MyStory

“Don’t go Anthropomorphic on Me”

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I do not think Donald Trump’s rebranding Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence is a good thing. I think it is a real misnomer. In fact, it is one step towards humanizing A/I. It reminds me of the movie Blade Runner based on Philip K Dick’s book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

A lot of people are preaching the end of humanity with the advances in A/I or S/I. In my mind, it is really nothing more than semantics. Is there something inherently being changed within this manufactured intelligences that warrants a name change? Is it more than a governmental rebrand? Is it like the New Coke debacle that took place in 1985 when Coke-Cola decided to dump its traditional Coke for something new? Oh, and that took a “real thing” belly flop for Coke.

Or, is “super intelligence” something much more. In Dick’s book he explores deeper forces taking place than just asking a chat bot to make a hotel reservation. According to litcharts.com Dick “suggests that empathy is humanity’s defining trait, contrasting it against the emotional detachment of androids.” My question is: would that same empathy be reciprocated, particularly if a human had to pull the plug on A/I.

Humanity has been living with some sort of dystopian end-of-the-world beliefs probably since man first started looking up at the stars at night and witnessed a complete lunar eclipse. These beliefs can be religious or from science fiction. On the science fiction side of it Orson Wells jump started the dystopian genre with his 1938 broadcast War of the Worlds. If anything, Jules Vern, Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas have proved Isaac Asimov belief that “today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact. We are in the world of A/I science fact.

For the most part Science fiction has given us helpful robots like “Robot” in the 1960s TV show: Lost in Space to R2D2 and C3PO in Star Wars. And of course there was the rouge Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Terminator. Both immediately opened us up the evil side of rouge A/I. Both introduced a doubt about “supper” intelligence cohabiting with humans.

But it is just not science fiction. Christianity itself is steeped in apocalyptic doom. The last book of the New Testament deals with the Second Coming; Take Revelation 6:8: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

Or as REM sings: It is the end of the world as we know. It is a concept that has been hanging over humanity for centuries–more so now with the advent of nuclear weapons. Where does A/I fit into this “brave new world.”

Whether we call it A/I or S/I our lives as humans are going to change. But that is what technolgy does it changes our lives. And for some it does mean the end of the world as they knew it. (Does anybody make buggy whips anymore?)

Take the shift from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. It happened way back in ancient times but it was a radical shift. That shift, though, did not take place with the lift of a switch or juice being sucked off into a data center. It was a slow moving change.

The Bronze Age was known for an era the when the Egyptian New Kingdom flourished, the pyramids in Geza were built. It was moving away from stone tools and the mixing of copper and tin that created a durable metal for weapons and tools. It could have been the rare earth metals of the day. But this alloy lead to advances in agriculture. The problem was that copper and tin just weren’t laying around. Copper and tin had to be mined. The mining of ore lead to trade which lead to some political stability for many centuries. The concept of free trade ends wars may have been a concept in its infancy then.

But like with any technology, somebody came up with a comparative mouse trap–and made it better. In this case iron. Some poor old metallurgist who ran out of copper and tin was searching around for a substitute and found it in iron and carbon. He came up with a better mouse trap and the Bronze Age slowly turned into the Iron Age. For humans, it was a game changer.

Now here is my game changer with artificial intelligence, it, is here to stay. But I like the term artificial because it is not human, nor is it human intelligence. Sure it may think like a human and sound like a human with the proper inputs–but it ain’t human. Is it super? Cambridge Dictionary defines super as “extremely good, above average, or to a very high degree. And, as a prefix Vocabulary.Com+5 say the word derives “from Latin meaning “above, over, or beyond,” denoting something that exceeds normal limits or ranks higher (e.g., superhuman, supersonic)” However, putting the word super in there we are automatically elevating A/I to a level above human, like Super-human.

Right now we are looking at machines but what happens when an android or robot creates a legal case that works its way up to the Supreme Court claiming its rights have been violated. Or, it has a right to exist. It may sound strange but then Citizens United affirmed the belief that a corporation, Political Action Committees and Unions have free speech rights–and they are not even sentient beings but a conglomeration of money.

Trumpapalooza: Chocolate Factory of Political Nonsense

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I did not immerse myself into The Donald Trump Show, a specaial called: Trumpapalooza. I did not bother to read Five Take Aways from what is billed as GOPer two-day midterm convention–a festival supposed to tout the Trump’s accomplishments before the 2026 elections. Actually I am tired of the zany antics of this president. It would be funny if it were a sitcom. But it is not.

The one big thing I did hear from this new episode in Season 6 of The Donald Trump Show is he is going to give me $5,000 if the GOP holds the majority in Congress, not necessarily a golden ticket to a chocolate factory. It is more of sweeting the midterm elections using fee speech and money. It is an old take on Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. It is easier than getting people drunk enough to vote for you.

When it comes to Trump I find myself like Lucille Ball and Ethel Mertz in an I Love Lucy episode that aired way back on September 15, 1952. First, before I go any further, I must say I did not see this episode when it aired in prime time. It is a classic I Love Lucy called Job Switching. I saw the show as a kid when Lucy was a perennial morning re-run on local TV. It was Friends or The Big Bang Theory of its day.

But back then it was a time of Black and White TVs. It was in time before morning news and celebrity talk shows. It was time with three network channels and maybe one or two local independent stations. And it was a time way before a 24/7 nonstop news cycle feeding us endless drivel.

“….And a man talks on the radio
He’s telling me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination…” (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction Rolling Stones

My sisters loved the Lucy show. So in the time of limited screens and limited content to pick from; I had two choices: either watch Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory or go outside. I am sure my sisters felt the same way when The Three Stooges came on. I feel this way with Trumpapalooza. I feel like I am the Loo-zah.

For those of you who are not familiar with the episode in question Lucy and Ethel take jobs wrapping chocolates while their husbands Ricky and Fred do housework. It is a classic theme often depicted in sitcoms: who has the tougher job? The theme is nothing new. Shakespeare uses a variation of this theme in various plays and Mark Twain wrote a novel called The Prince and the Pauper.

According to mashed.com‘s description Lucy and Ethel’s work day begins “With a bellowing “Let’r roll,” the conveyor belts starts up. At first, Lucy and Ethel think they can handle it, dutifully wrapping the chocolates. But they quickly realize they’ve overestimated their own abilities. But their jobs are on the line — not to mention the bet with their spouses — so Lucy and Ethel go to battle with the chocolates the fastest way they know how: stuffing them in their mouths and into their clothes. Lucy turns to Ethel, whose mouth is so crammed with chocolates she cannot speak, and declares “I think we’re fighting a losing game!” As the chocolate rate gets faster and faster, it becomes manifestly clear that they cannot possibly keep up — but their workplace fiasco makes for truly memorable comedy.”

When it comes to what Trump says, in many ways, makes me feel like Lucy or Ethel’s inability to deal with all that chocolate. They can’t eat it, they can’t stuff it in their pockets and they sure can’t wrap it. By sending more obnoxious, ignorant and incompressible ideas down the conveyor belt in the news cycle Trump is overloading the public’s ability to comprehend what is real and fake. It comes so fast we don’t know how to handle it. We can’t eat it and we can’t stuff it in our pockets.

The real paradox is that in order for Trump’s chocolates to come down the conveyor belt the news media becomes the chocolate shop pushing this crap on the public. The news media is not responsible for all the chocolate.It comes from a man who sues media outlets and complains constantly about the news media pumping out fake news–when he is the purveyor of most of it.

All of this reminds me of a quote attributed to the comedian WC Fields: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” And I would add plenty of it.

You would think at some point in the consuming public’s need to know would tire of the constant supply of bovine excrement being heaped at our feet. You would think that the economics of supply and demand for this idiotic rhetoric would kick in and reach equilibrium. You would think that at some point along the demand curve the public’s craving for his diatribe would have some effect on the supply side of tainted chocolate coming from Trump and his cohort. Obviously not.

Or maybe it has. Maybe what we are witnessing is a drop in the quality of gas coming out of the bag. I thought Trump “jumped the shark” two years ago in the Presidential debate with Kamala Harris when he said: “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats…,They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

“No one in this world, so far as I know… has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people”–H.L. Mencken

But I was wrong. Just when you thought you hit the ceiling (or bottom) of ludicrous public discourse we were hit with memes of Trump as Jesus, the Pope and the late Hulk Hogan. We have seen Trump toting assault weapons and leading naval ships in modern rendition of “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”

What upsets me the most is not Trump’s bombastic style, what I cannot understand is how the American public is still consuming this nonsense. As a viewing nation our IQ must deflating as our attentions span lives on cheap sugar. At what point do we realize we cannot keep inflating Trump’s ego. We need to turn off his confectionary conveyor belt of tweets, memes and map changes. We need to stop listening and looking for some sort of meaning in all this. Unlike Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory, there is no Trumpa Bar with a golden wrapper. Trump kept that one for himself.

America’s World Turned Sideways–Soon to be Upside Down?

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The British surrender at Yorktown by John Trumbull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I must say that the absurdity of this government is definitely going sideways, maybe even soon to be upside down.

But before I go on I want to say that I saw something the other day that put a pause in what I thought about American history. I thought it was so apropos for for today; and so historically ironic it had to be true: That the British Army after its surrendering at Yorktown to George Washington and the French Army marched out of Yorktown playing a ditty called: A World Turned Upside Down. However, it seems like this may have never happened, playing the ditty not the surrender. In fact researchers are not even sure if there ever was such a tune.

According to mountvernon.com, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, some American professional historians accepted this story “and published it in their textbooks (still without corroboration).” It goes on to say that the belief the British stacked arms and marched out of Yorktown with fifes and drums dolefully playing A World Turned Upside Down never happened and actually came from “several American novelists and one British poet, Robert Graves.” Somehow this novel idea worked its way into our historical textbooks and our mythology.

The story, according to mountvernon.com “was first published in Major Alexander Garden’s Anecdotes of the American Revolution forty-seven years after Yorktown. Garden quoted a letter from Major William Jackson who described the surrender negotiations as though he had been an eyewitness, but didn’t mention that he was in Europe, not Yorktown at the time.” Basically Garden’s assertions are based on second-hand and third hand information from sources who also were not even at Yorktown. This also makes me rethink the whole Alamo story.

It really does feel satirical and something a novelist (or Hollywood) would do to embellish a storyline. When one considers the Revolutionary War and what 13 colonies did–with the help of a global superpower, which France was in the 17th and 18th centuries–was incredible.

But defeating the British on the battlefield is not historically earthshaking. Upstarts have defeated Goliaths in the past. Look at what is happening in Ukraine today and what Vietnam did against the French, and later the US.

What turned the world upside down in the 1780s happened a decade after the Revolutionary War when those 13 states formed a more perfect union, a republic, in a monarchy dominated world. People ruling themselves was a philosophical concept batted around in coffee houses and universities of the time–but never in real time.

Now, what does this have to do with anything today. I am glad that you are thinking ahead because as I said our government has been going sideways for a long time. But the current buoyancy of the ship of state is listing heavily to the right–pun intended. I say this because of the back and forth that is going on about saving our elections from alien invasions.

There were two things that the framers of the Constitution wanted in setting up a republic, saving us from alien invasions was not high on their to-do-list. The first was tyranny. It is not a word we throw around too much today. American History Dictionary defines it as “A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.” The framers realized that checks and balances were needed. They feared a government with too much power. Hence, we see the formation of two distinct levels of government. They devised a federal system that a divided governmental powers. We have state and national governments and each has certain delegated and reserved powers–powers not concentrated in one person or institution.

Unfortunately for this administration elections fall mostly under the purview of the state governments and Congress. But that is not stopping this administration’s attempt at a rolling coup using the judiciary system in an obvious effort to control the outcome or at least influence the credibility of the next election. Instead of rolling up a tank division and Seal Teams in storming up the Capitol steps, the administration is using a battalion of lawyers to pull down the government with executive orders and legal rulings. It is the simple Trumpian belief if you can’t win find a judge who will just change the rules in mid game.

The second thing the framers were concerned about was too much democracy infused into the federal government. You see that in the Electoral College electing the president, state legislatures determine who will be senators, and the president nominating judges with Senate approval. At the time the Constitution was approved the people only voted for members of the House of Representatives.

Those framers also knew too much democracy can lead to mob rule, as we saw on January 6th, 2020 when people were urged to “fight like hell.” It was a page right out of Sam Adams and the Boston Sons of Liberty play book. The Sons of Liberty had no problem summoning out the mob to obstruct British governing of Massachusetts. Even after the war the Massachusetts government had to deal with Shay’s Rebellion when farmers shut down the legal system to keep the courts from foreclosing and seizing their property for unpaid taxes. Even during his presidency George Washington led an army into western Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.

Without a doubt the checks and balances and the separation of powers can make our government slow-footed. Can a king or some other sort of autocrat work quicker and maybe more efficient? Possibly. But that is not how our republic was designed. It was designed with belief that the ultimate power rests with the people and not in one person or one branch of government.

I think we are fast approaching a tipping point with this administration’s efforts to bully its way into the election process. Elections are the engines that drive a republic, a democracy. The Constitution is clear on the fact that states handle elections, No where in the Constitution is it even implied that an executive department, the Department Homeland Security or an independent agency of the executive branch, the United State Postal Service can determine who is an eligible voter.

Without a doubt our election history has had its dark moments. Has there been voter fraud? I am sure if we were to take a deep dive into City-Machine politics we would find more rats in the ballot boxes then we would like to believe. Every major city from Boston to St. Louis has had some sort of boss led city machine. Three of the most famous machines were William Tweed’s Tammany Hall during the Gilded Age, James Pendergast in Kansas City and Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago. It would be hard to believe that ballot boxes were not stuffed during their reign as “Boss.” And I am not going to talk about the opposite: voter suppression with Jim Crow in the South. When it comes to elections we have come a long way from night-riders and city-machine machinations.

What we are witnessing today is the assembling of a national machine lead by Boss Trump. A machine backed with the full force of the federal government. The only thing between the Boss and an election is the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I am not a Constitutional scholar on running elections but it seems obvious elections are delegated to states and not the Executive Branch of the Republic, Homeland Security, Social Security or the Post Office. If this were to happen voters would be marching to the polls to the tune of A World Turned Upside Down.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/03/2026-06601/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections

“I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.” 

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One of my favorite scenes from the old Lonesome Dove TV series is when Bol, the Mexican cook is “whackin” the dinner bell for supper. Gus McCrae, played by Robert Duval tells Bol, “a man with any sense at all can tell when it’s sundown without you whacking’ that bell.”

To which Bol tells McCrae, “Robert E. Lee freed the slaves. I can whack it if I want to.” McCrae tells Bol “It was Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves Bol, not General Lee.”

It is at the point a Texas cowhand, Pea Eye, joins in and muddies the discussion by saying, “he (Robert E. Lee or Abraham Lincoln we are not sure who Pea Eye is referencing as “he.”) didn’t free Mexicans anyway. It was “Americans he freed.”

The more erudite Augustus McCrae sees that the conversations is going sideways. He tells Pea Eye that he is in over his head. “It was a bunch of Africans Abe Lincoln freed.”

Now Larry McMurtry’s book came out in 1985 and the TV series aired in 1989. When I first saw this scene I had to laugh at the deep misunderstanding of the Civil War that was taking place in that brief scene. It is somewhat apropos, though. One-hundred and sixty years later I think we are just as confused about the Civil War and its outcome as we, as a nation have ever been. In fact some may argue we are reverting back to the post Reconstruction era.

However, it the ending part of the scene I think what is really relevant for today. I doubt Larry McMurtry, when he wrote this, thought somebody forty years later would reference his writing this way. But here I am probably reading way more into it than the scene actually was. I think the final lines of this scene are short and succinct and very 2025-26ish. 

McCrae references his partner and fellow long-time Texas Ranger, Woodrow Call, as being born in Scotland  He says that Call is “no more American” than the Africans Lincoln freed.

Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones, returns the burn to McCrae saying. “I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.” (Gus’s home state.)

I am sure when McMurtry penned those words in the 1980s about a Western adventure that would take place in the 1870s; he was not thinking about immigration or birthright citizenship. It was sort of comic relief depicting the mind sets of those at Lonesome Dove laboring all day in the hot Texas sun getting ready to sit down to supper. 

In fact McMurtry’s book is loosely based on the lives of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving of  Goodnight Loving Cattle Trail fame. I am not sure of what their politics were; and that is not the crux the of story.

I just think there is some sort of irony or historical symmetry in this fictional scene of the Old West, even if it is only in the writings of a man in the 1980s. Because today, when it comes to immigration it appears that the Trump Administration is much like Pea Eye: in over their heads. The Administration is rounding up stray foreigners and wrangling up legal concepts to the Supreme Court to drive immigrants into detention camps and onto new foreign vistas.

Gus McCrae is like the MAGA leaning Supreme Court, the ex-Confederate who realizes the South lost and that is that. It is a new day–no matter how you slice it. But it is day still laced with old prejudices.

However, it is Woodrow Call who says, “I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.” It is Call’s simple statement that reflects the 14th Amendment’s “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It is that little section of the Constitution that is driving the Administration bat-shit crazy. 

Ironically, it is Bol, the Mexican, whose family most likely has been in Texas long before Texas was a state in the United States. He could easily parrot Call’s words: “I recon I’m as American as anyone from Tennessee.”

For What It’s Worth

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Miniature by Pierart dou Tielt illustrating the Tractatus quartus bu Gilles li Muisit (Tournai, c. 1353). The people of Tournai bury victims of the Black Death. ms. 13076 – 13077

It is too bad that we live in such obstinate times. It is has so many negative effects on so many facets of our lives. It derails and sort of sympathy, empathy or a yearning to understand anything. It makes us overly aggressive in venial ways.

Take Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022. He recently sat before a Senate Panel in what President Donald Trump would have called a witch hunt. Fauci took the 5th Amendment on every question asked of him. He even refused to answer what color his tie was.

“There’s something happening here but what is isn’t exactly clear…”

I felt bad for Fauci. His hearing was a strange scene in American Political Surrealism. Here we have a long-time government official, a bureaucrat, with a presidential pardoned from possible future criminal charges for actions done in the past while he was toiling away as a mad scientist. So what is there to do? Steal his diary from his bedroom dresser. We then can all snicker at Fauci’s innermost thoughts and feelings. By stealing his diary and searching his private and untold thoughts I now sleep better knowing this brings us so much closer on how to deal with the next pandemic.

But this really reflects more about the state of inquiry in our country rather than say, searching for cures concerning the general welfare of the people. We settle for the clarity of watching grown adults, mostly adolescent men posing as gifted thinkers, in a political scrum pushing multiple invisible Rugby balls to non existent goal lines. It is where everybody gets to spike the ball. And then, we can watch the talking heads on the media of your choice for the play-by-play anlaysis.

Today, we are no closer to knowing anything about the Covid pandemic than we do about the origins of the Black Death in the 1300s. In fact, we probably know more, and can intellectually discuss the Bubonic Plague better than the ague that ran amongst us five years ago.

I would not have been surprised if a Senator asked Dr. Fauci about the gain-of-function research being done using the ground up powder from a unicorn horn’s. I think under the current mind set this would have been a legitimate question. According to World History Encyclopedia’s “Medieval Cures for the Black Death” this was cutting edge research, and just as nebulous as some of Trump’s suggested antidotes.

It was believed that “Drinking a powder made of the ground-up horn of the unicorn mixed in water was thought to be an effective remedy and was also among the most expensive.” Of course most of us know that the only way to catch a unicorn is for it “to be lulled into submission by a young virgin maiden.” A daunting task since both virgin maidens and unicorns are rare (We need to scour the pages of Dr. Fauci’s diary for clues.) and hence the expence.

Back then ground unicorn had a variety of uses from treating snake bites, “fever, convulsions, and serious wounds.” It was believed it would work “equally well with the plague.” Unfortunately, it seems the unicorn powder did not work any better than cures involving chicken or snakes. Unicorn powder was the 14th century miracle cure right up there with hydroxychloroquine, drinking bleach and UV lights.

A rare photo found in the back of Dr. Fauci’s diary. It is believed to be Dr. Fauci inspecting a Wuhan labratory.

Encyclopedia Libre Español: Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas Creative Commons.

But that is not the real big problem. It is logistics. If Dr. Fauci was using a Wuhan laboratory for this research, the problem was not one of securing the lab but in securing a unicorn. Unicorns are not native to China. Plus, unicorns are on the endangered specie list so using unicorns for scientific research would have been a crime. Killing an endangered species is a punisable offense: $50,000 fine and a year in prison, not to mention the use of young maidens. (Which, according to the Justice Department, is not a breach of public faith.)

“There’s battle lines being drawn. Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong…”

What is clear is after the fact we are still manning the covid parapets like a besieged city in a Medieval castle. The only thing that seems to change is who is besieged at the time and who is catapulting the dead-diseased ideas over the wall. In this particular case it was GOP Senators chucking distorted questions down upon a beleaguered Dr. Fauci.

In this putrid political climate there is no way we can get to the bottom of anything. Not even a trash can–not when we keep bringing in more trash. Covid is no different. Did we do somethings right? Yes. Did we do somethings wrong? Yes. The problem is instead of sorting through the trash we keep bringing more to the can. In this case it is a star, struck 80 year-old man’s diary adding to the infinite amount of political garbage manufactured. All I can say is what a fellow worker once mumbled after the crew was told we needed to stay late on a Friday night: Give me a f**king break.

Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. Step out of line, the men come and take you away

If anything I have no contempt for Dr. Fauci. In fact I feel sorry for him. This reminds me more of siblings going at it when a younger brother snatches his older teenage sister’s diary out of her top drawer of her dresser. The only thing holding back the embarrassment of this violation of privacy is a flimsy lock binding up her inner thoughts, desires and the nonsensical yearnings. But it is the act of having one’s innermost feelings revealed to the world that sets off her panic, and makes the younger brother feel like he has hit social pay dirt. In Fauci’s case it is political pay dirt.

It’s time we stop, Hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look, what’s going down?*

*Buffalo Springfield: For What it’s Worth.

A Conscious Awareness of Consciousness

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Personally, I believe that the world is constantly riding spiritual waves of awareness. And when I say this I don’t mean it as a religious wave like say the Great Awakenings which swept this country in (and others possibly) the 1700s and 1800s. It is not mysticism either. I think philosphers, sociologist and psychologist beat around the concept of collective (universal) consciousness; and its role in our personal consciousness and in our collective life. Right now we are in the trough of spiritual consciousness. 

Two man-made institutions play heavily into creating our collective consciousness and awareness–and our material reality: governments and churches. (I would add a third entity to this: multinational corporations. But we know they are for-profit, godless heathen organizations.) Too often we Americans think of separation of church and state effecting just this country. God may have made man in His image and likeness; but man has made religion in his image and likeness, governments too. And all of this seeps into our awareness and our concsiouness.

Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? –Pema Chodron

Collective consciousness knows no international boundaries nor time. Most of us do not realize the influence it has on our own consciousness and reality. It exists at levels we are not totally cognizant of. The latest flare up between the U.S. and Iran is a perfect example of where governments and churches come into conflict. This conflict is much like a strike-slip fault in the Earth’s Crust. The sliding plates of the Earth’s crust, like governments and churches pass each other creating tension, transforming human consciousness. (For the most part Americans had no real concept of Iran. To us the Persian Empire was something the Greek city-states fought way back in 499 BC to 449 BC. It wasn’t until the late 1970s AD did Iran’s chants of “Death to America” enter our national awareness and then into our consciousness.)

It happens all the time and it doesn’t have to be a war where empires clash. Henry the VIII transformed English religion and government without nocking an arrow when he broke with the Catholic Church. It all started in 1517 when Martin Luther rattled religuious awareness when he posted his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Within 20 years Henry broke ties with the Catholic Church. In 1534 he set up his own church. Naturally, he was the head of this church. He also felt it was his job to seize church property in England, thus adding the church’s wealth to the royal coffers–religion for fun and profit. His strike-strip actions transformed England–and transformed the country’s collective consciousness, and ours. It spawned Separatists, Pilgrims and Puritans who ended up in what would become, collectively, the United States.

Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.–Charles Lindbergh

Man may not always act in spiritual ways. But that does not stop religion from determining ethical and moral codes that help collectively keep society in line. Historically speaking, it is some sort of religious beliefs that influences the citizenry, the government and the institutions and hence the country collectively, The United States of America is a case in point.

Although we do not subscribe to one church, and some would preach the need to change this, we cannot deny that the spiritual beliefs of the collective consciousness of those who wrote the Constitution in 1787 still impact our nation today. To say they were not influenced by Judeo-Christian beliefs, as well as the collective beliefs of the Enlightenment, would be wrong thinking. These men combined a unique combination of beliefs to establish rule of the people–and not a monarch or some sort religious swami–or Ayetollah.

We are celebrating our 250th year of independence from a religious infused monarchy. This is something uncommon in human history. We took Henry the VIII’s concept of forming a religion in the image of a government and turned it around. We created a government based on religious and moral beliefs without the sanctimonious trappings of some sort of religious leader anonited by god in the mix. Our president has many roles as chief diplomat and commander in chief but he is not a shaman, medicine man or Levite in charge of a church. 

For 250 years we have managed without religious rules enshrined into our laws. The ancient Jews had 613 laws: 248 do’s and 365 don’ts. According to Chabad.Org only “369 mitzvot are still operative” today. But for centuries those laws have settled deeply into the Jewish collective consciousness, something we Americans may have a hard time comprehending but our awareness of these beliefs run deep in our collective consciousness.

As a nation–a nation basically a collection of immigrants from around the world–we have formed the basis for our national collective consciousness from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And although property-owning white men wrote both documents, there was enough Christian diversity and mutual distrust of European religious disputes in their collective awarness to enshrine the belief of popular sovereignty over religious rule.

According to The Journal of the American Revolution the Constitution is purposely religious neutral, as is the theory of the government it embodies. “Whereas the Declaration explained and justified a rebellion to secure God-given rights, the Constitution is a blueprint for stable and effective republican government in a free country. The Preamble to the Constitution declares that its purposes are ‘to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.’ These are wholly secular objects; religious references are extraneous in a document drafted to further them.”

If Christianity started out as an offshoot of Judaism then Judaic thought is a part of the Christian consciousness. Beliefs like: the love all humans, do not to stand by idly while another’s life is in danger, do not to cherish hatred in our hearts, or to bear a grudge and seek revenge are just a few Jewish beliefs that have effected our collective consciousness. And although these beliefs are not codified in our Constitution we do expect these sorts of beliefs to be reflected in our society; to guide our government and our leaders–to guide them and us in our collective consciousness.

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.–Romans 2:15 New International Version

The news today is full of stories on how our democracy, the Constitution is being shredded up before our very eyes. There may be some truth to that but it is not our Constitution that is failing us. It is how quickly virtue has been sapped from our collective consciousness and put us in a trough of spiritual (un)awareness. Each day we look up at the growing wave that surrounds us and see nothing but a gray wall of water fermenting discord and hostility within–not insuring any sort of domestic tranquility; or civility.

It is not that we are losing our democracy, that is only a side effect of losing our collective awareness and consciousness. We now debate what is morally and ethically right. We have collectively begun to abandon or Christian “values” that are ingrained in our consciousness whether you believe in God or not. We are being guided more by expedient pseudo-political/religious values that satiates the moment.

The current administration and its sycophants realize that collectively most Americans don’t hold the same zealous motivations that are being used to justify their actions. The current administration realizes that it could lose dramatically in the midterms if Americans recognize the fact that there is nothing wrong with our government. It is the lack of spiritual awareness, virtue and integrity of our leaders running government that has put us in this trough.

What America needs now is not an attitude adjustment but a retuning to its wave of awareness.

“It isn’t what you do, but how you do it”

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I stumbled across a quote from John Wooden the other day that made me stop for a moment and think about what is going on in this country right now. Wooden said, “It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.”

This is not some sort of topsy turvy quote from Soren Kierkegaard like, “It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.” Okay. I get it sort of. But try putting that on a T-Shirt or running that thought through a town hall meeting.

Wooden, according to UCLA athletics was “the most successful coach in the history of college basketball, guided his UCLA teams to an unprecedented 10 national championships in his 27 seasons (1949-1975).”

People who watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV saw Jason Sudeikis, as Ted Lasso, pin Wooden’s Pyramid of Success on his office wall. It was a pyramid of success that took Wooden’s teams to the peak of success. His teams “compiled an overall record of 620-147 (a winning percentage of .808) and won 19 conference titles. Under his direction, the Bruins captured a remarkable seven consecutive NCAA titles from 1967-1973.” Whether you are a sports fan or not Wooden’s record is impressive. So maybe we can twist Wooden around a bit and say something like “how you do it, is what you get.”

To me, how we are doing things today militarily, with AI, government, immigration to name a few, has created a lot of confusion, discontent, discord and given us, for the large part, what we don’t want; and creating an existential crisis, within and without.

Britannia says that such a crisis is a “period of inner  conflict during which a person is distraught over questions about identity, meaning, and purpose.” Britannia further says that at the heart of this crisis is a period of anxiety and a conflict “often considered to be related to spirituality.” Can this existential crisis befall an entire country? It looks to me as if we are there or if not hurtling towards it quickly.

Now I may be straying a bit from Wooden’s quote a bit. But, the Socratic-Method.com says at first glance we can see it isn’t what you do, but how you do it. How you do it “emphasizes the importance of the approach or methodology employed in any given task, rather than solely focusing on the outcome. This idea challenges the conventional notion that success is solely determined by the end result.”

This brings to mind the popular idiom: The ends justify the means. This phrase is attributed to Nicolo Machiavelli. Biography.com says he was an “Italian diplomat best known for writing ‘The Prince,’ a handbook for unscrupulous politicians that inspired the term ‘Machiavellian’ and established its author as the ‘father of modern political theory’.” The main theme of the book has been interpreted by many as a “political philosophy that one may resort to any means in order to establish and preserve total authority.”

Machiavelli may not have actually said the ends justify the means, but according to academichelp.net, the phrase “embodies a fundamental principle of consequentialism. This ethical theory suggests that the morality of an action is entirely dependent on its consequences. It’s a perspective that looks at the end result of an action to determine its ethical value, contrasting sharply with deontological ethics. Deontology, on the other hand, posits that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of their outcomes.” I believe we are living in a time, more than ever before, where we focus solely on the outcomes, particularly besting the other side–as if that is the sole purpose of life.

Wow, slow down. Too many isms, ologies and theories in there. We have now gone from the simple sentence into the compound world of and ethics. As far as I know philosophers theologians are still trying to determine “how many angles can dance on the head of a pin.” The two groups were perfectly confused unit a third group, mathematicians got involved.

In a round about way both Wooden and Machiavelli are talking about the same thing. The “consequences.” And it is here things get tangled up in ethical theory. We started out with two phrases. Wooden’s is ten words with no word longer than four letters. Machiavelli’s is half as much with one word seven letters long. How did we end up with fundamental principles of consequentialism to existential crisis?

To clarify let’s look at ethical theory. Philosophy Terms says, “ethical theories are ideas that help us decide which actions are good and bad by leading us to ethical choices that bring positive outcomes for everyone. These theories go deeper than just following rules; they help us see the bigger picture and understand why certain actions are better than others…(it) show(s) us the way to make decisions, even when it’s hard, and help us think not just about what’s good for us, but what’s best for everyone involved.”

This brings us back to consequentialism, which ebesco.com states “is a normative ethical theory that evaluates the morality of actions based on their outcomes. The central tenet of consequentialism is that an action is deemed morally right or wrong depending on the results it produces, with a focus on maximizing positive outcomes for the greatest number of people.”

I think the normative ethical theory can be dicey because of what is normal, particularly today. Wikipedia defines it as “the standards of what people ought to do, believe, or value. It is a quality of rules, judgments, or concepts that prescribe how things should be or what individuals may, must, or must not do.”

For instance, we have always been a country based on two legal concepts: One, the legal rule of law; and two, nobody is above the law. We have seen the Constitution’s words twisted around like a pretzel to achieve certain outcomes never before imagined. Thus creating a period of conflict and anxiety across, gender, race and religion. Never mind political beliefs. Those beliefs have been trashed long time ago.

Our existential crisis is not one of doing but how we are doing it. We have cast aside the ethical norms that have guided our country for 250 years. And without a doubt those norms have changed, in some case drastically, through our history. But we have always, as a nation had guiding principles that we could look to. We knew what was the right thing to do. It may have taken us awhile to come around but we have. We have been a beacon on a hill that has attracted people from all over to our shores because of those guiding principles.

Frederich Nietzche said “There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends how you use them.” It seems to me that we are living in a glass house in the mist of a rock fight.

Life is Easy if You have the Updated Operating System

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Sometimes in life things change and we just don’t even notice. It is like when an old building that has been sitting tucked off the street for years gets pulled down; or that store on the corner that has been there forever goes out of business. And then one day you drive by and say to yourself “when did that happen.? When did they go out of business?” “Things” like that happen everyday. 

For instance, I have had a certain bank app on my iPhone for several years now. The reason I put the app on my phone was because I was moving to a state where that bank did not have any branches. So the app was a logical next step in the new electronically internet connected world we live in.

Now, I know I am aging myself because for the longest time in my life communication devices were connected to a landline to the home. The big upgrade was a cordless phone and answering machine. The mobile phone, soon to become a smart phone, changed all of that with voice mail. And I will admit, it is much easier now than back then. 

When it came to doing banking I would sit down on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and begin the task of writing out any bills that had arrived in the mail that week, put a stamp on an envelope and I was good to go. And with the advent of direct deposit I no longer had to stand in line, or wait in the drive through window at the bank on Friday to cash my check.  Things are starting to get easier.

Gone are the days when you would have to fill out a deposit slip indicating how much of your paycheck went into the checking account and how much cash you wanted back. The ATM soon became the go to place to get cash. You could go into just about any store and get  cash with a newly issued debit card. Today, the banking industry with its cash back bonuses has weened us away from carrying any cash at all—what’s in your wallet: no folding money. 

There were weeks when I would guard that last one or two dollars in my wallet as if it were the Dresden Green Diamond—waiting for Friday, Pay Day! Things seem to be getting easier.

But I have digressed from the banking app. I really did not use the app that much. Most of my banking is done remotely now. Now my bills either go directly to my bank to be paid or to an email account, no trip to the mailbox and no stamps needed. It was like when radio music went from AM to FM: “No static at all…”

Occasionally, however, there is the need to cash a check. That’s where the app comes in. It was awkward at first logging in, fumbling around with user names and passwords—which I never remember—and now getting an authentication code texted to me. Then there is taking a picture of the front and back of the check. I feel like an Olan Mills photographer cajoling a toddler to sit still. Here I am trying to get a check to smile at me while instructions pop on the screen demanding me to get closer, center the check or use a darker background. It was the modern version of fumbling in the bank with pen on a chain and trying to remember your account number for the deposit slip–if you did not have a slip that came with the checkbook. It keeps getting easier.

I never thought about the app beyond trying to log in until the other day when I went to cash a check. I went to the app and logged in, which I finally could do without having to fumble around for my user name and password. My phone remembered that for me. Life just keeps getting easier.

However, a slight glitched popped up. Before I could do my banking I needed to update the app. No problem I thought. I would just hit update, which then took me to another screen to get the new updated app. I hit “get” but I got nothing but a return to the previous screen that said update app. I thought I just did that. So I demonstrated one of two lesser desired qualities of human life, either stupidity, insanity or both, and I tried again to update. It sent me back to the app screen to get the app. I hit “get” again and was promptly sent back to update. I was putting myself into a human controlled flow loop, the proverbial dog chasing his tail. I thought things were supposed to be getting easier.

As in most cases it is me, as the user, who is lost in the tangle of internet webs that connect us to the cyber universe. It was now that I examined the screen closer. In the upper portion of the screen in small writing next to a triangle with an exclamation point was a small message.

I want to shuffle off a side street here for a moment because one, I have fat fingers and any typing I do on my iPhone ends up with numerous typos. Secondly, it takes more than my reading-glass cheaters set at 1.5 magnification to read something that small. Those little messages are treated like a Yield Sign in Dade County Florida, a strong suggestion to the other guy to look out for you because you are coming through. I just thought if they wanted me to stop or slow down the message would have been a bit bigger with a Stop Sign symbol: Please read before continuing.

The message said I needed IOS 17 on my Apple iPhone to download the new app. I went to Settings to see what my operating system was. I and fumbled around some more only to learn that my iPhone was operating on some version of IOS 16. Getting the app for my iPhone now  required an additional update—to my operating system. Further research on the internet reveled that my phone cannot be updated to IOS 17. I would need to buy a new phone to get the banking app to run.

I was dumbstruck. In my mind this would be like having to buy new shoes because you have a broken shoelace.  Why do I feel like I am being scammed? Maybe because I am; or we are. 

But, there is a happy ending to the story. I went to my iPad, which did have IOS 17. I uploaded the banking app and was able to cash the check–for $11.49.

However, I have to wonder is this like the old house tucked back on the street or the business that just closed. How many other of my seldom used apps are just sitting on the home screen waiting to be pulled down or sign placed in the front window that simply says “closing.”

Life is getting easier if you have the updated app.

A True Vulgarian: To Offend and Upset and the Art of the Upside Down Apology

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I have to laugh at the recent Trump settlement with the IRS for what most people are calling $1.776 slush fund. I refuse to get offended or upset with these financial and legal shenanigans Trump is, and has, pulled over our heads. He has really refined the art of the steel from land deals with city and county commissions to the fleecing at the federal level.

And further more, I think we should just chuck all the democracy talk of, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, as too esoteric. We need to push that sort of fear and the death of our Republic to one side and look at what is going on with this administration’s shenanigans. Or as Merriam-Webster describes as the “devious trick(s) used especially for an underhand purpose;” or the “activity or behavior that is not honest or proper: deceptive or questionable practices or conduct.” Trump and Associates have refined the tools of democracy to boldly walk through the front door and then walk out the front door in broad daylight in plain sight with loaded pockets.

The funny part in all of this is we opened the door and let him. Their methods appears to some as a smash and grab, which was the case with his January Sixers cohort. With that said these are not the activities of say a cat burglar who tries to avoid being seen using stealth and deception like Cary Grant in the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief. What we need to do is dumb the Trump administration down to something Hollywood could produce and everybody could see in relation to what the viewing public understands.

For instance, we could go back to the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda. I am not going to rehash the entire movie but to quote Wikipedia the movie is a “heist comedy film…(that) follows a gang of diamond thieves who double-cross one another to recover the stolen diamonds hidden by their jailed leader.” Although, in our current state of affairs the leader is not jailed.

But according to PBS News, “As part of the (Anti-Weaponization) IRS settlement agreement, the U.S. is ‘forever barred and precluded’ from examining or prosecuting Trump, his sons and the Trump organization’s current tax issues, according to a one-page document posted to the Justice Department’s website on Tuesday’.”

I get it, there is a slight difference in the plot; but, get out of jail or stay out of jail, it seems to me to be the same side of the soon to be minted coin. A one-dollar commemorative coin featuring Trump’s image on both sides. Heads its Trump, tails its Trump. Unfortunately, it won’t be minted in time for the country’s 250th birthday. Too bad, we could honor our First President by going down to the Potomac River and see if we could throw them across the river.

Whatever the case may be, we are more familiar with heist movies than movies about democracy. If we consider what is going on in our government as a heist operation instead of governing or some sort of governmental effort to make America better, I think we can better understand the current workings of our government. I reference the movie A Fish Called Wanda but we could probably insert any of the Oceans movies going back to the 1960s with the Rat Pack, or the 2003 The Italian Job, or the Tower Heist (2011). It is all about the grift.

The reason I picked A Fish Called Wanda is for one particular scene where Otto, the vulgar American weapons expert hangs the sophisticated British barrister, Archie, out a window upside down demanding an apology. I just feel like Archie represents the American people. We are being hung upside down. Shaken down and now forced to apologize for crimes that somehow we were complicit in. (See Youtube link below for video)

Instead of ranting or raving about the current state of affairs we should do like what Roger Ebert said in his review of this Anglo/American comedy, laugh loudly when “eccentric people behave in obsessive and eccentric ways and other, equally eccentric, people do everything they can to offend and upset the first batch” Their motto could be: Find out how much there is, get it, and get.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfuUyTMpVY

The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments.

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A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.–James Madison

It is an oft told story about Benjamin Franklin that after signing the Constitution being met by Elizabeth Willing Powel who asked the good doctor “what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” To which Franklin replied, “A Republic madam, if you can keep it.”

According to Historynet.com “By upbringing, experience, and nature, Eliza Powel was politically astute and acquainted with the leading lights of the American political scene.” Like many Americans in Philadelphia at the time, It is not hard to imagine her waiting at the steps of Independence Hall anticipating the results of the secret meetings that took place that long hot summer.

Eliza Powell is one of the many women who have been pushed aside as a footnote in the pages of history. According to Historynet.com she was a Philadelphia socialite, ” a fixture in her hometown’s most influential circles, and a proto-feminist who delighted in her intellect, broad range of interests, and social rank…” with “a first-class mind, and, unusual among women of her class and era, a serious interest in and engagement with the details and nuances of politics and statecraft.”

I would bet that when addressing Eliza after signing the Constitution, Franklin was not speaking specifically to her when he used the word “you.” The 81 year-old Franklin would only have two more years to live. So the “you” was sort of a collective second-person pronoun referring to a group of people, Americans from 1787 to the present, rather than one person at the time, and a disfranchised woman at that.

Franklin had his concerns about the Constitution. In final remarks before approving the Convention’s work. He said, “I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered.” The key words in his comments, like, “you” is “well administered.”

A big fear today among many is the fear of losing our democracy. Various polls in the last couple years show an increasing fear that our democracy is under pressure, mostly from the extreme ends of the political spectrum and their hardcore entrenched views. But it not really our democracy that is under threat. We will always be a country with a democratic foundation. What we are witnessing of late is democracy manipulating the republic’s foundation for political belief or factions as the framers of the Constitution called them.

In this famous Federalist Paper (51) essay, Madison explained how the Constitution’s structure checked the powers of the elected branches and protected against possible abuses by the national government. With the separation of powers, the Framers divided the powers of the national government into three separate branches: a legislative branch (called Congress), an executive branch (led by a single President), and a judicial branch (headed by a Supreme Court). By dividing political power between the branches, the Framers sought to prevent any single branch of government from becoming too powerful. At the same time, each branch of government was also given the power to check the other two branches. This is the principle of checks and balances. Madison and his fellow Framers assumed that human nature was imperfect and that all political elites would seek to secure greater political power. As a result, the Framers concluded that the best way to control the national government was to harness the political ambitions of each branch and use them to check the ambitions of the other branches.–National Constitutional Center.gov

For instance a lot of debate during the Constitutional Convention centered on the make up and function of the Legislative Branch of the proposed new government. Some delegates were in favor of a unicameral others a bicameral Congress. (The Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation was unicameral.) The real problem today with Congress is it is still bicameral but completely divided along factions, with political parties providing the checks and balances in a unicameral way. Yes it is representative democracy at work. But, it is a complete disfunction of legislative design. Congress cannot even do its most essential task: pass a budget.

The House of Representatives is the people’s House. Its elected officials, because of their two-year elected-terms and smaller districts, are closer to the wishes of the people than a Senator with a six-year term representing an entire state. Madison’s belief, explained in Federalist Paper 62, was that “No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people (the House), and then of a majority of the states (the Senate).” The entrenched two-party system has done away with that concept.

He further explains that the Senate “as a second branch of the legislative assembly, distinct from, and dividing the power with (the House), a first, must be in all cases a salutary check on the government. It doubles the security to the people, by requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies.” An impossible feat under today’s government.

Additionally, he writes that “The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders, into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.” (my italics) Does January 6th come to mind. On January 6th the Republic held firm against the democracy, or mobocracy, taking place on the Capitol steps and then within the Capitol itself.

There is, in my mind, no chance of losing our democracy. Later this year we all go to the polls and vote. The real problem in my mind, is how those administering our Republic will try to rig the democratic process. We have witnessed states gerrymandering legislative districts to favor one party. We have seen the courts upturn the gerrymandering process in one state but not another. We have seen the courts roll back voting rights. We have seen an Executive branch try to impose voting changes through executive orders. All of this is democracy but as Franklin said, it is a republic–if we can keep it.