If you were swimming and fishing in the Kern River back in the 40s you might have heard someone say, “The Kern River mile for mile is the most dangerous river in the world for loss of lives.” Even as a kid I thought this farfetched, something fabulous or extravagant some of the grownups would say as a warning like; “Be careful with that BB gun; you can put your eye out.” And while I never actually knew a kid that had stuck the barrel of his BB gun up to his eye and pulled the trigger, such things actually happened through carelessness on some rare occasions; which only proved to me as a boy that occasionally some kids could be as stupid as some adults.

However, when I saw the very first warning sign about the Kern River posted at the mouth of the canyon years ago my first reaction was resentment. I resented some nanny government functionary stating the patently obvious fact that you could actually drown in the river! Hey! Here were the “grownups” telling me once more I could put my eye out with my BB gun! But really, I thought at the time, have people actually become so stupid they don’t know a plunge into boulder-strewn, white water rapids is a dangerous thing to do?

Over the years we have become accustomed, in many cases callous to the many ways government attempts to control our lives to the extent we now live in an America where anyone can be sued for any reason, an America where lawyers and judges rule our lives and in which Big Brother will step in and tell us “what is best for our own good,” but in the end no one from the President on down is expected to accept personal responsibility for anything.

We need warning labels in many instances, and that skull and crossbones logo on some medicines I recall from childhood, and still used today, were necessary. And kids need all the adult supervision possible at all times. As a child I needed someone to point out what that skull and crossbones on a label meant. But a child can, and too often does, drown in a pail of water because of the lack of adult supervision. Adults need caution labels on buckets warning them this can happen? There needs to be caution labels on bathtubs warning children can drown in them?

Perhaps the warning signs about the Kern River are a good thing. But when I was teaching shop classes, during safety instruction I would tell my pupils “You can make a machine foolproof; but you cannot make it fool proof.” Over the years I collected an archive of stories about fools that make the point.

From childhood I have been engaged in “risk behavior;” guns, motorcycles, fast cars and airplanes; all of which do not suffer fools, and will certainly kill fools. When I started flying in the 50s a fellow had a J3-Cub at the Torrance airport with “armstrong starter.” I didn’t need my buddy to tell me that prop could kill you if you didn’t watch yourself. There was no warning label on that prop and there is a very good reason the guy in the plane shouts “Contact!” when he is ready for you to pull that prop through to start the engine. What I didn’t expect was when we took off he decided to teach me how to put the bird in an intentional spin so I could learn how to recover. This is no longer allowed because of the danger of such a maneuver. I recall the placard prominently displayed on a WWII AT-6 at Minter Field that read: Do Not Put This Aircraft In An Intentional Spin!

So, there is a proper time and place for warning signs and labels. Perhaps the Kern River needs such signs. But the resentment remains that there are such people Big Brother needs to care for because they are fools. My resentment stems from there seeming to be no want of fools that need to be told they can actually drown in the Kern River. Worse; the less personal responsibility and personal accountability we see in our government the more the fools seem to outnumber those with just plain common sense. And the signs and labels just keep multiplying, but they will never prevent anyone from being a damned fool, they will never make the “Killer Kern” fool proof.

“The house always wins,” or “The house never loses” if you prefer. As a boy living in Las Vegas the expressions became familiar to me, and my stepfather at the time, Jim Blaine who was a disk jockey for a local radio station, explained it to me. All gambling, not the Devil’s euphemism “gaming,” was designed keeping the odds in favor of the casinos no matter what “game” you chose. And so, no longer living in Norman Rockwell’s America, the America I recall that fought and won WWII, I look about and reflect on what has become the “Devil’s House,” an America in which the odds have been rigged to favor Satan. While that is a matter of personal theological speculation only, few would disagree America is in the hands of evil rulers intent only on their own power and wealth, not with the welfare of America as a sovereign nation or We the People.

It is really quite laughable to hear and read the self-professed “liberals” harrying and haranguing about the “religious right” as though this were a real bogeyman of which to be frightened. It is only when people like Bush, the Clintons, Kennedy, Jackson, Sharpton and those of their ilk choose to talk about their “faith” we have cause to be frightened. When it comes to matters of faith these are the real monsters that threaten us. None of the Devil’s servants really care about America, all they care about is serving their master, who rewards them with power and wealth. A wealthy Kennedy or Bush, there is no moral distinction; each will do what they can for the sake of ever growing power and wealth.

Not being a gambler, I would often watch those that did gamble. And whether in Las Vegas as a boy or Lake Tahoe and elsewhere as a grown man I noticed there was a distinct sameness to the people that gambled. Most showed an intent focus that would shame many church-goers. Easy riches were never far from the mind of the true believers worshipping in casinos. I know the kind of people that can actually watch poker games on TV, something the rational mind rejects as a waste of time at best. But for true believers, it is a form of worship.

The most disquieting thing to me, given my theological opinion, the world itself as the Devil’s domain. But to focus only on America as the largest, most gaudy and attractive of “casinos” in the history of the world and my not being a gambler and therefore excluded from the “action” is to watch with curiosity as the crowds are taken in by the promise of easy riches. Admittedly I don’t credit Bush with the intelligence to construct the empire of his imperial dreams, this requires the evil genius of those like Kennedy and Cheney that differ neither in degree nor kind to promote such a thing.

Like Atticus Finch refusing to fight with the evil Ewell, it isn’t the fear of a fight but the fact I’m now too old to get into the ring and mix it up with the Devil physically. And knowing that America is now the Devil’s House with a leadership of his servants that cares nothing about sacrificing men, women, and children, Americans or otherwise, to their evil dreams of empire I am now only an observer, taking time occasionally to express my thoughts about an America going to hell, an America that no matter how you place your bet is fast losing to the Devil, fast losing any distinction as a nation with a heritage, culture, common language or secure borders, those things that distinguish all other nations of the world and without which no nation can possibly survive.

Unlike religious institutions, casinos welcome everybody with money irrespective of their color or beliefs. When it comes to being a “uniter” rather than a “divider” the Devil knows his business. But he unites on the basis of the very worst traits among human beings, not the least of which is the trait of the unproductive demanding bread of the productive. And so America having become the land of “bread and circuses,” or in the case of America “drugs, bread, and circuses,” this great House of the Devil, this great casino of his called “America” will keep paying off like a slot machine. And never mind the games are rigged so the house never loses, those that buy into the Devil’s game know they have to win eventually; that is the mindset of those addicted to the Devil’s promise of easy riches. And the appellation “One-armed bandit” only applies to the losers, those who believe they can play by the rules of honesty and integrity, the chumps the casinos do not need in any event.

When my grandfather took my brother and me to the Fox theater in Bakersfield to see “Cabin in the Sky” as a morality play I was too young to realize the fascination gambling could have for people. What really had my attention was the Devil and “Junior.” I seem never to have forgotten the way the Devil plays his hand, of how the game is always rigged to favor Satan and heed the warning.

One of the first hints children get that life is not fair is when they ask why they can’t have a pony in their bedroom and the parents unreasonably answer “Because you can’t.” What seemed a perfectly reasonable request on the part of the child is too often balked by the obvious unreasonableness of parents who refuse to give satisfactory answers to their children and by force of tyrannical position and power will not let the child prevail.

But as I have mentioned in previous writings We the People are not asking Bush and Congress why we can’t have a pony in our bedroom. We are asking reasonable questions only to be treated like children, expected to submit to those with tyrannical positions of power rather than have our questions answered. And since those in power will not answer the reasonable questions of We the People, we can only believe the “adults” holding power in America are intent on making our nation into the world’s greatest and gaudiest casino, treating We the People as children and promising easy riches to all that will buy into the Devil’s game. However, as Jesus cautioned Satan is not divided against himself, he is only a divider between those that believe they can win playing his game and those that refuse to play his game. But Devil or not, it is apparent the game is rigged.

“Snow capped mountains, ripplin’ streams; it’s not heaven though it seems, in Kernville, California U.S.A.”

Old desert rat that I am, when the heat of summer begins to make its demands on us here in the Kern River Valley it’s sometimes nice to think about winter’s snow capped mountains ringing us all about here in this corner of the world of which O’ Dell Johnson sang those many years ago that makes for beautiful though cold days. The birdbath freezes solid during such a time so I have to go outside to break up the ice and refill it with water from inside the cottage. One of the things you learn if you live as I do in this environment is keeping a supply of water in jugs for those times when the well or pipes freeze. And while we “critter people” never hear a “thank you” from birds and animals, we enjoy their company and share the belief that they are nonetheless grateful for our attention to their needs; and we also share a belief that the critters are more inclined to gratitude for the help given them than many people. But I doubt birds and animals raised to slaughter as food for human consumption would express a like gratitude.

Critter people, and there really are such, my daughter Karen being a perfect example, a chip off the old block, seem to have a special sense of communication with birds and animals. From earliest childhood, I would engage in “conversations” with various birds and animals, never knowing what if anything of these conversations was really understood by the particular critter I was addressing. As a boy, my grandfather told me this talking to birds and animals was common to our Cherokee ancestors, and while nothing of which to be ashamed would best be kept to myself, a caution I was later to pass on to my daughter Karen.

Birds and animals can be trained in many remarkable ways, ways in which there is a clear and obvious understanding intelligence at work in these. Many birds and animals show near human characteristics in caring for their young, there are many accounts of birds and animals even coming to the aid of humans. And many of us see near human intelligence; even communication with us in the eyes of some animals.

Henry Thoreau had a remarkable affinity to birds and animals. Like me, he eventually gave up his fowling piece and fishing rod having reached the conclusion, though not of dietary consideration, that the eating of animal flesh was not “convenient to the imagination.” Little by little, Henry came to believe he fell in his own estimation of himself in the raising of animals for slaughter, in the killing and eating of animals, that the uncleanness of such a diet of animal flesh was somehow unworthy of the civilized mind, that it even showed a lack of consideration for the value of life itself.

While I don’t “preach” vegetarianism, Henry pointed out in example the cannibals after being presented the better ways of civilized behavior left off the eating of one another. But whether slavery, cannibalism, or the wholesale murder of one another through wars, a better way of civilization must be taught and learned by example. However, throughout history it seems there have never been sufficient examples to prevent the wholesale bloodletting of wars; so much so that Stalin could correctly point out the murder of one is a crime but the murder of millions is only a statistic. For this reason I find no fault with those who say “there is no god.” Unless you subscribe to the diabolical in the theological sense as I do, there is more than sufficient reason for not believing in any gods, least of all any gods having believers that promote cruelty and murder.

Still, I have had my part in hunting and fishing, in raising various birds and animals for slaughter, and have had occasion to kill some just to end their suffering; “mercy killings.” But when it comes to swatting flies and mosquitoes, killing rats, roaches, and ants this doesn’t seem to count as murder of the innocent to most people despite some claims to the contrary. Now I could have said despite some “nut case” claims to the contrary, but in politically correct speak that would automatically have classed me as someone that is “intolerant.” However, there is no doubt in my mind those that find fault about such a thing do not themselves have any deep feelings for flies, and as Bridgette Fonda pointed out in Lake Placid “Nobody likes mosquitoes.” Even the venerable Albert Schweitzer despite his “Erfurcht von leben” was in the business of killing germs and had to give way to the practical realities of people killing animals for food without calling this murder.

The Old Testament prohibition in the Decalogue distinguishes between killing and murder, cities of refuge being provided in the case of accidental killings allowing the circumstances to be evaluated objectively by others. It is not that Zoroaster and Confucius were without genius; what gives the lie to any kind of claimed superiority by those who make claims of superiority for Oriental writers and philosophers, for example, is the very fact of the obvious superiority of Western Civilization over all others. Would those who make claims of the superiority of Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic writers wish to live in such societies and the cultures resulting from these as opposed to the truly civilized nations of Western Civilization? I think not, no more than the millions of illegal aliens invading America from Mexico want to remain in that third world nation. But I honestly wonder how much longer America can sustain the level of illegal aliens and the corruption among our own politicians before we face the conditions prevailing in Mexico?

At present there are an estimated 3 billion people worldwide living in conditions no better, and in many cases worse than those of the beasts of the field. Right now here in America there are millions living in what is called “third world conditions.” But one result of civilization without concomitant wisdom is the potential for wiping out billions of people. Should it come to this, will it only be a statistic? It is certain the quality of life for Americans is suffering due to the hordes of ignorant illiterates illegally invading our nation, and these third-world slaves will make any kind of quality of life increasingly difficult for the legitimate citizens of America. Our nation cannot possibly absorb even the numbers that want to come to America legally.

While the matters of killing and murder can be placed in their proper context in individual cases, it is when these become philosophical statistics that the real horror of such a thing must be appreciated. Right now the world seems set on a course of Stalin’s philosophical observation. The questions of abortion and euthanasia as matters of moral argument for example may soon give way to the wider argument of who deserves to live or die in the billions on a global basis. Now, wouldn’t that make for an interesting topic among the presidential contenders rather than being the sole purview of the mad mullahs of Islam? I have no doubt the question circulates among the wealthy and powerful where people like Kennedy and Bush, though pretending hypocritically to be so different find common ground. For people like these, in the end it may amount to no more than swatting flies where the only distinction made is in the various degrees of killing as has always been the case in the wars men make.

Why should it even be a question those that want pets should be responsible for this not resulting in millions of unwanted animals being put to death? But what will not answer and be held accountable to civilized behavior and social conscience, especially the continued breeding of unproductive mouths among humans will of necessity give place to the uncivilized without conscience of any kind.

The Clinton campaign ad taking off on the “Sopranos” is a real winner. I would have said a real “hit” but that would have been trite. However, “swimming with the fishes” only applies as one pundit had it the Clintons are like fishes swimming in waters where politics is the life source flowing over their gills, the quintessential political animals, fish in this case. And the fact that politics is a dirty business and “politician” is a dirty word has no relevance to bottom feeders that thrive in muddy waters.

No one is going to be taken in by the ad knowing the Clintons will do and say anything including murder, as I and not a few others strongly suspect, for political power; however I take exception to those that think the ad is an attempt to “humanize” the Clintons, specifically Ms. Clinton. As per the Mafia the ad is about “Respect!”

Harking back to the Godfather Trilogy, the thing about “respect” was given such prominence it became a focus throughout. Even Gerry Trudeau was having a good time with this where he has Frank Sinatra being introduced to some mobsters in Las Vegas and told to show them “respect” because they were all “made” men, and Trudeau had Sinatra being childishly “Golly, gee, really?” impressed by this.

So, no matter the amount of spin the Clinton campaign ad is all about “respect” as per the Mafia and the Sopranos. But before anyone objects, I’ll repeat something I wrote some time ago. Michael chides Kay for her naiveté in believing the government operates any differently than the Mafia. My point at the time was that we could wish our government operated as efficiently as the Mafia. Both are involved in all the things made illegal to the Great Unwashed, things like drugs and prostitution, payoffs and kickbacks, blackmail, extortion, loan sharking, there is virtually nothing in organized crime, including murder in my opinion, you will not find among politicians those like the Clintons and Bush epitomize.

Many are the church-goers that will self-righteously say if the minister’s sermon did not “pinch their toes a little” he wasn’t doing his job. And just so with many that make a living seeming to try holding politicians accountable. But too many in this camp are also trying to maintain the status quo of keeping things like marijuana and prostitution illegal, all the while knowing those with wealth and power deny themselves nothing while jailing and imprisoning those without the wealth and power for doing the very same things.

What is the focus of those in power refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor if not profit? The fact made so odiously obvious is that those in power are profiting from drugs and human smuggling, from the slave labor of illegal aliens otherwise our borders would be secured. That politicians and their companion criminals sometimes find themselves in competition is not surprising; so the occasional bloodletting as in the Mafia wars take place.

Law in America has become increasingly a matter of “interpretation.” Power and influence too often define “criminal” or “legitimate,” thereby making these a matter of interpretation as in “How much justice can you afford?” Elected office treated as a license to steal is no different than the way organized crime operates, but when it comes to trying to hold those like the Clintons, Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush to account for their crimes they are the greased pigs escaping the laws we the Great Unwashed are forced to obey. Ten years in Iraq or ten years in litigation, both are crimes against We the People, crimes against humanity!

The great majority of people are good people who do not ask more of life than the chance to live honestly and peaceably. Then someone comes along to make their lives miserable for the sake of power and wealth. The result is a tyrant whether an individual or a tyrannical system like our government has become where virtually everyone becomes a “lawbreaker” in one sense or another, but those with the wealth and power escape the consequences of being lawbreakers. And while it is despicable for any to selfishly drive drunk unconscionably putting the lives of the innocent at risk, the obscenity of a pretense of law punishing a Paris Hilton while letting real criminals like politicians get a pass or spend years in litigation to avoid prison is obvious to all.

More than just fascination, what is the seemingly magnetic appeal of films like the Godfather Trilogy and shows like the Sopranos? We applaud the good guy with the fast gun that comes in, gets rid of the bullies and cleans up the town. We want to see some justice prevail somewhere, some honesty and adherence to civilized speech and behavior, we want to see fair play rather than privilege the criteria. But like the Clinton campaign ad, politicians like Bush and others, where is the “respect?” The fact they demand honor and respect without earning it, demanding honor and respect without personal risk to themselves proves them to be cowardly and not worthy of that one accords those being “made” as comparatively honest gangsters.

“And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay. Genius leaves the temple, to haunt the senate or the market. Literature becomes frivolous. Science is cold. The eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds, and age is without honor. Society lives to trifles, and when men die we do not mention them.”

Emerson was damned by many of the clergy of his time because of his transcendental views, his perceived departure from the faith. Yet, in his address to prospective ministers he called attention, as did Benjamin Franklin before him, to the need of worship in a civilized society. And both were far closer to the actual history of America from which they spoke and had better access to primary sources than any “cherry-picking” detractors of such a thing today. However, both Franklin and Emerson recognized the need of freedom for such worship taking many forms, even Tom Paine giving credence to this. The best minds throughout history have devoted themselves to the support of religious sentiment in various forms, but invariably with a cautionary word that such sentiment not be given the power of the sword. And as we watch and listen to reports of so much Muslim religious barbarism in the world we should be grateful America had a founding in the great literature of Western Civilization, especially the Bible rather than the Koran.

It was while living on the mining claim as a boy I built a platform high in the branches of an old digger pine. When the weather was nice, I would often take a book or a National Geographic, climb up to my aerie and there with the wide vista of the Sequoia National Forest surrounding me unspoiled by fences or rooftops, I would lose myself in the world of literature and far off exotic lands of adventure and excitement.

So, no I did not spend all my time in this forest fastness hunting and fishing; as important as these were. I was raised to the great literature of Western Civilization, and great books became great friends. Some of you may recall times as a child, reading by flashlight under the covers at night. Where the heritage of such great books that fire the imagination of children in like fashion today? Where the families that make such great literature of such importance to children today?

There is an indelible picture in my mind of my great-grandmother reading a book late at night by the light of a kerosene lamp; and no one could read the stories from books, from The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers and make them come so alive to my brother and me like our great-grandmother.

And what of those great old radio shows that required so much exercise of the imagination, rather than the passive form of TV making no such like demand. You do not “explain” to anyone without like experience, the inanity of things today like TV and video games. But this does not prevent someone like me with such experience from attempting explanation, though it amounts to “spitting into the wind.”

From his interview as to why she never wrote again after To Kill A Mockingbird Roy Newquist concluded in part: “Harper Lee having told the truth about the deplorable state of writing in America, the failure of the universities to truly educate and pass on the heritage of great literature that has blessed Western Civilization, England and America, perhaps she may have realized she would be spitting into the wind to attempt any further attempts.”

Jesus said, “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.” But when it comes to things like the great books and literature of Western Civilization, there is this admonition in Scripture as well: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

For any who are interested my three books presently in print can be viewed at iUniverse.com. The novel about two twelve year old children growing up during WWII in Bakersfield, in which the Padre Hotel gets a mention, and being mostly autobiographical draws heavily from the actual history of the area during that time. Four years in the writing my small cottage here in the Kern River Valley became my “storyboard,” the photos and artifacts I had spread all over the place of that time long ago helping me to relive the time and people of that bygone era. Visitors were few during those four years since I became a virtual recluse, the necessity for which any writer compelled to write will affirm.

But the old saying “life is stranger than fiction,” and the caution concerning the difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense was ever before me in the writing of the novel. But much of what made life stranger than fiction for those of us who lived the era of WWII can only be understood fully by those of us left to tell the stories of what America was like back then; and in many ways it was stranger than fiction. Part of this was due to the fact children of that era were raised with the idea honesty was the best policy, and crime did not pay. These concepts were encouraged by the stories and fairytales with which we were raised, most of them having a sound moral basis.

Without TV, children were very much given to making up there own stories and games much as Harper Lee describes of the children in TKM. And notwithstanding raising my own children to be readers and encouraging them to use their imagination, sometimes I was taken by surprise. While living in Lancaster my daughter Karen (Karrie), who was six at the time, came to me and said, “Daddy, I just saw a bear outside.”

Now there had been a dearth of bears in the Antelope Valley for quite some time. Being desert, it is doubtful there had ever been much of a bear population even before hoards of people began to move to this desert environment and start building cities. But Karrie, while having at least as active an imagination as any healthy six year old was not given to telling “stories.” So what was I to make of this revelation about a bear in the neighborhood?

Rather than immediately reaching for my bear gun, I fearlessly went outside in search of this bear, and danged if I didn’t find it! It was only a few houses away; in a cage mounted on a flatbed trailer parked in front of a home. As it turned out, a friend of this neighbor was a government trapper. He had caught the troublesome bear in Tehachapi where it had wandered down from the hills and was posing a threat to the community, and had stopped by his friend’s house in our neighborhood on the way to relocate the animal elsewhere.

My first response to Karrie’s telling me of seeing the bear could have been to explain to her how unlikely it was that a bear would be anywhere in our neighborhood, that we lived in the desert where bears simply did not exist, let alone a well developed city like Lancaster far removed from any bear habitat. After all, I was the adult and Karrie was only a small child. I surely knew more about bears than Karrie, as the adult I knew how implausible it was that she could possibly have seen a bear in our neighborhood.

But I had the advantage of knowing the source of the story of a bear in the neighborhood. I knew my little girl; I knew she was not given to fabrications and would never lie or make up such a story. Further, how likely would it be for any six year old telling of something as exciting as seeing a bear to have explained all the circumstances of such a thing, that they saw the bear in a cage on a trailer? No, a small child tells only the most relevant fact of what they see; in this case the only relevant fact was “Daddy, I just saw a bear outside.”

As trite as it sounds, adults would do well to listen to children. As Henry Thoreau pointed out, children play at life with more wisdom than adults live it. And one of the reasons for this is that adults too soon forsake the wisdom of childhood, and give in to the “wisdom” of adults continuing to make war on one another and make life a living hell on earth.

There is a time for the fairy tales and legends as children are growing up, because the best of these encourage the concept of doing what is right. If you were among the fortunate you were raised among people that taught children the legends and fairy tales that inspired hope and imagination, the kind that led Francis Church to respond to little Virginia with his marvelous defense of fairies and Santa Claus.

In Little Oklahoma, my brother Ronnie and I were surrounded by the kind of people that were a treasure trove of stories, fairy tales and legends, many brought from far away and exotic lands like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. One such story, and one I have often used by way of illustration, was told my brother and I by an Indian. He claimed he had once owned a pistol that had been used to commit a murder. He slept with this gun under his pillow, and every morning when he awakened the pistol would have blood on it. He would wipe it clean, but each time he awoke the blood would be there once more.

Ronnie and I were raised with the kind of good manners and courtesy that taught children did not “talk back” or show disrespect to our elders. Therefore, it never crossed our minds to express disbelief at the Indian’s story. Besides, he was a fount of such stories and we accepted them as we did the fanciful legends and fairy tales of our books, the funny papers, and radio shows like Inner Sanctum and so many others.

In much the same way, the marvelous stories of the Bible, stories like the baby Moses found in the bulrushes, of Samson, David and Goliath and so many others were the things of “theater” that inspired imagination when preached by grandad in our grandparent’s little church.

A lie is told with the intent to do harm or take advantage. Stories like that of the Indian’s were not lies, so it never crossed our minds to consider them such; they were simply stories, not unlike the healing power of a mother’s kiss. And what child would discount the efficacy of such healing power?

It is only when stories are told to do harm or take advantage that they fall into the realm of lies. So it is that I distinguish between stories like those of Francis Church defending Santa, the stories by those like the Indian, and those being told by so many politicians. Listening to politicians jockeying for position and power brought an appropriate episode to mind from my life as a boy living on the mining claim.

It was summer time and I had been out hunting. It was nearly dark when I got back to the cabin, and my grandparents were away so the lamps had not been lit. I was barefoot as usual, and upon entering the cabin my bare right foot came right smack down on a snake! All I remember is the feel of the poor reptile’s sudden, muscular jerking coiling under my foot. I don’t remember leaving the cabin, let alone how I went through the door. All I know is I was magically outside the cabin instantly.

Once my heart started up again, I gathered my wits and courage and very cautiously and carefully stepped back inside the cabin once more. There was no sign of the snake, so, lighting a coal oil lamp, I made a careful survey of the place. Looking back, I know the snake had to have been at least as surprised as I was. But the serpent probably didn’t have the propensity for heart failure. This world is full of “snakes” and it behooves us to tread through the often darkness properly shod and light in hand.

There is a needed dimension of magic in order for children to exercise a healthy imagination, and few things inspire such imagination as fairy tales. Fortunate is the child raised in an environment of books and reading. How well I recall those earliest stories of Mother Goose, Hans Brinker, Black Beauty, Snow White and so many more. Even Henry Thoreau mentions Cinderella.

A couple of years ago a headline read, “The age of Potter VI officially dawned today as millions of fans from sweaty New York to chilly Australia got their hands on ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ and began the darkest of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy novels.”

I believe J.K. Rowling is to be greatly commended for bringing a world of imagination and fantasy to children, for the great encouragement she is giving to children causing them to want to read, and while I have not heard I would not be surprised to learn she owes a debt to the Bible and early Sunday School lessons for Harry Potter. Apart from the history and lessons clearly intended for adult readers, the Bible is replete with the stories of demons and witches, conjurors and sorcerers, of enough magic and fantasy to fire and encourage any child’s imagination.

Having been born into the age of radio long before TV in homes, children of my era had the benefit of all those great radio shows that required and inspired imagination. Reading and radio— a magical combination that gave free rein to our imagination. To read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is to involve yourself in the world of imagination the peculiar domain of children Sam Clemens so well understood, and had the rare genius to communicate. Harper Lee certainly understood the importance of books, and emphasized this in To Kill A Mockingbird.

The old radio programs like Let’s Pretend along with Terry and the Pirates and a host of others had most of us children tuned in. But there were also programs like I Love a Mystery, Inner Sanctum, and The Whistler that drew children into a darker world of imagination.

Admittedly, many fairy tales, radio programs, and children’s books of my time included a large degree of violence, of murder and mayhem. But the visual element made so graphic in films and TV were, apart from some illustrations, lacking, which left us largely to our imagination, and it was the stimulation of imagination required that among other things made my generation the last of the real readers and writers in America, primarily because TV being a passive medium simply cannot compete with books and those old radio programs when it comes to stirring the imagination.

But when it comes to the power of graphics, however, this is a double edged sword. Charles Lamb in his essay Witches, And Other Night-Fears writes of a book in his father’s library History of the Bible in which there were several woodcuts. One of these depicted the conjuring forth of the last judge of Israel, the prophet Samuel, by the Witch of Endor. Of this picture Lamb writes, “I wish that I had never seen.” With the keen perception peculiar to his genius Lamb concludes, “Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.”

However, as Lamb continues to point out in his essay that woodcut haunted him all his life due to the strength of his “child’s credulity,” requiring his need of a night light from childhood on, of his words of admonition to parents not to leave their children alone in the dark “where there be monsters.” The child’s strength of credulity lends itself, as Lamb recognized, to both beauty and monsters. The harm of it in adulthood is to subscribe to harmful fantasies, to be gullible and easily taken in by the “fairy tales” of charlatans and scoundrels, and one can only wonder what Lamb would have to say of the monsters children face today, the graphic and all pervasive violence and perversion children are being made to endure today.

In a world seeming gone mad and intent on nuclear annihilation unless sanity is restored, there is a lot of comfort to be found in the old hymn that goes “Farther along we’ll know all about it, farther along we’ll understand why; cheer up my brother, walk in the sunshine, we’ll understand it, all by and by.”

As a child, singing that hymn in my grandparent’s small church in Little Oklahoma brought me a lot of comfort in the very uncertain and dangerous world of WWII, one in which children needed all the help and encouragement, all the comfort and escape from reality they could find. I believe J.K. Rowling is offering children something that is not only stirring their imagination and encouraging them to read, but offering a source of escape and comfort to children in a world adults seem intent on making increasingly unfriendly and dangerous to them. But when people ask what’s wrong with kids today, the immediate answer that comes to my mind is most don’t have my maternal great-grandmother Mary Wright Hammond Smith.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

If you were among the fortunate like me, you were raised in the instruction, “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

No, not admonition meant to frighten; but such that you feared doing wrong for all the right reasons, the kind of admonition that taught lying, cheating, stealing were wrong, the kind of fear of being disobedient and doing anything of which to be ashamed and hurting a parent or other loved ones because of their love and trust.

Among my most precious of possessions is a New Testament with Psalms. Grandma paid a dollar for it from the Jewel Tea salesman that made regular stops in Little Oklahoma. But that dollar was real money in the 30s, when a penny had real value and a dollar in your pocket was real wealth.

It is little short of miraculous that over these several decades of life and moving around the country as much as I have, through so much turmoil and upheaval in my life this New Testament is still in my possession while so many other things have disappeared in one manner or another. However, that I still have it is proof of its extraordinary value to me.

What makes this New Testament so valuable to me, actually priceless beyond any amount of money is what my great-grandmother did with it. Quite elderly, the years weighing hard and heavily upon her and with failing eyes and hands painfully crippled by arthritis she laboriously went through the whole book from cover to cover marking specific passages that were meaningful to her, passages of Scripture she marked for my benefit, passages she hoped and prayed would be of benefit to me as I grew and began to read the Bible for myself.

In the flyleaf of the book, my great-grandmother wrote: Darling, grandma has read and marked passages she loves to think you will read someday when she is gone. But dear, grandma will love you even if she is not here and will always know if you are a good boy and serve and love God and His son Jesus. God guide and keep you always honest and truthful. A world of love my precious boy. Grandma.

I don’t believe any child so blessed with anyone like my great-grandmother in their life can possibly turn away from such love, can possibly do anything to betray the memory of such love. And here these many years later, as I hold and turn the pages of this precious book, made so by Grandma’s love still speaking to me through all the many passages she marked for me, I know how very blessed I am. There is a hymn Precious Memories, and grandma’s gift of love, its pages like me showing the passage of time, causes the hymn to come alive in my soul.

While books about angels proliferate, I choose to think of grandma along with other loved ones now passed as angels, those who loved and sacrificed for me, who did their best to raise me properly “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and made the Bible more than just a book to me by their lives.

Among too many things lost to children today is the heritage passed on to me by my great-grandmother and grandparents, the heritage of America being founded on the precepts of the Bible. This was the early textbook of America, of the Founding Fathers, the families and children, the earliest universities and schools of America. It was to be expected a Bible would be found in the homes of even those in the most humble of circumstances throughout America in a bygone era.

Yet it is correctly noted that none can consider themselves properly educated that do not have knowledge of the Bible, who have not read it in its entirety and know somewhat of its history and influence on the world, most especially its primary influence on the rise and progress of Western Civilization. And who can legitimately argue nations like America would have been better off with the Koran rather than the Bible as their basic textbook.

The separation of Church and State were intended to serve a noble purpose, but casting away our religious heritage and the Bible cannot but do grave damage and invite grave harm to the most important things that made us the greatest and freest nation in history, something grandma clearly understood and hoped someday I would as well.

While Jews are commonly known as People of the Book, Americans are no less but in fact even more People of the Book, even as grandma was. The ongoing attacks by those that would remove God and the Bible from all public institutions, most especially from our schools, do so in the face of the fact that America was founded a Christian nation on Christian principles, and much of the very language of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the very writings of the Founding Fathers throughout is grounded in the Bible and Christian principles.

Religious extremism, not God, was the thing the Founding Fathers attempted to avoid. As we view the situation today one might get the impression from some of the media and pundits there is fear of Christians getting the upper hand in politics. But as we hear “moderate” Muslims claiming the murderers among them are not the “true believers” while at the same time refusing to denounce the crimes against humanity committed by their fellow Muslims it is nothing less than intentional obfuscation of the facts for any to claim they have a like fear of Christians in America. Considering those like my great-grandmother, it is impossible for me to believe the claims of those like Bush that they are Christians. No doubt the president of Iran believes himself to be a good Muslim, but that makes him no less a tyrant. Whether Bible or Koran, it is the claims by fanatics that the words of men are the words of gods that makes for the organization of hatreds, but good people will not be persuaded their books or gods approve cruelty and murder in the name of some deity.

It was the love my great-grandmother expressed by her note to me, the verses she lovingly and laboriously underlined in this precious New Testament, made precious by her own hand and love that told the story, not the book. It was not the Bible that made grandma the loving person she was, but those things she believed of importance in the Bible continue to be important to me as further evidence of her love and the way she lived her life as a Christian.

No one has to remind me of how privileged I am to be a resident of the Kern River Valley. I have loved this place since first visiting in the 40s when Isabella had a population of a little over 30 and Kernville a little over 100. And after moving with my grandparents to the mining claim, that is now Boulder Gulch Campground because of the lake going in, I used to pick up arrowheads as well as shell casings of the blank cartridges used in making some of the old western films hereabouts. And notwithstanding the many hardships, I recall the joys of childhood living in an environment shared only by the critters of the forest for the better part.

It is that wonderful time of year when the heat of summer finally begins to kick in; and being an old desert rat I thoroughly enjoy it, a kindness to old bones and a lean frame for which the bitter cold of winter is no such friend. In fact, preferring the heat I live without air conditioning or swamp cooler and rely only on an electric fan when needed. Another summer benefit is the marvelous, large white blooms of the nightshade plants, and the antics of the various birds at the water I provide them and at the feeders hanging from my oak trees, the quail and doves in the yard taking advantage of the seed the smaller birds spill to the ground.

But not all is serene as I watch mockingbirds chase other birds and even the resident cat because of their nearby nest, and in the balmy warmth of evening as I sit outside I’m dive-bombed by an occasional bat, keeping in mind some might be rabid, and now we even have to be aware of the West Nile Virus and spray with DEET.

Along with this time of year I watch tarantulas making the rounds, recalling one perched on the bathroom sink that surprised me as I reached to turn on the faucet one night. Uppity critter. I very carefully picked it up and deposited it outside. Home is where you don’t bump into things in the dark, but good thing I turned on the light that night. Reason enough to be very careful walking barefoot in the dark around here.

Far be it from me to question the Lord’s judgment in the Creation, but over the decades I have come to question why some things are the way they are? And no, it isn’t the size of avocado seeds as per George Burns that particularly bother me, though I admit to questioning things like the creation of mosquitoes, bears, lions, sharks (and lawyers) and their function in the scheme of Nature, it is things like why grownups are so forgetful of how things were when they were children? Why is it that so many adults seem to forget the many dangerous things that were so very attractive to them as children? Why didn’t the Lord wire this memory into the brains of adults so it would function properly as we grow older and have children of our own?

For instance, there are numerous and quite natural attractions for children among which are matches and lighters, anything that can be made to explode, tobacco, alcohol, guns, so many things adults might take for granted that are dangerous “magnets” for children. Wouldn’t it have been just as easy for the Lord to have wired some kind of genetic “obedience” code into children where a parent simply tells their child something is forbidden them and that would be sufficient? But it doesn’t work that way, and because there are so many hazards into which children are born too many think their name is “No” for the first years of their lives.

A child quickly learns adults are the most unreasonable creatures in the world. “Why can’t I have a pony in my bedroom?” So it isn’t any wonder children quickly learn questions they already know will draw a negative response from the parent don’t get asked, and the child schemes how to get that pony into their bedroom without the parent finding out.

Now I’m a well qualified scholar of the Bible and I find myself asking why did the Lord God from the very get-go make that tree so attractive and then turn right around and tell his children, Adam and Eve, they could have anything in the Garden but the fruit from that tree? It seems to me that was a setup, a loaded gun available to the children dooming them from the start, notwithstanding the beguiling serpent. Few things make something more attractive to a child than telling them it is forbidden to them; but in all fairness to children there are many that do not forsake this in adulthood.

Ok, so things begin to get theological at this point and the ongoing debate of Free Will vs. Predestination continues without let. Nevertheless, adults shouldn’t so easily forget the attraction of so many things dangerous to children, and the lesson from Genesis shouldn’t be lost on adults, that simply saying “No” is seldom enough. And the lessons of childhood should not be forgotten, lessons often learned to our hurt, like Adam and Eve, when we were disobedient.

Even granting we would not want to be robots wired for obedience, still one cannot help wishing there were easier ways of training up our children without so many dangers all about, dangers we adults are responsible for. Don’t you wish our political leadership would remember the lessons of childhood, to act like adults and be responsible for the many dangers facing all of us, the dangers that among other things they were elected to prevent?

Responsible adults don’t want a “nanny government,” however, parents are responsible to their children and those elected to office are responsible to those who elected them. We the People are not asking why we can’t have a pony in our bedroom, but we are asking why politicians don’t act responsibly, especially in the face of so many threatening dangers rather than stomping ants while the elephants are rampaging through the village, treating the electorate like children and having the temerity to call this “public service?”

Many of us privileged to live here in the glorious Kern River Valley take delight in sharing our space with the various critters and providing bird feeders for our feathered friends and water for them and others. One cannot but feel sorry for city-dwellers who at best have to make do with films, television, or screensavers of flora and fauna on their computer monitors. For my part, I don’t even mind sharing my space with the occasional “Pepe le Pew,” though this did cause a woman while visiting to remark on the presence of one that had become quite friendly.

No matter the technological advances, in my opinion “Virtual reality” will never take the place of the real thing. For example, I used to do a lot of ballroom dancing and examples of Japanese robots attempting this seemed a travesty. One cannot help applauding the inventiveness of us humans, but once you have held a lovely woman in your arms, warm, soft and sweet-scented moving together in graceful unison to the beautiful music of a waltz or tango you aren’t going to settle for a robot.

The beauty of our valley is reflective of something Emerson wrote: “That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.”

For renewal of purpose I will still watch Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald films, I still play the LPs of their music and continue to thrill to the operatic grandeur of love and romance of a simpler time that held so much hope of the future. Of such are the “gods” I harbor that sustain me, and while politicians ignore the grandeur to be found in ordinary people faithfully going about doing the menial tasks required to raise families where would America be without such ordinary people?

Having spent many years in various occupations such as machinist and construction earning a living with my hands and back, punching a clock and getting dirt and grease under my fingernails for a paycheck I am duly appreciative of the lives of the ordinary people politicians publicly applaud and privately disdain. For this reason alone we have justification to wonder what gods, if any, politicians meet or harbor? Perhaps this explains why Congress and state legislatures are not noted for the arts that sustain and advance truly civilized people.

Of this I am certain: If I had not spent those years working with hands and back my university education, the years I spent in academia would be utterly lacking in knowledge of the “grandeur in porters and sweeps,” of the real world in which the gods dwell and are met resulting in the best of the arts that sustain and advance the truly civilized, the appreciation on the part of the civilized for the art to be found in Nature that wastes nothing on superfluities, but even the various hues and scents of flowers have a distinct purpose.

But speaking of the “gods,” while no longer orthodox in Christian beliefs nevertheless I credit many of the myths and fables of the Bible having a basis in facts. Among these and other writings such as those of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks is the idea of war in the heavens brought to earth, of demons and angels in conflict from which we derive the origin of Good vs. Evil; the New Testament Gospel of the transcendence of good over evil personified in Jesus resulting in the basis of Western Civilization, the most advanced of any in the world.

Because of my experience and education, particularly my education in theology and philosophy together with the sciences, some years ago I began to entertain the notion there are indeed “monsters” among us in human guise, creatures such as we find in the Bible and elsewhere that throughout history have seemed to especially delight in preying on women and children.

While at first blush seeming fanciful, there are the rare instances of some animals with the human characteristics of self awareness, even using tools like some dolphins using sponges as such. If human characteristics can be found in animals, who is to say there may not be monsters in human guise among us?

Whether due to Biblical “Children of God” and “Children of the Devil,” or the interbreeding of ancient hominids or other, I believe science may yet prove such monsters are a distinct species apart from Homo sapiens and I am presently engaged in sharing my thoughts about this with some colleagues. And while circumstances and environment are often contributing factors perhaps “bullies” are born, not made. After all, saints and devils both come from the best and worst of circumstances and environments, and neither a ghetto nor Beverly Hills is a reliable predictor of the outcome.

Whatever your own thoughts on the subject of monsters among us, at least there are still places like the beautiful Kern River Valley where you have a chance to do some “celestial fishing” in hope of catching somewhat of the thoughts of kinder gods than those reflected by so much seeming madness all about our world today. And while I can no longer make the pilgrimage to my favorite trout stream here in the valley, I’m grateful to be living in a place where I can continue casting my celestial line in hope.

Walt Kelly among some other humorists had fun with the folks that used a Ouija Board. As a child I recall my mother had one of these and taught my brother and me to use it, so from childhood I could understand people talking about it and some of the movies where it would appear. For example, some of you will recall an Abbot and Costello movie where it was prominent. Unhappily, even as a child it seems I was a skeptic. I just didn’t seem able to believe the thing was working as advertised. But unlike the ambience of the séance setting in the movies where the “talking board” appears mom did not provide this environment.

Maybe mom didn’t have much faith in the thing either. But not only has the Ouija Board had a long history, it continues to enjoy popularity today. Bill Watterson had a strip where Calvin and Hobbes are using one and Calvin asks whether he will become President? The planchette begins to spell out God forb—whereupon Calvin kicks the board and shouts “Stupid thing!,” which, of course, makes me wonder if Bush as a child ever had such recourse to a Ouija Board. If so, no doubt had he gotten the same answer as Calvin he would have kicked it also. But given the choice for President, I’d take Calvin. And certainly Hobbes would be a far better counselor than Rove.

My last experience with Ouija was as a young man. I found myself alone with an attractive girl in her apartment and she had one. She insisted we use it, but when it became obvious she was manipulating the planchette to make the board say I would marry her I beat a hasty retreat. I really liked the girl, but it seems my skepticism about the occult in any form had carried into adulthood. When it comes to things like reading palms, crystal balls, horoscopes and so on, when they are only for fun and entertainment like the small strips in fortune cookies I find no fault. But when folks begin to take such things seriously, I remain the skeptic. And while the many facets of Spiritism in one form or another continue in our “modern” world, I have found some to be downright fun if not taken seriously.

I really got a kick out of the Mayberry episode where Barney Fife gets a chain letter and pretends he isn’t influenced by it. But in so many ways like the charms carried by those in the military from the most ancient of times to the present there is no getting around the fact that people do find comfort in such things. Some people have difficulty believing these had such significance to those young men in “Memphis Belle,” but I knew such young men personally. And for some of these, those lucky charms were taken very seriously. You will find many of those in our present military carrying about “lucky pieces.”

Far beyond the ordinary like four-leaf clovers and rabbits’ feet there are those who believe their very lives and destinies depend on totems of some form. Maybe mom wasn’t really serious about the Ouija Board, but there are many that do take it seriously, just as there are many educated and powerful people that continue to take Astrology seriously as did Ronald and Nancy Reagan, though biographers and others attempt to downplay the past president’s degree of credulity in such a thing. However, the occult is nothing new to the White House. And as I have written in the past it would not surprise me to learn Bush has recourse to some secret room where various forms of the occult are practiced. In point of fact, if so it would at least make some sense of his seeming lunacy that has resulted in disastrous decisions. What is too bizarre to believe of anyone that claims God speaks to them? From such lunatics we live with the results of people continuing to kill each other in the name of their respective deities, prophets and totems.

The studies ongoing in neuroscience hold promise of explaining some of the things that result in particular beliefs. But throughout human history this thing of believing has made for a demon haunted world wherever personal beliefs have resulted in the systematic organization of hatred as we are facing with the Muslim threat to the civilized world. However, the equally evil threat of greed and avarice on the part of the leadership in the civilized world remains as well.

When our mother had my brother and me catechized and baptized into the Roman Church I wanted to believe the amulets blessed of a priest had magical powers, but I continued to confront that skepticism that seemed always a part of me. Even during the years when I became a student of theology and a minister there was always that skepticism to confront. It became primarily a question of what was God’s part, and what was our part as human beings? It seemed good people would remain good people irrespective of what they believed, and bad people would remain bad people. My opinion in this regard did not change during my doctoral studies in Human Behavior. Certainly some behaviors can be modified, but quite simply it still came down to good people are good people and bad people are bad people.

However, when a system of belief is such that it punishes those that do not conform it makes for hell on earth, and this holds true for any system of religion or politics. What would an ACLU, NAACP, or La Raza America look like for example? No one needs a crystal ball or Ouija Board to tell there would be little difference between such an America and one ruled by any other system driven by fanaticism. The biggest fault I find with the ACLU is that it has never left its historic roots in Communism. It was on this basis our earliest nuclear secrets were betrayed to Stalin, the most infamous mass murderer in all of human history. But America would not be any better off under the control of those that believe our nation should fall into the hands of those with a racist agenda, though such people have made careers of calling anyone “racist” that does not agree with their agenda. Just what, for example, is this thing of politicians prostituting themselves for the “colored vote” of Negroes and Hispanics? No real American of whatever “color” can fail to be insulted by such pandering by politicians directed at any particular race. In such manner We the People are losing our distinction as Americans.

Now if prayer changes things just whose prayers are being honored by what deity? For my part, like Lee Marvin in “Death Hunt” I’ve never had much luck praying. The faithful of whatever religion will say I’m not praying correctly or I’m not in a good relationship with the deity. But though I’ve never had much luck praying, I continue to talk to loved ones and friends gone on before me, I continue to talk to God; and often in anger. Maybe that’s the problem. But I doubt it. After all, surely God knows I have a lot to be angry about in this messed up world. However, I’m not about to fault those who believe in prayer. By all means, if people find comfort in praying so be it, as long as they are not praying for their deity to kill those like me that don’t go along with their beliefs, or as some Muslims are presently doing attempting to give their deity a hand in my demise.

You know, despite the obviously inherent injustice of life fat or ugly remains fat or ugly. Attempting to make fat or ugly people “attractive” is an exercise in futility. The stories are legion, “You just have to meet him/her; they have a great personality.” When has that ever failed to raise the red flag? But those attempting to force their beliefs on others whether of evolution or deities are too often guilty of trying to sell personality rather than anything attractive. What will ever make a Rosie O’Donnell anything other than fat and ugly? She knows this, so she lashes out at others because of the injustice of what she is. She knows life has not been fair, so she does what she can to get even with life, much as Doc Holliday said of Ringo wanting revenge for being born. And no matter the amount of fame or fortune, nothing will satisfy such people from lashing out at what they perceive to be the cruel injustice of what they are. I say the same thing of Rush Limbaugh. But your own beliefs will determine who you favor.

Life is filled with injustices and inequities, but in the end good people will remain good people, and bad people will remain bad people. And good people will live by the principles of the Golden Rule regardless. But in a demon haunted world filled with so many injustices and inequities the circumstances of life will often prevent acting out all the goodness of even the best of people. I have witnessed what the extremes of poverty and ignorance can do to even good people. But so long as there are those that believe in Ouija Boards, Astrology, etc., so long as there are those that attempt to force their beliefs on others whether of science, religion, or politics there will continue to be ignorance and poverty, there will continue to be those that take advantage of such beliefs.

Is our own leadership in America like Bush and those in Congress using occult practices much in the way of the ancients? It would not surprise me. Some of these things as with many superstitions are so engrained throughout history it seems impossible to be rid of them. But if people die as a result of the failure of reason or because of the occult, it will not matter to those who die. Whether lighting candles or resorting to Ouija Boards what’s the harm so long as you do not harm others? But to believe any words of men are the words of gods, to attempt to force your beliefs on others; that is another thing entirely.

Some of us live long enough and are of a temperament to resent old age. I recall having such resentment and then having to come to terms with it, though the resentment remains and is encouraged every time I need help with anything I used to handle ably alone. However, as one acquaintance put it when someone told him he was getting older, “I don’t know anyone going the other way.” But this other fellow and I are doing our best to accommodate the realization, we are not trying to punish others for what is after all only a process where our physical bodies are succumbing to age. We can be grateful neither of us have any encroaching Alzheimer, though there is a lot of clutter. Still, why should anyone old enough to know better commit young people to the wars of old men? Which brings me back to the Ouija Board. No harm as entertainment, the harm is taking such things seriously and trying to force others to do likewise. But the disquieting question to my mind, a question I consider a legitimate one, is whether Bush, Cheney, and Rove consulted a Ouija Board whether to invade Iraq, and now doing the same thing about the question of whether to nuke Iran?

Years ago when I had a group of graduate students that needed my class for certification as teachers and none of these could write a paper worthy of a college freshman I faced the fact there was no hope for reform in our schools. I would say to Lou Dobbs and others who are tackling the problem of the failed educational system in America to go back to “Reconstruction” in order to understand how we have come to this sorry pass. Professor Claude G. Bowers had pinpointed many of the potential problems for education in his definitive book “The Tragic Era,” and how so-called “Reconstruction” had opened the way to Harper Lee’s lament of Alabama schools in the 30s.

Shortly after Lincoln’s War we came under a Federal Triune Dictatorship from which our nation has never recovered. What followed was a gradual takeover by the federal government of the schools of America, not to mention so many other institutions of our nation. The latest attempt by the totally unqualified Caesar Bush trading on the outright fraud of Rod Paige that gave Bush the presidency and the utterly foolish No Child Left Behind is the ultimate damning indictment of why there is little hope of reclaiming our system of education. This together with a “Press one for English” Balkanized America dooms our system of education.

My abortive run for the California State Senate some years ago was doomed from the beginning since I chose a platform of reform in education. I knew that, but being so well qualified in the field of education I felt the need to at least try to get attention on the failing schools here in my native state. However, having already failed to get the attention of Sacramento politicians years before my run for the Senate left no doubt in my mind that any attempts at real reform in education would prove Quixotic.

One result of our failed system of education in America is that an unfocused, illiterate TV generation without imagination and little in the way of real education has no chance of keeping up with computer literacy. So many millions having never learned to focus the needed attention on reading books of great literature and has such a short TV sound byte attention span acknowledged by the cacophony of beating drums and other noise even on news channels to get the attention of viewers is bound to encounter a host of problems demanding focused attention. This makes many easy prey to spammers and hackers; as a computer tech friend of mine has shared with me many times. This is no different than the way unscrupulous money lenders, auto mechanics and others take advantage of ignorance in a great number of ways. In the case of computers, pressing one for English and talking to someone in India in attempts to fix problems with servers and computers is much too often an exercise in futility even for those few who have a good working knowledge of computers. After all, even software writers are showing the signs of illiteracy. And one has to wonder whether English is the native language of those in charge of large computer systems like those of the federal government and airlines.

It was being told by one honest publisher my doctoral dissertation of 1975 on accountability in education was “too hot an issue for them to handle” I realized there was little possibility for improvement in our schools. As one respondent to my research wrote concerning vocational education, “If we could put a jockstrap on a lathe we would get all the funding needed.” But then, shop teachers have generally been the most vocal critics of the schools since they became the lame ducks where the “rejects” were dumped. As I witnessed the change during the 60s everyone in high school was going to go to college and become doctors and lawyers so the practical skills classes were no longer going to be needed. To emphasize this, high school administrators and counselors came through the Ivory Tower system without ever getting grease or dirt on their hands earning a living in the real world and had no idea how to do vocational counseling, only how to counsel getting into college.

While Harper Lee had already sounded the alarm over the schools in Alabama during the 30s having already engaged in “innovative designs in learning” leading to years of unrelieved boredom for children, because of the universities of America, leading to Ms. Lee’s harsh but deserved criticism of the universities, by the 60s this was the mantra of schools across America. Henry Higgins had his joke on the French that it didn’t matter what you said as long as you pronounced it correctly. The universities of America approved it didn’t matter what you said, but unlike the French you didn’t even have to use correct pronunciation.

Along comes desegregation and Affirmative Action, the lowering of academic standards as a consequence and suddenly we are confronted by the 1983 Blue Book “A Nation At Risk.” I had only to look at the names to realize the same people that created the problems in education were being asked to solve the problems. Lunacy! Professor Damerell follows in 1985 with his damning indictment of this problem with his “Education’s Smoking Gun. How teachers colleges have destroyed education in America.” Rousas J. Rushdoony in 1961 published his own indictment of education titled “Intellectual Schizophrenia” in which he sounded the alarm that in 1954 the lowest achieving college graduates were choosing education as a career.

Certainly I applaud those like Lou Dobbs who are trying to focus attention on the failed system of education in America. But unlike the situation we faced decades earlier there is now the matter of millions of illegal aliens, millions of unqualified teachers, and leaders like Bush that do not read books and have no idea of how to fix the problem.

All the books have been written, all the history is there, all the alarms have been sounded, the problems are obvious, but none dare fault the universities of America, the institutions responsible for the schools of America, or attempt to hold them accountable. And if this is not even possible the result is that no one is going to fix our schools.

“Press one for English” is not one nation under God or otherwise. America has become not a divided nation but a fractured one, sold out and betrayed by politicians to the global corporations that own them. And Spanish being the language of slaves is part of the process of Balkanizing America and enslaving all Americans. The grand schemes for empire envisioned by those like Caesar Bush and his complicit Congress and courts will not be satisfied with anything less than turning all Americans into slaves to serve the powerful and wealthy. The servants of Caesar are all the dogs feeding at his table that are doing all in their power to propagandize We the People into believing the third-world illiterate castoffs from Mexico are really good for America, but these propagandists are simply dupes serving Caesar. So, when we hear any of those professing to be “liberal” touting illegal aliens and Spanish while railing against Caesar, the very least we can credit them for is schizophrenia. Their brains are hard-wired to disconnect from reality and the truth, and in the words of Jesus in reference to those on the Devil’s payroll they “serve a master they know not.”

“Bread and circuses” wasn’t a bad plan for Rome, if you were a citizen, so long as it could be maintained. But it is patently insane to think a fractured America can continue with bread and circuses that satisfy everyone, especially illegal aliens and their supporters. Consider what has happened to America just trying to satisfy the ACLU.

It is all too true apart from a totalitarian police state that to control the masses requires they be kept fed and entertained. In America this requires the masses be drugged, fed, and entertained. But as I recently shared with some friends, I’m now too old to do anything but view the situation in America with melancholy curiosity rather than horrified alarm and share my views in writing. I’m no longer young enough to believe I can change anything substantially for the better, but am forced to concede Pequod America to mad Ahab. However, I will not play the Starbuck to mad Ahab; I will continue to resist him the best I can to the end. And to draw another analogy from the sea I hope a Steve Maryk will come forth to seize control from Captain Queeg in the face of the threatening storm, though I admit it is a very faint hope. In my opinion a better possibility is for a “Seven Days in May,” but with the general succeeding.

It was another close call due to fire here in my area of the Sequoia National Forest in Bodfish Canyon. It wasn’t long ago what was called the Deer Park fire destroyed many homes nearby and threatened my own, and Sunday morning I looked out the front of my place and saw a huge plume of black smoke suddenly erupting just down the road from me. I watched nearly transfixed as within moments the flames fueled by tinder dry weeds and brush and whipped by the wind moved rapidly up the canyon toward me faster than a person could run! Such a fire is an awesome and fearful sight, and makes you acutely aware of how your whole life can be changed in a moment of time by catastrophic events, how you can lose everything, including your life, in an instant.

By the time firemen and equipment began to arrive on scene the acrid smoke was chokingly dense and I could feel the heat of the flames as flying embers swirled about me and my little cottage. Remarkably, I had all the weeds on my property cleared just the day before; and as I watched the dreadful fire racing up the canyon within yards of me I could not help thinking how close I may have come to losing my own home had I not done so. At that, the many trees on my property still posed a hazard should the flames reach any of them, especially the large pine. I have witnessed these heavily pitch-laden pines literally explode like a bomb when subjected to the intense heat of forest fires.

To my good fortune, the whole of Kern County’s fire fighting resources came quickly into play including eight different aircraft dropping water and fire retardant. The sound was deafening as the planes and helicopters flew only about hundred feet directly overhead causing my cottage to shudder and the windows rattle, but this was a comfort under the circumstances as was the several fire trucks filled with personnel parked on my property which became a staging area for fighting the fire. Unlike the earlier fire where I lost all utilities for over two weeks I did not lose power here this time, but the phone lines were burned out preventing my communicating with anyone, and this is a “dead” area in the canyon for cell phones; so, no phone, no email or Internet.

Of course, arson investigators are on scene since so many of these fires are started by malevolent creatures, and while it isn’t known yet how the fire started it may have been a road flare, a favorite tool of arsonists, tossed from a car into the dry brush. But there is no reason known to me why I should be especially favored of the gods that the wind did not suddenly change direction and the fire consume my place. Nor is there any reason known to me why America should be spared the holocaust threatening our nation when Democrat Senator Harry Reid stands before the whole world and calls millions of illegal aliens “Undocumented Americans!” He really said that! This isn’t even political correctness; it is Demonspeak! I believe C. S. Lewis correct in his “Screwtape Letters.” There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that those like Reid are traitors and completely sold out to the Devil! And it is on this basis the despicable traitor Reid finds himself in bed with those like the despicable traitor Caesar Bush bent on betraying and selling out our nation for the sake of empire, power and wealth.

If Caesar Bush has a “legacy” it is becoming painfully apparent to the whole world it has every prospect of being that of Hitler’s scorched earth policy for Germany in the end. Whatever one’s opinion about him, a “vote of confidence” by Caesar Bush as per his obedient lapdog AG Gonzales et al. is the kiss of death to the credibility of anyone. Caesar may as well be some Mafioso giving him a kiss on the cheek prior to the bullet. And Caesar accuses all those opposed to his dictatorial rule of being “unpatriotic” just because we disagree with him! This mad fool and tyrant, this My way or the highway despot would call illegal alien Mexicans “better Americans” than the legitimate citizens of this nation! In the same breath he tells Americans and the rest of the world to trust this purblind tyrant, this latter day Caesar and “give him a chance” on Iraq and immigration! He has had several chances and I’d as soon give Hitler another chance!

I’ll repeat: Impeach Bush and bring the troops home now to secure our borders! But I don’t believe it likely a Congress that is so corrupt it will not deal with the obvious malfeasance of a Gonzales or any corrupt politician or their appointees and refuses to secure our borders and expel illegal aliens will do what is right for America. The selfish, self-interests of these “leaders” is a stench to every real American, but it seems nothing less than that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at DC or LAX has any chance of changing things. Only then might the Federal Triune Dictatorship hold the barbaric and totally corrupt nation of Mexico accountable for its own borders and citizens and get out of bed with barbaric woman-hating Muslims.

Would Fred Thompson choose Colin Powell as his running mate? Listening to Powell recently gives me pause to wonder. God knows we need someone to give us hope for America! Dick Morris has a new book “Outrage.” What real American is not outraged by the traitor Reid calling illegal aliens “Undocumented Americans!” Most of us like Morris, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, and so many others are outraged by a Federal Triune Dictatorship that has no other goal but making all Americans slaves to further empower and enrich the wealthy. But with so many brilliant people writing so many books and columns, doing the talk show circuits, none seem able to reach consensus about what is wrong in America. For example, it doesn’t take Reagan’s amnesty, god rot him!, in favor of slave labor opening the floodgates to endless millions of illegal aliens, “Press one for English,” ballots in foreign tongues, anchor babies, welfare, jails, prisons, failing schools and medical services impacted by millions of illegal aliens and treasonously porous borders for all of us to know the point of Pat Buchanan’s “The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America” is coming to pass before our very eyes. America is beginning to epitomize the dreaded Balkanization that can only lead to outright conflict right here far beyond the barbarians now terrorizing our cities throughout our nation! But wait a moment; our nation? Is it really? Not without a heritage, culture, common language and secure borders, not when the “Latino vote” and Spanish takes precedence over the welfare of America as a sovereign nation and We the People!

But why is the leadership of America so willing to sell out and betray our nation for power and wealth to benefit the very few? Surely, reasonable people ask, these few must know they are the architects of their own destruction in the process. And if not, what can so blind these leaders to the obvious? But it would appear the Devil has the upper hand, and being a liar and the father of lies he owns the universities along with their product politicians, judges, and the MSM that would keep Americans drugged and entertained all the while selling lies and preventing plain speech about things like the invasion from Mexico threatening America, and Satan’s servants like Reid calling these hoards of illegal aliens “Undocumented Americans!” How but Satan to make sense of such patent lunacy? Ah, like the questions swirling about a hereafter, the questions about life and death and a soul, about purpose to even living this is where brilliance must bow to the unanswerable and resort to speculation. But given so many unanswerable questions I think it remiss to discount the supernatural.

I’m glad to hear of any earnest searchers seeking answers that have led to the best of philosophical thought in the process. That there is the ability to even ask the questions is at the very least circumstantial evidence of higher, supernatural powers involved with the universe and life, and many have looked to the Bible in seeking answers. So I’m not about to fault or make light of Paris Hilton reading the Bible, if she declares her search for a spiritual dimension in her life. It is only in this so many find any purpose in living at all. In the end all the “toys” only leave you wondering why you ever thought them of any real importance? In the end like Citizen Kane or Big Daddy you realize the toys had no significance apart from your relationship with others. Harper Lee understood. Little Dill didn’t run away from home because his folks mistreated him, he ran away because they bought him the toys then told him to go away, to leave them alone and play with the toys all by himself. It is with good reason there are some who believe the opposite of love is not hate, but INDIFFERENCE!

One of many of the great benefits of being able to think for yourself is being able to admit of your own ignorance. But it takes a substantial amount of real education in order to be able to do so. For example, among the greatest critics of the Bible are those that have never read it through, let alone really studied it. But many religious critics of science often are guilty of not doing their “homework.” This failure is the result of one of the greatest faults with our educational system in America; the utter lack of transparency and accountability. However, the same fault leading to failure is to be found in politicians and our government.

But it seems America has produced an ignorant and illiterate generation incapable of thinking critically and is hedonistically given over to drugs and entertainment, and certainly incapable of the kind of imagination that used to have its source in the great literature of Western Civilization. However, George Lucas was right. “Radio will never die. It would be like killing imagination.” The script for “Radioland Murders” with a 1939 era setting required it to be said, especially with the demon of TV threatening the future of literacy and corresponding imagination as Ray Bradbury had already observed in “Fahrenheit 451.”

As a lover of good SciFi I enjoy the many thoughts of worlds and things unknown suggested to imagination. So I pity those that desperately cling to a simplistic Darwinism as though they believe science has all the answers while applying the meaningless label of “evolution” to things for which science has no answers all the while choosing to ignore science still does not know what life is or where it came from. Many scientists do not believe earth could have produced life on its own, and intriguing as they are no theories so far has produced any evidence of it originating elsewhere for “transplantation.” But having long ago escaped the tyranny of religion, while the wonders of our earth, solar system, the universe and life cries out God! I am not held bondage to any system of religious thought, and certainly no mere mortal speaks for God as though the Deity or Deities could not speak for themselves. And neither does any mere mortal speak to the issue of what life is and where it came from have anything substantive to support their view of a mindless, chaotic universe without purpose, but such fools unable to even account for what was before the universe will hold forth against those that believe in God or Gods as though they actually had answers to the unanswerable. You cannot know what you cannot know, though there are many pretenders to knowledge in both religion and science.

When it comes to life and death what we are left with is philosophical speculation; no one knows what animates the clay and departs at death. And unless you can answer these questions you have nothing to say in explanation of life and death, of things like Nature red in tooth and claw, of the monsters in human guise preying on women and children, about the evil seeming lunacy that has gripped humankind from the very beginning, and seems set right now on the destruction of America. The very wonder we feel looking up at the stars in the quite literally unimaginable vastness of space, or the discoveries continuing to be made about a living cell should preclude sensible people from pontificating on a Darwinian theme. This much we know for certain: We all die. And none of us knows whether that is the end or whether another dimension of life will open to us. One of the tragedies of humankind has been the monsters that will murder others in the name of some deity, but we are no less at risk from those that would force all to accept their mindlessly mechanistic views the universe, of life and death on others without scientific evidence proof positive for nothing more than their own speculations.

We do not know if what we call “conscience” is a product of mindless connections in the brain, or a distinction between species where there are in fact to be found children of God and children of the Devil. We do know there has to be an explanation for a Francis of Assisi or Albert Schweitzer and the child born to be a bully and murderer that enjoys tearing the heads off birds and inflicting pain on others from the earliest. “Neuroscientists have recently shown that biases in thinking are built into the very way the brain processes information.” The many years I have followed studies in brain function, the very basis of my doctoral studies in Human Behavior, all lead to the conclusion people are “hard-wired” to certain dispositions of beliefs and disbeliefs beyond mere Nurture or Nature.

There has to be more than science has offered so far to explain the lunatics both left and right, to explain the monsters in human guise preying on women and children. It’s all well and good to acknowledge the truth of the dictum “when you have exhausted all the plausible and probable, you look to the implausible and improbable for answers.” But those that put their faith in either science or religion are unwilling to accept the truth of this dictum. The puzzle presented in studies of brain function is whether such people are actually unable to separate what they believe from the truth, are actually unable to accept the truth. Jesus may have been correct in accusing some of his detractors of being children of the Devil and because of this having no love of the truth in them.

It may yet prove to be true that there are children of God and children of the Devil by way of explanation for what studies in neuroscience and brain function are telling us. For my part this would explain our “demon-haunted world,” the monsters among us as well as those like Bush, Kennedy, and Reid along with so many others dedicated to slave labor, dedicated to betraying and selling out our nation and the destruction of America. And while obviously only being a matter of personal speculation in the realm of the supernatural I wonder who but the Devil and his servants would call illegal aliens that shouldn’t even be in America “Undocumented Americans” all the while refusing to hold Mexico accountable for its own borders and citizens and inviting third-world diseases back into our nation that had all but been eradicated? It may yet prove “The Devil made me do it” will be the legacy of Caesar Bush and his complicit Congress.

There is real merit to my suggestion the Padre Hotel in my hometown of Bakersfield be turned into a world-class brothel. The very history of the hotel, its architecture, its list of famous people who have stayed there, all cry out for this historic building to be made into something that declares Bakersfield has come of age with a chance to take its place with the best of world cities.

Ok, so that might be bit of a stretch, but one only has to consider the arguments against such a thing to recognize the schizophrenic hypocrisy that rebels against the suggestion to understand why America is suffering so much at the hands of politicians dedicated to selling out and betraying our nation for the sake of globalization and profits.

It is clear that sex dominates our lives including religion and politics. But unlike other religions such as Islam that dehumanize and demonize women, Christianity at least makes a place for them as human beings, though as Harper Lee pointed out Christian Fundamentalism continues to teach a doctrine that women are unclean and a sin by definition. As to the politics of America, women are still no better than second-class citizens.

So I’m going to say a few words on behalf of the “working girl,” repeating the things I have written in the recent past on her behalf and as justification for my opinion the Padre Hotel offers Bakersfield the chance for greatness:

One of the things I would like to see here in the Kern River Valley and in downtown Bakersfield is a “gentleman’s club,” you know, a brothel. But not just a whorehouse, an upscale nicely appointed palace of vice right out of a Hollywood production. Ideally these places would also provide marijuana legally. Such establishments properly regulated and taxed would be a real boon to local economies.

For that very small minority that might object to such a thing, consider the fact Walt Kelly made so clear in Pogo when discussing the presidential elections a “Vice Party” was suggested and Churchy asks Owl, “Deep down, wouldn’t you be for vice too … given the chance?” My dear brothers and sisters, no matter how you slice it a Vice Party is exactly what both Republicans and Democrats represent. Were these honest vice parties I would find no fault in that. But one of the problems I have with this is politicians of every stripe allow of every kind of vice among themselves including prostitution and illegal drugs, often at taxpayer expense, but hypocritically deny these vices to We the People! And quite frankly this makes me mad as hell! Why should the very vices politicians treat as their personal domain coming with elected office be made illegal and denied ordinary American citizens?

While historians and behavioral scientists have not made it much of an issue, sexual frustration may account for many of the wars of men as well as many of the more noble achievements. After all, for many men and women a cold shower just does not suffice; and much of our history as a species may well be understood in the light of sexual frustration on the part of both men and women.

Now I am all for traditional marriage and families as the foundation of all civilized societies. I am a staunch supporter of the sanctity of marriage, the sacredness of the marriage bed. But I am at least equally opposed to the kind of hypocrisy that denies sex is a normal function of the human species and makes it a crime for relieving one’s sexual frustration by simple mechanism of economics. There is all this foofaraw over abortion, so many women claiming they have the right to determine what to do with their own bodies while at the same time denying the “working girl” the same right. And what of the men in Congress and elsewhere that legislate and pass laws self-righteously denying women this right to their own bodies? Hypocrites!

The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should have included prostitution. After all, this was thriving at the time of the Founding Fathers, it was quite acceptable in most of the civilized societies at the time and throughout history, and it is doubtful the early years of our government could have been successful without a plentiful supply of bordellos. If our early legislators did not see these establishments as threatening to home and hearth, what happened to change their minds? All the other biological functions of the body are carefully attended, enormous amounts being spent on bathrooms for example, why the normal function of sex is suppressed is the stuff of history and books by the thousands.

Of course, in societies where women are made dependent on men, where “poor Jenny, bright as a penny” in the song decides “getting herself a husband is the thing to do” the historical disparaging of prostitution is in full force, and in a world dominated by men it is in their interest to continue subjugating women, refusing the “working girl” equal status with the honorable occupations, which may have something to do with women never achieving the status of equal value to men. Boys will be boys and men will be men, but girls and women dare not be girls and women in the same way. Solomon spouted off about the lack of virtuous women, but apparently didn’t think this standard of virtue should apply to men, an infamous double standard that has held sway throughout the history of humankind.

But in all honesty, why should there be a different standard of “virtue” applied to women than applies to men? Where is the logic in men are expected to be and accepted as “experienced” while women are supposed to be chaste? The purity of womanhood exalted while the man is often held in contempt should he cleave to this same standard.

No one is a stronger adherent to the ideal of romance, to the art that flourishes around the sexual purity of the chaste girl and woman. After all, without this where would most of the great poets and writers find inspiration? Much of my book Birds With Broken Wings has to do with this kind of inspiration of romance. But this does not blind me to the pragmatic facts of the case that the working girl should not be an object of shame and derision because she believes she should have the human right to decide the issue for herself just as any man, that there should be no disparaging of the “fallen woman” while the man escapes any such designation.

However, the historical male dominance that makes whores of women while men have escaped any such pejorative appellation, at the same time denying the same right to women hiring themselves a man to satisfy their normal sexual desire, does make for the steamy novels, plays and films that take full advantage of this dichotomy in most cultures. And the refusal of men to accept women on the same basis they excuse themselves makes for an industry where women pander to the lust of men, making fools of men in the process. But men seem to excuse their foolishness in this regard while penalizing women and holding them in contempt. Consider the man playing the fool exclaiming “I never had to pay for it!” as though that was a proclamation of his “manhood.”

During the Civil Rights marches I watched some Negro men carrying placards declaring “I Am A Man!” But there were no Negro women marching with placards declaring “I Am A Woman!” Well of course not, those men were trying to call attention to the fact they should not be treated as lesser human beings on the basis of the accident of birth giving them the color of their skin. But it did occur to me that such placards just might be appropriate to all women within the same context having to do with equal value on the basis of gender.

Because sex is such a powerful thing, much of religion and politics can only be understood within this context. George Will: “Barney Frank, the 14-term Massachusetts congressman who chairs the Financial Services Committee, says it might be useful to ‘make it a misdemeanor to use metaphors in the discussion of public policy,’ such as ‘a rising tide lifts all boats.’ “

Frank shows his real intelligence in making such a statement. Now if a discussion of all the really important issues of life could be addressed in plain language, if politicians and pundits were forced to say what they mean in plain English without metaphor how much better off America would be. Suppose Caesar Bush were made to say in plain language what he means by “stay the course” for example. Well, in his case he would probably be, in fact, at a loss for words. He apparently doesn’t have much of a vocabulary. But you get my meaning.

How about discussing the issue of sex and prostitution in plain language without any metaphors? I’m willing to bet this article will prompt many to resort to metaphors rather than using plain language addressing the issue. Granted metaphors are safer than plain speech; but some issues are too important to be left to metaphorical language. And no matter what your opinion, sex is definitely too important a subject to be left to pornography and metaphors.

“Booze has its place, but its place is in hell!” Dear old Billy Sunday sure was instrumental in bringing about Prohibition, along with the side product, the unintended consequence of organized crime in America. At that, Prohibition did not make saints of sinners, and the booze continued to flow. And who is so naïve as to believe the wealthy and well-connected became teetotalers because of a silly law? It is silly, when not downright dangerous, to legislate human nature attempting to frustrate the normal desires of human beings. And too often “follow the money” is the only way to interpret such legislation.

Well, the suffragettes marched until women got the vote. Women marched for abortion until they won that battle. But where are the women marching for the rights of women to be prostitutes? Taken within the context of religion and politics, it is admittedly a tad touchy of a subject and I don’t expect many to be jumping on the bandwagon. Nevertheless, wherever men gather they talk about women, and wherever women gather they talk about men; and the topic is sex. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could talk about the subject of prostitution in a civilized manner devoid of all the religion and politics? “Deep down, wouldn’t you be for vice too … given the chance?”

Since I am known as a writer of humor, it was gratifying to receive so many notes from people who got a laugh out of my suggesting I would like to see a “gentlemen’s club” in downtown Bakersfield. While many people commenting understood the significance of my support for legalizing prostitution and treated it with the seriousness such a thing deserves, it was the name “Bakersfield” being associated with a fancy, legal whorehouse that tickled not a few funny bones. And by golly, I’m tired of Bakersfield being the butt of derisive jokes having this image problem and propose doing something about it!

While I was born in Weedpatch, I have always considered Bakersfield my hometown. And I have fond memories of the Dust Bowl folks among whom I was raised, many fond memories of our little church and grocery store on the corner of Cottonwood and Padre, and I know first hand the kind of nobility associated with the best of those Okies and Arkies with their polite southern manners and speech so characteristic of long held traditions of such things.

But let’s face it folks, when anyone says “Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, San Francisco” these names conjure up a certain image. And, when anyone says “Bakersfield” this conjures up a certain image; and it certainly is quite distinct from that of the other cities mentioned. And people are not going to confuse CSUB with Stanford or Berkeley. However, perhaps because of my being born in Weedpatch I may be a tad more conscious of and sensitive to the name of one’s birthplace, and maybe that has something to do with my sticking up for Bakersfield. That said I do understand the importance of perception. And I want to do my bit in changing the perception of Bakersfield.

The progress of civilization owes much to those like Charles Dickens, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck and others, gifted writers who could make the plight of children and working people so touchingly clear it forced politicians to take notice and act. But unlike Karl Marx, the writers in the English and American traditions never lost sight of the need for Emerson’s “strong natures,” those rare people who by brute force overcame enormous obstacles of nature and lesser men, seized power, and once having done so founded dynasties that would eventually lead to the betterment of humankind with civilized families giving rise to the arts, to the true Lady and Gentleman, those without affectation that would lead by virtue instead of the physical force required of their brutish ancestors.

Having graduated from Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, my having lived and loved much of my young adult life among the Lotus Eaters of that Camelot of my youth now only seen in films like “Gidget” I am well qualified to speak knowledgeably about the subject of a whorehouse in Bakersfield.

No one is going to dispute the fact Bakersfield has an image problem, and I’m not going to belabor the many reasons this is the case. But it is time the city fathers, and mothers, came to grips with what is required to change this image of Btown being a harbor of brutish people of brutish ancestors and begin to think seriously about making it a toney town of refined, civilized people with civilized manners and an appreciation for real culture. A “squiggle” isn’t going to do the job, and while I recall the Bakersfield Arch with fondness since it was first constructed so many years ago over Union Avenue, the move to its new location only enhanced the poor image of my hometown. While I love good C&W and have played and sung in some real honky tonks the Arch and Buck Owens, a Crystal Palace only emphasizes the word “Hick.”

But a whorehouse, a real gentleman’s club with all the embellishments of the old Ambassador Hotel with its Coconut Grove, something rivaling Grauman’s Chinese Theater and having its own Walk of Fame, the stars to be named for the most talented of the ladies, a virtual palace gilded inside and out, garishly shouting “Whorehouse!”- Absolutely that would enhance the image of Bakersfield! And when anyone would mention “Downtown” the term would have real significance. And once some minor scruples against the idea have been overcome, I’m certain not a few church leaders would see the wisdom of my suggestion; that is the leaders not of the mindset women should be subservient to men, the kind of “barefoot and pregnant” thinking already associated with the denizens of Bakersfield.

Now I grant you such a world class brothel would generate real interest far beyond the confines of downtown Bakersfield. The city boasts its annual Business Conference but just think of how many more worldwide would attend if they knew they had a world class Pleasure Palace to which they could resort following the conference. The world leaders of corporations would be falling all over each other to attend! If you can relate to the profound philosophy in “Paint Your Wagon” you readily understand my point. Why should local folks have to travel to the Getty for some refinements of civilized culture?

Let’s say some really far-sighted civic leaders in Bakersfield should see the wisdom of my suggestion. Granted it would take real courage to speak out on this and support the idea; but the one thing that more than any other standing in the way of our leaders, whether local, state, or federal taking up for the working girl and acting on my suggestion is the fact politicians do not want the competition in a field they consider their own turf, especially since their idea of “servicing” the public makes a mockery of the legitimate working girl and prostitution as an honorable occupation by comparison.

In George Babbitt of Zenith, Sinclair Lewis showed the power of conformity often leading to the vacuity to be found in American life. In both Main Street and Babbitt, Lewis skewered the axiom “The business of America is business,” an oftentimes poignant satire on the meanness of lives of “quiet desperation” recognized by Thoreau and so many before Lewis put pen to paper. But the genius of Lewis in portraying such lives of quiet desperation led to his being the first American to win a Nobel for literature.

A Community Voice column in the Bakersfield Californian titled “City mustn’t forsake literary heritage” by Gerald Haslam would lead one to think poets are the only writers of note by which a “literary heritage” should be acknowledged. This is the typically elitist thinking that denies the actual literary heritage of America, which is not in its poets but the great writers like Lewis by which America earned its place as a literary nation. A far better measure of Kern County’s literary heritage is to be found in the Weedpatch Memorial Library, to which I have made a modest contribution from some of my own writing.

I am justifiably proud of my literary award from The Writers of Kern. As a “home boy” such an award proves someone from Weedpatch can actually be literate and write well. And I am only one among many in Kern County that are literate and can write well, but when it comes to what is too often only sophistry attempting to pass as “poetry” I have little patience for such pretense; which, of course, brings me to the point for my addressing the issue of a high class whorehouse in Bakersfield. And in the words of JFK I say “why not?” Come to think of it, there have been times when the White House has been host to… but I digress.

No one who knows me well would accuse me of naiveté, least of all when it comes to sex, made unashamedly and indelibly clear in my non-fiction book “Birds With Broken Wings,” some of the stories having to do with “working girls” I have known. And while I believe legalizing prostitution would be the right thing for America, I have no illusions about the prospect for such a thing happening. Still, in that fantasy world where writers often dwell in their heads the images of such a thing happening and what this could mean to American culture conjure up all sorts of fascinating and tantalizing possibilities.

While many writers, Lewis among them, wrote about whorehouses and the prominent role these have always played in American cities since before the Revolution and continuing on to this day, most writers of any stature have been of necessity somewhat circumspect in doing so, knowing well how they might call down the wrath of civic and church leaders were they to be absolutely truthful and candid about the subject. At that, while “gentlemen’s clubs” flourished the very idea that women should be entitled to the equivalent “lady’s clubs” would be anathema. But in all fairness, when it comes to the issue of equality in the best sense of the word there should be no double standards of race, religion, or sex.

Now if Lewis was able to write today on the subject of a high class whorehouse in Bakersfield, a contemporary Zenith peopled by Babbitt’s, I cannot but believe he would find a wealth of material for satire and parody just on the basis of the objections made to such a thing. Btown abounds in pretentiousness, so many attempts to make it a toney town all the while suffering the small town strictures of conformity leading to the vacuity of lives of quiet desperation. In all my years of experience with Kern County in general and Bakersfield in particular there is no escaping the kind of conformity that is much more like Babbitt and Zenith; and this is certainly accentuated here in the Kern River Valley where I now dwell, which is one of the reasons I live in near reclusive isolation from society. Someone of note replying to my first article about a whorehouse in Bakersfield asked, “Why don’t you put that in the Kern Valley Sun?” To which I replied with the words from the song “Oh, that’ll be the day…”

Bakersfield has an image problem. Imagine someone like Haslam expressing any consternation over why Bakersfield “poets” are not taken seriously in the literary world. The first thought that came to my mind when I read the piece was “You have just got to be kidding!” It reminded me of Sam Clemens remarking on the young man claiming to be a poet. “The trouble,” Sam said, “was his trying to get other people to believe he was a poet.” The literary doomsday name Bakersfield aside, one only has to do a search of the status of so-called “poetry” in America today to get the point. There is too much truth to the saying, “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.” There are scams galore in the field of poetry, so-called “contests” of every kind, but just try to find a literary agent for anyone believing they are a poet or legitimate publishing houses looking for poets.

Now I have had book signings at Russo’s Books at the Marketplace. And talk about being surrounded by culture; this is where it is, where the literary folks of Kern County are in their proper environment. But whether Russo’s or any other upscale bookstore in Bakersfield, here you will find the proper environment for lovers of literature; the real cultural elite of Kern County. And one can only be thankful Bakersfield is not being judged and further demeaned on the basis of its “poets.” But one thing I miss is being able to have a cigarette, pipe or cigar with my cup of coffee while discussing literature with others. And I don’t doubt posters of famous literary figures will eventually for the sake of political correctness have their cigarettes, pipes and cigars air-brushed out of existence, much in the same way many famous figures of history and their association with whorehouses is often ignored.

Ah, but if prostitution were legalized and a truly grand Pleasure Palace were to open in Downtown complete with smoking rooms; now that, folks, would be the stuff of dreams. I would then say to literary pretenders in the most politically incorrect language; “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” And it boggles the mind to consider what Sinclair Lewis would write about Bakersfield then. No Zenith of small minded Babbitt’s, but a city with a real claim to grandeur, sophisticated beyond the pretensions of San Francisco.

Granted such a high class whorehouse would be available only to the wealthy, but if prostitution were legal in no time at all other places would be made available to those of modest means. And so long as they were properly legalized with all the protections in place both men and women would be safer than the present system that encourages so much crime and disease.

Few knowledgeable people would disagree with the sentiment and oft expressed opinion that Kern County is a cultural wasteland. It isn’t that my native county has ever suffered a lack of talented and artistic people, some of this wasteland has to do with geography as much as anything else. Then too, our county suffers from a preponderance of low wage earners, too many people on the dole, abysmally low education due in no small part to the county playing host to so many non-English speaking illegal aliens, a host of problems plaguing the county accentuating the difficulties to be overcome; all of these things detrimental to the image of Kern County and the city of Bakersfield.

Ok, so I’m a humorist and I’m having fun pulling a few legs, but faced with such seemingly insurmountable problems to putting Btown on the cultural map, as someone who would like to have justifiable cultural pride in my native county and hometown, when I cast about in my mind what could be done to change our image a world class brothel, fitted and appointed with great art and décor, seemed more plausible than attempting anything else. The nattering nabobs of negativism are quickly circling the wagons, opposing such a thing. Preachers will take to pulpits denouncing the very idea of such a thing; civic leaders will expound on how preposterous the whole idea is, how it would be a shame and disgrace all the while ignoring the fact politicians avail themselves of illicit sex and drugs often at taxpayer expense. But wouldn’t it be fun to see editorials discussing the merits or lack thereof of such a thing. That alone would be sure to draw attention to Btown from the rest of the country. Ah, the hypocrisy of it all. It is the stuff of great literature like that of Sinclair Lewis, denouncing such hypocrisy and small minds.

There wasn’t any TV in homes when the D-Day landings in Normandy took place. Listening to radio accounts of this momentous event sixty-three years ago required imagination ever as much as any of the other programs we listened to, but having been at war since December 7, 1941 all of us were aware Americans were dying on those beaches. And the reality of that accentuated by so many homes displaying those small pieces of fabric with their blue and gold stars hanging in windows throughout America only contributed to our imagining the horrors those in our military were facing. But actual events of the war were heavily censored, including the descriptions of battles given us by radio; so imagination filled the void.

With the advent of a TV in every home and instant satellite communications I’ve wondered how D-Day would have been covered for transmission to those of us on the Home Front. Even now with our troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, are we getting the truth of the matter or are we to be left to our imagination. I doubt our government during that Normandy landing would have allowed those of us at home being shown the horrifying slaughter taking place on those beaches. And there is no doubt in my mind the present government is even more reluctant to allow Americans to know the truth, whether about the wars ongoing or anything else. So, we are left to our imagination. However, because of TV imagination is increasingly in short supply, the kind of imagination that can only be engaged, inspired and exercised by other than visual images on a monitor.

But as the candidates of both parties posture and pose, cookie-cutter mannequins none of whom respond to specific questions with specific answers We the People are left to our imagination to fill in the blanks. And as Americans decline in their ability to exercise their imagination, this leaves a void that politicians take full advantage of. This is a danger addressed by SciFi writers such as Ray Bradbury and George Orwell among others.

It isn’t the first example of the genre that leaps to mind, but the earliest SciFi book readily available to me as a child was the Bible. Years later I would recognize this characteristic of the Bible in the stories by Isaac Asimov, who in fact wrote his own commentaries on the Bible that exhibited a high degree of theological scholarship, and I continue to recommend his books on the subject of Biblical studies. Eventually I learned many like Asimov had found SciFi inspiration through their knowledge of the Bible, which credits Psi, other worlds, dimensions, extraterrestrials, the warping of time/space among other staples of science fiction.

As a child growing up reading the stories not only of the Bible, but those of Jules Verne and early SciFi writers of note, though they were few compared with what would follow, such reading did prepare me for appreciating Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and even Dick Tracy would eventually get into the realm of SciFi with such things as a two-way wrist radio and some of the near-extraterrestrial villains for example.

The better writers of SciFi have generally been able to provide stories that have been an adumbration of future events. One such story I read nearly fifty years ago described a planet with an orbiting object the size of a softball whizzing around the planet so near its surface it was used to execute malefactors. Now we read “Oddball planet puzzles astronomers. Mammoth orb whips around parent star in fewer than four days. Space.com. May 31, 2007. HONOLULU - A team of amateur and professional astronomers has discovered a mammoth orb more than 13 times the mass of Jupiter that whips around its parent star in fewer than four days and is considered an ‘oddball’ planet among its exoplanet relatives.”

Whether good SciFi or any other writing of merit the absolute necessity of imagination is of paramount importance, so when I wrote of George Lucas pointing out the mesmerizing “demon TV” toward the end of his story “Radioland Murders” it was in recognition of the harm he knew this medium has done to literacy and imagination. Ray Bradbury thought radio led to people becoming less literary. When I first read Fahrenheit 451 I realized he, as later with Lucas, was really concerned about TV being a far greater threat to a literary America than any form of censorship, though critics early on misinterpreted him and continued to do so. The May 30 article in LA Weekly should disabuse all the critics. Bradbury clearly states his story was concerned with the danger to literacy posed by TV, not censorship.

The reason so many were led to supporting the view Bradbury was telling a story warning of censorship was that of Melville’s comment “The truth, it don’t pay.” Those trying to make Fahrenheit 451 all about censorship were “wolf at the door” mindset writers that had to earn a living; and if this meant prostituting themselves in order to feed the ever widening maw of the mindless entertainment of TV rather than work of literary merit the fearsome bugbear of “censorship” must be held at bay. Comparing TV today with that of fifty years ago shows how successful the purveyors of mindless entertainment including mindless gratuitous sex and violence have been.

Those the age of Bradbury have the experience to realize the dangers to literacy the electronic media and TV pose to America. And expressing his concern back in 1953, Bradbury had America becoming a thoroughly illiterate nation and books were banned and burned because they posed a threat to the established order, an order made possible by illiteracy and TV. We have now come to the point I mentioned in earlier writing where drugs, illiteracy, and TV are the enslaving elements of Big Brother. Having left off reading books, Americans are now held captive by drugs, illiteracy, TV, and a concomitant lack of imagination. And as I was telling parents back in the 60s, there was no way for teachers and books to compete with TV.

Those of us like Bradbury sharing a love of books and libraries are acutely aware of how close we are to actually becoming automatons complete with in-ear radios and interactive TV as he describes in his novel, of the loss of imagination leading to the loss of introspective questioning of the established order as discovered by Montag. “Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.” The end of the story has those like Montag arising like the Phoenix to rebuild, but in my opinion there will be no opportunity for a Phoenix to arise from the ashes of the nuclear storm now threatening humankind.

The loss of a literary America, the loss of reading books that inspired the imagination of those who built America is inviting the very thing Bradbury feared. Take for example the failure of our leadership to deal with the greatest threat to America, the threat of our lack of secure borders and the invasion by Mexico for the sake of slave labor. Here is a brief note sent by Ron Paul:

Border Security and Immigration Reform. The talk must stop. We must secure our borders now. A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked. This is Ron Paul’s six point plan:

1. Physically secure our borders and coastlines. We must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country before we undertake complicated immigration reform proposals.

2. Enforce visa rules. Immigration officials must track visa holders and deport anyone who overstays their visa or otherwise violates U.S. law. This is especially important when we recall that a number of 9/11 terrorists had expired visas.

3. No amnesty. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 million people are in our country illegally. That’s a lot of people to reward for breaking our laws.

4. No welfare for illegal aliens. Americans have welcomed immigrants who seek opportunity, work hard, and play by the rules. But taxpayers should not pay for illegal immigrants who use hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services.

5. End birthright citizenship. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the incentive to enter the U.S. illegally will remain strong.

6. Pass true immigration reform. The current system is incoherent and unfair. But current reform proposals would allow up to 60 million more immigrants into our country, according to the Heritage Foundation. This is insanity. Legal immigrants from all countries should face the same rules and waiting periods. ronpaul.meetup.com/197/

Here is Fred Thompson’s take on some issues:

Iraq war: We should win it. That radical faction declared war on us a long time ago.

Abortion: Roe v Wade is a classic example of how the courts should NOT be permitted to legislate social policy.

Gun control: The other 9 amendments are all accepted as applying to the rights of an individual. Why do any oppose this being true of the second amendment?

Gay rights: States should make laws regarding this that reflect the will of their people. The federal government should not have a position on it.

Border control: Secure the border, first, before any talk about immigration reform.

Immigration: Start by enforcing the current laws. Continue by penalizing employers and housing providers. If the illegals have no reason to come here, they’ll stop.

Agree or disagree, most of these things need to be done, and despite the obvious need of these things I fear they will not be done because those in power like Bush and the majority in Congress are owned by those profiting from globalization and our treasonously open borders. But a mindless nation lacking imagination enslaved by drugs, illiteracy, and TV is unable to stand up to those like Bush and Congress.

Certainly religions like Islam flourish by keeping people enslaved by ignorance and superstition. Good books such as those Henry Thoreau hoped would enable humankind to at last scale heaven itself have been denied Muslims. But Western Civilization, especially America is facing being enslaved by its own illiteracy as we abandon our great heritage of great literature.

“American Graffiti” worked for George Lucas; “Radioland Murders” did not. Born in 1947 and with a Modesto background Lucas lived the experiences of 1973 including the emphasis on cars, but he missed being raised with American radio of 1939 and actually experiencing this. However, it has been rumored Lucas refused to make another Star Wars film until his pet project of several years Radioland Murders (1994) was made. A commercial failure at the box office, it grossed only $1,299,060 upon its original release here in the U.S.

The failure of RM was primarily two-fold. It required absolute focused attention, something made very difficult because of the high-energy, frenetic slapstick and dialog, and only those of the radio generation could relate to the whole film. Attempting to make a success of such a film to the TV generation incapable of such focused attention and lacking the required background was an exercise in futility.

Notwithstanding its commercial failure and being panned by critics, RM is one of my favorite films because I did live the time represented and can relate to the whole movie. Radio was one of the reasons I can say my generation experienced the very best America has ever had to offer; the best of the culture, music, literature, films our nation ever produced, all of which went into the making of The Greatest Generation, the kind of Norman Rockwell generation that loved and believed in America and as a result could fight and win WWII.

What Lucas attempted to do was reach back to a time of the genuine goodness and innocence that actually existed here in America despite its manifold shortcomings. But what he actually did because he understood it far better than that era he missed by ten years is best represented at the end of the film when he has Lieutenant Cross say to the two cops who are mesmerized by the test pattern on that TV monitor, “Hey; I’m talkin’ to you guys.” It was this scene that told audiences why Lucas felt such a deep obligation to making the film. He had not lived the golden age of radio, but he knew the kind of sociological demon TV represented and RM was his attempt to pay homage to the best of what America had been as represented by radio, and represented by his own parents of that radio generation. And given his own genius Lucas knew the imagination radio required of people, the kind of technicians, writers, and talent required to make radio successful to the imagination and had been lost to the TV generation.

The high-energy slapstick of RM as a comedy belies the personal obligation Lucas felt to make the film a sober commentary on what America has lost of those things that made us a great nation, much of this our once being able to laugh at ourselves, this explaining why he felt the need to make the story a comedy, one in which the dark side of the “Force” would be subtle. And his pointed comment of the dark side of the Force by way of two cops mesmerized by a TV monitor was his way of lamenting the passing of an America that would never be again, an America and a time that may eventually be known only as the Camelot of fable with only a dwindling few like myself who lived it to tell the actual story of an “America once upon a time” and now fast fading to only a memory.

Tomorrow will be June 6, the date we commemorate the 1944 landing of allied forces in Normandy. I can easily relate to George Lucas wanting to hold on to the goodness of America, the best of what America has represented in the past. The moral traditions show through all his films, but the melancholy loss of my generation that knew and experienced that America now fading into fable, the loss of so many lives sacrificed to what America has now become because of a thoroughly corrupt government dedicated to globalization and profits cries out as a story to be told.

Because of my belonging to that generation of storytellers where imagination reigned supreme, I can easily imagine myself setting with other elders of my tribe just as my Cherokee ancestors telling our children of a land that used to be. But that English side of my family demands the story not just be told, but written as a testament of the truth about a land that used to be. George Lucas tried, and I’m grateful for his effort, but he was born ten years too late to do other than pay homage to radio and call attention to those two cops sitting in front of a TV monitor.

No, I don’t mean politicians except as a metaphor since they come readily to mind. But not many people have had the experience of slaughtering hogs, and fewer yet doing so with a 600 pound hog in a wilderness environment without utilities like electricity or running water. Grandad having killed the pig, we hung it by a single-tree from a large pine on the mining claim. Boiling water in a 55 gallon drum over a wood fire, the hog had to be lowered one half at time for scalding before being able to scrap the hair off the hide. I will spare readers the other gross difficulties encountered when having to deal with butchering such a large hog under primitive circumstances.

This boyhood story came to mind while considering how difficult it is going to be to change the direction our leadership is taking America. The difficulties of butchering a 600 pound hog under primitive conditions such as those on the mining claim were enormous, but they were overcome by hard work and ingenuity, something Americans of my generation were used to. But no less effort will be required to change the direction America is being taken by corrupt politicians and their corporate masters. The problem is there are too few Americans who ever had to slaughter a huge hog and butcher it in a wilderness setting. And I doubt many of the talking heads and empty suits on TV are qualified by experience to know what is required.

For example, while surfing the news last night I caught a segment of Hannity and Colmes and paused because they were discussing Fred Thompson. It was when Colmes asked a Republican strategist if she considered Thompson “the big white hope?” I was startled! He really said that! Certainly FOX news accommodates the in your face liberal Jewish (which he flaunts or I wouldn’t mention it) Colmes as their poster boy for “fair and balanced.” But this struck me as so blatantly racist I could scarcely believe my ears! It wasn’t the low class vulgarity of Imus, the snake oil of Sharpton and Jackson, it was typical of the far left that would demonize anyone not agreeing with their agenda ever as much as Bush accuses anyone disagreeing with his wars and immigration agenda of not being patriots.

A slip of the tongue by Colmes? Not likely; that would have been “the great white hope,” something having long ago found itself into the American vocabulary from the 1910 contest between Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion, and Jim Jeffries, “the great White Hope of the Western World.” So what did Colmes really mean? Just what he said in such a racist and derogatory phrase; the big white hope. But then, no one expects those like Colmes to treat Fred Thompson or any other conservative Caucasians kindly.

While pleasant, even idyllic at times, life was not easy here on the mining claim in the Kern River Valley back in the 40s. As a boy I lived for the fishing and hunting before the lake went in and things began to become “civilized,” but living without electricity or indoor plumbing, having only a wood cook stove and fireplace for cooking and heating, a hand-dug well for water made life very hard in many ways. But there is no experience that can equal such living to give you a sense of the real priorities in life; that teaches the meaning of what real work just to survive consists of.

There is no doubt in my mind America still has many Americans willing to do the work Caesar Bush claims we won’t do as justification for his pushing the invasion and colonization of America from Mexico for the sake of slave labor. But then those like Bush and Colmes never had to deal with the kind of hard work those like me grew up doing. If they had, perhaps they wouldn’t be so anxious to sell out and betray America. I do wonder, though, if it ever crossed the mind of Colmes to refer to Bush as “the big white hope.” Perhaps he was suggesting Fred Thompson should campaign under that banner.