The Golden One

Charlie and I flew down to Zihuatanejo, Mexico this past week to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.

We stayed at the posh Thompson/Hyatt Resort on Playa La Ropa, a tropical setting with oodles of palm trees, clear turquoise water, and a white sandy beach populated with chaise lounges under the shade of palapas. Nothing much to do except enjoy the scenery, have Margaritas and snacks, and read.

Muy bien!

Our room at the resort was very spiffy, as large as our first home in Valinda, overlooking a lagoon, and had our own private plunge pool. The bed was mammoth and sat right in the middle of the room, and the furnishings were very modern in style.

Perfecto!

We stayed for four nights. We ate at the HAO restaurant (on property) the first night, enjoying a Mexican barbeque. It was very nice.

On the second night, we went downtown to a very nice bar/restaurant called “Bandidos”. We had some grande Margaritas and I ordered Molcajete for dinner. It is a native dish that I always seek out in Mexican restaurants (but can never find in the States) and it was outstanding.

The next night, for our actual anniversary dinner, we ate at an upscale place called “La Gaviota”, which is located at the south end of Playa La Ropa. We enjoyed a great meal (I had a scrumptious seafood pasta), some Mariachi songs, and a wonderful sunset over the bay.

Magnifico!

As usual, our Mexican hosts were friendly and helpful. Charlie and I have been traveling to Mexico together for fifty years and, without exception, this has always been the case. People who we know who “would never go to Mexico” because of fear of the cartels, criminals, rapists, etc., don’t know what they are missing.

Those doofuses have been watching too much Fox News, I think!

The only bad things about this trip were: (a) the massive logjam on the 91 Freeway (a freeway-blocking accident involving a car and a semi) as we headed toward LAX; (b) the flight back to California on Alaska Airlines which took an extra 45 minutes due to a headwind; (c) a clusterfuck at the Alaska terminal which required us to sit out on the taxiway for 45 minutes before disembarking; and, (d) lots of confusion as to hooking up with our hotel shuttle at the chaotic Bradley terminal.

What a mess that place is! As enormous as LAX has become, and with all of the transportation infrastructure that has been improved there, it is still a nightmare figuring out how to get in and out of there without losing your mind. Too many people and cars. We’ve been to many countries, hence airports, and I think LAX is the worst. By contrast, the Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa airport in Mexico was wonderful: clean, modern, efficient, and friendly.

Run by a bunch of “lazy Mexicans”; who knew!!

We flew First Class on this special trip, and really enjoyed the extra legroom and service. However, we sat behind a large gentleman wearing a Covid mask who let out a horrible-sounding cough about every 60 seconds or so. It sounded like he had Tuberculosis, Ebola fever, or Stage 4 lung cancer, or some nasty communicable disease. We were simultaneously afraid and annoyed, thinking that he’d missed his Medevac flight to Scripps. However, his wife informed Charlie that the poor guy has a bad case of asthma: 100 percent not communicable. That was great news, but we still had to listen to the loud, honking cough for 3-3/4 hours.

Yipes!

Our celebratory getaway to Mexico was made possible by son Tim and wife Shanon, who watched our posse of three Boston Terriers in their Murrieta home for six nights.

It was a circus, I’m sure, but they seemed to have enjoyed the experience. As a matter of fact, Shanon wants some of that energy around her in the future, so she’s getting a Pug puppy in a few months.

On our six-hour drive back to Mesquite from So Cal, Charlie and I reminisced for hours about the circumstances that led to our hookup in 1973 and marriage in 1974.

I was a single guy at the time, while she was a recent divorcee with four young sons, working double shifts at the hospital to make the mortgage payment, and getting zero dollars in alimony or child support from her ex-husband. If it weren’t for my G.I. bill assistance (I was finishing up college at Cal State L.A.) and Food Stamps that Charlie got from the County, we would have never made it.

Most people we’ve met are astonished that a single guy would have taken on a divorcee with four young kids. To be honest, I really never gave it much thought. I could tell that Charlie was a good person with a huge heart. I had dated (after high school when I was a lifeguard/swim instructor, in my college fraternity days, and during my four-year military stint) probably four dozen different gals, some of whom were shopping for a husband. I enjoyed every one of them. However, my priority was finishing up college, not chasing skirts. It just so happened that I ran into Charlie in 1973 when I was working at Queen of the Valley Hospital (as she was), and I was immediately “moonstruck” by her caring and warm, friendly nature.

“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

And, so, we began our Great Adventure… which turned out fantastic.

I don’t think our successful marriage by chance. We both came from large, loving families anchored by honorable, hard-working parents. My parents and her parents both enjoyed 50-year marriages. This doesn’t happen by accident, as the marital endeavor is a team sport: mutual support, encouragement, agreement on the important things (finances, child-rearing, career aspirations, problem-solving, etc.), and lots of caring through thick and thin.

My wonderful wife and I have had our emotional ups and downs, financial stress, medical issues (mostly Charlie, who’s had jillions of them!), career hurdles, parenting challenges, and plenty of arguments. Fifty years is a long time to hang with anyone, certainly. However, we have been great TEAMMATES, working together to achieve our goals. And, always FRIENDS.

The two of us are very different people, some might say polar opposites.

Charlie is a people-person who is always looking to help others. She is dyslexic, to a degree, thus a slow learner. However, once she gets up to speed, watch out… because she becomes an expert, is diligent, and works extremely hard at whatever task is at hand. She has been a bookkeeper for decades and her clients love her, as she is available to them 24/7/365. She is, in essence, a business nurse… with a huge heart. She can walk into a room of 200 strangers and, upon leaving, has two-dozen new friends and perhaps a few new clients.

I am an introvert, by nature, and in that same room of 200 strangers one might find me up against a wall, nursing a drink, observing people and behaviors, but not going out of my way to make new friends. I’m not unfriendly; however, I simply don’t need a lot of friends to function. Maybe it’s “guy thing”? Or, maybe it’s just me? Another difference between us is that I’m constantly reading and trying to learn, and that stuff comes easily to me. I can read 100 pages per hour, and I put time in every day scouring scores of news sources to keep up with events and issues. I had a long, productive career in a corporate structure where I enjoyed tackling complex problems, nurturing my subordinates, and achieving goals.

So, how did “oil” and “water” mix so well?

I think we both understood the concepts of love and marriage, and tried as hard as we could to always be friends. We make decisions as a couple; very rarely does one of us do something significant without buy-in from the other.

For example, we both enjoy interior design, and have worked hard to create nice living environments in the several homes that we’ve owned. If, for example, we want to purchase a new rug or painting or couch, we will jointly examine the options until we both say, “That’s it!” What I do is go online to something like Wayfair, check out all of the possibilities, identify some promising candidates, and then sit down with Charlie and go over each one, eliminating the “losers” one by one until we both agree on the “winner”. That’s the way we make sure that each item is exactly what we want… and there are no hard feelings afterwards.

We work collaboratively on all significant decisions. It’s probably a normal behavior for people who are married for a long time, and probably abnormal for couples who struggle and end up divorced.

Anyway, we did it our way and we’re elated with the result. We were serious about marriage, and the commitment that it entails, and we made it work.

As the saying goes, “There is no “I” in team”.

I am reminded of a Panama Canal cruise that we took years ago. We played Bingo every day. On the first day of the cruise, the Bingo host asked the several hundred married folks (pretty much everyone) in the showroom to stand up. Then, he said, “Everyone who has been married less than five years… sit down.” And, a number of the couples did so. He then repeated his message but made the criteria ten years. More couples sat down. This went on for awhile until he eventually arrived at the final couple, who I think had been married something like 75 years!! They got a well-deserved “hooray” from the crowd.

We actually came to know the couple, as they played bingo every day on the 10-day cruise. The guy’s name was Tony Rine (I can’t remember his wife’s name) and the two of them just so happened to be neighbors of my parents in Vista, California. A very nice couple, they were. And, frugal. While everyone else in the game was buying multiple tickets for every game, Tony and his wife would buy one ticket only, and they would jointly mark the numbers on the card as they came up. The odds of them winning were many times 300 to 1, because the other contestants were playing multiple cards.

During that 10-day cruise, the Rines won a Bingo worth several hundred dollars several times, playing the one card. It was amazing. On the final night, when the jackpot Bingo game was worth $12,000, Tony and his bride of 75 years played their usual one Bingo card. We were sitting with them, playing multiple cards, when Tony yelled, “Bingo!” We could hardly believe it.

Now, that’s what I call teamwork!

A Conspiracy?

The New Testament of the Holy Bible is probably the most important piece of literature whose provenance is completely unknown.

No one, not even Christian religious scholars, knows who wrote the Gospels (i.e. the stories of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ) or when, exactly, they were written.

Of course, the lack of witnesses or evidence corroborating alleged divine goings-on is a common denominator of every major religion in world history. The mystery of supposed supernatural things is part of the attraction, I suppose. People like to ponder the unknown and come up with all manner of explanations: it’s the nature of human beings.

This is what keeps the clergy in business.

Believers in fables and myths are simply expected to suspend disbelief and accept such stories as factual. So, even though human beings can’t build ships than can accommodate all living things, part seas, topple stone walls by blowing on a trumpet, walk on water, miraculously restore hearing to a deaf person, raise the dead, or survive a crucifixion, the true believer must accept these tall tales if he wants to “belong to the club” (his church).

Devout religious folks are actually proud of the fact that they BELIEVE in stuff that has no basis in fact. Whereas a non-believer such as myself finds himself constantly asking, like the old burger commercial, “Where’s the beef?”

In other words, where did this Biblical literature come from, who wrote it, when was it written, how was it published and, perhaps the most important question, why was it produced?

These questions, particularly concerning the New Testament of the Bible, have puzzled curious folks for 2,000 years.

Of course, during the first 1,500 years of Christianity, when the Catholic Church possessed enormous power, simply asking such questions could get the inquirer in big trouble. A skeptic could be shunned by the faithful, excommunicated (tossed out of the Church), tortured on the rack, or even burnt at the stake. Book burning (i.e. destroying any religious literature not complimentary to the Gospels) was commonly practiced by Christian zealots under the direction of local bishops.

Thankfully, the power of the Church has been in decline for several hundred years, thus many theologians and historians over the years have been able to contemplate the murky origins of Christianity.

What they all agree on is that the Gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (that is, they were titled that way to infer that Jesus’ disciples or followers wrote them, with the implication that these scribes were four independent witnesses to Jesus’ ministry). Also, it is obvious to scholars and theologians that none of those writers personally witnessed any of the holy pageant in Palestine: all of the Gospels were written long after Jesus Christ allegedly walked the earth.

In addition, since none of the authors personally experienced Jesus (and there were no tape recorders in the 1st century), we can know for a certainty that none of the supposed verbatim quotes from Jesus came from His lips. Thus, all the red ink in the New Testament (i.e. the supposed actual words of Jesus Christ) are not the “word of God” but, rather, wonderful prose constructed by talented writers in the late 1st and early 2nd century.

A question that has always haunted me concerns the “Why?” In other words, why did Jesus (an observant Jew) and his twelve disciples (also Jews) conspire to create an anti-Semitic religion?

Another question is, “How did Christianity emerge under the noses of the Roman Empire?” The Romans had their own pantheon of gods (Jupiter, Neptune, Venus, etc.) which supposedly helped them out from time to time. At the same time, Rome was quite tolerant of the various religions that they encountered in their conquered territories.

So, how was it that the new religion of Christianity was able to grow by leaps and bounds in the 2nd and early 3rd centuries, eventually replacing Rome’s own Roman pantheon of gods and becoming the “state religion” of the Empire by the 4th century?

I just recently read (for the second time!) a book by Joseph Atwill titled Caesar’s Messiah, The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus. This book theorizes how and why Christianity evolved from Judaism with the help of leadership at the Roman court.

Atwill’s book makes more sense than anything I have previously read about the mysterious beginnings of Christianity. It is still considered a fringe conspiracy theory among theologians and historians, but it really connects the dots, in my opinion. So, I will undertake to summarize Atwill’s theory in the following discussion.

Two thousand years ago the Roman Empire encompassed much of the “known world”, including the Middle East. As was the policy within the Empire, conquered peoples were allowed to worship their local gods in their own fashion with the exception that every place of worship also needed to contain a representation of the Roman emperor as an acknowledgement that he was their worldly lord and master. Most conquered peoples acquiesced to this rule. However, the Jews of Palestine absolutely refused to allow a bust of the Emperor to be placed in their places of worship, as their religion forbade such an abomination.

Thus, the Romans were in perpetual conflict with militant Jewish hardliners, which necessitated a strong, expensive military presence in the Middle East to maintain order. By the mid-1st century, Rome had stomached all it could of the rebellion and mounted a campaign to crush the Jewish zealots once and for all. The “War of the Jews”, as historian (?) Flavius Josephus describes it, culminated in the siege and ultimate destruction of Jerusalem, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the burning and leveling to the ground the Jewish holy Temple in 70 A.D. A few years later, the remaining zealots were trapped on the mountaintop fortress of Masada and were either wiped out by the Roman army or committed mass suicide.

Leadership in Rome was quite annoyed at the massive and expensive military endeavor required to pacify the residents of Palestine. They didn’t want a repeat of this religious guerrilla warfare in the Middle East or any part of their Empire. The Roman goal was, and always had been, to pacify the peoples in lands that they conquered. In most cases, their new subjects acquiesced and they became obedient Roman citizens. This period of peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire is known by historians as the “Pax Romana” (27 B.C. to 180 A.D.).

Unfortunately, zealous Jews in the Middle East and elsewhere refused to cooperate. The problem was like a boil on Rome’s ass; something had to be done.

Atwill theorizes that Christianity was invented at the Roman court by probably a team of writers who worked together to fashion a product that would accomplish two objectives: defang militant Judaism and substitute an alternative monotheistic religion that would be beneficial to the Empire.

A thorough reading of the biblical New Testament reveals two things: the Gospel stories are the origin of anti-Semitism, as we know it today, and there is not one word in any New Testament book that reflects badly on the Roman Empire or its leaders. In fact, Jesus’ ministry highlights pacifistic ideas like “turn the other cheek”, and obedience concepts like “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” (i.e. follow the rules, pay your taxes). Christians are exhorted by Christ to be good citizens, as they will be “rewarded in Heaven”.

This decidedly pro-Roman religion didn’t happen by accident, according to Atwill.

One of the great mysteries about the New Testament stories about Jesus Christ is that no one knows who wrote them. The stories just started magically appearing beginning in the late 1st century after the Jewish wars against Rome. Christian clergy and theologians have insisted for the past 2,000 years that the Gospels (i.e. the stories about Jesus’ ministry) are factual.

However, no one who lived at that time in Palestine, even the many established religious and historical writers of the day, ever mentioned being in the presence of, or even hearing about, a charismatic, young Jewish rabbi “who was known far and wide”, wandering the region doing miraculous things, speaking to assemblies of thousands, turning water into wine, making a scene down at the Temple on the Mount, being crucified, rising from the dead, addressing 500 people after he was arisen, and… dead people climbing out of their caskets and walking the streets.

As is typically the case with any religion, the supposed divine man left no writings, possessions, or corpse to prove he was ever on Earth. None of the alleged thousands of followers, including his supposed twelve Apostles, erected a sign or monument (like “George Washington slept here”) that believers could venerate. How about “Jesus Christ was born here” or “Jesus ascended to Heaven from this spot!”?

Nope. There is a deafening silence from people actually living in early- to mid-1st century Palestine. Historians who were present in Palestine at that time and wrote about interesting happenings of the day universally omit any mention of the Jesus Christ character. It is as if he never existed.

According to the Gospels, Jesus was crucified in 33 A.D., four decades before the Jewish revolt against the Romans which culminated at Masada in 73 A.D. The Jewish Wars were prosecuted first by the Roman general Vespasian and, then when he went to Rome to begin the Flavian dynasty of emperors, his son Titus. During the campaign, a Jewish commander named Josephus bar Matthias was captured. He found favor with Vespasian by prophesizing that the Roman commander would ultimately crush the Jews and become Caesar. This is what ultimately happened, although the final military campaign was led by Vespasian’ son Titus after Vespasian returned to Rome and became the emperor.

Josephus, originally a slave to Vespasian, was later freed, became a Roman citizen and a historian who later wrote several books about the Jews, the rebellion, and the Roman military campaign. Working at the royal court, in the capacity of Vespasian’s biographer, he was a trusted member of the Flavian family, eventually changing his name to Flavius Josephus.

Josephus was but one of several aristocratic Jews from the Middle East who essentially “switched sides” and supported the Roman campaign to wipe out the Jewish zealots. Chief among them were Hellenized Jewish aristocrats from Egypt (the Alexanders) and Judea (the Herods). Together with the Romans, they had a common financial interest in preventing any future revolts. Also, there were intricate personal relationships between the Flavians in Rome and these two aristocratic families. Herod’s niece Berenice eventually became the mistress to Titus, Vespasian’s son and heir, thus connecting the Flavians (Vespasian, Titus, and his brother, Domitian), and the Alexanders (the family of Berenice’s first husband) with her family, the Herods.

At the time of Vespasian’s demise in A.D. 79, Titus became Emperor. Trying to solidify the Flavian mark on Rome, he started a campaign to have the Roman Senate confer retroactive “god status” on his father. His efforts ultimately paid off: Vespasian was posthumously declared a Caesar, rewarding the Flavians with a divine provenance. Thus, Titus Flavius, the new emperor, could say that he was, in a way, “the son of a God”.

Maybe not coincidentally, these things happened at the same time as the Gospels were being created by persons unknown. These supposedly biographical stories about Jesus Christ, “the son of God”, began to circulate. At the same time, Flavius Josephus was writing his histories entitled the Antiquities of the Jews and The Wars of the Jews while enjoying the benefits of royal Roman patronage.

Joseph Atwill has done a deep dive into the similarities of Josephus’ “histories” and the Gospels themselves. In many cases, it appears that the sequence of events, and even the prose in the various documents, are strikingly similar. Atwill also compared the Gospel stories with Old Testament prophecies, and it appears that the Gospel writers went to great extremes to make sure that their hero Jesus was fulfilling those prophecies.

Of course, as we know now, those Gospels were written by persons unknown no earlier than 80 A.D. and perhaps as late as 125 A.D. by writers who were very familiar with the Old Testament. The ability of the hero Jesus to ostensibly fulfill prophecy is not so remarkable when one considers that the only evidence that he did so are the Gospel stories themselves, written no earlier than fifty years after His supposed demise… by persons unknown to history.

Nowadays, this type of literature would be called mythical.

If I was writing a fictional biography about myself, I could intersperse within the chapters supposed predictions that I made as a young boy. For example, I could say that, in 1957, I predicted that President Kennedy would be assassinated in 1963. Lo and behold, that prediction came to pass! But, of course, I wrote my fictional biography fifty years after the fact, so I knew when I was crafting the “miracle” prophecy what calamity had already come to pass.

Of course, I’ve used a known historical event as the example of such post- (rather than pre-) diction.

The Gospel stories (which are presumed by the faithful to be true) are replete with dramatic events from 1st century Judea that no person living at that time in Palestine… other than the unknown Gospel writers… seemed to have witnessed at that time. They have all the characteristics of myths.

Much like the stories about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Pecos Bill… no one ever met the hero except the author. Can Pecos Bill’s exploits be factual if there were no independent witnesses? Probably not, and that’s why those stories are considered myths.

At any rate, Atwill theorizes that there were some clever writers, Jewish “turncoats” as it were, with extensive knowledge of the ancient Hebrew religion (likely Josephus, the Herods, and the Alexanders) who cooperated with the Flavians in Rome to concoct the Gospel stories. The team of writers was quite knowledgeable about Old Testament prophecy, particularly relating to a “Messiah” who would come to rescue the Jews from their latest oppressors, the Romans.

One of the tell-tale signs of the fact that these Gospel stories are myths is the absence of the identity of the writers: they took pains to be anonymous. Let’s face it: If anyone was to find out that the whole Jesus adventure was concocted at court in Rome, the jig would be up.

But there are clues about the Gospel writers interspersed in the fables like bread crumbs. In many cases those clues involve modified names of characters. One involves the famous Joseph of Arimathea, who the Gospels report took Jesus down from the cross and buried him. Historians say that there was no place called Arimathea in 1st century Palestine. However, there was a writer, working for Emperors Vespasian and Titus in Rome at the time when the Gospels were created, whose name was Josephus bar Matthias. Is it possible that the writer Flavius Josephus, with tongue-in-cheek, couldn’t resist including himself in the gallows humor? Director Alfred Hitchcock famously used to do this in his movies.

Another telling fact about the production of New Testament literature is that, in the 1st century, only wealthy aristocrats or the government itself could afford the high cost of producing written materials. The common citizen followers of a Jewish rabbi who wandered the countryside would likely not have been wealthy journalists.

Atwill’s thesis is that the Gospel stories were meant to (a) crush the militaristic Jewish religion, (b) create an alternative religion that was pacifistic, and (d) put Roman leaders in a positive light, particularly the Flavian dynasty. The overriding goal was that Jews throughout the Empire would acknowledge Caesar as a god and be obedient to him.

I won’t go into the minute details of Atwill’s analysis of the Gospels, but as he explains ad nauseum, they were meant by the unknown authors to satirize and lampoon Judaism and its zealous leaders while at the same time creating a new religion without the burdensome Hebraic requirements (circumcision, no eating flesh of cloven hooved animals, purity standards, etc.) and restrictions (check out Leviticus in the Old Testament!).

In order to entice new converts to the religion (particularly Jews), the new “god” figure, i.e. Jesus Christ, was portrayed as fulfilling Old Testament prophecy such that he would appear to be the long-awaited Messiah.

Yes, the writers used the antiquity and provenance of Judaism… against itself in kind of a cruel joke.

In fact, according to Atwill, Jesus’ alleged ministry in Palestine is a choreographed match to Vespasian’ and Titus’ military campaigns which ultimately resulted in the total destruction of Jerusalem and its holy Temple and the hilltop fortress of Masada. This Jewish catastrophe, which was foretold in the Gospels by the Jesus character (supposedly the Son of God) was actually accomplished by Titus (the “son of a god”). The goal of the whole literary charade was for religious citizens of the Roman Empire to accept Caesar as a god figure, be obedient, and reject the militarism of the Judaism that had caused so much grief.

Question: Who had the resources in the 1st and 2nd century to produce the Gospels and disseminate them throughout the “known world”? Answer: The Roman emperors and their scribes.

Although not covered by Atwill’s book, this reality also explains the provenance of the rest of the books of the New Testament, many of which were allegedly written by the self-appointed “Apostle Paul”.

This mysterious Saul/Paul fellow, not mentioned in the Gospel fables or any historical accounts of actual 1st century events, seemingly wandered the Empire preaching a “Christian” religion. The Apostle admittedly (in his writings) never met Jesus Christ in the flesh, only in a vision, but that was apparently enough to set him on a course to provide an alternative theology to Judaism. (Supposedly, Paul was an ex-Jewish priest, and citizen of the Roman Empire, providing him with the bonafides to steer his listeners away from Judaism and toward a better religious product.)

This is, not surprisingly, exactly what the Roman leaders desired.

One interesting thing about Paul the Wandering Salesman is that he had no apparent job to earn income. Supposedly, Paul spent his hours coaching up the new Christians and writing letters (epistles) to the various emerging churches, setting them straight on matters of theology and behavior. Some of Paul’s writings are quite lengthy, hence the would have been prohibitively expensive to produce.

“How did this guy with no means of support afford to publish these writings?”, you might ask. My guess is that Paul (or whoever really wrote Paul’s New Testament contributions) was on Caesar’s payroll.

Even though “Apostle Paul” supposedly wandered far and wide, spoke to thousands, experienced all manner of adventures (including being killed but… surviving!), and allegedly helped to establish churches in many big cities within the Empire, he is another Biblical persona who is absolutely unknown to legitimate historians researching people and places of the 1st century.

Just like Jesus, his disciples, and the faceless writers of the various books of the New Testament, who took pains to hide their identities.

Rhetorical question: If it had become known that the entire New Testament was an elaborate literary scam concocted at the royal court in Rome, do you think the public would have “bought” the new Christian religious product?

I think the answer is obvious.

In conclusion, I have no idea if Joseph Atwill’s theory is 100 percent correct, but it is the best explanation that I have ever heard. It makes sense when you carefully examine Atwill’s painstakingly researched arguments.

As Carl Sagan famously said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. There is zero evidence to back up any of the New Testament fables nor does anyone know for sure who wrote them.

In this case, the “Why?” they were written, per Atwill, makes a lot more sense than the idea that the God of Abraham, in a fit of exasperation over 1st century Judaism, came up with a new, improved religious product for His earthly audience.

Visitors

We recently enjoyed the company of two grandchildren, Jessica and Craig, when they came north from Southern California to participate in the Zion Half Marathon.

We LOVE those kids.

Jessica is a Registered Nurse at a hospital in San Diego County, and Craig is going to college and working full-time, hoping to get a degree in Psychology. They are both intelligent and articulate, they are hard workers, and they are super nice “kids”.

The whole package.

And, they have a brother “Josh”, a winner as well, who recently got engaged to his squeeze “Andie”. Both of them have good paying jobs (he’s a manager in a large medical lab and she works in law enforcement) and have been together for several years.

Granddaughter Jessica just recently got engaged and is going to marry her live-in boyfriend “Abe” in October when we are scheduled to be RV vacationing in Oceanside. Jess and Abe live nearby. Abe is a heavy equipment operator, specializing in those huge cranes that erect skyscrapers and such. He makes good money and is a fine man, to boot. He and Jessica share joint custody of his twin kids (boy and girl) with his former wife, and it seems to be an amicable relationship.

Grandson Craig has toyed with the idea of joining the Air Force or Navy. However, he is busy now with work and school (where he is getting good grades), and he’s getting older (I think he is 21 now). At some point, the military isn’t interested in prospects that “old” (as their training is geared toward 18-year-old, unworldly, pimply-faced kids who can be molded into obedient soldiers)… unless the recruit has a college degree. Craig might be one of the latter in a few years.

I drove Jess and Craig to and from the 13-mile race on Saturday. They are both ample specimens (not slender) who were doing the race for the achievement of finishing… which they did! They both said, after the race, that the “killer” was the several mile uphill portion just after the 6-mile mark… something that caught them off-guard. However, they gritted their teeth and gutted out the race. I think they finished, together, in about 2-1/2 hours.

Better than I could do!

Speaking of visitors to our Mesquite home, we are anticipating welcoming my sister Kellie and sister-in-law Kay on April 30 for a few days. Neither has seen our property, and the two of them want to do a quickee tour of Zion National Park, as well. I’m sure I can arrange that.

Also, I believe that our son Jon and his wife Misty are planning to visit us in May, coming all the way from Lexington, Kentucky. We can hardly wait!

Maybe I’ll take them up to Zion, too; everyone loves that place.

Charlie and I are still working on our diets, trying to slim down before we hit the beach in Zihuatanejo, Mexico in a few weeks. It is our reward (to ourselves!) for 50 years of marriage.

So far, Charlie has lost 22 pounds since December, and I’ve lost 17. We’re quite proud of ourselves.

As I mentioned previously, we will become “visitors” in the Fall when we spend a month in Oceanside, California and spend some time with our old Southern California friends and relatives.

Visiting is fun!

Looking Forward

It is hard for anyone to predict what the world will look like in ten or twenty years.

That is because everyone’s imagination is a product of their intellect, education, life experience, and beliefs. Those components tend to skew the imagination backward, a bit, toward the comfortable “known”.

If you had told a guy in the 1950’s, for example, that by the year 2000 there would be no more telephone booths or carbon paper, or that virtually everyone would be carrying around a high quality camera in their pocket, he would have laughed at you. Ditto if you’d have told him that he would be paying to watch TV in his own home.

Hee, hee, hee… that’s a good one, he’d laugh!

I certainly don’t know what’s coming down the road. Some things are somewhat predictable, like more people working remotely, more jobs being lost to “artificial intelligence”, most higher education being acquired on-line, and, at some point, transportation being weaned off of petroleum products. It appears that global temperatures are warming, too, so we can expect more unsettling weather, disasters, and rising sea levels. Low-lying cities, like New York and Miami, are in for a rude awakening.

Trends indicate that citizens of industrialized countries are becoming less religious and more people are living together absent marriage. Couples are having fewer children, too. Maybe that’s a good thing, as the planet can only support so many hungry mouths.

Our democratic system of government is broken and in need of a general overhaul. Because of zealous partisanship, a comprehensive “fix” of our Constitution is probably not going to happen any time soon. So, where does that leave us?

My Dad, a Barry Goldwater conservative back in the day, used to say that the best form of government would be a “benevolent dictatorship”. That is probably true, but this earth has yet to produce even one of those unicorns. Because “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, sooner or later the benevolence wanes and the self-serving accelerates.

That’s just the nature of things.

We “Baby Boomers” have experienced democracy at its finest, back when politicians of different stripes could work together to get things done. It wasn’t perfect, but it was “adjustable” considering that we voters could kick to the curb idiot elected officials who got too big for their britches or tried to foist stupid ideas upon their constituents.

Nowadays, those kinds of losers fill most of the seats in State and Federal legislatures, spending their time feeding from the government trough while shooting spitwads at each other. Many of those incumbents are Baby Boomers; go figure.

I can understand why a lot of Americans are sick and tired of the democracy that we’ve allowed to putrify: it isn’t working very well.

There seems to be a groundswell of sorts aimed at taking dramatic action, politically. The Republican Party, under the leadership of disgraced former President Donald Trump, seems to be in the mood for draconian solutions in many policy areas. If Mr. Trump is elected President in November, there will be a very different look to government in the United States.

Maybe that’s what is needed: an Ice Bucket challenge, so to speak.

My fear, should this occur, is that the authoritarian model that Trump promotes would feature an Administration populated not by the “best and brightest” but, rather, a mob of hard-line loyalists to Trump who would attempt to force unpopular ideologies on the majority of our citizens. Civil strife, much like occurred in apartheid South Africa, would be likely… in my opinion.

The problem with giving authoritarianism a shot in America is that, historically, dictators tend to get more frisky as time goes on, and the people’s “rights” tend to diminish, as well. Freedoms that we and our forefathers have enjoyed and taken for granted, like speech, assembly, petition, and even gun rights could be eliminated.

This is what happens in dictatorships: the last thing a dictator wants is someone loudly ridiculing him with a bullhorn in a public space, for example. Aggressive retribution is common, often by goon squads with truncheons and automatic weapons. People get “disappeared”. (Interestingly, such anonymous “enforcers” were deployed, illegally, by President Trump during the BLM protests. People who were committing no crimes were roughed up and some were kidnapped and hauled off in unmarked vans. One youth brought his AR-15 from another state, waded into the BLM protest, and shot a couple of demonstrators. He was treated like a hero and celebrity by Trump’s people.)

Authoritarian leaders tend to want to cling to power. They do this by rigging elections in their favor or… doing away with them altogether. This is how Vladimir Putin stays in power, and how the North Korean dictatorship has been perpetuated over many generations. Since 1948, North Korea has been ruled by Kim Il Sung, then his son Kim Jong Il, and then his son Kim Jong Un, who is currently prepping his daughter Kim Yo Jung to take over from him upon his demise.

Can anyone imagine the idiot Donald Trump Jr. being handed the reins when his father gets bored or dies? No way, you say, but daddy Trump already controls the Republican National Committee. If elections continue to be held in America, the how and who on the ballot would be determined by the authoritarian President and his posse.

No way, you say!

Consider the fact that today, in “Trump Country”, hard-line Republican legislators continue to devise ways to limit the voting power of Democrats, particularly those who are minorities like Blacks and Latinos.

I predict that, if Trump’s cult succeeds in November, we could be looking at a new age of “Jim Crow”-type repression of minorities in America, targeting African-Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, and perhaps others. State-supported “foreigner” bashing could become a national pastime, much like Jews were targeted in Nazi Germany. Liberals  Democrats, educators, LBGQT individuals, and journalists would be hounded by goons, both civilian and governmental.

Another thing that will happen with a regime change that substitutes authoritarianism for democracy is that power dynamics within the population will change. Currently, the voting power of our “mature” population (i.e. senior citizens) is strong and is a prime reason that the Nation has its Social Security and Medicare safety net. Those programs are expensive, but elected politicians are loathe to reduce those costs because seniors show up to vote in droves. An authoritarian leader need not concern himself with the anger of voters, particularly if he controls the electoral process. He could decide to limit who votes or if there are elections at all.

He could decide that Social Security and Medicare need to be eliminated because… America has too many old people! He could, essentially, “thin the herd”.

Who needs old people, anyway? (Except Trump, who will be 78-years-old when/if he takes office.)

This all seems far-fetched to us, as we have a 250-year history of elections in this country. There is no way that we could lose the right to kick a lousy leader to the curb, right?

The answer is “Yes”.

With our collective track record over the past 50 years, it is safe to say that the electorate has done a crappy job placing competent people in positions of authority. I’m ashamed. Aren’t you?

Something to consider: an authoritarian leader, able to do pretty much whatever he wants without fear of losing elections (since they don’t need to be held), doesn’t need a legislative branch to enact laws: he can do that himself. So, a Legislative branch of government isn’t necessary, nor is a Judicial branch needed to interpret the laws. I wonder if the two hundred plus Republican Congressmen and 48 Republican Senators and the Republican majority of the Supreme Court have given this any thought?

Maybe we have collectively earned our fate; i.e. losing the rights that we have misused. Perhaps a “strong man” like Trump is needed to tell us when to jump and how high?

I will probably go to my grave believing in the idea of democracy, even though its execution in America has been a train wreck in recent decades. Call me a dinosaur, if you want, but I will always feel that problems can be solved by people who listen to each other and make an honest effort to find compromise.

The good thing about a dictatorship is that the mention of problems is not allowed, so there are theoretically no problems to solve.

If the Boss says that everything is hunky-dory, then… it is, just like in the last Trump Administration.

Does anyone remember the President assuring everyone that Covid-19 was “just the flu”, “there are only five cases nationwide”, and that the whole thing was just “overblown” drama hyped up by the “Liberal media”?

One million deaths later…

“A Sucker Born Every Minute”

It is difficult to read a newspaper or visit a news website these days without several “breaking news” stories about ex-President Trump.

Most of the stories are about his myriad legal problems, his brutal takeover of the Republican Party, and his campaign for the G.O.P. nomination for the 2024 Presidential election. Trump and his army of attorneys are working overtime to delay his many court cases until after November, with the idea that he will, if elected, be immune to any civil or criminal convictions. While this stalling game is in process, he and his stalwart crew of zealots are busy bullying Republican officials nationwide to fall in line with his authoritarian ideas. At the same time, he is running a “campaign”, if one could call it that, wherein he holds press conferences and poorly attended rallies where he is able to spout lies, hate and silliness on his M.A.G.A. cult followers.

The ex-Prez, who once said to his followers that they would have to get used to “so much winning”, has lost virtually every court case that he’s been involved in for the past three years or so, currently is facing something like 90 indictments nationwide, and has been fined something like $450 million thus far for his transgressions. No criminal convictions yet, but Trump will be facing potential jail time in the upcoming classified documents case, the January 6th Riot debacle, and the Georgia election extortion case.

The poor rich guy can’t seem to catch a break, and he is burning through his cash at a prodigious rate. His daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who he has tabbed to be the co-chair of the Republican National Party, publicly stated that “every cent” generated from G.O.P. donors to the RNC should go to Donald Trump… because the billionaire needs money to fight off the witch hunters. That is bad news to the other Republican candidates for the House, the Senate, and Governorships nationwide.

Accordingly, contributions are pouring into Trump’s several PAC’s from the same blue-collar doofuses who fell for the “Trump’s Wall” and “Stop the Steal” grifts, gifting the disgraced President filthy lucre to the tune of around $250 million. Some of these folks are undoubtedly the same zealots who send their hard-earned cash to televangelists who have promised prayers to heal their cancers, dispense “miracle healing cloths”, weekly rail against sinners like Democrats, homosexuals, scientists and teachers, and publicly state that Donald Trump was sent by God to solve America’s problems.

This is a guy who has violated his wedding vows repeatedly, is a racist and a cheat, and has been convicted of raping a woman and then lying about it, repeatedly. The Almighty couldn’t have chosen a better representative on earth; the “Prince of Peace” must be so proud.

“A sucker is born every minute!” according to the famous con man P.T. Barnum. This is true, and Mr. Trump has cornered the market on our most gullible and stupid citizens.

Donald Trump is bad at a lot of things (like telling the truth, understanding how government works, having empathy for the non-1 percenters in society, etc.), but he is adept at separating people from their money. He has a gift, to be sure; in fact, he may go down as the greatest scam artist that the world has ever known. Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff have nothing on the guy.

Amid this crazy year, with hundreds of attorneys working feverishly at ungodly rates per hour and punitive judgments against Trump ballooning into the hundreds of millions of dollars, “P.T.” Trump has trotted out two more products that are sure to be irresistible to his M.A.G.A. cult:

          Trump signature sneakers, at between $200 and $400 a pair

          Trump signature perfume, at $54 a bottle

These items are, of course, the latest Trump signature products released in recent years, following the Trump M.A.G.A. ball caps, Trump bobbleheads, and the Trump NFT trading cards.

The Grifter-in-Chief has also gotten involved in social media with his Truth Social network, something he ginned up when he got banned from Twitter for repeated bad behavior. Trump is currently in the process of selling this money losing enterprise to some investment group (probably Big Oil/Saudi money) for $4 billion.

Does the phrase “pay to play” seem applicable here? If Trump were re-elected, do you think these savvy investors would have any sway in the White House? How about when the next Supreme Court vacancy pops up? Another Clarence Thomas on the bench, perhaps.

I wonder what the next grift product will be. Trump has already produced a variety of “signature” products that failed miserably, like ties, airlines, pro football teams, casinos, steaks, bottled water, a Monopoly game rip-off, a university, vodka, a mortgage provider, and… a Presidency. (In a recent poll of 54 Presidential historians, something that is done every several years, Donald Trump was voted the worst President of all time.)

How about Trump signature dentures, condoms, wigs, brass knuckles, autographed Bibles, chewing tobacco, man diapers, or crotchless panties (for women who like to get groped)? The possibilities are endless, and I’m sure Trump has people looking into every conceivable option.

This guy will be shilling useless shit until the day he dies.

Luckily for him, there are a lot of suckers out there.

Sacred Vows

Marriage is going out of style.

According to Census data, almost 25 percent of adults aged 40 in America have never married. This is a sharp increase since 1980, when the comparable statistic was 6 percent. What is going on? And, why?

I am certainly no expert on this subject, as I am married and have been so for the past fifty years. My wife Charlie and I come from two very stable families where our parents both celebrated their Golden Anniversaries. Probably not coincidentally, my brother Terry and wife Kay have been married for over 55 years, and Charlie’s sisters Jan and Lynn have both been married for at least that long. In addition, my wedding “best man” in 1974, Pat Freemon, has been married to his wife Sandee for the past half-century. Many of our friends here in Mesquite, a retirement community, have also enjoyed long-term marriages.

So, we Baby Boomers come from a culture where the institution of marriage was strong, and the idea of divorce was repugnant.

It’s a different world now, apparently.

Not only is employment moving toward the “gig” situation, but human relationships are trending in the same direction, with formal unions between loving individuals becoming short-term like car leases. The average marriage in the U.S. now lasts 8.2 years, and 5 percent of married people have taken the “sacred vows” three times.

I suspect that many young folks ask the question, “Why bother to get married?” In today’s society, there is no stigma to being a single adult, nor is there much fuss over two consenting adults “living together”. Such arrangements used to be considered “sinful”, but that was back when most Americans were faithful Bible thumpers. This is not the case now, when most people identifying as Christian don’t attend church regularly, and high percentages of the younger generations are non-religious.

Pew research reveals that 51 percent of individuals aged 18 and over were married in 2020, in comparison to 72 percent of similarly aged folks in 1960. What has changed to drive down marriage rates so dramatically?

Maybe it’s because there is so much uncertainty in modern life. Gone are the days (i.e. those of my parents and their progeny) when a burgeoning American economy provided the prospect of lengthy careers in many occupations. Rapid technological change and the shift toward the global economic model have greatly changed employment prospects for young people. Many jobs that we and our parents enjoyed have been outsourced or simply disappeared through automation. Reliable employment, with decent pay, is harder to come by in the 2020’s.

The old path to success, i.e. get that education, work hard, make yourself valuable to your company, may not cut the mustard in today’s world. A college education is now extremely expensive, and a degree earned is no longer a guarantee of future success. Jobs that require thinking, as opposed to manual labor, are rapidly being replaced by machines that can think and learn (artificial intelligence). How does one plan for the future, i.e. marry and have kids, when the family income stream is sketchy? Inflation has not helped, either. Not surprisingly, households where both spouses work have increased by 50 percent since 1980.

It’s a sign of the times.

Marriage has never been easy. It is a team sport and, just like in the pro leagues, there are many more losers than champions. Making a go of marriage requires a large investment in understanding, compromise, planning, mutual support, tenderness, and compassion. If children are involved, spouses must agree on the rules of the house, discipline, how to impart wisdom, and instilling shared values in the youngsters. A lack of commitment by both spouses to a shared “game plan” is nearly always a recipe for disaster. Children are not dumb and will invariably find ways to test their parents’ resolve, including “whipsawing” (pitting one parent against the other). A united front is the only way that child raising works; failure to work together reaps crummy children and marriages that fail.

Love is the essential ingredient; without copious amount of same, couples are just fooling themselves. And I’m not talking about sex. Sure, young people often have supercharged hormones, which is natural, as they are in their reproductive prime. But, that phase passes, replaced by the stronger purpose of thriving in the group enterprise. Successful couples, married or not, are components of a team which will only achieve goals through mutual support. Knowing that your partner “has your back” and wants you to succeed even more than you do is key. Love does that to people who are well-matched.

That’s the trick, of course… finding one’s soul mate among the billions of people who are also searching.

Charlie and I watch a lot of crime docudramas on TV. Typically, something horrible has happened and the crime detectives are tasked with figuring out why. Quite often, violence occurs between spouses, and the program delves into the history of the union, the nuclear family, and the impact of the “relatives”. After watching hundreds of these dramas, it is hard to deny that most of the problem marriages are unions that should have never occurred in the first place: immature young people who confused “sex”, partying, and the desire to “play house”, with love and commitment. So many of the problems were created by hormonally-charged young women chasing “bad boys” or “Good Time Charlies” who have neither maturity or commitment in their toolkit. These are the young couples who get married, have a bunch of kids, and split up after five years… because they have nothing in common except the memories of those brief good times. Invariably, their divorce turns the couple into mortal enemies, particularly if alimony and child support are involved. And, then, bad things (like murder) happen.

Who’d have thought?!

Maybe because the younger generations are watching these shows or are picking up on the unimpressive marriage statistics that I’ve previously noted, individuals opting for a traditional marriage are not as plentiful as in my day. Maybe that’s a good thing, because marriage is not easy… it’s something that both parties must work on each day. Certainly, choosing the right partner (to marry or simply live with) is vitally important; as the old saying goes, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” If long-term marriage is desired, it is necessary to find a serious partner who just do happens to love the heck out of you.

Finding the lost Ark of the Covenant might be easier.

I got lucky fifty years ago. I wasn’t looking for love when I met Charlie, having just emerged from a four-year stint in the Air Force. I had previously done a lot of dating while in college, really enjoyed every one of the four dozen or so gals that I spent time (and learned things with each one) with but was now focusing on finishing up my degree and starting a career. I ran into Charlie, who was a nurse, while I was working in a hospital as an x-ray tech. On paper, she was not a good prospect: divorced with four young boys. However, she was a hard worker, a good mother, had ambition, and came from a good family. And she was excited to find real love… for the first time. We hooked up and never looked back.

We have been a great team for the past fifty years, focusing on love, respect, and mutual support. We’ve had some challenges like everyone else, but we’ve stuck together and overcome the rough patches when they’ve occurred.

If I were young right now, and looking for love and commitment, I don’t know if I’d opt for marriage. It worked for me, for sure, but times are different in the 2020’s: who knows what’s going to happen with the economy, with politics, and with society? I could see hooking up with a good female friend for companionship but committing to a long-term relationship and/or fathering children would probably not appeal to me given the uncertainty out there.

A better choice, given the situation, might be a canine companion: love, devotion, and companionship… in spades, with no strings attached.

I hope my grandson Craig is listening.

The New Normal

I’ve lived a long and productive life, and I’m happy that I lived when I did.

Many things have changed during my seventy-six years on Earth, some good and some bad. Technological innovation has made life much different, for sure, allowing men to walk on the Moon and equipping every citizen to manage their life with a global communication device in his or her hip pocket.

A significant downside of the Digital Age, in my opinion, has been the creation of “social media”. It, too easily, allows people to share cruel gossip and communicate/pass along misinformation to the extent that no one seems to know what is truthful anymore. Facts should matter, but evidence-free beliefs seem to be the coin of the realm in modern society.

When I was growing up, education was valued, teachers were respected, and scientists were revered. My parents’ generation had survived the pain and hardship of the Great Depression and World War II and imparted to their children a strong work ethic, a “can do” attitude, and a belief in the American Dream. Consequently, we Baby Boomers were primed to take the ball and run with it, to break down barriers, and make the United States the envy of all nations.

I am proud to say that this was largely achieved. Of course, America was working as a team in those days, back when our elected officials spent most of their time working to solve problems rather than blaming people for them. A good example is the Interstate Highway System, which required the cooperation of government at the local, state, and Federal levels. Back then, compromise was an essential component of a politician’s tool kit: give a little to get a lot.

That concept, of elected officials identifying and solving problems for the benefit of all, seems outdated in modern society.

Partisanship (“My way or the highway!” idealism) has replaced the realpolitik model (pragmatism) that guided our generation. Achieving what we can (possible), rather than what we want (often impossible) has been replaced by an attitude that anything proposed by the “other” political party is a non-starter. Consequently, and particularly in the halls of Congress, nothing gets accomplished other than insults being shouted across the aisle.

Modern American society appears to have accepted this model of political behavior, which undermines our democratic system of government. It also defeats the idea of a “united” States of America, as elected officials in some states and regions blatantly oppose the will of most American citizens. Sabotaging the efforts of an elected President has become sport for the “out-of-power” political party.

Call me an old-fashioned skeptic, but I can’t seem to understand how America advances the ball of progress using this incessant tug-of-war approach. As someone once said, “If you’re not advancing, you’re falling behind”. I’m not sure that our country has the luxury of taking a few decades off, resting on our laurels. Other countries will step up: just ask the Romans, who took their eye off the ball.

I am worried that the Gen X’s and Z’s and so forth are squandering what has been given them.

Elections have been proven to be virtually error- and cheat-proof over our Nation’s history at all levels of government. Nevertheless, a large number of American citizens believe the opposite, not because of evidence but, rather, because they read the propaganda about “stolen” elections on social media.

Similarly, vaccines have been proven to be one of civilization’s greatest achievements, saving millions of lives every year. We Baby Boomers were the first generation to benefit from the miracle of vaccination; I can recall visions from my early days of schoolmates who suffered from polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, mumps, smallpox, chicken pox, etc., before vaccinations were required to attend public school.

Amazingly, due in part from crazy skeptics with loud voices, a preposterous “anti-vax” sentiment is alive and well in today’s America.

This peculiarity is part and parcel of a modern political attitude that denigrates science. Half of American citizens believe that “global warming” is a hoax, while 97 percent of the world’s scientists confirm that it is very real. During the Covid-19 pandemic, large numbers of our citizens rebelled at local, State, and Federal measures adopted to curtail the spread of the virus, preferring to believe the advice of non-scientific “experts”, including (amazingly) the then-President of the United States.

The mysterious “They say” has, in the social media age, become more believed by young folks than facts imparted by bonified experts. Teachers are under siege, as well, suspected of imparting their own political views upon students in their care. More and more children are being home-schooled, which means that they are being educated by amateurs and that what they are being taught is colored by the political/religious attitudes of their parents, right or wrong.

Maybe this is the future of education: no qualified teaching, everyone is on their own to determine how things work/how to separate fact from fiction, etc. All I can say is that, when I was young, I needed and appreciated competent instruction from professionals. My parents were smart, good people who imparted what they knew (or believed) to me. My Dad, who was a wonderful father, was a racist because he was brought up when that was the norm in America. Should he have instructed me in race relations? Probably not. But he loved reading and imparted that love in me.

There are political forces at work in America that don’t want our teachers at any level to talk about the dark aspects of our history, like slavery or the treatment of our Native Indian peoples. On the other hand, the same politicians want the Christian religion to be taught in schools, even though religious belief (of any kind) is on the downswing in America, many God-fearing folks in America are not Christian, and our Constitution specifically provides that citizens have the right to believe or not believe in whatever Almighty that they choose.

Is it beneficial for our young kids to be taught at home or at a public school that the Civil War was about honor, States’ Rights, or compromise… rather than slavery? Should the Civil War even be discussed? I think it should, for as the saying goes, “Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

But what do I know… I’m an old fart.

It used to be that our two main political parties stood for something, with platform positions on social issues, taxation, the economy, geopolitics, and so forth. The Republican Party, for example, was all about economic growth, reducing government regulations, lowering taxes, law and order, and opposing undemocratic regimes. I voted Republican in many elections.

The last Republican President (who is again running in 2024) favored punitive tariffs against international trading partners (which effectively punished American consumers), appointed Supreme Court Justices who have taken away women’s rights over their own bodies and allowed  citizens to arm themselves with military grade weapons, gave rich Americans a permanent tax break which will be paid for by middle class citizens over the coming decades, and praised dictators of several Communist regimes such as Russia, China, and North Korea. He also badmouthed America’s electoral system, proclaiming that all elections are rigged… except those that he wins.

Candidate Trump is also declaring that immigrants from other countries are “poisoning the blood” of America. This is the Adolph Hitler mantra that was used to justify sending 6 million Jews to the incinerators. Curiously, the Trump wives who carried his children were both immigrants from eastern Europe: Ivana Zelnickova from Czechoslovakia and Melanija Knavs from Slovenia. Trump’s mother, Maryanne Macleod, immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland. Does that make Donald Trump’s and his children’s blood “poisoned”? This whole campaign issue doesn’t make any sense because every human being in the United States of America is descended from immigrants, even our indigenous Indians who came here from Asia. That means that all of us have “poisoned” blood, even the White Nationalists that Mr. Trump is keen to suck up to.

Surprisingly (at least to me), former President Trump is the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 contest.

How is it that a guy who doesn’t really believe in government, democracy, the Rule of Law, or our Constitution can be qualified to be the Chief Executive, particularly considering his poor performance the last time and his support of an attempted coup in January 2021?

Why would Republican voters support a candidate whose main occupation these days is fighting civil and criminal charges in numerous state and Federal courts?

It increasingly appears that the Republican Party faithful are going to vote in November for an authoritarian whose public “platform” features vengeance upon everyone who has had the audacity to criticize him in the past. One of Trump’s lawyers testified in court last week that a President has the authority to assassinate opposition American political leaders, something that the Founding Fathers would have found obscene.

One would think that modern American voters, of all political parties, would uniformly oppose this barbaric threat, as it would give current President Biden the authority to have former President Trump executed, along with other Republican politicians, for badmouthing him. Has the former President considered this?

But, in this new world in which we live, evidently a large swath of the American electorate is okay with this disturbing scenario.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt are probably turning over in their graves.

As a four-year veteran of the armed services, and a long career as a public servant, I am appalled that it has come to this: throwing in the towel on American democracy.

It’s the New Normal, I suppose and, fortunately, I won’t be around long enough to endure much of it.

Burnin’ Fat

I have been dieting and increasing my activity since December 1st and I’ve lost 14 pounds. Charlie has been dieting too, albeit forced, as she recovers from hiatal hernia surgery. She has lost 18 pounds since November 27th.

My goal is to get down to 180 pounds by the end of January; I’m at 185 now.

The biggest change in my diet is to eat a very sparse lunch. Over the past year, I had got into the habit of eating a lot of Doritos chips and salsa/cheese dips. My new snack lunch consists of maybe 30 cheese puffs, so about 150 calories.

Typically, I eat a light breakfast of an English muffin with peanut butter or a couple of toaster waffles. On most mornings, I walk with my friend Mac for a mile, sometimes with Charlie for another mile, and often I add three or four more miles of walking with the dogs. Thus, I pretty much burn off the breakfast calories before midday.

Our community (Sun City Mesquite) is a great place to walk. There are scores of concrete- or asphalt-paved trails crisscrossing the entire community (of 5,000 homes), the weather is typically great, and the trails offer nice views of Flat Top Mesa on the west and the Virgin Mountains on the east. The dogs love walking the trails, which range from ¼ mile to 4 miles long.

Recently, I’ve done some hiking with the local club (called the Desert Fossils). A neighbor friend of mine named John Kasberg is club President. The group hikes on Mondays and Thursdays. I pick my spots: most of the club’s hikes aren’t that interesting to me, but occasionally they do a hike that I’ve never done before, and I join in.

Yesterday was one of those hikes that attracted me. It took place in the Valley of Fire state park, which is located about halfway between Mesquite and Las Vegas. It’s about an hour’s drive from our neighborhood.

Valley of Fire is a cool place to hike. It reminds me of Arches National Park, with all of the red sandstone cliffs, weird landforms, and occasional arches. There are Bighorn sheep there, too, and areas that have petrified wood just lying around. In addition, the park has RV sites. It can get super-hot in this park during the Summer, so the ideal time to hike there is in the Fall, Winter, and early Spring.

This week’s hike was supposedly a five-mile “loop”, designated “difficult”, with 900’ elevation gain. I’ve hiked many times in this park over the past five years but had never done this particular hike.

There were 12 hikers in the group, led by a guy named Fred. Everyone in the hiking group is a “senior”, i.e. above 60 years old. Most are older than that, like hike leader Fred who is 78 years young. I’ve known him for many years, and he is a hiking beast; we call him the Goat. Everybody on this hike was competent… no crybabies, and about half of the hikers were women. I was impressed at everyone’s gumption.

That was a good thing, as this short hike turned into a real bitch. There were no trails to speak of, lots of very steep sandstone cliffs, and loose rubble which helped to make our ascents and descents dicey. And good ol’ Fred got us lost a few times, which caused us to put in additional steep ascents and descents on the slick rock. We eventually made it out of there in one piece with no injuries.

HipHipHooray!

Charlie has never visited Valley of Fire, so I’m going to have to schedule an outing down the road where she and the dogs can look see from the comfort of our Jeep Cherokee.

Now that I am regularly hiking again, I think its time to see my orthopedic surgeon Dr. Scott Parry. He did both of my hip replacement surgeries a few years ago. Unfortunately, the aftereffects of those surgeries left me with some adhesions in my thigh muscles (quadriceps) which cause my legs to sometimes buckle a bit when I step down or put a lot of weight on a leg. This is not a good thing when doing “difficult” hikes like the one at Valley of Fire. The last thing I want is to fall headfirst into a pile of jagged rocks while out in the boondocks 25 miles from civilization.

I am thinking that perhaps there are some exercises that I can do to counteract the adhesion problem. Dr Parry will know. If I can get that problem resolved, there is no reason that I couldn’t hike another five years or so (into my eighties).

Speaking of hiking, my old adventurous buddy Lloyd (who moved to South Africa) will be visiting us next week for five days. Maybe we can put together a fun trek?

I’m thinking Observation Point in Zion National Park.

Hopefully, Lloyd brought his hiking boots with him.

The Rule of Law

The system of democratic government that our Founding Fathers created is based on the political principal, first espoused more than 2,000 years ago by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, called the “Rule of Law”.

This principle says that all people and organizations within a country, state, or community are held accountable to the same set of laws. In other words, “no one is above the law”.

This is the dream, of course, as other factors often come into play, such as money (for defense attorneys), bias (discrimination against certain groups within the population), and the politics within the jurisdiction (which might be reflected in the determinations of the judge hearing the matter).

Charlie and I watched a crime docudrama last night about a serial rapist who was operating out of Penn State University. He was a 20-year-old football player, a likeable guy among his male peers, but he had a character flaw… he liked to assault helpless women. He was eventually caught and convicted. The judge who presided over the trial was unduly influenced by the politics of Happy Valley and Penn State football and decided to allow the scumbag to remain free on bail before his sentencing hearing. What a considerate judge!

Except that the convicted rapist, out of bail, went home to New Jersey and proceeded to rape four additional women before getting caught. Between the lenient judges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the well-known Penn State football star was given sentences that allowed him to go free in just 14 years. Upon release, he perpetrated an armed robbery and killed an innocent citizen, whereupon a responsible judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Absent politics, this psychopath would have spent decades in prison after his first heinous assault on an innocent woman and five additional citizens wouldn’t have had their lives ruined.

This criminal enjoyed a beneficial bias in the system because he was a Penn State football player. Had he been a Black dude, it is highly likely that his punishment would have been swift and severe… because that is what criminal justice statistics show us.

For many years, American citizens have watched the news reports of Donald Trump’s engagement with the justice system in civil and criminal cases. He’s been tried and convicted of fraud on numerous occasions (Trump University, stiffing contractors, cheating financial institutions, etc.), defamation (of a rape victim), and paying hush money to silence an ex-porn star/girlfriend during the 2016 election.

The former President is currently engaged with numerous state and Federal courts, fighting charges of illegally retaining classified documents, attempting to extort Georgia officials to change the 2020 election results, and igniting the January 2021 attack on the Capitol in Washington D.C.

Trump is, without a doubt, a very dishonest person who simultaneously knows the American justice system like few others… because he has spent so much of his life litigating stuff. And, he is a billionaire personality and ex-President (running for President again), so he gets a certain amount of deference from the courts… which , in Trump fashion, he publicly abuses.

The old saying, that “the wheels of justice grind slowly” is a testament to the impact of lawyers who make delay an art form. Incessant motions, excuses, changes in counsel, requests for continuances, slow-walking requirements to produce documents, and so forth produce a drag on court proceedings. Anyone who has gone through a contested divorce knows that the attorneys for both sides tend to play a lot of these games until both parties are about out of money (to pay attorneys). Only then is a settlement miraculously reached.

Attorneys are not cheap, and good ones cost a pretty penny. In the current criminal justice maelstrom that is Donald Trump’s life, tens of millions of dollars are being paid to hundreds of lawyers to delay, obfuscate, and undermine the numerous cases. Lots of effort, by those attorneys and Trump himself, has been directed toward publicly de-legitimizing the justice system and making the case that the ex-President is the target of a “witch hunt” by politically focused judges and prosecutors trying to impact Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign.

Famous American poet Carl Sandburg once advised, “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”

This is what’s going on in Trumpworld right now. Not a day goes by that the ex-President isn’t on TV or social media ranting and raving about the persecution that he believes is aimed at him. His protestations of innocence are accompanied by zero evidentiary facts, which is telling, as he has had many years to produce any “smoking guns” that would exonerate himself. The problem is that the conduct that got him into the justice system crosshairs was based on lies, and now he and his attorneys are forced to develop new lies to turn the tide.

Top notch attorneys have shied away from Trump for this reason, as they are considered “officers of the court” who, if they waste the Court’s on frivolous or demonstrably false claims, can be sanctioned by the presiding judge and, possibly, disbarred from their profession. Consequently, Trump’s current batch of attorneys are generally considered second- or third-string players who appear to be out of their league in high profile matters such as these.

A recent strategy of the Trump legal brain trust has been to assert that the now civilian/candidate has some sort of immunity from prosecution because, as President, he could do “whatever he wanted” as part of his job. He would like to believe that, but the U.S. Constitution doesn’t provide kingly powers like that; in fact, our country rebelled against the tyrannical acts of British King George, and the Founding Fathers went to great lengths (separation of powers in Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches) to deter leaders who thought they were “above the law”.

The Supreme Court will ultimately rule on Trump’s assertions regarding Presidential powers. If the Justices were to rule that the Chief Executive had kingly powers, then there would be nothing to prevent a wannabe dictator like Trump from dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court itself. The rule of law would be a thing of the past, as would elections. So, it would be shocking if the Justices would rule in Trump’s favor on this subject.

The goal of the Team Trump legal team is to delay, delay, and delay all the court cases until after the 2024 election, in the hopes that he will be re-elected. If that were to happen, he could direct the Department of Justice to close the Federal cases against him (insurrection and classified docs) and his position as Chief Executive would render any State cases (fraud and defamation in New York and election-related extortion in Georgia) problematic, because… how to you punish a sitting President?

Our legal system has its problems, but it generally works to protect citizens from the bad guys. The alternative to the Rule of Law, i.e. an authoritarian model of government, will be on offer in November.

If voters elect Trump, our Nation will get what it deserves.

December 2023

It has been a different December, that’s for sure.

Charlie began her recovery from a hiatal hernia surgery on December 1st. It was a very tough slog for the first week or so: she couldn’t sleep, most of what she ate came back up, and she felt generally weak. Mid-day naps became a daily routine.

My wife’s diet was simplified to basically anything liquid, like Jello, yoghurt, pudding, Ensure, flavored sparkling water, and such. Very little protein being ingested, per doctor’s orders, so Charlie began to lose weight (which is usually a good thing!). By the end of the month, she had slimmed down by about 18 pounds, which made her very happy. However, it was a tough way to lose weight, and she wouldn’t do it again, believe me.

Our son Jeff and wife Carol (and their Stafforshire Terrier “Chongo”) stayed with us for almost all of December. It was helpful in the care that we were giving patient Charlie, and it was very nice hearing about their RV lifestyle/boondocking experiences. Chongo, who is an 80-pound behemoth, gets along well with our three Boston Terriers. He’s the “A” dog in the house when he’s here; Baby gracefully relinquishes her role when he comes to visit.

I have been on a “solidarity” diet with Charlie since she came home from the hospital, skipping my usual Doritos and Dip lunch diet and limiting the carbs somewhat. I’ve also begun putting in some walking/hiking mileage to get myself back in shape. I’ve worked my way up to about five miles per walk, typically with the dogs. In addition, I’ve begun to hike with the local Desert Fossils group, usually once a week. Thus far, I’ve lost about 8 pounds. I’m hopeful that I can whittle myself down another ten pounds by the end of January.

Jeff and Carol left today. They will be staying in Bullhead City, Arizona for a few weeks with Carol’s mom, do a little Yuma, and a drive-by stayover in Quartzite to round out January. When the temperatures heat up a bit in the Midwest, they will make the trek across New Mexico and Texas with the ultimate destination Arkansas, where Carol was born and raised. After that, they will head north up into Minnesota, then go west through Wyoming and Montana. We gave them a week’s stay at Gold Beach, Oregon in the Summer, so they will eventually head west into Washington and then down the Oregon Coast to Gold Beach. They’ve never seen Oregon; I can hardly wait until they comment on it.

The 1997 Damon Daybreak motorhome that they’re living in does the job for them at this point. Their original plan with this very old RV was to break them into RV life and then maybe move up in quality to a permanent rig. However, “what ain’t broke, don’t need fixin’”, so they will probably drive this $17,000 bargain until it drops dead. Every mile that they can get out of the Daybreak is money saved.

My good friend Mac, the guy with the constant dizziness and frequent bouts of vertigo, has finally found some experts out of Salt Lake who have diagnosed his problem (it’s called P.P.P.D.) and have prescribed some medicine and therapy to help reduce the misery by maybe 80 percent. This is welcome news for Mac, who was considering suicide a few months ago.

I used to do a lot of hiking with Mac and my friend Lloyd. Mac can’t hike at all right now due to his PPPD issue, and Lloyd moved to South Africa last Summer. He will be visiting us for a few days in January, something that Charlie and I are looking forward to.

2023 was a weird year, particularly as regards politics. It’s hard to believe that the 2024 Presidential election seems to be headed towards a ballot choice of old Donald Trump and older Joe Biden. Jeez, can’t this country do better?

Inflation is still with us, but the Federal Reserve has just lowered the Prime Rate a tad, signaling that the worst may be over. Everything still costs more, and that is likely to be with us indefinitely.

The past year was the hottest in recorded history, which is not a good sign, as most of the hottest years have occurred in the past decade. The really bad news is that polar ice caps and major glaciers around the world are melting, which is going to create havoc with the ocean currents and raise the sea level. Places like Florida, with a high elevation of 100’, are going to be increasingly punished by tropical storms and flooding. It’s already prohibitive to acquire property insurance in that State, much like it is in foothill and mountain communities in California.

We’re going to keep our heads down in 2024, probably traveling much less in the RV. We will do a few short trips (within 500 miles) and splurge on a 30-day vacation in Oceanside, California beginning on Labor Day.

Our treat to ourselves in 2024 will be an anniversary vacation in Zihuatanejo, Mexico to celebrate 50 years of marital bliss.

Hooray for us!!