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The delusional actions and statements of our bizarre President continue in their clinically based absurdity to cause other rational people and us a tsunami of consternation and an abject fear relative to the further metastasis of the once-vaunted American polity and way of life.

Rather than reprise and agonize over the perverse and toxic dynamics of Donald Trump’s performance as President of the United States, a subject, it is submitted, which has relevantly occupied many previous writings, we have undertaken to comment on the most recent and flagrant example of his delusional incapacity and one which presents a titanic problem, not only for the directly contending parties, but for the existential commerce of other nations,

The calamitously affected venue is the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway controlled by Iran and through which a considerable amount of international trade (especially oil) is shipped; accordingly, it portends far more negative outcomes. than his illegal bombing of Venezuela, Syria, Nigeria, and Yemen. A great many impacted Countries have, together with the United States, in consequence, suffered from shortages and exorbitant consumer prices due to the thoughtless arrogance of Trump’s delusional hubris.

When asked by the media when this unendurable situation would end, Trump, in his inimitable delusion, answered: “When I feel it in my bones, then I will end it.” Any country-bred lad who has foolishly stirred up a hornet’s nest will tell you that it is the hornets who get to decide when the attack is over!

=p.

We’ve been told the ancient bard,
Could hear the “music of the spheres.”
We have since seen harmony on high,
Tho astral strains are never heard.
We do hear the music of “our” sphere,
Where virtuosos perform in nature’s realm.
One has but to will to hear.

The splash of raindrops on trembling leaves,
And whistled wind-song thru dark reeds,
The high-pitched scratch of cricket limbs,
The basso profundo of bullfrog croaks,
And redundant “coo” of mourning doves,

The baby summoning her mom,
The wolf intoning his baritone aria,
The countless chirps of little birds,
The gleeful chatter of sportive chipmunks,
The staccato sound of barking dogs,
The brassy honks of flyover geese,
The lake’s soft slosh on muddy banks.

One can, in truth, faintly hear,
If he listens, most meditatively,
The upward thrust of perennial plants,
The final melt of tardy snow,
Spring, is that really you?
Have you just returned?
Welcome, do come in, Spring, my love.
Bienvenue!

-p.

Leonard N, Shapiro, 12/13/25, Kingston, N.Y.

After several years of reluctant denial, our persistent ethos regarding accuracy obliges us to radically alter our prior working theory that the Trump Administration is adequately desc incompetent and corrupt; we have arrived at the more specific and clinical decision that it empirically exceeds the pale of clinical sanity. The descriptive observation that “the inmates are running the asylum” appears to be frighteningly apt.

The fun-house mirror of quotidian distortion of objective reality has become the mundane reality of a polity, managed by a leader whose descriptive behavior may be more accurately noted by future students of American History in the DSM, rather than in the historical record.

The American public should have taken Donald Trump’s persistent support of “alternative facts” more seriously, if not characterologically clinical. There is no more existentially vital feature of a human being (let alone the President of the United States) than the clear and accurate perception of reality. The populist underbelly of the Nation reveled in Trump’s dissociative approach to empirical reality, no doubt misperceiving it as representative of a rebellion against the establishment, the cause of their many grievances with the quality of their limited and reductive lives.

For the moment, to put aside his anomalous selection of a menagerie of bizarre cabinet ministers, Trump’s record of behavior, in addition to his irrationally chosen policies, is indicative, not of the pursuit of a desired policy, but rather the lashing out of an assertive, reality-testing adolescent personality searching for an idealized love and esteem from a universal panel of representative and determinative human judiciary. His persona and actions, notwithstanding such existential need, foreclose him from admiration; indeed, from empirical normalcy.

We have painfully referenced many of Trump’s outrageously bizarre, counter-societal actions in past writings, but, in the interest of thematic context, will reprise some of Trump’s abnormalities by contrasting him with past American Presidents and allow the readers to draw their own conclusion concerning the mental and characterological fitness of our orange-hair dyed “Mad Hatter” Head of State.

Would Alexander Hamilton eternally wear a baseball cap? Would Woodrow Wilson sell golden sneakers from the Oval Office? Would FDR refer to the young Americans who lost their lives in WW2 as “suckers” and “losers”? Would Jimmy Carter frequent the sex establishment of Jeffrey Epstein? Would Abraham Lincoln unilaterally decide to demolish the East Wing of the United States White House? Would Lyndon Johnson decide, unilaterally, to bomb foreign countries without Congressional approval? Would Abraham Lincoln befriend the leaders of America’s White, Christian militias? Would either of the Bush Presidents withdraw medical and food relief to the needy? Would Teddy Roosevelt denounce the Nation’s programs of natural conservation? Would Woodrow Wilson, with the aid of a chainsaw-wielding, billionaire idiot savant, eliminate the utilitarian Federal Civil Service? Would Barack Obama impose tariffs on America’s trading partners, in some ignorant illusion that he will thereby improve the Nation’s economy?

The existential danger in Donald Trump’s actions is not simply his ignorant and reductionist lack of understanding, but the underlying lack of discernment, caused by an empirically proven mental incapacity; this is far from the acceptable persona of the Chief Executive of the most powerful nation on the planetm empirical avatar of democratic polity, and precariously, the singular possessor of the nuclear code.

We have eternally recommended the careful vetting of all Presidential candidates, failing which, the timely implementation of the Constitutional provisions for the removal of a disabled Chief Executive.

-p.

At this time of year, thoughts gravitate to the imminence of the verdant, mild-weathered Spring season, the crocuses, tulips, and daffodils, the arboreal primavera, cavorting chipmunks, and the noisy return of migrant birds. There is clean-up to do of the grounds, flower beds, and barbecue cookers, usually performed in the pleasant ambiance of engaging recorded music.

This year, sadly, the vernal celebration will, for the mainstream American citizen, be overshadowed and notably dampened by the dystopic management of the American Nation, domestically and internationally, to the degree that it has become, temporally unprecedented and unrecognizable. This spring, the crocuses and daffodils will effectively emerge in an alien and unfamiliar venue.

As of this writing, the protective and salutary provisions of the Founder’s Constitution, the guidance of the Nation’s Statutory Law, and the actions of the polity, per se, are deemed inconsequential as compared with the malign efforts to please an egocentric, monomaniac-qua dictator; whose sole preoccupation is to benefit himself, monetarily and egoistically, to the extreme peril of the fearfully transmogrified, dystopian citizenry.

The bunny rabbits, crocuses, and daffodils will have no awareness of the change of persona of our body politic. Still, the individual American citizen will be consigned to endure the chronic sequelae of a winter cold, a corrupt, unapathetic, self-serving dictatorship; the latter an unparalleled, dissonant disease of the Nation’s enlightened body politic. The salient question concerns the cause for such a transmogrification of a Nation, historically the avatar of enlightened rule, and the liberty of its citizens. descended to such an unprecedented political Armageddon?

The answer, while empirically philosophical and diverse in its ubiquitous toxicity, may be succinctly and accurately described as the proximate result of the populist election of an incompetent and egocentric President, whose selection of bizarre Cabinet ministers was based upon the singular requirement of fealty. The immolation of the traditional American way of life, and its signature freedoms and humanistic policies, were empirically predictable.

No enemy “Fifth Columnist,” or subversive organization could have accomplished the extent of injury and divided or disparaged our Nation and its historic institutions as successfully as our Presidential orange hazmat together with the worshipful cooperation of his personally selected, pernicious Cabinet menagerie.

To the delight of the Nation’s enemies, Trump and his baseball-hatted MAGA sycophants, effected what no “Tokyo Rose” or Herrmann Goebbels could conceivably accomplish by their enemy propaganda It is hoped that a wiser and better- informed voter will see to the restoration of the traditionally good health of America’s body politic, so that a citizen can once more evince an untroubled love of Spring daffodils and playful chipmunks.

-p.

It is truly remarkable that the entire organization of plinyblog.com, the managers and editors, the technical and creative staff, the legal department, and the public relations office, unanimously agreed that the venerated classic philosopher, Socrates, was the actual inventor of the (human) GPS. Socrates famously stated, “Know thyself,” and all those who ascribed (and still ascribe) to such sage advice have uniformly found their way.

It has been our perception that people who have maturely and adequately developed a stable, referentially available self-image live more fulfilling lives than those hapless individuals who inhale and exhale without reflection on their personal identity or self- generated perceptions of their human and circumstantial environments. It is that waste of potential that enables inefficient or inappropriate action and renders them vulnerable to influencers and demagogues. It is our considered opinion that such vulnerability was the prime impactful element of the election and re-election of the worst Presidential Administration in its history.

It might be contextually appropriate, at this point in this brief writing, to hazard our views on the development of a mature and consistent stable self-image, one that is founded upon individually chosen principles, invulnerable to contrary influences.

Since every human being is born with a “tabula rasa” (a clean slate) ( John Locke), his knowledge of himself, like all his knowledge, is learned or acquired through his personal experience. As we perceive it, one’s self-image or personal identity is cumulatively acquired through interaction with other members of one’s society. The perceived nature of the response of others to the individual is elemental to the establishment of his personal nuance, conceivably colored by protective or defining self-indulgence. In any event, the empirical process of the development of a stable self-image is the personal guide, or “GPS,” to the nature of the response (save any other empirically impactful considerations).

The mature and healthy development of a stable, personally referable self-image renders one foundationally rooted, morally, politically, and personally at the time of presenting choice Such a mature and stable response to stimuli of every stripe is enhanced by a lifetime of useful introspection, guided by an open mind, a product of the desire for advancement, by reading and the arts, as well as interaction with informed and educated individuals. The examination of the lives of others, fictional and biographical, is a useful and instructive guide to the development of individual Man’s GPS, his Socratic adherence to his appropriate place and responses to ubiquitously presenting issues.

Self-understanding (“Know Thyself”) is an existentially indispensable guide to the aspirational journey to a fulfilled life and the utilitarian GPS guide to humanistic living.

-p.

Today’s title, Latin for “Out of Many, One,” is the official motto of the United States and appears on its Great Seal and currency. It would follow, in principle, that bigotry, racial, religious, or ethnic, as it exists, is a cognitively dissonant phenomenon.

It is empirically undeniable that, other than its indigenous peoples, the American Nation is in large part, populated by immigrants and their progeny. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the dynamics of racial, religious, and ethnic prejudice have been a significantly regrettable feature of its national history. Despite the existence of legal strictures, the universal acceptance of metaphysically moral and humanistic principles, and the dedicated efforts of many self-sacrificing historical reformers, the disease of bigotry seems to be chronic in all its toxic virulence.

It is indisputable that all “prejudice” is empirically irrational, as it is not based on reason or actual experience. “Xenophobia, in our view, is not only repugnant, as are other contextual un-American and irrational ideations, but, as a singular matter, rightfully deserves the gold medal for ultimate absurdity.

“Xenophobia” connotes the fear or hatred of all persons perceived as “outsiders,” ranging from sub- rosa internalized feelings to programs of systemic violence. As to the latter, one can call to mind, as a recent illustration, the Gestapo-style tactics of the odious masked and heavily armed militia of rogue Americans (“ICE”), wreaking misery and homicide on subjectively perceived immigrants; the latter miscreants generously funded and sanctioned by the dystopic Trump Administration.

Stated simply, “immigrants” are persons who come to this country to live permanently, in most cases to improve the lives of their families, or as refugees from autocratic misery. The defined category does not encompass qualitative or descriptive characteristic, other than their expressed intention to live in the United States, We have eternally been at a complete loss in our efforts to comprehend the basis or etiology of those who would exalt the rationally unexplainable hatred or fear of entirely unknown “others,” who, like the tradition of past immigrants, come to this Nation to work and live better lives.

Donald J. Trump, in his demagogic descriptions of immigrants coming to America as “caravans of criminals and rapists,” tactically caters to the support of the Nation’s bigoted, inadequately educated, and uninformed populist voters; the latter, conceptually desirous of exalting their marginal public status as contrastingly accepted members of a restricted population. It is conceivable that such perceived recognition of status is the perverse dynamic of their toxic xenophobia. Aggravating such ignorance and neurotic presumption is the lack of empirical recognition of their own immigrant forebears.

Trump’s “Caravans of Undesirables” include many thousands of exemplary immigrants such as Yasha Heifetz, Albert Einstein, Victor Borge, Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, James Audubon, Joseph Pulitzer, Alexander Graham Bell, Levi-Strauss, Madeleine Albright, and too many societally celebrated immigrants to pragmatically list in a brief writing.

Xenophobia, like other phobias, is, inarguably, neither healthy, just, nor productive. In our view, it is the most bizarre and “Looney Tunes” variety of bigotry, in that it is an expression of hatred singularly based upon an activity, viz., a change of homeland (irrespective of the class or ethnic identity of the victim). Can a rational explanation be furnished for the hatred of persons, solely castigated for their intention to change their family’s residence? No neurotically based personal grounds are postulated for this brand of prejudice, save the victim’s intention to live in another country. It makes as much (neurotic) sense as hating all bakers, baseball players, or bus commuters. Irrationally, such a sole, ()thematic “activity of immigration” provides the foundational basis of the hatred, generally analogous to the irrationality of race and ethnic prejudice, prevalent in other cases of unwarranted bias.

Construing a self-serving “pecking order” of humanity or irrational engagement in the hatred of racial or ethnic classes of people is humanistically and morally reprehensible and un-American. Bigotry based upon the victim’s legal choice of action is also reprehensible, and as well, empirically and dystopically irrational.

-p.

Because it is pertinent to the context and theme of the present writing, we have chosen to repeat the memorable public remarks of Donald J. Trump on Veterans’ Day at Arlington National Cemetery. Referring to the many hundreds of young casualties of the Second World War, as “suckers” and “losers,” he shamelessly expostulated, “What was in it for them?” Such pitilessly sociopathic statements will not earn him a reference in the book “Profiles in Courage” and are notably relevant to the theme and context of this writing. It is universally known that the celebrated speaker dodged the draft by the asserted diagnosis of “ankle spurs,” as attested to by a family-friendly physician.

Donald J. Trump, the sole intended beneficiary of his lifetime of acts and statements, after his election to the Presidency, demonstrated blatant cognitive dissonance by his affinity for waging war against countries perceived as non-compliant with his arbitrarily defined image as a friend of the United States. The telling standard for the latter designation was the recalcitrance of the foreign nation to do his bidding; the latter dynamics, usually dependent upon his limited understanding of international relations or, quite often, a needed diversion from his incompetent and improper rule ( viz., Economy, consumer prices, and/or miscreant behavior (“Epstein -gate”).

Donald Trump has sent countless “suckers” and “losers” and expended untold billions of dollars from the National Treasury to bomb and make war on other sovereign nations through the bombing of Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, and Venezuela. To add illegality to jingoism, he has chosen (and, shockingly, gotten away with) the declaration of war without the mandatory consent of Congress.

Our “bone spur” Genghis Khan has not hesitated to blatantly, illegally, and impulsively commit thousands of American “suckers” and “losers” to war, in the neurotic and hubristic desire to win approbation of himself, at any cost, including human lives and the good of the Nation.

Unlike the protagonist in Stephen Crane’s 1985 novel “The Red Badge of Courage,” the only conceivable red stain on Trump’s gold-leafed White House would be the ketchup from one of the neurotic leader’s quotidian McDonald’s hamburgers.

-p.

If there exists a puppy heaven, a certain 14-month-old Wirehair Terrier named “Cricket” is licking his painful wounds with a sense of being accorded a measure of justice. Cricket is simultaneously wondering whether there is a goat heaven to which his fellow farm tenant has been granted ingress. Both the puppy and goat were co-residents of a farm owned by the attractive, but inarguably psychopathic, Kristi Noem, recently fired from her Trump-appointed position as Secretary of Homeland Security for gross monetary corruption.

It seems relevant to this writing to once more observe that the sole criterion relative to Trump’s appointment of members of his bizarre menagerie of Cabinet Ministers was the slavish loyalty to himself. Appropriate considerations of character, discernment, capability, and professional expertise were deemed irrelevant and were absent from consideration; not surprisingly, coterminous with the Nation’s abrupt transmogrification from its universal description as “admirable” to the inverse state of dystopia.

Our female protagonist, Kristie Noem, was thus awarded the impactful position of Secretary of Homeland Security.

At this point in the writing, we would take a moment to reprise our empirical observation that the character of a person may be accurately gauged by the manner in which he treats his pets or animals. Noem’s cold-blooded and merciless acts of killing her puppy, “Cricket,” by shooting him in the face (“because he was a slow learner”), and the callous killing of her goat (“because he smells”) exceed the description of cruel and bizarre and are more accurately (or “clinically”) described as “pathological.” As reported, she notably boasted of the two heinous acts in her published memoirs.

The context of such a demonstration of personality and character is analogous in nature to Trump’s public description, at Arlington Cemetery, concerning the many hundreds of young soldiers buried there, as “suckers” and “losers” and his further revelatory remark, “What was in it for them?” Noem’s performance as Donald Trump’s Cabinet Secretary of Homeland Security notably demonstrated an analogous pitilessness and lack of humanism.

As reported by the media, Noem was recently removed from her post for blatant corruption and gross misuse of government funds, a public revelation obliging Trump to remove her from her post. We are pleased with her firing, but, more fundamentally, displeased with the paucity of meritorious grounds for her dismissal.

We do not deem it necessary or practical to restate the myriad of human abuses overseen and approved by Noem, inclusive of the Gestapo-like masked hoodlum army (“ICE”) that tormented, and without due process, arrested, incarcerated and deported Americans; many of whom had resided peacefully and productively in the United States for decades, on the sole grounds of their tan skin (N.B.: See title) or the use of the Spanish language; not to omit the approval of the murders of Alex Petti and Renee Good, two admirable American citizens, whom she defamatorily referred to as “terrorists.”

The extent and degree of Noem’s encouragement and involvement in unprecedented Nazi-like abuse, incarceration, and banishment, particularly of resident Americans demonstrating other than white skin, or speaking Spanish, her callous destruction of families and innocent lives, are irrefutably Nuremberg-level offenses encouraged and approved by this grinning, cowboy-hatted psychopath.

We speak for all mainstream humanity, plus a small, black, wire-haired puppy, and a friendly, but somewhat “smelly” Billy goat.

-p.