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We have often derided the despairing, delusional expressions of older citizens: “Those were the good old days.” With the understandable exception of the recollection of better health, physical prowess, and personal appearance, the bleak statement, if cognizable at all, effectively translates to a discontent with one’s extant condition. In more verisimilar cases, such as ours, the “good old days” were empirically characterized by economic need, pervasive insecurity, and social and psychological stress.

Nevertheless, in the ubiquitous mix of such earlier experiences, there existed valued phenomena, which, unlike life’s extant presentation of less-than-desirable temporal physical and social impediments, were redolent of humanistic and aesthetic value; which, in our later years, we find lamentably missing. These are matters of notable value, possessing the potential to add quality and significance to life. In this context, we would highlight the beneficially impactful category, conversation..

Interactive spoken communication, as we perceive the societally existential phenomenon, can be thought of as encompassing two qualitative or substantive categories. (1) Talk and messaging, and (2) conversation. Talk and messaging pragmatically endure as matters of social and psychological necessity.

“Messages” are traditionally short (sometimes, abbreviated), publicly undesignated, and solely informative communications; messages may be expressive of hazard, geographic location, or assertions of ownership. Interactive oral messages are definitionally unlimited in size or purpose, but are limited in context by their nature of purposeful, terse relevance

Talk is a common, voluntary personal interaction, frequently of a mundane and unrehearsed nature, between friends and neighbors, and an existential feature of civilized society. Talk can be serious, informative, entertaining, loving, belligerent, or purely social, but is traditionally a spontaneous interactive expression of personal observation, opinion, news of mutual interest, or merely a plain exchange of familiarity. Talk can be accomplished by phone, albeit more often in person. The subject can be politically opinionated, but is always informally expressed.

While “messages” are empirically vital, “talk” is the essential concomitant of the natural dynamics of society and empirically, constitutes its commonplace interactivity. “Conversation” offers personal enrichment and the necessary confirmation of individual identity and worth; sadly, concomitants of the personally enriching potential of “conversation” have been, to society’s profound detriment, relegated to the dustbin of past human history.

It is referred to as “The Art of Conversation” for good reason. The participants more often than not,s know each other, indeed, are familiar with the views of the other, but enjoy the personal validation and the benefits of meritorious controversy. The parties, more often than not, know each other’s respective points of view, but enjoy the enhancing experience of aesthetic, didactic discussion. It is an admirable and rewarding experience, personally, socially, and intellectually.

As previously written, we worry about the future nature of humanity, its substitution of computer facility for human reason, its preference for video games and ethereal entertainment over good literature, and the beneficial growth of knowledge, in search of wisdom. The tragic death of human conversation is another frighteningly significant sign of the ongoing electronic destruction of humanity and, in our view, a grave insult to Natural Evolution.

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In anticipation of our regular readers’ predictable reaction to our multi-reprised expression of concern for the quality and existence of humanism in the age of ubiquitous computer dominance, we would defensively respond that the relevant metaphysical dilemma seems to be irresponsibly passed over in favor of less fundamental, temporal subjects such as Epstein-Gate, the Super Bowl, and Donald Trump. We would permissibly maintain that our sensitive concern for the patience of our kind reader is principally and responsibly outweighed by our continuing, existential concern for the nature and quality of future sentient Mankind.

Man’s avowed ubiquitous demonstration of its capability for computer innovation has revealed an overriding concern for its remarkable and profitable capability (“can”) as thematically contrasted with a responsible consideration of metaphysical propriety (“should”). The lack of sufficient (or any) consideration of the humanistic and societal impact of new advancements in computer technology has the potential to reconfigure or eliminate Man’s beneficial inclinations towards humanism, moral decision-making, aesthetic expression, and systemic human empathy.

In sad contrast to Man’s beneficial efforts at self-improvement and personal advancement, we seem to be exclusively striving for facile improvements in the performance of human activities of all kinds; inclusive, most injuriously, of normal human interaction, personal sensitivity, and morally inspired humanism.

The virulent infection of the toxic, rapidly metastasizing virus of impersonality and deprival of human nuance, as we have eternally observed, had its empirical etiology with the development and ubiquitous (now close to universal) substitution of the small, hand-held appliance, which came to be functionally misnamed the “smart phone.” With the facile use of the latter computer-screened digital device, normal and salubrious conversational interaction was empirically reduced to the exchange of impersonal digital messages, often contextually no longer timely or relevant.

We have, perhaps too often, referred to the unhealthy and non- expressive, emotionally sterile, “advancement” in societal interaction as unfulfilling and productive of personal loneliness, instead of mutual identification and comforting joint experience. We have also referred to the resultant effects of loneliness and singularity, with multiply documented increases in depression and anxiety disorders among the young. This “advancement” was our initial introduction to the ethical and humanistic significance of Silicon Valley’s costly failure to balance capability (“can” ) with “should.” It would empirically seem to be that by the exponential increase in the ubiquitous category of digital prowess, the considerations of profitability and competitive challenge of capability have completely and irresponsibly erased “should” from its viable concerns.

We have observed, by contrast, a morally boundless corcucopia of digital replacements for human conduct, ranging in category from drone military bombers to domestic vacuum cleaners and medically diagnostic wristwatches. The dire predictions of the elimination of white-collar and industrial jobs by A-1 robotization are societally concerning, as is the robotization of thought and physical activity.

Our cursory reading has furnished us with the understanding that the word “algorithm” refers to a universal data tracking system that can endlessly interpret individual search history and browsing habits and present them in natural or social media. We have read that dozens of lawsuits in recent years have gone to trial, seeking billions in damages for programs created to sustain an addictive media, with special intention on the consumption of the young, proximately resulting in depression, anxiety, and body-image issues, analogous to those of earlier cigarette advertisers. It appears evident that the insidious nature of such subtle influential activity, without relevant guardrails, redounds to a subtle, insalubrious influence on individuals of all ages. In our observed experience, responsible considerations of health and well-being are overruled by unrestrained, potentially harmful, but profitable, competitive freedom of business activity and commerce.

A responsible study should be undertaken to determine if specifically proposed computer goals are consistent with the health and well-being of human society. However, we are fearful that the process of algorithmic manipulation of human behavior, for any purpose, is contrary to the beneficial existence and advancement of Man and human society.

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We are supremely confident, based upon the daily dystopian conduct of the Trump Administration and the titanic size of the demonstrated National opposition, that the egregious, execrable Presidential rule of Donald J. Trump will go down to a certain and ignominious defeat in the next Presidential election.

The extent and ubiquity of Trump’s Paleolithic-like hubristic terms as the American President are aptly symbolized by his imperial vandalism of the East Wing of the American Nation’s historically reverential White House. He has also, in service to his monomaniacal desire for recognition and unlimited power, and with the sanction and approval of his populist (MAGA) base support, destroyed the authority of the United States Constitution, the Nation’s rule of law, and its basic moral compass. His neurotically inspired, baleful service as the National Chief Executive has also metastasized to the toxic stage of bellicose and dangerous behavior on the international scene.

As stated, his neurotically inspired policies have elicited huge, widespread, multifaceted expressions of citizen opposition, such as the huge “No Kings” protests throughout the Nation and ubiquitous opposition from the institutional media. There is an observable sentiment in the Nation that a resounding’ defeat of another “would-be Dictator” would be of existential importance to the endurance of our venerable Democratic Republic.

It is this observation that is fundamental to our optimistic expectation that any sycophantic replication of Donald J. Trump’s travesties of traditional American policies, including, notably, his complete derogation of the Constitution, would be soundly defeated by a much wiser and chastened electorate and our traditional Democratic Republic fully restored.

It is our hope and expectation that the Nation’s second Historic Reconstruction will be smoother and more efficacious than the one following the 19th Century “War Between the States,” in view of the fact that contemporarily, all citizens are legally and socially equal.

Based upon the nuanced history of his singular terms in office, we would suggest, instead of the traditional award of a Presidential Library, that Trump be more appropriately granted a golden McDonald’s Hamburger drive-in near the Potomac.

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William Shakespeare’s phrase in Macbeth, “Like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and meaning nothing,” was the source of John Steinbeck’s title in the great American novel, “Sound and Fury.” We have chosen to borrow the judgmental phrase for the title of this writing, as descriptive of the plethora of baffling and outre declarations of our unconventional Head of State, Donald J. Trump. The latter’s unauthorized declaration of war against Iran was confirmatory of this Macbethian reference.

The American public is only too aware of the “sound and fury” of Donald Trump’s campaign assurances of lower consumer prices, universal peace, sound immigration policies, and of ultimate national and personal enrichment. As is analogously declared in “Macbeth,” such assurances are delusional and “signify nothing.” As an empirical matter, consumer prices have substantially risen, wars are escalating in number and tragedy, and American immigration policy has been discombobulated;’ yet Trump’s delusional pronouncements of universal national success, nonetheless, continue, unabated.

In keeping with his creation of the extant orange dystopia, Donald J.Trump has unilaterally and unconstitutionally bombed and declared a state of war against Iran, conceivably emboldened by his earlier unauthorized bombing of Venezuelan fishing boats, as well as in Yemen and Syria.

Relative to Trump’s recent unilateral declaration of war against Iran, the American public had previously been officially advised that he had destroyed Iran’s nuclear potential for warfare. Based upon his known serial mendacity, one can empirically assume that Trump’s avowed motivation, viz., the liberation of the Iranian people from tyranny, amounts to Trumpian ( ironic) Sound andFury, and that his motivation is otherwise, perhaps a diversion from his Epstein involvement or the damage done to the American economy.

Trump’s public declaration to rule as a “Dictator” and the National dysropia caused by the dynamics of such bizarre aspiration, undoubtedly identify the enunciated motive, as more “Sound and Fury,” or, in post-Elizabethan, abbreviated terminology, “B.S.”

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Following the relatively mild rebuke for his unconstitutional, reality-testing acts of arbitrarily declaring war, by the murderous act of bombing Venezuelan fishing boats, Donald Trump proceeded to the exercise of his delusional sense of unlimited power, to unconstitutionally bomb our nuclear-armed antagonist, Iran. The thematic “bone spur” draft dodger evinced no qualms in this recent, Congressionally unauthorized commitment of America’s Nation and treasure to his lifelong, insatiable ideation to prove himself singularly vested with unconditional and unlimited power.

We are again confirmed in our fundamental understanding that to understand the vagaries of Trump’s erratic and irresponsible actions and bizarre statements, one might conceive of him as analogous to the attention-needy child, who, in his neurotic desperation, would painfully kick his mother in the shins to garner her exclusive attention, regardless of the predictable retribution. To comprehend Donald J. Trump, one must understand that he personally subscribes to no dogma or political-economic point of view, in his monomaniacal and infantile need for adoration and recognition as a “winner.”

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His populist election was the effective enfranchisement of a veritable orange hazmat as the prime guardian of the American Nation’s security and well-being. The resultant dystopia is profusely documented and agonizingly described in our past writings; the latter writings cite demonstrable examples of his hapless incapacity and egoistic repudiation of the Constitution and of general societal morality.

On the international scene, Trump has confused and frustrated our traditional partners by his romance with authoritarian enemies, his broken or repudiated salutary treaties, and the weakening of America’s salubrious and historically significant relationship with NATO and other defensive alliances. More specifically and contextually, he had set aside the significant treaty with Iran, negotiated and successfully implemented under the (contrasting) Presidential terms of Barack Obama, regarding the peaceful audits, or inspections of Iran’s nuclear progress; such irresponsible, ego-motivated act, providing the thematic scenario for the contextual events, principally motivating this writing.

Trump’s audacious and unauthorixzed bomb ing of Iran, undoubtedly, with the smiling approval of Israel’s despicable Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is more than Presidential overreach; it is a petulant denial of recognized constitutional authority in self-interested support of his neurotically based, hubristic assertion of ultimate and absolute power. In the sub-rosa, tactical interest of the despicable Chief Executive, such a conspicuously irresponsible act provides a deflection from the shameful offenses relative to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Trump’s demonstration of ignorance regarding the subject of tariffs, and his dismal failure to, as promised in the campaign, bring down consumer prices and improve the economy.

We are especially fearful, in the knowledge that, included in the available toybox of this “enfant-terrible,” reside the exclusive code numbers for the initiation of nuclear action, and will not rest easy until the beneficial time of his departure from office.

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It is pragmatically necessary that life in an interactive society requires the ability to exercise one’s judgment concerning the character and reliability of others with whom one has meaningful contact. It is wise to eschew initial impressions, conceivably based upon unrelated past experience or the subjective nuance of one’s judgmental personality. Nevertheless, it is vitally important that we entrust our friendship and interactive relationships to predictably reliable respondents, which necessarily mandates their perceptive evaluation.

The varied personal techniques in the thematic evaluation of others, regardless of one’s earnest resolve, will often empirically suffer from the stereotypical presence of past, analogous impressions with like past relationships and experiences, and thus be unfair and specifically incorrect. Fairness and accuracy require a more reliable yardstick than the unfair dynamics of personalized impression.

The testimonial experience of others, an employment recorortd educational transcript, and employment resume, when usefully available, in addition to the pertinent and indicative responses to relevantly cogent questions, are useful and appropriate, in an employment interview or, over time, in personal relationships.

One virtually universal consideration is the indicative nature of the company that he keeps as an objective indication of fundamental character and moral inclinations. Many years ago, on a visit to the historic site home of the great Norwegian composer, Edvart Grieg, we were greatly impressed to view a large, framed photograph of Maestro Grieg sitting at a large dinner table, in the company of many of the luminaries of his age, including Albert Einstein, and were duly impressed.

The chosen social ambience of the individual to be evaluated of, is an objective indication and constitutes the background for a dynamic portrait of his characterological tastes and intimate persona.

The extant, repulsive saga of the wholesale, box store enterprise of underage sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein is relevant to our present thematic mode of characterological evaluation. The decades of repulsive underage sex trafficking on the part of the murdered or suicidal Epstein make the fact of brisk social interaction with him a cogent factor in the evaluation of character.

Presently, among the rolling tsunami of media reportage, relevant to Epstein, former Democratic President, Bill Clinton has been summoned to testify and clarify his relationship with the degenerate billionaire Epstein, as a tactical diversion from the intimate and regular commerce of Donald J. Trump with the wholesale child sex entrepreneur; a thematically significant indicator of Trump’s unwholesome and perverse persona.

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Based on a multitude of empirical grounds, not the least of which is the National groundswell of opposition to the Trump autocratic policies, we are confident in the surgical excision of that orange, toxic excrescence at the next Presidential election, November 2029; the scheduled surgical procedure cannot come fast enough.

Similar to the recent scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic, the thematically painful political experience is capable, nonetheless, of universally instilling an empirical lesson; one, relative to the eternal vulnerability of our Democratic Republic, notably, in light of its significant number of inadequately educated and poorly informed citizens. Democratic existential pragmatic measures must now be taken, such as the mandatory vetting of all Presidential nominees and the constitutional and statutory elimination of “gerrymandering” and, notably, the Electoral College, so that each vote has an identical impact, in sync with the criteria of a true democracy.

The democratic selection of a competent and representative candidate as Chief Executive is the principal goal of the Republic, and any blurring or filtering of the popular vote mitigates principle. With the pragmatic selection of fit candidates and the unsullied computation of votes, the truly democratic nature of our Nation, as intended by the Founders, will be assured; and no repetition of the pernicious Trump-engendered dystopia will prevail.

Until such surgical incision and the period of convalescence, however, it cannot be justly said that the insalubrious and painful experience of the Trump Presidency has, conceivably, served no beneficial purpose, regardless of, or perhaps by reason of, its nightmarish quality. The Nation has, indeed, learned an existential lesson as to the vulnerability of a nation, “by and for the People,” by mandating a responsible approval and acceptance of all Presidential candidates, in light of the potential tragedy of another Trump-like malefactor.

“Wisdom through suffering” is the articulated, philosophical theme of the Classic Greek playwrights, and it is our view that the American public has, by reason of the experienced pain and suffering during the Trump dystopia, learned to accept the wise lesson of the empirical vulnerability of a Democratic Republic. For this eternal knowledge, acquired through personal suffering, we are obliged to give kudos and appropriate credit to the ancient playwrights: Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus, and then move on to a notably wiser National recuperation and restoration of our traditional posture as an aspiring avatar of universal human liberty and equality.

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“Graffiti” generally refers to the (unauthorized) marking or desecration of public spaces. While some examples do have a measure of artistic quality, when performed without permission is considered illegal defacement.

The graffiti or public defacement, relevant to the theme and context of this writing, has reference to the crass and neurotic program of our hubristic and tasteless Chief Executive, in directing his name to be displayed or added to our Nation’s prominent institutional edifices; the most recent such abomination concerning the “John F. Kennedy Center, Performing Arts Center,” in Washington, D.C.

Such obnoxious acts of neurotic hubris have been observed in such venues as the Trump Memorial Arch, Trump Park, the Trump Institute for Peace, and a myriad of other arbitrary sites, not to mention the plethora of public uses of “Trump Towers” on a plethora of buildings and public sites in New York and internationally. In addition to its crass nature, such widespread, public assertion of demonstrated ownership and celebrity, in our view, is revelatory of Trump’s lifelong, neurotic, insatiable quest for universal veneration and recognition as an eternal “winner.” The graffiti-like indulgence speaks volumes about his lifelong search for adoration and recognition as the avatar of successful celebrity.

Trump’s systemically impenetrable singular bubble shields him from seeing himself as the continuance of the “infant terrible” who would stop at nothing to attract exclusive parental attention. This compulsion has, presumably, been his systemically neurotic impetus from the days of his needy childhood to the present stage of his adult egocentric megalomania.

Donald Trump’s systemic absence of aesthetic sense and complete disregard for cultural matters seem not to mitigate his fervent desire to add his name to the Kennedy Cultural Center, just as his unauthorized declarations of war and errant authorization of bombing other sovereign states t appear not to mitigate his bizarre request to be awarded the International Nobel Prize for Peace. If awards were awarded for hubris or delusion, it would be empirically appropriate to grant Trump the ultimate prizes.

Trump’s misuse of Presidential authority to insert his name into the nation’s venerated institutions has the analogous significance and degree of public imprimatur as street graffiti. For the present, Trump appears to be in charge of the spray can.

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If there is empirical validity to the expression, “A picture is worth 1,000 words, Trump’s obligation as President to deliver a State of the Union address was adequately and accurately satisfied by his recent act in taking the wrecking ball to the East Wing of the venerable White House.

By “Mad Hatter” comparison, Trump’s two-hour rant can be described as an opium dream in which, under his tutelage, the Nation has been rescued from economic disaster and transformed into its systemic potential for international prowess and high regard. or, alternatively, a continuance of his systemic delusion and serial mendacity. The rant lasted almost two hours and left the listener wondering what Nation Trump was referring to.

It would be tempting to revisit the entirety of the delusional speaker’s articulated opium dream; however, we will leave that enormous exercise to the capable media and to the empirical criticism of the mainstream citizen.

What is most notable is the frightening dual alternative that: (1) Trump actually believes his grandiose cant, or (2) that he is cynically persisting in his lifelong practice of the sale of “snake oil.” Either alternative is alarmingly dystopian and frightening. The objective facts demonstrate the universal falsehood of Trump’s tactical braggadocio, marking him as a grifter-par-exellance or, alternatively, a delusional schizophrenic; neither is consistent with the appropriate context of a Presidential report to the Nation.

Because of its existential importance, we again restate our fervent plea that all Presidential aspirants be fully vetted before their right of nomination. The Democratic Republic is deservant, at the very least, of the prudent avoidance of another calamitous Donald J. Trump.

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Like other curious Earthlings, we are fascinated and inquisitive about outer space exploration, particularly the search for sentient life in some analogous universe. The many televised launches of rocket-initiated space vehicles for outer space exploration have become almost banal and mundanely commercial.

The study of the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere focuses on the observation, physics, and evolution of celestial bodies such as galaxies, stars, and other planets; the latter, conceivably, harboring life analogous to that on Earth. The interest in this endeavor is shared by laymen as well as astroscientists, as shown, for example, by the popular television series “Voyages of the Enterprise,” fictionally commanded by the formidable Captain Kirk and his indomitable crew.

While, as declared, we share in the enthusiasm and mystery of space exploration, we are of the view that there exists, among our lay population, an insufficient interest and dedication to the understanding of Man’s own Planet Earth, its physical and chemical properties, ultimate vulnerabilities, and, of especial note, its diverse assortment of planetary inhabitants. It is conceivable that an exhaustive analysis of Earth’s physical properties may deduce certain answers to the presently unknown factors concerning the astral bodies observed in our telescopes. Notably, there are scientific findings on the Planet of minerals and other substances, known to be native to the Moon and other astral bodies.

Incentive is thematically cogently needed in the concern for the well-being of Planet Earth and its inhabitants, human and otherwise. It is at our existential peril to continue to condone ubiquitous acts of planetary peril by the irresponsible use of carbon dioxide-emitting fuels, causing global warming, land and water pollution, and irresponsible commercial destruction of trees and other naturally salubrious phenomena, animal and agricultural. In addition, the recent deadly pandemic is a reminder that vaccination and sensible health policies are to be scrupulously adhered to, to ensure the life and health of its inhabitants.

Ways must be found to ultimately eliminate war, secular and religious, which, empirically, have been the most egregious and consequential producers of death, physical incapacity, and human misery; and humankind must learn to practice peaceful acceptance of each other, regardless of nuanced physical differences, a fundamental goal, timelessly pursued.

With the tacit assurance of Earthly peace and the well-being of mankind, we can uninterruptedly accomplish its challenging goals, including exotic space travel and the exploration of the cosmos.

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