plinyblogdotcom

It is in those instances where the dynamics of Man’s life leave him with meaningful, often determinative, choices that we may conceivably find the explanations for many of his cogent problems and perturbations. Stated less abstrusely, the adequate consideration of choices in life, when available, usually redounds to one’s benefit, while the inadequacy of foresight and relevant predictability often results in circumstances previously unseen, bearing unpropitious results. It is our view that such universal inadequacy of personal consideration provided major impetus for the election of an outre persona such as Donald Trump to the august role of American Chief Executive.

Notably, a manifest continuance of such failure of adequate consideration of basic principles has been sadly replicated, contributing to the choice of an autocratic, non-American style of leadership, and we remain fearful of its potential devolution. It is conceivable that if the large swath of inadequately educated and ill-informed voters who elected him had, in fact, exercised their available capacity for evaluative judgment, the dystopia of the Trump Administration might have been averted. As stated, we remain fearful that the duration of this incapacity has the nightmarish potential of the tragic elimination of our unique Democratic Republic and its constitutionally protected life.

The thematic realization is that the autocratic exercise of neurotically inspired, hubristic rule under which mainstream America now finds itself was pragmatically avoidable by adequately exercised, previous consideration of the thoughtful citizenry, rather than the empirical reality of the personally disgruntled horde of populist voters, make the inadequately considered, fateful choice

Such an egregiously dystopian and unconstitutional mode of rule, of course, has identically affected, for good or bad, the personal lives of such Trump’s supporters; a societal change only now being contemporaneously realized; nevertheless, it seems that MAGA (Trump supporters) have not yet ultimately experienced the full potential effects of the cynical disregard of citizens’ lives by Trump and his Administration. The President’s cultish, compliant lemmings soon will necessarily come to realize the historical nightmare of unfamiliar dictatorship, and the implications of their ill-considered support of autocratic polity; alas, too little, too late.

Some time previously spent in expanding their limited outlook, rather than indulging in inane computer games, and the end of a systemic reluctance to read and grow as sapient planetary co-tenants, might have averted the contemporary, dystopic political outcome.

It is our thematic observation that freedom of individual choice is democratically utilitarian and beneficial, but only where the comprehensive menu of choices is known and fully considered.

Thus, it should be realized that an empirical increase in Presidential power ineluctably encompasses a corresponding universal loss, or decrease, of citizen rights. The thoughtless or atavistic, right-wing supporters of a governmental policy of unitary power, vesting inappropriate authority in the hands of the President, [an un-American cardinal sin, according to our Nation’s Founders,] is an egregiously costly one, to the life of the American citizen, present and future. Donald Trump’s shameful excesses constitute direct, probative proof of said dire prediction.

-p.

When the subject is esoteric or fundamentally metaphysical, it is often useful to employ well-known analogies as an aid in its elucidation. In the present writing, it is our thematic intention to explore the underlying dynamics of the substantial American voting population who resolutely favor the democratic form of polity, yet dissonantly voted for (and elected) Donald J. Trump, the declared “would-be dictator.” For this purpose, we will reference the tale of our legendary friend, Pinocchio, the mythical wooden puppet, eternally aspiring to be a real person.

Since it is rational to accept John Locke’s “tabula rasa” theory, i.e., that Man is born with a “clean slate,” and that the totality of his knowledge is acquired by experience. (“the empirical theory”), it would seem contextually appropriate to, once more, consider the epistemological subject of individual human advancement through learned experience, personal or referential.

The human baby is born with basic, primal inclinations concerning safety, warmth, light, security, appetite, and ambient sound. As he matures, he learns through empirical experience, progressively more complex and determinative concerns, ubiquitous affirmative pleasures, and natural as well as perceived. [It is conceivable that some of these primitive perceptions dynamically endure in his mature life experience (a subject for another time).

Aside from these real or perceived inclinations and concerns, the newborn babe enters the Planet in a melange of maternal chemicals, but, in a singular and temporarily analogous condition to our fictional protagonist, “Pinnocchio,” with a complete absence of experiential or didactic knowledge. The latter wooden construct, plainly, lacks conceivable potential for growth, either in size or understanding, for personal advancement and mature fulfillment. The operative construct of this brief comment is to observe that too many humans appear to prefer to retain an intransigent, wooden insensitiveness or resistance to growth and the acquisition of mature perception; thus, depriving themselves of social consciousness and potential for mature fulfillment. Like our fictional protagonist, they waste their allotted time on Earth pursuing unattainable states of temporal satisfaction, yet, eternally articulating the feeling of loss of the felt opportunity for personal fulfillment and success.

It is the chosen failure to engage in a universally available, socially interactive, and culturally uplifting life that provides the etiology of their wooden, limited, hapless life and their inevitably consequential discontent.

Despite their ubiquitous protestations and their face-saving attributions (to other races, creeds, immigration, gender disparity) and the like, their colossal disappointment with life is ultimately based upon their own choices to be unattached and disinterested in the pursuit of a fuller life of introspection, or in the universal state of mankind, thus, inevitably leading to feelings of meaningless existence and a futile effort to see life as an ever- evolving experiential journey. They inhabit the wooden, feelingless stagnation of a wooden entity, like Pinocchio, an insensate puppet, available for ubiquitous manipulation.

As an extremely hazardous and sad behavioral observation, it is to such an innately discontented and shallow-thinking people that Donald J. Trump has enjoyed the greatest appeal with his despicably false demagogic offerings of “Snake Oil” amelioration, empirically accepted by such self-defeating and underdeveloped, “wooden,” puppet-like unsophisticates.

As presciently admonished by Thomas Jefferson, the success of a democracy is dependent upon an informed and enlightened citizenry. The causes of its present state of existential vulnerability are perceived by us to be empirically discernible.

-p.

Regular readers of this blogpost are aware of our contempt for aphorisms; worn-out, universal folk advice traditionally offered in the absence of the relevant facts, as purported universal guides to successful outcomes, or as avoidance of experiential disappointment. The results more often than not result in empirical disappointment. Where choice of action is operative, one’s personal experience and relevant reason have the best hope of attaining a satisfactory solution.

Nevertheless, life’s instances of analogous experiences can afford useful guides to personal choices of action or situational judgment. Past similar experiences can serve as an appropriate guide to decisional judgment, and are to be clearly distinguished from folk chesnuts of ageless folkloric, pseudo- wisdom.

One such experiential principle reveals that the inner persona of another individual may be cogently observed in the manner in which the other treats his pet animals. This, admittedly, “aphoristic” sounding declaration has proven to be accurate over the decades of our maturity, not as crackerbarrel drivel, but rather, ultimately derived from experiential observation.

Lest we dwell on the subject of past exhibited human behavior, we would apply our intended observations to the dystopically pathological behavior and, by consequence, the abiding (“chilling”) character of Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem. Our observations are based upon verisimilitude evidence, derived from empirical behavior, as starkly opposed to aphoristic folklore.

As shockingly revealed in her personal 2024 memoir, Kristi Noem shot and killed her 14-month-old puppy, “Cricket,” because she determined that he was not easily trainable. In our past experience, this pathologically inhuman, clinical act alone would be a clear experiential window into the perversity of her character, but sadly, there is considerably more.

Noem’s appointment to the Cabinet by Donald Trump, as Homeland Security Secretary, has recently been opposed by no less than 50 advocacy groups for its Gestapo methods of xenophobic prosecution, sans due process, of Hispanic-American peace-loving and productive people; in compliance with Trump’s insatiable desire for unlimited power. She has dutifully and immorally condoned ICE’s most criminally egregious, un-American practices, including the shooting murders of several upstanding Amereica U.S.citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

In accordance with our earlier judgmental recommendations, it may not be inconsistent for a person who shoots her 14-month-old puppy dog in the face and reportedly kills her farmland goat to casually inscribe such valorous deeds in her printed memoir, nor, indeed, further autocratic cruelty.

Concerning this bloodthirsty member of Donald’s selected Cabinet menagerie, we would, in the beneficial interest ol public disclosure (and Homeland Security), recommend that her name be officially changed from “Kristie Noem” to “Kristie Noempathy.”

-p.

In analogical reference to the States most militarily involved in the American War for Independence, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, the Civil War, Virginia, and Tennessee, we have determined that Kudos are historically appropriate for Minnesota’s courageous and effective opposition to the underbelly army of Trump’s “Whack-a-Mole,” masked army, denominated by the abbreviated and emotionally discriptive, name, “ICE.”

“ICE” stands for “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” a title function, with theoretical utility and professional responsibility, linguistically consistent with systematic good governance. However, despite its acceptably worded mission, in the atmosphere and dystopic context of today’s Trump Presidency, it has, with the cultish compliance of MAGA sentiment, disgracefully enlarged and transmogrified its mission to one of frequent criminal arrests. detention and removal of selected racially identified innocent people, without a modicum of due process, conducted Gestapo-style, aggressive raids, cruel family separations, violent human rights violations, including the intentional murder of peaceful, productive citizens. The relevant Federal Agency, with the approval of Trump’s menagerie of compliant Cabinet Secretaries, has been authorized to perform dystopian, non-American practices, functioning as a federal governmental militia, uniformed, bizarrely masked, and lethally armed, with toxic hatred and modern weapons. This most egregious nightmare is one perpetrated by our Nation’s autocratic, megalomaniacal leader.

The mainstream American has not only been traumatized by such developments, but also appropriately concerned about the endurance of our treasured and historically unique Democratic Republic. Citizen objections to such Gestapo tactics were adamantly and loudly expressed in public demonstrations throughout the Democratic Republic, the most articulate and impactful of which was that of our thematically honored, City of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In the face of personally hazardous, sub-zero temperatures, tens of thousands of protesting Minnesotans came out to voice their adamant objections to the Trump-inspired fascistic tactics of the thematic horde of masked ICE stormtroopers, the latter,wreaking fear, imprisonment, family separation, incarceration, and murder on “suspected illegal immigrants.” More than 70 businesses shut down, and schools were closed as part of its patriotic rejection of ICE. The widespread Americanprotest against the harsh cruelties of totalitarianism deserves the reprise statement that it was dedicatedly and massively conducted in harsh, sub-zero weather.

Such dedicated personal sacrifice has already evinced the mediating response of a policy reduction of this evil policy; we look forward to its complete eradication.

Kudos and sincere admiration are appropriately deserved by our fellow Northwestern, staunch American citizens.

-p.

In William Shsakespear’s “Hamlet,” the protagonist states: “Methinks the lady protesteth too much.” [Act III, Scene III].

Despite the wide variation of thematic context, it is our view that the observation is empirically replicated by the “Manchurian Candidate” style of compliant testimony offered by Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s self- serving appointee as the Nation’s consequential Attorney General.

Ms. Bondi has once more demonstrated her unequivocally deserved entitlement to the Olympic Gold<Medal for blatant prevarication and tactical avoidance of cogently relevant questions, concerning her inappropriate partisan cooperation with the domineering President, and her office’s ensuing policies and actions. All such attempts at relevant Senatorial disclosure were consistently met by the witness with evasion or absolute denial, notably, including matters of public knowledge.

Bondi’s tailored responses seemed to be delivered in uniform, dispassionate, and modulated tones, as if emotionally fixated, analogous to the chemical property of her bouffant blonde hair spray. We have no doubt as to the approval of her dramatic performance by the sophomoric President; however, from our empirical perspective, her public “dog and pony” show was indicative of an irrefutable confirmation of her irresponsible, partisan, and constitutionally inappropriate official behavior.

Her testimony was uniformly characterized by unemotional denial and devoid of explanations, situational nuance, qualifications, or situational distinctions. Every critical charge was robotically and dispassionately denied, in programmatic fashion, to the conceaved delight of our felonious President and an evident empirical confirmation of the allegations of consummate wrongdoing. It is our contextual opinion that the unequivocal, automated and universal ubiquitous denial of wrongdoing, under the circumstances, constituted their unintended empirical admission. The “overkill” of universally stated propriety, by the errant personality of Pam Bondi, operated, according to our situational perception of current governmental events, as an unassailable confirmation of her (and her party’s) political mischief.

=p.

The United States Constitution expressly contains two relevant “Emoluments” Clauses, intended as anti-corruption measures for Federal Officials, notably, the President, from accepting gifts from foreign or domestic sources. viz., [ Article 1, sec. 9] without Congressional Approval and the Domestic Emoluments Clause [Art.2, section 1,] which restricts the American President from receiving gifts beyond his salary.

Donald J. Trump, who has brazenly and ubiquitously repudiated the Nation’s Constitution, has, among his other reprehensibly illegal acts, repudiated its strictly construed Emoluments prohibition, by accepting from foreign governmental leaders: a personalized gold bar, worth $ 30,000, an expensive Rolex desk clock, a valuable handcrafted leather book, a Saudi gold dagger worth $ 24,000, an expensive crystal bowl, a full set of Olympic Gold Medals. a personalized golf club, and most notably, a Jumbo Jet from the Qatari government, worth no less than $ 400,000,000. The complete list of illegal gifts may conceivably be greater; however, this writer is only aware of the foregoing items.

Such a list, of course, does not include the ubiquitous acts of extortion practiced by our unprincipled Chief Executive, nor his tasteless, shameless, and inappropriate use of the Nation’s venerated Oval Office as a retail shopping center, for such items as the retail sale of watches, Bibles, golden sneakers, and a virtual “Sears Catalog” of retail merchandise. Whether such bizarre misuse of the White House may be legally included in Trump’s cornucopia of emolument violations or not, the same is embarrassingly tasteless and irrefutably inappropriate.

The media advises that Trump’s entrepreneurial grifting has earned him, to date, in excess of four billion dollars.

We cannot resist observing that while Donald J. Trump is reality testing the full extent of unprincipled and illegal grifting, the media reports that no less than 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck; the latter in great part the proximate result of Trump’s incapable and self-centered policies, including his misunderstood “tariff” policy and his insecure”kowtowing” to the billionaire class.

This dystopic miscreance is but one of the plethora of Trump improprieties, but it well may be the most patently vulgar and demonstrative.

-p.

In almost nine decades of experience, we have encountered no greater emotionally insatiable need to achieve universal recognition as a “winner” than in the case of the ostensibly formidable and resolute persona of Donald Trump. This writing’s intention is to articulate our conception of the psychodynamics of our singular Chief Executive, albeit not to approve of it in any moral or professional degree. In the interest of candor, we affirmatively state that the observations and conclusions articulated in this writing are founded on our empirical observation of his actions and public statements, and not didactic principles, concerning which we, admittedly, do not have the academic credentials. Nevertheless, we are confident in our ability to accurately perceive the ostensible indications of his contextual condition.

In earlier writings, we have referred to the dynamics of Trump’s n eedy persona by the utilization of the descriptive analogy of the needy child who painfully kick his dozing mother in the shins to win her exclusive attention, fully aware of the predictable retributive result, but with personal neediness, overriding all considerations; as etiologically descriptive of Donald J. Trump’s neurotic lifestyle; by now, he has made us supremely confident in our earlier precient prognostigations.

There is no more rational or motivational conclusion to be reached concerning his neurotically unpredictable and analytically impenetrable behavior; Trump asserts no political, economic, or other philosophical leanings; and his erratic inconsistency is therefore attributable to an emotionally driven and irrational etiology. The mystery is easily solved by his frequently stated aspiration to be universally seen as a “winner.” It requires little esoteric analysis to conclude that such clinical egocentrism is not compatible with the multitude of implicitly selfless, fiduciary responsibilities of the Chief of State of our Democratic Republic.

Such neurotically insatiable need for universal approval and acknowledgement of competent celebrity constitutes an empirically irresponsible impairment to the rational direction of a complex, multifaceted Republican Democracy; an assertion demonstratively proven by Trump’s dystopic and non-traditional Presidency. The entire swamp-like compendium of Trump-MAGA unconstitutional, immoral, and bizarre travesties is well known and delineated in past writings, and the mainstream American citizen finds himself understandably challenged in his fervent desire for the restoration of our traditional Nation. The neurotically needy child, residing in Trump’s persona, has been clinically successful in attracting his neurotically needed attention; there is not an hour in the day that his insatiable, toxic miscreance is not broadcast to the public.

We are hopeful of a resounding defeat of this dystopic President and the restoration of the traditional American way of life (including its continuing progress to a better Democracy), by the removal of this insatiable, megalomanical, and pyrrhic neurotic.

-p,

Caution, dear reader, brace yourself; in a few days, the perennial tsunami, appearing every February 14, will predictably reassert itself, in all its traditional force. The sole fans of such feared flooding are the usual suspects: the greeting card companies, the chocolate manufacturers, the florists, the retail jewelry businesses, the pajama industry, and the novelty sales folk. The expected high tide of the Valentine’s Day inundation, judging by previous experience, will submerge all land masses, human population and baffle all reason. Among other phenomena, the advertising industry will publish a stage 4 hurricane of notices, featuring photo-shopped, seemingly amorous couples, in intimate proximity to their highlighted sales merchandise.

Since (mercifully) this holiday has only a short half-life, one day, the need for effective sales propaganda becomes urgent. Unaccountably huge profits are earned by companies that, presumptuously, maintain that there is a realistic (and commercial) need to supplement the interaction of couples who love one another, with their manufactured paraphernalia. Greeting card companies are especially guilty of this self-serving assumption and engage” distinguished poets” to create trite doggerel, consisting of inane expressions of love and fidelity, for the thousands of presumably, aphasic, anonymous consumers.

The most objectionable of the various Valentine’s Day symbols is the trite, red Valentine “heart,” an old-fashioned, retro configuration, broadcast without relief on all holiday products, greeting cards, gift wrapping paper, stuffed toys, pillows, and candy boxes. This stale symbol is glaringly imprinted on all items for sale on Valentine’s Day, as well as by some Manchurian Candidate-type propaganda, on the consumers’ minds.

Various research people [who presumably have no more pressing fields of inquiry for the employment of their Ph.D. acumen] have reported that the classic red symbol is derived from an early, incorrect understanding by [no less than] philosophers such as Galen and Aristotle, who believed that the heart contained only three chambers. [It may be noted that Dr. Galen and Mr. Aristotle were, innovatively, accurate on many other subjects]

The Valentine depiction of the human heart maintains the very same proportionate degree of accuracy as a wood duck, in appearance, bears to a moose. Nevertheless, it has, over the ages, been foisted upon and willingly accepted by the consuming public.

In truth, the human heart is shaped like a pear and is the approximate size of a man’s fist. This life-or-death chest muscle is taxed with the existential job of circulating blood and oxygen throughout the body. It has no time, or noticeable inclination, for holiday Hallmark sales propaganda, as the purported source of love, courage, strength or kindness. The statement, “He has a good heart” should be reserved, for a positive determination by a cardiologist, and not a comment on such traits as a person’s, love, generosity, or empathy. We are only concerned with cardiologists and not “cardeologists.” How would you value a positive comment regarding personal generosity, such as, “He has good kidneys.”

It is certainly inarguable that all human thought and emotion are exclusively brain functions and not the traditionally romanticized heart muscle. Admittedly, however, it would be impractical to artistically create a brain-shaped cartoon figure to symbolize the holiday.

The senseless Valentine’s “heart” is best replaced by a preferable love symbol, the unique and marvelous tulip bulb. Certainly, the outline of the traditional bulb is simple to artistically replicate. More importantly, the bulb has eternally been a symbol of future growth and predictable beauty. Relative to the modern conception of true and healthy love, the tulip bulb is seen as independent and self-sustaining, having within its inner self a sufficient systemic source of future nourishment as well as the natural ability and inclination for growth and the achievement of its innate potential.

The tulip bulb, in the Middle Ages, was thought to be magical and priceless. There are historical records of its sale for the modern equivalent of several thousand dollars. If you should offer one to him/her and it is refused, we earnestly suggest that you look elsewhere.

ADDENDUM:

Why should it be necessary to dedicate a one-day holiday in recognition and expression of love, and, further, to do so by trite gifts of holiday nonsense? Love, where it is genuine, is experienced regularly and expressed in tender interaction and caring, personal acts. This one-day holiday is sadly comparable to gifts of free turkey dinners on Thanksgiving to the needy. Hunger exists year-round, and the poor and unfortunate need more than a gratuitous symbol.

-p.

Last week, the Advisory Committee of the Department of Disease Control and Prevention ( under the dystopian tutelage of JFK, Jr.) said that all vaccinations, including those for measles and polio, should be made optional; that requiring mandatory shots for school entry is a “species of authoritarianism.”

Such a specious declaration, to our perception, has the analogous verisimilitude of averments that the Georgia Ku Klux Klan is hosting a pie sale to raise money for Black History Month or that John Dillinger is a full professor in “Money and Banking Theory” at Wharton. Such hogwash, emanating from the autocratic Trump Administration, reveals the empirical level of dystopia, as also would a declaration that “Freddy” Krueger, from the fictional horror movie “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” has recently been seen, earnestly absorbed in crocheting a flowered pot holder for his grandmother.

It is an empirical revelation of cognitive dissonance for a member of the Trump Administration to oppose a matter of any description because its requirement is “authoritarian” and ipso facto, objectionable. Traffic laws, criminal statutes, and contract law have their respective mandates, yet exist at the will and for the empirical benefit of organic society. It would appear that the perverse declaration of “authoritarianism” regarding the societally salubrious policy of mandatory vaccination for entrance to public school is a subjective misuse of the word; analogous to the ignorant, ubiquitously used, “socialism,” by the misinformed right-wing, relative to programs of capitalistic benevolence, viz., social security, health insurance assistance, and the ike.

It has been our lifelong credo that only feckless governmental interference with the delineated constitutional rights of American citizens is “authoritarian” and pernicious, not every morally and societally necessary stricture. The MAGA misuse of specifically intended, contextual words is indicative of their ubiquitous misunderstanding, not only of the American lexicon but generally, of the inarguable virtues of living in a Democratic Republic.

On the vitally important subject of vaccination against disease, we cannot restrain our emotionally responsible feeling that parents who do not have their children fully vaccinated against disease are ipso facto guilty of child abuse.

-P.

[Dream Sequence]: Donald J. Trump and his Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephan Miller, are ernestly engaged in a didactic discussion of the classic behavioral admonition contained in Emanuel Kant’s esoteric ” Prolegomena To Any Metaphysics,” when the Press Secretary, Karolyn Leavitt, throws open the gilded doors to the Oval Office, hysterically proclaiming that the President’s Executive Order, directing major physionomic alteration to New York’s Statue of Liberty and a relevant official change of name to ” The Winner, Donald Trump” was turned down by governmental authoritires for divers reasons, not the least of which is the predictable outcry from feminist groups as well as the influential N.Y.C Tourist Souvenir Association.

In the dynamics of the contextual dream, the sleeper, Donald Trump, wisely avoiding the highly predictable negative publicity from relevant historical societies, tourist companies, immigrant organizations, as well as the cheap souvenir sales companies,, he rejects the retributive advice of his outraged Cabinet to expunge the name and verses of Emma Lazarus from the edifice and, as further retribution, expulsion of her name from the illustrious list of famous American poets. In the dream, the outraged Chief Executive expostulates, angrily, that he would, however, retributively ban all depictions of New York’s East River from Federal Buildings. The latter restriction had fortuitously appeared to him, the moment he awoke from one of his sundry, irresistible afternoon naps.

Additional empirical, non-soporific misfortunes of the horrific day, consisting of a recent scientific study demonstrating that orange hair dye is irretrievably toxic and unhealthy to human cognition, the discovery of greasy three red ties, irretrievably lost to greasy ketchup stains from the morning’s regular ingestion of McDonald hamburgers, and two broken nails suffered by Melania, aggravated the bleak advice that the superjet graciously given to him by Qatar. was an irreparable “lemon” whose potential flying altitude, on a good day, was incapable of exceeding fifteen feet from the ground; the latter prognostication constituting the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Trump then, angrily and dejectedly, locked himself away in one of the gold-leafed executive bathrooms and there, unsuccessfully attempted to mitigate his despicable loss of face by aggressively and imperially, brandishing his thickly imprinting black “Sharpie,” mandating that all unemployed citizens be subject to a government-ordered draft to serve as caddies at his golf clubs, and notably, outlawing the “treasonous” ingestion of kale and broccoli.

Nor could his afternoon Presidential Conference with his erudite cabinet fare better; the marshmallows kept melting in the fire and falling off the stick. It ain’t easy to shoulder the awesome responsibilities and infinite duties of the American Presidency; you can ask the beleagured Donald Trump for indignant confirmation.

-p.