One of my very favorite characters in “Li’l Abner” was Joe Btfsplk, the little gloom and doom fellow dressed in black that wherever he went there was always that small, dark thundercloud with lightning directly over his head going with him every step of the way. That pretty well sums up the prevailing feeling of many of us today here in America, that of a gloomy cloud over the land we can’t seem to get out from under.

But unlike poor Joe Btfsplk, some few people lead what is called a “charmed life.” My mother had a silver charm bracelet, and as a boy I was fascinated with it. The miniature objects dangling from it were marvelously detailed and I loved to look at them; but it never crossed my mind to ask mom what the significance of the bracelet was? Somehow I missed the meaning of the word “charm” associated with the bracelet. Had I thought about it as a boy I would have accepted the bracelet with those tiny figures was “charming” but that would have been all, and mom never seemed to think it had any mystical properties. If she had, it would have made the bracelet all the more fascinating to me.

If you search the literature of charms and charm bracelets you will find the subject an absorbing exploration into a marvelous world of fantasy, and the history of WWII is filled with the stories of charms and “lucky pieces” like those prominent in the film “Memphis Belle.” As a boy I became very familiar with the “blessed” medallions of those like Saint Christopher, and as a child it was easy to believe such “charms” would keep you safe and bring you good luck, something with a history going back as far as the beginning of humankind.

Apart from charms and amulets of various descriptions there are people who always seem to live charmed lives, those that always come out of bad situations “smelling like a rose.” Whatever your opinion of Jerry Brown there is no discounting his having seemed to have lived a charmed life. He continues to be successful in politics and has survived some near-misses in his personal life.

But there is no explaining why some seem to live charmed lives and some do not.

I’ve always kind of liked Jerry Brown, the reason best summed up by Gerry Trudeau in a strip some years ago where he has Jerry being asked by a reporter why anyone should vote for him for president replying, “Because I’m best qualified to wing it.” Anyone knowing Jerry’s history would find them if not agreeing at least acknowledging his storied kookiness makes Trudeau’s jibe understandable, even agreeable to people like me. The way things have been going even “Moonbeam’s” kind of kookiness begins to make better sense in many cases than those that have been doing no better than winging it the past few years, and I have a feeling the present candidates for president are only offering us a choice of who would be best suited to wing it.

The double whammy of blatantly and shamelessly pandering gender and race is dooming Democrats and making Clinton and Obama unelectable in my opinion, and no matter how much a politically correct MSM tries to spin things gender and race remain enormous hurdles for Clinton and Obama, which means the GOP would win by default. But who would really be best qualified to wing it; Romney with his kooky Mormonism beliefs or the odiously anti-conservative McCain? Whoever wins, Democrat or Republican, I can’t help thinking we are going to get someone who will be forced to wing it given so many divisive factions and problems tearing the country apart.

I like the biblical definition of faith being “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” By this definition my faith is that of wonder and questioning so many things without becoming a skeptic, and my continuing on with my life in the face of seeming hopelessness of things improving. However, when it comes to people it is wise to heed the Old Testament injunction “Put not your trust in princes…” an injunction that has proven to be consistently wise regarding politicians especially since they are no better than pickpockets as Emerson pointed out.

But if you are as disgusted with politics and politicians as I am you will understand why I would rather write of things like charms and the wondrous marvels and mysteries of our earth, solar system, and universe than the dirty business of egotistical politicians and their greed and corruption. However, I cannot divorce myself from thinking of things like the wonders of the stars without being aware of the monsters that stalk our demon-haunted world, a world where a favored few can spend millions of dollars for vanity or “lucky” auto license plates while some people in places like Haiti are literally eating dirt, dried “mud pies” in order to survive; the difference between extreme wealth and extreme poverty being quite literally “monstrous!”

Granted birth control would alleviate the disparity between rich and poor, but it is to the advantage of the wealthy to encourage the breeding of slaves and virtually nothing is being done to control this for the purpose of slave labor together with the hierarchy of the Roman Church wanting more Catholics and the hierarchy of Islam wanting more Muslims.

Job 5:6,7: Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. But when the indiscriminate breeding of people with no thought of a future except continuing misery and suffering for the resulting children is the norm, how can this fail to make for “man being born unto trouble?”

With the hundreds of millions living in profound ignorance and dreadful poverty, living like animals it isn’t any wonder such people are given to many superstitions like beliefs in lucky charms and amulets, the various shamans, totems and gods they hope will deliver or protect them from demons. But what of the privileged few very well educated and wealthy who still subscribe to belief in such things? It is quite a distance between my mother’s charm bracelet worn as jewelry and a mystical belief in charms. Still, it is a distance that has not been breached even among many considering themselves “enlightened.”

Well, there are many unexplained mysteries; it isn’t likely some ancients came up with the idea on their own of planting crops, none of them were staring at the heavens seeing constellations in the stars, and the great pyramids of Giza remain alien structures. Even among those well educated there remains the thought of things that go bump in the night, there are the thoughts of both angels and demons, and the inexplicable fact remains some people seem favored of the gods, are lucky and lead charmed lives. There is enough to this so very unscientific fact it isn’t any wonder to me even the most enlightened are prone to have some superstitious beliefs. And the line between science and superstition does become quite blurred at times; there is always an inexplicable Joe Btfsplk somewhere as well as those that lead charmed lives.