Category: Uncategorized

We have always faithfully subscribed to the equitable principle of “giving credit where credit is justly due.” The present writing, consistent with the exercise of such responsibility, recognizes the Trump Administration and its mandatorily loyal menagerie of flawed Cabinet Members, together with support furnished by his cultish lemmings, as responsible for the present ubiquitous abduction of American Constitutional liberty. The most conspicuous victims du jour appear to be the hapless members of two Trump-targeted categories, “immigrants” and “women.”

Donald Trump, in his systematically motivated self-interest, with the knee-jerk, vociferous approval of his populist horde of cultish followers, has ubiquitously perverted existing American law and tradition. In a Nation, populated, in the main, by former immigrants and their descendants, he has chosen to summarily visit unwarranted arrests, imprisonment, and atavistic banishment to foreign torture prisons, upon persons of foreign birth (many, peaceably living for years with family in the United States, working and paying tax,) on the purported grounds of gangland criminality; without a confirming scintilla of confirmation, and notably, contrary to the Constitution, and the system of American jurisprudence, as having been imposed without minimal due process.

In shameful addition, despite the express constitutional right of petition for grievances, many morally dedicated, patriotic American citizens have been arrested and charged with commission of felonious criminality for peacefully asserting their moral outrage at such inappropriate, Gestapo-like governmental travesty, notably, as well, without a semblance of Constitutional due process. The Trump administration has chosen to cynically utilize, as purported justification, the ample populist-reductionist lexicon of mythological ideation, such as the (non-existent) fear of criminality, xenophobic inferiority, and various other faux assertions, empirically catalyzed by Trump’s demagoguery to tactically disguise his true, insatiable desire for despotic power.

America, the traditionally recognized avatar of the humanistic welcoming of needy immigrants, expressively articulated by its prominent Statue of Liberty and its Statutory law, has historically determined immigration to be legal and appropriate.

Said exemplary, humanistic franchise has recently been perverted by Donald Trump, in his declared desire for autocratic power, by the perverse, tactical marshaling of support among his right-wing, xenophobic supporters in aid of his declared intention. Unlike such indoctrinated and reductively biased MAGA supporters, the notable issue, for Trump, is, factually, far less referable to his encouragement of xenophobia, as it is to his acquisition of unlimited power and public adulation. It may be interestingly noted that Trump’s wife and her two divorced predecessors, in fact, have been foreign-born immigrants.

The same sub-rosa dynamic exists regarding Trump’s opposition to the natural right of a pregnant mother to personally elect to undergo an abortion, either for health, economic, social, or psychological reasons. Again, the fundamental motivation of the egoistic, sociopathic, sitting President is relegated to the desire for autocratic power.

The un-American, Gestapo tactics employed regarding foreign-born individuals living peaceful, productive, and tax-paying lives in the Nation are analogously being utilized in the sub-rosa service of Trump’s power lust, in the intimate arena of a woman’s pregnancy and childbirth. Such analogous autocratic travesty constitutes an intrusive ban on the natural maternal authority of women respecting their rights relative to the personal subject of their pregnancy and childbirth.

In a rational and morally responsible world, the subject of childbirth and rearing would appropriately reside in the mother. However, this tautologically sound view, in the autocratic ambiance of power-hungry, Trump-land, is pervertedly otherwise. Our orange, hair-dyed, egoistic, and sociopathic Chief Executive has, in fact, often publicly and proudly claimed credit for the criminalization of the previously precedential, personal right of a mother, albeit for professionally determined, compelling reasons, or perforce, dire medical necessity, to obtain a needed abortion.

The intrusive legal impediment to abortion, in homage to certain atavistically inclined religious groups, in his desire for autocratic power, may be the most damaging and repulsive of Trump’s ample plethora of autocratic horribles. For example, even in situations of potential mortality, the new legal determination forbidding abortion renders physicians confused and hesitant to perform procedures, often in life-threatening cases, even when the offspring is medically determined to be not viable, for fear of losing their medical license and imprisonment for criminal behavior.

This scenario is indisputably not in keeping with the American context of appropriate National governance, nor with any rational interpretation of Republican Democracy. Our traditionally venerable Nation has been traumatized by the temporal kidnapping by the autocratic motivations of an egocentric sociopath and must be returned safely home to its natural state of definitional liberty and democracy as soon as the enlightened American citizenry has the (voting) opportunity, resoundingly to do so.

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Herman Melville is venerably included among the Nation’s best novelists and short story writers, universally known for his literary masterpiece, Moby Dick. However, we maintain an immeasurable degree of gratitude for the enlightenment subtly delivered in his novella, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” which has served to put to rest a presently confusing dilemma. We will elucidate.

We, and presumably, a great many fellow Americans, have been in a deeply confusing quandary as to the elevation of Donald J. Trump to the elevated and powerful Oval Office and the tolerated endurance of his amoral, grotesque and dystopic behavior. The dilemma has shocked and confused the rationality of the mainstream citizen, in its manifest miscreant behavior, inarguably contrary to, and in disregard of legal precedent, and moral expectation. We have, in previous writings, detailed many typical examples of the unprecedented plethora of his egregious behavior, domestic and international, ubiquitously ranging from unconstitutional and criminal to outright treasonous.

The contextual anomaly consists of his apparently singular teflon-like immunity from appropriate punishment and the endurance of his blemished acceptability by a Nation, which historically has avowed the foundational principle of ” equality under the law.” His exotic endurance challenges the very foundations of our Nation’s basic expectations concerning acceptable social behavior. It is irrefutable that other miscreant American citizens, evincing far less repetitive venality, have been, expectantly chastised and punished. Notably, it is to Mr. Herman Melville, specifically, in his novella, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” that we gratefully find the subtle explanation for our long-standing, disturbing dilemma.

In the novella the protagonist. Bartleby, employed in the law office of a prominent Wall Street lawyer as a document copier (“scrivener”), on a singularly significant occasion, when routinely requested by his employer to copy a particular document, surprisingly chose to reply, “I choose not to do so.” and persisted in his unprecedentedly societally aberrant and revolutionally refusal.

The fictional employer, experientially accustomed to stereotypical obedience from an employee concerning matters within the definitional scope of his job, was not only dismayed but profoundly nonplussed, regarding such unexpected and revolutionary refusal. Despite repeated requests, Bartleby persisted in his reply, “I choose not to do so,” including, ultimately, the acceptance of his firing and the strident demand to remove from the office. As we recall the narrative, the employer was, himself, ultimately required, in desperation, to move to another office.

The enlightening message of Melville is that there are certain fundamental, metaphysical expectations, hard-wired by our socialization into our psyche (here, the expected obedience of a servant to his master, or an employee to his employer) that are not only normalized, but existential to the effectuation of any cognizably appropriate response. Absent the hard-wired, societally predictable response, the reality of an appropriate reaction to a stimulus is empirically confused and disabled.

Our thematic conundrum is explicable in an analogous fashion to the exotic, unprecedented, and precedentially inconceivable behavior of Melville’s unique protagonist, Bartleby. The prodigiously remarkable, overflowing dumpster of wrongdoing, universal disregard of the law, and of the basic strictures of the societal moral compass, evinced by the exotically singular persona of Donald J. Trump, is far outside empirical experience and thus of sufficient comprehension to enable appropriate response, or empirical experience.

Like Bartleby, the metaphysical offense against human expectation and acceptability is, apparently, outside the empirical capacity of societally adjusted mainstream citizens to referentially comprehend, leading to their temporal humanistic amazement and responsive paralysis.

Donald Trump, however, is an ultimate societal lesson in the art of sociopathy and egoistic lack of humanism; an advancing understanding and rational acceptance of which, before long, will be succeeded by appropriate censure and legal retribution.

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As a momentary respite from writing on the subject of the horrors of the Trump-distorted Nation, it may instead be an interesting diversion to, instead, consider the various and sundry ways that the traditional institution of the “American Family” has contemporaneously morphed into an analogous microcosm of the present dystopic state of American society.

We have written about our childhood in the 1940s, featuring World War 2 and its historic aftermath. We described those years as memorably evincing a ubiquitous pride in National identity (albeit, complicated somewhat by the atavistic persistence, among some, of ethnic and racial distinctions) and the American stereotypic family as an integral building block in the basic structure of the Nation, analogous to the function of the (then newly discovered) atom as the metaphysical constituent of earthly matter.

At such time, families were routinely perceived as sub-societies with members affiliated officially by blood as well as emotionally, by singular nuance and attachment; a closeness having its etiological advent in biology and subsequently, as developed intimacy founded in personal identification and singular bond. The family, as an intimate unit, mutually experienced feelings of joy, sorrow, and notably shared experiences such as vacations, celebrations, joint outings, and often, worship.

Radio was then the public’s resource for news and entertainment, and served a notable role in joint family interaction. ( see earlier writing, “Radio days”). On sundry evenings, typically after the fully attended family dinner and shared enterprise of clearing the table and washing and stacking the dishes, the family would retire to the living room, for the shared entertainment provided by way of the family radio, often enclosed in an item of decorative wooden furniture strategically placed opposite the living room couch and upholstered chairs. The family unit would listen to the news of the war and, as well, mutually enjoy the regular dramatic serial programs. The stereotypical occasion evinced the mutually understood precedential seating of the members of the attendant family. Notably, this intimate social scenario and mise en place are now relegated to ubiquitous nostalgia.

Our Founding Fathers, as advised by written history, predicted that in the newly created Nation, responsible citizens would, in good spirit, debate the controversial issues of the day, and the conclusions referentially utilized as a guide to the apt governance of a Democratic Republic: “by and for the People.”

History has, nevertheless, demonstrated the optimistic error of the Founders’ expectations. As time progressed, groups of citizens chose to band together with others of like opinion and vilify and denigrate other groups with divergent views, analogous to the existence of a Cold War. Ambitious and unscrupulous politicians tactically began to avail themselves of the personal opportunities posed by such ardent divisiveness. The American society gradually became “Balkanized” or divisive, as distinguished from its temporal congenial bond of common nationality.

The perversely celebrated advent of digital “progress” in communication served as an exponentially toxic catalyst in the developing metastasis of such (personally and nationally) unhealthy, disputational antipathy, and the former communal solidarity of the American Nation quickly became anachronistic and was. transmogrified into a Nation of discreet and impersonal transmitters of digital and inexpressive signals; the latter universal practice resulting in further personal divisiveness and personally isolating singularity. The “smartphone” transmission of inexpresive and non-identifiably nuanced digital messages onto small, handheld, lighted screens dynamically affected our contemporaneous chronic, empirically toxic sequelae of the loneliness of disparate existence. Normal and healthy social interaction was unwisely superseded by facile, albeit emotionally unhealthy, unfulfilling inexpressiveness and personal separation; an existential societal retrogression (albeit, touted as “progress”). The previously existing community of universal National affiliation was digitally hobbled and reduced to an all-pervasive,, lonely individuality.

Societal participation in joint social events, such as community barbeques, dances, general neighborly activities, visiting the public library for the ultimate affirmation of successfully acquired information, book clubs, and reading of character-enlightening literature, generally, became passé and deemed anachronistic in the new world of digital message transmission and robot-initiated activities. One was no longer required to get off the couch to change television programs, hear recorded music, or initiate carpet vacuuming. Accomplishment was universally and sadly conflated with convenience, with the toxic result of human interaction resulting in the decline of the existentially vital, interactive dynamics of healthy human society.

An acquaintance recently asked us why startling media reports show unhappiness, confusion, depression, and even suicide, among many of our younger generation. Resistant as we have eternally been to aphoristic statements, we are, nevertheless, obliged to admit the utility of one which is relevant in this context: “The apple does not fall far from the tree.”

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Eminent philosophers throughout history have declared that the governed (“the People”) are always more powerful than the governors; the most recent being the 20th-century Egyptian Wael Ghomim. This universally empirical truism dates back to its declaration by the 18th-century philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau.

The Nation currently finds itself unprecedently standing on the precarious fault lines of democratic history. The present, bizarre, dystopian state of the Republic, the inarguable result of the populist election of Donald J. Trump, has been existentially threatened and constitutes the stereotypical scenario of a dark and chilling nightmare, contemporaneously experienced by traditional American citizens.

The elevation of Trump to the Oval Office has proximately resulted in policies plainly forbidden by the fundamental principles of our Constitution, the rule of law, and societal morality, as copiously detailed in previous writings. The idealistic Founding Fathers would, no doubt, be diagnosibly apoplectic in response to the shocking perversion and decline of their brilliant, radical experiment in political governance. The traditional, mainstream citizen, with sufficient cause, is fearful of an impending transmogrification of his unique Democratic Republic to an autocratic polity analogous to that as exists in countries like Hungary, Russia, and Venezuela.

The late, brilliant and lyrically articulate Elie Wiesel, notably declared, on a somewhat related subject, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.” There is a contextual analogy to such a declaration concerning the presenting hazard to our democracy, viz., the abhorrent prospect of tyranny as the result of hapless acquiescence.

The historically empirical principle that the “governed are always more powerful than the governors” needs meaningful acknowledgement by the American citizen and determinably acted upon. It is of existential importance that, despite the startling incidence of their profound dismay, the citizenry importantly refrain from acquiescing in, and remaining silent in response to such perverse transgressions upon their unique and precious democracy.

For those who may require a measure of suggestive guidance as to actions, perceived as ultimately impactful to a desired restoration of our traditional Jeffersonian democracy, we have taken the liberty to relate some which presently come to mind, but not intended to be exclusive:

(1) The citizen, rather than choosing merely to passively wring his hands in dismay, must affirmatively resolve to take whatever personal action is possible, such as organizing, speaking, or writing in aid of preserving traditional American democracy.

(2) Staying empowered and emphatically supporting higher education and other institutions of learning and advancement, with mandatory insistence on the complete historical record truth and the rejection of “alternate or abridged facts.

(3) Non- cooperation with efforts, governmental or otherwise, in programs in opposition to the reliable implementation of the Bill of Rights, viz., book banning and censorship, restriction, and the on the right of citizen privacy (including abortion), and the promotion of empathic and just policies relative to immigration, including the promulgation of a pragmatic and fair procedure for the attainment of citizenship; and relegating deportation only to immigrants with a criminal record,

(4) Affirmatively and ubiquitously supporting the principle of Separation of Church and State and the individual right to believe, not believe, or subscribe to any religion,

(5) When appropriate, to impactfully oppose bigotry by supporting legitimate efforts by business and educational institutions, and to promote policies of freedom of opportunity for universal self-realization applicable to our diverse population.

(6) To keep well informed and active concerning the platforms of candidates for public office, with relevant knowledge of their past record and positions on governmental policies.

(7) To publicly boycott businesses and institutions that decry programs designed to promote equality, such as DEI,

(8) Creatively and affirmatively interjecting possible comments at anti-democratic or discriminatory speeches, employing relevant humor when appropriate.

(9) Peaceably refusing to cooperate or support any program that is empirically perceived to be antithetical to democracy,

(10) Vocally support and electively vote for morally capable, suitably acceptable candidates for political office.

Of all the appropriate and effective suggestions in aid of the restoration of our traditional democracy, we would stress that refraining from silent acquiescence to its present threats, and the positive assertion of the American Nation’s true and systemically definitional dedication to ubiquitous liberty, is the best route to the return of the traditional American democracy and its promise of freedom of self-realization.

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Cognitive understanding and realistic awareness regarding the numerical designation, “one billion”, are contextually relevant to the theme of this writing. Stated in simple arithmetical terms, one billion is one thousand million, a concept that, like the abstruse conception of “light years,” eludes facile comprehension. According to our readings, a stack of one billion dollars would attain the height of a 30-story building. The same source relates that if one spent one dollar every second, it would take 31 years to reach one billion.

The amount of money conceivably required to acquire a lifestyle in the ultimate zenith of luxury is “light years” less than the magnificent sum of one billion dollars. We wonder, therefore, as to the motivation of those individual Americans in the highest level of wealth, viz., the “billionaires,” to acquire yet further monetary assets. It can not be attributed to the ubiquitous human desire to improve one’s standard of living; the bizarrely ambitious drive must necessarily be perceived as having an alternate purpose or aspiration.

An abbreviated listing of the prodigious number of American billionaires includes Elon Musk, 342 billion, Mark Zuckerberg, 216 billion, Jeff Bezos, 215 billion, and Larry Ellison, 192 billion. The inscrutable question posed by this writing relates to the source of their systemic impetus to acquire yet additional wealth; i.e., why these enormously monetarily successful individuals appear to eternally evince an often competitive desire to augment their pragmatically unneeded and surplus wealth.

Observably, when growing up, the noun/adjective “billionaire” did not appear as a reference or designation of business magnates as Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and others. In fact, we cannot recall any employment of the designation “billionaire.” By contrast, in today’s media, the appellation is as common as the copious articulation of the written expressions of terms like “tax inequity” and “political influence.”

Our thematic question, irrespective of temporal designation, concerns the bizarre motivation of such extraordinarily wealthy individuals to garner yet more unneeded wealth, often in competition with other similarly inclined, super-rich personalities.

In the case of Donald Trump, the insatiable lust to acquire limitless wealth legally or otherwise appears to be analogous to narcotic addiction, as being is only temporarily gratifying; his systemic addiction seems to exacerbate with exponential toxicity. It is our perception that his egoistic ideation of personal superiority is neurotically perceived as confirmation by his continued acquisition of ever greater riches.

In Trump’s case, as undoubtedly common to others of the extraordinarily rich, similarly motivated, such efforts are destined to certain failure; the fundamental etiology of feelings of insecurity is not empirically relevant to the acquisition of assets, but has an unrelated basis of an emotional or psychological nature.

The narcotic nature of the competitive “Clash of the (financial) Titans,” while affording awe to the mainstream citizen, is a revelation of life perceived in competitive material. terms. Admiration of these asset-accumulating superstars should be aware that happiness is the ultimate feeling of a fulfilled life, and not the acquisition of a copious inventory of assets.

It has been the fundamental and dedicated purpose of this blogspace to encourage those aspiring to an ultimate life of fulfillment to actively pursue wisdom and a mature perception of the self and the world through contemplation, self-advancement, and learning experiences. Such acquisitions are life’s ultimate measure of success.

If given one billion dollars, we would face the dilemma of what to do with it. Elon Musk is reportedly the possessor of 342 billion dollars, and, from appearances, we are skeptical as to whether he enjoys the sense of satisfied accomplishment.

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• Title borrowed from the moving picture, based on Greek mythology.

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Anti-Semitism, the prejudice against or hostility toward Jews, has perniciously endured since the 4th Century Holy Roman Empire, coincident with the advent of Christianity. Its origin has been authoritatively attributed to the”obstinate” refusal of the Jewish people to convert to Christianity (See:”Constantine’s Sword” by the Catholic Priest, and religious historian, James Carroll.)

The universal and ubiquitous hatred of the Jews has manifested itself in various, temporally relevant forms since the time of the Holy Roman Empire, ranging from bizarre ideations such as drinking the blood \,of Christian children on the holiday of Passover (N.B. under Hebrew Dietary Law, it is forbidden to eat meat containung any small residue of blood) to being the cause of presenting plagues, dry wells and poor harvests. Jews have been slandered and caricatured as being usurers, or else powerful bankers, engaged in secretly manipulating World affairs, and, conversely, being Bolsheviks or Communists. The ubiquitous compendium of mythological and hateful ideations has been every bit as colorful and diverse as the temporal occurrence of natural disasters or the extent of ingenuity of the bigoted and reductive mind. Our maternal grandfather, a tailor living in pogrom-ridden White Russia in the early 20th Century, was prohibited from belonging to a trade guild because of his Jewish ethnicity (despite that, as advised, because of his skill, he was often engaged to make the official robes for local Russian Orthodox Priests.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during the period of the Holocaust, in response to the general sentiment of America, refused entry to a ship (see: the film, “Exodus”) and thereby sent to their certain execution, in German death camps more than 900 Jewish refugees from Germany’s death camps. Only too frequently, in the free and equal American Nation, Jews were denied entry to country clubs, institutions, various employment opportunities, and universities (N.B., including Harvard and Princeton).

The October 7, bloody and sadistically barbaric attack by Hamas was not only an unjustified and medievally cruel incursion into Israel, but served as an effective catalyst for a new and updated version of such ancient hatred of the Jews. The aggressors kidnapped Israelis and, as planned, retreated with them to previously constructed tunnels under the shield of the Palestinian hospitals; with the tactical consequence that the military response would, by empirical necessity, be wreaked against such hospitals, patients, and staff; thus, causing Israel, international abhorrence and moral disdain. Hamas, which knowingly lacked the military capability to destroy Israel, intended, by such a pathological tactic, to shield itself and, additionally, to cause Israel to suffer international disdain.

Hamas’ cold-blooded tactic was successful in thus securing the uniform condemnation of Israel (albeit, the victim of the attack by the aggressor, Hamas) for the unavoidable killing of innocent Palestinians. As the response continued, many Jewish Americans, including ourselves, became appalled by the extent of the right-wing Prime Minister’s (Natanyu’s) administration’s response.

The World was only too willing to express its opposition to what appeared to be an overresponse to Hamas’ unwarranted attack, despite the latter’s unjusdtified attack and sadistic cruelty to Israelis, ranging from rape to barbaric dismemberment of even the elderly and babies. We, ourselves, as Americans and Jews, vociferously opposed Netanyu’s apparent over-extensive bombing, resulting in the killing of many of Gaza’s innocent civilians.

Notably, the perceived excesses of the response, visited in part on the innocent Gaza population, supplied flamable kindling for the bonfire of anti-Semitism, which, as stated, was eternally in the stage of smoldering conflagration. Characteristically, rock-ribbed haters of the Jewish people were the perceptive beneficiaries of an opportunity to re-energize and promote their systemic hatred and spared no chance to do so. It is instructive to note the existence of systemically reductive conflation between Israelis and Jewish citizens of other countries. Indeed, as American citizens of Jewish ethnicity, we, and many others, spoke out against the excesses of Netanyahu’s response. However, it is empirically indisputable that reductive bigotry has little appetite for distinction; any conceivably identifiable victim will suffice.

The impact was especially disturbing and impactful on America’s University campuses, where, at times, young, inexperienced, or sophomoric idealism has empirically proven to exceed pragmatic reality, and has been fertile ground for incidents of student rebellion and demonstrations.

Such stereotype gains further impetus and energy when infused with the eternal subject of anti-Semitism. Huge student demonstrations against Israel’s excessive bombing of Gaza were conflated with an unjust perception relative to the general image and responsibility of American Jews; a short reductive leap for those who were inclined to bigotry regarding the thematically ethnically religious, non-Christian, “other.” Anti-Semitic, non-student inciters on the scene had fertile ground for the tactical planting of students’ sophomoric impressions.

The meme of “anti-Semitism” providentially afforded the Trump Administration and its sycophants with a disguised vehicle for their errant lust for authoritarian control; in this instance, relative to their reductive perception of the liberal inclination of the Nation’s institutions of higher learning, like Columbia University and Harvard. MAGA conspirators, who conceivably, never in their lifetimes, uttered the word or articulated the conceit of “anti-Semitism,” now, tactically employed the concept to disguise their malignant efforts to control University education as an integral part of their desire to achieve a fascist Nation. Donald J. Trump, an inveterate bigot and practiced charlatan, tried to disguise himself as a sympathetic replication of Anne Frank, in aid of his underlying intention to be a Mousellini.

We presume that the average, “dyed in the wool” antisemite received some measure of support for their adamant bigotry against Jews, based upon their erroneous faith in the faux merit of the Trump government’s falsely represented efforts to eliminate antisemetism.

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The latter part of May has eternally articulated a consummate declaration of the metaphysical and elemental joy implicit in Man’s invaluable franchise of life.

At this time of year, we awaken to a renewed awareness of the privileged life franchise on Earth, albeit with its concomitant challenges and disappointments, by the Planet’s eternal floral emergence.

From our earliest years, we have maintained a reverent and aesthetic love of plants and flowers, and their nurturance, to the extent of our emotional need to salute them in verse. We have recollections of early childhood and placing a cut carrot top or lima bean in a saucer of water for hopeful germination. Later in married life, we delighted in growing and nurturing plants; first in pots, and later as homeowners in a coveted flower garden.

Warm recollections reappear of a lifetime of passion for growing floral plants, which display their colorful bloom from late Spring until Autumn. We can recall the joy of kneeling on knee pads while installing starter plants, bulbs, and corms, watering them, and later, enjoying and taking some personal reaffirmation in their mature bloom. Our notable favorites have always been May’s “late tulips,” shooting up from
simple, onion-like bulbs containing requisite nourishment pending the flower’s emergence, enabling it to dine on photosynthesis. We have warm memories of a trip to the Netherlands in the second week of May and being flabbergasted at the beauty of the colorful tulip exhibits at the internationally famous. Keukenhof Gardens. (See: “True Love and Tulips,” our perennial Valentine’s Day publication.)

We always had a penchant for the “art” of pruning floral shrubs. The properly considered technique in pruning and guiding the growth of such beautiful shrubs may be included among the most aesthetically rewarding skills in horticulture.

Nevertheless, with the natural progress to our later years (notably inclusive of the need for a walker), our physical capabilities have been attenuated, including, sadly, the capability to continue to perform the enjoyable physical activities associated with maintaining a flower garden. Similar to our ubiquitous physical adjustments, contextual to the later years, we have, as necessary, abridged our physical activities to accord with the features of the octogenarian era of life; nevertheless, we have endeavored to, as much as possible, replicate the pleasurable activities performed at the earlier stages of more efficient physical capability.

Today is the happily anticipated annual trip to the flower farms for the exciting and joyful purchase of seasonal floral beauty for installation (with the aid of a hard chair), the purchased Spring lovelies for maturation and display in our extensive outdoor flower boxes and planters.

We count ourselves extremely fortunate to be enabled to reprise, to the extent physically possible, our lifetime enjoyment of Spring’s glorious floral abundance.

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We are alarmed about the propagandistic deceit practiced by the Trump Administration upon an apparently haplessly naive American public. The tactics amount to a tactical reprise of a model, stereotypically employed to achieve the ultimate goal of fascism. A recent illustration of this mode of nefarious tactics was demonstrably successful in creating the authoritarian government of Hungary, where the proponents of authoritarianism used a similar pretext of “the immigration problem” to destroy Hungarian democracy and install the tyrant, Viktor Orban. History recounts a plethora of tactically enunciated counterfeit issues, such as preventing the growth of “communism” and scapegoating the Jews as responsible for Nazi Germany’s economic adversity in 1930’s.

It is the present theme that analogous dynamics are contemporaneously employed relative to the sub rosa intentions of Trump and his MAGA sycophants in the pernicious incitement of the issue of immigration, and in their sham concern relative to the subject of antisemetism. Underlying the purported issues of preventing the entrance of undesirable immigrants, and that of combating “anti-Semitism” (which itself is productive of a responsive anti-Semitism), is the disguised motive for the program of destruction of American democracy and the establishment of an authoritarian government under the Orange Hazmat and his MAGA lemmings.

Any rational observer of the current political scenario is aware that Donald Trump has demonstrated no political, economic, or sociological doctrinaire belief, and has empirically demonstrated a personal interest, solely in himself and the acquisition of ego-enforcing political power. All public and governmental issues, sincerely supported or opposed by him, are seen through the limited and exclusive lens of his lust for unlimited power and demonstrated wealth. His inequitable support of the richest people in the Nation, to the detriment of the middle and poor economic classes, is not doctrinal but transactional, based upon their financial support.

Trump’s catering to xenophobic bigotry, his faux concern relative to anti-Semitism, his catering to the religious lobby by the opposition to abortion, his approval of censorship, derogation, and financial withholding of funds for higher education, his encouragement and support of the Washington insurrection, his support of White Christian Militias, his criticism of NATO, his reprisals against political opponents, his derogation of truth in favor of conspiritorial ideations and promotion of the propriety of “alternate facts,” his castigation of the free press and institutions of enlightenment are all, irrefutably, founded in his excess of hybris concerning his entitlement to power and nothing else.

Particular notice is to be taken of his contextual failure to recognize the Constitution and the accepted rule of law. Judicial determinations are not adhered to by him; rather, the Nation’s Judiciary is maligned, and Constitutional, statutory, and precedential law is seen as subject to personal cancellation by the egoistic and hubristic employment of his felt-tipped black “Sharpie.”

The would-be autocratic tyrant, in his reductive ignorance and half-vast egotism, presumably looks down, from his singularly myopic bubble, on all Americans, (inclusive of his submissive MAGA cultists), as incapable of discernment of his singular and reductive hubris, which should be as empirically evident as the repulsive sight of highway roadkill.

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We find ourselves ruminating on an empirically terrifying conception of the words “displacement” and “replacement; indeed, one more rational than the nouns tactically employed by America’s horde of ignorant and un-American, White Christian Nationalists. Our dread concern relates to a predictable result of the inventively capable, but thoughtless and ultimately suicidal, computer industry.

Although we recognize the pragmatic value of Silicon Valley’s ubiquitous accomplishments in speed and efficiency relative to scientific research, medicine, manufacturing, and data storage, we fear, analogous to the fictional danger evinced by Ducas’ “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” that the apparently, thoughtless, and irresponsible race for innovative profit will result in existential tragedy to humanity.

We have expressed our concern, which is affirmatively not “Luddite” ( i.e., against technical innovation), that the exponentially monofocused race for enhanced development of digital robotization of human functioning portends the nightmarish possibility of the ultimate replacement of the admittedly less efficient humanistic society by appliances of mechanically digitalized efficiency. A giant step toward such dehumanization, as we have repeatedly declared, is the insalubrious substitution of societally natural interaction by the impersonal “smartphone.” We have far less concern regarding voice-activated appliances, robotized vacuum cleaners, and the “smartwatch

We fear that the observably irresponsible lust for profitable advancements in technical “improvements” ultimately portends a resultant dystopic society, indeed, a digital Armageddon-like planet inhabited by robotic appliances, perpetually activated and eternally operative, per installed algorithmic instructions.

“Artificial Intelligence” (“AI”) in its present application is utilitarian in many practical applications, such as organizing health data and self-driving automobiles. It has also been found, negatively, to be useful in the perpetration of fraud and deceit and in mass manipulation. Instances of its perverse applications have been seen in the perpetration of “deep fakes,” such as false voice replication, tactically reconstituted photos, including the inclusion or exclusion of subjects, undetectable dissemination of propaganda, fraudulent replication of sculpture and pictorial art, as well as copyright infringement of written property. These acts of robotic replication render it difficult to detect the difference between the original and the identical copy.

In our view, the most nightmarishly dystopic “advancement” is demonstrated by the drone and other military weapons, operated robotically, without the mitigation of human sentiment or empathic discretion. The conception of robotic bombing and destruction of human lives and property is chilling. More chilling is the empirical reality that such egregious monstrosities have become the weapons favorably used in contemporary warfare.

Additionally, and most disturbing, is the ultimate creation of robotic facility, superior to the capabilitiies of Homo Sapiens; which carries with it the implicit danger that the robotic actor will have the ultimate capability to act, independent of control and supdercede the hapless, less capable human being,

We can imagine a dystopic, nightmare scenario, in which obsolete human beings on terra firma have been replaced by robot engines, but war, nevertheless, continues perpetually, between the obsolescent nations by insensate robotic machines.

Based upon our long and disappointing experience with the human lust for profit, we have little expectation that the business of advanced computer science will be responsibly limited; however, the pragmatic enactment of relevant, strict regulations, as soon as possible, would certainly be appropriate.
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Having attained the aged status of late octogenarian, may somewhat qualify to comment on the several developmental stages of the individual’s developmental progress ( the “Odyssey”) in the desired destination of Man’s learning. The contextual question,” When is a Man old enough to learn?” we would respond with the following empirical answer: in the period between his birth and his funeral.

To once more reprise the declaration of the English empirical philosopher, John Locke, “Man is born with a ‘tabula rasa'” (a blank slate), and all of his knowledge is acquired by his experience. We would point out the implicit ingredient of objective reality.

The dynamics of experiential learning are normally sequential and governed by the developmental stages of life. The newborn learns about light and dark, warmth, safety, comfort, discomfort, nurturance, feeding, and, as advised, has an instinctive fear of falling. Ironically, the cogent awareness of such phenomena (in addition to his accumulated, experiential lessons) is notably reprised in Man’s elder years. In sum, while Man’s natural impetus in his lifetime, of necessity, prioritizes survival and safety, life’s presenting experiences afford the fertile ground for knowledge.

As observed in previous writings, we accord existential importance to the development of one’s personal identity and stable self-image, and the resultant acquisition of a referable basis of perception. The same provides the foundational platform on which learning is perceived, acquired, recalled, and to which it is accordingly responded..

We have previously declared that the experience of “meaningful” social interaction may be credited with the reactive development of such requisite personal identity and stable self-image to be receptive to cumulative, experiential learning so vital to the individual and his society. For this reason, we have consistently castigated the errant choice of unhealthy impersonality and humanistic failings attributable to the current, widespread use of impersonal smartphone interaction.

The possible retrospective conclusion of perceived success, by the individual as to the acquisition of a fulfilled life, is best achieved employing a stable persona, enhanced by the personal acquisition of wisdom. from life experience, when enhanced by the development of a personal elective interest (*see earlier blogs). Well-informed, knowledgeable, and contemplative citizens, in addition to their personally achieved sense of personal fulfillment, ultimately constitute the most valuable natural resource in the success, endurance of a democratic nation.

However, it is notable that many people do not enjoy the ubiquitous benefits of informed personal reflection and choose to exclude the pursuit of knowledge and thoughtful, philosophical inquiry from their life experience. It is to be recalled and considered that Thomas Jefferson presciently stated that an educated and well-informed population is mandatorily required for the successful endurance of a Democratic Republic.

The elevation of the dystopic persona of Donald J. Trump to the American Presidency is inarguably symptomatic of many of the diverse American population’s failure to knowingly and willingly heed the disastrous lessons in history, evincing an oblivious, “populist” inclination, contrasted with empirically knowledgeable reason.

Participants in the developmental journey to enlightenment obtained by the human journey or odyssey, towards experiential wisdom are capable of the restoration of America’s venerated and humanistic tradition of governance; many others, not so inclined, nevertheless, have more recently experienced, and possibly, learned, that life under autocratic power is not as acceptable as one salubriously grounded in liberty and democracy.

-p.