Category: Uncategorized

At our late octogenarian age, we are existentially fortunate to routinely awaken this July morning, albeit, with the confluence of disturbing, ruminative thoughts, These concern the kaleidoscopic diversity of acts of a currently dystopian Nation that, possessing the resources and capability to feed the hungry of the world, the scientific prowess to endeavor to cure and prevent disease and relieve physical suffering, nevertheless is irresponsibly fixated on the tawdry issue relative to the degree to which their shameful President has patronized the underage whorehouse of a despicable celebrity pimp.

What may rationally conceivably be concluded relative to the foundational utility of the unique franchise of sapience (reason), fortuitously gifted by natural evolution to Mankind? The beneficial utilitarian use of reason might empirically result in a world of peaceful, mutually cooperative nations, universally advancing their respective societies toward meaningful and healthy lives; instead, we are confronted with a Planet, popularized by nations, atavistically engaged in competing for power and riches, regardless of its eternally tragic toll on humanity.

It would, sadly, appear that the evident lust for riches and assertion of power is the universal motivation of mankind, both individually and as a nation. We awake in quotidian universality to a societal, national, and global dystopia, consisting of the metaphysical inclination, individually and as a representative group, to dominate others, yet simultaneously, exercise hubristic and neurotic assumptions of principled, or rationalised rectitude.

Thus, the morally contemplative individual awakens each morning and retires after his day in a state of principled disappointment and disgruntled confusion concerning the metaphysically selfish nature of the human persona and its enunciated moraaspirations. We universally preach lessons of brotherhood and humanism to our children, while offending the primary standards of ethical deportment, both individually and in willing compliance with others. This eternally perverse moral dilemma, which remains the classic subject of great literature and essays, is a blemish on the human character and has historically resulted in suffering and plain tragedy over the eons of Man’s existence.

Truthfully speaking, we don’t give a fig about whether or not the egoistic and repulsive Donald J. Trump was a regular customer of a contemptible house of ill repute; we do, however, adamantly detest his demonstrably excrable lack of humanism.

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We shall forever be grateful for the inclusion in the American lexicon of the word “despicable.” In our view, said singular adjective itself would constitute a fitting and accurate portrait of the persona of Donald J. Trump.

We have copiously written relative vto the low character and reprehensible behavior of Donald J. Trump, as President, inclusive of : his serial mendacity, his hubristic persona signified by his signing with publically demonstrated flourish “Presidential Orders” with a thick black, assertive velvet “Sharpie,” mandates which are constitutionally inappropriate alone to Congress, eliminating humanistic relief to middle-class American citizens as well as desperately needed food and medicine to needy foreign countries, surgically incising the Federal Civil Service, inclusive of its vitally important health research agencies, fomenting an insurrection, motivated by his neurotic election denial, televised voter interference, treasonous purloining of top secret documents and storing them in a publically accessible bathroom, his liason with the Nation’s autocratic enemies, multiple criminal adjudicastions and multiple felonious indictments, his adjudication as a sexual offender, and a tax cheat, as a defamer, his support of White Christian Nationalist militias, wide-spread Gestapo- style arrest and deportation of ethnic Americans without due process, acts of autocratic retribution against political opponents, violation of the “Emoluiment Clause,” in illegally and substantially enriching himself and family, attack on the public media, denigration of science and education, including withholding funds from Universities, perpetration of “alternative facts ” and wild conspiracy ideations, and declarations of intent to be a “Dictator.”

We have previously written about the reprehensible behavior of Trump as President; his hubristic persona signing of Executive Orders”” with thr demonstrated flourish of his thick black, assertive velvet “Sharpie” of mandates which are constitutionally appropriate to Congress, eliminating humanistic relief to the middle-class American citizen as well as desperately needed food and medicine to needy countries, his descimation of the Federal Civil Service, including vitally important health research agencies, his seditious fomenting of an insurreection, motivated by his neurotic election denial, voter interference, treasonous withholding of top secret documents and stashing them in an accessible bathroom, huis liason with the Nation’s autocratic enemies, criminal adjudicastions and multiple felonious indictments, adjudication as a sexual offender, and as a defamer, support of National White Christian Nationalist militias, Gestapo- style arrest and deportation of ethnic Americans, sans due process, autocratic acts of retribution against political opponents, violation of the “Emoluiment Clause,” in illegally enriching himself and family, attack on the public media, denigration of science and education, withholding funds from Universities, tactically perpetrating the concept of “alternative facts ” and wild conspiracy ideations, public declarations of intent to be a “Dictator,” encouragement of fossil fuel expansion (“drill, baby, drill”) in the face of existential global warming, opposition to NATO, and much more too numerous to fully recount.

What, in our view, has not been adequately treated, other than his ignorant incapacity and neurotically egoistic hubris, is his reprehensible behavior from the perspective of an individual member of society, which is, as stated, encapsulated in the implicit portraiture of the word “Despicable.”

The operative word is the dynamic opposite of the beneficial noun, “decent.” It is indisputable that the character of the declared, would-be orange dictator, viewed as f an individual member of society, is inarguably despicable

He is married to his third wife, who, in common with his two divorced wives, is foreign-born, an observation patently and bizarrely inconsistent with his constant xenophobic declarations and treatment of foreign-born Americans. The Gestapo brutality, signified by his policies of arrest, brutality, and deportation without due process, compliantly carried out by his authorized masked hoodlums (“ICE”), is cognitively dissonant with his thrice-demonstrated taste in spouses. His fifteen-year intimate friendship and brisk commerce with the Nation’s major league celebrity whoremonger, Jeffrey Epstein, plus other publicised acts of sexual abuse, are irrefutably demonstrative of his disrespect for women and his callous disregard of societal mores; added to his obvious disloyalty to his marriages. The extant, roiling issue of Q-Anon-style conspiracy (“Epsteingate”) is the consequence of this sociopath, who has publicly stated, ” I can shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.” The dissonant darling of the Christian Evangelicals puts the lie to any possible assertions of moral community.

Trump’s despicable performance as the Nation’s errant Chief Executive is empirically consistent with his innate, singular persona; an existential menace to the Nation, to society, and to its metaphysically existential Social Compact. The contextual term is “despicable.”

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At the risk of the charge of Pollyannaism, we can actually conceive of an enduringly utilitarian, albeit singular, benefit to be derived from the multifaceted, dystopian catastrophe constituting the dank atmosphere of the Trump Presidency. It is its salutary potential as an existential learning experience. To think otherwise is to solely conceive of it merely as a tragic, four-year nightmare with no redeeming feature; another historic wound suffered by our body politic, from which no cosmetic surgery can mitigate the hideous scar. If perceived in the context of a cogent learning experience, however, the presenting political Holocaust, featuring an obscene autocrat, trampling upon the fundamental principles underlying societal and governmental responsibility, can instead be utilized to avert its hateful reprise.

The lessons learned from the experience of the MAGA Presidency, if ubiquitously discerned and applied, can serve as a course- correcting lighthouse beacon in times of dark vulnerability of the Democratic Republic. The learned experience can serve as a prophylactic guard against its toxic repetition.

To retain the theme and purpose of our Democratic Republic, conceived and created by the Founding Fathers, we must realistically confess to the democratic hazard of a determinative population of poorly informed and insufficiently educated citizen-voters; a tribute to the wise and prescient admonition by Thomas Jefferson to the effect that, for a democratic Nation to succeed and endure, a literate and well-informed citizenry is existentially mandatory.

The two-time election of Donald J. Trump is an empirical confirmation that in this “government by the people,” the unfortunate presence of a large and determinative, “populist” number of voting citizens presents a fundamental threat. We have, accordingly, suggested in past writings that all aspirants to the Nation’s Presidency be fully vetted by an appropriately established, unbiased panel, as is notably mandatory in the matter of mundane employment, so that unsuitable candidates (like Donald J. Trump) will not be precariously available to run for election for the role of the most impactful leader on the planet.

A recent confirmation of our often reiterated need for the mandatory vetting of Presidential candidates is confirmed in the unendurable existence of an apparently protective veneer of Republican political “Teflon” which has, to date. prevented the dystopic President Donald J. Trump from the just administration of deserved criminal prosecution and punishment.

The suicide/ murder episode of Jeffry Epstein, the felonious entrepreneur of an underage sex establishment, to which many notable celebrities and politicians were subscribers, most notably Donald J. Trump ( as proven by objective photos, letters, and film clips), has posed a confluence of newly conceived conspiracy theories, notably, among MAGA adherents, whose Trump-inspired inclination to perceive deep government conspiracies, have far exceeded rationality. A perceived conspiracy, “Epsteingate,” has empirically eliminatedTrump’s protective Teflon.

There is significant justice in the observation that the Trump-MAGA sycophants, schooled and encouraged by Trump, in governmental conspiracy ideations have now ascribed to the illusion of a governmental conspiracy to hide the sexual misbehavior of their cult-leader-conspiracy monger, Trump. In a previous writing, we explored the present utility of the time-worn aphorism, “He who lives \by the sword, shall die by the sword.” MAGA’s proclivity to delusional ideation, ironically and empirically utilized concerning the Trump concept of “alternate facts,” and promotion of conspiracy ideations, is now ironically focused on himself. The combination of suicide or murder, and underage obscenity is irresistibly dry kindling for the neurotic flames of MAGA-inspired suspicions.

Notwithstanding such fortuitous measure of long-awaited relief, responsive to the fact that the conspiracy monger-in-chief, Donald J. Trump, himself, has become the accused protagonist of perceived”Deep State Conspiracy,” we, nonetheless, maintain a fundamentally regrettable observation consistent with our disappointed comments on the abysmal character of the newly directed, conspiracy-inclined populists.

The regrettable observation relates to the essential character of the contextually relevant citizens who adamantly have chosen to maintain their support of Donald Trump in the face of his cruel and inhuman acts of, denial of USAID food and medical supplies to starving and needy African children, discontinuance of monetary support of programs dedicated to fighting child hunger, such as SNAP, his avowed limitation on funds for Medicaid, dismissal of the Nation’s vital health research agencies such as the NIH and the CDC, his attack against American Institutions of Higher Learning, his encouragement of the mantra of “Drill, Baby Drill, in the face of devastating evidence of dangerous Global Warming, his reductionist emasculation of the utilitarian Federal Civil Service, his campaign declaration of intention to be a “Dictator,” his illegal programs of outrageous and unconstitutional self enrichment, and in addition, several dumpsters full of despicable acts and policies; but, notable transmografic reversal of support when the relevant subjects are illicit sex, suicide-murder and Epstein.

The unkind, but apt, description “Underbelly of the Nation” seems to amount to a harsh designation for certain relevant American citizens, but nevertheless remains a disappointing empirical fact.

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Xenophobes need to be reminded of two undeniable (National) truths: (1) the American Nation is significantly composed of, and historically populated with, immigrants and their progeny and, (2) the Nation’s singular culture, which they purport to protect, has been ubiquitously imported (tariff-free) by new immigrants from other lands and cultures.

For example, we would refer to the early American cuisine. Food historians describe the limitations of the Nation’s former uninteresting and bland English diet, which was transmogrified by Mediterranean immigrants who introduced flavorful foods, including mixed salads, olive oil, olives, and ingredients such as condiments and new spices. The contemporary American citizen has been afforded, in addition, a virtually unlimited choice of ethnic cuisine, representative of the planet’s ubiquitous ethnic and cultural menus. The aesthetic joy of savory taste is imported.

Further contemplation reveals the plethora of “American traditions,” having historical advent through diverse ethnic introduction by immigrants. This universally applies in such categories as dress, sports, religious observances, skills, literature, art and music, dance, and scientific advances. Furthermore, in addition to their enhancement and beneficial enhancement of the Nation’s culture and folkways, constitute a veritable avatar of the beneficial blending of diverse cultures, appropriately deservant of the Nation’s emblematic meme, “E Pluribus Unum.”

The atavistic and reductively ignorant trait of xenophobia, looked at analytically, is not merely irrational and reductive, but empirically inconsistent with the positive growth of the Nation, and with the objective fact of its historic growth. In addition to the pragmatic increase in productive citizenry, immigration has added to, rather than changed (or “lost”), its admirably salubrious character.

We cannot resist the personal temptation to include, in the wide and diverse plethora of National benefits from immigration, the enrichment of the American lexicon by its empathic program of immigration, as symbolized by the iconic Statue of Liberty.

It is our general observation that the traditional American lexicon has been somewhat inadequate in its available provision of emotion, or of “feeling words.” Unlike the languages of French, Italian, and Spanish, American English has traditionally been of far more utility for invoices and business letterheads than aesthetic or specific emotional parlance. In keeping with our present context, we would empirically observe that, analogous to the formerly traditional. American style of bland English-style cuisine, enhanced by the comestible addition of Mediterranean cuisine, our stilted vocabulary was beneficially supplemented by the addition of more expressive language; the latter, introduced by the immigration of foreign cultures.

Since we are somewhat knowledgeable concerning the enhancement of expression by the nuanced addition of the emotionally descriptive or emphatic vocabulary of the “Yiddish” (Ashkenazic) tradition, we would avail ourselves of the opportunity to cite a list of utilitarian, and perhaps, popularly familiar examples from that imported tongue. Please note that the selected words are the notably emphatic versions of the corresponding English-American word: (Schlep) carry, (kvetch), complain, ( clutz), an ungainly person, (schmaltzy), hot or torrid, gonif (crook), chutzpah (nerve), yente (gossip monger), schtick (contrivance), goy (gentile), mench, (person of high character), tchotskies ( small misc. items), nosh ( snack), schmooze ( to informally discuss), and an additional full cornicopia of American accepted, Yiddish words. As with the improvement in cuisine, it constituted an enhancement of spoken expression. To be sure, there are a great many such words in Italian, Spanish, and other foreign tongues, found to be utilitarian and satisfyingly expressive in American English.

The universal recognition that immigrants to the American Nation do not dilute or alter its cultural nuance, but, ineluctably, add to its unique richness, would be morally beneficial and empirically appropriate.

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[PROPOSITION: The dystopian, confusing, and unprecedented nature of the Trump administration’s impact on the American Nation is functionally analogous to that of a hostile nation’s program of tactical propaganda.]

America took note of Donald Trump’s bizarre motivation, whereby, with the assistance of his imp-like sorcerer’s apprentice, Elon Musk, its utilitarian federal civil service was shockingly emasculated. Among the more politically oriented victims of his Federal holocaust was the historically impactful “Voice of America.” We are of an age that can recall the vital role of that dedicated agency in countering enemy propaganda in the Second World War ( viz., “Tokyo Rose” et al.), whose tactical mission was to question and divide America’s public, and undermine its war effort.

To be clear, we do not attribute such propagandic motivation to Trump’s singularly unorthodox and unprecedented policies; nevertheless, the proximate result of his dystopian MAGA enterprise (properly, “Make A Gestapo America”) has a like result.

An enemy nation’s strategic goals would include the perpetration of divisiveness and rancor, feelings of ambiguity and disunity, economic stress and discontent with the prevailing government. Relative to all these tactically impactful goals, Donald Trump and his governmental menagerie of faithful, entirely unsuitable, Cabinet and policy advisors have succeeded beyond any aspirations of a dreaded enemy. nation.

As a consequence the extant vulnerable state of our democratic polity, and Trump’s distorted and feckless understanding of the traditional American way of life poses a great threat to the very endurance of our unique Democratic Republic, and exposes the Nation to the vicissitudes of life in an autocratic State; a goal savored by any of our historic enemies and grievance-laden, underbelly populists.

The anomalous danger to our Republic, to be clear, is not motivated by political .r economic dogma. Donald Trump has irrefutably shown himself to be lacking in any conceivable political or philosophical principle and is singularly guided by his neurotic aspirations to be perceived as a wise and powerful monarch. His catastrophic policies are aptly described as incompetent, amoral, and hubristically reprehensible. The sole exception to his (“alternate facts”), serial mendacity is his declaration of intent to be a “Dictator;” an aspiration evinced by his discarding of the Nation’s Constitution and rule of law, his inappropriate lust for personal treasure, and his existentially neurotic need to be adjudged a “winner.” Illustrative is his concept that trade or contract implies a “winner and a loser” rather than consenting parties, mutually benefitting from a desired transaction; an analogous. Paranoid ideation is confirmed in the totality of his transactions, domestic and international.

Trump’s motivation is uniformly based upon his neurotic, reductionist perception of reality and thus, by the egotistic flourish of his black, velvet-tipped “Sharpie,” despotically and monarchically proclaims unrestrained, hubristic Presidential Orders, frequently in contravention of law and the Nation’s Constitutional architecture of “Separation of Powers.” The discord created by his unique and undemocratic mode of governance, together with the irrational, unjust subject of his autocratic decrees, is causative of citizen discontent, divisiveness, and confused loyalties, the motivational sine qua non of classic enemy propagandists.

Added to the public’s knowledge of the immoral and dystopic, un-American policies of this “orange hazmat,” must be an existential awareness of their relevant propagandistic utility to the Nation’s sworn enemies.

-p.

For better or worse, [NB: for the “worse”] in an era where the quest for efficiency far overshadows the salutory medium of conventional communication, the ubiquitous use of abbreviation has become notably compelling, in our daily lexicon. It appears to be deemed tiresomely passé to currently use conventionally descriptive vocabulary or an officially designated title when a facile abbreviation will suffice. The predictable use of emblematic abbreviations appears to be perceived as an indication of modernity and a sophisticated comprehension of the relevant subject.

Thus, known organizational entities are referred to as the U.S.A., NLRB, NATO, NBC, NRA, AFL-CIO, NASA, E.U., SCOTUS, SLA, NAACP, the UN, IRS, and the like. Personal status and relationships have likewise been signified by such terse descriptions as BFF, LL, LGPTQ, ASAP, SRO, CPA, ATTY, SECY, FBI, H.O., and B.W.

In addition, and by stark contrast to the plethora of abbreviated benevolent entities, exemplified by the existence of benevolent and humanistic organizations, such as, WHO, USAID, UJA, CARE, UNICEF, OXFAM, are the sadly instructive examples of Man’s perverse capability for inhumanity and evil behavior, represented by two reprehensibly perverse and un -American, abbreviated entities which shall eternally constitute eradicable blemishes on the record of America’s traditional aspirations for liberty and equality. The notoriously evil and nightmarish Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the contemporaneous, Gestapo-like Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (“ICE”).

The KKK (Ku Klux Klan) has been recognized as the first “Terrorist Organization” in the Nation’s history. It was (and perhaps still may be) a violent and homicidal extremist group of Protestant, White citizens that programmatically terrorized and killed American black citizens, Jews, and Catholics. The shameful record of these religiously bigoted monsters will forever be an ugly blemish on the historical record of the avowed aspiration of our Democratic Republic for ultimate, universal equality.

Analogously contradictory to the Nation’s constitution, laws, and historical aspirations, an abbreviated organizational travesty, the handiwork of the would-be dictator, Donald J. Trump, with the perverse approval of his abbreviated lemmings, the large, populist horde of “MAGA” sycophants, has created a functioning nightmarish treplication of the horrors of the KKK, by his use of the abbreviated Importation and Customs Department, (“ICE”) to the m asked terrorizing, arrest, prosecution and atavistic banishment of tan-colored (Hisopanic) American residents to extra-punitive foreign incarceration, without just cause or the very rudiments of American “due process.” This modern-day, Trump-inspired, despotic travesty may conceivably be seen, because of its empirical metastasis and governmental encouragement, to exceed the nightmarish toxicity of the mounted and hooded KKK.

The abbreviation “ICE” is humanistically and legally incomparable with the far more significant abbreviation, “USA,” and must immediately be relegated to its overflowing dumpster of discarded historical garbage.

-p.

The theme and context of this writing can be understood and presented by three commonly used expressions: “What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander” )(British), He who lives by the gun, dies by the gun (American), and “Hoisted on his own Petard, ( Shakespeare’s Hamlet).”

Mainstream Americans have been privy to the ubiquitous conspiratorial ideations of the Trump-MAGA adherents; in large part, the product of Trump’s denigration of the truth and his propagandic support of “alternate facts.” Delusional MAGA sycophants have maintained such outrageous ideations as: Vaccines cause autism, or, alternatively, contain tiny computers for surveillance, Israel shoots rockets on Earth from outer space, the World’s affairs are controlled by Jewish financial interests like George Soros, that the “Deep State” was behind Trump’s criminal prosecutions, That Baracxk Obama was not a born American, that the 2012 election was “rigged,” That certain democratic leaders were commercial pedifiles, that homoexuality can be taught to heterosexual children, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

The contextual point is that the cultish MAGA horde was encouraged to believe and to encourage conspiratorial beliefs of the most outrageous scenarios, consistent with the MAGA “group think,” as a tactical alternative to the exercise of individual reason. A small sample of the widespread delusional beliefs is illustrated above; the contextual point is that the tactical encouragement of unsupported conspiratorial ideation became commonplace and appropriate to the compliant, large horde of MAGA adherents, to the exclusion of the possibility of controverting facts.

The inclination to accept and promote conspiracy theories became not only an articulated statement of support and loyalty to the serial mendacious Donald J. Trump and gang, but an ingrained neurotic response to the most bizarre mental configurations, in sync with the compliant cult of Trump acolytes.

Our empirical observation is that the routine acceptance and perversely developed inclination, or mindset, are conceptualized and evident in the recent disclosures of the highly publicized scoundrel, Jeffrey Epstein, notably, to the discredit of the political interests of Trump, personally, and his perceived, undisclosed, persona. The double-edged sword has been drawn out of its equivocal scabbard; the conspiratorial fact pattern of Jeffrey Epstein’s purported list of notable customers for his thriving sex enterprise, coupled with his reported and suspicious suicide, is as tempting to the knee-jerk MGA conspiracy wonks as a ripely fruited blackberry bush is to a hungry black bear.

We admittedly have no information as to the existence of a purported, elite “client list,” nor any rational basis to believe that Epstein’s death by “suicide, was, in truth, other than the reported suicide, viz., murder. We do know that the public has viewed televised pictures of the friendship between Donald Trump and Epstein at the latter’s party girl arena; however, the precise cause of Epstein’s death is neither known nor of any especial interest to us. In our estimation, no one is going to write a laudatory biography of the tawdry life of Jeffrey Epstein.

However, the sexual, suicide, or homicide, celebrity, Trump scenario, is irresistible to the neurotic mindset of MAGA-inculcated conspiracy theorists, and no doubt palpably irresistible as a political main course for those groomed to dine on the irresistibly unlimited menu of conspiracy.

Take your pick: “double-edged sword,” “hoisted on his own petard, or “what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander;” each relevant phrase is empirically acceptable.

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“Pictures at an Exhibition” * (1874) is a musical depiction by Modest Mossorsky of a promenade taken at the Imperial Arts Museum in Saint Petersburg, past several paintings by the artist Viktor Hartmann. The separate musical scores relate to the theme and mood of the respective paintings as expressed by the composer.

We have chosen (with apologies to the venerable composer) to construe a plinyblog version of the melifluous Romantic composition relative to our frespective perception of the contrasting “off-key” and dissonant (dis)harmonies of the Trump Administration. We would request that the reader analogously picture himself walking slowly while simultaneously perusing the respective depictions to the suggested music relative to each “work of art.” We will list them in such perambulatory order.

EXHIBITED PORTRAITS and ACCOMPANYING MUSIC:

DONALD J. TRUMP: Shown with half-eaten “Big Mac,” ketchup stains on his face, menacingly brandishing a black, velvet-tipped “Sharpie,” in the presence of a cadre of adoring sycophants. Music: “Hail to the Chief.”

J.D. VANCE: Portrayed as holding a Bible, Marriage Certificate, and copious amounts of blank Birth Certificates, plus a banner demonstrating his support for the Nation’s National Christian White Militias. Music: “Old Folks at Home.”

PETE HEGSETH: Shown, holding in his right hand an M-6 rifle, together with a band of extra clips of bullets around his neck and a dripping, half-empty bottle of Vodka in his left hand. Music: the song, “Show Me The Way to Go Home.”

JFK, Jr.: Drinking milk directly from a cow’s prodigious udder, while simultaneously wielding a hammer, smashing a tabletop loaded with vaccination needles.

KRISTI NOEM: Shown wearing a wide cowboy hat and pulling the ignition lanyard on a military Howitzer, directly aimed at an ASPA animal shelter.

KASH PATEL: Reading Batman comics while blotting out selected phrases from the U.S. Constitution. Music: “Tiger Rag.”

TOM HOMAN: Seen, casting out an enormous fishing net while sitting on a large wooden crate of steel handcuffs. Music: “The traditional (radio) music theme for ‘The Lone Ranger.”

TULSI GABBARD: combing her streaked hair to a reprise of a classic WW2 broadcast by TOKYO ROSE. Music: “Ain’t Misbehaving.”

PAM BONDI; Shown, knitting a large garment containing a “Trump enemy list” in the style of Madame Defarge in Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities.” : Music: “La Marseillaise.”

There are additional musically descriptive pictures to experience, but our feet suddenly feel tired, and we are surfeited with the nauseating portraiture of typical Administration misfits.

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Readers of this blogspace undoubtedly are aware that we have consistently castigated televised advertisements for the sale of medicine to the general public, as irresponsibly ignoring the individually nuanced possibility of adverse effects. For this reason, we have suggested their curtailment, similar to that of cigarette ads. We have also recommended, especially to our sisters, the salubrious practice of accepting the immutable process of maturity and its changing contextual perception of personal appearance as wiser and more rewarding than the ultimate futility of dependence upon advertised cosmetic products.

With analogous reference to the individual’s nuanced, natural age-related cognitive decline, we are obliged to perceive the televised offers of relevant amelioration, empirically questionable and perhaps misleading. No scientific or empirical basis is offered for the empirical efficacy of the proffered items’ highly vaunted cognitive and memory benefits, save the scripted assertions of physically attractive, mature actors, reciting the scripted roles of purportedly satisfied users. We have sought the advice of several medical professionals who have uniformly advised us that the publicly alleged benefits of such products are entirely unproven.

Experience has taught us that acquisitions of facile, commercially bruited “quick fixes” or alterations of naturally occurring aging phenomena are, at best, illusory and fertile grounds for sophomoric self-deception and, accordingly, ripe opportunities for commercial profitability.

Concerning the subject of aging memory and cognition, the aspiration for prevention or amelioration is not satisfied in the practice of taking pills in one’s senior years, but rather seen in the individual’s earlier habitual lifestyle of contemplative pursuit of knowledge, mature perception, and empirically based understanding. A healthy lifetime of contemplative use of one’s mind is the best assurance of acceptable cognitive health in later years, as opposed to not purported, miracle-working retail products hawked on television to gullible audiences.

By instructive analogy, an individual who has unwisely chosen to live a sedentary life cannot, in later life, acquires desired physical prowess and an attractive musculature by retail purchase, albeit the possible accuracy of the commercially televised declarations of efficacy. In the context of the theme of the present writing, we find utilitarian value in the populist phrase: “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”

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We would preface this writing with an apology for the exalted (Biblical) title and, notably, for the presumption implicit in its theoretically radical and unprovable context; however, we felt that our recently ruminative speculation relative to the advent of the human persona was at a minimum, worthy of expression and hopefully, at least a modicum of thought. We do not attribute to it any empirical or demonstrable verisimilitude, but present it merely as a conceivable possibility.

Writings like “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, and “Siddhartha,” by Herman Hesse, are thematic presentations of the arcane, unexplainable duality of Mankind’s persona. Like Cain and Abel in the Biblical chapter of Genesis, the human persona is empirically bifurcated between righteous individuals and those who are evil. In this waiting, we have bravely, and perhaps overly presumptuously, undertaken to express in our speculative and radical theory, attributing an early, in fact, neonatal dynamic as determinative of the advent of such universal deviation. The theory, if conceivably valid, would possibly reveal the etiology, for example, of the notable contrast in persona between “Mr.(Fred) Rogers” and Donald J. Trump.

We have read and been privy to the usual ubiquitous explanations for the origins of the empirical contrast universally observed among human personalities, evincing morally responsible inclinations, and those whose actions and sentiments are deemed pathologically, atavistic, and cruel. One such posited theory assigns causation to the beneficial presence or empirical lack of norm socialization by parental example or instruction; another would also consider the nature and quality of intimate social relationships. There are, in addition, arcane theories concerning physiology, notably mental or physical nuance (ex., glandular, hormonal, chemical), still another would maintain that character is experiential, i.e., learned from social experience; still others would facilely attribute such contrasting variations in persona to inherited inclination. Our speculation, as to the advent and perhaps the etiology of the universal “Cain and Abel” contrast between moral and pernicious human personality, is not pragmatically demonstrable; nevertheless, it may be empirically sound

Because our theory of the advent of the causation of personality nuance is radical, perhaps perceivable as rationally or dynamically bizarre, we would respectfully request the reader’s temporary suspension of understandable repulsion or remonstrance at its recitation and, at minimum, a scintilla of effort towards the possible validity of its theoretical conception.

As John Locke momentously declared, Man is born with a “tabula rasa” (a clean slate) and all of his knowledge is learned by his experience; we are inclined to reject any theory of inherited or naturally inclined traits. The earliest learning experiences by the newborn baby are primitively simple, as warmth, light, wet, dry, and the feeling of being firmly and safely held. These neonatal experiences are material to the newborn’s sense of self-discovery. Our (speculative) theory is that at this primeval stage, the newborn’s early perceived experience with maternal nurturance, particularly nursing and feeding, is the crucial time for the fundamental development of future personality, relative to lifelong selfish preoccupation or, by contrast, moral and empathic inclinations. We would suggest that the neonatal perception of a generous, warmly nurtured experience, or, contrastingly, the felt urge to personally and selfishly survive, are the incipient bases for the later, anecdotal development of persona.

In sum, under our purely ruminated theory, the infant, by its nuanced perception of the dynamics of early maternal-child interaction, acquires a lasting generalized inclination towards empathic humanism or its opposite; nevertheless, an unhealthy or unsocial outlook can be assuaged by significantly altering personal experience or professional therapy.

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