As with the personal letters that have largely disappeared with the advent of computers and email, the lack of common courtesy seems increasingly less common today; and I sometimes ask myself why those that should know better do not do better in respect to courtesy? Perhaps the difference is due in part to the difference between Harper Lee’s book and the film, a question of actual good breeding leading to unfeigned good manners.

The anonymity of blogs does provide much latitude for mischief and ill manners, and the worst offenders are quite obviously ignorant and illiterate in many instances. But there are also the demons of arrogance and presumptuousness with which to contend. I once asked my daughter Karen for her opinion of some of my writing and she answered, “Just keep writing the way you are dad.” That was high praise from my little girl. But it would be the height of presumptuous and egotistical arrogance for anyone, and especially anyone young and unqualified to tell me “Just keep writing as you have and you will do well.”! This is an absolute insult! And one that should never cross the mind of anyone supposing themselves to be well-mannered! The youngster feels he is qualified to tell me if I follow his advice in my writing I will do well? I should have his crystal ball or inside track with the Almighty! Talk about the lack of any sense of the proprieties!

To comment on someone’s writing is one thing; to make such a pronouncement by someone young and unqualified to do such a thing is at the least very bad manners. But it is one of the things that prevents me from giving my opinion of someone else’s writing in many instances. Rather than the presumption of being an expert I much prefer the sincere and unfeigned “I just like it” by Ginny in Some Came Running. But I can’t imagine her telling Dave if he kept writing the way he did he would do well.

It would have been unthinkable to have one of my high school pupils say, “Just keep teaching as you are and you will do well!” But that age gap does not diminish with time, and I can only be grateful I was raised better and understand the difference. How many of you my companion oldsters have had to remind some youngster, “I have been young, but you have never been old.” There is a solid line between the liberty of familiarity and license, but only unfeigned good manners together with genuine sincerity knows the difference. But there is always the demon of familiarity breeds contempt to which those without a sense of the proprieties often succumb.

It would never have crossed my mind to refer to my spiritual mentor Dr. Charles Lee Feinberg as Charley. I may as well have called my grandfather Johnny rather than grandad. But the blogs offer opportunity to those without any seeming sense of proprieties to show much disrespect in this fashion, especially to the elderly. But I also recognize the kind of liberty that is taken on blogs not intended to insult, but being the nature of the medium. Among fellow posters on The Bakersfield Californian and some other sites I am Sam, whereas among my colleagues and peers I am Dr. Heath. I do not take such familiarity amiss since it is a part of the blog way of doing things, yet I do believe the kind of informal familiarity on blogs has a part to play in the increasing lack of courtesy and good manners among some, and the price we pay for the informal blogs is in part one of the causes along with the loss of handwritten correspondence of the downward spiral into the loss of the proprieties in general.

Harper Lee was prescient in her novel concerning this downward spiral of good breeding and good manners, the difference between civilized good manners due to good breeding and those for whom it was only an affectation. She was correct pointing out in To Kill A Mockingbird “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” But to really understand why this was the case you would have to understand the historical accuracy of D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation and have read Professor Claude G. Bowers’ definitive work The Tragic Era covering the years immediately following Lincoln’s assassination. Since it is unlikely people will trouble themselves to really study the basis of Harper Lee’s declaration concerning the injustice surrounding the case of Tom Robinson and too many haven’t even read her literary masterpiece, the novel of the century, the only knowledge many have today is the film version of the book.

What too many people seem not to understand, including some of the teachers of literature in the universities and schools is that the film version of TKM was a product of the 60s; however, the whole story Harper Lee told in her novel was not. But due to the era of Civil Rights and Hollywood being Hollywood the producers of the film took that one incident of the book surrounding the injustice perpetrated against Tom Robinson and centered their attention on that; but to have made a film covering the whole story Harper Lee told would have required a film of epic proportions several hours long. And pointing out Jews could be as prejudiced as anyone else and the phrase “the smell of clean Negro” could have found no place in the film.

Nevertheless, nothing can detract from the film being a cinematic masterpiece but it is unfortunate the makers of the film could not have known at the time they were actually producing such a masterpiece, otherwise they would not have made some of the blunders they did. And for those of us so familiar with both the book and the film we cannot help but cringe at these blunders. But once it became obvious the film was much more than they realized some like Gregory Peck were quick to seize the opportunity to aggrandize themselves after the fact out of all proportion to their just deserts while Harper Lee simply left off writing in not a little disgust with Hollywood.

Despite some of her kind words about the film there was no doubt about Ms. Lee’s disaffection with the liberties Hollywood had taken with her story. The world she had recreated in her novel was one with which I am very familiar, having been born in Weedpatch and raised among the very kind of people she describes. And while we expect license to be taken by Hollywood, historians should be far more circumspect in their opinions.

There is nothing profound in pointing out the obvious that we are all ignorant, just about different things; but willful ignorance is the most injurious. Scripture has it that those who are willfully ignorant twist some things to their own destruction, and so this has proven to be many times over. As revisionists rewrite the history of America race relations became more of the film version of TKM and the actual facts of Birth of a Nation, The Tragic Era, and Harper Lee’s story recede.

It took me many years to get past the prejudices of my own education in American history and finally admit the seed of America’s destruction may well have been sown in slavery; that the Founding Fathers may have in fact bowed to the interests in profits rather than the fine words “All men are created equal.” Then too, the Founding Fathers true to the times in which they lived did not include women in those fine words. Nor, considering their era would it have been possible for them to do so.

I remind myself I did not live in the time of our Founding Fathers, and I cannot honestly say how or if I would have done any differently. Perhaps I would have sided with Benjamin Franklin in opposing slavery, but perhaps I would not have; I don’t know. I do know with the benefit of hindsight the failure to exclude slavery by our Constitution brought about the attempt at national suicide from which our nation has never recovered. But now revisionist history and political correctness has put its own spin on things and few people bother with primary source material and the soul-searching that often accompanies such studies.

But there is something else at work today that confuses people, the lack of good manners and civility that I knew as a child and grew up with and Harper Lee describes. This lack of civility and good manners especially toward the elderly today is a kind of willful ignorance too often seen among those you would at least think if not hope knew better.

Now wouldn’t that be something, if America should finally be doomed not only because of being sold out and betrayed by our leadership, but the lack of civility and good manners, the loss of any sense of the proprieties of a civilized society?

Governor Sarah Louise Heath Palin was not only the wisest choice McCain could possibly make, I take personal satisfaction in a Heath having a chance at the White House, perhaps even President of America! But the greatest satisfaction of all is having a woman of proven ability with so many truly American attributes shining a light of hope on an otherwise barren political landscape.

We the People can take justifiable pride in the choice of Governor Palin and the encouragement she is going to give people to go to the polls that would otherwise be sitting at home on election day. It may be God will give America this one more chance to get its act together; and though it sounds extreme I see Sarah Palin as that one more chance with someone who unlike the usual species of politicians actually has a soul and will motivate me to vote with a clear conscience. John McCain may be the best of a bad lot, but Sarah Palin is the best of the best lot, and more than that she is a Lady in every sense of the word, something America is sorely in need of to inspire and give hope to both men and women throughout America that not all is yet lost and the Devil given our nation by forfeit.

But she’s a woman! No one who has read my writings as an advocate of women and especially my critique of To Kill A Mockingbird or any of my other books would ever accuse me of not wanting to see women in leadership positions. My greatest criticism of the U.N. has been the lack of women there in leadership positions. My criticism of the Great Books of the Western World was the lack of women being represented in that monumental set of books. A constant theme in my writing is the way women are treated as of less value than men, how the compatibility of differences in honor of both men and women is so sorely needed for a truly civilized society.

It needn’t be said women are capable of being just as crude, vulgar and vicious as men, but this does not in any way detract from the fact that women are the softer and gentler part of humankind in general. Nor does this in any way ignore the fact that a woman can be tough in ways that are generally accorded men, my apologetic about this is pointing out the tragedy for America has been in women having to be tough in ways they should never have to be.

My girls were raised to hunt and fish, to ride motorcycles like dad, to enjoy wilderness areas and care for the critters just like me. I did not want them excluded from anything my boys could do; I never treated them as though I had lower expectations for them in any way because they were girls. The biggest difference was in the way a little girl finds her way into the heart of a father, something that brings out the very best of the tender emotions of a father that boys cannot do; and this is what God intended little girls to do for fathers, this is where the genius of Harper Lee had little Scout disperse that lynch mob, something Ms. Lee knew no man or boy could do.

It is my two angels, my precious daughters that give me whatever empathy I have for women, who keep me many times from something that would be unworthy of their love for me. Had it not been for my two angels, Diana and Karen, both of them now with the Lord and watching over me and continuing to inspire me to keep on living and writing I would not now be so supportive of Sarah Palin, I would never have been a writer of the romance of life; I would never have appreciated the true value of women that God intended them to be to men, there would never have been that critique of TKM emphasizing the importance of little girls in the scheme of things, I could never have really understood little Scout coming to the realization that there might actually be some skill involved with being a girl.

In the weeks and months to come I know there are going to be some hard things said about Sarah Palin, many of these things are going to be said by men that both fear and resent a woman in the White House. Much criticism will be leveled at her by those that both fear and resent her conservative views, but most of all the criticism will have its roots in her being a lady, a loving and faithful wife and mother, something quite different than what We the People have been offered in politics, and especially at such an historic level of prominence and importance.

Quite obviously Sarah Palin supports our military and is not naive about the evils of this world system, that America requires a strong military to confront the enemies of America. I have no doubt about her ability to make the tough decisions that may eventually be required of her, and she has already proven her mettle in this regard.

One of my concerns is those that can never relate to what God intended women to be as the softer and gentler half of humankind while not understanding the kind of strength required of women to fulfill this role in the face of so much barbarism on the part of men constantly in conflict with the better influence of women. I believe Sarah Palin understands the fact that men make wars while women attempt to make homes. My hope is that she will have the opportunity to emphasize this difference and give women the needed voice and power to make the better part, that of homes rather than wars a chance to become the reality.

Recently discovered satellite galaxies described as “Puffy balls in space” may be orbs of dark matter. And these may be the explanation for the smaller orbs sometimes appearing in photographs, even the explanation for the many stories about ghosts and spirits, angels and demons belonging to a dimension apart from the physical limitations of space and time and confirming my belief life is of God and not a result of the separate creation of the physical universe as described in Genesis.

But before sharing this recent and astounding discovery, apart from prejudice there is no mistaking the quality of the writings finally accepted into the canon of Scripture compared to other writings that were rejected, though there are undoubtedly things of historical fact contained in some of these extracanonical writings. There is the continued need for textual criticism that helps put things in historical perspective and separates the wheat from the chaff. However, over the many years of my own Biblical studies my beliefs and opinions have changed about many things found in the Bible but there has been one constant; and that is the objective fact there are no comparable writings to be found anywhere else in recorded history.

The Bible despite some difficulties and discrepancies is quite unique and stands well apart and above all other writings of humankind, and I have no doubt some of its writers did have a special relationship to God and imparted things God intended people to know, and some especially chosen of God wrote these things down passing them on to others. That some of these things began as oral tradition before being written would explain facts lost to antiquity but resulting in stories about the Creation, Adam and Eve, The Fall, the Deluge and others open to interpretation, but still based on facts.

One of the several things that confound critics of the Bible is that the writings are for the most part free of many fanciful stories current during the times in which the Bible was being written, among these some of the “Jewish fables” to which the Apostle Paul referred. Even though the Hellenic influence is evident in places for example, the various mythologies and fabulous stories belonging to such mythologies are for the greater part missing in the Received Text. Comparisons have been made from various myths in regard to some miracles described in the Bible, but upon close examination the Biblical accounts of such things are superior to these other accounts, particularly in the quality of the writings themselves.

If someone were to take it upon themselves to make up a story about Moses they would be hard pressed to provide the many details found in Scripture and to tell it with the same authority of veracity as the original. The same can be said for the stories in the beginning chapters of Genesis. But the stories surrounding the birth and life of Jesus together with the rest of the New Testament would be the most daunting task of all.

First of all, what would be the motive for anyone undertaking such a task? If it entered the mind of someone to make up such stories what would be gained by their doing so, and how would they convince others to follow along? History is replete with charlatans and false messiahs, but eventually they are found out. No, there is simply too much of veracity in the New Testament for all the writings to be discounted as intent to deceive. And it could be as simple as the words of those officers sent to take Jesus by force and refusing to do so because “Never man spake like this man.”

One of many reasons I take the Bible very seriously in many places is because of scientific discoveries continually being made that affirm spiritual beliefs, such as the “Puffy balls in space.”

Galaxy surprise sheds light on dark matter. Galaxies circling the Milky Way pack about the same mass, study shows: By Clara Moskowitz, Space.com: Updated 1:53 p.m. PT, Wed., Aug. 27, 2008: A study of small galaxies circling around the Milky Way found that while they range dramatically in brightness, they all surprisingly pack about the same mass. The work suggests there is a minimum size for galaxies, and it could shed light on mysterious dark matter. Spinning around the Milky Way are at least 23 pint-sized galaxies, each shining with the light of anywhere from a thousand to a billion suns. Though each of these galaxies is very dim compared to large galaxies like our own, they span a large range in brightness. Astronomers led by Louis Strigari of the University of California-Irvine studied the movements of individual stars in these satellite galaxies to determine the mass of each galaxy. "What we found was astonishing, which was that they all had the same mass," said researcher James Bullock, a UC-Irvine astrophysicist. "It's not what we were expecting — we were really taken off guard." Loaded with dark matter: The finding could help explain the mysterious stuff called dark matter and how it affects the formation of galaxies. Nobody knows what dark matter is, but its presence is revealed by gravity that is not produced by the regular matter that can be seen. Despite their wide-ranging brightnesses, all of the 23 satellite galaxies around the Milky Way seem to have a central mass of 10 million times that of the sun. And what's more, almost all of that mass seems to be made up of dark matter, with just the tiniest smidgen of visible matter producing stars. "These are by far the dimmest galaxies that have ever been discovered, and the least luminous of these things are the most dark-matter-dominated things that we know about," Bullock told SPACE.com. Though they qualify as galaxies, the satellites are not pinwheel spirals like the Milky Way and its cousins. Rather, these dwarf galaxies look more like diffuse, puffy balls of light…

In the old days before email people used to actually write letters to one another, and looking back there is no mistaking how labor intensive such a thing was. But if such a letter was from a loved one, how precious such a thing could be since you could hold it in your hands and read it knowing the dear one who had written it had actually handled the paper while writing, that they had with their own hands folded it and put it in an envelope, sealed, stamped and mailed it. I have quite an archive of such letters from now departed loved ones, and it is a treasure trove of precious memories. If you are old enough you may be able to imagine a generation that has nothing but electronic communications from various people, but no actual letters such as my generation knew and appreciate what a melancholy loss this represents.

In a nation where we are being told obesity is epidemic and I’m so thin I feel free to share with others that my idea of comfort food is a cigarette or pipe with a cup of industrial strength black coffee. When people make comment about this form of self abuse it always reminds me of the executioner when someone asked if his profession caused him to awaken at night screaming from nightmares and he replied: “Doesn’t everybody?”

I don’t believe America’s leaders, whose profession classes them as America’s executioners, are intentionally trying to cause the nightmares that obviously do not trouble them from the multiple disasters they have created, none of which any politician dares to address openly along with the necessary Draconian solutions to these nightmares they have created; but some intimation along the line of that executioner from some politicians would be appreciated. But in all seriousness, and I really mean this, I believe a tender conscience requires a soul and I believe politicians are without a soul that would lead them to any sincere and believable admission of wrongdoing for the sake of conscience. Politicians give the distinct impression that one might as well expect their father the Devil to repent of any wickedness.

However, it isn’t only Caesar Bush that seems without a soul and wearing that “What, me worry?” expression, he just does it better than some others though they all, each and every one of them qualify as lunatics with idiotic expressions that openly declare “What, me worry?” And to add insult to injury to We the People these lunatics with their idiotic expressions permanently affixed as though by plastic surgery gone horribly awry, as with so many in the MSM, are performing on the world stage openly declaring to the whole world we appear a nation of lunatics led of lunatics!

But to be charitable, perhaps some of these soulless politicians really are idiots rather than lunatic. A question suggests itself here that this possibility actually frightens people like Vladimir Putin? That wouldn’t be good. In fact, just suppose Putin became more scared than angry? When you have America’s leaders ignoring the many trillions of dollars of indebtedness and only promising more of such indebtedness with no way out, refusing to secure our borders and betraying our nation wholesale on every hand while pandering for votes, if I were Putin I would be frightened of such a nation seeming to be led of idiots and lunatics! It then becomes a question of which would be more dangerous; Putin or any other world leaders taking action out of anger or fear? I feel a nightmare coming on!

It’s part of the human tragedy that men make wars while women attempt to make homes. But more and more women seem to be getting the message Harper Lee tried to get across about fundamentalist religion teaching in too many cases not confined to Islam but homegrown that women are unclean and sin by definition. Women are leaving the churches in great numbers, but who would have thought Buffy would be causing them to do so?

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —  More than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel church is not relevant to their lives, according to a British academic study — and shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" have played a role in the exodus. The research, published in a new book called "Women and Religion in the West," says TV shows like "Buffy" offer women an appealing message of female empowerment while the old-fashioned attitudes and hierarchies of churches are causing a steep decline in the number of female worshippers. "In short, women are abandoning the church," writes Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby. "Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by [the pagan religion] Wicca, popularized by the TV series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' "Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church." Her research cites an English Church census which found that more than a million women worshippers have left churches since 1989, and that women have been leaving churches at twice the rate of men.

Some women find Wicca a far more accommodating religious belief system solely on the basis of empowerment, but many of them actually find spiritual fulfillment in these beliefs and I find no fault with them on that score. Nor do I fault women who simply get tired of the religious beliefs expressed by too many preachers Women are no damned good! Which, garb it as they will in religiosity still comes out as the message from too many pulpits.

One thing for sure, we are not going to escape from politicians serving the Devil and it will be the innocent who will suffer at their hands. But as the politicians party on I’m reminded of the party being held by king Belshazzar as described in the book of Daniel, when suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand appeared writing on the wall of the palace: “God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.”

Well, there is nothing I can do to prevent Armageddon but at least the work on the Large Hadron Collider is going on apace with a September 10 date set to trigger the extraordinary device. I don’t believe there will be any “God particle” discovered in the sense of providing any understanding of life since I don’t believe life came out of anything in the Big Bang, but is solely within the mind and hands of God. But while science may not save us it is of some comfort to me that there are great minds devoted to science and continuing to explore the mysteries of the universe:

“One experiment at the LHC, known as ALICE, seeks to re-create the conditions that existed just an instant after the big bang that gave rise to the universe as we know it. LHCb's researchers want to understand why matter won out over antimatter after the creation of the cosmos. But the LHC's main goal - targeted by the Compact Muon Solenoid as well as the ATLAS detector - is to fill the gaps that currently exist in the Standard Model, the grand theory governing the subatomic structure of the universe. That may mean finding traces of extra dimensions, or a whole new class of supersymmetric particles, or the causes behind dark matter and dark energy. Filling the scientific gaps would almost certainly include getting a fix on the Higgs boson, which some physicists have dubbed the ‘God particle.’ The Higgs is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model that hasn't yet been found, and it could hold the key to understanding why some particles (like protons) have mass while others (like photons) do not.”

The benefits of the often oppressive summer heat here in the Kern River Valley are the glorious mornings and balmy evenings. Last evening I was taking advantage of this, and while sitting outside in the twilight watched as a pair of quail walked unhurriedly by me and then flew into a nearby oak tree to roost for the night. There has always been something about such a scene from nature that has struck a responsive chord in my heart as a boy and continuing to this very day, the chord of a romantic.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Since the greatest contributing factor to quality of life is how a person thinks, what is it that makes cynics of some while others despite the harsh realities of life continue to live in hope? I believe the answer may be found in the difference between Emerson and Sam Clemens. Many will agree Clemens to have been America’s greatest humorist, but he was a cynic. Emerson was not a humorist but a great thinker and philosopher and never became a cynic.

It is all too easy to give way to cynicism, to criticize the romantic writers and poets as Clemens did, those whose thoughts are devoted to whatsoever things are lovely since most of the world dwells in darkness, the kind of darkness in which satire makes mean sport of the light. The result of this being since the world cares for its own it scorns the lovers and romantics while heaping ridicule upon them and may say cynically like Clemens the only pure and unalloyed gift of God is death, while those like Emerson will continue to explore and discover the real gift of God as being able to find romance in your life and thoughts without ever giving place to cynicism.

It is not cynical to recognize and speak out against the evils of this world system and the destructive acts of the wars of men among other evils, and Emerson certainly spoke out against these including the evil of slavery. But he did so in a positive manner, one that showed the great depth of his thinking by never resorting to low and mean satire or crude and vulgar language. And while Clemens denied the equality of women Emerson gave his affirmation of this. Emerson, for example, would never have said as did Clemens he opposed giving women the franchise because it would “reduce them to the level of men and Negroes.” Both men knew politics was a dirty business and the most ignoble sought elected office solely as a means of advancing themselves rather than the betterment of those they claimed to represent, however it would be Emerson rather than Clemens who would provide thoughtful analysis of how the human condition resulted in scoundrels having the rule rather than wise leaders.

Nothing will satisfy the lust of the flesh that leads someone to live selfishly, and any mention of romance to such people falls on deaf ears or meets with a scornful rejection equating biological lust of the flesh to all relationships between men and women. Clemens wrote from much grief in his personal life, and he did so with genuine genius; but it was a cynical genius that caused him to damn the human species as not deserving to survive. What was missing in his analysis as with that of Franklin’s was the idea that there was a distinction between the children of God and children of the Devil, something Emerson was able to engage though he did so by removing himself from any religious orthodoxy while attempting to give an articulate expression to the basis of his own hopes for the best of humankind to overcome evil rather than accommodate it. But Emerson came to realize the best he could hope for was that some few would be drawn to the light and saved out of darkness, that his best efforts would never be enough to change the course of the human condition that caused so many to continue dwelling in darkness.

Crude vulgarity written or spoken is often used to attack the beauty of language and those who use language in a beautiful way. But correct speech not given to vulgar expressions is one of the hallmarks of the civilized mind, though examples are not lacking of those that speak correctly while being guilty of the most heinous behavior. Smooth, seductive words have too often belied the gross character of those using them to do harm; however the simple words of a sincere heart are of more effect than all the expressions of those given to pretentiousness or condescension, or attempts to be clever and succeeding in only being abstruse.

The words given to real romance and beauty never degenerate into egotistical expression and never lack the sincerity of a sincere heart, and unlike mere rhetoric remain as eloquent in the study as they do at the podium. Love letters may attain the status of an art form, but the real romance of such a letter no matter how beautifully written will only be known to the one who will cherish it as from a sincere heart, and unlike the vulgar attempts through lust or ego real lovers never attempt to be clever or cunning in their use of words.

All physical beauty fades as a leaf, but the beauty of virtue remains despite the passage of time. The real romance and beauty of life is to be found in its virtue not the outward appearance of either people or things, though these may sometimes be the tokens of virtue. If Henry Thoreau believed there were a thousand hacking at the branches of evil while only one struck at its root he would have discovered the reason for this was a lack of virtue, a lack of the real romance of life that while Henry acknowledged this in so many ways his too often overweening ego and lack of true humility sometimes thwarted his purpose, an often failing among those gifted up to the point of virtue only to deny it by some thoughtless or selfish act or word in the end.

America has squandered its rich heritage of great literature; not only has the genuine art form of love letters from the sincerest of hearts been lost, but the best and most noble works by which Henry said he hoped we would be able to scale heaven at last. But not even the noblest works of literature containing the noblest thoughts of the writers can survive in an atmosphere of cynicism and a vulgar society that knows nothing of the real romance of life, and with the loss of this there is nothing left to inspire hope for the future.

At the same time that the cynicism of mean satire gains the ascendency in America, the loss of the romance of life seems to have passed unnoticed by the multitudes and all that many have left is the meanness of their lives. And with the loss of real romance comes the increasing lack of civility and proper speech, and kindness and generosity toward others out of a sincere heart fall victim as well leaving a vacuum meanness, perversion and violence comes in to fill.

It took the universities of America to relegate Emerson to “a hobby for antiquarians” along with civilized good manners and speech, but what they really succeeded in doing was to destroy the real romance of life and replace Emerson with the kind of cynicism and accompanying mean satire that has all but destroyed America. A kind word spoken in due season is a healing balm to the soul worth more than all good intentions, but it seems we are now a nation left without either the kind words or even good intentions and the romance of life as God intended becoming increasingly conspicuous by its absence.

It’s a theme as old as humankind; if a cowardly bully cannot get at his intended victim he will kick their dog. And whether it is religion or politics we often see the worst of human nature at work in these, the cowardly bullies attempting to bend both of them to their will. The Devil’s perverts attack God’s plan of marriage between a man and a woman, something Jesus affirmed. The Devil’s servants led of the universities propagandize against all standards of morality, and anything here in America that can be construed as support of the Bible and Christianity is the target of the Devil’s crowd.

Long ago I was freed from what I came to call the tyranny of religion, self-excommunicating myself from most of the Christian community because I could not accept the orthodox positions of most of them and found communion with those like Emerson who came to question most orthodoxy. As a well qualified student of the Bible I know its strengths and weaknesses but one of its strengths is so much of it rings true to my own heart, and I have no doubt many of the stories in the Bible such as the Creation and the story of Adam and Eve, the Deluge and Tower of Babel are based on actual facts long lost to antiquity but retaining the most meaningful and significant elements.

What the Devil’s crowd cannot do is legitimately dispute the fact that the most civilized nations of history came about due to the influence of the Bible and the Christian religion, that these gave rise to the very best of the arts and sciences despite the many abuses along the way. But my cautionary words to those calling themselves Christian remain, that if you are to take any of the things attributed to Jesus seriously you must also consider his warning that very few are going to be saved out of a world described as the Devil’s domain, a claim by the Evil One that Jesus did not dispute in The Temptation. Also, the true prophets of God do not abuse the position by living in luxury as though this hypocrisy could ever go unnoticed by God.

When I read the description of Babylon in Revelation it never fails to remind me of how apt it is of America. And while the Founding Fathers were noble in their efforts the failure to exclude slavery by our Constitution remained what I came to believe the Achilles’ heel of America. It eventually led to Lincoln’s War and a Federal Triune Dictatorship and much of the evil in America today. It is as though Satan was right there in our very beginning as a nation, whispering his siren song of “profits” on the backs of slaves. The righteous judgment of God may seem delayed to human understanding but I do not believe it can be thwarted, and the Devil having called the tune from the beginning by sanctioning Negro slavery and wage slavery I believe the debt of America’s transgressions and turning away from God for the sake of profits is being called due!

But “Only chumps play by the rules” isn’t unique to America, it is as old as humankind and the basis of the story of The Fall. The question is why the curse of God fell especially hard on Eve. Whatever the truth of it women have had to bear the brunt of the curse of God and the evil men do throughout history and it has never gotten any better; women are no closer to being viewed as having equal value to men now than in the past. Civilized nations accord women some protection by laws, but in the end men don’t get old they become mature, while women become old and wrinkled and have little to offer by the standards men have set in place. Because it is a man’s world the most fortunate of women find a life partner in a good man and they both grow old together. This is neither fair nor just, but it is what it is.

The record of profits being a curse to humankind, trade cursing all it touches is the fact borne out by the leaders of America from the beginning that only chumps play by the rules, and wars including our own Revolution are waged for profits in one way or another. No one becomes wealthy playing by the rules; they become wealthy by passing laws favoring the wealthy or taking by force what they want, and there is no such thing as civilized warfare. As conditions worsen in America the Devil will continue to take care of his own, but America as a nation will suffer the consequences of a betraying leadership in the Devil’s camp.

Many of Henry Thoreau’s comments are worthy, but he knew he was a pagan by orthodox definition of his time. However, his comment questioning any spark of divinity in some men struck a very Biblical chord, and even Henry supposed that while God may be lonely the Devil had many friends. In this he was Biblically correct about the majority of humankind dancing to the Devil’s tune while the minority, the children of God would enter into life everlasting through much tribulation. And as I look to the history of humankind and the multitudes that seem to have had and continue to have no other purpose but to be born, suffer, and die I have cause to wonder in how many can the spark of divinity be found? I suspect this to be a very small number

Throughout the course of history God would seem as profligate of human life as nature is of the seeds it casts, knowing the many will die but one may live. However, while religious people are quick to recognize this profligacy of nature they are not so quick to recognize most people in the world are of no account to God, reflecting the words of Jesus “Straight is the gate and narrow the way to life, and few there be that find it.” But how could Jesus have known this unless he had a very special relationship to God, even calling God his father something the leaders of the Jews at the time considered blasphemy and sought to stone him for?

If it comes down to Jesus being a prophet of God as I believe he was then there are many things he shared with his disciples and others to which we should pay heed. The difficulty is discerning what he really said as opposed to what is wrongly attributed to him. But here comes a lesson throughout all human history, that the children of God have the spirit of God and are expected to be able to discern the truth. Organized religions of all kinds have been attempts to remove this personal responsibility of the individual and place it in the hands of the organization. But the cautionary words of warning remain “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” and how many have placed their faith in an organization while attempting to escape their personal responsibility to God?

In the end it may all prove to be no more than speculation, the philosophies and ideologies of men take different tacks at different times often riding the waves of change. Still, throughout human history there are some who appear to have what I call great souls, those like Jesus that confronted the lies and hypocrisy of men forfeiting his own life as a result.

I see the need for a new heaven and earth, the old things giving way to the new and all tears finally being wiped away. But whatever the truth may be I continue on in the hope that love will cover a multitude of sins. The loving parent will discipline their child, but the love never departs. And this is the belief I have in the family of God, even as among real friends that despite differences love at all times, something the god of this world, Satan, cannot ever deliver on.

Contact through my Val Saint Lambert crystal frog? There are times when the lunatics in government betraying, bankrupting, running America into the ground and placing us all at extremely dangerous risk drive me to some extreme thoughts. People like Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck with a few others enumerate the problems, and they are quite good at this, but they do so while earning handsome salaries all the while knowing there are no viable solutions short of the magnitude of a revolution or asteroid strike on D.C.

It was while thinking about so many in the media talking about the problems without offering any viable and substantive solutions that have a snowball’s chance of actually happening I considered whether to hold my crystal frog to my ear the other night while stargazing out toward Vega? However, since it just sits here on my desk with nary a “ribbit” in the years I have had the thing I doubted it would be picking up Vegan signals or any others.

Those that scoff at God and those of us who believe in God have nothing to offer to believe in. The best they can do results in politicians, and the scoffers seem to think this is a satisfactory substitute for belief in God. These are the Israelites of old that rejected God and demanded a king to rule over them. It seems to me that this is now the case of an America that has turned away from God and demanded a king. But we now have a lunatic king and lunatics vying to take his place on the throne while those purporting to speak for God while faring sumptuously and living luxuriously seem no less lunatic. But as God said to Samuel because the people had rejected God he would reject them. Such I believe is the situation America now faces; America having rejected God he in turn has rejected America. So here is my Jeremiad: If you think times are hard and dangerous for America now you haven’t seen anything yet! We not only have a leadership deficit, what we do have is a bunch of lunatics with nothing better in sight!

Because I actually believe our leaders are on the Devil’s payroll the result being that the Evil One makes us all dance to his tune it does seem there is no way out. But all theological and metaphysical speculation aside even if this were not true the answers to the problems we are facing are so literally Draconian no one really expects politicians to address them realistically, and what we are getting instead is no better than my crystal frog or a rubber gorilla suit. At that, at least scrying and Sasquatch have believers whereas who believes anything coming out of the mouths of politicians in D.C. or elsewhere? At least the believers in crystal balls (or crystal frogs) and Bigfoot don’t generally cause harm and some can even be entertaining, but the same cannot be said of politicians.

Now while I do not talk to my frog, I do talk to the resident cat. She is a patient listener, but despite my most earnest supplications the best she seems able to do is a faint “meow” and purrs when she gets her pets. It’s been that way for about eight years so I despair of anything more out of her. Even so, at least she earns her cat food by keeping my place free of rodents and I can’t help wishing there was something the equivalent of the cat We the People could depend on to keep us free of politicians. Well, the cat does keep my place free of rodents by killing them… Ah, for the good old days when politicians made speeches to the sound of cocking pistols in their audiences. Oh, well.

One thought that keeps crossing my mind is whether politicians become lunatics by small increments. I was taught from my earliest childhood you never took anything that did not belong to you; that if you took so much as a pencil belonging to someone else the Devil would encourage you to keep stealing and this would become like a fatal disease that would eventually consume you. In this same way, if you told a lie it would lead to more lying until the Devil had you fully in his power and eventually you wouldn’t even be able to tell the truth though it would serve you better, and you would not even any longer be able to distinguish between the truth and a lie!

It seems to me I have fairly well described the condition of politicians. As to whether the lying and stealing eventually leads to their becoming pathological lunatics is a matter of conjecture. The caution during my childhood was anyone for whom lying and stealing was their nature meant they were one of the Devil’s servants and did his bidding, and children were warned the Devil would get you if you lied and stole. But I do not recall anyone telling me as a child such things would cause you to lose your mind and become a lunatic. However, in the case of politicians I believe it deserves some thoughtful analysis since few possessed of a sane mind can interpret what is going on in the White House and Congress, our state legislatures being the actions of sane people.

How often after hearing about some legislation do you find yourself exclaiming “That’s crazy! Are those people a bunch of nuts?” But how often do you listen to what you are saying about them, how often do you seriously consider the possibility that those people are in fact lunatics? But who but lunatics could possibly believe America can survive without a common heritage, culture, language, and secure borders? Who but lunatics would believe our nation can possibly survive the bottomless pit of nearly unimaginable debt for which the lunatics in power have mortgaged and obligated us?

Reason is a remarkable attribute of humankind, a divine one in my opinion. But war is to my mind the most unreasonable of human actions, and no one possessed of reason wants or initiates war; this has to be the work of lunatics. However, war has been the history of our species written in bloodshed and still ongoing without any prospect for peace in the future. On the contrary, it would seem to a sane mind things are becoming increasingly dangerous not only for America but for the whole world. Yet we seem to lack the kind of reasonable and sane leaders in the world to deliver us from the wars lunatics make and there seems no way out of the ongoing lunacy and bloodshed.

Well, I could whistle a happy tune but it would be whistling through the graveyard. So perhaps you will understand why I hold more hope for answers to the enormously dangerous problems America is facing from my crystal frog or cat than I have for any answers from lunatic politicians whether they be driven mad through their pathological lying and stealing, their greed and avarice or in service to the Devil.

The issue of arming classroom teachers is not going to simply fade away into the sunset like the good guy that rides off after cleaning up the town, but given the amount of violence throughout American history and now being spewed out in theaters and TV’s across the land it isn’t any wonder we continue to be viewed as a violent nation filled with violent people. The fact that most Americans would simply prefer to live in peace is countered by the violence not only in the entertainment media but in our cities and even in our schools. However, when it comes to the schools I can say from experience it would be a disaster to arm teachers unless they are qualified professionals in using firearms, and by that I mean what the Downey Chief of Police told me back in the 60s and is taught in classes for police agencies: “Guns are meant to kill; we intend to prepare you to use a gun for that purpose.”

As a lifetime supporter of the NRA and advocate of Right to Carry as well as being raised with guns and becoming an expert gunsmith I’m very familiar with firearms, but I’m also very well aware that you don’t really know whether you are prepared to actually kill someone with a gun until you face that situation. Our military is quite good in preparing personnel to be proficient in using firearms, but as Stephen Crane’s main character Henry Fleming so well illustrated you don’t really know what you will do in battle until that time comes when you are supposed to fire a gun at someone with the intent to kill them or be killed.

I’ve been a high school teacher in some war zones like South Central L. A. and East San Jose where guns were a commonplace and I went armed; but I was very well qualified to do so. Because of so much violence in schools today and the innocent too often the prey of monsters with guns there should be someone qualified to use a gun to protect the innocent from harm. A small school district far removed from immediate assistance cries out for a qualified person to make sure some monster with a gun does not take advantage of such an environment to do children any harm, but when it comes to the larger school districts I can only hope there are qualified people with actual police or military experience to provide security rather than classroom teachers. At that, in the event of a shootout it will still come down to the situation Henry faced in The Red Badge of Courage.

There is no possible way to tell beforehand how someone will react in an emergency, especially in a kill or be killed emergency, or even to save the lives of the innocent. Apart from personal experience my Ph. D. is in Human Behavior, and I understand the unpredictability factor of extreme situations people find themselves in. While the Free Will debate is going on involving atoms and possible unpredictability there in quantum physics, the matter of choices we humans make is often unpredictable outside of very general and controlled parameters.

The heroes of wars are glorified and romanticized, the laurels going to conquering heroes epitomizing bravery in battle and we applaud our movie heroes that blow away the bad guys. As a species we seem doomed to violence being a way of life with no way out, and continue to glorify and romanticize violence. In Fail-Safe the professor posed the interesting question as to who would eventually be the final victors in the event of nuclear Armageddon; the educated file clerks protected by paper or the hardened criminals protected by prison walls. My bet has always been on the criminals, even though file clerks may reach within themselves and find they were actually warriors at heart. But they would lack the practice in violence that gives the hardened criminal the edge.

Police agencies and the military have had many years to study the question of how you prepare someone to actually pull the trigger and kill others. It was an eye-opener following WWII when it was found only about 50% of our soldiers in combat ever pulled the trigger on their weapons. Training has evolved from that time to the point where the percentage is now far better, but that unpredictability factor as per Crane’s novel remains.

Of course we should do all within our power to protect the innocent in our schools from any monster with a gun, but it is going to be an extremely difficult thing to do as the pool of those qualified to carry firearms and use them effectively in an emergency is quite small, smaller than I believe most imagine.

Ours is a violent society, and children are being exposed to and learning violence wherever they turn today. But at the same time we see legislators and judges treating the monsters preying on children with more compassion than the little victims of these monsters we are going to have a debate over arming classroom teachers!

However, I concluded long ago ours is not only a violent society, but behaves as a lunatic one as well. But the civilized person, a classroom teacher for example, even if qualified in the use of firearms and prepared the best they can be to shoot and kill are they going to have to stop and think about a lawsuit resulting from using a gun even to protect children in a classroom? Many of our uniformed Sworn Peace Officers have been emasculated already by having to consider this before they use their guns. At that, can teachers ever be reasonably expected to have the kind of gun training necessary for Sworn Peace Officers?

I am committed to the idea of an armed citizenry; I want people to be able to protect themselves with a gun in their homes and on the streets. But arming teachers in our schools is going to prove a very difficult and enormously complicated thing to address. For example, trained armed military personnel walking the halls or campuses or all school principals could be required to be properly trained and become Sworn Peace Officers. Not likely; though as schools have to confront the growing violence the debate over how to make them safe for children by involving armed personnel for protection is one not only well worth having but absolutely essential in my opinion. After all, why should politicians have more protection than children?

Because of my own beliefs I don’t take any politician seriously when they speak of their faith. I think Jesus had it correct when he warned the real prophets of God were not to be found among those wearing soft clothing and living in kings’ palaces, and I do not expect the real prophets of God to be hosting politicians in palatial settings that are in my opinion an absolute obscenity to God. As to the species named politicians I doubt you would find anything considered saving faith among the lot. All liars Scripture has it are destined for the infernal region however that may be construed and politicians are at the top of that infamous list.

The love of money remains the root of every kind of evil it has ever been, and religion remains one of the means of keeping the poor from killing the rich. The fact so many religious leaders lead opulent lifestyles of the rich and famous should be an unmistakable clue to where their hearts are that they have chosen to serve the god Mammon, but some perverse quirk in many people seems to attract them to such leaders. It is easy to dismiss any politician’s claim to have faith in God; they could never want nor rise to any position of power and authority over others without having already made a bargain with the Devil, and while demons may tremble at the knowledge of God politicians are utterly oblivious to such a thing. But when it comes to religious leaders too many seem to get a pass without holding them to account for what they preach to others.

In a way you have to give some credit to the Unjust Magistrate of Scripture that while he feared neither God nor man finally gave justice to that poor widow because she wearied him with her continual complaint. It seems we the Great Unwashed of America don’t even have that much going for us, but there is the encouraging word that in the end God will render righteous judgment on the part of his elect against the wicked. Despite this promise I’m reminded of Emerson who had no respect for preachers promising pie in sky as an excuse for not confronting evil in this present world. I don’t believe God expects his elect to just roll over and play dead while the wicked prosper.

It seems evident to me the Devil takes care of his own, but admittedly it is often not so evident that God is taking care of his own. Why if there is a God do the wicked prosper is an often heard complaint, together with an equally often complaint of why bad things happen to good people? It does seem there is no end of books on the subjects, but since these are not based on empirical facts concerning the nature of God they all resort to speculation, and I intend to continue sharing my own speculations about these. Of this I have little doubt; the righteous enter into life everlasting through much tribulation in this world despite the claims of some that God finds no fault with their lying, cheating, and stealing or the preaching of prosperity gospels.

But to my mind building monuments and grand palaces, cathedrals of whatever kind to deities of any description is a fool’s errand, and I would prefer to see the Little Brown Church in the Wildwood as more representative of what good people actually believe about God. Of this much I am certain; God doesn’t need any more bad press from those profiting from their brand of gospel while living opulent lifestyles. Where is any honor to God to be found when men concentrate on their own?

In my opinion Tevye had a perfect right to complain to God, asking whether it would have interfered with some grand plan of the Almighty to have made him a rich man rather than poor? But alas, with a shrug of his shoulders Tevye knew the ways of God are mysterious to us mortals and didn’t really expect an answer to his complaint, just accepting his lot in life as most good people do.

The Elect of God; my how theologians have struggled with that concept, and it has even come to bloodshed in some cases. But no one that believes they have God’s approval to persecute others who do not share their beliefs has anything of value to say to me. Predestination or Free Will, I believe the children of God know their parentage and will live according to that knowledge. In sum; good people will do good, and the wicked will do evil.

Violence fills the earth as it always has, and the prospects for peace are no better now for the world than they have ever been. Yet the peace of God that transcends human understanding, the kind of peace that comes from knowing God is a spirit and my own spirit which is of God relates to God on that basis, a family relationship, gives me the kind of peace the world cannot offer me. That spiritual part of me that is the actual person within knows that I live, move, and have my very being in God, though I am often confounded and become angry with God. But as in all loving families, the fit passes and forgiveness in love with that covering a multitude of sins is the norm.

In a very real sense I am a believer in the form of election that comes from being born into the family of God, though this is of God’s own choosing. As a result God knows his own children, and they know their divine parentage. It is the knowledge of this that brings a peace within that passes human understanding. The peace of God is more than a glib phrase too often uttered by professional religionists; it is a matter of fact to those who are known of God as his own.

Bang! You’re dead! Ah, to go back to the innocent days of childhood when Cops and Robbers was a favorite game amongst us children. At that when I was a boy we were far more interested in shooting marbles than we were each other. Come to think of it, I don’t recall that children shooting each other was some rite of passage back in those really, really old days of my childhood in Kern County. Toy stores were filled with cap guns of every description when I was a boy and I had several, and there were G-Man kits with badge, handcuffs, and fingerprint powder so kids could identify with Dick Tracy and Gangbusters and our motto was Crime does not pay! My oh my, how the times have changed.

One of the truly big events of my childhood was earning my genuine Daisy Red Ryder Carbine by selling Cloverine Salve and garden seed door-to-door, and my cap guns were all but abandoned thereafter. Once I had that childhood dream of every boy my age in my hands I then actually belonged among the Riders of the Purple Sage and could shoot it out with the bad guys alongside Tom Mix, The Lone Ranger, Red Ryder, and Hopalong Cassidy, though the best I could really do at the time in place of the real thing was to walk out into the alkali and sagebrush fields surrounding Little Oklahoma in Southeast Bakersfield and plink stinkbugs and grasshoppers. Nevertheless, in my imagination so long as I was carrying that Red Ryder Carbine, cocking, aiming and shooting it I was transported to that mystical world, that special and all too soon to pass domain of fantasy and make believe belonging to childhood, in which so many other children like me dwelled.

However, making the transition from childhood to real guns designed to kill has a very long tradition in America. From the time of colonization on our history as a nation has been steeped in bloodshed and even Henry Thoreau recommended boys should shoulder a fowling piece and learn to shoot. Our Founding Fathers recognized the liberty of our nation could only be maintained by an armed citizenry prepared to do battle against any tyranny of government, which was the basis of our Second Amendment right to own and bear arms.

But whether rocks, sticks, bows and arrows, sword or gun play, children in all cultures, primarily boys, are raised with the idea of battle being a part of that culture. And the worst part is a warrior culture breeds the concept there is something honorable and heroic about doing battle in wars, romanticizing the idea that killing people is the correct thing to do. For our species to even survive in the face of such brutal conditions in the past makes this sensible, but the hope has long been civilization would eventually displace such violence. However, when conditions deteriorate for any nation and it becomes a question of survival the veneer of civilization is quickly stripped away.

Much like the monster in Forbidden Planet that Morbius said he felt was never far away, such is the monster human beings have always had to live with. The monster of the wars men make is known by the battles and bloodshed outwardly, but that unseen monster not far away is always at the ready to pounce even in the most civilized of cultures.

As a nation America has a long history of glorifying violence, of romanticizing wars, honors and laurels going to our most illustrious heroes, monuments built, stories written and films made doing homage to Mars, and even the Psalmist thanked God for “teaching my hands to war.” Yet the sanest of minds realize violence only begets more violence, and a civilized society that permits violence to be romanticized in any fashion cannot long remain a civilized society.

When I was a boy it didn’t enter my mind to take either my cap guns or my Red Ryder BB gun to school. Children way back then were taught better, and we knew the proper place for such things. This had changed considerably when I became a teacher in Watts during the 60s and I did carry a gun to school. But I quickly realized the dangers pupils and teachers faced in that environment were going to become the same dangers in schools across America.

As an expert gunsmith and a handloader of several decades now, being born to guns and hunting being a part of my childhood I am a steadfast member of the NRA and proponent of Right to Carry. But now the present lunacy of encouraging teachers to carry guns in their classrooms is nearly beyond my comprehension! But I can understand the events in our culture leading up to such a thing, and none of them are encouraging for our survival as a civilized society. You simply cannot encourage barbarism and violence without reaping the whirlwind.

One might think children being recruited by barbarian nations for their armies and as homicidal suicide bombers only a peculiarity of such nations, throwbacks to the time when even children were taught the lessons of the survival of the fittest against the brutal times and circumstances in which they lived. But now the barbarians roam the streets of America and attend our schools, and children are being taught by Hollywood and TV, so-called games that violence is to be an acceptable part of their culture!

It is no longer safe to walk the streets of America, and it all goes back to the difference in the culture in which I was raised and what has overtaken America in its place. Like the old Bugs Bunny cartoons with which I was raised, we children knew that despite the violence they were only cartoons and did not mistake them for real life. But when perverted cartoons began to intrude with a different form of violence actually intended to promote violence in real life, ah, that was something quite different.

For all its deficiencies my Norman Rockwell generation was able to muddle through with a system of education that actually taught Johnny to read, write, and cipher, a generation that held teachers to certain standards and schools were a place of discipline and safety as well as instruction. That has long been betrayed and traded for a failed system of education in which none of these is true.

But for those of us who experienced Norman Rockwell’s America, for those like me that experienced as a teacher what was happening in our schools during the 60s the trend forecast was not that difficult to make. As to safety for children in the schools, that went the way of an entire society that began to act as though it actually hated children! And now we have come to the sorry pass where it is even a matter of debate as to whether to arm teachers! God help America because no one else can when Bang! You’re dead! is no longer a game children play.

Is America doomed as a sovereign nation? Apart from something of a catastrophic nature that will cause us to come together and lead us out of danger I believe our nation will be the Babylon of Revelation. America has been mortgaged by politicians and their global bosses for far more than can possibly be paid, and by now I have no doubt our “leaders” are in bed with a corrupt Mexico and drug cartels not only for profit but to anesthetize as many people as possible from the grim realities, and lending propaganda to our enemies that Americans are only interested in being drugged out, getting fat, sex, especially perverted sex, being entertained and feeding at the public tax trough while prisons, welfare, crime, drugs, violence and slave labor are America’s growth industries.

It is absolutely fascinating the many discoveries in science now leading to things that were only the subject of SciFi not long ago. Among these is the possibility of Einstein’s “Spooky action at a distance” that may involve speeds 10,000 times the speed of light and things existing in what can rightly be called a spiritual dimension not a part of time and space. But those of us who believe in God always held to a spiritual sense of things more real than the physical universe we can observe while confined by mortal bodies.

Despite the little short of miraculous discoveries and achievements of science, the same kind of science is not being applied to the way government operates. On the contrary, politicians behave as though they had taken complete leave of their senses and nothing of the scientific method is allowed to penetrate the way politicians do business. While devout evolutionists beat their drum of godlessness, their energy would be better spent questioning how politicians evolved and what is to be done about that peculiar utterly depraved and predatory species without any redeeming qualities.

Even apart from any eschatological dispensationalist interpretations of the Bible it would be difficult to see America much longer surviving as anything like a sovereign nation with our liberties intact based solely on the harsh economic and burgeoning violent realities facing us. We are facing some very grim conditions in our history and the leaders of America having sacrificed our heritage, culture, language and borders for the sake of slave labor fueled by greed and corruption nothing but the most catastrophic of events can turn the tide. As it is, the barbarians in America aided by the ACLU and encouraged by the Bush administration and nothing better in sight are turning cities into hell holes for law abiding citizens.

America as a whole is beginning to resemble the Broken Window Syndrome, graffiti spread everywhere by the barbarians marking their turf and no viable solution to the problem to be had that the ACLU will not thwart, ghettos and barrios overtaking civilized living while millions of illegal aliens pour through our open borders and our infrastructure is threatened while billions are being spent on that of foreign nations, our educational and health care systems, social services are an utter shambles with no viable and substantive let alone palatable possibility of improvement, the demands on these by unproductive mouths outstripping the ability of the productive reaching a disastrous moment of reckoning at any time now. Medicare and Social Security are now on the table and our leaders have no solution for the future of these.

World leaders like those of Russia and China, Muslim nations are fully aware of what is happening to America and will act accordingly. Putin knows America has a demented fool in the White House and the insult of a totally unqualified Negro woman (bin Laden who?) speaking down to him and making threats on behalf of her sponsoring demented fool can only fuel that very sharp and intelligent KGB leader’s anger at America. In my opinion, Putin knew what he had to do when the demented fool in the White House said he looked into Putin’s soul and saw a good man there. This had to throw Putin into a spluttering rage! The mentally challenged Bush declaring he looked into the cold dead eyes of a soulless Putin and saw a good man! “Who is this damned, idiotic fool to tell the world what he saw in me!” Putin could not help but take it for the egregious and towering insult it in fact was to such a man!

But fools like Ronald Reagan of betraying, amnesty infamy for illegal aliens opening the floodgates for the invasion of America by the unnumbered millions of barbarians from Mexico would anger the Old Guard of Russia, and the betraying fools in the White House following Reagan together with propaganda from Hollywood demonizing Russia only continued to fuel the fires of such hatred toward America! The Devil has a very long memory and can be extraordinarily patient.

In my opinion America will soon be in such a bad case people will be as ready for a Hitler as the Germans were, crying out for a strong man that will do what is necessary to simply keep people from starving to death. As it is, even the most obtuse can look at America’s government and institutions and have to realize that as a nation we are so fragmented and divided, literally coming apart at the seams and so without any national identity or purpose, without accountability or responsibility on the part of our leaders there is no doubt America is doomed without a strong and ruthless leadership that will make the hard decisions to save our nation. And only the most catastrophic of events like those Germany faced at the time will allow of such strong and ruthless leadership.

We do not have a leadership at present that can save America, nor is there any in the offing. There is no viable alternative to keeping the oil flowing to keep our nation alive. But at what point does the essential need for oil meet an impasse of demand outstripping either supply or means to pay for it on the part of ordinary American citizens? Especially when unnumbered millions of illegal aliens are making demands on supplies and services legitimate citizens are struggling to provide for themselves? And to add insult to injury being extorted by taxation without representation to pay the bills for the illegals and their slave labor the wealthy profit from!

If I had not lived that era of concentration camps and rationing here in America I would undoubtedly be saying like so many without such experience “It can’t happen here in America.” But I lived it, and it did happen here in America. And conditions for Americans are deteriorating so rapidly I can see it happening again. Nor is there any question in my mind who those will be rounded up and placed in the coming concentration camps, all those without proper papers, that our military will be guarding our borders with shoot to kill! authorization.

While Hitler had the Jews to scapegoat, homosexuals and those like present members of organizations such as the ACLU, La Raza, and NAACP will be simple to demonize and the targets for the multiplied millions of hurting and angry Americans, and the espousers and propagandists of political correctness will quickly become a flashpoint of intense anger beginning with those in the universities, MSM, Hollywood as the targets for such intense anger! If I were on any kind of a list I would be checking it more than twice to see if it could put me at risk from a totalitarian government like that of Hitler’s Germany. But now, such people would be far more easily located and rounded up.

Any combination of circumstances can lead a nation into anarchy or a dictatorship. Americans would be foolish to entertain the notion we are immune from such a thing. The flashpoints of history leading to such disasters for nations can be of the most trivial and seemingly innocuous at the time, but there is always a short fuse lurking to ignite the explosion. We are now sitting on a number of powder kegs, and they all have a short fuse. Apart from the many dangerous flashpoints in America perhaps Israel will feel that tiny nation has to attack Iran. Then what? Perhaps someone in India or Pakistan will loose a nuke. Then what?

Right now anyone of a sane mind is hoping things now going on will not spiral out of control and ignite WWIII; but a sane mind is always open to the probabilities. However, who of a sane mind would even put our nation or the world in such harm’s way as to even pose such a threat? But who in their right mind would be making decisions encouraging open borders, slave labor and the destruction of America’s heritage, culture, language, and secure borders surely knowing full well no nation can possibly survive without these? Will Americans now be prepared to suffer soup lines, or even the sacrifices that were required to win WWII? Not a chance; on the contrary the circumstances are pointing the way for a strong man to arise, an American Hitler or Putin that will take control of the situation that the desperation of circumstances will pave the way for. Or we may simply implode in helpless chaos as a nation because of the greed, corruption, and ineptness of our leaders before such a deliverer arises.

The 1960 film Inherit the Wind I thought one of Gene Kelly’s best roles because I never cared that much for him as a song and dance man. But he showed his versatility as an actor in this particular film. However, when Spencer Tracy asks Fredric March “Where did this extra woman come from?” regarding Cain’s wife virtually nothing was known about “Mitochondrial Eve” that scientists say suddenly appeared from out of nowhere some 200,000 years ago, a real embarrassment to devout evolutionists, and became in the words of Genesis “The mother of all living.” It may be the Genesis story is based on facts long lost and the source of the story about Adam and Eve may be of far greater antiquity than anyone has speculated though I still hold to the thought Modern Man capable of extraordinary achievements is a special creation of God.

But when our human ancestors might have been reduced to near extinction some 70,000 years ago as some believe to a population of only about 2,000 the story of Noah predating the Gilgamesh Epic by thousands of years may have involved a very small number of humans at the time, and from this miniscule number of survivors we now total over 6,000,000,000 it really staggers the imagination! Sometimes I find myself asking God; Hey! What’s with all the people? It certainly is putting a strain on our planet.

Despite all the theories surrounding the Big Bang while intensely interesting none are satisfactory in explaining how life could have come out of this unimaginable explosion, though visually delightful portrayals abound; what life is and its origin continue to be the mysteries they have always been. I believe God is the originator and giver of life as declared in the Bible, and nothing in science contradicts this belief. But how the mystery of Romance came about, ah, that is the stuff of another area of intense interest and speculation to me, one about which I have written at great length.

From the Genesis account I conclude there was a great amount of chaos in the beginning (the Big Bang?), and out of this chaos God brought order and ours became a privileged solar system and a miracle earth in which the miracle of intelligent life could be formed and survive. While W. G. Scroggie wrote about the “Romance of Redemption” I don’t believe he gave due hermeneutical attention to the miracle of romance between a man and a woman; but the implication of it is found in the creation of Adam and Eve where it is stated the husband shall cleave to his wife putting her first above all others. Jesus commenting on this confronted the Pharisees declaring a bill of divorcement was allowed only because of the hardness of their own hearts, but from the beginning of God’s creation of Adam and Eve it was not so.

Enter Satan and things really fell apart for Adam and Eve, but the issue of romance continued. Women became the softer and gentler, civilizing influence on men, attempting to make homes despite the wars of men, and they became the subject of romance. Take away the romance between men and women and you have wiped out all the civilizing influences of women. But poets can only flourish in an atmosphere of romance, and if deprived of women inspiring romance in the hearts of men you really don’t have much of a civilization to brag about, and sex has never been a satisfactory substitute for romance.

So it is I have come to despair of conditions for women ever prospering where their youth and beauty is debased to being the encouraging of lust rather than romance, the kind of romance God intended in the creation of Adam and Eve. But when the romance of courtship and all that should go with this is treated of no consequence, when women cheapen themselves and show they do not value themselves the brute nature of men is unchecked. An excellent example of this is Harper Lee’s choice of an innocent little girl to disarm and disperse that lynch mob, something that no man or boy could do; nor could a grown woman where the value of chastity has fallen to the wayside. The proverb is all too true: Beauty fades; virtue remains.

Hollywood and TV have certainly danced to the Devil’s tune when it comes to marriage, ridiculing and cheapening it at every turn. When divorce became as simple as buying a bottle of shampoo, the shampoo sometimes requiring more thought before making a choice, it became increasingly difficult for poets to entertain the notion the romance of fidelity was worth the effort. Such a thing as the sanctity of the marriage bed became a quaint anachronism, and the inspiration of poets fell victim to this as well. But as with the Pharisees of old, it was the hardness of hearts that twisted and distorted the intention of God.

What is a nation without ideals? When I wrote Birds With Broken Wings it was with all due consideration for prostitutes, for the unfairness of life where women bear the larger burden of the curse of God, where men brutalize women and sometimes divorce is the only way out of a brutal marriage, but the value of little Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird remained unchanged though even a prostitute may have a virtuous heart.

We humans sublimate all kinds of things when our ideals are betrayed; when life delivers such catastrophic blows to our finer sensibilities the ideals often give way and bow to grim realities. But somehow the ideals remain unchanged, though when it comes to the romantic relationships between men and women leading as God intended to marriage there is little left now in America for poets to work with.

Damned by faint praise is a familiar expression. No real friend is going to do this to you; a real friend loves at all times despite Emerson’s cautionary words about expectations of friendship, though friends will welcome each other’s gifts no matter how the gift itself may disappoint. It really should come down to the value of the person, not matters in which they may disagree. Such should be the way of a courtship.

A courtship is the way an ideal marriage should begin; a time for a man and woman and their respective families to get to know each other, whether it is a suitable match. But without romance, without the love letters and flowers such a marriage must be a roll of the dice at best, and while it takes an entire society to work together for the benefit of children, this is no less true of marriage; and a society may be fairly judged concerning being civilized on these. We value marriage and children or we don’t, we encourage both or we don’t. It becomes increasingly clear these are no longer the criteria of values for America, and fidelity in marriage has now become nothing but fodder for those that would cheapen the value of this and have no soul for real romance.

A point I raise in the Birds book is the all too prevalent attitude encouraged by a callous society, “There is nothing wrong with me another partner won’t fix.” Hollywood and TV agree with this, and while a better partner may be found this will not take the place of God’s intended romance between the original couple. But when fidelity and marriage are denigrated, when divorce is a commonplace and women are only valued for their sex, for their youth and beauty there is no room for romance; there is no longer any inspiration for poets to write about women and extol their genuine virtues.

Women have long been the inspiration for the best and most civilized works of men, but when women are reduced to being only objects there is nothing to inspire such works of men. I believe there are many soulless people in the world, and in the end it may prove the loss of romance is where America lost its soul, and that America has become actually fearful of romance since it contradicts what has become success by worldly definition and lost its soul I have little doubt. Nor do I doubt men and women realize this loss of romance in their lives, this loss of a soul and inwardly yearn for the salvation of its return.

For sheer asininities in government you cannot trump that which is found in leadership positions in the universities and their product schools throughout America. And an argument can be made the most catastrophic result of this was Rod Paige who cooked the books so well in Texas that George Bush rode his success as the “Education Governor” in turning around failing schools into the White House and rewarded Paige by making him Education Secretary with the resulting debacle of No Child Left Behind. By the time the wholesale lying, scheming, and falsifying of data and documents by Paige was discovered the damage had been done; the embarrassing Paige was gone but Caesar Bush was firmly enthroned and NCLB became law.

At the same time what the scheming of the Bush Administration with the aid of a complicit Congress did in lying America into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq what Paige did in Texas can be found in school districts all across America where the wholesale cooking of books continues apace because of there being no viable method of accountability whether it be finances, test scores, ADA or dropout rates. While chicanery is a commonplace of businesses and corporations there is nothing to match the obfuscation and resulting chicanery to be found in the business of education in America that operates above and beyond any attempts to hold the schools accountable for their intended function to educate.

When it comes to absolute hopelessness of anything in government improving, there is nothing to match the utterly failed system of education in America for such sheer hopelessness; it is beyond redemption. I’m a professionally qualified expert in education and am fully qualified by training and experience to pronounce this damning indictment of the universities and their product schools, and my doctoral dissertation for my Ph. D. was on the subject of the utter lack of accountability in our schools, something I had personal knowledge of from my own experience long before the Blue Book “A Nation at Risk;” and in reading this dour assessment by the professionals I knew at the time there was no hope of anything being done to turn the failed system of education in America around. ANR as with all such studies offered absolutely nothing of substance in dealing with the problem, it was the typically empty rhetoric of educationese meant to dazzle with fancy footwork totally lacking in anything specific that would be done to solve the problems besetting the schools.

Just in case you missed it there was an interview reported by the AP May 10, 2008 about U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings concerning failing schools in America: "I think it's going to take leadership, commitment and expectations. It's just like with the kids: If you think you have a bunch of kids who can't get to grade level, that's what you have. If you think you have superstars, that's what you have. With half the black and Hispanic students in the country dropping out before graduation, anything less than aggressive action to turn around the failing districts is unacceptable. Under some of the states' current improvement plans, it would take some districts more than 100 years to bring students' reading and math skills to grade level. The accountability — all the testing, all the data, all the stuff we do — are meaningless unless we have real consequences for failure.”

I’ve heard it all before; the empty rhetoric without anything of substance, the typical and empty education jargon equally empty leaders mouth expecting such utter nonsense to be taken seriously as though there were anything of substance being said. Who possessed of reason can possibly believe “If you think you have a bunch of kids who can't get to grade level, that's what you have. If you think you have superstars, that's what you have.”? Does Ms. Spelling actually believe positive thinking can replace all the detrimental things like lack of fathers in homes too many of which English is not the native language or is corrupt, abject poverty, the lack of positive role models and lack of emphasis on education in homes and society that are needed to encourage children to value an education?

And if you ask anyone like Ms. Spellings what exactly is to be done to turn the situation around she has absolutely no clue. But those that understand what exactly needs to be done are effectively muzzled by the Ed. hierarchy that decides who will be heard and who will not, who will be punished for addressing the issues honestly. Coming up through the ranks of a system that rewards those that toe the party line and punish those that do not I came to realize a system doomed to fail could not be better designed to fail had it been done intentionally!

For those that want to contradict my indictment of the universities and schools I’ll match my credentials to do so with any. And I would challenge any to match my experience as a witness to the embezzlement and fraud, the falsifying of documents, the way the schools do business without a shred of accountability. But whether “Intellectual Schizophrenia” or “Education’s Smoking Gun” there has been no end of documentation enumerating the reasons for America’s failed system of education and none of the recommendations have been implemented to correct the multiplicity of problems besetting the schools of America.

The schools of education continue to be the laughingstock and embarrassment on university campuses they have been for decades, the curriculum for teacher training lacking anything substantial to warrant calling anyone truly educated earning the pejorative basket weaving courses with little of the hard sciences being required beyond the most elementary, earning the further pejorative “Those that can, do; those that can’t, teach.” The failure to require any mastery of mathematics or anything other than sociology courses attracts the least qualified to careers in education and this has been the situation for many decades. Things are no better when considering the college training for those choosing careers in Social Services.

Universities are the one sacred cow of America, and all those in positions of authority in America are the products of the universities and none will touch this one sacred cow and call the universities to account. It is the amorality of the universities that endear them to those without any standards of morality, of which politicians are the cream of the crop.

Ah, but the caveat is always required, always having to mention the many good people I have known personally as teachers, the many colleagues of mine throughout the decades I spent as a teacher that cared about children and were exceptions to the general rule, who despite the lack of real education they received in their college and university training on their own mastered skills that had not been a requirement of the teacher training curriculum.

But I’m always reminded as well of the interview for my first teaching assignment with the L. A. City Schools in the 60s. The interviewer, a fellow named Gordon Funk, looked at my application and said, “English and history teachers are a dime-a-dozen; we’ve got ‘em coming out of our ears; but you spent twelve years as a machinist in aerospace companies. How about teaching shop classes for us?”

This was my first clue where the priorities in education were at the time; but it was also a time when jobs were plentiful and vocational education was a major player in the schools. Little did I realize it was also a way to generate enormous amounts of state and federal money for the schools most of which was never questioned as to how it was used. It was as an administrator once told me, “If the money is just lying there why not take it?”

Well, vocational classes have been eviscerated since it was determined by the universities and their product politicians everyone was going to become a doctor or lawyer, that the manual skills were a thing of the past and beneath the dignity of a New America. Besides, the jobs were drying up because of our leaders deciding it was better for America to dismantle our industries and set up shop in foreign nations.

But along with the loss of jobs that used to bestow real dignity on those that could earn a living with their hands came the new America that has descended into the abyss of ignorance and illiteracy as though the lie could be credited such a thing as freedom could be the handmaiden to a failed system of education in America. So it is that welfare and prisons are the growth industries of California now, and politicians and their toadies continue to mouth empty rhetoric about how our schools are failing and how to fix the unfixable. I long ago pointed out the lunacy of asking the same people that created the problems for solutions to the problems.

As those like Ms. Spellings so well amplify they still haven’t a clue, and short of a revolution or other catastrophic event that will change the whole scope of priorities in America our schools will continue in their failure to educate children. The schools are being asked to do the impossible, to make bricks without straw in the face of insurmountable obstacles such as non-English speaking pupils and the demands of political correctness.

However, it is the universities of America that bear the ultimate responsibility for this being the case, and unless they are held accountable for their failure no one else is going to be held accountable for failure. And what are the chances the amoral universities of America are going to be held accountable and change their way of doing business. They may point with pride to the many from foreign countries wanting to enroll in American universities, of the high esteem in which American universities are held. But the schools of education on American campuses continue to be the laughingstock and embarrassment they have been for decades and that is not likely to change, and it is the graduates from these rather than the scientists, doctors, et al. that become administrators and the teachers in the classrooms of America deciding the fate of children.

When I read about a spike in the number of people unable to pay their energy bills it came as no surprise. It doesn’t seem that long ago a minimum order for propane here in the Kern River Valley was $50. I called this morning and was told the minimum order is now $234! There are many people here in the valley I know cannot afford to pay for propane at this new minimum order.

As politicians pander over an energy bill I wonder how many people are going to be hurting this winter unable to pay the costs of heating their homes? I don’t have much sympathy for those that believe A/C is their right rather than a privilege and I have managed to live without it for years, an electric fan and wet towel around my neck sufficing for the hottest days, but when it comes to heating your home things get a little dicey. I’m accustomed to living like a desert rat in summer and bundling like an Eskimo in winter, and I think many are going to have to change their lifestyles since it would be vain to believe or even hope politicians are going to change theirs. Much in the way of “Let them eat cake” and “Only the little people pay taxes,” the song from Camelot keeps coming to mind regarding politicians: “What Do the Simple Folk Do?”

Much as I despise and am revolted by Obama and his wife for the disgusting and thoroughly repugnant charlatans they are and a MSM wallowing in the same filth I don’t believe some “wrinkled old white dude” is going to pull a rabbit out of the hat to save the Simple Folk of America since all politicians serve the Devil, not the interests of America or Americans that are suffering from the evil politicians do in service to their own selfish interests and the Evil One. Perhaps the best we can hope for is the occasional bit of humor injected by some like Paris Hilton who is her own person and is honest in flaunting exactly who she is without apology. Would that politicians were at least that honest, even though none of them would ever likely be so attractive.

On the plus side it looks like Israel is getting ready for some heavy duty lifting knowing there are few who sympathize with that tiny nation surrounded by enemies all around. I dare call this a plus because Israel lives in a constant state of warfare declared by the nation’s Muslim enemies, and there are no Muslims in authority restraining the enemies of Israel.

I’m reminded of the graphic images of Muslims dancing in the streets following 9/11. You would never see Americans dancing in the streets over the news of 3,000 innocent civilians being murdered in the name of some deity and its “prophet.” And Muslims in America were conspicuous by their absence in decrying this atrocity by some of their own committed against innocent American civilians. But the enemies of America right here in our own nation continue to their disgrace to be apologists for Muslims! As Europe is discovering and doubtless America will also, you do not take the viper of Islam to your breast and not be bitten.

But the refusal of Caesar Bush and Company to deal with 9/11 immediately and decisively at the time led me very early to the conclusion that if they were not actually complicit in the Attack on America they were certainly complicit in giving aid and comfort to the Muslim enemies of America for the sake of power and wealth, fabricating the reasons for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I remind myself this charade could never have been accomplished without the agreement and complicity of an equally corrupt Congress. And if as I suppose it will this Bush administration will be recorded as the most corrupt and inept in our nation’s history, the record will also have to show it could not have been so without the aid of Congress.

Because of such thoroughgoing corruption and ineptness among politicians most of us are living on the edge waiting for another shoe of disaster to drop. As though the weather were not enough to cause so much misery for millions of Americans we have to live with the idea our own leaders are in league with the Devil, selling out and betraying America at every opportunity for their own selfish interests, refusing to even secure our borders for the sake of slave labor from Mexico. And these same leaders expect the Simple Folk to believe any of them are seriously interested in national security!

Our ER’s are in crisis largely because of illegal aliens while at the same time some hospitals are recruiting bogus patients to scam the system, our leaders are more interested in serving foreign nations than America, and all the while We the People are treated to the empty suits spouting rhetoric in glittering generalities without any specifics lying to get elected and lying to stay elected. Perhaps the Big One will strike the west coast and rearrange the political scene as well as the geographical, or perhaps extraterrestrials will come to our rescue.

Welfare and prisons are California’s growth industries all the while the state’s politicians are obviously dedicated only to their own selfish interests rather than doing anything of substance to solve our state’s bankrupt status. I see our nation’s leaders acting no differently, and believe some are in bed with drug cartels and worse! But that song from Camelot keeps playing in my mind since it appears our leaders are divorced from the reality of us Simple Folk, and I wonder what our heating bills are going to be this winter?

It has never occurred to me to say to God “I sure hope you know what you are doing.” One of several reasons for this is I believe in God, but this belief is far from my being able to understand. I have often become angry with God; I have often questioned the many injustices and monstrous things happening to good people, the very obvious unfairness and inequities of life disregarding the admonition about the creature questioning the Creator “Why have you made me thus?” But none of this has led me to saying to God I sure hope he knows what he is doing. If he does it is quite beyond my understanding, and if he doesn’t it is far beyond my doing anything about it.

Still there are the Biblical accounts where God has seemed open to talking things over with people, even an appeal by God to people to engage him on the basis of reasoning together, inviting the children of God to provide their own input to the conversation. The early church council in Jerusalem has it the leaders together with the Holy Spirit decided how to handle the problem of admitting Gentiles to their fellowship, a case of God and men reasoning together in order to reach a conclusion about some matter. These among many other things led me to the conclusion that God may not be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, that God is not perfect by our limited understanding of perfection but may have attributes that make him more human than professional religionists are willing to either consider or accept.

For example, if everything had gone according to the plan of what may have been a council of the gods resulting in creating humankind after their image as we read in Genesis it would appear not everything went according to plan. At that, I believe there may be a hierarchy of gods of which there is a Supreme Deity ultimately responsible for life and the creation of the universe while other lesser deities, the “sons of God” as we read about in Job might be responsible for lesser creations. And there is the matter of the sons of God commingling with the daughters of men to consider as well.

Beginning with God many of my beliefs are beyond my understanding of them, but this is only a degree of separation as in Same Come Running when Dave rants at Ginny for saying she liked his story but can’t explain why and accuses her of being too stupid to understand what he wrote! How dare she say she liked what he wrote when she was too stupid to understand it! Her reply that she doesn’t understand him either but she likes him took Dave completely off guard and results in him asking Ginny to marry him, realizing it is far more important to be loved than to be understood. I must suppose this is the relationship we have with God.

I don’t know if James Jones actually considered the theology of this exchange between Dave and Ginny, but given his sensitivity I wouldn’t be surprised. While the film version turned out to be a cinematic triumph, Jones was disappointed in his novel that it did not meet his expectations of himself. In my opinion the disappointment of Jones was his knowing he was reaching for something he hadn’t quite grasped, but didn’t realize how very close he had come to it in that exchange between Dave and Ginny where he failed to follow through satisfactorily. It was an opportunity missed only a gifted writer like Jones could sense, or believe if you will, but not understand. I have seen the same thing happen with many talented writers, some of literary genius, a classic example being Melville’s Moby Dick.

In the case of great artists there are virtually none who ever achieved what they believed to have been the best of which they were capable. There was always something better of which they seemed to sense they were capable, and in many cases it has been the driving compulsion of artists striving throughout their lives to reach that ultimate goal. I sense this very thing in Genesis where we read that God was sorry he had created man, and like the artist destroying what they consider an unworthy effort decided to destroy all of humankind.

Beginning with God I go on seeming without let to beliefs without understanding them, trying to separate what I know from what I believe in the hope I don’t confuse them and be led into error because of my beliefs. I’ve never heard God responding when I talk to him, but I believe he hears me. I believe I will join my departed loved ones and friends in a hereafter though I have no facts to support this belief. I continue to commune with these loved ones and friends during the day and these are my last conversations before falling asleep each night. But then I don’t really understand butterflies, I simply enjoy them.

 How could Newton be possessed of such genius in science on the one hand and look for a Bible Code on the other? The answer is that he didn’t, despite some believing he actually did. The history of eccentricity on the part of some possessed of genius does allow for many an apocryphal story, but the more outrageous of these are generally exposed or at best taken with more than just a grain of salt. Right now stories are circulating about the Phoenix Lander and what is being discovered on Mars, but some attributions are in error and clouding the picture.

However, it isn’t any wonder someone with the genius of Newton has attempted to understand some of the prophetic writings of the Bible. There is a very valid reason for Philosophy and Theology being called the King and Queen of academic disciplines. The best minds of humankind have always been drawn to both disciplines and the intermingling of them in many instances is quite understandable, but those who have dedicated their lives to either have often confused what they believe as speculation with what they know as fact.

But the very genius of Newton recognized the same thing so many have, that some parts of the Bible do in fact have the ring of truth to them and invite the attention and study of those with inquiring minds even considering the possibility that God has in fact spoken to people in time past, that some of these things are recorded in the Bible for future speculation and instruction. Among these things are the Biblical references to Satan and the world being his dominion; that we struggle against the evils of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, that the battle is one of the spirit struggling with the things of the flesh through which as it reads in Job the Devil attempts to frustrate the work of God in the lives of his children.

In many cases the poetic expression of the heart having its reasons of which reason knows nothing has been true in my own life. At those times when reason might have prevented some act of kindness for example, many of us have acted against reason. From unselfishness which is often against reason came the saying of Jesus that there is no greater love than that of laying down your life for a friend, and how much of parenting is that of sacrifice, an act against reason, for the sake of children without the parent ever having the sense of making any sacrifice.

There is too much truth to “He ain’t heavy Mister- he’s m’ brother!” for skeptics to discount. For the most part when it comes to my beliefs beginning with my belief in God I reserve my skepticism for those like politicians. I don’t understand God, but I do understand politicians.

Kids and critters make for some interesting interactions, like what do you do if you’re a kid and catch a porcupine? This is not “Can I have a pony?” or the kind of animal you tell the folks “It followed me home; can I keep it?”

While camping out in the Piutes prospecting for tungsten at the time of the Tehachapi earthquake my dog Tippy showed up with a nose full of porcupine quills. After doctoring Tippy, I fashioned a lasso from a length of rope and went in search of the critter and found it not far away under a large pine tree. It wasn’t difficult to get the loop over the critter’s head and I dragged it back to our camp at Saddle Springs. Now I had a pet porcupine. But other than looking at it and marveling at the strangeness of it what does anyone do with a porcupine? It isn’t like I could pet it or teach it any tricks, but for some odd reason it just seemed like the thing to do; lasso the very large porcupine and drag it back to our camp.

Maybe I was just trying to get even with the critter for hurting Tippy? After all, Tippy wasn’t the kind of dog to harm critters and might have just been curious and here this forest varmint gives him a nose full of quills rather than being friendly! After a time, I released the porcupine not having the foggiest notion of what else to do with it though I suppose it might have made a dinner for us. I was raised not to be squeamish about such things, and grandad being quite wise in wilderness lore taught me better than to name something we might eat or putting up with any nonsense about a pet “Yearling.”

But there is no accounting for the way kids and critters sometimes relate. One night I was awakened by a faint scratching sound inside our cabin on the mining claim. I had a flashlight by my bed and shined it in the direction of the slight sound and there was a skunk on the draining board of our sink. We didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing, but grandad had put in a sink where we could wash dishes and the water drained outside the cabin. Apparently the skunk was looking for something to eat.

I was fascinated by the thought of having a pet skunk, but being nocturnal it would only visit at night so I began to leave scraps of food for it before going to bed. For some reason it didn’t seem prudent for me to advise my grandparents of my visitor (Of such decisions on the part of children often come the nightmares of parents). This worked quite well until I forgot to put Tippy out for the night.

We were all awakened by the pungent odor, and when grandad lit the coal oil lamp a smoky blue haze could be seen hanging in the air. Seems Tippy had once more tried to be friendly with a critter and the skunk didn’t cotton to him. Grandad exhibiting a downright uncharitable attitude toward my pet skunk set about its demise with cyanide-laced sardines. But the skunk having tangled with Tippy and apparently not wanting to make friends with him did not return. However, grandad’s plan did result in finding our cat dead as a doornail the following day.

The Sequoia National Forest was an idyllic place for a boy like me before the Isabella Dam was built and the lake went in. The thousands of acres in which I hunted and fished back then without ever encountering another person seemed designed for a natural born, budding mountain man and I imagined myself taking my rightful place alongside Kit Carson and other worthies; it was just the critters and me without any interlopers or outside interference; absolutely grand and as I came to appreciate an enchanted, almost fairytale world all my own.

There were the drawbacks to be sure; having only a woodstove and fireplace for cooking and heating required I cut down trees, sawed, chopped and split a lot of wood, but because of this I was never in better physical shape in my life though while other children dreamed of bicycles I dreamed of having a chainsaw, but never got one. And living with only a hand-dug well for water presented difficulties of its own.

When it comes to the great outdoors I have no illusions about the simple life in such an environment and I continue to marvel at what it took for my maternal great-grandmother and grandparents to have lived in such harsh, demanding, and very unforgiving conditions. I was a boy and took it all in stride, but what fortitude the old folks must have had to do so without ever a word of complaint speaks of the kind of character they had as my role models. Me complain about living without A/C or a swamp cooler here in the Kern River Valley during the heat of summer? Not hardly. I’m grateful for just having electricity and indoor plumbing. And in winter there is no having to heat water in a kettle on a woodstove after kindling and lighting that in the mornings to thaw out the hand pump for a well. I turn on a tap and out comes the water; but it is something that because of my having lived without such a wonder I have never taken for granted.

But I miss many things here in the valley I enjoyed as a boy. At the beginning of each summer I would move my bed outside under an old pine and fall asleep to the music only a pine tree can make as a soft and fragrant evening breeze brushed the needles of the tree with a pleasing sound as though an angel’s hands were gently moving over the strings of a heavenly harp.

There were seldom any bears around our place, so I didn’t worry about them as I slept outdoors. Of more worry now would be the two-legged barbarous, uncivilized creatures without any of the redeeming qualities of those found in nature.

Despite the lack of a population for society or the entertaining diversions common to city dwellers there was plenty of excitement to be found in nature for a boy like me. There was the time I was hunting quail for the family pot and Tippy chased up a mountain lion and seemed to aim it in my direction; but the big cat made a 90 degree turn from me as it abruptly showed up at a slow trot only about fifteen feet away! At least I had the good sense not to irritate the lion or get its attention with a load of #8 from a singleshot .410.

We never killed any wild critters excepting those that threatened livestock or as food for our table. Rattlesnakes and ground squirrels were the exceptions, and I dutifully effected the transmigration of these to the nether regions without a pang of conscience. Never in my life have I seen so many fleas as found on a ground squirrel!

It seems it takes too many people crowding in where nature never intended them to turn everything topsy-turvy. I don’t begrudge folks wanting to live with nature, but they should understand that nature has its own rules it plays by. But I would caution parents who think nature will accommodate curious children without threat or injury.

Looking back it amazes me that I survived some of the experiences I had here as a boy, some of which had I shared them with my grandparents might have given them heart failure! Guardian angels? Perhaps. But they do seem almost capricious at times, seeming to be quite choosey about who to guard from what, and nowhere in the literature fabulous as it may be about them do I find any accommodation for just plain stupidity; of such are those in my opinion for example that believe lions and tigers make neat pets. I do admit to having a prejudice against caging wild animals even in zoos.

I would far rather nature was allowed to follow its own rules, but humans just seem determined to bend nature to their own will. I have to suppose from my own experience nature has a way of catching out the foolish and dealing with them. That the ways of nature are dreadfully harsh at times should be a lesson for all of us humans, but it seems we are determined to flaunt nature, even too often seeming to despise our own planet and treating it contemptuously and that I have to believe is to our own harm.

While nature is indeed red in tooth and claw, harsh and unforgiving of the foolish it is for us to accommodate ourselves to nature, not to destroy as is the way of overpopulation and growing demands on dwindling resources the good things nature supplies. Looking back I realize there are some things I learned from my pioneer life it has taken a lifetime to appreciate. I can only hope there are many without such an experience that will appreciate these things as well before it is too late and kids no longer have a chance to learn from nature and its critters in the wild.

America Without a Soul: While I like him few need Jack Cafferty telling us things are getting ugly out there, but I do understand the need to express his feelings about all the ugliness overtaking America and often feel like the ancient Israelites saying “Who will show us any good?” as we increasingly seem to slip ever further into Bunyan’s Slough of Despond. Life in too many instances is “nasty, short, and brutish,” but here of late in the face of so much bad news it has seemed to press upon me the need to hearken to those things good and beautiful that sustains us through the many midnights of the soul knowing there is more to a clock striking midnight than arousing haunting spirits to come forth.

Of the thousands of songs available I considered it a stroke of musical artistic genius to choose Ray Noble’s Midnight, the Stars and You as the theme song in the 1980 film The Shining; it was so representative of an era now long past filled with beautiful music. Those of us so old as to recall such melodies coming from radios across America can only shake our heads in often bewilderment over so much of the noise considered by some to be music today. But then I remind myself It Might as well be Spring from the 1945 film State Fair won an Oscar for Best Song and feel a melancholy sense of loss over the music of an entirely different America to which I was born than what our nation has become today resounding with noisy and discordant cacophony all about rather than pleasing melody and harmony.

Few my age seeing Casablanca when it appeared for the first time in theaters could have realized it would become a romantic icon, but I came to appreciate it as representative of an America that had a soul back then and one not criticized as either simplistic or altruistic, an America where a song like It Might as well be Spring could win an Oscar and the great musicals where poets last worked inspired so many of us to have hope for the future of a nation portrayed by Norman Rockwell and all the events of WWII when we stood together undivided as Americans against the Axis Powers. We were not then a nation without a soul when the great works of American literature, music, and films often provided employment to those with a soul and gave a voice to it.

It may be the cosmos is mechanical, cold and uncaring of life here on earth, but I don’t believe this since I believe in God. However, one point among several others of my departure from orthodoxy in its various forms is speculating the soul is sown a seed, and as in nature or the Parable of the Sower the seed may be sterile without the germ of life, it may fall in poor soil and unable to produce good fruit, or it might produce a weed. But for those familiar with gardening, as Henry Thoreau wrote of his bean field it is a daily battle to keep the weeds from overcoming the good fruits and the earth being cursed of God resulting in weeds because of Adam’s fall comes readily to mind.

Because of this I have come to believe there are many weeds in the world without a soul that only resemble humans outwardly. There is speculation about nature vs. nurture to be considered though I maintain there is such a thing as bad seed resulting in monsters such as those that prey on women and children and no amount of proper cultivation will change its very satanic and diabolical nature of evil. From such evil seed sprouts the haters and destroyers of beauty, those that would attempt to make a virtue of their vice attacking beauty. As it stands today, the weeds seem to be too much in abundance and they are choking out the good fruit of beauty as America suffers from the neglect of those that are elected to tend the garden, and the weeds of evil are taking over choking the life out of the beauty and soul of America.

As with mathematics, some have said music is a universal language. But while music has much of mathematics involved the arrangements by composers is more often an expression of a culture whether it be civilized or barbaric. However, there isn’t anything of barbarism in mathematics and unlike music it is a science that has no opinion about cultural expression. But when I consider America as a civilized nation with a soul when It Might as well be Spring won that Oscar and compare this to the often profane and vulgar noise of today the message is inescapable that America has lost its soul, even considering at times whether the evil seed that produced the weed of slavery may have eventually choked out the better seed that the Founding Fathers attempted to plant. The good seed of Freedom and the evil seed of Slavery could hardly have been expected to grow together and produce a good crop, something I believe Benjamin Franklin in his wisdom understood as he attempted to have slavery abolished by our Constitution.

Those that doubt whether America has lost its soul remind me of the time when I was teaching at David Starr Jordan in Watts during the 60s and a Caucasian principal stood onstage in the auditorium telling the whole student body “You gotta have soul for Jordan High.” I cringed and sank in my seat at such a travesty; that the man could make such an outrageous statement in such a sitting to such an audience! Who on earth did the man think he was to pronounce such a thing to these kids? I thought. No doubt Harper Lee and Eldridge Cleaver would have been quick to set him straight; as it was he didn’t last a full year as principal before he was removed. In retrospect I doubt he had read either To Kill A Mockingbird or Soul on Ice.

The story of Faust had a history long before Goethe’s masterful writing of it, but at what point did the leadership of America decide to strike a deal trading the soul of America to the Devil for power and wealth? Some might agree this happened when the Founding Fathers refused to abolish slavery, some might see it as happening through other events of American history such as Lincoln’s War or the Gilded Age and Robber Barons.

But even cast as a metaphor something happened that changed our nation from one that produced a Norman Rockwell and the great musicals to a nation fragmented and divided filled with increasing violence and vulgarity, forsaking and losing the civilized manners of the past. Perhaps it is only the poetic musings to which I incline that I even think in terms of America having lost its soul by whatever means, or even having a soul to lose. Nevertheless it is difficult to explain what has happened to the America in which I was born and raised, a nation that seems to have had a soul and compare that with America today and not have a sense that something of enormous value has been lost in the transition.

Whatever the cause for America’s loss of its soul one thing is indisputable to my way of thinking. You simply cannot plant weeds and expect good fruit to spring forth. You cannot glorify the barbarisms of hedonistic materialism, perversion and selfish self-gratification, violence of every kind and description and expect civilized good manners and behavior to result; you cannot encourage the enemies of beauty and expect anything but ugliness to take its place. America may yet experience a refreshingly pleasant breeze across the land that will dissipate the foul odor of mendacity, but unless beauty is encouraged and ugliness exposed and confronted for what it is as the enemy of beauty it would be vain to expect such a thing to happen, and if ugly, destructive weeds are planted and cultivated a crop of ugly, destructive weeds is all that can reasonably be expected.