My having been an avid reader of the funny papers for as long as I can remember, beginning with the Bakersfield Californian during childhood back in the 30s I seemed to have intuitively realized the comics were the intellectual part of newspapers. Even as I grew older “Snuffy Smith” and “Li’l Abner” made more sense than most of what I would find in the rest of the paper. Others would come along, and apart from the just plain fun of some of these when it came to social comment I appreciated some of the newcomers like Trudeau with “Doonesbury,” and I really loved Breathed’s “Bloom County” from the beginning. In addition to being a real hoot, the kind of imagination that went into making a penguin the focus of the storyline was something I could admire.

The recent flap over some newspapers refusing to print “Opus” because some mild fun was poked at Islam is, to me, not only most regrettable, but quite literally unforgivable! For how long have the Founding Fathers and Christians been treated harshly by so-called “humorists” without any restraint. But now, suddenly we find Muslims are to be taken more seriously by the MSM than any others, and are not permitted to be held to the same account by humorists; and this despite the fact that so much of the religion is so patently ridiculous as to lend itself to being made fun of.

During WWII, part of winning the war was not only demonizing our enemies, but poking fun at them. For those lacking a knowledge of the history of this, simply get a copy of Bill Mauldin’s Pulitzer winning “Up Front” or look at some of the humor in Jim Jones’ Pulitzer winning “WWII.” But through the censorship of political correctness I doubt either book would find a publisher today any more than the film “Blazing Saddles” could be made today.

We would do well to question the kind of censorship that denies Opus being published. How is it Muslims have the kind of power in America Opus be censored? Bad enough most of us would agree it is all about oil, and like the refusal of politicians to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor benefiting the wealthy so with Big Oil and Muslims. But to censor Opus seems to me going far over the line. I have to ask myself, is this because unlike Christians and other targets of “humorists” the elite in America are actually afraid of offending Muslims, and if so, why?

The MSM and many of those considered “humorists” on TV seem very reluctant to take on Islam as being fair game for humor. And this may be a result of concern for both corporate profits and actual fear of barbarians that quite literally will cut off your head for the glory of their bloodthirsty deity and its pervert “prophet.” However, the refusal to deal with this problem is costing the MSM much credibility.

I’m not naïve to the fact a few determined fanatics can wreak havoc, nor am I naïve about the many forms of censorship, largely political correctness, that hold the MSM in bondage. But I won’t be “spit on” by anyone. I’m an American of the old school, and hate and despise bullies especially. And when I see the bullies of Islam and its supporters taking after Breathed this arouses my ire! Fair play is part of my heritage as an American, and it used to be an American trait.

Now we are facing the bully in the White House demanding more billions of taxpayer dollars to pursue his mad dreams of empire through his wars to benefit the wealthy while America’s own infrastructure is crumbling everywhere! And a complicit equally corrupt Congress will not confront Caesar in his madness! Where in God’s name is there any sense of fair play to be found in this thoroughly corrupt and morally bankrupt Federal Triune Dictatorship!

While to the shame of America We the People have become inured to the perversion and corruption of politicians and their corporate masters, it is no less shameful to allow the bullies of Islam or any others to spit on us by the censorship of threats and intimidation, the tactics used of the ACLU and its supporters. Ask that our borders be secured, that illegal aliens be deported rather than our tax money being used to support them and you will be called a “racist” by the bullies. This is nothing but bullying censorship!

But as to censorship taking many forms, as just one example of many I could give those of us who have been posting on the Bakersfield Californian blog for any length of time have seen many promising people give up in disgust because of a miniscule number of fanatics that ridicule, belittle, insisting their abusive comments be allowed, some even threatening me personally to keep posting their scurrilous comments faster than I can delete them! It only takes a small number of these fanatical bullies to ruin the whole Californian blog. Many times people will choose not to comment on a post they find of interest knowing the bullies will be there, just waiting to pounce.

These few bullies will always know better than anyone else no matter the topic, they always insist on having the dogmatic last word as though only their opinion counted, and attempt to censor by intimidation. It has been disastrous for many who have allowed the insults and intimidation to continue rather than deleting or reporting such violations of even common courtesy, something oblivious to the bullies. And characteristically of bullies, these persons will seldom ever post anything of their own. Bullies do not like to expose themselves to the same tactics of intimidation they use on others, and when they do post they are very quick to delete any opposing views.

Over the last couple of years I have cautioned some not to allow the camel to get its nose in the tent; they should delete these few bullies from the very beginning. The bully will only be encouraged by those that tolerate the bullies, and if it can happen to Opus it can happen to you. In my opinion, the Californian blog is suffering a declining readership and posters because of the few bullies censoring others by insults, threats and intimidation, especially anyone who has conservative views they would like to share with others.

And as to the bullies in government, just how long are We the People to tolerate them putting the interests of foreign nations ahead of the interests of America? Will it actually take that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at LAX or DC? If I believed in prayer, I would pray not. But things are so spinning out of control in DC due to perversion and corruption I am afraid this is the only thing that will get the attention of politicians so deeply mired in perversion and corruption that not even 9/11 proved a wakeup call, but rather rewarded a mad man and fool together with his wealthy cronies to encourage Muslim fanatics and make America hated and despised throughout the world!

Some of you will recall a “Peanuts” episode where in the middle of an argument Lucy suddenly pokes Charlie Brown in the nose. When Linus asks why she did that, she replies, “Because he was beginning to make sense.” I suppose most of us can relate to this, just as we grew up knowing the truth of Calvin’s observation of what you lack in reason and logic by your point of view you make up for in volume, shouting louder. But then, Bill Watterson knew as I have often pointed out myself that parents appear to children the most unreasonable of creatures. But it does seem to me that adults, especially politicians, generally go out of their way to confirm the views of both Lucy and Calvin. If anyone opposes politicians, if someone begins to make sense either shut them up or shout louder. Of course, the various religious leaders seem to operate in the same fashion, most especially in Muslim nations.

Unfortunately for humankind, Paul’s observation that when he grew up he put away the childish things of Lucy and Calvin has not proven to generally be the case. In far too many instances it still comes to poking in the nose or shouting louder when some people do not get their way, attempting to silence the opposition of the civilized by uncivilized means.

As a child, I grew up with a lot of violence and mayhem being a part of life. There was WWII going on and this naturally promoted the idea of a lot of violence being necessary, essential to winning the war against the Axis Powers. The sight of so many in uniform everywhere you went during that era promoted the visual image of violence, and even some of us children were dressed in military uniforms giving approval to the violence, making us feel we were a part of that approved violence. When I wore my army and navy uniforms, even as a child all that was needed was to put down my cap guns and pick up the real thing and start shooting. I was ready and willing. No need to tell me about “child soldiers” in far-off lands.

While I have written much about that era of American history from personal experience, and while I have written much about the goodness and ideals of a Norman Rockwell America we believed in and the sacrifices made here and elsewhere during the war, everything was not sweetness and light on my own homefront.

Little Oklahoma in Southeast Bakersfield was not without its share of violence during the war. You never knew when a gun or knife might be used to “settle an argument.” One incident involving my grandfather comes immediately to mind. He was a Special Deputy for the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, and often called upon to maintain peace in our neighborhood. But something had happened that so aroused grandad’s wrath he was getting ready to shoot someone. My grandmother was trying to restrain him, crying and pleading with him not to do this! I was only about five year’s old at the time, and the screaming and shouting going on, my grandmother clutching at grandad attempting to restrain him from his purpose of shooting someone certainly had my attention. But the singular thing that drew my attention was the sight of the Colt Lightning in grandad’s hand.

My own fascination with guns began from earliest childhood. The Colt Lightning was a real favorite of mine because of the Birdshead grip that fit my hand so nicely even as a child. Not only that, apart from the distinctive grip and being a double-action it was configured in the fashion of the very successful Colt Single Action Army all my cowboy heroes like Hopalong Cassidy and others used in the movies. Grandad was finally dissuaded from his purpose and I never knew why he thought the object of his wrath needed killing, my fascinated attention was on that gun in his hand.

Adults seem to quickly forget the impressions of childhood. When you are raised with guns and violence they too often lead to guns and violence becoming a way of life. No one is a stronger advocate of our Second Amendment right to bear arms than I am. And all the more as barbaric violence becomes increasingly pervasive here in America. But I am neither naive nor lack experience in what guns can mean to a child. A gun in your hand is power, even in the hands of a child. So “child soldiers,” certainly I understand this. That Muslim nations in particular teach boys from childhood that guns are the way of “manhood” should make civilized nations wary. That nations like Mexico are given to so much gun violence, that gangs here in America are devoted to gun violence as a way of life is a harbinger of things to come.

The nightmare that comes so often to me of so many innocent tens of thousands dying under the nuclear blasts of those two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is unrelenting. That I know this was necessary to save the lives of millions of both Americans and Japanese does not lessen the horror. But it was a horror brought upon Japan by its leaders, a leadership that had made people like Ensign Okabe possible:

Ensign Heiichi Okabe:

22 February 1945

I am actually a member at last of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps.

My life will be rounded out in the next thirty days. My chance will come! Death and I are waiting. The training and practice have been rigorous, but it is worthwhile if we can die beautifully and for a cause.

I shall die watching the pathetic struggle of our nation. My life will gallop in the next few weeks as my youth and life draw to a close...

...The sortie has been scheduled for the next ten days.

I am a human being and hope to be neither saint nor scoundrel, hero nor fool - just a human being. As one who has spent his life in wistful longing and searching, I die resignedly in the hope that my life will serve as a “human document.”

The world in which I live was too full of discord. As a community of rational human beings it should be better composed. Lacking a single great conductor, everyone lets loose with his own sound, creating dissonance where there should be melody and harmony.

There is much truth to the ancient proverb “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” As I observe so much perversion and corruption in our government, as I see the lack of morality without the role models children in America are so desperately in need of I have to conclude we are raising children to become “child soldiers,” and those in Muslim nations to become the Ensign Okabe’s without the redeeming questions that plagued that young man, questions that can never be answered where nations including America are given over to violence. And when dissenting voices of reason begin to make sense, the answer is to poke them in the nose and shout louder. Small wonder so many politicians and the wealthy elites are of a mind to disarm We the People.

There are far too many unknowns for anyone to have faith in any specific religion. Mother Teresa tried, but her honest doubts in the face of so much evil she witnessed may have deprived her of the inner peace and harmony she tried to encourage in others. It would not surprise me if she thought the Nobel actually mocked her, an irony in the face of so much hopelessness for peace. She must have realized that people like Albert Schweitzer and her do not change the course of this world system for the better, but it is the tyrants and despots that continue to have their way no matter what good people attempt to do to change things in the face of determined evil. In my opinion she may have died with her doubts about God, but not about the Devil.

While Scripture has it the value of a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions, it is a material world and while denying the spiritual, not meaning religion, many are given to attempts to make their lives meaningful by the acquisition of things. But it has become quite a cliché pointing out the rich and famous have just as much difficulty finding love and happiness, any meaning in their lives as the poorest among us. But I incline to Thoreau’s observation that the wisest have always lived lives of simplicity, not encumbering themselves with the superfluities of living.

First moving to the Kern River Valley in 1948 with my grandparents to settle on a mining claim that is now Boulder Gulch Campground, I found this area every boy’s dream for hunting and fishing. The unspoiled forest, the wild Kern River running through here before there was a dam, and Bull Run Creek where trout abounded it is no wonder over the years despite encroaching “civilization” it remains my choice for quality of living; and I can hardly fault those moving here for the abundance of clean air and water, the lack of traffic and violent crime among other things.

Having long ago left off hunting and fishing, now preferring to watch the quail, dove, and those beautiful gray tree squirrels rather than viewing them as food supplying the family pot, the beauty of the surrounding mountains and so many other things remain as they were when I first saw them as a boy. Something else I have retained from those earliest years without electricity or indoor plumbing is an appreciation for simplicity in living, without any of the illusions of those that have not been forced to do so out of necessity. The Valley still affords people the opportunity to live simply and enjoy Nature despite the wood stoves and old flatirons, boiling water drawn by hand from a well for a bath are, for the present at least, no longer necessary.

Before plastering his cottage at Walden in preparation for his first winter there, Henry Thoreau wrote of how pleasing to the eye the rough, unfinished wood, the bark and knots exposed. I know what he meant. Having done so much building myself, there is something about the bare, raw wood of the construction, working it, the scent of it that makes the covering of it with things like plaster, drywall, stucco seem a somewhat melancholy task.

As a boy, I experienced the same thing with those marvelous balsa and tissue model airplanes. Once all the intricate work of construction was done, I would gaze at the model, all the various delicate parts fully exposed, all properly constructed and the nearly gossamer web work of formers, stringers, longerones, ribs that brought those carefully cut, placed, glued, and sanded parts together into an airplane and it was a somewhat melancholy task, the covering of such beautiful, intricate work of my fingers and mind with the tissue, and then the painting, concealing such a work of art constructed from what at first appeared to be a jumble of miscellaneous and seeming unrelated pieces with no discernable use or purpose.

Many years ago I would learn of the high prices being commanded for “used boards.” People would buy old barns and outbuildings in order to have the weathered boards, sometimes intricately grooved or holed by insects, such boards being pleasing to the eye. Some were used for decorative construction, some used by artists. My own little cottage in the country has such boards covering my screened front porch. I look up at the weathered, bare wood with the same pleasure Henry expressed, considering it a sin should these weathered boards, mottled and stained with the rains and snows of many winters, April and May showers and summer heat, ever be profaned by paint.

Admittedly, with increasing age I do find myself increasingly coarse in my manner of living, and this applies to this little cottage in the country as well, where spiders spin their webs unmolested, except for the occasional black widow or recluse, and I enjoy the company of forest birds and critters. As my manner of life coarsens in some ways, it becomes more refined in others as I take greater pleasure in things like butterflies and supplying fresh water daily to my wild, country companions.

I have lived in virtual palaces, with concomitant large mortgages, houses that would grace Malibu or Beverly Hills for which I could not even pay the property taxes today, that have not been so pleasing to my eyes as this decaying little cottage that seems to be gently weathering old age, keeping pace with me. What small amount of paint there is on exterior boards like fascia is peeling, the roof leaks, and these things seem in keeping with my own mood and lack of concern for such things in declining years, during which time the things I used to believe of so much importance and consumed so very much of my time, effort and money, so much of my life seem very nearly trivial to me now.

No, my mind still does good service and I have not forgotten why such things were once important to me. However, a writer lives in their mind, welcoming the solitude of their thoughts rather than society, and generally wishes to simplify their lives for the sake of writing. It just seems that I could have chosen a better path long before I did the one I have been following these past few years, a life of simplicity without the acquisition of things, and has other priorities than the lives most account “successful.”

I neither fault nor begrudge wealth to those who can responsibly use it beneficially; but this requires a talent, and it is a talent, that I lack. Regarding philanthropy and works of charity, however, come to think of it Henry did mention his offer of help to the poor of Concord, provided they would live as simply as he did. The poor declined his offer not seeming to realize if you don’t want much, especially through covetousness, you don’t need much.

And so I consider the recently publicized letters of Mother Teresa in the light of my own experiences with life, with the evil that always attends “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.” It was a true observation in “Silence of the Lambs” where Hannibal Lecter points out Clarice Starling must feel the eyes of men moving over her, that her own eyes seek out and covet the things she wants. I don’t believe anyone will accuse Mother Teresa of the sin of covetousness; she lived her life for the benefit of others. But she could not doubt the fact of so much evil she had seen with her own eyes over which all her efforts seemed of no avail in the end, perhaps wondering as the Preacher “What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?”

CBS London, August 23, 2007. Mark Phillips: Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta’s slums, the spirit left Mother Teresa. “Where is my faith?” she wrote. “Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness... If there be God — please forgive me.” Eight years later, she was still looking to reclaim her lost faith. “Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal,” she said. As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she said, was a mask. “What do I labor for?” she asked in one letter. “If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.” “These are letters that were kept in the archbishop’s house,” the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk told Phillips... According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said...

When I first expressed my own thoughts that I no longer believed in prayer, that while I continue to speak to God and departed loved ones and friends I no longer make any requests of God including praying for either others or myself, it came as somewhat of a shock to people. Many thinking me to be “religious” how was it I did not believe in prayer? I have to suppose Mother Teresa understood.

In the hilarious film “Blazing Saddles,” when Hedley Lamarr folds his hands on his desk, looks into the camera and says “Why am I asking you” to the viewing audience it is a positively delicious scene that never fails to remind me of every politician that ever took a breath. There is not a one of the present contenders for office that look into the cameras and their only thought concerning We the People, the Great Unwashed, is “Why am I asking you” utterly devoid of the comic intent of Hedley. We all know politicians care nothing for asking We the People about anything; their only concern and allegiance is to themselves, of being elected and staying elected.

It was a tender scene in “Gone With The Wind” where Rhett tries to console Scarlett as she weeps over her transgressions and expresses her fear of God’s eternal and fiery judgment by suggesting “maybe there isn’t any hell.” But then he turns around and accuses her of being like the thief that does not repent of the crime, but is only sorry he has been caught. I won’t second guess Margaret Mitchell, but every time I think of this I feel compassion for Scarlett. The teachings of childhood are not easily dismissed, and I want to give Scarlett credit for having a conscience though Rhett may have been correct in his accusation.

However, conscience is admittedly an unwieldy and often unreliable thing to carry around. When I read Thoreau asking that we should have a society where the conscience rules I find myself saying “He couldn’t have been serious!” One person’s conscience may be the death sentence pronounced against another person that does not agree. We read in the Bible that we are to “nurture a tender conscience.” But this presumes the kind of conscience in which the Golden Rule, not the rules of any individual, church or government passes judgment. In too many cases what is called “conscience” is nothing more than passion, and at that point Prince Faisel in the film “Lawrence of Arabia” is quite correct in emphasizing good manners trumps passion as the more reliable.

When it comes to government agencies of every kind at every level including the universities and their product schools, the cloak of “anonymity and confidentiality” is used as the resort of scoundrels. What is Caesar Bush’s continued hiding behind “Executive Privilege” but a means of hiding his crimes against humanity? In my opinion were the crimes of Caesar and his cronies revealed to the world an immediate Nuremberg Tribunal for these conscienceless criminals would be demanded and held forthwith! But if a society cannot even come to agreement over some football player engaging in the conscienceless “sport” of fighting and torturing dogs how is such a society to come to agreement in prosecuting Caesar Bush and Company? Here in America agreement cannot even be found when it comes to protecting children from the monsters preying on them!

But in matters of conscience devoid of mindless passion of course if the sons and daughters of Caesar Bush and those in Congress were being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan the wars would cease immediately, our troops would be withdrawn and put in place properly securing our own borders. And no one possessed of any degree of intelligence fails to realize that if illegal aliens were killing the “right” people among the wealthy and politicians our borders would be secured, “sanctuary” cities like Los Angeles and entire counties like Kern here in California would begin checking immigration status when crimes are committed, and immigration laws already on the books would be enforced, thereby solving the problem of the invasion of America by millions of illegal aliens.

In the meantime, this only remains wishful thinking since those on the Devil’s payroll like politicians and their corporate masters profit by the drug trade, human smuggling, the slave labor resulting from the invasion of America of Mexicans by the millions, and until that terrorist nuclear bomb goes off at LAX or DC this will continue. The loved ones of the rich and powerful, of politicians are not placed in harm’s way, and an evil system that continues to reward those on the Devil’s payroll continues to do business as usual by extorting We the People through taxation without representation to pay for this evil system that rewards those without conscience by any definition, the biggest crooks and the most corrupt that have gained power by their corruption and lack of conscience, social or otherwise.

Whether of conscience or simply good manners, America cannot possibly survive a failure to hold leaders to account for their crimes, especially crimes against humanity. And a nation that cannot come to agreement concerning what constitutes torture against either dogs or children in my opinion does not have a future and does not deserve to survive. If we pause to consider other nations like Arabia, Mexico, China, and Russia have leaders acting in the best interest of these nations at our expense while we have leaders dedicated only to the personal power and wealth for a few holding power all the while acting against the best interests of America we are fast reaching the point of a self-fulfilling “prophecy” of destruction. And when I look at those being offered as “choices” for leadership should Caesar Bush survive to leave office I can only think of the worst happening for our nation. To know the record of any of them, to listen to any of them is to know their pledge of allegiance is to themselves, not America.

Within the 96% of the universe that scientists claim is “missing,” unknown and perhaps even unknowable, there is room for much speculation such as my own concerning the first chapters of Genesis. As poetry and allegory I don’t take the story of Creation literally, but one with a wealth of meaning commanding intense study and speculation about many possibilities including those of the supernatural, some quite beyond understanding while we are bound in these mortal bodies. Consider the fact scientists can only account for 4% of the universe being “physical” as we know it including that of energy in various forms defined as “vigor or power in action.” That other 96%, as I pointed out, leaves a lot of room for speculation:

Where is the rest of the universe? Scientists have only found 4 percent of matter and energy in cosmos. By Dave Mosher, LiveScience August 20, 2007: Scientists trying to create a detailed inventory of all the matter and energy in the cosmos run into a curious problem — the vast majority of it is missing. “I call it the dark side of the universe,” said Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, referring to the great mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. In fact, only 4 percent of the matter and energy in the universe has been found. The other 96 percent remains elusive, but scientists are looking in the farthest reaches of space and deepest depths of Earth to solve the two dark riddles. Missing matter: Einstein’s famous equation “E=mc^2” describes energy and matter (or mass) as one and the same — maps of the cosmos refer to the energy-matter combination as energy density, for short. The problem with detecting dark matter, thought to make up 22 percent of the universe’s mass/energy pie, is that light doesn’t interact with it. But it does exhibit the tug of gravity. Initial evidence for the mysterious matter was discovered 75 years ago when astrophysicists noticed an anomaly in a jumble of galaxies: The galactic cluster had hundreds of times more gravitational pull than it should have, far outweighing its visible mass of stars. “We can predict the motions of the sun and planets very accurately, but when we measure distant things we see anomalies,” said Scott Dodelson, an astrophysicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. “Dark matter is currently the best possible solution, even though we’ve never seen any of it...”

The fault I find with Einstein’s famous equation is that it does not account for life, and this search for that missing 96% of the universe lends credibility to my own speculation that the Bible may have it right when it comes to things of the supernatural in many instances, including life itself being in that category, and the “tree of life” in Genesis the gods were protecting from a fallen Adam may have a basis in fact. That the Adam may have been supernatural and spiritual in their origin and condemned to bodies of flesh subject to death and decay because of disobedience of whatever nature is a legitimate speculation. Even science teaches all physical entities including the galaxies of the universe are empty space between atoms, that if this space was removed the entire universe might be a relatively infinitesimal body of physical mass as in the theory of the Big Bang.

To me, one of the most unfortunate aspects of religion is the attempts to make the words of men the words of God. Rather than reading the Bible as poetry and literature, much of it written as poetry and allegory, religionists have resorted to many subterfuges in order to support their own prejudices. While the Bible as literature remains unsurpassed among all the books ever written, while more books have been written about the Bible than any other subject in history, to abuse it to support a religious prejudice is quite unforgivable and has done great harm to earnest attempts to get to the truth behind the poetry and allegory of the Bible.

While discussing this the other day with my friend Byron, an Episcopal priest, I asked him how he would put his own dreams and visions into written expression? It is enormously difficult to communicate our deepest thoughts in a comprehensible fashion that others can understand. Many such attempts make about as much sense as the Jabberwocky without any of the fun with words. For example, the prophets of the Bible could only work within their own spheres of understanding, and the prophetic books of the Bible are limited accordingly. Consider how someone living two thousand years ago or more would describe their visions of the wonders of our modern age, including rockets and nuclear weapons. The visions of Daniel, Ezekiel, those of John on the Isle of Patmos may have been real enough but would make little sense to them, and their descriptions of those visions suffer accordingly.

No matter how those dedicated to dismissing all forms of the supernatural may try, they have their own demons and must deal with “things that go bump in the night.” But even as scientists continue attempting to replicate life in the laboratories, they must begin all such attempts with material already in existence. And because of this restriction, a restriction hidden in that 96% of the universe unknown and perhaps unknowable there is little possibility of any original “creation” of life let alone understanding what exactly life is, that “something” that animates at birth and departs at death, but there remains much unexplained that accounts for the “Monsters of the Id” and the monsters in human guise preying on women and children. And not a one of us escapes what may be the “primitive” of primeval memory following The Fall that haunts the dreams of even the best of people, the representations of these demons as well as those of kinder gods and angels being found in the oldest of cultures.

“We all have our ghosts” is a well known expression. But the fact lost to those that would dismiss such ghosts is that of their own irrational dismissal of the truth of the matter. We do not know what demons the ancients dealt with, what gave rise to the belief in such demons. But I’m more than willing to credit a “demon-haunted world,” one in which evil seems to consistently triumph over good. And the reason for this cannot be found in a strictly defined science that discounts the supernatural that may dwell in that 96% of the universe unknown and perhaps unknowable.

The appeal of SciFi is thinking outside the box of a strictly defined science that precludes imagination; that precludes the truth of the statement “There are not only stranger things in our universe than we imagine, but stranger things than we can possibly imagine!” That not only covers a lot of territory for speculation for what may be “out there,” but what may be operating within our own world as well. So when I read in the Bible that God is a spirit, that we are spiritual beings inhabiting mortal bodies, that the earth is Satan’s domain accounting for evil, that good people are battling an enemy unseen but represented by the monsters in human guise among us, represented by the wars of men and greed and avarice, the lust for power and wealth I’m inclined to believe the Bible is correct about this and Jesus had it right regardless of the abuse of both the Bible and Jesus on the part of professional religionists.

But it does make sense of what would otherwise appear to be sheer lunacy; that those like Bush and other tyrants could possibly attain to such positions of power that make so many millions suffer as a consequence. I continue to maintain the Bush administration will be recorded as the worst America has ever suffered. But I also maintain that were it not for Satan placing his own in positions of such power, including those in Congress, those like Bush would not only never achieve such power, but would be assassinated at the outset of their abuse of such power. However, apart from the explanation contained in the Bible no one can offer a better explanation for the continued triumph of evil over good throughout human history any more than our science can explain that 96% of our universe unknown and perhaps unknowable. In the end, we are left with only the spiritual by way of any explanation or understanding.

Given the many theories of the universe the spiritual may in the end prove to be the only reality and the only real power of the universe. Certainly my own thoughts on this subject as well as my thoughts concerning good and evil in conflict, my beliefs concerning demons, demon influence, demon possession, my beliefs concerning angels and like things can easily be dismissed as silly, even lunatic. But what cannot be dismissed is the fact that evil predominates throughout human history, and continues to predominate today. And there has to be a reason for this. Books and theories by the thousands multiply in attempts to explain this condition of humankind, but for me the Bible remains the primary text by way of explanation and understanding.

What else to make of Adam in Genesis being credited for the first naming of all creatures: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

As Emerson so well documents in his essay on Poetry, the most ancient function of the poet was this “naming” of things. Language developed through the ancient poets designating names for every object in the Creation; it was the poets that gave us the words designating “A rose, is a rose, is a rose.” But without poets, the rose would go unnamed in any language. And from this function of the ancient poets in their capacity as the makers of names, language as we know it came into being.

Nothing could be more poetic than Adam naming Eve, but not surprisingly the universities being what they are I haven’t come across any scholars of literature noting Adam being the first poet. The Genesis account of Creation continues to be one of fascination to me. Among one of the most fascinating aspects of the account is the impression being given that Adam was looking for company, a suitable companion among the creatures he was in charge of naming; and as a result of failing to find a suitable companion Eve was created: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” What? Was Adam expected to find a suitable companion among the beasts of the field? Small wonder I continue to find the Bible a fascinating source of speculation, believing as I do there must have been facts leading to the stories in Genesis as with most myths and legends.

Whatever facts may have resulted in the story of the Garden, whatever truths may be found in the legends and mythologies of humankind a constant is found in the differences between men and women, the differences in the ways their minds work. While L. H. Summers caused a storm of controversy for failing to bow to political correctness by his intimating there may be genetic differences between the brains of men and women and the way each functions, other differences aside no one can legitimately deny men have been noted throughout history for waxing lyrically poetic about women. One only need wonder how the greatest of poetry and the arts including the great music and musicals of Hollywood would ever have come about without men finding poetic inspiration in the fair sex.

However, apart from a few anecdotal blips on the screen of history women have not been nearly so lyrically poetic about men. And the reason for this offers much to speculation. Among the foremost reasons is that of men dominating women by physical strength, often being the predators of women, and the fact that men make wars while women typically oppose wars.

While inciting antagonism from some women that too often confuse equal rights with equal value, it was not without reason the motto hung on Gidget’s bedroom wall, one handed down by her grandmother read: “To be a real woman is to bring out the best in a man.” But fight against it as some of the distaff side may, there is no winning the “battle of the sexes” by a competition rigged physically in favor of men.

But there is no competition when it comes to men finding women the objective part of the best of Nature, in men wanting to write poetry and songs about women, to sing to them and give women flowers. It is here that women win, as did Gidget, through bringing out the best in men. One of the more hateful aspects of religion, especially that of Islam, and political correctness is denying women the opportunity for being the softer and gentler kind of influence that should bring out the best in men, girls and women intended of God to be a “civilizing influence” on boys and men, something I was taught as a boy.

As to the concept of “original sin” being sex, the serpent tempting, perhaps seducing Eve, and she in turn doing the same with Adam, the story of The Fall indicates to me the Adam were not physical creatures in the beginning, but because of disobedience to the power or powers that gave them life were cursed to inhabit physical bodies subject to death. Circumstantial evidence of this being this “fire of life” we carry about in our mortal bodies is not physical, but spiritual. We find ourselves opposed to nihilism, and throughout human history there has been a reaching out to find our true place in the spiritual realm, trying to find something we somehow know intuitively was lost to us by being forced to dwell in these mortal bodies subject to death and decay. The very idea of heaven, of a hereafter is an acknowledgement of our refusing to accept the death of our physical bodies as the end of life. And while terms like Psi and Paranormal are meant to lend legitimacy to the subject of the supernatural, it remains supernatural by any name despite our efforts to know what thus far regardless of many claims to the contrary has remained unknowable.

I take the position of the old hymn I knew as a child that we would sing in our small church in Little Oklahoma: “We’ll understand it all by and by.” This is a very romantic position, and the Bible is very much a book of romance in many places. The Genesis concept of Adam and Eve becoming “one” is borne out in romance. Whatever it was pronounced “good” in the beginning and was lost in The Fall, to my mind possibly the result of internecine warfare among the gods, the remnant of this is found in romance where sexual intercourse may or may not play a role, and the phrase “soul mates” only has relevance beyond the physical where the emphasis is on honoring the compatibility of differences rather than competition. And it is in the area of romance that the King of Disciplines: Philosophy, fails miserably. The great names in Philosophy do not speculate much about romance, and the discipline being dominated by men little is said by philosophers about the role of women in the scheme of things as a full half of humankind, unless being mentioned inferior to men in some fashion.

As to poetry, prose long ago became the accepted form of transition between what poetry had become and other forms of writing. But people have generally in spite of academic distinctions seemed to sense that poetry was the mechanism of the heart and mind, the emotions and the intellect in concert. Realizing this, there is a certain kind of resentment toward those strictly enforced formal, academic definitions of “proper” poetic expression. Though as Sam Clemens pointed out making the claim to be a poet does not confer the title on anyone, and in most cases people know when it is the academics making the claim rather than any merit on the part of the supposed “poet.”

In general, ordinary people as opposed to the academics seem to have the better sense of what the structure of poetry should be; that of telling a story. This may be a part of primeval memory, but I know this; for centuries too many of those who became known as “poets” hid behind their verse, even, in some cases, purposely obfuscating or becoming abstruse in order to display their cleverness and, as a consequence, betrayed the purpose of their calling (Not unlike theologians: Found in a biography of St. Teresa of Avila: ‘She tried to convert the theologians to prayer, but with little success.’ N.R. 5/24/93).

This is not a blanket condemnation of the use of verse to hide authors while giving vent to their feelings. The anonymity of the writer is often a valid point when there is a practical fear of harm as a result of being exposed. Walt Kelly for example made this point during the Cold War where he had his Pogo characters disguising their true opinions of the Kremlin. But anonymity is, in fact, one of several reasons including academically enforced “cleverness” poetry began to degenerate into a merely mechanical form of smarmy rhyming and syrupy nonsense rather than the beauty of correct and cadenced language most amicable to memorization telling a story while reflecting the reality of what is true.

Much of the Bible is written as poetic expression, and must be read as such. The opening chapters of Genesis are written in the form of the original sense and meaning of poetry, a “naming” done in order to tell stories in such a memorable fashion as to not only be a reflection of what is true, but causing the minds of readers to reflect and speculate on those things that motivate toward seeking the truth giving rise to the stories. But to miss the poetry because of literary ignorance or some prejudice of religion or other is to miss much of what has made the Bible the greatest influence on Western Civilization with the greatest advances in the arts and sciences than any book ever written.

While Muslim fanatics commit wholesale murder expecting Allah will reward them with a multitude of virgins, not a few Christians find fault with Jesus saying that those going to heaven will be like the angels of God where they “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” No sex; prompting not a few to take the view of Huckleberry Finn who decided if Tom Sawyer wasn’t going to heaven he would choose “that other place.”

Someone just sent me an email with an article proclaiming the health benefits to men gazing at pictures of beautiful nude young women. While I appreciated the thoughtfulness of this correspondent knowing there was no prurient motive involved, it did cause me to revisit some of my thoughts about the theology of “original sin,” something that motivated writers like Hawthorne and so many others.

Women often do, of course, trade on their sex in order to make a living, and in some cases a better living. One older woman, an ex-bartender, when I asked about the difficulties peculiar to women tending bar, told me she had discovered that her tips increased by at least ten per cent when she “flashed a little thigh” and wore a blouse which exposed a better view of her physical endowments. Being a normal man still in possession of an active libido and good eyesight, I haven’t failed to notice the enhancement of a bar’s atmosphere and income by attractive women bartenders using their own “equipment” to encourage the predisposition of us men in this regard.

I hasten to point out the fact that I have heard nothing in the bars that I haven’t heard in the churches or other more “respectable” environments. The only real difference is the descriptive language that often accompanies the speaker’s topic (And, of course, the churches lack the ambience of tobacco and alcohol fumes). Whether it be politics, religion, philosophy, men/women relationships the subject matter, regardless the environment in which it is discussed, has a general sameness. People are disgusted, angry and frustrated with the same things; the thoroughly corrupt political leadership, the way men and women treat each other, the failure of our courts and schools, etc., etc.

But there is a primary difference, apart from the language used, in the honesty of the discussions in the bars as opposed to those more respectable environs inhabited by religious people. People in the bars are far more transparent in their feelings about things, and not as guarded in trying to be something they are not (otherwise known as hypocrisy).

For all the Sunday School dropouts it is difficult in these “enlightened” times to understand how sex could have ever been construed as “original sin.” The church and artists having enshrined Eve and the apple as the progenitor of this, writers throughout history together with Hollywood have had a lot of fun parodying the concept; for example the film “Inherit the Wind” where Spencer Tracy is skewering Fredric March over all the “begetting” in the Bible equaling what “must have been a whole lot of sinning going on back then.” It was when Tracy asks March what he thought of sex and March replies “In what spirit is this question asked?” that, together with some of its other weaknesses, the film loses much of its credibility dealing with serious issues.

But when some theologians go on at length debating the kind of fruit on that tree with which the serpent tempted Eve, why take them seriously? What difference the kind of fruit? That isn’t the point of the story. The point of the story is that Eve succumbed to temptation and persuaded Adam to go along with her in disobedience to God. Then having eaten and their eyes opened as the serpent had said, they saw themselves naked. Ah, hah! Now we have sex as “original sin.” And from that time on there has been “a whole lot of sinning going on.” After all, Adam was a man and Eve was a woman; no amount of fig leaves or animal skins would suffice to obscure this.

Whatever the facts resulting in the story about that tree of knowledge, of Adam and Eve having once tasted its fruit and become as gods themselves, “enlightened” knowing both good and evil, the curse was pronounced and sex has been equated with it ever since. And as Thoreau said of economics, the subject of sex may lend itself to much levity but cannot so easily be disposed.

However, notwithstanding the many theologians and their view of the matter the point of equating sex with original sin does have real merit. Take away the pleasure men derive from looking at beautiful nude young women, the pleasure both men and women derive from sex, how women are forced to trade on their sex pandering to men, how the value of women has always been based on youth and beauty and perhaps wars would cease. Whatever it is that makes sex such a predominating factor in the suffering of humankind, it remains a predominating factor. Whatever lies behind the stories in Genesis including that of fallen angels, the very unfairness of life, that not all women are beautiful, not all men are handsome, that we grow old and wrinkled without losing the urge for sex with younger people is imminently unfair to our species, something that seems to lend truth to sex being a curse, of being original sin in some fashion beyond our understanding.

And there is the matter of lust, something easily equated with sin. While beautiful women have always been the inspiration of poets, artists, and writers, this very beauty is easily debased when romance turns to lust. After all, it wasn’t a first accidental glance at Bathsheba that resulted in adultery and murder on the part of David; it was the second, long and lingering look. And who knows but what Bathsheba planned it that way?

While I believe in Intelligent Design, I also believe there may be a pantheon of gods accounting for good and evil in conflict, that there may in fact be both children of God and children of the Devil and the Golden Rule distinguishes between them. But this is only a belief on my part, and one that considers there is no way of knowing what cannot be known. In the meantime, the Bible continues to be my primary textbook in attempts at making sense of so much prevailing evil in the world, including the many lunacies and evil connected with sex such as the monsters preying on children, and in far too many cases men being predators and women their prey. These in particular sure strike me as being “diabolical” both in origin and in practice, as well as the way religions, particularly that of Islam treat women as of little value compared to men.

However, that women suffer the most from their sex such as childbearing and a menstrual cycle, that men dominate women by physical strength and the making of wars is a reminder to me that apart from the failure of Adam and his blaming both Eve and God for his failure there may be some basis for the curse. In the meantime I’ll continue to suffer my part of the curse that comes with being a man trying to make sense of so much seeming lunacy.

While life and death continue to be the two greatest unsolved mysteries of all, for many millions of people Elvis still lives; in so many ways he continues to represent a happy time in America, an America where we were not only allowed, but encouraged to be happy, even happily silly. And in many ways millions continue to cling to that period in America when we wanted to be happy, even happily silly. Elvis much like Mayberry reminds us of a happier time in America, and one we don’t want to let go. But in “The Shootist” John Wayne is reminded by Jimmy Stewart that no matter how strong a person is “even an ox dies,” something of which J. K. Rowling was acutely aware while writing her marvelous Harry Potter books, in which she pointed out that in many ways her characters were “defined by their attitude to death.”

As the 30^th anniversary of Elvis’ death is remembered there is another 30^th anniversary not nearly as well publicized, but one that has much in common with Elvis, that of the “Wow” factor in astronomy. From Cosmiclog: “Exactly 30 years ago today, astronomer Jerry Ehman was looking over a printout of radio data from Ohio State University’s Big Ear Radio Observatory when he saw a string of code so remarkable that he had to circle it and scribble ‘Wow!’ in the margin. The printout recorded an anomalous signal so strong that it had to come from an extraordinary source. Was it a burst of human-made interference? Or an alien broadcast from the stars? No one knows. The source of the ‘Wow’ signal has never been heard from again - even though astronomers have looked for it dozens of times. Now the SETI Institute is gearing up to look for it one more time, using the latest tool for seeking signals from extraterrestrial civilizations: the Allen Telescope Array in California...”

In responding to the article I pointed out that if Michio Kaku and other physicists are correct in surmising if other civilizations existed in the universe they may well have reached our point of nuclear development and destroyed themselves, and if so that signal might have been the last cry of a dying world, thereby possibly explaining why the anomalous signal was not repeated. While I continue to believe our solar system and our earth, that humankind may be unique in the universe, I’m hardly in a position to discount other possibilities.

But despite the many “Elvis sightings” there is nothing of empirical proof concerning these. Like the many UFO reports including my own, we need something solid and substantial the government can’t hide in Area 51, something like the landing of Klaatu. Many have experienced things that fall into the category of the supernatural, of the paranormal; I have had such experiences myself. But such things are “facts” only to my own experience, and I don’t ask others to believe these things.

However, I can ask others to believe the superstitions of religion, some carried to the extreme of actually murdering others in the name of some deity, are nothing more than superstitions. And while I have nothing against four-leaf clovers and lucky charms, I do get angry with people demanding I bow to their gods of whatever description! I find some solace in the face of a world led of lunatics in believing someday God will destroy the Devil and all his evil works, that there will eventually be new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will prevail and that someday I will be reunited with my departed loves ones and friends. I continue to believe the opening chapters of Genesis derive from actual facts. But I don’t ask, let alone demand others share these beliefs. The whole matter of any kind of religious “orthodoxy” now causes me to shudder that I could ever have considered myself orthodox in any fashion though for years I held the legitimate questions about orthodoxy in abeyance.

Yet my departure from orthodoxy did not drive me to the bottle. I’ve never been much of a drinker and there have been many incidents where my sobriety has been of value to others while frequenting bars. But, I do confess, it crosses my mind occasionally that getting falling down drunk might have its attractive side, especially when people start talking religion. However, if getting falling down drunk was foolish when I was younger why should it be any less so now? But for those of you acquainted with my theological writings and the stories about prostitutes and drunks in my book “Birds With Broken Wings” it will come as no surprise that I still, occasionally, do some things that run somewhat counter to the dogmatic theological positions of good Baptists.

I was at one of the lounges where I often played guitar and sang when a need for me as a properly ordained minister, a holdover from my former life, presented itself. Seems a couple wanted to get married in one of the local bars where they had first met, and not surprisingly none of the local preachers were willing to splice the pair in such an environment. Ah, the deplorable lack of romanticism among the clergy. Asked if I would be willing to perform the service, and having long ago alienated myself from the more respectable brethren, I figured one more piece of evidence of my fall from grace couldn’t hurt.

The ceremony took place at 2 J’s, a beer bar here in the Kern River Valley. About 30 people attended; all close friends of the bride and groom. One couple came from Wyoming just to take part in the festivities. Notwithstanding the locale it was a solemn occasion. Several people remarked at how quiet and reverent everyone was throughout the entire ceremony; a real novelty in such an environment. This quickly changed at my official pronouncement of the couple as husband and wife.

The music, dancing and food were excellent. Everyone entered into the spirit of wishing the couple well; there was the unwrapping of wedding gifts, the cutting of the cake, the champagne and, all-in-all, an entirely satisfactory start to what we all hoped would be a happy life together for the newlyweds. In thinking back on the event, I’m not so sure that it wasn’t more representative of that marriage at Cana where Jesus provided gallons of wine for the festivities than the more dignified environs of most weddings. Someday, if there is a hereafter and I don’t go to hell, I may find out for sure. And who knows but what I may actually meet Elvis, though it might be either in heaven or hell. However, since I believe hell is reserved for the Devil and politicians I don’t believe Elvis ended up there. And this offers some hope for me as well.

In the meantime, if someone claims to have seen Elvis so be it. There remains the “Wow” factor in many things science has yet to explain. And given the lunacy of world leaders, especially our own, I’ll take the “Wow” of things beyond our understanding that at least hold promise of wonders beyond what the lunatics of greed and avarice, the lunatics of religion and politics have to offer.

To view many of the films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s is for a later generation to question if that America portrayed ever existed? The Silver Screen did in many cases indulge in fantasy, but the very fact that so many of us were the “true believers” in love and romance especially can only be appreciated by those old enough to relate to the times represented by Hollywood. And for skeptics they should consider “It Might As Well Be Spring” won an Oscar for best song in the 1941 film “State Fair.” That together with films like “Casablanca” should speak volumes of the America I knew as a child and young man, an America filled with hope and promise for the future.

Brenda Starr is a name filled with nostalgia for me. Dale Messick, the creator of the comic strip, died a little over two years ago at age 98. “Most comics, the main characters are heroes, guys, and they don’t write for women,” Messick told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I was a woman so I was writing for women and I think that’s what put her over.”

But despite my being a boy devoted to heroes like Superman and playing cowboy with cap pistols and BB gun pretending to be the Lone Ranger or Red Ryder and like any normal boy considered girls alien creatures, fascinating but suspect at best, when the strip began to appear in 1940 I was an avid fan from the very first. During WW II Brenda as with many cartoon and comic strip characters of the time was fully involved in the effort against the Axis Powers, and she proved to be as adventurous, brave and courageous as any man.

While Wonder Woman was also doing her part in like manner with her marvelous invisible airplane and magic powers making me a fan from her first appearance as well, I was entranced by Brenda’s ongoing relationship with the mysterious Basil St. John with his eye patch like that of a pirate, and his mysterious illness treated with a serum made from black orchids growing in the Amazon jungle. And Brenda Starr with her Rita Hayworth gloriously abundant, radiantly red hair and sparkling emerald green eyes was breathtakingly beautiful, something not lost on me even as a boy.

Perhaps my earliest readings as a child of Scott, Cooper, Stratton-Porter and others together with WWII and the films of the time made for the romantic in me. Whatever the reason, I was drawn to this ongoing relationship between Brenda and her mysterious lover with the black eye patch and his black orchids. I was thrilled every time Brenda would discover a black orchid left her by the mysterious St. John, and I would keep hoping for a happy outcome between Brenda and him.

It is the nostalgic longing for the mystery of love and romance Brenda Starr and Basil St. John represented I miss most of all, the nostalgia for what those black orchids represented to me as a boy that has been lost to this generation I find so tragic. Of the sources of wonder to the writer of Proverbs in the Old Testament was “… the way of a man with a maid.”

I believe the wonder of the mystery of love and romance between Brenda Starr and Basil St. John has been betrayed by an age that leaves nothing to the imagination of such things, and in this betrayal so has this generation of young people been betrayed, and lost to the young people of today the wonder of “… the way of a man with a maid.”

The best of our thinkers have not been those whose names are associated with the King of Disciplines: Philosophy. They have been the romantics who always believed humankind had greater potential for goodness than life would otherwise indicate. Philosophers don’t write about their wives and children, they don’t sing the praises of love and romance; that is left to the poets. But it is all too true that while the young are the romantics and poets, the elderly are philosophers. Life has a way of dealing harshly with romantics and poets, and it becomes increasingly easy with the passing years to give yourself over to philosophical speculation in the face of grim realities of the wicked prospering, the monumental evil prevailing even here in America evidenced by our own government rather than holding on to dreams of things you realize will never be.

My own dismal assessment is based on the fact that in order for children to be raised with hope for a future, the kind of future in which romantics and poets have a place requires a society and government that cherishes its young and makes children a national priority. And I have virtually no basis of hope for this happening; on the contrary children are being raised in the knowledge that American society and the government are indifferent to them. And when not indifferent, exploits children; as anyone viewing “children’s programming” on TV readily realizes.

But in sum; consider a society and its government in which the “rights” of those that prey on children, the “rights” of pedophiles and convicted child rapists and murderers supersede the rights of children to a protected and innocent childhood and you have a prediction for the end of such a society and government. And consider the universities that produce the leaders of a society and government that will not make children a national priority, but on the contrary encourage organizations like the ACLU and others that support giving criminals greater rights than their victims and you discover the foundation for such callous indifference toward children.

A civilized nation worthy of being called such does not allow the monsters preying on children to ever be released once caught and convicted to continue their depredations; a truly civilized nation does not take such a risk to children. As though we needed any proof of our nation sinking into barbarism, it is this betrayal of our children that stands in final judgment of America. Romantics and poets understand this; but America no longer produces romantics and poets. That America survives only in the memory of those of us old enough to recall such an America.

A point of view is one thing, but some wag just sent me a note declaring the answer to the question of why husbands die before their wives is “Because they want to.” While this is obviously meant as a joke, there is nothing funny about our “leadership” taking America in a path that might cause some of us to just want to get out of the relationship. However, this isn’t always easy. For example, Alec Baldwin said if Bush were elected President he would leave the country. But Bush was elected and Baldwin didn’t leave.

There have been people that have left California and people continuing to do so because of the state becoming increasingly hostile to the quality of life. Developers from Los Angeles clearly have Kern County in mind for exploitation. I use that pejorative word since quality of life is not a factor, except relative to what Los Angeles has become. As it is, Bakersfield’s world class air pollution should certainly give pause to the decision makers considering further exploitation for the sake of profits anywhere in the San Joaquin Valley.

I suggest to those that expect to profit from the exploitation of Kern County it is all too true that when people are forced to live in conditions equal to that of sewer rats they will start behaving like sewer rats. Rather than any sort of “quality of life,” when conditions become barbaric living becomes a matter of survival. Our major cities are given over to barbarism already, to populations merely surviving, and the impact of this is spreading like a cancer throughout America. The Alice in Wonderland TV commercials showing Americans living sumptuously is clearly fantasy for the greater population of America. I don’t buy five dollar a cup coffee and I don’t pay five dollars for a liter of the “right” bottled water.

All the recent talk about bottled water makes me wonder how I managed to survive childhood. I have my own well here in Bodfish, but I use a PUR filter on my kitchen faucet for drinking water. As improbable as it seems, this is not only a precaution against some normal impurities that might come through the well, but there is the possibility the dumping of chemicals from meth labs up the canyon from me into Bodfish Creek together with the run-off from insecticides and fertilizer used for growing marijuana over a period of time may have contaminated the ground water.

While folks in Los Angeles and Bakersfield have long joked about not trusting air they can’t see, it is becoming an equally unfunny story, closer to macabre, about drinking water. We can do without a lot of things, but air and water are not among these. However, I learned years ago profits trump clean air and water. And since there is no regulation governing population and our borders remain porous to the invasion of millions of Mexico’s citizens for the sake of slave labor you simply cannot crowd these millions into confined areas like Los Angeles and Bakersfield without suffering the consequences of further air and water pollution.

We had a hand dug well on the mining claim in Boulder Gulch not far from where I now live. The stratum was decomposed granite and the site of the claim had a shallow water table. Consequently, the well was only about 14 feet deep. This certainly helped as we had to use a hand pump to get water, and while an improvement over a windlass and a bucket at the end of a rope those old iron hand pumps don’t work at any great depth.

But have any of you ever heard of keeping catfish in your well to help keep it clean? Grandad swore by this and it was my happy task to supply the fish. While I didn’t mind the catfish, toads would often get in also and had to be cleaned out periodically. This led to my drinking a lot of milk and coffee.

One summer we experienced a drought and had to resort to hauling water from the river about a mile away. Grandad and I soon tired of this task and he decided to deepen our well using dynamite as the quickest and easiest expedient for the job. Having the stuff on hand for the mining claim, we soon had our holes drilled, packed in the charge and proceeded to blow it out. It was a hard job hauling up the blown material with a bucket, but we did manage to hit water again only another five feet down and were back in business.

Things have changed dramatically around the Kern River Valley since those far-off days before the lake went in, a time when there were so few of us living here that everybody knew everybody else and who did what to or for someone, and no one thought anything of using dynamite for various purposes.

You can’t legally just haul out the family supply of dynamite and use it in Los Angeles. Not that dynamite is in short supply in L. A., but it seems the city is not only opposed to digging your own well in your backyard, they are fussy about who has and uses dynamite locally.

I personally know some that believe dynamite ought to be available to anyone that wants it. But don’t count me among them. I’m a life member of the NRA, an adamant believer and defender of our right to bear arms, but we need a system of government that actually works and not only keeps dynamite out of the hands of those that should not have it, but also keeps guns out of the hands of those that should not have them, most of all children, rather than continued attacks to disarm responsible, law-abiding American citizens.

While I’m at an age where the “good old days” were really that long ago, having lived a “pioneer” life here in the Sequoia National Forest as a boy I have no illusions about living without the benefits of modern civilization, things like flipping a switch for light, indoor plumbing with a flush toilet and turning a tap for water, no longer having to fell trees and cut wood for heating and cooking, and I would be loath to return to the many hardships of that past life. Notwithstanding this, I think it would be worth it if it would help restore the America I knew as a boy, an America I knew when people were so much more self-reliant and responsible, an America that was trusted by the other nations of the world and we were justly proud of our nation.

We are told a third of the world’s population lives without potable water or adequate sanitation; that major cities throughout the world are suffering from air pollution, and only five years ago I read at the time a full one-half of the world’s population had never received a personal phone call. But despite the tremendous advances in science and technology it does not appear clean air and water is going to trump economics in America or anywhere else, especially when literally billions of people are suffering without the benefits of science and technology.

As to population and “green” you can’t expect someone in the Amazon to refuse to cut a tree so he can provide for more mouths to feed. These in turn will cut more trees in order to feed more mouths. The equivalent here in America is more pollution producing trucks and cars on our highways, and more population means more polluting trucks and cars, more pollution producing industries like dairies and others. And corporate profits, a point made in “Medicine Man” among many others, override any meaningful attempts to curb air pollution.

The great majority in the nations of the world refuses to practice birth control, and the poorest of nations suffer accordingly but continue to demand they be fed by the wealthier nations that do practice birth control. If the sorry excuse for “leadership” in America were not sold out to profits they would not be encouraging the invasion from Mexico, a largely Roman Catholic population for whom practical methods of birth control is a sin. Result: More unproductive mouths to feed, but they demand Americans feed them as though it was their “right” to be fed at taxpayer expense while those employing illegal aliens with the cooperation of the federal government reap the benefits of slave labor. Roman Cardinals like Mahony in L. A. quite understandably encourage this invasion from Mexico since the invaders are mostly “good Catholics.” And Mahony, like all tyrants, works on the basis of the more “serfs” to serve the master the better. This certainly maintains those like Mahony living sumptuously in splendor in contradiction to the teaching of Jesus.

But what of the Ford Foundation and some others with the cooperation of the ACLU encouraging globalization and the demise of America as a sovereign nation? Once you have made the connection between these and the Bush Dynasty you understand the President wanting things like that superhighway from Mexico to Canada, the refusal to secure our borders because of the dreams of “empire.” Contributing to this scheme of empire through globalization and America’s demise here in my native state there is no way of keeping up with the growing criminal population, all the while our “leaders” refuse to legalize marijuana thereby guaranteeing jails and prisons will never catch up with the need, nor will the huge inmate population of illegal aliens be deported. What we have instead is the phony “war on drugs” and Mexican cartels using our own national forests for growing marijuana.

It all seems quite mad to me, and if lunatics are not in charge how else to account for the lack of any sane leadership? If not Satanic, there must be some rationale to the direction leaders are taking America. At least this is what we hope. But I don’t see any basis for such hope. There is certainly no basis for hope in a Congress the members of which operate solely on getting elected and staying elected rather than doing what is right for America. The ultimate madness in my opinion is the lack of leadership in nations that seem committed to the destruction of our planet, whether from the madness of religion, politics, or empire it comes down to the quality of life vs. power and wealth.