writing

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 tall ship and a star to steer her by.”

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Not that I was looking; but I did not see one mention about the Apollo 11 moon landing 57 years ago. It was a race to the moon that ended on July 20, 1969. I know it was a basically a bunch of white men doing their thing; but it was still one of the greatest achievements of mankind, until they did it five more times. And now we are talking about going back in another race, this time with the Chinese. Historically speaking it should be a day remembered.

Like most Americans of that time I was swept up with the Space Progam. It was an outgrowth of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and became the noble quest of President John Kennedy who challenged the country to begin searching the final frontier. Or was it a modern version of Camelot with space as our search for the Holy Grail–on the moon.

We shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away, a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to Earth. But why some say the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic? We choose to go to the moon. We chose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone.–President John Kennedy “Moon Speech” on September 12, 1962 in Rice Stadium. 

It is interesting in what motivates man. I really do think President Kennedy comparing space flight to sailing was apropos. He said, “we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone.” But when you think about it, most voyages of exploration are hazardous and dangerous excursions into the “unknown.”

Take Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage to around the Earth. With five ships and 270 men he left Spain on September 20, 1519. His expedition returned September 6, 1522 with one ship and about 40 men–he was not one of them. Magellan’s three-year trip would be more on line with going to Mars today. Currently it would take Elon Musk about three years to get there and back.

But blasting off for the moon was an adventure on the level with the ancient mariners. I love Kennedy’s metaphor of sailing. It reminds me of John Masefield’s poem Sea Fever:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

Man has always been blessed, or cursed, with a natural curiosity of what is on the other side of the mountain or beyond the horizon. When I think of going into space it reminds me of the sea voyages of the ancients, particularly the Greeks. The various Greek city-states might have been in competition for land in Greece but it was the open sea that allowed them to expand their horizons.

Geographically Greece is on the Balkan Peninsula with the longest coastline in Europe. The real factor though is that the land on this peninsula is mountainous–80 percent. Greek city-states trying to feed growing populations on mountainous land became a real problem. The solution was to establish over-seas colonies that relieved over population; but colonization also increased trade bringing to the city-states much needed food stuffs from as far away as the Black Sea and Spain. (I am not sure if the concept of colonizing the moon or Mars would either ease any over population issues on Earth or create trade.)

Dipal 1965 via Wikimedia Commons

Greek sea travel was not so much the age of sail as it was a man-powered voyage. Facts and Details says, “a ‘long day’ journey by an oared vessel” could be 140 miles “believed to be 16 hours traveled at seven or eight knots an hour.” Most Greek mariners hugged the coast line using line of sight and recognizing land features. This type of sailing made it easier to navigate. Plus, it made necessary stops for resupplying essential needs, like fresh water, easier.

Although longer voyages across the Mediterranean were not uncommon it wasn’t until more sophisticated navigational instruments were developed, like the Astrolabe, did mariners become more confident in pushing further out to sea. It took centuries for Mediterranean sailors to refine navigation that would allow sailors, like Columbus and Magellan, to take longer voyages across the Atlantic and to circumnavigate the globe. It took centuries to build better ships to utilize better navigation.

“The astrolabe, which is a precursor to the sextant, is effective for determining latitude on land or calm seas. Although it is less reliable on the heaving deck of a ship in rough seas, the mariner’s astrolabe  was developed to solve that problem. It is able to measure the altitude above the horizon of a celestial body, day or night; it can be used to identify stars or planets, to determine local latitude given local time.”–Wikipedia

Khalili Collections /via Wikimedia Commons

And since we are talking about seafarers one cannot omit the Polynesian. Seafarers whose navigation skills, according to Wikipedia relied “heavily on constant observation and memorization. Navigators have to memorize where they have sailed from in order to know where they are. The sun was the main guide for navigators because they could follow its exact points as it rose and set. Once the sun had set they would use the rising and setting points of the stars. When there were no stars because of a cloudy night or during daylight, a navigator would use the winds and swells as guides.”

In the 1960s NASA was tasked with assembling, scientists, fledgling aerospace companies and test pilots to come up with how to traverse 240,000 miles of open space and put men on the moon–with no stop overs. And, to do it in less than 10 years. Unlike past seafarers NASA had to invent and improvise. There was very little institutional knowledge of human space travel. What they did from Kennedy’s Moon Speech in 1962 to that one giant leap in 1969 is really a technical miracle. Especially if we look at what they had to use compared to what we have today.

For instance if we just look at the computer used on Apollo 11: the Apollo Guidance Computer. Apollo 11Space called this 70 pound computer, about the size of carry-on luggage, “a pocket sized pioneer (for its time.)” It was a 20th century astrolabe.

Each Moon flight carried two AGCs, one each in the command module and in the Apollo Lunar Module. AGC in the command module was the center of its guidance, navigation and control (GNC) system. The AGC in the lunar module ran its Apollo PGNCS (primary guidance, navigation and control system).”–Wikipedia

The original uploader was Grabert at German Wikipedia., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I am not some sort of techno-geek. I do not know the first thing about what RAM is or how it works. I know nothing of processing speeds, or what 4G or 110 Megabits per second translates to. So comparing the AGC on Apollo 11 to the iPhone by the numbers means nothing until it is put into layman’s terms. I find what RealClear Science says “that the iPhone in your pocket has over 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed man on the moon” pretty impressive. There is our giant leap.

A leap, to paraphrase John Gillespie Magee, Jr. poem High Flight: Man has “slipped the surly bonds of Earth” and has “trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space,” and has “touched the face of God.”

Whether it was the ancient sailors on the seas or the astronauts in space, it really gives meaning to what Masefield meant when he said “all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.”

A/I, Follow the Money Part II

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Way back in March of 2019 I wrote that “America is due for a big-time governmental/economic scandal of tsunami proportions.” I never considered myself as a some sort of wizard with a crystal ball or prognosticator of future events. And from the looks of it, if I did, I would consider myself ill-equipped to make it that in that sort of profession. Another words: Don’t quit your day job.

But yet here we are in 2026, seven years later with the stock market humming and the economy hanging tough; despite tariffs, tax cuts, Doge and a military excursion/operation against Iran–that’s only real accomplishment has been to raise inflation and gas prices around the world; and maybe spike EV sales.

It is easy to say something is going to happen, if you say it long enough it is bound to come true. I am sure there were New York Knick fans who said in 1974, and every year after, that the Knicks are going to win the title next year– 53 years later they were right.

Throughout history, for instance, there have been some bold predictions on when the world would end, which I guess could be a harbinger of economic scandal. Much like our recent belief in a computer meltdown with Y2K. We live in a tech world swimming with malware and hackers. It seems as if we are just one click away from possible doom. Especially now with all the talk of A/I ending humanity as we know it.

For a lot of us our first encounter with A/I was with “the computer” on Star Trek. We sat back and were absorbed with how the computer in Star Trek could figure out how many Class M planets there were in a certain quadrant of space. Or how some unknown space disease was mutating human bodies into some sort of alien creature–and then figuring out a cure to reverse the process! The other side of the story comes out around the same time. We learned from 2001: A Space Odyssey how a computer without “parental” controls could lock humanity in deep space.

But when it comes to the ending humanity it is religious leaders who squawk the loudest with their predictions of fire and brimstone. And like Y2K it was the millennium change as a reason to fear the end. According to historysnob.com, Pope Sylvester II put the Medieval world into a dither with the belief that the Second Coming was imminent when triple zeros showed up on the calendar. As if God is working on a manmade calendar. And then, I ask, which calendar: The Julian or the Byzantine. Or is God working of a lunisolar calendar? Just asking, because I think Sylvester didn’t inform God. I mean, who knows maybe the world ends in 2037 in the next year of the Snake. After all the snake shows up early in Genesis. That slithering serpent put an end to the Garden of Eden. I am just saying.


It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
(It’s time I had some time alone)
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
(It’s time I had some time alone)
I feel fine–REM

But back to the Popes. Not to be out done, Pope Innocent III predicted in 1213 “the world end in 1284–exactly 666 years after Islam’s founding.” I am not sure of the significance of that. An easy google search says: “The number 666 is commonly linked to the Roman Emperor Nero, known for his persecution of Christians. This connection arises from a method called gematria, where letters are assigned numerical values. This sounds more like figuring out the cryptogram quotes on the puzzle page of the daily newspaper. (What’s a daily newspaper?) When Nero’s name is transliterated into Hebrew, it adds up to 666. Good enough for me. I like the logic. However, my gut tells me the snake thing makes more sense.

Here in the United States we have had our religious prognosticators, too. Cotton Mather predicted the end times in 1697, 1716, 1736. I am not sure what methodology he used–the entrails of a witch, maybe. However, he died in 1728 not knowing he was wrong.

And then there was Harold Camping. History Snobs says: “This radio preacher twice announced Judgment Day: first on May 21, 2011, then again on October 21, 2011. Billboards went up worldwide, announcing the end of the world.” Both dates came and went and we are still here.

 There are others like Isaac Newton. I think I might take his prediction a bit more seriously. After all, he did give us the Law of Gravity and three Laws of Motion that seem to be pretty consistent over time. Newton “studied biblical texts obsessively and predicted the end might come around 2060.” We will have to wait and see.

I am more in the mode of Charles Wesley, a founder of Methodism, who had a more open-ended approach to predictions. History Snobs says, “To his credit, he didn’t try to set an exact date or time, although he made it clear in his sermons that he felt Christ’s return was imminent.” I am not sure what Wesley said about the Second Coming in his sermons, but he died in 1788. We may need to define the word imminent. However, I feel the same way about an economical scandal of Biblical proportions in the near future. It is imminent.

But to get back to the looming economic scandal just around the corner. I base my prediction on technological innovation and greed and a simple concept of follow the money. In my March 2019 blog I mention the coming of the railroads and the land grants handed out to railroads, particularly the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific. These two companies were involved in an 1860s version of a moon race. However the Russians were not involved. And like A/I today, the problem back then was not so much engineering as it was financing. Engineers and hard labor cleared the Sierra Nevada mountains but it was the good old use governmental funds greasing the palms of Congress that kept the Greenbacks flowing and the trains rolling.

“It’s gonna take-a money, a whole lotta’ spending money. It’s going to take plenty-a money. To do it right…”–George Harrison’s

The axle turning the wheel of this scandal was the Union Pacific’s construction company, the Credit Mobilier. The company over charged the government to the tune of $44 million and spread the wealth amongst their shareholders and several dozen Congressmen as well as the Vice President of the United States, Schuyler Colfax. Nothing really happened, nobody went to jail. A few Congressman were censured, the railroad got built and it was just chalked up to a typical business project during the Gilded Age.

The next governmental scandal centered around oil–drill baby drill. The global economy was shifting from a coal based economy to oil. One institution making that shift were navies of the world. So it really made sense back in 1910 to set aside land with known oil as a reserve for the US Navy.

This was an era before petrodollars. But shrewd oilmen knew the value of buck. There may not have been gold in “them there” Wyoming oil land reserves; but there damn sure was money to be had just lying there to be pumped. The Navy Department convinced President Warren Harding to transfer the land to the Interior department where Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, began leasing out the Teapot Dome oil reserves to Mammoth Oil Company and Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company–both in non-competitive bids. Sound familiar?

Interestingly leasing of the lands was not a crime. The real problem with these sorts of scandals is in the creative art of accounting; particularly when somebody is left out of the art of the deal.  It only takes one disgruntled individual, in this case a left out oilman, to start following a money trail of  illegal interest free loans and bribes. Just a few of the financial incentives Fall received as compensation for his generosity to Harry F Sinclair’s  Mammoth Oil Company and Edward L Doheny’s Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company. A Senate investigation of Fall’s financial shenanigans lead to Fall serving nine months of a one-year sentence. Sinclair spent six months in jail not for financial malfeasance but contempt of Senate. Doheny was acquitted of any charges. And so goes Jazz Era justice.

Now I will be honest. I could be shooting in the dark here. I don’t know whole lot about A/I. I am smart enough to figure out we are moving into the next phase of the Information Age. I also realize that there are various companies lead by very rich men that are developing the computers to run A/I and setting up data centers. (Check Forbes as a list of the top 50 A/I companies: forbes.com/list/ai50/) I do know from watching the news and reading about A/I is it is going take a ton of financial investments to get A/I to become a reality. And here again, I don’t want to sound like someone predicting the end of the world when A/I spreads its roots deep into humanity and really comes to some sort of fruition. But before that happens it has to be built. And if history is any indicator there is always somebody ready to jump the line with a paper bag of cash or stocks to get a leg up.

From what I can gather, A/I is here and being used today. My guess is we have only scratched the surface. It took the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific nine years to complete the transcontinental railroad. In 1914 the USS Texas was the last US Navy battleship built with coal burning engines. The “Mighty T,” was converted to oil in 1925. I am sure A/I can be rolled out just as quick as linking the coasts with a railroad line or putting a gas station on just about every corner in America. Of course with the right financial government funding you can send celebrities into low earth orbit. I am sure right now there is a money trail being laid out from Wall Street to our governmental hallways attracting the right palms to grease to give somebody a leg up on everybody else. But as George Harrison sang it is going to take a lot of spending money, which brings us to the mantra “follow the money. Once the grease is applied, then we can worry about the end of humanity.

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

Trump’s Mythical Tropical Thunder and Big Stick Diplomacy

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William Allen Rogers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mythology or fact. In American mythology Teddy Roosevelt said to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He never went around actually beating people over the head, but it did get him a prominent spot on Mount Rushmore. President Donald Trump seems to have taken Teddy’s myth to heart with his South American diplomacy. To paraphrase President Teddy Roosevelt Trump is more of: Threaten everybody and carry a big sledge hammer.

Most of us are familiar with Teddy Roosevelt as the mythical cowboy, the “Rough Rider” charging up San Juan Hill. His actual presidency not so much. Do we remember that he won the Noble Peace Prize in 1906 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. We probably know more about Greek Mythology thanks to Brad Pit and Percy Jackson than we do about Teddy and how he built the Panama Canal. Teddy could easily be turned into some sort of X Man or Guardian of the Galaxy super hero. We are more aware of the Mount Olympus crowd of gods and the quests of Hercules than the reality of our own mythical heroes on Mount Rushmore.

In fact, we may even know more about the Trojan War and mythical battles between Achilles and Hector than we do about the Spanish American War. How many people know who spoke those immortal words: “You may fire when ready Gridley.” Or who Gridley even was. But here are blowing up Venezuela as if it were 1898. It seems that we are teetering on some sort of tropical disturbance with the US Navy leading the way. Is it because of drugs; is it for oil? Are these realistic reasons for flooding the region with US military asset? Based on history I would say yes. After all, we didn’t hesitate to protect United Fruit Company’s banana assets in Central America from 1891 to 1934 using the US Marines as the “big stick.”

The Trojan War started with the kidnapping of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Paris kidnaps Helen to Troy, this is not an elopement because Helen is a married to the King of Sparta. Before long Greeks are manning their “triremes” and rowing to Troy to bring Helen back and to bring Paris to justice. In reality it makes for a good love story: Young lover steals young girl’s heart; jilted lover seeks revenge. Or maybe a two-part episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit.

I doubt the kidnapping Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores is going to send thousands of narco boats to Key West. However, some people claim that this whole tropical thunder campaign is revenge for Trump losing the 2020 election to Sleepy Joe Biden. After all, when all the conspiracy theories are added up how could the turtle possibly beat the hare. Did the turtle who started the race have a twin hidden along the way somewhere?

According to The Independent, “In the days after the 2020 election, Trump-connected figures floated debunked conspiracy theory that election technology firms Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic were designed to rig Venezuelan elections and then deployed to the United States to manipulate results to put Joe Biden in office.”

Like any good myth, or fable, a good deal of influencers promoting falsehoods are needed to keep Trump’s “bogus ‘stolen election’ narrative alive.” These hasty generalization are continually repeated to keep air moving through them. It’s the CPR that keeps these “long-dead conspiracy” alive and on some sort of political respirator.

“Hasty generalization is a logical fallacy that occurs when a conclusion is drawn based on insufficient or unrepresentative evidence. This type of reasoning often leads to stereotypes and oversimplifications, as it involves making broad claims based on a limited set of examples or experiences. It highlights the importance of adequate evidence and careful consideration in both deductive and inductive reasoning.”–fiveable.me

Archaeologist, going back to the 1880s continue today looking for ancient mythological sites like Troy, Mount Olympus or Crete to find a historical narrative. Team Trump, like archaeologists, has left no theory uncovered in search of a historical narrative that leads to him winning the 2020 election. But like ancient discoveries they can be credible but do not necessarily confirm the myth. The myth of Trump’s 2020 victory remains a poetic political history, now a sad saga in the face of all the harsh contrary legal rulings.

If the Ancient Greeks can create believable mythical narratives, can the same sort of fabrication be created today? For instance, the Trump Administration has created a myth that claims immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating the towns’s pets. There is probably as much truth to that claim as to the cyclops, Polyphemus, eating several of Odysseus men trapped in the cyclops’s cave on his way home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

“Myths narrate the sacred history of the acts of supernatural beings and tell how the physical and social universe came to existence through the deeds of the supernatural. In this way myths become the exemplary models for all significant human activities. By knowing myths, one knows the origin of things and hence can control and manipulate them at will. In most cases it is not enough to know the origin of myth, but it must be recited and ceremonially recounted. It has been said that by reciting myths one re-creates primordial times and emerges from the profane time to enter the “sacred” time of original events.”–continuum.fas.harvard.edu

Americans have their share of tall tales and folk lore, like George Washington throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River. That’s quite feat when some of the best NFL quarterbacks can only throw a football 70 yards. I have been to Mount Vernon and from George’s front door I can tell you he did not chuck a silver dollar across the Potomac . At least not there. Maybe up river some place where you can walk across. All this makes me think why would he throw a silver dollar to begin with. Why not a rock? I think the silver dollars embellishes the myth. But do we hold this exaggeration against the man who supposedly could not tell a lie; and later become the Father of our country? I am not sure if the myths about George Washington are still taught in school or not but the continual reciting gives Washington supernatural powers.

The belief, or non belief of Washington throwing a silver dollar, in my mind is just not true. I would hate to call it a lie because a lie in most cases, for whatever reason, is an assertion or an attempt to mislead and deceive somebody. The silver dollar story is more of a hyperbole to exaggerate the greatness of Washington. Today, I just don’t hear too much hyperbole. I don’t hear tall tales of a giant lumberjack wrestling with a blue ox. What I hear are, and I would hate to call anybody a liar; are bold faced falsehoods, stories intended to mislead and deceive. Some simply call them lies.

Today we have left hyperbole in the literary dust. The first thing that makes today’s falsehoods confusing, is that they are laced with a collection of “alternative facts” in an attempt to make a logical political debate misleading. To paraphrase Mary Poppins: Just a spoonful of truth makes the lie go down. The second thing that makes today’s falsehoods dangerous, is they are based on a continual flow of hasty generalizations that disrupt and confuses any sort of understanding as to what just happened. As citizens we are forced to sift through partisan unsubstantiated social media claims and influencers with suspect credentials. This kind of biased news goes beyond reporting on half the truth. It is full blown bending the facts to deceive and mislead, not to mention inflame ones sense humanity: They’re eating the dogs. Are they? Is Atlas still holding up the world?

The real confusion with Trump’s Tropical Thunder is that it is mixed in with so many other unrelated hasty generalizations: His search for the Northwest Passage through Greenland; trying to change the definition of who is an American citizen–and then deporting alien scum rinsed out of the system. The nation is now on a mythical quest to Caracas, Venezuela to rescue a kidnapped 2020 election. It is also the quest based on the biggest hasty generalization of our time: That Trump is Making America Great Again, probably the biggest myth Americans have ever put on a hat.

From a Purged Female Pharaoh to an Erased Font for its Wokeness

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I really had to laugh the other day when I read that Secretary of State Marco Rubio rolled back the State Department’s use of Calibri as the department’s font. First, the Biden Administration changed fonts from New Times Roman, a font with serifs, to  Calibri, a sans serif font type.

According to DW.com “The US Secretary of State says the Calibri font, introduced under Joe Biden, is wasteful, confusing and degrades the department’s correspondence. The move is part of Trump’s bid to undo Biden’s pro-diversity policies.” I think Rubio is saying in a round-about-way that the pen, with the right style of font, is greater than the sword.

Let’s take the Declaration of Independence, one of our first historical documents issued before we were even a country, as an example. Thomas Jefferson is given credit for writing the Declaration of Independence but the task of actually putting the words to parchment using quill and ink was Timothy Matlack, the assistant to the Secretary of the Second Continental Congress. According to the National Archives Matlack “transcribe(d) the document using a patrician style called English round hand or Copperplate.

“Matlack’s handwritten document lends a sense of elegance, authority, and—most important—anonymity to the Declaration of Independence. The purpose of the document is to justify American independence and raise support for an independent United States, both within the colonies and abroad.”

Standardization and formality have long been hallmarks of official documentation, such as legal or government papers. For this reason, the mastery of fine handwriting became a profession itself, and the craftsmen who expertly transcribed texts for hire were called “penman.” The mark of “good” penmanship was its artful appearance. Fine letter formation instilled trust and so carried an importance equal to what the words actually said. –prologue.blogs.archives.gov

Timothy Matlack is the scribe whose impeccable handwriting adorns the official, signed parchment on display in the National Archives Rotunda.
Charles Willson Peale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Rubio also proves, in a round-about-way that a font like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or in this case what is confusing and degrading. Now, using Rubio’s reasoning, the Biden administration switched to Calibri because the State Department thought it was easier for people with vision problems to read.

But here is the real problem with the current administration’s switch back to New Times Roman. The recommendations to shift fonts came from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Their decision was based on studies that Calibri was a cleaner font to read than New Times Roman.

Poor Calibri, erased by guilt from association, caught in the world of woke. Somehow the Trump State Department views Calibri as a woke font because it might be easier to read. However, readability had nothing to with Rubio’s change of fonts. Herein-lies the kicker. Anything with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion label sewed onto a government study, in this case the Calibir Font, is going to be sent to the Woke Second Hand Store found in the section of nonrenewable concepts of inclusion.

The definition of legibility is this: how easily individual characters or symbols can be distinguished from one another, how easy they are to recognize. If a font is legible, you can effortlessly distinguish between similarly shaped symbols even in small text sizes…Readability refers to the ease with which a reader can understand a written text. The definition in this context focuses on how easily the reader can scan or “glide” through lines of text without distraction or difficulty (ease of reading).—typttype.com

I personally don’t care what font the State Department uses. The State Department can hand write their correspondence using crayons from the classic 64 Crayola box. (I don’t think you would find them using “Colors of World Skin Tone” 24 color box set.) What I am getting tired of, and to paraphrase Trump’s “Russia, Russia, Russia” is “Biden, Biden, Biden” with an occasional Obama thrown in there. I would have been satisfied with we want a font with serifs and be done with it.

I think it really has more to do with purging “anything” to do with Obama and Biden. Just google Obama and Biden policies reversed by Trump. It is a long list ranging from environmental climate change initiatives dealing with clean air and greenhouse gases to fuel economy standards and federal minimum wage. Oddly we have not heard anything about the Administration’s victory over Trump’s war on water pressure. Ending this war is never included in the eight or so touted wars this Administration has ended.

But wiping out a predecessor’s legacy is nothing new. If we could travel back in time on Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine to Hatshepsut’s rule (c. 1479–1458 BCE) in Egypt, we would find the systematic eliminations of anything to do with her rule as pharaoh.. According to worldhstoryedu.com, “The motivations for erasing Hatshepsut’s legacy are complex and likely rooted in political, religious, and cultural considerations. First, her ascent to power was unconventional, as she took on the full role of pharaoh while a male heir, Thutmose III, was available, albeit a child at the time.”

Additionally, “Some historians have also suggested that Hatshepsut’s erasure may have been part of a broader ideological movement to purify Egyptian history. The pharaohs who followed Thutmose III, particularly during the reign of Amenhotep II, took further steps to restore a strict adherence to traditional roles and practices.”

Seated statue of Hatshepsut Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

It is interesting to note that according to worldhistory.org, ‘Women in ancient Egypt were regarded as the equals of men in every aspect save that of occupation. The man was the head of the household and nation, but women ran the home and contributed to the stability of that nation as artisans, brewers, doctors, musicians, scribes, and many other jobs, sometimes even those involving authority over men.”

Hatshepsut must have really ticked off Thutmose III; her purging was done so well she was forgotten to history. Egyptians had deep beliefs about the afterlife. They believed if one’s name was removed from history this would have serious ramification in the afterlife “…it is believed that whoever removed her from public knowledge did not wish her ill after death and so preserved her name in more secluded areas.” History is out there somewhere.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that archaeologists unearthed, “in the more secluded areas” her statues, monuments and other related long lost inscriptions. It was from these discoveries that archaeologists and historians were able to determine the great impact Hatshepsut had on the development of New Kingdom’s 18th Dynasty.

History is full of purges. We can look back to October 13, 1307, a Friday when King Philip IV and Pope Clement V decided to gruesomely rid themselves, and then avail themselves of the so called fortunes of the Knights of the Templar. Ironically no fortunes were found and people have been looking for buried treasure for centuries.

As for the choice of what font the State Department uses I ask: Does anybody really care?

F**ck ’em if they can’t take a joke

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There is a lot of talk about democracy going the way of the dodo bird, which went extinct in less than 100 years. Our country has been around for almost 250 years, and maybe we are on the fast track to dump democracy. But what people don’t understand is that our collective sense of humor is marching off hand-in-hand with democracy. There is something democratic about a joke, particularly one told in front of an audience to entertain. It is my belief that In order to get a joke you must be able to take a joke. It is called a sense of humor.

Freedom to Laugh–or not to

We toss around the term “protected speech.” But what the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence don’t specifically mention or protect, is the freedom to laugh–or not to. It probably falls somewhere under under the Implied Powers of Congress buried in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: Congress has the right: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. Somehow this implied power wormed its way over to quasi government agencies like the FCC. The FCC must be using an antiquated laugh meter from the 1930s to determine what is funny. It would not surprise me if we see the return of the laff box to cue us when to laugh.

Charles Douglass, a CBS engineer, developed the laff box, and according to the BBC, “When Douglass first ‘invented’ the laugh track in 1950, it was intended to help the audience watch, understand and feel comfortable with a relatively new medium. TV comedies adopted canned laughter to ease their viewers into a new kind of entertainment, even for shows that were filmed without live audiences.

British actor David Niven said, “The laugh track is the single greatest affront to public intelligence I know.” Humor is about intelligence–getting the joke sometimes takes a little knowledge of the joke.

I can only imagine what it was like to laugh in the 1600s during the Puritan rule in New England. I don’t suspect a community that would pillar its fellow citizens for social faux paus would want to induce laughter. Back then saying the wrong thing, for a laugh or not, could affect your standing in the community. For Instance, the New England Historical Society mentioned the poor fool who crossed the religious leaders of the day. It wrote, “the general court tried a man in Hartford for ‘contemptuous carriages’ against the church and minister. He had to stand upon a four-foot high block or stool on Lecture Day with a paper fixed on his breast with the words, ‘AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNNER OF GOD’S HOLY ORDINANCES.’ The purpose of his punishment: so others would ‘fear and be ashamed of breakinge out in like wickednesse.’” By controlling the comedian we are essentially controlling what we can laugh at.

Because of our diversity we have moved away from a Puritanical outlook on life. There was no insult comedy back then. The Puritans didn’t see anything funny about other (English) religions i.e. Quakers and surely not Catholics, encroaching on their holy ground let alone the town’s fool telling jokes. A night out back then was finding a warm pew and listening to Jonathan Edwards preaching that we are all “Sinners in the hands of angry God.” I am not sure if “The wicked deserve to be cast into Hell” or that “Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the wicked at any moment.” It is my observation that the latter does not happen too often. In any case, there are not a whole lot of laughs there.

As a country we have learned to take a joke. In 1820 America there were no Polish or Italian jokes. Maybe the first Irish jokes showed up around the 1840s. There may not have even been “Knock Knock” jokes back then. As a nation in a depression we had the slapstick of The Three Stooges. By 1966 there was a book that dealt specifically with racial insults and slurs: Race Riots an Anthology of Ethnic Insults. (You can buy the book on EBAY for about $50.) This sort of observational insult humor is frowned upon today. No governmental organization banned the telling of ethnic jokes. It probably had more to do with the fact that people did not want to laugh at such jokes publicly.

It is all about the Idea

John Stuart Mill came up with this marketplace of ideas in his 1859 book On Liberty. The Middle Tennessee State University Speech Center writes: The importance of On Liberty resides in a series of powerful arguments defending the free flow of ideas in a marketplace of ideas, and in the belief that individuals can best make their own lifestyle choices, free from government intervention. On Liberty was thus an inspiration for future First Amendment theory.

We don’t normally look at “funny” as part of the marketplace of ideas but it is. Just look at any insurance company ad on TV. Who didn’t laugh seeing Doug chasing Emu out onto the football field and then getting pancake-tackled by a security guard. According to the Speech Center, “The marketplace of ideas refers to the belief that the test of the truth or acceptance of ideas depends on their competition with one another and not on the opinion of a censor, whether one provided by the government or by some other authority.”

What makes a joke work in the marketplace is the incongruous linkage created between misplaced elements or characters. Take insurance advertisement and their humorous sell job. Emu Limu and Doug are out there competing with Mayhem, Cavemen, geckos, ducks and celebrities for a laugh. There has to be some sort of “truth or acceptance” on the viewing audience despite what people believe about insurance companies. Insurance companies know they need to make us laugh; because in reality, their business is not really about laughing. I, for one, would find it quite funny if someone would squash the gecko. It would be hilarious to see how the insurance company would pay up.

Comic License

Here is where humor can get dicey, particularly for the comedian. The defining part of any joke is the laugh it gets. A comedian must have a good idea of the audience the joke is aimed at. As a member of the audience your individual sense of humor, and all the social and moral factors that form your sense of humor will decide how hard you laugh or what you think is funny. It is difficult to determine what an audience will laugh at on any given night. That in and of itself makes it almost impossible to regulate or license humor. So, humor, like beauty is in the eye and the ear of the beholder. It is an opinion–unsupported judgment.

According to Mill even a point of view needs a guardian. He writes, “Protection is also needed against the tyranny of prevailing opinion, which seeks to suppress dissent and enforce conformity.” The central concern of On Liberty is to find a way to draw the line between “individual independence and social control.” Censorship is not an option.

Mill argues “against censorship and in favor of the free flow of ideas. Asserting that “no one alone knows the truth, or that no one idea alone embodies either the truth or its antithesis.” Or, in this case what is funny or not funny. A crucial component of Mill’s belief is “that the free competition of ideas is the best way to separate falsehoods from fact.” (Free Speech Center Middle Tennessee State University) Again, what is funny and what is not.

Funny Money

But let us take laughter out of the realm of Constitutional theory and debate. Let us go back to 1776 and Adam Smith’s book Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; or better known simply as the Wealth of Nations. Many of Smith’s beliefs can trickle down to any form of economic endeavor.

In Smith’s book he outlines four key economic theories that determines a country’s wealth. One concept is the free market–the invisible hand that the economy uses to regulate itself–“that individuals pursuing their own self-interest would result in the best outcomes for society as a whole.” In the free market it is all about what moves off the shelves. Comedy is no different. if the joke does not get a laugh it is not in the best interest of the comedian to repeat something that hit the floor like an anvil. The comedian not only has to be funny, he or she has to be in charge of their own marketing. If it ain’t funny there will be one more starving comedian hanging on to his day job. It is not up to the government to determine if a joke “is too soon.”; or to determine what sells as humor. That is up to the audience–the market for humor.

A story with a humorous climax

And that is he real problem today. We just don’t know how to take a joke anymore. America in some way has lost its sense of humor, and hence our democracy. Political realities of the day have sapped our ability to take a joke. We are losing our ability to recognize a joke. Granted, not everything is funny to everyone. And yes some people will not get the joke. Others will get ticked off at the joke. I think our democracy depends on our ability to laugh. It is when we take things too seriously no laff box will get us on track.

As Mel Helitzer with Mark Shatz write in their book: Writing Secrets “Humor has played an important part in our lives for thousands of years, but scientist and philosophers are still working to understand what laughter means, why we tell jokes and why we do or don’t appreciate others humor.” They write “humor is subjective. And in today’s world of diverse opinions humor is more subjective than ever.”

With today’s incongruities people are more mesmerized in dealing with incompatible ideas, innuendos, facts, near facts, alternate facts and ever-changing norms and awareness, getting to a punchline of a joke goes beyond a priest, a minister and a rabbi walked into a bar…

Ancient Aliens, the Deep State and the Epstein Conspiracy

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Without a doubt Americans love a good conundrum. If it is real puzzler with crime and sex we either turn it into TV docudrama or better yet, a full blown conspiracy. 

Just look at the Kennedy assassination. After 60 years we have gone from the “lone gunman nut theory” to Cuban assassins parachuting in on the Grassy Knoll to CIA Mafia-hired hitmen looking to get revenge for John’s brother, Robert, for going after organized crime as the Attorney General. I have even read where theorists say there is evidence to suggest that somebody took a shot at Kennedy from inside a curb-side sewer at street level.

Like the Warren Commission and the Kennedy assassination, I really don’t think President Trump realized as candidate Trump the morass he got himself into when he promised to release Jeffrey Epstein’s files to the public. That was like aroma of fresh-baked pizza with extra cheese wafting out onto the street for the Deep State conspiracy minded cosmonauts of  cyberspace to start chowing down on.  Afterall, whether he likes it or not, Trump has inherited the Deep State and all its dirty ops.

The Epstein Files is more than alleged sex trafficking of underage girls. Right now the conspiracy sleuths are more interested in whose names are on some sort of list, men seeking the pleasure of younger women—and their connection to the Deep State, banking, oil and international business. This has conspiracy bloodhounds digging like terriers at a rat hole. And that is what the Deep State , or what’s left of it at this point, wants. The Deep State wants these rat terriers running down dead end alleys. 

Meanwhile a key piece of information is being over looked: Epstein’s DNA. When it comes to crime we depend on Forensic DNA Specialists. But, in this case we should be relying on Genomic Researchers. 

The Human Genome Project was a large, well-organized, and highly collaborative international effort that generated the first sequence of the human genome and that of several additional well-studied organisms. Carried out from 1990-2003, it was one of the most ambitious and important scientific endeavors in human history.—NIH National Genome Research Institute. 

The Epstein case goes well beyond criminal forensics. It is alleged that Epstein’s DNA carries a slight mutation. It is a slight mutation passed along for centuries and can be traced back to its possible origins in three river valleys on Earth: The Hung He or Yellow River, “The Cradle of Chinese Civilization,” The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, better known as the “Fertile Crescent” and the Nile River. Some researchers believe that the same mutation can be found in Central and South Americans—home to the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. This explains Trump’s efforts to deport as many illegal South and Central Americans as possible. This is just cover for the Deep State’s search for alien DNA in immigrants who come into this country from south of our border. It could possibly be argued that the Deep State kept Trump in the dark about this research in his first term. In his second term he unknowingly fell into the Epstein Files and the ancient alien DNA research face first. He now finds himself mired within the Deep State, something that unsettles his staunch MAGA base. 

Most middle schoolers, who stayed awake in their World History class, can take a wild stab at explaining the significance of those geographic areas. Those of us who are smarter than a 5th grader but less studious than an 8th grader may not know that all of these locations are significant in establishment of ancient civilizations and human advancement; moving from hunters and gatherers to inventing the wheel, writing, gunpowder and domesticating crops and animals. Something the Trump Administration is banking on us not knowing, now that they are aware of some of the buried Deep State secrets. This explains the dismantling of the state and national educational infrastructure and the closing down government funded national research centers.

The Deep State became obsessed with determining the human genome and may explain the push for diversity, equity, and inclusion as a way of preparing us for extraterrestrial beings in the woodshed.  According the National Genome Research Institute, “A special committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences outlined the original goals for the Human Genome Project in 1988, which included sequencing the entire human genome in addition to the genomes of several carefully selected non-human organisms.”

For whatever reason a handful of researchers were convinced that the Fertile Crescent held some of the mysteries of the human genome. Many people believe that President George H. W. Bush’s 1990  Gulf War was to put Saddam Hussein back in his box. Its real mission was in search of  DNA, just one of  Bush’s thousand points of light was the mapping and sequencing of the human genome. 

The main goal of this international effort was to get the entire human genome, or the genetic blueprint of the human being. By 2000 the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium “announced that it had produced a draft human genome sequence that accounted for 90% of the human genome.” The key word here is “human” because “The draft sequence contained more than 150,000 areas where DNA sequence was unknown because it could not be determined accurately (known as gaps).” But that 8 to 10 percent needed to be filled in. 

Again, in 2003 another Gulf War, this one started by Bush II, to fill in the gaps. This time it was under the guise of looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction. In reality it was in search of that one little mutation. Hence, military house-to-house searches armed with AR-15s and cotton swabs.  Abu Ghraib Prison was known more as a CIA torture chamber than a Deep State secret genetic research facility. The dupes in this charade were the Army National Guardsmen who unbeknownst decoyed the real purpose of Abu Ghraib. The human rights abuses was a great cover for the more benign genomic research that was taking place deep within its walls. 

By 2022 those gaps had been filled. All though touted as a positive outcome, the Human Genome Project “made every part of the draft human genome sequence publicly available shortly after production.” This created a genome race giving Communist Chinese scientists access to DNA sequencing science that they previously lacked. Trump’s trade war with China goes deeper than container ships crossing the ocean. It sheds some light on the Wuhan lab leak theory. What were Chinese scientists really researching? Was the Covid pandemic just a cover for deeper, darker genetic secrets?

What we are witnessing now is the anti-Deep State’s attempt to dismantle all evidence of the Deep State through a concocted agency called DOGE. DOGE’s eradication of agencies includes many seemingly unrelated government activities. It is a shotgun approach to eliminating the Deep State, destroying more than DEI and “woke” agencies.  The Trump administration is not only slashing research efforts taking place across the nation in government but also in university labs. Hence, the legal battles to defund universities like Harvard and the closing down government research centers. But probably its biggest take down was removing the United States from the World Health Organization, thus denying scientists valuable DNA data derived from a variety of sources–and reasons.

What the anti-Deep State does not understand is that some of these labs have been researching for decades with alien remains. Alien remains that some researchers believe are related to those they believe visited this planet 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The Deep State has meticulously compartmentalized this alien DNA research so no one agency or research lab could connect the DNA gaps on its own. With the anti-Deep State slashing funding for research facilities, it is hard now to tell what was lost to DOGE’s shotgun approach in dismantling the government for budgetary purposes. 

For instance, one research group found there was a slight difference within the mutation leading some researchers to believe that there is just enough diversity in the alien DNA to speculate that maybe as many as three different alien related-groups visited Earth. No one is sure if that research is lost or just on pause. 

It is also their belief, but purely speculative, that these aliens set up what would be “Roanoke Colonies” in the Hung He River, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the Nile River valleys, much like Britain’s attempt to establish settlements off the North Carolina coast in 1685.  These attempts resulted in the first great American Mystery:  “The Lost Colony of Roanoke.” Historians today do not know what happened to the 112 to 120 settlers. They still search for clues to their disappearance. Some speculate that local native Americans savagely killed them. Others believe that they may have lived out their remaining years with peaceful natives in the unsettled wilderness. 

Some researchers believe that these ancient aliens, stranded  in a hostile environment, suffered the same fate as Lost Colony of Roanoke inhabitants, were waiting for an interstellar supply ship that never arrived. Some go on to speculate that like the Lost Colony, war kept these Earth colonies from getting supplies they  needed. Although there is no proof of this some believe that an interstellar war may have kept colonizing aliens from a timely return.This leads some to believe that those stranded aliens, much like the Roanoke settlers, intermarried with the natives, humans, creating this out-worldly “nonhuman” mutant piece of DNA floating around in the genetic pool of humans.

In fact, some researchers feel strongly that the Chinese may be on to something big with their exploration on the Dark Side of the Moon– 2001: A Space Odyssey moment. There maybe proof of an ancient alien space battle that took place in our own Solar System. Evidence of this battle could possibly be found on the Moon. It may even give clues to the possible end of life on Mars. Although not taken seriously among astronomers and astrophysicists, it is a belief that this ancient alien space battle destroyed several planets explaining the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper Belt. 

The Deep State has been secretly working with the remains of extraterrestrials since the end of World War II. The government has tightly controlled information on UFOs or “unidentified anomalous phenomena”  UAPs. (see blog Congress and Aliens, January 2024). We have been looking to space for proof of extraterrestrial life while the proof may be right here walking around on Earth in our own DNA. There is more hiding in the Epstein Files and fantasy island. The Trump Administration overt activities to defund large portions of the government, its suspicious turn around on the Epstein Files indicates that like past administration, it has been consumed by the Deep State.