hopes and dreams of a young woman living in an enchanted land called “Hawaii” before December 7, 1941 prove how justified we were in believing in an America my mother and I once knew, an America that used to be. But also proving how in an instant of time everything can change; and I wonder if there will be any scrapbooks like my mother’s to pass on to those like me to tell the tale?

An estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe, with each containing an estimated 100 billion stars are truly astronomical numbers with which to conjure; and in many ways conjure is the correct word. In fact, it is just too vast, too huge for me to even imagine. And given the immensity of it all what to believe? Well one of the things I come up with is Don Knotts and Mayberry.

With the passing of Don Knotts it occurred to me once more how badly we need to believe in Barney Fife and Mayberry. We Americans have been blessed with those like George Washington as our heritage. Those of us who experienced a Mayberry, Walton’s Mountain, and Norman Rockwell America prior to WWII are blessed with precious memories of the way things are supposed to be. We lived it and know what is missing in America today, what our leaders have squandered and frittered away by betraying such a wonderful heritage. Those of us who have lived long enough to look back far enough know what has been lost, and we can be excused for grieving over the loss.

It was while contemplating this loss, thinking about Mayberry and other like things my mind turned to something philosophers and theologians have long pondered about a possible “hereafter.” My idea of heaven would be Mayberry, a place where only goodness and virtue prevailed, where there is no place for the evil men do.

One of the things that has made it easier for me to contemplate my own death is the thought there will be those loved ones and friends who have gone on before me, those who are waiting to greet me upon my own passing. But I would not want them to be witnessing the failures, trials and tribulations I go through while in this present life. It could hardly be “heaven” where our loved ones and friends witness our ongoing struggles and helpless to intervene on our behalf.

We read in the Bible a description of death comparing it to a seed being planted, one that will grow even as an earthly seed planted in the earth. Our earthly body even as that earthly seed is a promise of life coming forth, and will go through a transformation even as that earthly seed.

My own thought is that we will be “born” into the heavenly life much like we are born into this life. Just as we know nothing at birth but become slowly aware of our surroundings, slowly learning and becoming self-conscious so I believe it will be in the hereafter. How else to cope with the shock of entering into the hereafter? No earthly seed could possibly survive being instantly transformed into its promise of the life it contains.

The doctrine of the “Rapture” has people being transformed in the “twinkling of an eye.”  But I do not believe this transformation could take place without incorporating that parable of Jesus comparing death and resurrection with that earthly seed. It takes time for the seed to transform, and it will take time for us to transform in the hereafter, to become aware of our new surroundings without suffering the same shock should a seed not be carefully nurtured and given time to grow into its earthly body. It may be our loved ones and friends gone on before us will be “gardeners” tending us even as our earthly parents tended us as babies, and we in turn “tended” our own children.

The Bible presents many thoughts on this subject, among them being that of earthly things being the pattern of things to come. While all of this is metaphysical, only speculation, nevertheless there is Mayberry. And for those of us who knew an America in which there was a Mayberry, those of us who knew Norman Rockwell’s America we live in hope of a heavenly Mayberry.

Will you be “Left Behind?”  The portents for worldwide disaster are visible to all and need no elucidation. It’s the story “If you are not paranoid you don’t see the whole picture.” Emerson was gifted in seeing the whole picture. Some one-hundred and sixty-five years ago he wrote, “But in a hundred high schools and colleges this warfare against common sense still goes on.”

The Ivory Tower syndrome was well entrenched by the time Emerson made his remarks, and the recent furor over the failing schools of America continues to be rooted in the universities of America. This insulated world to itself so ignorant of the realities is led by fools that have no concept of the real world in which the rest of us live. Social promotion is a “gift” of the universities, a doomed system without any accountability. And when children are no longer taught reading, writing, and arithmetic here come the social engineers, all good university graduates, to “fix” the problem— Again; and again, all the while “in a hundred high schools and colleges this warfare against common sense still goes on.” What I said years ago of the schools is only more appropriate now: A system for failure could not have been better designed had it been done intentionally.

Alas, our leaders in government, judiciary, media, in our schools are a product of a university system that does not deal with realities; so it is we have an America without any leaders dedicated to accountability and unable to deal with realities. But because of the world becoming increasingly dangerous, and this is a reality, it requires leaders who are both accountable and able to deal with realities. But where are such leaders to be found?

The Iranian President’s vitriolic ranting tirades against the West, Christians, and Jews sure sound a lot like those of Hitler’s, even the voice and gestures are reminiscent of Hitler. Most certainly the crowds being whipped into a frenzy by Iran’s mad mullah are an exact replica of the crowds Hitler “preached” to. And since the whole world knows Caesar Bush had determined to “Get Saddam” before he even took office and without any plan whatsoever for fighting a war to win in the Middle East there is no want of Muslim propaganda to use against America.

As some of us were pointing out at the time, without putting an actual face to the enemy and successfully demonizing him there was no hope of winning any kind of war, and given the stranglehold of political correctness it is easier to demonize Halliburton than Muslim fanatics. And when some of us call for bringing the troops home to secure our own borders we are labeled “defeatist” and “racist.” Since none of this makes any sense, least of all our leadership getting us involved in a Middle East quagmire where there is no hope of prosecuting any kind of successful war, it would be easy for anyone to think Bush a mad man confronting other mad men like Iran’s mad mullah.

What would it take here in America to prosecute a successful war against the gangs and other criminals terrorizing our cities? While I experienced the problem in Watts back in the 60s, it was interesting watching Anderson Cooper’s segment “Stop Snitchin’ “ program. Like the attention now being paid to the vile and violent lyrics of hip-hop and rap, it is far too little and far too late. Nothing short of a totalitarian rule in America can now solve the problem. But that can happen overnight if a terrorist nuclear bomb goes off at LAX. During the Watts Riots I watched as the police and National Guard went in to restore order. The cops would ride four in a car emptying their guns into various stores and buildings, the Guardsmen in armored vehicles would fire .50 caliber machine guns down the streets, and an actual body count was never made. While I slept with a gun by my side, one guardsman I knew kept a box of hand grenades close by. Were it not for my being there, this would all seem like a fabulous story.

But the situation that brought about the riots has only worsened, and the millions of illegal aliens invading from Mexico have only contributed to the worsening conditions in the cities and schools of America. While I applaud those like Cooper for airing the grievances, there is no satisfactory answer to quelling the violence in the cities short of martial law, securing our borders and expelling all illegal aliens. If this seems farfetched, the very same people saying it would take nearly a half-million troops in Iraq, a nation with a minuscule population compared to America, to have any chance of restoring order there refuse to see the same conditions building here in America, conditions that are spiraling out of control and inviting terrorism both from abroad and from within.

America is an acknowledged anomaly in the history of nations, and given world events leading to WWIII may well be destroyed unless we come up with a leadership that puts America first. But equally anomalous is the tiny State of Israel; that it should even exist at all and its coming into being and its survival inextricably intertwined with America. It is here where the Bible must be credited to make any sense of this.

I have my own beliefs about God and a hereafter, but dead may yet turn out to be nothing more than dead. I don’t know; and despite my many years of academic studies in theology and philosophy, I still have to say “I don’t know.” While I no longer stand in a pulpit as a Christian minister and my views about many things have changed over the years my personal beliefs are a comfort to me in many ways as they are to many others, but intellectual honesty requires I separate what I believe from what I know. For example, I believe there are saints and sinners, children of God and children of the Devil, but I don’t know that. I believe it because it makes sense to me, but I don’t know it as fact. My hope and belief is that when I die I will rejoin my loved ones and friends passed on before me; but I don’t know.

However, even if you are not knowledgeable of eschatology you might be surprised at the credence being given the End Times as described in Scripture. Glenn Beck certainly seems to believe this, but it was when I watched the interview with Jon Voight I was impressed with Voight’s obvious concern, actually, he said “fear” for the direction he believes the world is heading. His thoughts and fears are no doubt fortified by his daughter Angelina Jolie’s experiences as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.

Joel Rosenberg’s “Epicenter” is not the ravings of a lunatic; far from it. My mentor Charles Lee Feinberg, Ph. D., Th. D. and Dean of Talbot Seminary was a Christian Jew; he referred to himself as a “completed Jew.” More than that, he was a fundamentalist Christian who believed the Bible and wrote several commentaries as well as being the leader selected by the Lockman Foundation for the New American Standard Bible, of which I have a treasured Pilot Edition signed and given me by Dr. Feinberg, and he was my guide while I studied the Bible and built my personal library of over 5,000 volumes of the very best of Biblical study books and commentaries.

It was Dr. Feinberg who called my attention to possibilities of actual Biblical prophecies, some of the more profound being those of Ezekiel, whom God had appointed as a “Watchman.” Perhaps Ezekiel was describing his supernatural view of the universe when he wrote of “eyes all about.” For those of you that have not read this book of the Old Testament please do so, and for those of you who have read it, perhaps even studied it consider my article about galactic black holes possibly being the “eyes of the universe” in the context of the prophet’s description. Maybe Ezekiel had a vision of the universe he was trying to describe, maybe the “eyes” were satellites or TVs, but I believe he was describing a prophetic vision.

The prophecies of Daniel in the OT and those of John in the NT together with those like Ezekiel’s and others may be in fact supernatural, and it would be marvelous if God were to intervene in world affairs, delivering us out of the darkness of fear, greed, and hatreds prevailing worldwide threatening nuclear Armageddon. Whatever anyone’s opinion, there is no disputing the fact that nothing short of supernatural can account for the tiny State of Israel being so prominent in world affairs; so I don’t wonder John McCain would tell Tim Russert Iran getting the bomb would mean Armageddon, or Condoleezza Rice mentioning “birth pangs” in relationship to the crisis building in the Middle East. To read only the book of Revelation seems too much like reading the daily newspapers today.

We read God had appointed Pharaoh to his position of prominence at the time of the Exodus in order to show the power of the Lord in delivering his people. But according to the story, the Israelites had been crying out to God for nearly four-hundred years to be delivered from their “cruel bondage.” Now, we live in a world of over six-billion most of whom live in cruel bondage of one kind or another, a situation that has lasted far more than the years of bondage for those Israelites.

The stories of the Bible are fascinating to read and I am grateful for those like Dr. Feinberg who taught me to study the Bible academically. But in all my years of Bible study, though I have departed from any kind of Christian orthodoxy there remains a “spirit of truth” throughout the book I cannot bring myself to deny.

And what if Bush has been appointed by God to fill the position he holds as Bush claims, but being in the position of the Pharaoh of the Exodus rather than the deliverer of America? Whether or not it seems Bush is leading America on a course of destruction, and I don’t find any fault with those whose hopes are in God to deliver them, who believe in “looking up for their redemption draweth nigh.” Whatever your beliefs there is no discounting the dangers to an America in which “in a hundred high schools and colleges this warfare against common sense still goes on.” That this warfare against common sense is so evident in our own leadership brings with it the gravest foreboding concerning the outcome for America. It doesn’t matter what one believes about the Bible, what does matter is the self-fulfilling prophecy of any nation whose leaders are dedicated to power, greed, and corruption rather than being dedicated to the benefit of the whole nation.

Along with the “miracle” of the State of Israel and its prominence both in Scripture and present world events there is the anomaly of so much scientific achievement and promise facing a growing dark and ignorant hatred by Muslim nations for all of Western Civilization. There is the growing possibility of Gog and Magog arising as alliances are forged against America and Israel. So, even with the risk to my own academic qualifications and credibility I increasingly place more credence in the Bible than the words of politicians to make any kind of sense of a world seemingly bent on its own destruction. But I am the beneficiary of the goodness America used to represent to the world, the beneficiary of the hope our nation once represented to We the People. And so much of this goodness of America was rooted in Scripture I don’t wonder that I am drawn more to this and the sincere goodness of those like my grandparents, Dr. Feinberg and Pastor Tyree Toliver than any other, and in this there is more to my mind of common sense to be found than anywhere else.

Since I post to other sites and sometimes get some less than flattering replies I found it interesting the blog at my hometown newspaper The Bakersfield Californian has one person advertising his blog is for conservatives only. One immediate problem with this is the person doesn’t know how to write, and I would not want to be judged as a conservative by his inability to write correctly. Conservatives suffer enough from accusations of illiteracy and being called names by those considering themselves to be superior.

Well, I won’t be posting any comments on this person’s site since my one remark was deleted. I had noted the Californian blog had proved to be even-handed, more so than many, that I had found “delete” and justifiable complaints to the webmaster have been sufficient to counter the bullies and illiterate abusers of the King’s English.

I suppose since I still think a world-class brothel in downtown Btown would be a heck of a good idea that alone would remove me from being considered a fire-breathing conservative. There is the matter of my supporting the legalization of prostitution and marijuana, my supporting birth control and abortion, euthanasia, and my opposition to the death penalty.

However, my support of Christianity as a civilized religion, my position that we need to secure our borders and expel all illegal aliens, rid ourselves of ballots in foreign tongues, anchor babies, and “Press one for English,” that America needs its heritage, culture, language, and secure borders to survive as a nation do not suit those that flatter themselves with the label of “liberal.” Neither does criticism of the universities, my membership in the NRA, my outspokenness for the armed citizen and right to carry laws endear me to the left-wing.

But I am adamant in my condemnation of Caesar Bush and Company; I believe the Bush administration will be recorded as the dirtiest, most corrupt and inept in America history. I believe the troops should be brought home immediately to secure our own borders, and politicians and their corporate masters should be held to account for their betrayal of America for the sake of slave labor, their betraying America to other nations for the sake of profits.

Being rather pragmatic I don’t expect the movers and shakers in my native county of Kern to jump on the bandwagon for a world-class brothel gracing downtown Bakersfield. Neither do I expect a county so reliant on slave labor from Mexico to start pressing for expelling illegal aliens and securing our borders. But looking back over the several decades of my life in Kern County I continue to be grateful for a good metropolitan newspaper and more recently a blog where people can express themselves and differing views are shared.

Short of catastrophic events such as a nuclear bomb going off by accident or design there is little hope politicians are going to stray from their course of greed and corruption to solve the problems of America, and even less hope in my opinion for that of leaders in other nations. Say what anyone will, I continue to believe there is a Biblical scenario unfolding and the nations of the world are acting out this scenario. With the prevailing lunacy worldwide, I find myself increasingly drawn to philosophical speculation in an attempt to make some sense of it all. And though there is more than enough here on earth about which to speculate, there continues to be much in the stars as well.

There was more to the story when I was writing about Emerson’s essay “Circles,” and his emphasis on the eye when addressing circles and spheres. Jesus said “The light of the body is the eye.” Visible light is such an infinitesimal part of the spectrum, but it is what we rely on to make our way through life. The pupil is a “black hole” with a surrounding iris that responds to light. The black hole of the eye, the pupil, admits light to be transmitted to the brain where the light is transformed into pictures to be interpreted by other parts of the brain. This is the way galactic black holes are thought to operate, pulling in the material around them including light that may “interpret” this material leading to galaxy formation. Much like our brains experience an “incandescent” moment before we take any action, such incandescence has been observed in galaxies and may be the result of black holes during their “interpretative” cycle and action is undertaken.

It may be no coincidence, this linkage that might exist between the design of our eyes and the design of galaxy forming black holes throughout the universe. It may in fact be evidence of Intelligent Design where the operations in the universe dependent on the properties of light coincide with the way we function in reacting to light also, and even blind people are influenced by some wavelengths of the spectrum. And perhaps there is a connection between that “all-seeing eye” on our dollar bills and “secret” knowledge. Notwithstanding the Sphinx and the pyramids, stories of Atlantis, when I think about the unusual, not to use the word “miraculous,” achievements of humankind leading to space exploration and computers I cannot but help wondering if there is not some mystical influence involved, some relationship between the design and function of our eyes aiding our intelligence and that of black holes throughout the universe.

Though Emerson mentioned several examples of the importance of circles and spheres in nature, of first importance the eye, I would call attention to the fact nature favors round trunks in trees and plants as well as many other things much as the universe favors orbits and the spherical shape of stars and planets. Where would baseball, basketball, and soccer be without spheres? Imagine baseball using square balls. This is much more than an amusing “imagine;” there is obvious intelligent purpose to the design of baseballs and basketballs, why they are spheres rather than blocks or rectangles, so why not black holes, stars, and planets? But if I were to ask someone why a baseball isn’t shaped like a square block they might reply “That is nonsense; it wouldn’t work.” And if I were to ask some scientists why the earth is a sphere rather than a square block their answer is no better than that of the reply concerning a baseball: “It wouldn’t work.” But there is no satisfactory answer to the question of why the earth is a sphere, and after all the facts and theories are exhausted all we know for a certainty is that otherwise “it wouldn’t work.”

Well, of course we know an earth shaped like a square block wouldn’t work. What we do not know despite great advances in science and physics explaining so much is why the universe favors circles and spheres rather than squares and rectangles. And the politically correct science of the universities especially will not allow of the kind of intelligence involved with the design of a baseball being the cause of our earth being a sphere, though “it wouldn’t work” is not an answer and any student at the mercy of professors dares not question the why of this, nor do those scientists at the mercy of the universities for their academic credentials. And labels in lieu of understanding, labels like “gravity” and “magnetism” do not mystically convey understanding of these, which is why some scientists say the greater part of our universe is not only unknown, but unknowable.

Even in animals, to peer deeply into their eyes is to see intelligence. But there is a marked difference between the kind of intelligence to be seen in the innocent eye of the partridge Thoreau described and that of a predator like an owl; and even as those wells and windows of the soul, human eyes declare our thoughts and intentions, just so with other creatures. Were we to be able to peer into a galactic eye, a black hole, would we be able to see intelligence there?

Do cosmic forces determine life; do such forces control life on Earth? “The rise and fall of species on Earth might be driven in part by the undulating motions of our solar system as it travels through the disk of the Milky Way, scientists say. Motions of our solar system are similar to Earth’s biodiversity cycle.” Ker Than: Space.com

But even should the theory prove to be true, which could be construed as giving some basis to astrology crediting the influence of the stars and planets on life, what other than intelligence could make the determination of what species are to be born, survive, or perish? In some fashion T-rex had to give way for humankind to be born and survive. But was there intelligence behind both the creation of dinosaurs and their extinction? I credit both benevolent and malevolent ID because it would take a diabolical mind to come up with something like T-rex. And I question some of the achievements of science like opening the door to nuclear bombs, whether the same kind of malevolent intelligence responsible for T-rex made such knowledge available to humankind that may yet be the cause of our own extinction.

While I don’t want Gort calling the shots, it would be wonderful if Klaatu could come to our rescue. But what are the chances of intelligent life elsewhere in our galaxy or others? And even so, what if Michio Kaku and other physicists are correct in surmising that if other civilizations existed in other galaxies they may have reached our stage of nuclear development and destroyed themselves, this accounting for our not hearing from these other civilizations?

The recently announced discovery of planet 581c is getting a lot of deserved attention. According to theory the newly discovered planet “should have an atmosphere, but what’s in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it’s too thick that could make the planet’s surface temperature too hot.” The problem is that despite the hyperbole this newly discovered planet holds little prospect of any intelligent life, and all too often because of funding sources and some downright dishonesty such discoveries are propagandized rather than being held to strictly scientific interpretation and guidelines. While visible light is such an infinitesimal part of the whole spectrum, the conditions favorable to intelligent life is an even more infinitesimal part of such a spectrum, which is why there is room for debate whether our solar system, an acknowledged enigma, an anomaly in the universe may in fact be unique.

Notwithstanding the hyperbole and even dishonesty to be found among scientists and in the universities there remains to my mind the entrancing thought intelligent life may yet be found elsewhere in the universe. Fancy takes many forms, and much of the fanciful has led to and found fulfillment in scientific discovery. And who knows but what science may yet discover black holes are in fact the “eyes of the universe?”

“The Lord sure has made some beautiful worlds.” I saw “Forbidden Planet” in Redondo Beach when it was first released in 1956, and was tremendously impressed with the film. I was knowledgeable of Shakespeare and Greek mythology so I had some recognition of a very literate script, but for its time it was the marvelous special effects that held most of us spellbound. However, that remark made by the ship’s medical officer while looking at the viewing screen for the most part went unnoticed. It would not only be noticed today, but would be unthinkable for any film character with scientific credentials. Things were not always that way, and Forbidden Planet is a reminder of this.

From childhood I was drawn to the stories of Jules Verne and other early SciFi writers, and we children were certainly drawn to Superman as an extraterrestrial good guy making him an instant success with us. We lived in an age of heroes so Superman fit right in with others fighting evil and evildoers. But somewhere along the way our heroes became increasingly less heroic, and scientists in films were no longer giving the Lord credit for making some beautiful worlds.

But while Emerson and Jules Verne might have had some intuition of it from their knowledge of the Bible those fascinating circles, black holes in galaxies that are so inviting to astronomers and drive the curiosity of many of us remind me of the words of Ezekiel, “... and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” This seems to be descriptive of what astronomers are discovering about black holes and our universe.

While no longer belonging to or attending any church, I continue to tune in the broadcast of St. John Missionary Baptist in Bakersfield most Sunday mornings. And though not caring for some of the music, my reason to tune in is the sincerity evidenced by the congregation and its leader Tyree Toliver. He impresses me as a man such as Jesus described Nathanael, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” While no Bible commentator to my knowledge has explained it to my satisfaction, you will note Jesus did not use the narrow word “Jew” of Nathaniel, but the encompassing word Israelite having direct relation to Jacob, and beyond that the encompassing message of Jesus, the Gospel that would not make a distinction between Jew or Gentile as Jesus would explain to the Samaritan woman at the well, and his point in the story of the Good Samaritan among others.

As Jesus of Nathaniel, I don’t believe there is anything of guile in Pastor Toliver; he preaches a consistently simple, non-discriminatory message of right and wrong and gives direct answers to direct questions. You know where a man like Toliver stands and brothers and sisters, agree or disagree, that is what we have a right to expect of leaders, most especially of those who stand in the pulpits of America. Tragically for America, we cannot expect such from politicians including politicians passing themselves off as “preachers.” But Pastor Toliver serving in the same church for 50 years, his being 84 years of age speaks of both the confidence his flock has in him as a faithful shepherd and the mature experience of many years to commend him.

It would be unthinkable that Pastor Toliver would ever teach or countenance the beheading of anyone for the “glory” of God, that he would ever teach hatred of anyone that is not a Christian. Toliver stands for those things that are right about Christianity as opposed to any, religious or political, that takes advantage or teaches hatred of others just because they do not believe as he does. He takes his stand on the Bible as he understands it, and he denounces sin as he understands it. But he would never preach jihad against unbelievers; rather, he preaches as the Bible teaches that the war by the real children of God is against the Devil. Saint or sinner, child of God or child of the Devil; it’s an either/or proposition in the Bible and one that seems to be verified throughout history, especially by applying the standard of the Golden Rule.

Though written by men (no women allowed in the final canon) the Bible is a truly remarkable book, one that has had more influence in the world than any other; and though Newton and others changed the world through science, when it comes to religious philosophy the Bible reigns supreme. A hodgepodge of writings in some respects, there remains a thread throughout leaving no doubt of the genius behind some of the writings. The stories in the beginning chapters of Genesis bear the imprint of ancient truths, and the serious, knowledgeable scholar recognizes the descriptions of creation bear the imprint of scientific knowledge far beyond what we could possibly credit the ancients apart from either knowledge of the facts or some kind of intuition like that of Newton and Einstein.

To credit the words of Jesus claiming to come that men might have “light,” one might suppose he had some knowledge of black holes, as per my supposition concerning Ezekiel. Granted most take the words of Jesus in respect to offering the light of God’s truth to men, nevertheless I find it fascinating his meaning may have gone all the way back to the Genesis account of creation, much as the comparison between the opening remarks of Genesis and those of the Gospel of John.

Gifted with articulate speech that separated Homo sapiens from other creatures, and eventually developing writing the genius of our species is that of being able to put abstract thought into written expression. The Bible as a collection of some of the greatest of these abstract thoughts continues to have much to offer provided one is able to take it as a collection of such thoughts rather than a book that has too often been abused for fabulous and sectarian purposes.

Whether or not there is any legitimate case to be made for scientific knowledge on the part of Bible writers long before science as we know it came into being, even without eisogesis there is an uncanny aspect to many of the Biblical stories that seem to be compatible with science. And beyond our science the question of good and evil remains. It is here where the stories of Satan and demons, of both good and fallen angels find credibility to me as an explanation for what would otherwise appear a lunatic world in the grip of lunatics.

There is certainly a case to be made that our solar system may in fact be unique in the universe, and if so might explain why the history of humankind has been one of violence and wars as the various gods are in contention and the battle continues between saints and sinners, the children of God and the children of the Devil. While science continues to provide some answers the mysteries of life and death, the mysteries of the universe continue to become ever more mysterious. And while I grapple to make some sense of a chaotic world, the many theories of origins, I find a lot of comfort in the words of Pastor Toliver who has continued to be a faithful shepherd preaching a simple message of “This is right, and that is wrong.” The good pastor and those like him in the churches of America represent the best of what we should all be as human beings; “Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile!”

“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

While it seems our Federal Triune Dictatorship is dedicated to making America a nation of “underlings,” from the most ancient of times people have been drawn to the stars looking for answers to the meaning and purpose of life. Things leading to the story of the “Star of Bethlehem” are easily understood given the history of astronomy beginning with astrology, and astronomers of old understandably credited the stars for influencing the human condition so Shakespeare was comfortable in his assertion of “our stars” notwithstanding the era he was describing in the play, and even today the astrology of the ancients leading to modern astronomy enjoys credibility among many believers. And given so much seeming lunacy worldwide, some find comfort in believing the stars hold the answer.

For those following the many astounding discoveries being made in astronomy the wonder of it all is enough to make one question how our tiny, infinitesimal speck in the cosmos could have the attention of any gods? But refusing to credit any basis of truth to the many myths and legends of antiquity is quite beyond me. And when I lower my gaze from the mysteries of the stars to the horizontal there are things on earth equally mysterious unless crediting influences quite supernatural if not extraterrestrial. Even as astronomers are attempting to solve the mysteries of the universe, their discoveries so far leading to more mysteries than answers, in just this way I’m willing to credit a “mystery of evil” a “spirit of iniquity” that has plagued humankind from the beginning as with the Genesis story. Yet, I also have to credit Shakespeare’s observation that many of the faults I see lie in ourselves, not the stars. And when I find us becoming underlings rather than the masters of our fate I look to humankind, not the stars, for answers.

Six Muslims purposely make themselves targets of suspicion at an airport, alarming passengers and crew. Why? So they can expose racism and hatred of Muslims? Not hardly. They threaten to sue both the airline and passengers that reported them, and in doing so make anyone fearful of reporting suspicious activity for fear of being sued. This makes it easier for Muslim terrorists to infiltrate. Does it occur to the lawyers supporting the diabolical scheme of these Muslims that they endanger all of us and make a mockery of those saying something should have been done about the VT monster all the while lawyers are ready to pounce if any action is taken to prevent such monsters from carrying out their schemes against innocent and defenseless law-abiding people?

In just this same manner some Jews want the Menorah and Hanukah to share the same prominence and given equal status as Christmas Trees and Christmas, rid America of things like the Easter Bunny, schools using the phrases Christmas and Easter vacations, and public displays of the Decalogue or they will sue to get their way. The agenda of perverts, the various agendas of minorities demanding special status by fiat of laws, all making their demands by the bullying threats of lawyers often aided by the deep pockets of the ACLU using taxpayer money to sue We the People who are extorted to support this anti-American organization. And those pointing such things out are bullied by a few, forcing many conservatives to keep quiet or go along to get along.

But the politicians and lawyers seemingly dedicated to the destruction of America are aided by an utterly shameless MSM and lesser media showing videos of the VT monster spewing out his venomous hatred and plaster the pictures of the monster all over the news channels, even the front pages of newspapers including my hometown paper, The Bakersfield Californian, all of which is certainly a form of perversion giving the monster the very notoriety it sought, thereby continuing to victimize its victims and grieving loved ones and friends over and over again. What I found surprising was so few in the media calling this monster a “gentleman” when so many of them have no trouble calling other murderers, rapists, and child molesters “gentlemen.”

We are appalled by Muslim fanatics posting videos and pictures of beheadings, but our own media will glorify (and that is the correct word) a monster and call itself “civilized.” Then when the cry is raised against such a thing, some in the media will defend themselves by saying “But we aren’t glorifying this monster, we are only reporting the news.” But this is a lie. In fact, it is such an obvious lie that many of us have just cause to wonder if some monster were to make a video of beheading its victims here in America this would not be aired and the pictures posted in newspapers and magazines? After all, the precedent has been established by the media in its treatment of the VT monster. Who doubts the media is encouraging copycats wanting the same glorification.

It is a lie when the purveyors of perversion, pornography, and violence in films and video games, in so-called “entertainment” and “children’s programming” say they share no responsibility for an increasingly violent America. It is a lie when politicians refusing to secure our borders say they share no responsibility for the increasing violence in America, even in our schools caused by the invasion of millions of illegal aliens from Mexico for the sake of slave labor and aiding drug cartels. It is a lie when our government tells us it has no responsibility for the poisoned foods coming from China and elsewhere. It is no wonder those like Rosie get a hearing for things like accusing our own government conspiring in 9/11 when outright lies including “I can’t recall” by government leaders and their toadies is a commonplace. There are just too many evidences of being lied to, there remains the Warren and 9/11 Commissions, things like the Clintons, Ruby Ridge and Waco, the outright lies of Bush and his cronies, the list of infamies against We the People goes on.

Many of us are angry with the way we have been betrayed by our government, by the way the bias in the media skews things toward political correctness rather than the truth, by those that would disarm law-abiding Americans making us ever more vulnerable to criminals that suffer no constraint of laws, all the while knowing every citizen is in harm’s way and the police cannot be everywhere, that the courts cannot even protect witnesses to murder and too often grant criminals more rights than their victims.

The nations of the world seem more intent on fomenting wars than peace, on increasing violence than scientific achievement, and so I find myself pondering the imponderables of things like singularities and other mysteries of the universe rather than trying to understand why our own leadership seems intent on destroying America. The answers may not lie in the stars, the faults in ourselves are obvious, but I have more hope in the stars providing answers than I do in world leaders including our own.

Certainly an E.L.E. may occur, there are many threats to our world from outer space, but all the while realizing the fault of our own destruction should it come to that has a far greater probability within ourselves, not the stars. If the MSM, if Hollywood, our politicians and judges, the ACLU, NAACP, La Raza, “Press one for English” and open borders, the glorification of VT monsters is really a reflection of what We the People want then we have only ourselves to blame for the resulting destruction of America, having become underlings and the architects of our own destruction rather than the fault to be found in the stars.

People are not often as bad as they are made out to be in acrimonious divorce proceedings. Alec Baldwin may be one of the exceptions. If you heard the whole tape being aired of Baldwin going off at his daughter you can understand a judge barring him, at least temporarily, from having any contact with her. “An enraged Alec Baldwin unleashed a volcanic tirade of threats and insults on his 11-year-old daughter, Ireland, calling her a ‘thoughtless little pig,’ and bashing her mother Kim Basinger—and TMZ has obtained the whole thing unfiltered and raw. And we’ve learned, a family law judge was so alarmed after hearing the tape, she has temporarily barred Baldwin from having any contact with his child.”

Listening to the tape, I heard Baldwin also telling his daughter she was stupid and didn’t have any brains. Folks, most of you would agree it doesn’t take a Ph. D. in Human Behavior to know you don’t tell any child they are “stupid.” As adults, we know people do stupid things, and none of us are immune to doing stupid things. But for any adult to call a child stupid is something really stupid, in fact, it is an uncivilized thing to do and not confined to the vulgar and profane passing itself off as “entertainment.”

It is usually a mistake for outsiders to judge what goes on in a marriage, or to make judgments about what happens between people leading to divorce. However, many of us also realize things can get really ugly in some divorces, even to the point of the adults abusing children involved, trying to gain some advantage. But whatever the circumstances between Basinger and Baldwin, there is no excuse for his barbarous tirade against his daughter. It was a most uncivilized thing to do no matter what, and his daughter should never have been the target of Baldwin’s outburst. No civilized person would ever want such a man or woman around their child.

But bitter divorces are not the only place we find Baldwin’s brand of incivility; it even occurs in the most academic environments as well. Which emphasizes Thoreau’s observation the civilized man is only a more knowledgeable savage, and oftentimes the thin veneer of civilized good manners is the only thing that keeps us from coming to blows with one another. And in many cases, humor can take the sting out of acrimonious arguments.

For example, Democrats doubtless have their own version of this: A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on I-95 south, just out of Washington, DC. Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on his window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, “What happened? What’s the hold up?” The fellow replies ”Terrorists have kidnapped Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and John Kerry. They are asking for a $100 million ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection.” The driver asks, “On average, how much is everyone giving?” The fellow answers ”About a gallon.”

Intelligent Design: It is fascinating to find words like “fuzzy” and “ghostly” being used by scientists in attempts at understanding the universe. But if you read the entire transcript of a recent interview with theoretical physicist Paul Davies you will find such words being used by him. The following is a brief extract of the interview:

Cosmic Log: Why does the universe seem so fine-tuned for the emergence of life – including intelligent life capable of asking that “why” question? Believers simply say that God did it, while scientists are trying to come up with complicated extradimensional multiverse theories to explain our lucky break. Theoretical physicist Paul Davies takes a completely different tack in a new book titled “Cosmic Jackpot.” He argues that the cosmos has made itself the way it is, stretching backward in time to the very beginning to focus in on “bio-friendliness...”

Q: One of the issues you’ve been looking at over the years is the intersection of science and religion. Do you find that these new ideas – about the cosmic landscape, for example, or the quantum nature of the universe – are informing religious or spiritual thought as well?

A: Well, they clearly impacted greatly, because we’re talking about why the universe looks like it’s been fixed up for habitation. For most people, the first interpretation is, “Well, God did it.” What I’m saying is that gets us nowhere at all. It just shoves the problem off to some other realm. But saying “God did it” is no worse than saying “the laws of physics did it.” They both basically appeal to something outside the universe. The problem with saying God did it is that God himself or herself is unexplained, so you’re appealing to an unexplained designer. It doesn’t actually explain anything; it just shoves the problem off. But to say that the laws of physics just happen to permit life is no explanation either. What I’m trying to do is to go beyond this rather sterile back-and-forth between religion and science on these ultimate questions. We’re trying to come up with a new set of ideas, in which we try to let the universe engineer its own bio-friendliness. So we try to find the explanation from within the universe. Now, that’s perfectly consistent with having a universe that has some sort of deeper meaning or purpose, but that meaning or purpose is intrinsic to it. It’s not imposed upon it by an external deity. So these ideas obviously have theological implications...

That comment by Davies “the cosmos has made itself the way it is” falls far short of the answer he says he is seeking. In fact, after reading the entire transcript of the interview it appeared to me Davies was more engaged with metaphysics than science. So I am not surprised at his inability to answer the hard questions by resorting to the very same subterfuge of which he accuses theologians. And I find his avowed goal of seeking answers by the scientific method highly suspect. I believe his acknowledgement of the “unexplained” will remain just that: Unexplained. In the meantime, he may sell a few books. But then, books about angels continue to be a hot market item, though Billy Graham did not do himself proud with his which I found to be an embarrassment those years ago. Many other authors since have proved equally embarrassing on the subject.

It is unfortunate that even in the most civilized environments that word “stupid” has been used on both sides of the debate over ID. Granted the shadow of the Scopes’ Trial overhangs some of the debate, but to use only a simplistic evolutionary theory as the catch-all for what is only theory in too many cases is at the very least intellectually dishonest. But one does not have to look far to find such dishonesty on both sides of the debate.

As science does make progress in giving us more understanding, one of the more uncomfortable things being discovered is the fact the universe is not bio-friendly. Because of this, people like Davies resort to the metaphysical attempting to make an argument for the universe being bio-friendly when the facts thus far would seem otherwise. But to accept the facts of a universe not being bio-friendly is not where some of those in science want to go. And for most hoping life exists elsewhere in the universe or our own galaxy, even our own solar system the results thus far are disappointing to say the least. In fact, it seems scientists are inclining to the idea our solar system is an anomaly that more readily falls into the Davies’ “Cosmic Jackpot,” more of luck than anything scientific leaving only the metaphysical as an alternative.

Failing any answers to life and death, the two greatest mysteries of all, it would be well for those engaged in debate about origins to at least be civilized and leave the name-calling to the really stupid people like Alec Baldwin.

What other than perversion can possibly explain why the MSM would continue airing the cold blooded mass murderer Cho? Over and over this demonic face and its words are being shown with no end in sight. The demon’s victims did not have a chance to leave words and videos, they are not speaking from their graves, but it seems a perverted media can’t get enough of rubbing the faces of the grieving relatives and friends in the ongoing pictures and words of the monster that took the lives of their loved ones. Perverted! But what other than perversion is driving the many violent films and video games, the violent cartoons for “children’s programming,” the violence and degradation of women in so much “music.”

The horror of watching the Twin Towers being hit by planes and collapsing with such loss of innocent lives transfixed us on 9/11. From this should have come the slogan “Remember 9/11!” if America was to have a slogan prosecuting war against the Islamic enemy. But unlike the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was denied either a slogan or even a face put to the Muslim enemy that attacked us. On the contrary, Bush and Company first of all made sure their Saudi friends were quickly spirited away. Then, the diabolical plan began to unfold for the phony “war on terrorism.”

Maybe corporate interests were involved preventing the continued showing of the towers being hit and collapsing, the continued reminder of Muslim terrorists attacking America. After all, Big Oil was at stake so it wouldn’t do to continue reminding Americans of what had been done to us by Muslims attacking America for the glory of Allah. And I have to wonder, if the massacre at Virginia Tech had been conducted by a group of Muslim terrorists, would this have gone the way of “Remember 9/11” or would a perverted media be showing the pictures over and over again?

Frank Loesser’s patriotic song of 1942 was being sung in churches of that era including our own small church in Little Oklahoma. We children especially enjoyed it, even as we enjoyed singing this together with the military anthems of the time in school like “Anchors Away” and “Wild Blue Yonder.” Another favorite of the time was “On a Wing and a Prayer” we sang in both church and school.

One can be excused for thinking America is fast becoming a “war zone” no longer confined to ghettos and barrios, but we don’t have the music to confront the madness. What we have is “music” adding to the madness by glorifying racism and the degradation of women together with the empty promises of politicians and the hand-wringing by the elite telling those whose lives are being threatened we must give up our guns. To which I say, Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.

It isn’t a new thought, but it is one certainly worth considering that holding God accountable may be a higher form of faith. I’ve talked this over with God, and though still awaiting a reply I do wonder when I first began writing my book “Hey God! What went wrong and when are you going to fix it?” whether it was not an exercise in not only holding God accountable for the mess on earth leading to so much human misery, for so much death and destruction, but also exercising a higher form of faith? Several philosophers have expressed the thought that doubt is a form of faith; then went on to put their thoughts into written expression. But it is quite a different thing to confront God as did Job or become angry as did Jonah, to share your exasperation with God as we find in some of the Psalms. And while I have not accused God of indifference, I have been quite confrontational with him.

Still, not to let God off the hook I understand the child cannot be expected to understand the parent’s teachings and warnings. And grownups at times do crazy things from a child’s perspective they learn were not crazy at all as children grow in maturity and understanding. But some of the things that grownups do remain crazy, just as Mr. Raymond pointed out to the children in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” things like racism.

But there is some justice to be found in New Jersey’s Governor Corzine winding up in the hospital. Like many of those in positions of power he believed he was above the laws ordinary citizens are demanded to obey by choosing not to wear a seatbelt. Now we learn the SUV in which he was traveling driven by trooper Rasinski was going 91mph at the time of the crash. Was the trooper speeding at the urging of the governor? I suspect so, since the governor could have easily commanded he slow down. But I’m willing to bet the trooper will be held responsible for speeding, and who is going to hold the governor responsible for not obeying the law? After all, from the White House on down the flunkies are there to take the heat when things go wrong and corruption is exposed among the powerful.

The real irony is that the governor through his own disdain for the laws ordinary American citizens are demanded to obey like seatbelts and speed limits led to his missing that opportunity to show his “leadership” against racism, and his “compassion” for the Rutgers’ basketball team by abusing and further humiliating Don Imus. I have no doubt that like Jackson and Sharpton, Corzine was positively salivating over that one.

To read about the Muslim fanatics terrorizing innocent people in southern Thailand, nations in Africa and elsewhere is to make sane people wonder at the extent of the lunacy gripping the world. I don’t doubt Mary Winkler shot her husband out of fear of him, that he may have been abusing both Mary and even his own children. I’ve known people in such a grip of lunacy like Mary may have been that they were not accountable for their actions. But there is a distinct difference between the kind of lunacy driven by the fanaticism of Islam and that of Mary Winkler, and there is a profound difference between the purposeful murder of the innocent and killing in defense of your own life.

How I wish some sane person had been qualified, armed, and able to gun down the lunatic at Virginia Tech. But the anti-gun people would have us believe guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens pose a threat by increasing gun violence. Those opposed to gun ownership, those opposing right to carry laws seem oblivious of the fact the barbarians wishing to do us harm suffer no restraints of law. But few of those wanting to disarm law-abiding citizens live in areas taken over by gangs; though even in the best neighborhoods you will find elaborate security systems, barred windows, and steel doors.

The “law” chose to look the other way while I carried a gun in Watts, but it was on the basis of mutual understanding knowing many of the drug dealers coming on to the campus at Jordan carried guns as well. And there were the “wienie wavers” that might go beyond exposing themselves in classroom doorways and really flip out with a gun as happened in Virginia and elsewhere. And the cops “couldn’t be everywhere.” As it was they had their hands full just trying to deal with the all-pervasive violence in the community of Watts, let alone the schools.

We desperately need the National Guard on our borders, not places like Afghanistan and Iraq. We need a leadership that proves itself law-abiding before those like the hypocritical Corzine and so many others demand a law-abiding citizenry. Even the most obtuse are now having to confront the fact America has been teaching violence together with corruption in government to children for decades; but the corporate interests have no more concern for this than politicians have for selling out America to foreign nations and refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor from Mexico.

It is an admonition to Kings and rulers from ancient times, “what need of punishments when you have virtuous leaders?” I’ll continue to dialogue with God, since I have a more reasonable expectation of answers from him than I do from our leaders. And perhaps this will prove to be a higher form of faith in God while I have none in the “princes” of this world. In the meantime, Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition. Security begins with being able to protect yourself and your family.

The legends of Genesis and other parts of the Bible continue to hold fascination for me. What was the basis for the story that due to violence filling the earth God was sorry and repented for creating humankind, admitting to error in doing so, and determined to wipe out his creation? But whatever God’s intentions the violence did not stop with the Deluge; and in no time at all picked up where it left off. And whether of God, the Devil, or human invention we now have the potential for destroying the world.

Then there is the story of Satan, a god himself, who became the adversary and accuser of humankind, a creature whose dominion is all the kingdoms of the earth according to Scripture, and he goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It is difficult to totally discount the supernatural of demons and spawn of Satan in the guise of human beings given the continued violence filling the earth as in the time before Noah. Even those opposed to any religious systems of thought are hard pressed to come up with an answer to the myths and fables which surely have their basis in facts somewhere in the past, and I don’t think studies in neuroscience are going to provide all the answers to the presence of evil or be able to explain the monsters among us. These remain the mysteries that stories like those of the Bible attempt to answer.

We are drawn to stories like that of crop circles because we are by nature a curious species. More than that, there is something attractive to our minds about mysteries. The old radio show “I Love a Mystery” was enormously successful because of this, as are the whodunits covering a wide spectrum of entertainment. Are crop circles entirely the result of hoaxes or might there be some kind of “energy” in the soil producing them, perhaps even extraterrestrials? While it is easy for most to discount anything mysterious about crop circles, there are many such things that do not admit of solutions and are not easily dismissed.

In his 1841 lecture entitled “Circles” Emerson went on at some length supporting the idea of mystery attaching to circles and spheres, even calling attention to the remarks of Augustine and other worthies in this respect. That the sphere to which we attach the most profound importance is the eye may be a clue to the very mystery of the universe itself. That atoms are spheres and their particles having orbits, that the universe seems to favor spheres and circles evidenced by the shape of stars and planets with their orbits may be clues to the mystery. The discs of our sun and moon have been worshiped and such worship engraved in stone by many.

My own thoughts about time being a circular continuum without beginning or end reflects the thoughts by some philosophers about the nature of God and the universe, and there is nothing to date that would refuse consideration of the universe being spherical. This idea suggested itself to me from the design of the atomic bomb requiring a sphere of explosives that had to detonate precisely and uniformly to accomplish the goal of critical mass, a “Big Bang” if you will. String theory is fascinating and perhaps the Universal Lyre suggested, even a Sea of Consciousness may find their place in spheres and orbits without any of the constraints of three dimensions or linear time.

While I have made some of my thoughts on this subject known, “Will the Circle be Unbroken” and “Casting a Line for Celestial Fishes” among many other articles over the years, the calling of Einstein’s equation and Hawking’s concepts of time and the universe into question because they do not account for life and death, what confronts us is that estimated 96% of the universe scientists call unknown, and some even call “unknowable.” That leaves room for an enormous amount of speculation, but it is the kind of speculation of which Emerson was an adept intellectual giant; and I continue to believe he eventually fell silent due to two things: The realization he had no one to talk to who would understand him, and the fear those thoughts he was being led into were too heretical and fearsome to share.

Though Emerson resigned himself to being alone with his thoughts, giving himself over to what society he had to while away his remaining years, he did express some pique in his eulogy for Thoreau. Henry had held promise, but failed to live up to the promise, and Emerson felt this disappointment keenly. That some would now say Walden continues to be read while Emerson has become “a hobby for antiquarians” is only to emphasize the low estate to which real intellectualism has fallen in America and the reason for Emerson’s disappointment in his young student.

But both men were exceptionally well educated, and both were well acquainted with the science of their time. Both men made, and continue to make their contributions to my own philosophical speculations. For example, Henry writes of fishing from his boat one night when the thought occurred to him he might cast his line upward in the dark toward the stars, “Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook,” one from the heaven above and one from the water of Walden “which was scarcely more dense.”

Long before his time atmospheric pressure had been discovered and measured. Even the ancients had a concept of an “ocean of air” that swirled over the earth, that element in which birds were supported and moved even as the fishes in water. But the comparison Henry made of this atmosphere to water “which was scarcely more dense” brought to my mind the vacuum of space. What if space is only a vacuum to our physical world, to that minute 4% of the universe we understand? Might the enormous part we do not know and understand be as dense though unknown to the physical as the comparison Henry made between the water of Walden and the atmosphere above it? And who knows but what those given to transcendental meditation of such things are “transported?”

I believe my departed loved ones and friends are a part of that which is as dense an “atmosphere” as that in which birds fly and fishes swim, the atmosphere in which we live and move in our physical bodies. Studies in the properties of light hold much promise for discoveries yet to come, discoveries that may yield understanding of things now considered “supernatural.” Certainly our minds work in an atmosphere without any physical limitations, and that by itself is supernatural.

Henry remarked on stones dropped in water and the resulting, concentric ripples emanating. It is one of those curiosities that speak of heavenly motion represented to our eyes. Not the smallest insect moving on the calm water of Walden could help but mark its presence; and those ripples small as they were still made their mark on the immense world about them. And so it may prove when we depart these bodies our presence will be marked by our entering the infinite circle of time and eternity in an atmosphere scarcely less dense than that in which we now dwell.

This I know; while watching those modulated concentric circles moving outward from a stone dropped into the smooth waters of a lake there is something that quietly speaks to me of circles without beginning or end, evidence of a circular continuum of time and the universe, of immortality though without the proofs required by our present science.

When any society condones, and even encourages violence, especially violence against children that society will pay the price. When a society teaches children there are no moral absolutes and they may do as they please without adhering to any civilized standards of behavior, when every manner of violence and perversion is approved by society and called entertainment children know such a society has no concern for them or their welfare, that such a society is proving to children it is INDIFFERENT! to them.

Prologue

At one point in Harper Lee’s masterful novel, little Dill has run away from home. Scout thinks his folks must have mistreated him and this was the reason he ran away. But Dill tries to explain it wasn’t this at all. As he says to Scout, “That wasn’t it - they just wasn’t interested in me.”

Scout thought this the oddest reason for running away from home that she had ever heard. But Scout had people who cared about her; people like her father Atticus had made her feel important to him, had made her feel loved and needed. She couldn’t possibly understand Dill’s point. But I understand it all too well. It is the thing that after many years of working with children in the schools led me to say to parents in respect to children, “Things aren’t as bad as you think, they are far worse!”

I began to realize that we have evolved a society that actually behaves as though it hates children. And children know this. What little Dill was trying to explain to Scout is what has led to things like the massacre in Littleton, Colorado and other places. I can sum it up in one word: Indifference!

American society has taught children that no one cares for them, that society is indifferent to them. Dill’s folks didn’t beat or mistreat him. What they did was tell him: All right, we bought you all the toys. Now, go play with them and leave us alone! This is America! We have bought our children all the toys and then told them: Now, go away and leave us alone!

A normal child will do anything for attention, including inappropriate, even anti-social, behavior in order to get the needed attention. Indifference, as ignorance, is a real killer as we have witnessed in Colorado and elsewhere. When a child is made to feel he or she is of no consequence, is not loved, is not even wanted, that child has all the potential for becoming a monster, a curse rather than a blessing. Don’t expect a child to understand what is adult responsibility. America has failed miserably, as a nation, to cherish its young, and as Atticus Finch said: The bill is coming due!

When any society condones, and even encourages violence, particularly violence against children, that society will pay the price. When a society teaches children that there are no moral absolutes, that perversion is acceptable and approved by society, that all manner of violence and perversion is approved and called “entertainment,” children know such a society has no real concern for them, that such a society is really INDIFFERENT! to them.

I have lived long enough to know you cannot make someone care, but it does take an entire society to raise a child. And when that society engages in the madness so well represented by its refusing to make children the real priority while continuing to pay lip-service only to concern for them, which children easily recognize as hypocrisy, when that society through its indifference to children teaches them there are no moral boundaries or absolutes, that society, that nation, has no future.

No, you cannot make people care. But you can act. You can do your part as a good citizen in confronting the evil that is destroying our children and our nation. There are far too many people who may be good people, but they are not good citizens. If you are too busy to be politically active, you may be a good person but you are not a good citizen. As a result, the children pay the price for apathy and indifference on the part of adults who have the sole responsibility for the future of children. And America as a nation will eventually have to pay the price for this.

Only wisdom will lead us away from our present indifference and put us on the right path to making children the priority they must become before it is too late. Not all the social engineering, not all the laws or tinkering with the multifarious aspects of the problem will avail unless people genuinely act on behalf of children and their future, unless Americans overcome their indifference toward children.

What would you think of a teacher that intentionally set off an explosive device as a demonstration for his pupils? Well, this used be part of my approved course of instruction.

The madness of Columbine, of 9/11, of Iraq, and today’s shootings at Virginia Tech, it is no wonder I long for the Norman Rockwell America I used to know. The incredibly different America people my age knew prior to WWII and thereafter during the 40s and 50s seems like a fairytale akin to the stories about King Arthur and Camelot in many ways, abounding in legend rather than fact. Even the America of the 60s now seems like a fairytale. Take for example my building an explosion forming device while I was teaching vocational classes in Watts during that period of time “Burn baby burn!”

Having spent a number of years in the aerospace industry before becoming a teacher, I was an expert machinist and tool and die maker, very knowledgeable about metal machining and forming, foundry and heat-treating procedures, virtually every aspect of machine shop practice. I was also a qualified gunsmith and very knowledgeable about explosives including gunpowder and dynamite. A few other things learned along the way prepared me to teach auto mechanics, electronics, drafting and construction trades, woodworking to mention a few.

Mine was an era of the practical skills, and though I loved good books and took an undergraduate major in Literature there was always the need to use both hands and mind. I was not only always reading I was always constructing something. And with the beginning of the space industry there was much going on that aroused my curiosity, and having learned about the introduction of explosion forming of metals I decided to add this to my course of instruction for my shop classes in Watts.

One most important thing that enabled me to fit into the community of Watts and Jordan High was the people knowing I could teach kids the practical skills essential to their getting a job. No matter I was a Caucasian, I knew how to do things and I could teach kids how to do these things. Not the “unimportant” stuff like history, but the really important things like how to run a lathe and mill, how to weld and how to fix a car. These were the things the people of Watts and their children esteemed of real value.

The principles of explosion forming were simple enough though very complex in procedure, but unlike the large structures needed for industrial use the device I needed for the classroom had to be a tabletop model. And as such, rather than the plastic explosive used in industry my demonstration device would have to utilize a very small explosive charge. But since I had an entire machine shop at my disposal, I designed my device in a way it could use a .22 caliber round intended for the guns used in construction for driving nails and bolts into concrete and metal structures. A device using a centerfire cartridge would have been simpler to machine than the offset firing pin needed for a rimfire, but the centerfire rounds would have meant an explosion too large for classroom demonstration.

Once completed, the device measured only eight by five inches. The forming mold was an inch and one-half in diameter, and once the round was fired the circular flat piece of sheet metal inserted would be “exploded” into the mold. The result was a small, cup-shaped piece of metal formed by the explosion.

During the process of machining the device, it was readily apparent to my pupils what I was actually constructing was a “gun.” The procedures were the same, and to say it had the attention of the kids is an understatement, but only added to the respect they had for me as “a man that could do things.”

An engineering professor at Cal. State Long Beach where I earned my bachelor’s degree asked me to demonstrate the device for his class, which I did, and he and his students were very impressed. One would have thought they had never experienced someone firing a “gun” in their class before.

As implausible as all of this sounds today much like some urban legend, back in the 60s as unique as my explosion forming device was for classroom demonstration it was acceptable. So, what has changed?

Bill Cosby did a marvelous little skit about “Shop Class.” Some of you may remember “Y’ put a bullet in the furnace and it’ll explode,” or his talking about shop being for the dumb kids even though the smart kids wished they could be put in such “dumb” classes building things like Boeing 707s.

Certainly I was made acutely aware of the disdain classroom teachers had for us shop teachers. We got the “rejects,” the kids too “dumb” to make it in the approved “respectable” classes. I recall the history teacher once confronting me, demanding to know how anyone with my academic qualifications could “lower” himself to teaching shop classes. It was as if I had insulted him personally. His was an attitude I found pervasive throughout the schools. It never occurred to this teacher that my pupils were learning the required mathematics, reading and writing skills essential to being able to follow blueprints and using the necessary machinery and other tools like welding torches to actually construct useful items or repair a car.

While the attitude toward shop teachers among academic teachers hasn’t changed, I witnessed the gutting of vocational classes during the years following the building of my explosion forming device. The Ivory Tower eventually triumphed over the teaching of practical skills, and since the universities were calling the shots vocational instruction in our high schools is now nothing but a memory, punctuated here and there by the rare exceptions to their former place.

Unlike Industrial Arts taught for “leisure time fulfillment” vocational classes were hands-on, taught by those like me who had earned a living in the actual trades being taught. But the universities and their graduated administrators in the schools eventually decided the labs essential for teaching the “rejects” were too expensive to waste on the “dumb” kids in our high schools. The Ivory Tower mindset had it everyone in high school was supposed to be prepared to go to college, not get dirt and grease under their fingernails punching a clock for a living. I don’t believe it was accidental that our leaders in government, all good university graduates, decided to start catering to slave labor from Mexico; that our industries were to be outsourced to foreign nations thereby removing the very jobs the vocational classes used to prepare our young people for.

What has changed? When I was teaching kids to run a lathe and mill, to weld, to fix cars and so many other practical skills I was preparing them for the jobs they had every reason to believe would be there for them. This kept a lot of those kids in school; the “dumb” kids, the “rejects” that are now a large part of the population dropping out of school.

I’ve taught many academic courses in high school, college, and university where I reveled in the subjects for which I was academically qualified; but I miss most of all the “dumb” kids I so enjoyed working with. These were the young people who appreciated the value of practical skills, who enjoyed doing things. But the leadership of America has betrayed them, and in doing so we have lost something beyond calculation of that America I used to know, something that was of vital importance to America.

Is the bee die-off threatening the world due to cell phones as some scientists are now speculating may be the cause? And if so, what is to be done about it even though Einstein thought the loss of bees would spell the end of humankind within four years. Still, some of you are old enough to remember when the radiation given off by TVs caused some to caution about sitting too close to them. Are we certain the problem was really overcome?

If the present global warming cycle leading to such catastrophic changes in weather is only a “cycle,” even if the cycle is of only ten years duration how would America endure and survive? That unholy trinity of draught, floods, and famine is a certainty; it is only a question of who will survive such a “cycle.” And who trusts world leaders to cooperate in providing for such a cycle? Certainly the leaders in Russia and China are looking out for themselves, but who is looking out for America?

While the bee die-off is alarming, holding cell phones to blame should that prove to be the case poses some equally alarming scenarios; one of the most alarming is it might lead to that Nuremberg Tribunal for America! Not so farfetched when you consider the corporate interests involved on a global scale and the fact America may find itself surrounded by enemies through force of circumstances already at work throughout the world.

It’s a telling scene in the film “Judgment at Nuremberg” where Spencer Tracy tells Burt Lancaster that notwithstanding Hitler’s dictatorship, the first time as a judge he knowingly condemned an innocent man he gave up any right to ask consideration for himself. And we all know what the outcome would have been had not the Duke students had the financial resources to defend themselves. Nifong, Jackson, and Sharpton would have succeeded in putting them in prison and throwing away the key.

Certainly the case of the Duke students represents “How much justice can you afford?” And the reality is those without the resources are commonly treated in such a manner justice is not a consideration; but most often expedience and possibilities for advancement are the only considerations, and those without the resources suffer accordingly. The Pope condemns capitalism; our own judges, lawyers, and politicians condemn anything approaching “Justice for All.”

It is gratifying to see so many unlike the hucksters Jackson and Sharpton coming to the fore denouncing the depravity of rappers glorifying violence and sexual degradation of women. Many Negro leaders and pundits are beginning to acknowledge they have the responsibility to clean up their own mess before engaging in further denunciations of those like Imus and I wish them every success. But there are a number of Caucasians in the same category as Negro rappers that will continue to abet those like Nifong. But they will do this by circumventing the law and having powerful allies supporting them.

My opinion is that while Jackson and Sharpton did not know the Duke students were innocent, it wouldn’t have mattered to them so long as they saw an opportunity to advance their own agendas. Nifong, on the other hand, may very well have known they were innocent, thereby putting himself in the place of that judge in the film, undeserving of any consideration being shown him now. But Sandy Berger is no less guilty than Nifong, Jackson, and Sharpton. It all comes down to the privileges of wealth and power. When race can be made a cause, here come the opportunists. When position like Berger’s can be used to cover up for a President, he puts himself in the same category as Hitler’s judge, Jackson, and Sharpton. And here is a Congress as with Hitler’s servants so corrupt it is doubtful Berger/Clinton will ever be held to account.

Tragically for America, and perhaps catastrophically we have a President that holds himself only accountable to God, but not We the People. In his own way, Bush is placing himself in the position of that German judge that condemned the innocent. But unlike the judge that knew he was serving Hitler in doing so, Bush does not understand he serves the Devil while deluding himself he is serving God. A 9/11 coverup? By now, many people believe this. The Warren and 9/11 Commissions like Hitler’s judge serve the bidding of their master and are themselves too corrupt to do otherwise. Five-million emails go “missing” to protect those like Rove, Gonzales is a proven friend of Mexican slave labor and an enemy of America, there is an ongoing war we were lied into leading to multiplied thousands of deaths of the innocents and still ongoing, and where are those to hold the criminals to account?

To repeat something I wrote some time ago, there are times when the “unthinkable” becomes thinkable by force of circumstances and there is no muddling through. For those of us who lived that era of WWII and went on to study the history of the war at length it is impossible to miss some very disturbing parallels to what is happening with our present government and that of Germany leading to the Nuremberg Tribunal.

That our present White House has become so ultra-secretive is a case in point. One cannot but help wondering what the President and his administration have to hide? Once secrecy for whatever reason is invoked, especially on the seemingly too oft specious argument “national security” all becomes suspect. None of us question the need of secrecy where actual national security may be at risk, there are valid cases of “need to know,” but there is Sandy Berger. And we know there are many Berger’s in the present administration.

But there is little in the Congress to give us hope corruption in government will be ended, or even contained. When it comes to politics it is business as usual and we would be hard pressed to point to any one politician and say we have faith in that person to act with virtue. Some say they have faith, but let’s see them prove that faith by their works.

So, I worry. To quote from an article a while back: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Sen. Gordon Smith, a moderate Republican from Oregon who has been a supporter of the war in Iraq, said the U.S. military’s “tactics have failed” and he “cannot support that anymore.” Smith said he is at, “the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs, day after day… That is absurd,” he said. “It may even be criminal.”

While Smith’s use of the word “criminal” has caused him to do some furious back-peddling the word has been used, and there is no going back from it. He may have fallen under the spell of his own rhetoric, a typical cause of politicians putting their foot in their mouth, but many understood the enormity of such a word being used. I certainly understand it and had already written about it a year before Smith uttered the word, knowing as I do the lessons of history and human nature teach there is nothing too fantastic to imagine happening in a world seemingly lunatic because of being dominated by religious and political hatreds.

I have written at length about the benefits of Christianity once it became a civilized religion as opposed to that of Islam. No civilized person born in America with our Christian heritage and culture would trade places with someone born in Iraq or Iran, any more than an educated person would trade places with an illiterate one. But problems arise when either religion or politics become so hypocritically corrupt and powerful as to threaten the existence of a nation.

Every social structure, every personal relationship must engage in some degree of hypocrisy else, as Thoreau pointed out, we would all come to open war. It is when such civilized hypocrisy, often in the form of polite manners, becomes outright barbarism institutions and relationships are set on a course of calamity; it is here where America faces the threat of some kind of Nuremberg Tribunal for our nation as did Germany and Japan should Congress find itself emasculated by the depth of its own corruption from being able to hold either itself or a corrupt White House accountable.

The whole world is watching what is going on in America, and our dirty laundry is being exposed to all. A corrupt and inept Congress and White House, racial strife, hedonistic materialism displayed on nearly every TV channel; and worst of all is an America that seems without any national identity or purpose, without any leadership of character or virtue. In short, an America that seems increasingly vulnerable to that Nuremberg Tribunal. Every nation but America will secure and protect its borders, will do what is necessary to save and protect their bees.

How about a pill that would make everyone in the world one color? Or what if someone slipped such a Mickey to Jackson or Sharpton and they awakened the next morning to find they were Caucasians or Imus had become a Negro? I am just as prone to wonder about conspiracy theories as anyone else; JFK, 9/11, UFOs, Illuminati, symbolic messages on dollar bills and elsewhere. But what about a conspiracy to eliminate 3 billion people and a science conclave that would conspire clandestinely in having the food supply “supplemented” with a chemical that would make the remaining population all one color, and alter the genetic structure making all newborns thereafter the same color. A hormonal patch has already been suggested for pregnant women to change sexual orientation in the womb, and there are always those who believe they know what is best for all of humankind, but there may not always be a 007 to frustrate such plans.

Global warming may impact the world enough to dispose of that 3 billion thought by some to be necessary without any mad scientists eliminating entire populations. By now many of us know the unholy trinity of draught, floods, and famine can come upon the earth suddenly. Perhaps Einstein will be proven correct about the loss of bees alone accounting for killing off all humankind. But given the recent tainted pet food from China, the greed factor riding herd on attempts to make food from China, Mexico, and elsewhere safe for human consumption the possibilities for massive poisoning and genetic alterations of entire populations becomes less and less the SciFi of “Soylent Green.”

It is already the stuff of books and films, individuals and conclaves with their schemes for world domination. Why not a secret group of scientists who have determined it is up to them to not only save the world, but determine what kind of people are fit to “inherit the earth?” The eugenics of Hitler continue, but how much of this experimentation is ongoing without the public even being aware? We’re not sure of what is happening in America with all the supposed safeguards, but what of other nations without such things to deter them.

There is nothing new in “The Lucifer Effect” though it will make some money for the author; it has been proven true many times over and history is replete with examples. But this effect only goes so far in explaining some atrocious actions by otherwise civilized human beings. It is remarkable that otherwise good people will do things so out of character when their circumstances are altered or emotions inflamed so as to effect changes in behavior. The lynch mob in To Kill A Mockingbird were the friends and neighbors of Atticus, but they were ready to do him harm if he did not stand aside and allow the mob access to Tom Robinson.

The genius of Harper Lee intuitively knew only an innocent little girl, Scout, could successfully cause the lynch mob to disperse and only a madman, Boo Radley, could balance the scales of justice. Mr. Ewell personified evil beyond “the devil made me do it.” Lacking any definitive scientific explanation for evil apart from The Lucifer Effect, there remains the evil of monsters in human guise like Ewell that prey on women and children, monsters among us consumed by lust and hatred that seem to be without any conscience. However, such monsters are not limited by the constraints of law, but the law will all too often loose these monsters to continue their depredations against women and children, against a civilized society.

Many who have read TKM missed the point of Atticus killing the mad dog. But it was one of several instances in which Harper Lee was making the point throughout the novel concerning the many injustices perpetrated by the inability of good people to confront and take necessary action against evil. Mr. Ewell was a mad dog, and while everyone approved and applauded Atticus shooting the mad dog in the street it took a madman to kill the evil Ewell and save the children without his being drawn into court to be judged for his action.

Henry Thoreau was jailed for a night because he refused to pay a tax. His reasoning was he preferred society should run amok against him rather than his running amok against it, since it was the desperate party. More and more the dirty institutions of men that continue to paw at us, insisting we become a part of their nefarious schemes or suffer the consequences are showing themselves the desperate party.

The problem, as Harper Lee made so poignantly plain, is there are not enough little Scout’s and Jem’s, Atticus Finch’s, Boo Radley’s, Calpurnia’s, Heck Tate’s, Aunt Maudie’s to save the world. And lacking such, it may be up to the Dr. Frankenstein’s. Even if not, it seems our own leaders are dedicated to accomplishing the same purpose as any group of mad scientists. What is the excuse for this headlong determination on the part of our leaders and their corporate masters to destroy America? The Devil made them do it? Well, if you have read the last chapter of the Bible it does give one pause to wonder; makes as much sense of the prevailing lunacy as anything else. And that by itself proves how far removed we are as a species from having an answer to the problem Henry confronted and Harper Lee made so clear.

“That was a dumb n----- trick.” The use of the “n” word was a commonplace where I spent four years teaching in Watts at David Starr Jordan High School on the corner of 103^rd and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles. But it was hearing one of my pupils say that to another in my presence that told me the kids had accepted me; that they knew color was not a factor in my being there, that it was not a factor in our teacher/pupil relationship. But it also made me aware of how certain words make their way into a population and in time loses their real meaning and intent. We hope there are parents and grandparents, a society that would teach children the meaning of such words. Too often this is not the case.

Being a Caucasian teacher in an all Negro school in an all Negro community during the 60s taught me things in race relations unlearnable in any other environment. For example, the first week on the job one of the girls in my homeroom turned up missing and I learned she had been stabbed to death by another girl in a fight over a boy. Another example of the school environment in which I was to spend four years and become a tenured teacher was the principal telling me drugs were not a problem, this despite the fact they were all-pervasive and dealers had free access to the school without fear of intervention. But the principal was quite correct, drugs were not a problem; the problem was the kind of violence like a girl killing another over a boy that was the problem. The principal had put things in perspective for me; the evil of drugs was vastly overshadowed by the evil of violence endemic to the school and community of Watts.

To be sure, the dealing and use of drugs added to such a violent environment; but the real problem promoting this endemic violence was the hopelessness of anything changing for the better for those that found themselves trapped in a place like Watts, a place where the hundreds of teenagers I dealt with knew how very hopeless their situation was. It was a hopelessness that bred violence, a lashing out at an enemy unseen and unknown, but one that was relentless in keeping opportunity for anything better out of reach.

I’ve written so much about the things I learned while teaching in ghetto and barrio schools it is with great difficulty I approach the subject once more. I cannot but somewhat envy Kurt Vonnegut whose writings so many of us admire now being relieved of the toil. As much as anyone he understood the labors of the writer compelled to write because “that is what we do.” But in most cases, as Thoreau mentioned writers have only the pain of their labors as their reward.

But for those of us who not only write but are compelled by conscience to write, there is always the hope we can make a difference. While this flies in the face of the facts, I’m compelled to continue the seemingly never ending story of the kind of hopelessness so many face simply because by accident of birth they drew the wrong card from the deck of fate.

The issues now being discussed about race because of the Imus and Duke cases brought many things to mind, things I would far rather have relegated to the past and never relive in memory again, let alone write about. But there they are, as vivid as though they had only happened yesterday.

One of my pupils in fear of his life brought a rifle to school. He went to the office and asked if the school secretary would please keep it for him so he could pick it up again at the end of the school day. He tried to explain he needed the gun for safety walking to and from school, and could not understand why the secretary refused his request. In a school where the dropout rate was nearly 75%, not the advertised 15% necessary to cook the books for state and federal aid and the ADA was a flagrant fraud teachers were forced to commit, it was remarkable to me this young fellow took his education so seriously he was willing to risk his life even coming to school at all.

Very few people can relate to this young fellow; very few can relate to what was a reasonable request on his part under such circumstances. But I lived it for four years on a daily basis in an environment where teachers and pupils were armed, and violence was a part of our everyday lives. It was only when I had to face down one of the real criminals gun in hand that I finally determined I had to resign. Had I killed the criminal threatening me that would have been the end anyway. And had he killed me, what would my family get? Flowers from the school district?

The great advantage I had enabling me to be a successful teacher those four years at Jordan was the fact I was a shop teacher. When I went to the interview at the district headquarters I was told English and History teachers were dime-a-dozen. But when the interviewer discovered my twelve years in the aerospace industry qualified for my teaching vocational classes, I became a hot commodity. This would enable the district to draw from the vast resources of federal money available to schools like Jordan for vocational classes. Much of the fraud I eventually discovered in the schools had to do with this availability of federal funds. And the ease with which school districts can cook the books made “If the money is simply lying there, why not take it,” frankly, quite unbelievable.

But equally unbelievable was why the school district would send a lovely young blonde to Jordan as her first teaching assignment. She lasted a full three days. It was when a large bolt was thrown at her barely missing her head and breaking the blackboard at which she had been writing that ended things.

I spent a lot of frustrating time to no avail attempting to make some of these things known to those in authority. I even sat down with State Senator Ed Davis in Sacramento for a long chat about some of these things. We had a good relationship established when he was Chief of the L.A.P.D. But I was saddened to learn Ed had become a politician, and as such there was no help to be found through him or any of the others in Sacramento.

Equally frustrating was the experience I gained by sending some of this information to William Raspberry. He seemed excited until he learned I was Caucasian; and that was the end of our correspondence. I understood; after all, what could a Caucasian know of the “black experience.” Well, quite a lot as it turns out. But there was no use trying to convince Raspberry of this, even though the FBI thought I had something to contribute.

While we had a plainclothes L.A.P.D. working the campus of Jordan, a man with whom I had a deep friendship, there was no quelling the violence. But we both understood the root cause of the violence, the profound despair of anything ever becoming better for the people in Watts. They were a political nonentity before the riots, and they remained a political nonentity after the riots, and notwithstanding the abortive attempts by some few like Cleaver and Malcolm X only the charlatans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would come to the fore to “represent” Negroes.

I found things no better in East San Jose, where the cops were called to the campus of Yerba Buena High School 90 times during my first ten weeks teaching there. But there was a profound difference in the kinds of racial hatreds, not only due to the number of illegal aliens but the great influx of Asian pupils resulting from the politically contrived tragic disaster of Vietnam. As a math teacher, I experienced first hand the difference between a Mexican culture that despised education and the Asian that put a premium on education. Adding to the witch’s brew of the school district was having a Negro Superintendent and a Hispanic principal. During one faculty meeting, the Superintendent who was the chief speaker asked for a glass of water. The head of our teacher’s union, a Caucasian, hollered out to the principal, “Hey, Hernandez, you get it. You’re his water boy!”

Having been born in Weedpatch and spending my childhood in Southeast Bakersfield, Little Oklahoma, throughout a lifetime spent in so many environments where racism is a commonplace I’ve experienced a lot of discrimination. Whether the “n” word or “white trash” and “Okie,” any number of words and phrases that hurt, through all of this I’ve known the good and the bad people irrespective of race. But how is it, we find ourselves asking, that the bad people seem to consistently have the upper hand?

Among the many things about race I have learned along the way is the fact that while working in aerospace as a machinist and engineer race was not a factor. The fellow running a lathe or mill might be Jewish, Negro, Caucasian, but we got along because we all had jobs, and with those jobs we had hope for our families and our future. But we were also Americans, and we had the hope of most Americans of that era that there was a future for us and our families. I suppose if there is to be a bottom line to what is happening now because of Imus/Duke it is one of both economics and what it means to be an American first, and everything else subordinate to that. However, that requires the kind of hope those my age had those years ago when we had a heritage, culture, and language that bound us together as Americans with a national identity.

But there can be no hope of a satisfactory resolution, no answer to who is going to put out the fire when such a trail of slime leads to the White House like a “missing” 5 million emails that will not be accounted for, so long as corruption is rife in our Congress, as long as millions of Mexicans invade America for the sake of slave labor, and so on.

While chatting with a friend yesterday, a recovering alcoholic, it once more occurred to me no one who has not experienced the addiction can possibly understand the hellish kind of prison such addicts make for themselves, the kind of lunacy they live with every day of their lives. Likewise, those who have not experienced the kind of hopeless despair to be found in places like Watts can possibly understand such a thing. But most people should be able to understand the German fellow I worked with in the shops following WWII telling me that before Hitler his family was starving, but after Hitler came to power there were meat and potatoes once more.

Americans are beginning to demand that order be restored in our nation. But I don’t trust the present leadership to do the things necessary to restore order in America. What we hope for, what we must work for is the kind of order that does not invite another Hitler to take advantage of the deteriorating economic conditions millions of Americans are facing that robs us of hope for a future for our nation and our children.

The Scripture has it concerning the tongue “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” Imus certainly personified the truth of this. Now it remains whether there will be those with enough integrity and virtue to put out the flames.

John McCain saying his position on the Iraq war is of no political consideration to him in his bid for the presidency is certainly perverse. And for him to say this with a straight face expecting others to believe him is even more perverse. What McCain is obviously trying to do is make himself the paragon of virtue, baldly saying he thinks the sacrifice of even more American lives and more billions of taxpayer dollars in a lost cause is the “moral” thing to do. I say this to McCain: You take your brand of morality and stuff it!

To put the most charitable face on it, perhaps McCain doesn’t even realize how perverse his stand on the Iraq war is? And if he doesn’t, then I can find some room for pitying him. And in the same manner, I might find some room for pitying Don Imus.

He should have done the honorable thing and resigned rather than being fired; but now Imus doesn’t even have that going for him. I am concerned he may not yet even understand the full gravity of what his shameful, dehumanizing remarks made against women really meant. For that matter, I’m concerned there are still some in positions of power and have forums in which to address the monumental issues raised are not doing so. But this whole sordid affair should make it blatantly obvious Negroes have a long way to go to get their own house in order, demanding those representing them be held accountable.

The fact neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton will apologize for inflaming racial hatreds due to their heinous and defamatory speech crucifying the Duke Lacrosse players now that all charges have been dropped speaks volumes of the despicable lack of character in both men. My sympathy is for Negroes that seem unable to put forth better representation for their legitimate grievances than opportunistic, self serving scoundrels like Jackson and Sharpton rather than the kind of leaders that would make Negroes clean up their own acts of dehumanizing women and glorifying violence and corrupt speech.

To compare the two cases of Imus and the Duke students is to understand the racial divide in America is huge, and without proper leadership among Negroes, leadership that does not demand special race-based privilege and consideration without concomitant responsibility and accountability is to only acerbate a worsening condition. It isn’t right that Negroes should suffer for demanding Imus be fired, but that is going to be the result. What has resulted from having Imus punished while ignoring the grievous double standard represented by Jackson and Sharpton is a loss of credibility for legitimate grievances. By not holding rappers and others dehumanizing women and glorifying violence and corrupt speech accountable will only result in a worsening of the racial divide.

As though the situation for Negroes in America because of a lack of truly representative leadership was not bad enough, here are the Mexicans by the millions invading America, putting an enormous strain on the economics of help to the poor, disproportionately Negro legitimate citizens of America. And no one is fooled by the politicians whose “open border” mentality has no other motive than their greed for slave labor. The result is that America is becoming a witch’s brew of racial divisiveness without any national identity, without leadership We the People can trust to do other than continue like Jackson and Sharpton to foment this racial divisiveness for the sake of wealth and power.

It won't do to attempt putting a moral face on the firing of Imus; I don’t believe the real gravity of his remarks dehumanizing women is fully appreciated by those in power; and perhaps not even to those ordinary people we would expect should appreciate the full gravity of his remarks. But Imus and the Duke students should make clear to all the full gravity of what is threatening America as a nation. And the failure of leadership to put this threat in perspective and talk openly about it is to ignore a growing threat to our nation that will not go away, but only worsen as a consequence of refusing to bring it out in the open and talk about it honestly. Granted it would be a fearsome thing to do, impacting as it would on so many issues including that of illegal aliens, birth control, the abuse of government power, the abuse of We the People by the tyranny not only of government but the lust for power and wealth by those in corporations heedless of the threat to America.

To repeat: The Scripture has it concerning the tongue “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” Imus certainly personified the truth of this. Now it remains whether there will be those with enough integrity and virtue to put out the flames.

“Will the Circle be Unbroken” may be more than wishful thinking put to gospel music. And though the song “Summertime” remains a hauntingly beautiful standard, I find it odd that no one has mentioned Gershwin’s 1935 “Porgy and Bess” during the Imus inquisition. I use the word “inquisition” not to defend Imus, but to call attention to his inquisitors like the shamelessly self-serving Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al.

What with all the shouting about race arising from the Imus affair, if you have not seen Porgy and Bess your education in race relations is woefully deficient, much as with Christians who have not read “Elmer Gantry;” so I advise you to do so. But it wasn’t just the Imus affair that called Gershwin’s opera to mind, it was a line in one song: “The things that you’re liable, to read in the Bible, they ain’t necessarily so.” Well, most of us know that without the “tempter” whispering it to us in a song; however, there are many things in the Bible to which we would do well to pay heed, not just because it is the most influential book ever written, but because of some of the insights to be gained into some of the science involved. Take time travel for example.

Time travel is a unique feature of brain function we call “memory” that allows us to travel back in time and actually relive events, while another function of the brain we call “imagination” enables us to transform many things. Most of us have made blunders in the past we wish we could go back in time and correct, and while reliving these things, many of which can make life a living hell on earth, demons tearing at the fabric of sleep, memory restores the events while our imagination plays the many scenarios by which we would have done some things differently if only we were able to go back in time and do so.

The problem I find with Einstein’s famous equation, a problem I have written much about, is it does not provide for life and death, and without an explanation for these a “theory of everything” is not possible. Studies in the properties of light and string theory show promise, but so far not the answers.  But I also saw two difficulties involved with Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.” One, Hawking’s “confined universe,” and second, his contention that time could only go forward.

While we live in a “box” confined to three physical dimensions, apart from memory and imagination we are also confined by time as a linear continuum. However, if light can be slowed, stopped, and even made to go backwards, the intriguing question suggesting itself from such experiments is whether time might be subject to the same things.

From The Seattle Post Intelligencer: A Seattle scientist wants to test a controversial prediction from quantum theory that says light particles can go backward in time. John Cramer, a physicist at the University of Washington says “it’s a project that aims to do a conceptually simple bench-top test for evidence of something Albert Einstein called ‘spooky action (communication) at a distance.’ “ One of the mysteries of quantum mechanics is the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Quantum theory predicts two subatomic particles derived from a single particle—like two photons split from a single photon—will, if not further influenced by other particles, continue to influence each other’s behavior no matter how far apart. This is known as “entanglement.” Experiments at the subatomic level tend to support the idea, but there’s a conceptual problem. It means the two photons must be able to communicate instantaneously, even if light years apart, which violates the speed of light. “There’s been a lot of interest in this problem over the years,” Cramer said. In 1986, he proposed a solution to this paradox that he called the “transactional interpretation” of quantum theory. Some of his approach was based on the ideas of such physics luminaries as Richard Feynman and John Wheeler. Basically, Cramer showed how entanglement could be explained—and how the paradox could be explained away—by assuming some kind of signal that can travel both forward and backward in time between the two photons. His theory, quantum retrocausality, he says, violates no rules of quantum theory and resolves the mystery...

This “fire of life” we carry about in our physical bodies that enables self-awareness and to create and imagine must, to me, be significant of something much larger than our mortality. I remain convinced of Intelligent Design, though my own thoughts do not fit with any form of conventional religious systems of belief. There may in fact be malevolence involved with some parts of the “design” accounting for evil, but our extreme limitations unable to comprehend all that goes into a “creation” of our universe and the mechanics of its function only allows of a very narrow understanding of any part of such a creation. We still do not understand all the mechanics of a living cell, how much less the life and mechanics of the universe.

Studies in brain function as well as physics are opening doors of understanding, the recent studies questioning whether neuroscience may provide the answer, or at least part of the answer, to a “god-awareness.” And perhaps neuroscience may provide an answer to “false memories.”

Belief in reincarnation tied to memory errors. Tendency could explain why some cling to implausible reincarnation claims. By Melinda Wenner: LiveScience. April 6, 2007. People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study. The propensity to make these mistakes could, in part, explain why people cling to implausible reincarnation claims in the first place... People who are likely to make these kinds of errors might end up convincing themselves of things that aren’t true, said lead researcher Maarten Peters of Maastricht University in The Netherlands. When people who are prone to making these mistakes undergo hypnosis and are repeatedly asked to talk about a potential idea — like a past life — they might, as they grow more familiar with it, eventually convert the idea into a full-blown false memory. This is because they can’t distinguish between things that have really happened and things that have been suggested to them, Peters told LiveScience. Past life memories are not the only type of implausible memories that have been studied in this manner. Richard McNally, a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, has found that self-proclaimed alien abductees are also twice as likely to commit source monitoring errors...

One of the things I miss by no longer having my brother Ronnie around was our being able to share the memories of loved ones and events in our lives. If one of us were incorrect in recalling such things, the other was there to correct such “false memories.” But with his passing and being the “Last of the Mohicans” I must rely on memory alone, enhanced by the many photos and other artifacts of my past life. In some ways this is a kindness, and one many of us oldsters have come to rely on, that azure tint that time lends to many recollections.

My mother had a false memory of the passing of my great-grandmother whom mom loved so very dearly. Mom firmly believed she had been with her when she passed away, but I knew my mother was not. But if mom found comfort in believing so fervently she had been with “grandma” when she passed away, what purpose would be served by my correcting my mother, depriving her of a “memory” in which she found such solace and comfort? Now, if mom had a “memory” of being abducted by space aliens, that might have been a different matter.

There is a time to be kind, and a time to correct. And just being able to discriminate between the two is another dimension of time impacting on many of its other distinctive features yet to be explained. Still, where science leaves off philosophical speculation takes over, and from philosophical speculation comes science to make its discoveries, a circle if you will. There remains the mystery of the circle to which my Indian ancestors and others have attributed mystical properties. While memory may play us false at times, who knows but what this is what we are left with? “Will the Circle be Unbroken” may be more than wishful thinking put to gospel music. If time should prove to be not linear but a circular continuum, without beginning or end, perhaps it may be we will enter that continuum. I cling to the hope I will once more be with my loved ones and friends in a hereafter. And while such a “circle” is suggested by philosophical speculation, science may yet come to the same conclusion.

When Pogo confronted Congersman Frog for not delivering on campaign promises made to get elected he replied, “Well, well! Not everyone’s perfect you know... you don’t elect a God, y’ know.”

The tip-off came early with the open mic gaffe of Bush to Cheney calling New York Times’ Adam Clymer a “major league a------” during 2000. And it’s been downhill for Bush, and America, ever since. America needed a leader, someone to be respected holding the highest office in America, not someone that used gutter language. Certainly we can be forgiving of an isolated instance, a slip of the tongue, a moment of failure to engage brain before opening mouth, but Bush went on to confirm his crude comment was representative of the man.

Congersman Frog was quite correct, we don’t elect a God, but when someone is elected President of the United States we have a right to expect language and behavior suitable to the office. And this holds true for all those who have power and authority, who have a bully pulpit, who put themselves forth as being responsible and trustworthy.

It may be that Newt Gingrich, being quite wealthy and too obviously insulated from the grim reality of Negro ghettos and Spanish barrios throughout America really does not know the difference between the two. But I’ve taught high school in Watts and East San Jose, I’ve been in the homes of people living in both ghettos and barrios and know the difference. Ghetto speech is a corruption of English used in Negro communities, a result of the lack of education and learning to speak correctly. And the general failure to emphasize education to children born in the ghettos of America has led to making a virtue of the vice of corrupt language. Bill Cosby quite rightly calls attention to this and is vilified, but those like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton refuse to confront this failure to make education important to Negro children. And such a failure to hold Negroes accountable for their own failures, the hypocritical Jackson and Sharpton assume a mantle of self-righteous indignation when attacking those like Don Imus seemingly oblivious of their total lack of credentials other than their color for doing so.

Other than themselves, who takes Jackson or Sharpton seriously? Their self-serving agenda demanding racial privilege without accountability or responsibility has been obvious throughout, but at least Al is usually good for a laugh. He can be a really funny fellow, especially as an unabashed scoundrel that makes no pretense of being anything other than an unabashed scoundrel, the pickpocket that tells you he is going to pick your pocket. Much in the same manner of so-called “moderate” Muslims refusing to denounce the murderers among them, if Jackson and Sharpton both expressed the degree of outrage toward the faults Bill Cosby has been pointing out among Negroes as they have toward Don Imus I’d be willing to take them seriously. But they have not; especially made pointedly clear by their refusal to confront the insultingly dehumanizing of women among Negroes, and Mexicans, not far removed from the same thing women suffer under Islam.

Though applauding the work done for children I’ve never been an Imus fan, and have wondered just how someone with such a lack of talent could be so well placed and have so many well placed people falling over themselves to be on his show? His is a success story that has never made any sense to me, a crude man of crude manners and speech one wonders. But his recent remark about the Rutgers’ basketball team, while I don’t credit any maliciousness intent to him I do believe he made the remark out of a sense of his own self-importance, that he was impervious to criticism and would not be held to account for something so outrageous. But now having crawled to an unabashed outright scoundrel like Sharpton with his apology, the wisest course would be for him to crawl further into oblivion, exit the public stage and leave off any further embarrassment for both himself and America. That the abject failure of Negro leadership has led to such gutter language being glorified is obvious, and I hold those like Jackson and Sharpton to account for their failure to be real leaders. Likewise, I don’t want Imus continuing to have a bully pulpit purporting to represent Caucasians.

As has proven itself many times over among those who hold power, to believe you are above being accountable is dangerous thinking. Most especially when it holds true for the President of the United States who obviously believes himself to be above either criticism or accountability for his failures in both speech and actions.

Though I’m quite familiar with Vegas and Tahoe I have never suffered the addiction to gambling, having never even bought a lottery ticket. But I have enjoyed penny-ante poker on occasion in years past; and I agree with Sam Clemens that the scholarly pursuit of poker and a thorough knowledge of the refinements of the game at least avoid the too often pretentiousness of chess. In praise of poker Sam wrote, “... for the instruction of the young, we have introduced a game of poker. There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have a sort of general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere and all that, who did not know the meaning of a ‘flush.’ It is enough to make one ashamed of one’s species.”

While some may disagree with Sam’s assessment that ignorance of poker might make one ashamed of one’s species, I think we can all agree with the point of his humor, especially the not so thinly veiled barb directed toward clergymen that take themselves far too seriously, that there are some things that do qualify for the opprobrium.

I will continue to express my opinion gang members terrorizing our cities are contemptible and have no basis for demanding any kind of “respect.” I will continue to demonize the Muslim terrorists that believe turning children into human bombs and murder the innocent in the name of Allah are beneath the contempt of all civilized people, that there is no name vile enough to describe and demonize such murderers any more than the monsters in human guise without conscience that prey on women and children.

All too well I recall my childhood in Southeast Bakersfield before WWII when the pejoratives of “White trash” and “Okie” were especially hurtful. And while the phrase white trash continues to be properly descriptive of those like the Ewell’s in To Kill A Mockingbird, the term Okie no longer has the early sting that used to attach to it.

But there remains the need to guard one’s “phraseology,” that the proper demonizing of the enemies of civilization be just that, the demonizing of those there is need to demonize. The failure to win any kind of war whether the phony “war on drugs” or the phony “war on terrorism” is rooted in the inability to put a real face to the enemy and properly demonize the enemy. Tragically for an America that is increasingly becoming illiterate and mongrelized with the resulting divisiveness, that has lost its identity as a nation, has lost its heritage, culture, language, and is fast losing its borders there is too much truth to the observation “We have met the enemy, and he is Us.”

Sam Clemens had a way with words. Who but Sam could sum up politicians so succinctly by calling Judas Iscariot “a premature congressman?” And in respect to championing the virtue and purity of fair maidenhood, it was Sam who said he was against giving women the franchise because he considered politics a dirty business suitable only for men. And I believe Sam recognized the ploy of spineless men at the time whose solitary goal in supporting giving women the vote was to be able to make women equally guilty for the mess in government and further the cause of numberless husbands who, like old Adam, could take the resulting chaos like men and blame it on their wives. So if anyone should misconstrue Sam’s and my words concerning the franchise in the hands of women by trying to make us say: “We should never have given them the vote!” please keep our pure and selfless motives in mind.

And who but Sam could sum up his opinion of most religious practitioners with such a straightforward assessment as his observation “He was as happy as if he had just gotten out of church!” As some of you know, Sam had some problems with religion, one made clear by his making a point concerning an Episcopal minister, a Reverend Sabine, who refused the offices of the church in properly burying a play actor, one George Holland. The good reverend did not hold with the corrupting influence of the stage and theater. Sam’s reaction to this was somewhat volatile. I have had to go through his letter and delete some of his more indelicate phraseology and leave the reader with his more charitable remarks concerning the good priest of the church which described this noble man of the cloth as a “crawling, slimy, sanctimonious, self-righteous reptile.” The reader can appreciate my difficulty in softening some of Sam’s more intemperate remarks.

So it is I wish Sam were with us today to express his feelings toward many religious and political hucksters of our time. But, alas, a politically correct media would never allow him to express himself with such eloquence today though no real American can fail to feel ashamed at the spectacle of what is happening among so many politicians scurrying like rats to protect their backsides, all the while expecting We the People or anyone else in the world to believe any of these charlatans really want the truth of their dealings exposed to the light of day. The charade has played itself out in too many ways over the past decades to believe any of them are dedicated to the truth, to the welfare of America and Americans.

I’ve lived in too many other places throughout America to think my native Kern County is exempt from the kind of corruption prevalent in DC or anywhere else, but to our credit we do have a newspaper, The Bakersfield Californian, that sometimes goes to extraordinary lengths to get the truth from politicians and other officials. One among many cases of note is the trial of Vincent Brothers that has gained national notoriety. Having heard hints of improprieties committed by both Brothers and the schools that employed him, the paper finally had to go to court, as it has in previous cases, to get information that properly should have been available without expensive litigation. At that, what was finally given the paper had been so heavily redacted one very nearly had to read between the lines to get at the one most salient fact of the man accused of murdering his whole family should never have been allowed to continue holding a position in any school.

Dianne Hardisty, editorial page editor, noted she had written an editorial “inspired by news coverage of the ongoing Vincent Brothers murder trial. Brothers, the former vice principal of two Bakersfield City School District schools, is accused of murdering his wife, three young children and mother-in-law. Prosecutors contend Brothers is a womanizer who killed to be rid of the burden of having a family. The judge limited prosecutors to calling to the stand only four of Brothers’ female co-workers to back up their theory. It was a stunning litany, raising the logical question: If these guys were fooling around so much at school, who was teaching our children? The editorial also questioned why district officials had not intervened...The only negative response was the letter from BCSD Superintendent Michael Lingo that follows this posting and appears on the Sunday, April 8, Viewpoint page. Lingo leaps to the conclusion that the editorial was inspired by an alleged deep-seated grudge the newspaper has against the district because of its court battle over access to Brothers’ personnel records. He calls the editorial ‘another low blow’ and blames The Californian’s frustration over obtaining little information from Brothers’ file after spending so much time and money to obtain access...’It’s true we didn’t get to see all the disciplinary documents involving Brothers,’ Californian Executive Editor Mike Jenner recalls. ‘And it’s also true some of the most outrageous information stayed in the file. The judge who ordered portions released said some of the material was so outrageous it would ‘inflame the passions of the community.’ We expected redaction of names and identifying information and, in fact, it’s our policy to not identify alleged victims of sexual assault. Far from being a wild goose chase, our lawsuit over these records was very significant. The judges of the 5^th District Court of Appeals issued a published opinion upholding the public’s right to know certain information in a public employee’s file and strengthening the Public Records Act. In effect, the appeals court affirmed that government agencies may not use the personnel file as a dumping ground for information that might embarrass the public employer,’ Jenner said.”

From my own experience of years in the schools it was only to be expected Lingo would first of all attempt to hide the failure of administrators to deal with Brothers early on. As one administrator once told me regarding such things “We do our own dirty laundry.” This same administrator was later forced to resign because of being arrested and convicted for shoplifting. At that, I doubt this would have happened had not the local paper printed an account of the matter.

However, the school district could not fire him for a misdemeanor and instead gave him a letter of recommendation with the promise he would leave. The last I heard he had been hired as an administrator in another state. Despite the many articles and books written about it, some of my own included, the monumental hurdles that stand in the way of dismissing a teacher or administrator only continue to worsen. The schools generally get rid of a bad administrator the same way hospitals get rid of bad doctors, with the promise of a glowing letter of recommendation if they will agree to leave and go elsewhere.

But if only the Bakersfield Californian could get Congress and the White House to open their books, if only to get a peek at the dirty laundry. As it is, unlike the file Lingo was finally forced by litigation to provide the best we seem to be able to hope for in DC is something so redacted as to be utterly useless. Whether in Washington or the schools, when it comes to dirty laundry letting them do their own only amounts to an increasingly large pile that never gets cleaned, it only accumulates. And because of this accumulation of dirty laundry the paranoia in the schools increases apace, and when the “cloak of confidentiality” is threatened as in the case of Lingo and Brothers, those fearing exposure cry loudly in protest.

As an insider with years of experience including a doctoral dissertation about accountability in education (there isn’t any), I’m very familiar with those like Lingo and fully understand his self-serving attack on the Bakersfield Californian. But if the judge in the Brothers’ case was concerned the whole truth of the matter would “inflame the passions of the community” suppose what peeling away the cloak of confidentiality behind which politicians hide would do? In the meantime, it’s business as usual in the schools and social services, doctors continue to bury their mistakes, and Congress holds hearings while the dirty laundry never gets done; only once in a while there are a few like those at the Californian to give us a modicum of hope something could be done.

There may be good and sufficient reason for the story in Genesis portraying the serpent as the nemesis of humankind, for Satan being described as a serpent. Like a cat in repose, Thoreau thought there was a reptilian part of us that seems to slumber but is never quite asleep. “We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure.”

Given recent studies of the brain, especially some of monumentally important moral and ethical implications, Thoreau’s observation might credit him with prescience except for the fact that like all well educated men of his time he was proficient in Greek. This was the ancient language of commerce and knowledge; and even into the nineteenth century one of the requirements of all universities and a distinguishing characteristic of a true gentleman in civilized society. Even today, though excellent translations abound, among peers any discussion of philosophy, the King of Disciplines, requires knowledge of Greek. A philos of logos, the love of words led to Philological encyclopedias that attempt to trace the etymology of words. It is not enough to learn only the words of a foreign language, as many of you know, but you must also learn the culture of that language, some of its history, and because language changes the idiom, the ideomatisch sprache, is the most difficult part to learn of any language. For this reason, very few people are truly bi-lingual. As my German professor once said, “Without idiom, you only learn to speak like a textbook. And very few people speak like textbooks.”

While philology has been largely displaced by the introduction of the narrower study of “linguistics,” though the morphology of language remains a constant, nevertheless it must be kept in the forefront of understanding ancient languages, and in the case of Greek as the language of knowledge, of philosophy, this is all-important. Thoreau was emphatic about this, as were all the learned men of his time, and pointed out even the dull farmer who knew only a few words of Greek or Latin was well recompensed. My mentor Dr. Charles Lee Feinberg, Ph. D., Th. D. was a master of Semitic languages, but would not have been chosen by the Lockman Foundation as head translator for the New American Standard Bible had he not been a master of Greek and Latin as well. ‘En arche en o’ logos, “In the beginning was the word” is a great deal more than the beginning of the Gospel of John; it is really the beginning of modern civilization.

With the advent of writing, one generation was finally enabled to pass on learning to the next generation. Without writing, there could be no progress of civilization. But it would be the Greeks who would bring writing to full flower as the language of knowledge, of the arts and philosophical discourse. And what has all this to do with Thoreau’s seeming prescience in regard to a reptilian part of us that seems to slumber but is never quite asleep? His thorough knowledge of the Greek process of philosophical thought that together with the advances of scientific thinking and achievements of his time enabled him as with his mentor Emerson to question the tyranny of religion, which led to what would be known as the “transcendental” philosophy, a civilized attempt, if you will, to overcome that reptilian animal part of us.

However, amazing as Thoreau’s observation he could not be expected to know how close he was to what recent studies of the brain are beginning to hint at in regard to what may be this “reptilian” part of us. Several people including scientists of note have expressed their thought the brain is a “kludge,” parts of which are not always compatible with each other, some newer parts being built upon prior primitive parts. To some, this offers an explanation of Paul’s struggle, “The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do.”

The “monsters of the Id” are real enough to us, and may be the source of nightmares while the “mindless primitive” the “reptile” remains part of the kludge acting by instinct alone for survival. There was good reason for Charles Lamb admonishing parents to leave a light at night for children, to never submit them to darkness as they slept.

A microscopic brain parasite responsible for fear of cats has been found in rodents, and leads to speculation about possible cures for phobias, irrational fears in humans. But as was pointed out in the article, the removal of the parasite from rats made them susceptible to becoming cat food. There are rational fears, and the lack of such leads some to destruction.

But there are utilitarian instincts for survival that have nothing to do with morality or religion. Half the soldiers never fired their weapons during battle in WWII, and there is no reason to believe this changed in later wars. But have scientists finally discovered the reason for this lack of a “utilitarian” instinct for survival on the part of those that do not fire their weapons: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC). “Three years ago in the journal Neuron, the neuroscientists illustrated their point. Using brain scans, they showed that utilitarian decisions involved ‘increased activity in brain regions associated with cognitive control.’ From this and other data, they surmised that the moral debate ‘reflects an underlying tension between competing subsystems in the brain.’ On one side are ‘the social-emotional responses that we’ve inherited from our primate ancestors.’ On the other side is a utilitarian calculus ‘made possible by the more recently evolved structures in the frontal lobes.’ The war of ideas is a war of neurons.”

However, much as science has begun to shed light on brain function even to the point of possibly explaining Thoreau’s reptilian animal there remains the instinct to believe, the instinct for prayer that would seem to be far more than the sum of such parts science is offering. I don’t think a “war of neurons” can explain the wonder and awe of human beings the Psalmist put so eloquently: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”

I do believe there are monsters in the guise of human beings among us, the creatures that prey on women and children. They may be recognized early as children that delight in torturing animals, the bullies that seem unable to submit to civilized conventions and laws, children of the darkness, children of the Devil rather than children of light, children of God. And given the enormity of our universe far beyond human comprehension, things both unknown and unknowable there is latitude for philosophical speculation without seeming limit.

It is admittedly a most profoundly disquieting notion, the thought God by whatever definition and whether one or many may only be a matter of a war of neurons; but I can’t accept this. This fire of life we carry about in our bodies, this sense of self-awareness and awe of the heavens shouts “There has to be some meaning to life!” will not have it otherwise. Even so, I applaud the advances of science that may yet give us an understanding of that reptilian animal of which Thoreau spoke. That such discoveries like those of VMPC may lead to an understanding of conscience, to freeing some from the tyranny of religion is a good thing.

But Life and Death remain the two greatest mysteries they have ever been, and there is no discounting that “Sea of consciousness” evidenced by Einstein’s “spooky communication at a distance,” and the poet’s “Universal Lyre” that continues to make its music heard to those with an ear to hear it.

I have no complaint about any scientific discoveries that offer hope of helping people to learn and to get along with one another. But there remain those monsters seemingly given over to that reptilian animal that will not have it so regardless of any science. It is a grim reality that in the end may only be resolved by utilitarian methods. We may reasonably question whether extraterrestrials might account for many things on earth, whether Atlantis or other advanced civilizations may have perished but left a residue of knowledge, whether answers to many of our questions may lie buried beneath oceans, ice caps, deserts or mountains. But the reality of our time is to either enjoy the benefits of scientific and technological advancement for the sake of life and our planet or have it all destroyed by the reptilian animal unless this beast is destroyed by utilitarian methods.

Unquestionably a common language is the “glue” that holds any society or nation together. The babble of tongues into which America has degenerated does not bode well, and every time someone comes out and openly expresses the fact America is becoming increasingly mongrelized and threatened as a result of this by catering to Spanish, by sensibly asking why any American should have to “Press one for English” they risk being called “racist.” But each time I write about this subject I know the agenda of wealth and power those that are attempting to force the Spanish language on Americans, those like Bush, politicians and their corporate masters that support slave labor from Mexico and building their constituency of the “Latino” vote.

It only worsens things for America when AG Gonzales so obviously favors Mexico and Mexicans over America and Americans with his boss’s blessing. But so many of the Bush supporters are now openly trying to distance themselves from the “bubble” he is living in as to be downright embarrassing; yet Bush doesn’t get the message, or in his own words he “doesn’t care” what anyone including We the People think. But, as he also said, he has God as his advisor. And that trumps any mortals attempting to advise Bush, especially, it seems, if they don’t speak Spanish.

But the absolute lunacy apart from the claims of Bush to have an inside track with the Deity remains of those that believe America can ever survive as a nation being pulled apart by things like mongrelization and open borders, the threat to our nation posed by the loss of a national language and identity as Americans would seem to be self-evident; but where money and power are involved such lunacy abounds. And few things are as detrimental to our survival as a nation as the failed attempt to accommodate a polyglot of foreign tongues. Bad enough the schools no longer teach reading and writing, but then to be forced to accommodate millions of illegal aliens that will never become proficient in English is totally destructive to the schools the Federal Triune Dictatorship and its ACLU makes such demands upon.

A pragmatic fact is that America cannot possibly survive as a nation without a national language, a national identity based on a common language. The Greeks called all those not speaking their language “barbarians.” But the Greeks did not use the term in the pejorative sense, but rather to properly discriminate on a national basis. The Apostle Paul pointed out the same thing when commenting on the need for speaking in a language all could understand. The Pentecost story in the Acts emphasizes the same thing.

Among the many fascinating stories in the Bible the “confusion of tongues” is one of the greater of these. After the Deluge, the generations of Noah’s sons is given followed by the account of Babel:

These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

This eleventh chapter of Genesis is the last time this particular plural form of “gods” is used in the Bible. It had been used in the beginning chapters up to this point as in the “let us make man in our image and after our likeness,” but for reasons unknown, though encouraging much speculation, here is the last time this plural of gods is used. And to read the many Biblical commentators on this point only adds to the mystery rather than any plausibly acceptable explanation for it.

A common language is essential to any work requiring the cooperation of a number of people, whether building a tribe or a nation, and the lack of a common language certainly has divided the nations scattering people as intended by the gods in Genesis. However the story originated as an attempt to explain the diverse languages of humankind, there is no doubt about it serving the intention of the gods as given.

However, to credit the account in Genesis raises the question of just who were these gods, and what exactly did they have to fear from mortals? Perhaps the myths of Sumeria, Babylonia, Egypt, and the Greeks have more to offer on this subject than what is found in the Bible. But imagine what the world might be today had there never been any “confusion of tongues,” but the whole world spoke a common language? Try to imagine what triumphs of art and science might humankind have achieved, but have been missed by the confusion of tongues. Even now, an entire world speaking a common language boggles the mind! But the story in Genesis has the gods fearing this kind of cooperation among humans. Why?

One area of speculation has it the gods feared the very kind of violence leading to the Deluge would once more prevail throughout the earth, that the building of the tower though probably metaphorical was with evil intent. Some years ago I wrote an article in which I asked the question why God did not know the very things leading to the Deluge remained with Noah and his sons, as was quickly evidenced

But since the Bible credits Satan as having dominion over the kingdoms of the earth, going to and fro throughout like a lion seeking prey, would he have a vested interest in the confusion of tongues as well? Certainly the need for a common language is essential for the progress of civilization worldwide, but what of a common language to the purpose of evil?

There is good reason to credit the Biblical account of the End Times that dwells on a one world government, of which we assume a common language will be needed. At some point for the sake of peace and commerce it seems logical that such a thing would be needed. As it stands English is a requirement of all international pilots and airlines, and most of the world’s commerce is conducted in English. Most of the technology in the world has an English base. But imagine what would be required to make English the language of the world. Most nations will never forsake their native tongues short of absolute force. And what would be the force driving English? One scenario would be that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at LAX, even a monumental nuclear accident resulting in the deaths of millions would do it.

Right now America is desperate for a “strong man” to come to the fore and unite Americans once more as a nation. But it is increasingly obvious it will take more than money to satisfy the requirement; it will take the charisma of genuineness of character and virtue. We want to believe in someone, but it has to be someone that convinces us he is more interested in putting America first rather than other nations like Mexico and China.

The language of mathematics enables everyone of whatever language to understand 666. While most people understandably do not credit such a bogeyman, racism based on human nature remains a very real bogeyman. But no amount of left-wing rhetoric and laws, no amount of ACLU bullying will make people other than what they are concerning their wanting to congregate with their own kind according to race and language. A one-world dictator, a one-world government would soon have everyone talking the same language. Is this what the gods of Genesis feared? Even discounting any gods, the story certainly evidences a genuine human concern about a one-world language early in history, and it’s another of those moral dilemmas for which there seems no answer that would satisfy everyone. And where morality fails of an answer, it opens the door inviting force to enter.

But considering the many threats to America and the rest of the world, things like global warming for whatever reason, the threat of world famine and disease, the threat of contaminated food supplies as the latest pet food from China while we are “assured” the toxin hasn’t found its way into food for humans, there are many things shouting “Crisis!” and won’t simply go away by political rhetoric. Such things demand an answer. And when things reach the point of threatening the whole world, discounting the “Rapture” and those “Left Behind,” an answer will be forced upon us, moral or not. Lifeboat Ethics at that point will be more than just an academic discussion.

In the “Wizard of Id,” the king is observing a group of peasants marching outside the castle carrying placards reading “Give us liberty or give us death.” The king says to himself: “Some problems are easier to solve than others.” The State is a “trick” as Emerson pointed out, but how much more so humankind itself from which the State evolves. If the State is a trick, it is one people play on themselves where elected leaders like Bush trick Americans into war:

How phony letter drove Iraq war. Intelligence failures surrounded inquiry on Iraq-Niger uranium claim. By Peter Eisner, The Washington Post, April 3, 2007. It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous—later retracted -- 16 words: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush’s remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?...

I hope you will read the WP account in full, but how about this for a “trick.” A weeping Iraqi widow is shown on TV, her husband killed by “insurgents” leaving her alone to care for eight children. Iraq has no welfare system; she drew the bad card of not being born in America, or coming here as an illegal alien where welfare, American taxpayers, would be extorted to pay for her and the children. Even worse for the Iraqi widow, like most she is uneducated and has no job prospects. Islam punishes women, teaching they are inferior to men. But there are no prospects of changing this inferior status for women in Muslim nations. Though “human weeds” abound throughout the world, only in Muslim nations are women so treated as “weeds.”

Many have questioned the doctrine of the “divine spark” for good reason. It is all too obvious this fire of life we carry about in our bodies does not burn with the same intensity of brightness in all. The dull-witted visitor Thoreau mentioned that claimed though he was “deficient in intellect” supposed the lord cared about him as much as any other may not have been correct. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to attribute anything like a divine spark in most of humankind. And if in fact there is any such thing I would expect it to show itself in those who follow the “Golden Rule,” which by itself would eliminate most.

For me, the most poignant scene in “Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” is when the old blind man left alone to fend for himself asks to be shot. He tells Tommy Lee Jones he would shoot himself, but explains “I don’t want to offend God.” But Tommy Lee Jones refuses, replying he does not want to offend God either. It is quite a moral dilemma for both men. The obvious kindness of ending the old blind man’s suffering is denied by the possibility of offending God, leaving him to die miserably from thirst and hunger blind and alone. It is at this point the question leaped to my mind once more as it has many times why more people do not openly confess their thought it may be God who is offending us by being the cause of so much inequity and suffering in the world? The creature questioning the creator? You bet I do!

Was it not for this instinct to believe, I would happily join myself to atheists rather than continuing an intellectual struggle trying to make sense of the kind of moral dilemmas posed in the film. But unlike so many religious people I don’t fear questioning God, I don’t fear holding him to account for what I see is the many seeming insanities of life that results in so much suffering and inequities, especially those monsters in human guise that prey on women and children. Nor do I forgive those like Hawthorne and Melville for pretending they recognized evil but unable to put a face to the evil they wrote about for fear of offending God. A theistic dualism that would make God responsible for all Creation but would excuse him for evil simply will not do. A far more rational explanation would be the composite picture of God in the Bible, of war in the heavens brought to earth, of deities in conflict resulting in the suffering of humankind. But any so-called “systematic theology” that on the one hand calls God “Almighty” but exempts him from responsibility for evil begs the larger questions arising from the facts of reality.

Not a few of us have taken off on God like Robert Duval in “The Apostle,” ranting and raving over the enormity of cruelty and injustice we poor mortals are born into and live with, and I’m not as charitable of Deity as Job who would excuse God on the basis of accepting the good without blaming him for the bad. The rain falling on just and unjust alike does not do it for me; and I think Job’s wife has been the victim of bad press, her advice to “curse God and die” being the more rational and humane course given the circumstances. But for those that do not find themselves railing against God, perhaps there is a “fear of God” parasite resident in their brains, much like a virus or bug might infect a computer:

Human brain parasite alters fear. Scientists say discovery could shed light on how fear is generated, by Charles Q. Choi. LiveScience, April 2, 2007. Rats usually have an innate fear of cat urine. The fear extends to rodents that have never seen a feline and those generations removed from ever meeting a cat. After they get infected with the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, however, rats become attracted to cat pee, increasing the chance they’ll become cat food. This much researchers knew. But a new study shows the parasite, which also infects more than half the world’s human population, seems to target a rat’s fear of cat urine with almost surgical precision, leaving other kinds of fear alone. This discovery could shed light “on how fear is generated in the first place” and how people can potentially better manage phobias, researcher Ajai Vyas, a Stanford University neuroscientist, told LiveScience...

Wouldn’t it be the ultimate trick, a parasite in the brain that has caused so many to believe in the various superstitions of religion throughout human history, especially in the followers of Islam where women are treated as a sub-human species and murder is applauded for the glory of Allah. Could such a parasite explain the history of humankind being one of insane violence and wars, Stalin and Hitler, could it explain those like Bush and Iran’s mad mullah, both of whom claim God speaks to them and they in turn speak for God?

Well, though I certainly don’t know whether a parasite is involved with my instinct to believe, I don’t think there is anything wrong in my getting angry with God, in asking God to take responsibility for the situation we poor mortals find ourselves in. It doesn’t fit into any religious framework but suppose enough of us expressed our anger with God, might things change for the better as in our Founding Fathers confronting King George? Jesus told the story of the unjust judge that feared neither God nor man, but gave the widow justice just to get her off his back.

Here is a suggestion, how about starting a religion that would have the believers demanding God take responsibility for this mess on earth, one in which the believers held God accountable for all the cruelty and suffering of humankind? Alas, I don’t think that would be any more successful than suffering humankind attempting to hold our human leaders accountable. One thing I know, unlike the children of Israel we don’t have 400 years to be delivered from bondage. But is there a fear factor involved that on the other hand we might provoke the King of Id’s “solution” to the problem? Seems we are headed in that direction whether or not.

Thompson Is for Real. By Robert D. Novak. Monday, April 2, 2007. WASHINGTON—In just three weeks, Fred Thompson has improbably transformed the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. It is not merely that he has come from nowhere to double digits in national polls. He is the talk of GOP political circles, because he is filling the conservative void in the Republican field of candidates. Republican activists have complained for months that none of the big-three contenders—Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney—fits the model of a conservative leader for a conservative party. The party faithful have been waiting for another Ronald Reagan. But in conversations with them the past year, nobody mentioned Thompson as the messiah until he appeared March 11 on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” His statement to Wallace that he was “giving some thought” to a presidential run generated a reaction that surprised Thompson. In the first Gallup poll that listed Thompson (March 23-25), he scored 12 percent—amazing for someone out of public life for more than four years who has not campaigned. More important than the polling data is his backing within the political community. Buyer’s remorse is expressed by several House members who had endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Romney...

For those of us who early recognized Fred Thompson would be the best choice for President none of what Novak has said comes as a surprise. But there are several hurdles for Fred to overcome should he make the decision to run. But I continue to hope he will do so, and I encourage you to sign a “Draft Fred” petition if you have not.

“Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating the State is a trick?... From neither party, when in power, has the world any benefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate with the resources of the nation.”

Things have only worsened in America since Emerson made his astute observation concerning the facts of the matter. By now most know the laws protect the criminals while abusing their victims, how great a “trick” the State has played on us, and the depths of degradation to which the word “politic” has fallen. And the primary resource of America, our children, have not been the beneficiaries “at all commensurate with the resources of the nation.”

For example, “No Child Left Behind” made for good political rhetoric, but the history of it is a case of the blind leading the blind, and as such doomed from the beginning. Apart from the duplicity involved the really sinister aspects of this legislation is the fact had it not been for the fraud of Rod Paige cooking the books during his education career George Bush may never have become President. Now that should send a chill through anyone that thinks the federal government can be trusted to decide what is best when it comes to educating children. The failed system of education in America is symptomatic of our federal government throughout, but the bottom line is the fact it takes successful parenting to have successful children and America has become downright hostile to such parenting. And no matter what spin is attempted it comes down to a lack of wisdom on the part of America’s leadership.

In respect to the kind of madness and bullying that seems all-pervading and prevents good people from seizing the initiative in acquiring wisdom, in “To Kill A Mockingbird” Harper Lee has Calpurnia telling the children after taking them to her church and being criticized for it, “You’re not going to change any of them by talkin’ right; they’ve got to want to learn themselves. And when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.”

And sure enough most do not want to learn (as teachers across America can tell you); they not only have no interest in talkin’ right, they want to bully others into talking their language no matter how ignorant or self-serving, to be polite to their idols, myths and superstitions no matter how antithetical and harmful to wisdom. The worst of these insist on everyone either talking their language or they will mount a jihad in order to destroy anyone who does not! In spite of how very, even selfishly ignorant their own language may be, they not only do not know better like some of the ignorant people in Calpurnia’s church and the Ewell’s of the novel they have no interest in doing any better.

Of course, someone had better start telling children, all children, they need to learn to speak correctly; but where are the adults, especially adults in the home, that should be responsible for teaching children to speak correctly? While Newt Gingrich was correct in his criticism of “ghetto speech” he is not exactly a role model for children. But Bill Cosby didn’t pull any punches when he pointed out how harmful “ghetto speech” is to Negroes, how parents harm their children by giving them peculiar and nearly unpronounceable names not only difficult to spell but shouts “Ghetto!” ever as much as children named “Jesus” and “Angel” shouts “Barrio!” among the educated, the kinds of ignorance and illiteracy that is so pronounced in the forms of “entertainment” being offered, the lack of fathers in homes and the lack of encouragement to get a good education. Cosby made it clear no one deserves entitlement on the basis of race, and as expected the left-wing excoriated him for his forthright candid honesty.

Even after one has made the obligatory criticisms calling Cosby’s own character into question, once it has all been distilled there remains the legitimate faults he points out, those things that work to the detriment of Negroes, and few of these things need attention more than the manner of speech too often associated with ignorance and illiteracy regardless of race or position. Money, proper attire, and a manicure will not overcome a deficiency of proper speech.

Eliza Doolittle knew her manner of speech prevented her being able to improve her station in life; but she had the intelligence to understand her dream of doing so would require learning to speak properly so as to get a job in a flower shop rather than a form of begging by selling flowers on the streets. It would seem a rather humble goal, but one that would elevate her far above being a street person without hope of anything better. But we have every reason to doubt Eliza’s father ever told her to look up a word in the dictionary or ever corrected her manner of speech. We assume there was no dictionary, and Eliza’s father being a street person himself would not have known to correct her speech.

I’m very familiar with the Herculean task teachers face in the ghettos and barrios of America, having experienced doing the work for years as a teacher in such environments. I know the kind of desperation of just trying to live day-to-day in such places that prevents the encouraging of children to get an education. I was not naïve to the fact most of the homes my pupils came from did not have dictionaries or even parents to tell a child to look up a word or much in the way of books of any kind, that most did not have parents capable of correcting their children’s grammar any more than we would have expected of Eliza’s father.

But now children and teachers suffer the handicap of TV being the predominant “teacher” of children, exerting an influence on them that the best of parents and teachers cannot overcome, so much so that it would not be misplaced to call TV a “bullying” influence on children; not that this bullying is directed solely at children; far from it. However, unlike the school or neighborhood bully TV exerts a bullying influence that is all pervasive 24/7 throughout the homes of America.

However, let’s assume a teacher requires a child to speak correctly in class, and let’s assume the child’s grade will suffer if the child refuses to learn to speak correctly. There is the ACLU threatening suit because the teacher is denying the child’s “freedom of speech,” is suffering personally from being “shamed” in front of his peers, and there are the parents being encouraged to sue the school district if teachers are supported in this form of “intimidation” of children. And if you do not know the real threat of such lawsuits, the pressure on teachers to not teach children how to either speak or write correctly you are ignorant of the facts.

Harper Lee correctly condemned the low level to which America had descended in the matter of writing and literature, and children in the ghetto and barrio schools of America have little chance of success when they do not learn to speak and write correctly. One would think the deck is already stacked sufficiently against such children without teachers and schools being threatened by lawsuits if they attempt to really teach. And this is the truth no matter what you may think of the source, and to the point “You’re not going to change any of them by talkin’ right; they’ve got to want to learn themselves.” Now just where, gentle reader, are those who are going to encourage children to not only talk right but want to learn themselves? They won’t be found on TV where the emphasis is on an entirely different definition of “success” not requiring an education or learning to speak or write correctly. And it would appear the left wing of America not only prefers children not be taught to speak correctly, but would rather the ignorant and illiterate ghetto speech they are learning be in Spanish.

Since Kennedy, Clinton, Bush, Gonzales, Berger, and so many others can get away with flaunting the law, why should anyone in America take the law seriously? It is all too obvious our government is run just like the Mafia in “The Godfather,” but without the same efficiency and capability to provide “service” for the money. Were this not the truth of the matter, things like our porous borders and our enemies would be effectively dealt with. And were this not true, perhaps there would be fewer looking to becoming criminals as a “career choice.”

Imagine if you will a council of Mafiosi coming together to get at the truth of 9/11. Who can be blamed for believing what would come out of such a council more trustworthy than what has been foisted off on us by the 9/11 Commission; and that, folks, speaks volumes about the endemic corruption in our government.

Clearly the law only applies to ordinary Americans who cannot afford to flaunt it. In the film “Mulholland Falls” the point is made by the nuclear scientist those who carry great responsibility and authority do not answer to the same rules that apply to those without such responsibility and authority. However, keeping Los Angeles free of gangsters and organized crime by a special crime unit clandestinely formed by the Chief of Police not bound by the laws applying to other policemen carries with it the risk such a unit might abuse its freedom to act against legitimate targets.

But in the case of the film, the murder of an otherwise innocent woman privy to secret government information, the military unit set up to protect national security acted in what was considered the “best interests” of America. So, in the case of blowing away the punks and not allowing the feds to intervene in a local matter found most of us applauding, but not the case of murdering a woman for the sake of perceived national security. It is that conundrum We the People face, one in which we more readily trust those on the local level as opposed to those on the federal level.

The real difference between the two cases is what We the People believe is our right to determine what is in the best interest of going about our daily lives free from the threat of local punks, and what we believe is important to the larger issues of America as a nation. And we neither trust nor believe our leaders in government are capable of making these decisions for us, but on the contrary lie and protect each other for the sake of power and wealth, and will do so even to the extent of destroying America. The ACLU, a Frankenstein monster, has been enormously successful in advancing the destruction of America by removing the choices of We the People from the local level where we actually live, and giving all power to judges and a Federal Triune Dictatorship.

We can accept the premise that responsibility carries with it the need to circumvent both laws and conventions when larger issues demand those in authority doing so. What we cannot and must not accept is the abuse of such authority to the personal ends of power and wealth, or that anyone in authority is above being held accountable for their actions. And it is this kind of abuse without any accountability that is leading America to become a lawless nation; that increasingly is leading some to make the decision of becoming career criminals, most especially in respect to the phony “war on drugs” with our treasonously unsecured borders and Mexicans running entire marijuana plantations in our own national parks and forests, with our own border patrol emasculated from protecting our borders and our local police emasculated from protecting people from gangs.

The nuclear scientist in Mulholland Falls was correct, that hundreds may be sacrificed so thousands might live. But as individual American citizens we are equally correct in not trusting our government to make the right decisions about sacrifices, especially the sacrifices of war, and especially in light of the thoroughgoing corruption so blatantly and obviously rampant in the federal government.

Whatever the outcome, the only relief for me personally is to raise my eyes and thoughts from the horizontal to the vertical. The Hubble telescope has given us pictures of our universe that are awesome and breathtakingly beautiful. And when scientists like Michio Kaku and others share their speculations about black holes, string theory, and parallel universes, even speculating about an infinite number of universes we look about our world and wonder how our own tiny planet fits into the vast scheme of things; but the greatest wonder and mystery of all is how creatures like us are possessed of the ability to wonder about such a thing at all? And with all the discoveries and achievements of science the two greatest mysteries confronting humankind, life and death, seem no closer to solving than they have ever been.

While viewing the stars, the words of the Psalmist always come to my mind: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” Last night there was a beautiful full moon, so bright I could nearly read by it, floating there in space, a shining globe simply floating effortlessly above me, continuing to inspire the same kind of awe in me I have always felt while looking at it, always provoking the same question of how such a marvel is possible, understanding why some the ancients venerated the moon.

The present status of our science offers no explanation for life and death, nor does it explain those things like the moon and the stars that continue to inspire the same awe in human beings today it did in the Psalmist. That we have actually been able to visit the moon, have been able to send instruments to Mars and strike a comet in flight with such accuracy while commending the genius among some of our species not only does not lessen the mystery of it all, but has only added more dimensions to the mystery of it all. I don’t wonder scientists and astronomers call so much of our universe not only unknown, but unknowable. Given the immensity and wonder of it all it is not surprising the Psalmist would credit deity since such things are so far beyond human comprehension, but the human mind has an instinct to credit it all to intelligence of some kind.

My own Indian ancestors ascribed mystical properties to the figure of the circle, something without beginning or end, a never-ending continuum much as a theory of an infinite number of self-perpetuating universes, and as seeds and pollen are profligate in casting themselves in enormous quantity knowing the most will die, but some few will live to birth others. However, even in trying to imagine something of such immensity, even should one credit such a thing, as with the figure of a circle the mystery of beginning and ending, of life and death remains.

Science is offering some intriguing possibilities when it comes to genetic structure. We now hear autism may be caused by 100 different genes, and such studies will prove invaluable in correcting these kinds of problems. The danger of this science is both moral and ethical; we do not want Dr. Frankenstein to go too far. Unfortunately, human nature and curiosity remain what they are, and there will always be a Dr. Frankenstein.

But whether it be in the realms of science, religion, or politics character and virtue is everything. We cannot know what we cannot know; but we do know when it comes to the responsibility of authority character and virtue is everything; and for the world to survive is going to require leaders in whom we can place our trust, leaders we can believe in. We also know despite the immensity of the universe our small planet is all we have; and unless we take care to preserve and nurture it what will all scientific achievement and philosophical speculation avail us? While it strikes the responsive chord of being truth to me, “what does it profit to gain the whole world and lose your own soul,” it is equally true “what does it profit to lose the whole world for profit?” It is at this point I have to wonder whether the writers of prophecy in the Bible just may have had more insight, even revelation than most are willing to credit.