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The most recent edition of “Atlantic” magazine featured an essay revealing today’s college students’ disturbing lack of desire and capability to read books. This revelation, in our view, is analogously equivalent in impact to a finding that bumble bees are no longer interested in flowers. The essay went on to observe that students arrive at college with an inadequate vocabulary and less understanding than in the past. It noted their difficulty in staying sufficiently focused to read a fourteen-line poem without succumbing to distraction. The author suggested that the basic cause may be inadequate; primary and secondary school education. With due respect, it is our contrary view that the problem, sadly, is symptomatic of a more, all-encompassing and retrogressive societal tragedy.

The long developmental progress of Man, from self-subsisting alone to living in society, in addition to the acquired benefits of companionship and personal security, and development of life skills, led to the vitally important development of language and social interaction. Man’s life was no longer a solitary challenge to survive and, in time, allowed Homo Sapiens to develop the societal capacity to exchange feelings and personal observations in a common language. Human interaction and inter-personal communication provided the dynamic process that ultimately afforded Early Man the consciousness of the empirical experiences of others in addition to himself, Over the many eons of earthly habitation, he developed the societally existential perception of the important presence of other residential individuals and their enlightening accounts of empirical experiences. This ultimately resulted in his inclination to thoughtful and comparative self-examination; eventuating into a contextual valuation of others. With the development of writing, he became capable of transcribing his experiences, providing the dissemination of experientially pragmatic guide to others, relative to newly developed skills and, thematically, on perceived matters of human experience.

The vital benefits of spoken and transcribed communication led to stable, interactive societies and subsequently to the conglomeration of National States, contextually enabling a more encompassing and salubrious enhancement of human life and experience. Works of literature provided the reader with aesthetic pleasure, but more vitally, enhanced his utilitarian understanding and, more broadly, the moral advancement of extant mankind by its relation to Man’s classic experience and derived conclusions, as a comparative analog to the readers’ perception of life.

Books are necessary in the development of mature perspective and substantially contribute to an understanding of the human condition. They cultivate a sophisticated sense of empathy, temporarily transferring the mind of the reader into the mind of the protagonist. Such enlargement of human understanding directs the sympathy and understanding of the reader outside himself and derivatively eventuates in a wiser understanding of the self, others, and indeed, of life itself. The countless human compendiums of enjoyable and life-enhancing literature and other aesthetic sources of wisdom and communicated perception of Man’s life on Earth are ubiquitously available for the contemplative reader and have been an invaluable instrument in the process of human advancement.

Returning to our theme, viz., the reported absence of willingness, and, perhaps capability of college students to read books, we are obliged to reprise a contextual observation, notably appearing throughout our one-thousand-plus writings, viz., the existential importance of informed societal interaction oral and written and the tragically atavistic and retrograde effects of its contemporaneous decline.

We have attributed a plethora of substantive problems to the unwise exchange of human conversational interaction (in person, by telephone, writing (letters, journals, and books) for the facile but humanistically harmful, impersonal digitally operated hand appliances (“smartphones”). As numerously observed in this blog space, deprives the individual of the experience of recognized personal contact, timely and meaningful responses, comforting, nuanced voice recognition, emotion,al expression and spontaneity viz.,the sense of personal interactive experience. Hand-held digital transmissions are cold, nonspontaneous, and broadcast in the new tech-speak, to be received at some fortuitous time and likewise, digitally responded to when received. The societal result is the sense of loneliness and the promotion of insularity, as contrasted with natural and societally salubrious, human-to-human spontaneous exchange and beneficial personal ratification.

Other such computer “advancements” have metastasized the toxic effect of loneliness by removing the essential quality of communal and interpersonal living. To cite a few illustrative examples of such impersonal and socially crippling phenomena, we might, for example, cite some such robotic services as GPS, Echo Robotics (ex, “ALEXA), carpet sweepers, car parking, virtual workplaces and conferences, referential data devices on handphones, in place of individual consultation or personal research, televised individualized instruction, purchases by computer,. online mail, ubiquitous home entertainment, rendering attendance at theaters, museums, and movie houses archaic. As opposed to natural and sustaining societal interaction, we have surrendered to the seductive desire for convenience, regrettably deleting individual life and social interaction. Life has become, by populist choice, well-supplied, solitary existence.

Accordingly and tragically, so much of the younger generation’s empirical perception of life has descended to a selfishly oriented experience. The new perception of society is impersonal and merely signified by a perceptive competition for tangible success; as opposed to a more admirable (and normalized) holistic and responsible aspiration for humanistically healthy self-fulfillment.

It is our sad observation, that, contrary to Atlantic’s attribution of causes underlying the student problem, it is our attribution to the societally unwise substitution of facile computerized “improvements” eliminating societal, existentially vital, personal interactive, humanistic interaction; that convenient, but impersonal intercommunication is proximately responsible for the students’ failure to “waste time” in reading or engagement in enlightening discourse in general, evidenced by their contextual poor performance at higher institutions of learning; one wastefully committed to the mundane and limiting goal of a future career. The latter, limited aspiration is an obscene waste of cognitive potential for the ultimate human opportunity for self-fulfillment.

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We travel to the tiny town of Wistful Vista, situated in the northeast corner of the State of Pennsyltucky, to provide the sophisticated reader with a representative sample of the ubiquitous significance of political polling, notably, one assessing the temporal standing of Presidential candidates at various stages of their campaign,

The sleepy crabgrass and lichen-covered township in question has been determined by several sage economic specialists and cultural anthropologists to eternally suffer economic vicissitude, based upon its adamant refusal to evolve from its historical role as the foremost producer of white wig powder in 17th Century colonial America to a more current and less anachronistic enterprise. The unique skills implicit in the fabrication of the subject colonially merchandisable product has by tradition been passed down from father to son; the township’s female population analogously, bequeathing their prowess at the spinning wheel, down through the ages, mother to daughter.

The meager and tenuous financial subsistence of the town is meagerly furnished by modest, tourist income derived from sporadic visits by didactic dental researchers and, occasional anthropologists from National Geographic Magazine, investigating the etiology of the uniquely notable phenomenon, that all residents of the township, (eerily, inclusive of their pets, viz., cats and dogs), demonstrate uniformly large gaps in their two front sets of teeth. At first, it was surmised that the cosmetic condition had its etiology in the singularly bizarre trigonometric fashion in which food was masticated by the villagers, later. instead, attributed to acidic chemicals in the water, and ultimately, from, the nuanced, chemical content of the ambient soil.

The gap-toothed citizens, to their ardent democratic credit, faithfully conduct weekly town meetings on town matters as well as its governance, and are seen to be especially enthusiastic and vocal about village-oriented political and social matters. Recent hotly contested debates have addressed diverse opinions on matters of localized existential concern such as premature seasonal fly fishing, the worrisome decline in the officially audited tadpole population, as well as the eternal difficulties involved in morning dental flossing. As to the latter, the Official Town Board of Supervisors has pragmatically recommended the use of nylon shoelaces, for the front teeth.

Responsible political pollsters have consistently chosen to consult the political leanings of the inhabitants of the subject township as being sociologically representative of the “populist” political sentiment of our diverse nation, and have incorporated their erudite findings in official media reports. Bizarrely, the political leanings have been consistently substantive, since the advent of the township’s polling sixteen years ago. The results, while somewhat varied, invariably depended, in this historic heartland of aesthetic, white colonial wig powder producers, upon the questioned villager’s aesthetic approval of the publicized hairstyles of the respective candidates.

In last week’s professionally conducted poll, as reported in the village’s leading” newspaper, “The Wistful Times,” all of the questioned townspeople, except three villagers, (articulated as best as dentally possible, considering their nuanced dentures) that they decisively choose Vice-President, Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. When questioned as to their personal choice, each responder indicated, gushingly, that he favored Harris because she had slightly, but, noticeably, more hair than Donald Trump; and secondarily. but significantly, Trump’s hair was dyed orange, the color of prison uniforms.

The three absent responders had previously asked to be excused from the Official Survey on the grounds of their intensely busy scheduled activity, parceling out and bagging the village’s latest inventory of recently crafted white wig powder.

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We have never failed in gratitude to our, now-deceased immigrant parents who had braved the vicissitudes and emotional cost of leaving their respective countries of birth for lives of liberty and religious tolerance in America. The autocratic government and the established Church of their place of origin, Russia, engaged in religious prejudice, evincing itself, among other horrors, in sporadic, but predictable, “pogroms” and other evils. The insupportable context of such a life motivated many, like our parents, to bravely escape to this country, renowned for its liberty and economic opportunity.

As American-born, first-generation children, we, at an early age, learned of the horrific facts of programmatic antisemetism eternally characteristic of the European Christian World; the same, our later readings revealed, having its advent in the years preceding the (4th Century) Christianizing. reign of Emporer Constantine of the Holy Roman Empire (see:” Constantine’s Sword” by James Carroll, a former Catholic Priest). We grew up, admittedly, in an ambiance of insecure financial circumstances but, notably, as grateful beneficiaries of the blessings of acquired constitutionally privileged status, free of religious tyranny. We were thus imbued with a lifelong sense of gratitude and resultant patriotism for the Nation that afforded such freedom; a gratitude; empirically exacerbated by the oft-recited depiction of the tenuous state of life in the “Old Country,” in “Yinglish” by family and by immigrant neighbors. Understandably, we have been empathic supporters of the Nation’s program of immigration asylum,

Like others of our known Jewish-American citizens, in addition to our ardent feelings of pride in our American citizenship, we have additionally been supporters of the establishment in 1948 of the State of Isreal; the latter, significantly representing the singular permissible refuge for survivors of the Holocaust and other displaced and homeless European Jews. It was personally reaffirming to observe that our parents’ adopted Nation and Israel, have historically been partners and friendly allies.

The sudden barbaric attack on Isreal by the Gazan Hamas was intended, dually, to cause temporal damage to Israel and, as well, to besmirch its legitimate international standing, Following the atavistically sadistic assault upon Isreal, the terrorists, as planned, retreated with their kidnapped hostages to large tunnels, strategically constructed under Gazan hospitals and places of communal attendance. They did so with the strategic design and intention that the inevitable retaliation, of necessity, would be visited upon those humanistically heartless shields. Hamas, fully cognizant that it lacked the military capability to destroy Israel perniciously conspired to impair its legitimacy and international standing by imposed acts of cruelty such as bombing hospitals and thus be conceived as a pariah. Hamas, as planned, retreated with its seized hostages to its pre-planned, well-supplied tunnels, constructed under such Gazan hospitals and institutions.

Unfortunately. such a pathologically perverse tactic was successful, and unfortunately exacerbated by an overzealous response orchestrated upon Gaza by Isreal’s right-wing-religious government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, resulting in large numbers of innocent Palestinian mortalities and horrific suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians, which as evilly conceived., successfully aroused critical international opposition.

In the United States, the opposition was palpably expressed and publicly demonstrated by large protests on college campuses and various other places of assembly, most notably by young and idealistic college students and other young protestors.

We, in principle, have sided with the protesters to the extent of the Netanyahu government’s overaction wreaked on innocent Palestinians as being unjust and excessive, Yet, we were dismayed to observe that the evident overreaction of the Netanyahu Right-Wing government resulted in a perverse opportunity to justify and promote the chronic historical toxin of antisemetism. An opportunistic horde of reductionist bigots availed themselves of the opportunity to condemn the entirety of the Jewish population, for the overreaction by Israel’s contemporary right-wing government. It should be usefully observed that a substantial portion of Israelis vocally and demonstrably expressed their determinative opposition to the present government’s policies and actions and sought its resignation.

More to our contextual point, many of the protesters (students and non-scholastic antisemitic agitators) appear to reductively and critically conflate, the entire diverse population of Isreal, but, perforce, all ethnic Jewry..

The ancient serpent of antisemetism has again opportunistically emerged from its eternally insidious hole. In medieval days the Jews were blamed for plagues, poor crops, lack of rain, and other events, empirically and indeed, rationally unrelated to the lifestyle, tenets, and culture of the Jewish religion, Apparently for those whose persona systemically includes anti-Semitic, or other bigoted and reductive ideation, are eternally hungry for motivating ideations to assign to and rationalize their systemic inclination for hatred. Contemporaneously, it appears to be the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Is it rationally necessary to remind the atavistic members of the world’s bigotted underbelly, that we, as illustrative and ubiquitously relevant examples, are American ( Jewish, not Israeli) citizens and that our inherited religious ethnos, are not notably exemplified by the perverse phenomenon of reductive “group think?”

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We would request that the reader not be prematurely “discombobulated” by our present theme and patiently withhold his initial reaction to our present contextual declaration until we furnish its empirically based elucidation. Our perceptively radical proposition, simply stated, is that as a fundamental matter, Donald J. Trump has never possessed the desire to be President of the United States. Despite his strident public proclamations to the contrary he observably was never personally inspired to inherit the awesome multitudinous responsibilities of that office. It is our view that his aspirations have fundamentally been otherwise.

It has been our view that Trump’s nuanced persona and lifelong motivation, dynamically analogous to our earlier described “infant terrible” who, in his petulant frustration, painfully kicks his mother in the shins, valuing the pressing need for personal attention a higher priority than the predictable punishment. In our view, Donald J. Trump has existed as a lifetime anachronistic replication of that obnoxious brat, ever thirsty for personal attention and neurotically perceived admiration. In the nuanced perception of the immature Donald Trump, everything, inclusive of moral principle, sound judgment, empirical understanding, utilitarian capabilities, and societal expectations is situated on an aspirational rung on the ladder of his neurotic expectations.

As we have come to perceive it, Trump, eternally thirsty for adulation, and frustratingly wavering between his personal status as a reputed real estate grifter (apprenticed from his paternal mentor) and simultaneously in constant search for personal adoration has as a consequence, experienced multiple divorces, engaged in brisk porno-star sexual commerce, maintained a religiously dedicated attendance at the celebrity studios of Jeffrey Epstein, (of reverential memory), committed acts of deceitful avoidance of military service, committed serial tax fraud and tasteless attempts at public celebrity. Trump’s lust for self-delusional ego-enhancement was exacerbated by his opportune selection as the television host at an inane game show, “The Apprentice” furnishing him further opportunity for him to be the public eye, and somehow bizarrely, resulting in his selection for candidacy for the Presidency by an opportunistic and discordant GOP.

In stark contrast to the centuries of American Presidential candidates, Trump had never, previous to his nomination, evinced a modicum of interest in politics or public service. Bizarrely, the advent of his tactical public expression of interest in politics was at his nomination to run for the office of the Presidency. This was, in our view, personally perceived by him as an opportunity for the acquisition of neurotically needed celebrity, and public adoration, far more relevantly needed than the opportunity for the highest honor of public service in the Nation.

Unlike Donald Trump, previous Presidential candidates in our history dedicated their lives to politics and political office. President Joseph Biden, age 81, from the age of 39, dedicated himself to political service; first, in Congress, then as vice-president, during the two presidential terms of Barack Obama, preceding his office as President. The current Democratic Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris served as District Attorney, Attorney General, and in Congress before being vice-president to Joseph Biden, Tim Walz, running was Harris’ vice-president is, politically, the Wisconsin Governor.

Further, during his four-year-twice impeached term as President, Trump evinced no political philosophy, doctrinaire beliefs nor espoused any political platforms; his public pronouncements motivated solely by his deranged, self-serving considerations.

Our orange-hair-dyed protagonist had never had an interest or participation in politics or political office, and rather, envisioned the prospective potential for celebrity and massive public adoration as positive factors attributable to holding the consequential National office. The Office of the President of the American Nation inarguably represented to the ego-oriented Man-child a superlative opportunity to indulge his eternal and unsatiable need for notice and admiration.

During his unprecedented term of office, it appeared that he had little interest in responsible governance, demonstrating an implacable ignorance and patent incapability in the leadership of the Nation; self-interestedly catering to his rich industrialist supporters and his base of cultish underbelly populist supporters; the latter sought-after category of adherents, rewarding him with needed, but undeserved adoration. As reported in the news media, Trump evinced little interest in responsible governance, negligently failing to attend White House briefings and strategic conferences. He publicly ignored the mortal National sin of treason in his public bromances with autocratic enemies of our Nation, who strategically and deceitfully catered to his selfish egoism and lifelong neurotic longing for love and attention.Winning and inhabiting the Oval Office for this neurotic man-child continues to be seen as the best and most productive source of his immature and systemically required adoration.

It is our perception that the American Presidency, as personally valued by him, inhabiting his singular and solitary bubble is thus, quite secondary and relevantly, beside the point.

-p,

To avoid the suggestion of any pretentious expectations, we would initially declare that this writing is not contextually relevant to any scientific or mathematical treatment of “time” for example, in an Einsteinian or esoteric context. Rather, its context relates to the empirical human lifetime on Earth. a.

In our view, the thematic word, “time.” is normally and ubiquitously used to describe quantum concepts like the length of seasons, hours, prefatory periods, events, the duration of activities or conditions, natural or man-made, and seasons of life. In our view, Man expends so much of his lifetime, consciously engaged in mundane tasks or preconceived responsibilities, that he escapes the awareness of its existence and expenditure as a quantified phenomenon,

Time proceeds, universally unnoticed in its distinct definitional sense, and is not pragmatically perceived as a conscious phenomenon or existent entity. For most of our lives, time remains overlooked, being camouflaged or distracted by our many substantive activities and concerns. One admittedly does experience temporally related physical evidence of his aging and is, at least in theory, generally aware of his ultimate mortality, yet, in the hustle and bustle of his busy lifetime, he remains essentially unaware of its vitally enduring presence.

One’s conscious appreciation of the metaphysical significance of finite time evidently appears to be a conception, most often universally reserved until its eventful and enlightening discovery in old age. Indeed, it was essentially upon reaching our 80th year, that the essential and invaluable essence of circumscribed time was realized, being no longer distracted by the substantive conduct of earlier life.

As we perceive it, the consciousness or contemplative discovery of “time,” was synchronistic with the final passage of our natural periods of maturation voz., education, career, and child-raising; all of which, as stated, served as effective distractions from any temporal awarenesss of the existence of the discrete phenomenon of time.

Our personal attainment of eight decades of life, in retrospect, as a result of such contextual unawareness, seems to have run as quickly and as unobtrusively as a swift downward current of river water; inarguably, as a consequence of, in our busy empirical lifetime in which we took little notice of it as an extant conception, At our current stage of life, by contrast, the distractions of education, career, family support and dynamics, social interaction, and undertaken temporal responsibilities have receded into barely accessible memory. We continue to be fortunate and grateful for spousal and family love and the self-affirming memories of past accomplishments as well as acquiring an understanding of the mitigating context of instances of painful memories. At long last, we find ourselves invited by the universal and eternal flow of life to the unique company of ourselves on an intimate and personalized basis.

The later years are accompanied by ample time and opportunity for a personal, contemplative audit or retrospective autobiography. Such a valuable franchise, unfortunately, is accompanied by a diminution of physical prowess, at times, as in our case, accompanied by a “walker,” joint pains, and significant loss of personal agency. Yet we are extremely fortunate to have such impediments minimized by the invaluable love of family and friends. We find ourselves awakening each day, especially fortunate with the existence of a relatively healthful continuance of life and most especially our positive outlook, based upon our developed mature perception of life, enabling appreciation for our past accomplishments and lifelong moral perspective, the latter borne of a lifetime of personal contemplation guided by a lifetime of extramuraL involvement in literature and the humanities.

Our life happily continues, albeit, somewhat painfully, albeit, accompanied by an overfull cornucopia of personal happiness borne of a matured contemplative understanding of life and of familial love, for all of which we are gratefully aware, despite the empirical recognition that precious time, our newly discovered phenomenon, is unremittingly finite.

-p,

There are several conspicuous differences between “Wordwatching” (see above) and its peripatetic homonym, “Birdwatching,” The latter is recreational, often, but not exclusively, performed in groups, is best done in the woodlands, preferably with the aid of binoculars, is entirely objective and non-judgmental but simply constitutes, a recreational study of birds living free in nature. However, our conceived homonym, “wordwatching,” is an entirely dissimilar occupation.

Our term, “Wordwatching” is fundamentally distinguishable from the verb, “birdwatching” in several discrete features. It is preferably done alone, indoors, featuring no need for comfortable shoes, a camera, or an umbrella, Like its comparative homonym, it mandates a vigilant eye yet no binoculars (on occasion, eyeglasses). In contrast to studying an extant, natural subject, it relates to the privately exercised, diligent, and critical observation of nuanced vocabulary. The contextual activity utilizes the hearer’s personal perception and sense of linguistical aesthetics, albeit with the mandatory proviso that the aspirational standard is clarity. The primary offense is ubiquitously committed in the course of media news programs.

In the present “excursion,” we will “watch” an illustrative sample of inexorably tiresome and inexact choices of terminology, as indicated, often heard on television news programs; some are misleading and erroneous in conception others, definitional.

[“Free Gift.]” Many Television advertisements as a tactical inducement to purchase their product or utilize their services, proudly proclaim that the prospective purchaser or user will receive a “free gift.” Said two-word phrase is, tautological and annoying, if not completely ridiculous, The definition of “gift” portends the generous delivery of something for free.

[“Absolutely correct”] This confirmation of another person’s statement is grandiose, presumptuous and overboard. the comment, “correct, ” alone, would appear to be sufficient. The icing on the cake, “absolutely.” is superfluous and judgmentally, personally presumptuous. There are few absolutes on terra firma, and we would prefer that this excessive platitude be discarded

[“Illegal Immigrants”] No human being is intrinsically or systemically, “illegal.” The homo sapiens is capable of committing unlawful acts; however, the adjective, “illegal” immigrants is harsh merely in reference to unregistered immigrants, i.e., lacking the requisite paperwork.

{“Push back”] In our view, this tiresome phrase is misleading and unnecessarily aggressive in its mere intention to indicate its the existence of a contrary argument.
[“In studio,” “on ground,” “in country”] What happened to the ubiquitously useful word, “the? “

[“Communities of color”] Instead of the euphemistic description,, we would prefer: “Black and brown American citizens.

[You’re living on a gold mine! (to the elderly)] The insurance company’s invitation to induce older citizens who have paid the company’s contractual premiums all through their life, to deceptively save the insurer his now more imminent monetary obligation to pay the contracted death proceeds to the beneficiary,; and, notably, in the craven interest of the insurance company, deprive the intended beneficiary of the originally intended benefits.

Finally, we would offer a typical mews media declaration: “Here is the report, “in real-time”, from X who is “on the ground .” Translated into mundane English, this gibberish means, “Here is the current report from X who is on the location.”

Readers who are desirous of supplementing our short, but illustrative list, are invited to submit their “Wordwatching” favorites to: “just joshing @ plinyblog.com.

-p,

We have long been astounded at the reports of cosmic amounts of money raised for political campaigns, most notably regarding the coming November Presidential election. We presume the better part of such financing is consigned to partisan media advertisements.

However, regarding the singular context of the forthcoming November Presidential election, the extent of utility and pragmatic effect of such costly political advertisements may be limited, given MAGA’s devout worship of its perverse pied piper and semi-deity, Donald Trump.

In the context of the traditional American election, the voting public has a choice of two diversely articulated policy platforms. In such competition, the expenditure of adequate capital supporting a candidate and his proposed platform is strategically comprehensible,

By unprecedented contrast, the forthcoming November, Harris-Trump contest presents a sui generis event, unrelated to the customary dynamics of voters’ choice of party platform and anticipated performance. It is uniquely different in that, rather than a contest of diverse voter opinion, evinces a dimension having little to do with political policies, In unusual contrast, it appears to be a historically, determinative test of the determinative strength of an unprecedented, cultish devotion by the considerable populist underbelly of the nation, for a deceitful, but convincing, demagogic snake oil salesman, despite his publically announced intention to be an autocratic dictator.

Our two-party system, before the disastrous ascendency of Donald Trump, from his status as a real estate gonif and host of an inane television game show to MAGA cult leader, had already experienced a growing political and social hostility. In our perception, affiliation with a political group developed into a cogent source of personal identity. Political moderation declined among the general public and its elected legislature and officials. Such democratically harmful phenomenon increased to the extent that divergent political camps were decidedly homogeneous in their principled opposition to the other, As we have observed in earlier writings, groups of like-minded (“group think”) individuals became adherents to ardent political camps in dynamic opposition to analogous groups of divergent opinion. Such polarization metastasized and unfortunately became inconsistent with normal neighborly or fraternal friendship,.

The highly toxic entry of Donald Trump into such a divisive political scene, catalyzed by his tactical cultural success among the Nation’s large horde of grievance-oriented populists, enhanced the existing polarization to unparalleled levels. Empirical truth, morality, and aspirations for personal and social advancement inclusive of the attainment of universal legal equality were, with Trump’s blessing and encouragement, discounted and tactically demeaned. With his demagogic encouragement the pernicious growth of a populist, (MAGA) disrespect for empirical truth, there developed among such Trump acolytes a virtual pandemic of bizarre paranoid ideational conspiracies, such as, the government had secreted tiny investigative computers in Covid vaccines, Isreal shoots rockets from outer space to the Planet, that horse worming salve is the cure for Covid, that 9/11 was a CIA c conspiracy, that homosexuality was being taught in public schools, that Global Warming is a ruse, perpetrated by the coastal elite, and so many others floating freely and unhampered in the exotic and extensive mist of irrational ideation.

Most recently, both Trump and his “weird” candidate for Vice-President may have succeeded in attaining the zenith of political science fiction, inarguably, surpassing their most clinically delusional prior pronouncements, The two, seemingly deranged candidates (see “Two Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest,” blog # M. 133), bizarrely declared that Haitian Immigrants, residing in Springfield, Illinois (Vance’s district) were kidnapping pet cats and dogs and eating them, We will refrain from honoring such insane drivel by the recitation of the ample proof of their falsity.

The salient point is that the Trump conglomeration of worshipful lemmings actually believes such insane ravings, confirmed by Trump and the other mental inmates, running the Republican asylum. It has proven frustrating and pragmatically naive to attempt or encourage the large MAGA horde to see reason, the latter seems, thematically, as not being contemporaneously relevant.

If, as empirically demonstrated, only democratic voters appear to be receptive to persuasive argument and reason. we thematically wonder, as to the wisdom of the expenditure of millions of dollars by the Democratic Party for purportedly, persuasive campaign advertisements,

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Mainstream Americans, contemplating the forthcoming Presidential election, have good reason to fear for the very survival of democracy, should the miscreant and would-be dictator, Donald J. Trump and his weird running mate., J.D.Vance, be elected. We too, share in the existential fear of such a horrific eventuality. Next November, as generally accepted, the nation will host a contest between Democracy and Fascism, notably, one more existentially impactful to the Nation than the traditional four-year competition between Presidential aspirants

Thematically, the event will additionally and singularly, represent a rare and unprecedented contest between National rule by empirical sanity or, one evincing a virtual burlesque of distorted empirical reality, The candidates, representing the GOP ticket, Donald J. Trump and J.D, Vsnce have manifested such exotically “cuckoo nest” behavior as to render their conceivable national stewardship a virtual “cuckoo-nest ” amalgam of Franz Kafka-like or Lewis Carroll’s “Mads Hatter” distortion of the American Presidential Office.

Presumably, the American public is well aware of the immoral and incapable, nature of the past single and singular, twice-impeached term of Donald Trump, and easily recalls his pathologically delusional statements instructively indicative of his evident mental derangement. Akin to dual matching hospital gowns, J.D. Vance, his candidate for vice president,, similarly, furnishes little assurance of mental stability, as evidenced by his personally nuanced, diagnosably unstable public declarations. The two birds have empirically attained the diagnosable zenith of “cuckoo- nest,” attribution, in “flying” colors. To reprise the encyclopedic tsunami of their exotic drivel would, as a practical matter prove impossible; however, it might be useful to quote a few of their illustrative contextual utterances:

DONALD J. TRUMP: (sample)

” Washington had beautiful columns put together by the force of will because there never were columns of caterpillar factories of graffiti on them.”

“If China or any other country makes us pay 100% or 200% tariffs, which they do, we will make them pay reciprocal tariffs of 100% or 200%; in other words, you screw me and I’ll screw you.”

[As a medicinal cure for Covid-19]”Drink household cleanser,”

[Regarding Georgia prosecutor, Fanni Willis] “She spells Fanny like your ass, right? But she decided to add a little fancy French.”,

J.D. VANCE (sample)\

“Women without children are (seductive) black cats.”

In Springfield Ohio, Haitian immigrants care kidnapping and eating pet dogs and cats.”

We do not profess to enjoy the expertise requisite to locate the respective categories of mental illness, represented by the bizarre daily utterances of the two Republican, candidates for the highest National political offices; nevertheless, we are confident that those readers who have had psychiatric training can, easily locate the respective relevant diagnoses for these two cuckoo bird candidates among the comprehensive and authoritative contents of the professional DSM.

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It is inarguable that, definitionally, the designation of a Nation as “Democratic,” necessarily connotes that its citizens have the equal franchise to vote and thus is dynamically, “by and for the people.”

Much of our media space and National attention has been centered on rectifying the spurious claims of MAGA adherents, and Donald Trump, himself, their potentate, that the Biden election was unfair and a product of “voter interference.” The latter practice, ironically, is seen in the pernicious Trump-Maga efforts to unlawfully and unconstitutionally win back another seat in the Nation’s Oval Office. The personal denial of the certified results of the Presidential election was the underlying motivation for the unprecedented Trump-inspired Insurrection in Washington regarding which many of its criminal participants, summoned to treasonous action by the would-be orange autocrat (but not yet Trump, himself) have been charged with criminality and incarcerated. The United States Justice Department and a plethora of other law enforcement agencies, together with law-abiding members of Congress have been continually obliged to monitor errant State legislative and administrative attempts to politically and unconstitutionally skew the results of the empirically accurate vote.

Yet it is inarguable that there has historically, existed an anachronistic cognitive dissonance between the constitutionally granted right of an American citizen to vote (protected as set forth above) and its provision for the existence of the “Electoral College,” applicable to electing America’s President.

Our readings inform us that the Founders created the subject institution as a compromise to appease small States that once feared the effects of majority rule. This historical anachronism has had the effect of dynamically skewing the democratically accurate result of our contemporary elections.

A media source relates: “In his first run for President, Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2,9 million votes by edging her in the Electoral College in winning three “swing” States by only a few thousand votes.” The report continues to opine that the GOP seeks only enough States to win in the Electoral College which is “heavily based” toward voters in smaller, less populous, and “redder” States.

Trump’s constant irrational complaint is that the election system is “rigged.” It is plain that the system is “rigged, in fact, in his favor.” Notwithstanding the rhetoric, if the American Nation is exemplified by its venerated, constitutional assurance of equal voting, the Electoral College, philosophically and morally, should be consigned to the historical “dustbin.”

-p.

We thought it would be interesting to again reprise the ambient scene of our childhood experience in 1940″s East New York, Brooklyn; this time, as an homage to the period’s diverse species of hard-working American tradesmen, gone entirely extinct. We would ask the reader, if possible, to imagine the presented images in sepia brown, as an enhanced reminder of the antiquity of the elegiac experience.

To our recollection, the existence of certain specific species of societal extinction heads the list of the plethora of bygone examples as the most prominent. Such examples include the coal deliverymen, the “ice man,” the milk and seltzer delivery men, the horse-drawn vendors of fruit and vegetables, the horse-drawn, knife and scissor sharpeners, and the familiar, loud cowbell clanking of the old clothes (“schmatas” (yid.) merchant. In the ambiance of the eternal street trolleys noisily clanking and sparking and an occasional street whiff of stale horse droppings, Brooklynites went about their mundane business, mundanely accustomed to the nuanced and exotic stimulus of their times.

In our view, the most dramatic were the “coal delivery men.” These hard-working, variously carbon-stained, aproned workers would, as needed, raise the coal shute on their transport to fill the several wood barrels with coal, then roll them on their respective bottom edges over to an opening to the basement of a serviced apartment building and tilt the heavy barrels to spill onto the sliding chute, leading to the building’s basement. Such grueling labor was required to deliver coal for the transmission and maintenance of warmth for the variously tiered apartments of resident tenants.

Such gladiator-like capability was also demonstrated by the heroic”Ice Men” who with large metal tongs would remove from a horse-drawn ice truck, large, heavy, square blocks of ice, place them onto their cheese cloth-protected shoulder, and repeatedly march up the many-tiered staircase levels to deliver blocks of ice to the resident-tenants for insertion ion their “Cold Box” (The latter a non-motorized, insulated pre-cursor of the refrigerator}. The blocks of ice were heavy and undoubtedly became more so with repeated acts of delivery. The mechanical advent of the electrified “refrigerator” empirically spelled the emancipation of the slave-like labor of the ice man.

Also gone extinct were the challenging services of milkman and seltzer delivery man. The milk bottles in such era evinced cream floating at the top of each wire-and-paper sealed bottle. Seltzer bottles, delivered by the “seltzer man,” were somewhat dangerous but ubiquitously desirable among devoutly religious Jewish people who, because of ancient religious dietary prohibitions were limited in their choice of menu.

Cobblestones stonily resounded with the daily sound of moving vehicles and horse-drawn carts. Among these were the fruit and vegetable vendors, often of Italian extraction, and the used clothing wagons, often of Jewish Ashkenazi proprietorship, mutually festooned with softly tingling cowbells, publically advertising their appearance.

Today, by cosmic and digital contrast, basic and extracurricular needs and desires of the individual are effortlessly summoned and predictably fulfilled, merely with the mindless pressure of the tip of a finger on a proffered selection proffered on a laptop or smartphone. There is, by sheer contrast, little energy or effort required, however, the resultant empirical satisfaction from such robotic efficiency appears to leave much-needed, fulfilling, inter-active humanism, to be desired.

-p.