The last and all too brief conversation I had with local historian Bob Powers here in the Kern River Valley happened to touch on the small library in “Old Kernville.” There are few of us left here in the valley to recall that first excursion our principal Mr. Wallace took us on to visit the small library, but I will never forget it. Reminiscent of the library in Spencer’s Mountain, our own had a somewhat similar beginning due to those with a love of books.

Next to exploring my forest fastness, sharing it with my companions of birds and animals, because of being immersed in good literature from earliest childhood I had a love of being surrounded by books; another world of exploration inviting me to take part that never failed of wonderful discoveries. However, it was appropriate the first book I should choose from our little newly birthed local library had to do with geology so I could better understand this part of the Sequoia National Forest I came to call “home.”

During a period of our young lives when teachers weren’t even real humans, but near paranormal beings that only appeared during school hours and mysteriously disappeared at the last bell of the school day to some peculiar ethereal and nether world of their own beyond the kin of children Mr. Wallace was an exception. That first year of Mr. Wallace in the valley, he immediately impressed all of us at Old Kernville Elementary with his good humor and earnest concern for our education. He also introduced some of us to one of the first TV sets in the valley, taking our class to his home to watch one of the games of the 1949 World Series.

During a period of valley history before the “Dam people” arrived to swell the numbers and Isabella had a population of 36 and Kernville 115, the cultural amenities were few, so our little library was a real godsend to us and Mr. Wallace made sure we made good use of it. A personal debt I owe Mr. Wallace was his hiring me as the only “Junior Custodian” for the elementary school when I started high school. I earned the then princely sum of $35 a month for cleaning floors, restrooms, and blackboards, this at a time when I was using an ax, saw, shovel, and pick for $1 an hour. You can well imagine my gratitude toward Mr. Wallace.

But there was something else besides our library of genuine culture introduced to the valley at the time: A school band.

Mr. Swadburg was our music instructor, and he made it possible for me to buy my clarinet, a genuine French Leblanc from Fred Gutcher’s Music Store in Bakersfield. I had dreamed of learning to play the clarinet from earliest memory, no doubt influenced by those old Benny Goodman movies. But there was magic in simply holding that magnificent, beautiful ebony and silver instrument in my hands; and to call it my own was a dream realized. Learning to play it, however, was quite something else.

Many of you doubtless have seen the film “The Music Man” with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. And no doubt you got a kick out of Professor Howard Hill’s bamboozling the folks of River City with his “Think System” of learning to play a musical instrument. Well, I could have disabused the folks of River City in short order from my own experience.

As with knowledge, I quickly found out there was no “royal path” to learning to play the clarinet. It took hours of daily practice, hours of daily learning to read music and running scales endlessly. This was a lot of self discipline for any kid, but I was determined to master this beautiful instrument; I was determined to make beautiful music with it. And as President Coolidge pointed out, there is no substitute for perseverance.

Eventually our small band was able to make music, and our first public performance given at the Elementary School was very well attended. Everybody who could possibly come did so. I doubt any theatrical opening on Broadway enjoyed such a turn out, statistically speaking. And I doubt any performers were more equal to the task than we were at this debut of a real school band. Under Mr. Swadburg’s direction we made music; and it was beautiful music!

As with good literature, good music had always been a part of my life. My grandmother played piano marvelously and my mother had a wonderful collection of records of the most popular music of WWII, those terrific melodies and songs that continue to be played and sung today. But it wasn’t until after our performance at the school while grandad was driving us home that I learned something about the privilege I unconsciously enjoyed being raised by music lovers like my mother and grandparents.

“You know son,” my grandfather said to me, “you practicing on that clarinet every day nearly drove me crazy. But listening to you in that band tonight made it all worthwhile.”

Perhaps you can imagine how proud I was at grandad’s praise. It was seldom given, but when it was I knew it was earned. Only then did I realize, however, how much my grandparents sacrificed in order for me to make music. Those interminable hours of practice running scales, difficult as they were for me had to have been extremely difficult for my grandparents to endure without complaint.

But there was something else I learned along with learning to play the clarinet, something I carried with me into my career as a teacher. There are few things comparable to a child learning to play a musical instrument. The sense of achievement is enormous, the sense of self worth, of self esteem together with being able to make music is a lesson I wish were available to all children.

However, the music should be melodious, not a cacophony of noise with the pretense of “music.” As with good books, if children are introduced to good music in the home they will respond accordingly. It is a sad, if not tragic commentary about the times in which we live that both good books and good music are a rarity in too many homes across America, that the music programs in our schools are so undervalued, if they exist at all. Yet the appreciation of good books and good music remain a valid judgment about a truly civilized society.

Expressing one of my occasional flights of fancy how about going from First Lady to President? And I mean our present First Lady. In considering Laura Bush as President several things come to mind, not the least of titillating prospects is a presidential campaign pitting Laura Bush against Hillary Clinton, the ultimate “cat fight.” Who wouldn’t agree this would make for the most interesting presidential campaign America has ever experienced? Why, the choice of running mates alone would fill the vast wasteland of TV with mountains of speculation!

For those who might be a tad too quick to discount this, consider Paint Your Wagon. When the idea of auctioning off Jean Seberg to one of the miners is raised her Mormon husband cautions her she doesn’t know what she might be getting, to which she replies, “No, but I know what I’ve had.” Folks, we know what we’ve had and it may be high time a woman took over the Oval Office! Of course, Laura would have to banish her husband to Crawford for the sake of any campaign; and probably thereafter if she should win. As for Hillary, God only knows!

Well certainly it’s fanciful on my part; but hey, who wouldn’t be lining up for tickets to such an event! It would make the Oscars and every TV show pale by comparison. But fanciful or not, I hereby claim the book and film rights to the idea.

It was while entertaining this whimsical thought something Emerson wrote came to mind: “Beauty is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world.”

Now I would be the last to fail to recognize it is women in their best estate who not only exercise a civilizing influence upon men, but also provide the inspiration for men as poets, composers and artists. After all, men don’t send other men flowers or sing songs of praise to their “beauty” as men. But the ugly fact remains that men make wars and women make homes. As ugly the indictment and condemnatory of our species, the truth of this cannot be legitimately denied.

In the meanest of circumstances, a “woman’s touch” may be found in the humblest surroundings. It may be only a single flower or a patch of colored material, but the civilizing attempt at some beauty in life announces the touch of a woman. It is this that credits the real intellect of women as opposed to that of men. Why, then, should women take exception to the comments by those like Harvard’s L. H. Summers? Because he put the difference between men and women regarding intellect in too narrow a perspective; and I doubt he was capable of doing otherwise. To put his comments in proper perspective Summers would have had to acquiesce to the judgment of the intellect: “Beauty is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world,” and men make wars and women make homes.

Given the truth of this, when children are immersed in ugliness it is vain to expect them to exercise their intellect. And what is true of children is no less true of adults. A field of flowers, rather than asphalt and concrete encourages the intellect; beautiful music and literature rather than ugliness under the pretense and guise of “reality” attempting to supplant beauty.

When the universities of America began to substitute a perversion of “reality” for beauty, our nation began to lose its way. Thoreau was close to the truth of the matter commenting on “goodness tainted” being “divine carrion,” the example in the Bible being the fall of Satan through ego. Were he alive today Henry would doubtless have been of my mind that war in the heavens between deities brought to earth resulted in the ongoing struggle between Good and Evil, the struggle of the intellect to follow in the path of beauty as the evil continues on a path of corruption of beauty denying the intellect the opportunity to study the world.

Jesus pointed to the lilies of the field, which he declared put Solomon in all his glory to shame. The Apostle Paul in the first chapter of Romans described the marring of beauty by the corruption of idol worship and sexual perversion. It is the perversions of ego, the lust of the flesh, the lust for power and wealth that together denies the intellect the opportunity to study the world, perversion in its various forms being the enemy of truth and beauty.

In this lies the danger of humankind destroying itself by nuclear annihilation. Were the intellect in power pursuing its proper course of beauty, rather than perversion, there would be no danger. The intellect pursues beauty, but the beast of perversion pursues destruction.

The fine manners so exquisitely put forth by Sir Walter Scott and others, the courtly manners of the antebellum South became “quaint” and “anachronistic” by those supplanting beauty with the corruption of civilized manners, increasingly encouraging things ugly and antithetical to beauty. As a consequence, true intellectualism began to suffer and decline, and those who attempted to defend beauty began to be the objects of ridicule and ostracism. Our nation’s heritage of great literature began to be supplanted by trash, and Hollywood followed suit, TV now bearing the imprimatur of corruption flaunting ugliness of every description, desecrating beauty and denying the intellect.

It really is as simple as Jesus would have it, that no one can serve two masters. You will serve beauty or you will serve ugliness, you will nourish the intellect or you will feed the brute.

But is it only a flight of fancy on my part to envision a White House under Laura Bush in which the “woman’s touch” might prove to be the kind of needed intellectualism by which Beauty in its proper form would be the paradigm for studying the world?

Of a certainty the harsh reality of men being “war lovers” would remain. However, could a woman as President be essential to America in order to bring the needed intellectual sanity of a woman’s touch and appreciation of Beauty to an otherwise barren and increasingly failing political landscape?

We the Great Unwashed have vented our anger and frustration with the imperial rule of the present White House and Congress. Too late one of the most infamous of insiders, Rumsfeld, is being sacrificed in an attempt to defray the damage done by an administration and Congress that history will record the worst America has ever suffered. However, Caesar Bush must have a medal somewhere to confer upon Rumsfeld. But I doubt this will deter Democrats from going after the criminals like Rumsfeld putting America at risk of a War Crimes Tribunal, and if Caesar is now seen as weaseling there is good cause for his doing so.

The problems Democrats now face in any attempt to go after Republican criminals is the fact the Dems are too dirty themselves, and the question now is whether anything will change for the better following this election. Most of us can be excused for our doubts, not the result of pessimism but the result of knowing politicians remain politicians no matter their promises which amounts only to posturing and pandering to get elected, and then using elected office as a license to steal. Greed and avarice knows no political affiliation but is common to all those that lust for power and authority over others.

The losses of Michael Steele and Kinky Friedman were among my several disappointments. But here in my native state I was happy to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger and protecting children from the monsters preying on them. However, in a world dominated by war lovers and bullies thirsting for nuclear weapons, an America hated by Muslims and without secure borders to frustrate nuclear terrorism and allowing illegal aliens to flow across our borders by the thousands daily who will put America first? None in the present leadership; and I doubt there will be any in the new leadership. Politicians will continue to be politicians, driven by the most base of motives.

For example, as a politician it served Lincoln’s purpose to use Negroes as cannon fodder, but his own expressed opinion was Negroes would never be the equal of Caucasians, and he wondered at Negro leaders refusing his offer of a homeland of their own. Why, he wondered, would Negroes choose to live where they would be hated, would never be considered of equal value to Caucasians?

To the civilized mind it is utterly abhorrent that any could actually believe, even preach from church pulpits that a person could actually “own” another human being. But as Henry Thoreau pointed out in respect to wage slavery “It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one…” And because of our Constitution being usurped and “interpreted” in ways so foreign to the clear intent of our Founding Fathers such as America being a Christian nation we now live with the resulting welfare slavery, one of the results of Lincoln’s War, the attempt at national suicide with a needless 600,000 casualties, that has become a way of life for so many, robbing and cheating so many of basic human dignity, even to the point of rewarding illegitimate births with a bigger welfare check as long as there is no father to support the resulting babies. But as with the period following the death of Lincoln where servants of the Devil pandered for Negro votes, so it goes today. But today the pandering is extended to Mexicans and perverts also.

There is nothing to commend the present crop of politicians, or those of years past that have made their contributions to destroying the America so many sacrificed and died to preserve, certainly not the nearly venerated Ronald Reagan who opened the floodgates to the millions of illegal aliens invading America. And nothing good can be said of Clinton who pardoned 600 crooks to feather his own nest. Republican or Democrat, all sell out and betray America because they will not put America ahead of their own lust for power and authority, their own greed and avarice driven motives.

The wholesale betrayal of America by the present White House and Congress follows an infamous history of such betrayal by their predecessors, and despite this election I doubt We the People can expect anything else than more of the same. Let’s see any of these politicians do anything substantive in securing our borders for example. How many will stick up for an American identity, for our national heritage and culture, our language, and address in a meaningful way the many things such as the invasion by Mexico threatening our nation.

For those of us old enough to recall an America that was once trusted by the other nations of the world, a Norman Rockwell America that could be counted on to come to the aid of the underdog and pulled together against the Axis Powers literally saving the world from falling into barbarism it is a bitter thing to see what politicians and their corporate bosses have done to betray that America. But, alas, that America into which I was born and raised cannot be explained any more than one can explain love and romance.

Literally thousands of books have been written on the subject, but books cannot explain the America I once knew. Better than books, the films of the past come closest to an explanation, those old films made by a Hollywood that had pride in America and devoted so much of its efforts to reinforcing that pride.

My mother was a real lover of films and Hollywood, and she would take my brother Ronnie and me to see a great many films. We learned to appreciate George Raft, John Garfield, Abbott and Costello, The Bowery Boys, Laurel and Hardy, and Sherlock Holmes films, and Musicals like the ones with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. I’ll never forget seeing Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man. They were great scary movies. And I’ll never forget seeing Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. That was a really swell movie; Elizabeth Taylor was such a beautiful girl and Mickey Rooney was one of my favorite actors. But mom would take us to see serious movies as well. I especially remember movies about Madame Curie and Louis Pasteur.

Grandad would deliver Ronnie and me to the Nile or Fox Theater for Saturday cartoon matinees in Bakersfield. Ronnie and I loved cartoons and I’ll never forget seeing Snow White and Bambi; they were wonderful cartoon movies. But the only movie I remember grandad distinctly taking Ronnie and me with him to see was Cabin in the Sky. It had some great music, and the story about the devil and the angel fighting over a man’s soul really fired my imagination.

Two especially terrific movies came out in 1939: Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Even as young as we were, Ronnie and I thought they were great, especially the really magical one with Judy Garland. Even mom seemed to really like The Wizard of Oz. We enjoyed seeing movies with mom; she seemed to like the same ones that Ronnie and I did, and we could depend on her to pick ones that were good. But for some reason, I never cared for Charlie Chaplin, The Three Stooges, or The Marx Brothers. But I liked W.C. Fields.

Sometime in 1941, our mother took us to a movie titled High Sierra. A man named Humphrey Bogart played in it. Mom cried at the ending, and said she just knew the movie would make him a star. But I mostly remember a beautiful girl in the movie. Her name was Ida Lupino. I felt sorry for her at the end. She was hurt in some way I didn’t understand, and it didn’t seem fair somehow. She hadn’t done anything wrong, I didn’t think.

Gone now are the great musicals and films reflecting a national ethos of pride in our nation when Americans were filled with hope and optimism. In their place are the films filled with brutality and despair, of violence against women and children, films glorifying perversion of every description. While some will accuse me of a melancholy nostalgia for the past, few would disagree Hollywood in too many ways reflects political realities. And it is those realities that speak volumes of America’s decline into barbarism, realities that are making America weak and fragmented into the many groups demanding special privilege on the basis of race and perversion rather than a nation of unhyphenated Americans.

Patrick Henry: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

Clearly the enemies of America would have it otherwise, but Patrick Henry expressed very clearly the intent of our Founding Fathers. But how did we come to such a sorry pass we have a president that expects Americans to learn Spanish rather than Mexicans learn English? Patrick Henry would have a few words for Caesar Bush on this score and a host of others. But then, Caesar isn’t known for his knowledge of American history. In this he is the “equal” of most university graduates including Kerry and Kennedy, and the ACLU that dispute the intent of our Founding Fathers, if they even know of their intent that America be founded a Christian nation.

The history of America is no longer taught in the universities and their product schools across America. Gone the way of the McGuffey Reader, though still used in some private schools and in some home schools, so went the teaching of America’s history and its founding as a Christian nation.

Nowhere was it ever in the mind of Thomas Jefferson to contradict Patrick Henry’s declaration. The text of Thomas Jefferson’s Jan 1, 1802 letter, called the Wall of Separation Letter has been bastardized and perverted to hermaphroditic support of the agenda of those like the infamous ACLU and an allied Supreme Court. But the court itself was bastardized and perverted following Lincoln’s War during that infamous period of our history euphemistically labeled “Reconstruction,” during which time scoundrels usurped the Constitution in order to punish and plunder a defenseless South. In his definitive history of this period Professor Claude G. Bowers calls it rightly “The Tragic Era,” and one from which America never recovered resulting in a Federal Triune Dictatorship.

The utter fallacy of the universities and their products preaching a Satanic “gospel” that America was not founded a Christian nation flies in the face of the historical evidence and the actual thinking and writing of our Founding Fathers. But We the People do not find the Supreme Court making decisions based on the clear intent of our Founding Fathers in our Constitution as expressed by Patrick Henry. On the contrary, the Supreme Court has danced to the tune of the ACLU in attempting to destroy every vestige of the clear intent of our Founding Fathers that America be a Christian nation, and by the corrosive bastardizing of the intent of a “wall of separation” between Church and State the enemies of America have been successful in ignoring or twisting and distorting the intent of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution. How like the Devil to take good intentions and make them serve the purpose of evil.

But when it suited that high court to find in favor of desegregation that was a different matter. When Plessy v. Ferguson was challenged by attorneys for the NAACP led by later Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall during the Supreme Court litigation of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Marshall was told to get into the minds of the framers of the Constitution and prove their intent in order to make his case against “separate but equal.” This had become a travesty and Negro schools were anything but the equal of Caucasian schools, but it was never in the minds of the Founding Fathers anymore than that of Lincoln that Negroes and Caucasians be forced together by judicial fiat.

However, we would wait in vain for those in the high court demanding anyone “get into the mind” of the Founding Fathers supporting Patrick Henry. In so many ways is America being made to pay the price of forsaking our heritage and culture and suffering now under a Federal Triune Dictatorship refusing to make English our national language by law; refusing to secure either our borders or our ballots.

University bred political correctness does not allow of the truth, but will punish those who speak the truth. I would vote for a good person rather than bad irregardless of race; and millions of Americans are of the same mind despite all the hateful rhetoric engendered by media, politicians, and the ACLU using terms like “racist” and “homophobic,” though the latter is laughable by definition.

In the typically satanic rhetoric of “fairness” and “equality” the Devil’s doctrines of “multiculturalism” and “diversity” preached in the universities have stolen our heritage and culture as Americans, attacking our language and our sovereign right to secure borders.

But We the People are not being offered good people, people of proven virtue as leaders. And because of the Satanic success of taking the best of intentions and in the hands of evil persons turning good into evil we no longer have a Supreme Court following the intent of our Founding Fathers, but rather sits in judgment of America not seeming to realize that by betraying the clear intent of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution this court has been turned into “Satan’s Seat.”

Those who ask someone why they don’t attend church and meet with the criticism “There are too many hypocrites” should never reply, “There’s always room for one more.” With many years of experience in the churches hypocrisy comes as no surprise to me. Ted Haggard is only the latest of a long line of such hypocrites reaching back to Ananias and Sapphira. But if the Holy Spirit were still slaying hypocrites like this ignoble couple a mortician would be needed on standby in every church.

When I was deeply involved with the churches and active in the ministry I became acquainted with the expression “I would have more if God could trust me with more.” I found this to be true only of those capable of looking deeply enough into their own hearts to recognize the meaning of the “deceitfulness of riches” and work diligently on a conscience honest before both God and men. For such people there is a necessary mistrust of riches and of multiplying things that will only perish in the using, the “toys” with which so many people fill their lives.

“Put not your trust in princes” has always been good advice. For my part it comes down to the cautionary words of Jesus that the real prophets of God do not wear soft clothing or live in palaces. Further, I continue to be convinced anyone that wants power and authority over others for whatever reason must bargain with the god of this world, the Devil, in order to gain such power and authority. Politicians sell out early and cheaply and the Devil offers bargain rates to such. But the churches are in little better case when it comes to “big bug preachers,” and while the Roman Church is notorious for harboring pervert priests preying on children all too often do the Baker’s, Swaggart’s, and Haggard’s come to be the face of evangelical churches.

But when it comes to hypocrisy, Judas remains the “standard” by which all hypocrites are measured. Perhaps because of having reached my allotted three score and ten, the image of Jesus being betrayed by a kiss is a forceful one. Sam Clemens expressed the thought the only pure and unalloyed gift of God was death. Philosophical speculation easily leads to questioning whether love is the cruelest of all human emotions, since it is so often subject to betrayal whether by the death of a loved one or the kiss of a Judas.

With the forthcoming elections it would serve well to keep in mind the fact that those serving the god Mammon are not on the side of virtue, that most have already made their deals with the Devil in order to even have the money to mount a campaign. Such is the evil system of politics; and in too many cases the various systems of religion as well.

However, there are those for whom money isn’t everything when it comes to the betrayal of love and trust. Few would question it is love that raises humankind to the very best it can be, that love motivates the very best of what we are as human beings; but at what cost to those that love, especially those lovers of truth?

“It is when your facts and persons grow unreal and fantastic by too much falsehood, that the scholar flies for refuge to the world of ideas, and aims to recruit and replenish Nature from that source. Let ideas establish their legitimate sway again in society, let life be fair and poetic, and the scholars will gladly be lovers, citizens and philanthropists.”

As we are drowning in a veritable sea of facts and persons grown unreal and fantastic by too much falsehood, it is easy to understand why Emerson pointed to the world of ideas as a refuge for scholars. But as Emerson realized the lover of ideas is perceived as uncongenial and unintelligible to society, though the lover of ideas may fervently long to be accepted and join themselves to society. But how often are love and trust, the lovers of ideas betrayed by falsehood.

Jesus was a lover of ideas, many of which came from an obvious close relationship with Nature. At the same time, far from being a loner the Bible recounts the stories of his mixing with society, genuinely loving the society of others. But it was the facts and persons grown unreal and fantastic by too much falsehood that caused him to be at enmity with the world, which led him to claim he was not of the world because the world loves its own, and the world certainly did not love him.

While many things are being questioned about the Bible and the life of Jesus, had we only his sublime Sermon on the Mount that would be sufficient to establish him in history as a lover of ideas. But they were ideas that came into conflict with the world, with facts and persons grown unreal and fantastic by too much falsehood.

We live in a world neither fair nor poetic, a world in which too many innocent suffer and die, that rewards those without virtue seeking power and authority over others, a world in which the lovers of ideas are ever forced to either retreat and find refuge in the solitude of their thoughts or be punished for expressing their ideas openly. Though often free with his opinions, and often to his discomfiture, Sam Clemens pointed out that opinions made public must first be carefully barbered and perfumed.

And as to the truth, Jesus exemplifies the words of Melville: “The truth; it don’t pay.” A point made indelibly clear by politicians and those in the media emasculated from dealing in the truth by the lies of political correctness.

The universities suffering the bullying domination of perversion, being effeminized to the point of either emasculating or preventing any real men in their ranks certainly do not countenance any lovers of ideas, but are virtual bastions of hypocrisy, of facts and persons grown unreal and fantastic by too much falsehood. That the same can be said of those in the Federal Triune Dictatorship having the rule over We the People is so blatantly obvious it hardly needs mention.

Pilate realized it was out of envy and jealousy on the part of the enemies of Jesus that he had been brought before him to be judged, that the accusers of Jesus were liars and hypocrites. Then too, there was the genuine fear on the part of Caiaphas that the preaching and teaching of Jesus might call down the wrath of Rome upon Jerusalem. Pilate had to be aware of the dangers Jesus posed in this regard as well, and certainly did not want the grief of the powers in Rome thinking him incapable of governing.

So, what to do? Jesus didn’t make things easy for Pilate by refusing to defend himself, and faced by so many accusers what could Jesus say in his defense? One solitary man against a multitude; all these are wrong but I am right? But in the case of Jesus there was no little “Scout” to deliver him from the lynch mob.

“What is truth?” Much speculation has surrounded this statement of Pilate to Jesus, even whether it was a statement or a question. But he knew the truth, and for this reason we read that Pilate thereafter bent his efforts to freeing Jesus. And on my part, I am willing to credit the troubled dreams of Pilate’s wife concerning Jesus. But in the end it was not to be, and taking only the Biblical account the lesson remains that the howling mob consisting of the haters of ideas will have its way and politicians invariably bow to the howling mob.

It seems those that have the rule over America have no love of the truth in them. The lesson is lost on these that despite the efforts on the part of those deciding it was better to sacrifice Jesus than lose their place and nation, despite the efforts of Pilate to placate the liars and hypocrites and keep the peace the wrath of Rome did at last descend upon Jerusalem.

America is being forced to face an inescapable imperative: Will we be a nation with a national heritage and culture, a nation with an identity and common language the product of Christian Western Civilization and our Founding Fathers, or one whose leaders are willing to sacrifice Jesus once more to the howling mob only in the end to find our nation destroyed.

Ok, so Kerry epitomizes that line by Tommy Lee Jones from Men in Black: “No mam; the FBI does not have a sense of humor that I am aware of.” There is generally an inherent danger to credibility when wrong things are done in order to bolster any position. The uproar by those calling themselves “conservative” over Kerry’s remarks is a case in point.

John Kerry is a despicable politician, and as such a despicable egotist and opportunist still chasing a lost cause making bad situations worse. But his remarks causing such “outrage” by Republicans should be taken as the intended insult to Bush and not our troops. God knows Kerry is lacking any credibility and I doubt there is a sincere bone in his body or a shred of integrity and no one is more ill disposed toward this charlatan than I am, but I am little less ill disposed toward Caesar Bush. However, this current attack on Kerry’s remarks is as phony as the photo op of Caesar Bush and Company’s “approving” the fence to protect our borders from the enemy nation of Mexico. Tony Snow “a little astonished” Kerry hasn’t figured it out? Wrong! I would turn this around except for my believing Caesar Bush and Company had already figured it out despite all the raving to the contrary.

No, the silver spoon Kerry is correct about an apology to We the People and our troops being sacrificed to the personal agenda should be forthcoming from the silver spoon Caesar Bush for his lies and duplicity; and there is good reason for Caesar being the Typhoid Mary to GOP candidates this election cycle. But an apology from Kerry is long overdue for his own despicable remarks about those in our nation’s military. However, no one is holding their breath awaiting an apology from either of these politicians even if one were naïve enough to credit them with any sincerity, and in the meantime those in our military and countless civilians continue to die to what purpose? My opinion remains Caesar’s “plan” was to “Get Saddam” and beyond that there was no plan for war or any exit strategy.

Who of us does not want a “free and democratic Iraq?” But winging it and making it up as you go along is not a strategy, and the whole world sees this as the modus operandi of Caesar Bush and Company. Nevertheless, my main criticism remains that once the gauntlet was cast before the growing threat of Islam failing to prosecute a war to win is unconscionable! But whether Republican or Democrat I do not see any emphasis anywhere to prosecute this WWIII as a war to win, and failing this my opinion remains: Bring the troops home to secure our borders and let the Muslims get on with their bloodletting among themselves as they have done for centuries. Eventually some group will seize power and the oil will continue to flow. It’s the Devil’s bargain, but given the circumstances none can legitimately hope for anything better.

And while I am far from being kindly disposed to any politician neither am I kindly disposed to those like Sean Hannity whose ego is comparable to that of Bush and Kerry boasting of how God has blessed him with his perfect career and perfect family. But I remain of the opinion as expressed in the Bible God does not bless a boastful or haughty spirit. It is appropriate for those who believe to express their gratitude to God, but one should not boast of what they believe to be God’s blessings. People are not favorably disposed toward those that boast and how much less God. I am not going to blame God for either blessing or cursing, but rather take heed to Ecclesiastes 9:11,12: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

And I question why such a blatantly pro-ACLU embarrassment like Alan Colmes continues to find a home on FOX news? Fair and balanced? I don’t think so. But then I find Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty far preferable to Wolf Blitzer. But whomever, I welcome all those keeping the heat on the monsters preying on children and the perverts in Hollywood dedicated to making films glorifying violence done to women and children.

Even as a child I seemed to pick up on things in films that jarred, that seemed out of place. Sometimes such things would ruin the whole film for me, much in the way that glance at the camera by Bogart in the last scene of Key Largo spoiled the effect, the one line in Rear Window by Jimmy Stewart to Grace Kelly “If you want to get vicious about this I’ll be happy to accommodate you” really ruined what otherwise was one of the really great Hitchcock films. Nevertheless, the question in Newsweek some time ago “Will today’s stars stand the test of time?” is legitimate. The further question: “Are movies now being made anyone will still watch in 50 years?” The same questions arise concerning music and books. The answer to my mind is a resounding NO! to all these.

Have you watched Casablanca recently? Or Gone With the Wind, Oklahoma or South Pacific? And have you asked yourself if any other book of the past century compared with To Kill A Mockingbird, why no other great work of literature is being written today? To answer the question, it remains the true test of art is time. But in my opinion, there is little from the past few decades in film, literature, or music that will withstand this final judgment of time.

The loss of such great film making, great literature and great music to our young people is incalculable. But no nation that fails to cherish its young has any future as a nation. Nor does it deserve one! And no nation can glorify and legitimize perversion, pornography, gratuitous violence particularly against women and children and evidence anything but a hypocritical pretense of cherishing children! Add to these the failed system of education in America, the many harmful drugs and chemicals pervading America leading to a damaging of brains and the dumbing down of the intellect and you have a generation unable to produce the great art of the past.

William Buckley: “The charge by assorted gentry that James Webb is not qualified to serve as a U.S. senator from Virginia because there are lewdnesses in his published fiction rattles one's faith in democracy.”

How about this Bill; I wrote a novel of 500 pp. without any profanity, sex, or violence. Why try to dignify the use of these things for the sake of political expediency? Why should calling attention to perversion rattle or put anyone’s faith in democracy in doubt, but rather the contrary?

Any minority that makes itself odious to the majority will eventually pay a high price for doing so. This has nothing whatsoever to do with “fairness,” but it is a pragmatic truth of human nature. Perverts are eventually going to pay a high price for their demands for special status by fiat of unjust laws penalizing those who have a quite normal revulsion for perversion. Equally at risk are minorities demanding special status by fiat of unjust laws penalizing the majority. Walter Williams writes “There are some ideas so ludicrous and mischievous that only an academic would take them seriously. One of them is diversity.”

Public Enemy Number One, the universities of America has put our nation at risk; and from the Ivory Tower has pronounced good evil, and evil good. Hitler idolized Wagner for the wide grandeur of his often dark and Weltanschauung, Gotterdammerung operas. Grand Opera is the most exalted and highest art form expressive of the human spirit. But the operas of Wagner have that diabolical, destructive and very nearly nihilistic element Hitler so admired and praised.

Right now the whole world is the stage for the Grand Opera Gotterdammerung Armageddon! The future of the world is at stake in the final dance of this Grand Opera, this Gotterdammerung Armageddon, where the winner takes all! And the final dance now being enjoined between the children of God and the children of the Devil the grand finale will evidence the last one standing as the victor for whom the very soul of all humankind is the prize!

We the People, the good people of America are going to have to come together and denounce evil and pronounce the good to be good, not subject to the “interpretation” of the universities and their product politicians, judiciary, and media. If good people fail in this, America may find itself forced into this last dance with the Devil. And America cannot win dancing to the Devil’s tune. It seems the dance is being forced upon us, but We the People had better call the tune!

“Pappy” Boyington’s definition of flying as “Hours of dull monotony, sprinkled with moments of stark terror” remains unsurpassed. Virtually no pilot puts in any time without collecting white knuckle “hangar stories” and I’m no exception. The path of our “leadership” and those vying for office reminds me of one incident in particular.

Taking off from Kernville airport one beautiful afternoon in a small Alon I owned, a real kiddy car to fly and a lot of fun, I pointed the nose of the bird toward Walker Pass. I was flying VFR with ceiling and visibility unlimited in the extraordinarily clean, clear desert air. Hanging a right at the junction, I would follow the 14 into Fox Field at Lancaster, a short but generally delightful and uneventful flight.

Making my turn south, I settled back to enjoy the scenery encompassing nearly the whole of the Mojave Desert and the feeling of three-dimensional freedom of movement that accompanies piloting an aircraft, big or small. Flying at 3,500 feet, which put me about 1,200 AGL in this location, some thirty miles from Fox I noted a small dark smudge at my altitude off in the distance. It was a cloudless day, and in any event a “dirty” cloud didn’t make any sense. But as I continued on, it became obvious that the small, dirty cloud was coming my way and fast!

It happened almost too quickly to register, but that dark smudge in the air was coming from the eight engines of a B-52 headed directly at me on a collision course! I barely had time to pull back sharply on the yoke, and watched in fascinated amazement and wonder as that huge bomber like some aerial Moby Dick glided beneath me! It was both spectacular and eerie at the same time to watch the behemoth pass under me so nearby. I could have landed my tiny bird on the wings of the thing!

No doubt the huge bomber’s crew was practicing low-level flight, but our closure rate had to be somewhere around 400 knots. I don’t believe the crew of that enormous bird ever saw me since the pilot never deviated from his course.

“Keep your head on a swivel” and “See and be seen” are both part of the “Bible” of flying. Had we collided, as though swatting a fly the results because of the closure speed might well have been disastrous for the huge bird and crew; not to mention yours truly.

As in driving, I had the “right of way,” I was at the proper altitude and the bomber pilot was not. This is of small comfort, whether driving or flying, when you are “dead right.” The homily is admittedly obvious, but our government seems intent on a collision course with the realities of world events, one of the most dangerous being the threat of Islam. But those in charge are too intent on the “mission” to keep their heads on a swivel. A collision with my little Alon could have brought down that B-52, but the threat of Islam is equally deadly to America and Western Civilization. It may only take a small bomb with horrific capability, an act of nuclear terrorism in America to set off a chain of events too horrible to contemplate!

It is excruciatingly obvious the refusal on the part of government to secure our borders is inviting a cataclysmic disaster for America. In this case a collision is unavoidable due to our “leadership” staying on a course inviting this disaster for America. Another destructive course for America is the fact when perverts are elected to office, sit as judges, are hired into the ranks of Child Protective Services and the schools, in any manner allowed access to children this cannot but invite predators to prey on children thereby proving we have a leadership set on the destruction of families and children.

Concerning all those striving to become rich and powerful leading to the wars of men resulting in the deaths of so many millions and arriving nowhere in the end Emerson wrote “The appearance strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of aimless nations. Were the ends of nature so great and cogent, as to exact this immense sacrifice of men?” No one can think of the battles in which so many have died, battles like Normandy, the madness of a Hitler or Tojo without asking themselves the disquieting questions of why so many are sacrificed to the ends of so few in power? Where in nature do we find ends “so great and cogent” as to make sense of this continuing slaughter by the nations of the world?

While the story of Babylon in the last book of the Bible, that “great city” upon which the merchants of the world depend, is uncannily descriptive of America it remains whether we will ever have the kind of leadership that is not dedicated to the destruction of America, but rather will put the interests of our nation before anything else, before power and riches. Unless and until this happens America cannot offer hope to other nations but is on a collision course with the rest of the world.

It is too typical of Caesar Bush and Company’s wars. Nearly a half-million taxpayer funded weapons were handed to our Muslim enemies as a “gift.” But, of course, they were intended for “friendly” Muslims in Iraq who in turn probably handed them over to those killing our troops. The fact these weapons cannot be accounted for is “troubling” to politicians. But this is business as usual for our government, and we are supposed to believe politicians are interested in securing our borders and preventing nuclear terrorism in America?

Jack Cafferty reading from an email he received: “In Canada the mentally incompetent are not allowed to vote. In America they get elected.”

This criticism of America seems too well founded; and I have long noted the whole world must believe America is led of lunatics with nothing better in the offing. Dr. Frankenstein, for example, might as well have constructed our Federal Triune Dictatorship seeing the monster of many parts it has become.

Despite the dismal offerings of “choices” among the lunatics I just hope every eligible voter goes to the polls not only in honor of all the blood shed so that we have this most cherished of American duties as citizens, but as a show of strength in numbers.

It was a real treat this morning awakening to AMC playing The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, and Frankenstein one after the other. While I have enjoyed some of the remakes of these old classics nothing can ever take their place. Nor can anything take the place of seeing them for the first time as a child before Hollywood began to devote itself to blood and gore in “living color.” Just as plastic cheated children of those old balsa and tissue model airplanes, modeling clay, water paints, Tinker-toys and Lincoln Logs and before electronics became “toys” just so did Hollywood begin to cheat children of their imagination.

But despite Hollywood, despite all the enormous efforts on the part of philosophers, theologians, and scientists dedicated to understanding them, life and death remain the two great mysteries they have ever been from the beginning of human history. A “something” animates the clay and we call that “life,” then it departs and we call that “death.” No system of belief whether metaphysical or scientific has moved us one iota closer to understanding these two great mysteries, though there be no lack of pretenders to such knowledge throughout history and continuing without let.

The words eternal and eternity, infinite and infinity, immortality and hereafter are part of our vocabulary. And while these remain labels in lieu of understanding we have a sense or intuition they are real, that they exist in fact though we do not understand them.

Regrettably coming to the conclusion late in life, I will not credit words in books or the words of “prophets” concerning life and death, the issues of philosophy or religion all the while confusing beliefs for certain knowledge of facts. What I “know in my bones” without evidence I do not ask others to accept as facts. I require the same courtesy in return. The whole world might have some hope of surviving were this the case with nations.

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union: “The principal sin of the neoconservatives is overbearing arrogance. It is not so much that they have been wrong. It is that nobody has ever convinced them that they have ever been wrong.” And this is the problem with those who expect others to accept them as authorities on subjects of life and death, to accept their beliefs all the while offering no evidence but rather endless anecdotes of such beliefs. This is nothing more than the sin of arrogance.

Are the pyramids and the Sphinx, all the hammered stone and such throughout the ages monuments to ignorance and superstitions or do they have real relevance to understanding? We still do not know. As to ignorance and superstitions no truly civilized person can countenance the barbaric and brutish religion of Islam though a billion people pay homage to it. The world is certainly not bettered by these billion people continuing to attempt to appease a bloodthirsty deity through horrific acts of barbarism. But civilized people are demanded to “understand” this barbaric bloodthirsty religion, even bow to it.

The barbarism of our Federal Triune Dictatorship is in little better case, refusing to secure our borders and our ballots, continuing to foment slave labor to benefit the few wealthy at the expense of We the People. The barbarism of Mexico transported to America will certainly not encourage any advancement of civilization here in our own nation. But our own leadership is dedicated to this growing barbarism in America for the sake of slave labor. Yet the barbarians in office and those attempting to gain elected office ask for our votes while offering nothing but a perpetuation of such barbarians continuing to use elected office as a license to steal.

While most polls show all the bums should be tossed out, Walt Kelly has the fox Seminole Sam asking the question “Why doesn't anybody think of that before they throw the rascals in?” To answer the question it is an evil system that promotes scoundrels to positions of power and authority, that promotes a system of government where the truth damns and consequently none dare speak the truth if they wish to win an election. The song and dance act purporting to be “news” on TV blathers about all the negative ads by politicians. I agree with Henry Thoreau that gossip if taken in homeopathic doses can be therapeutic, but the fact remains when the choices are nothing but bums and the resulting gossip begins to overwhelm it may take another War for Independence to change things for the better. And the way things are going I wouldn’t bet against it.

“Now I lay me down to sleep.” Many of us were taught the prayer as children and in turn taught it to our children. One couple bought a Sampler with the prayer embroidered, and wanting to surprise their little boy hung it on the wall above his bed. That night as he knelt to say the prayer he caught sight of it hanging on the wall. “Well God,” the little boy said, “there it is” and he hopped into bed.

It is a story I used to use as a sermon illustration of how prayer too often degenerates into formulaic liturgical nonsense, whether the reading of prayers, the counting of beads or things like prayer wheels and burning prayer papers. And while we read in the Bible we are to “pray without ceasing” and the stories about “men of prayer” that would spend hours in this holy exercise are legion there remains the fact the wicked continue to prosper and tyrants and despots continue to wage their wars and the monsters preying on women and children are not thwarted from their depredations nor their victims saved by any amount of prayers or their screaming out to God to deliver them.

I have written much and preached many a sermon on the topic of prayer. Among the points I have covered is if there is evidence of God it is that prayer is as normal as breathing to human beings, especially the crying out to God in extremis. But as a man of science as well as theology and philosophy I struggle with many unanswered questions, not the least of which is answers to the human condition. Part of the struggle is separating what I know from what I believe. And while I continue to believe I commune with God all through the day and as the Psalmist with my head on my pillow each night, while I often draw comfort from this it remains I don’t know but what I am speaking to myself rather than God. And, gentle reader, neither do you.

Prayer is certainly foremost among the consolations of religion; but what of the Imprecatory prayers in the Psalms? There is a virtual litany of asking God to wreak destruction even against children. Then there is the Jewish and Muslim prayer “Thank you God that I was not born a woman!” The prayers of Muslims are replete with asking Allah to “destroy the infidels.” And a billion Muslims believe Allah is a deity dedicated to the destruction of all infidels, that this deity is pleased by bowing to it five times a day.

Death is something each one of us will experience, and it will be the most intensely personal experience any of us will ever have since we all die alone. For many prayer will ease the transition, if it is a transition, both for the dying and those they leave behind. But even in life we live our lives alone since none can see through another’s eyes. And who among us would wish to have the secrets of our minds revealed to others? Those things actually done in secret apart from “unholy” thoughts are often bad enough to invite the demons that tear at the fabric of sleep. “The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.” But do you know a “righteous” man; do you consider yourself to be a “righteous” person capable of moving God to act by your prayers?

Yet many believe, though they will not say so, God is incapable of acting without their prayers. Why? It is as Emerson pointed out believers seemed content to hand the world over to the Devil by default expecting their reward in heaven without confronting and overcoming the evil pervading the world. Any theology or prayers dedicated to this proposition would appear at the least faulty thinking if not in fact blaming God for not doing what is the responsibility of people to do.

From personal experience I am acutely familiar with the “Spirit making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” The very psychosis of grief often drives people into this experience leaving them incapable of even uttering a word to God in prayer.

But when all is said and done people will believe what they want to believe. It is the failure, even the refusal on the part of some to separate what they believe from what they know insisting others bow to their beliefs with which I find fault. For my part, when it comes to matters of belief I confess I simply do not know but believe. I wish others would be equally honest in matters of their own beliefs.

While I welcome the sentiment of good people who say “I will pray for you,” there is this to consider. Is their own standing with God such as to warrant their asking his attention to me, attention I am unworthy of asking for myself? I know the Bible thoroughly cover to cover. I know all the Scriptures having to do with prayer. But the Bible is after all a book of the thoughts of men, and while much of it reflects my own thoughts about God and prayer it remains people, including me, will believe what they want to believe.

What people say and write about things like prayer and angels is anecdotal and like claims of UFO’s without hard evidence of such claims notwithstanding the many claims of “miracles” and “answers to prayer.” My own belief is there was war in the heavens brought to earth, that humankind suffers this continuing warfare, that there are children of God and children of the Devil. But I don’t believe God needs anyone to tell him his business, and whatever this battle is between good and evil with good people suffering the consequences of this ongoing struggle it remains good people will either confront this evil without blaming God or evil and the spawn of Satan will continue in the ascendancy as they have ever done throughout human history.

Prayer changes things. Where and how? It doesn’t save women and children from the monsters in human guise preying on them, it doesn’t prevent tyrants and despots from rising to power, and it doesn’t give us good people of virtue as leaders in America or anywhere else in the world. The wicked continue to prosper as they have ever done and “Honesty is the best policy” seems a hollow mockery of reality.

Much as our own Federal Triune Dictatorship the UN certainly reflects the worst traits of humankind rather than the best. No matter where you look in the UN you will find perversion and corruption. And our own leaders seem to be far more dedicated to perversion and corruption than any ideals of what America used to stand for.

Perhaps there is a “divine plan” for humankind, but if so it seems to me inspired of the Devil rather than some benevolent deity. Throughout the years I served in churches, studied the Bible and preached and taught from it there were the nagging doubts, the faithful will call it a lack of faith, that many things considered orthodox just didn’t make any sense.

The best Jesus offered was to say good people should stay on the straight and narrow path leading to life, that only a few would find that path and be saved, making salvation seem a pretty “iffy” proposition. One of the few things of which I have any real certainty is the slaughter of others in the name of any deity is morally repugnant and has no place in any culture thinking itself “civilized.” And if belief in some deity is the basis of morality this should be measured by the results, not the proclamations of “prophets.”

I am deeply grateful for the blessings of a civilized Christianity and all it has meant to Western Civilization in general and America specifically. What I am opposed to is those of any religion trying to convince others they know anything about God as fact rather than admitting to what is only belief.

But as we enter this election cycle and look at what is being offered We the People as “choices” it cannot help but remind me of a poster I used to keep on one of my classroom walls: “In the event of nuclear attack the prohibition against prayer will be suspended.” And who of us can be blamed for crying out “God help us!” because no one else can. However, prayer and calling out to God has not prevented the murders of millions of innocents, the depredations ongoing against women and children, and this causes me to believe God is too often an easy convenience to excuse otherwise good people from confronting evil with the required determination to overcome evil.

Who doubts women and children cry out to God for help as they are raped, tortured, and murdered by monsters in human guise. But God seems oblivious to their cries for help, oblivious to their pain and suffering. No, there may be a divine plan in all of this but if so it must consist of good people doing their part in overcoming the monsters, in overcoming evil rather than blaming God for the evils of the world then hoping for a better world promising pie in the sky by and by.

When asked who the first two Apostles were Tom Sawyer replied, “Adam and Eve?” We may laugh at Tom's desperate answer, but it reminds me of many a similar “answer” to Bible questions. My great-grandmother was fond of showing off my Bible knowledge as a child to others. She would ask, “What was Noah's Ark made of?” And I would dutifully reply, “Gopher wood.”

Now my grandparents, my great-grandmother and I had no idea that the Hebrew word translated Gopher wood was an uncertain translation. In the NIV it is given as Cypress. But we knew our King James Bible was God's Word and would defend Gopher wood to the death. I don't think anyone in Little Oklahoma knew there were any other versions or translations of the Bible, certainly no one knew Shakespeare used the Geneva Bible, but The Old Time Religion was good for Paul and Silas and it was good enough for all of us.

But while ignorance and superstitions were abundant, we did have one advantage over many educated people: We believed what God said. We didn't understand a lot of it but we believed it. If God said He destroyed the world by a flood, we didn't doubt it. If He said the sun stood still for Joshua that was that. Jesus was virgin born and cast out demons and no one better say otherwise.

As I often reach back in my memory to that simple time of my childhood among simple and honest folks, the women in flour sack dresses and us boys in our bib overalls and barefoot, I long for the plainness and openness of our dirt-poor community in old, Southeast Bakersfield; a time before drugs and a collapse of morality destroyed so much of what America used to be.

However, by the end of WWII there was a quick change of culture in our nation. The boys came back from overseas where so many had gained a “cosmopolitan” outlook, and that together with the nation having become the preeminent world power, an industrial giant, the Atomic Bomb, women working at men's jobs, the abandoning of the simple, agricultural way of life, so many, many changes. Gone forever, the way of life we knew as children.

I have lived long enough to look back far enough. I grieve for the loss of so much for our children. It seems a tragedy that young people know more about the local Mall than an animal trail along some shimmering, singing, mountain stream or a clear, night sky, bejeweled by countless stars, that their ears are accustomed to the noise of what is called “music” as opposed to the hoot of an owl.

Fay Canyon is a particularly beautiful area. As I walked along one of the streams my eye caught a glimpse of obsidian; it was an arrowhead. This area has a lot of game and I'm sure an Indian had shot at something, possibly a rabbit or squirrel or even a deer, and this was the remains of his attempt at dinner. As a boy living on the mining claim I found quite a few Indian artifacts including several arrowheads. One was a real work of art crafted from rose quartz rather than the usual obsidian.

A couple of hours later when I was returning to my car I came across a place where it was obvious some folks had been cutting trees for firewood. I spied some shell casings, .45 auto. Being a handloader from many years back, I have a habit of picking up brass. Someone must have emptied a clip from the number of casings I found. As I was gathering the brass, I found a 1985 penny. I'm gray and my eyes are growing dimmer but I still see obsidian, shell casings, and money on the ground.

I sat on a granite boulder beneath a big, old Digger pine beside the stream, and with a cup of coffee and a cigarette doing duty examined my artifacts. It must be my Cherokee blood that responds so to such an environment. I could well imagine the Indian and what he had to contend with in living off the land. My thoughts ran to what it must have been like here before the intrusion of the White-Eyes. Then I looked at the .45 casings and the penny. The Indian could never have imagined the culture that would produce such marvels. What a difference between that arrowhead and the .45, and his wampum and the penny with the technology that produced such things.

And I thought about my eventually coming to question the teachings of the great scholars of the Bible. But I also thought about what that Indian understood in his own culture and environment. His knowledge was certainly extremely limited compared with what European nations possessed. But he functioned well enough in the world he knew. And, as in the allegory of the cave, thought he knew a great deal.

But the Indian's knowledge and expertise were to prove no match for the superior learning and technology of more advanced cultures. I used to be quite an archer and enjoyed the roving ranges, and being quite adept I would enter various archery contests and won quite a few. However, a bow and arrow is no match for a .45 auto. But imagine if you will, the tremendous difference between the time and the world that existed for both the Indian that shot his arrow and the person that stood in the same place firing that .45. Who do you suppose God holds more accountable for knowing what is best on the basis of power and knowledge.

While I long for the simpler way I once knew as a child, while I know that much of what I was blessed with as a child was denied my own children, I, like the Indian, will learn and adapt or perish. The Indian may well have had a profound belief in The Great Spirit, but it did not save him or his way of life when opposed by a greater power with greater knowledge. That he was ignorant of things like systematic theology, having his own equivalent in his own system of superstitions and beliefs, was to prove no match for the great learning and ways of his conquerors.

Thinking on these things I was impressed once more by the seeming accident of birth that made me the beneficiary of being a citizen of the United States, and that I was born in a time of such vast advances in the sciences. And so it is that so many things twist and turn through our lives that bring us to moments of decision that can so thoroughly change things for good or evil. So it is that I began to question so many of the things that I had simply accepted as Articles of Faith that had no sound basis in fact or reason.

I can envy the Indian for his freedom from technology, for his escaping having to pay a mortgage and fight traffic. But as with Henry Thoreau I cannot envy his ignorance and superstitions. I loved my grandparents dearly, but I cannot envy their own ignorance and superstitions. I do believe, however, that, as with the Indian, had they known better they would have done better. They did the best they could on the basis of what they had, and they were honest in those things; and this is the primary lesson each generation is responsible for passing on.

If honesty were the hallmark of politics how different things might be. As it is, the arrow was overcome by the .45, and that overcome by nuclear weapons. While I thoroughly enjoyed archery, when hunting for the family pot I would take a gun. Just what are all the nations hunting for with nuclear weapons? Whatever it is, it is something that despite all the scientific achievements of humankind makes us still a little afraid of the dark.

There were several reasons for my writing a critique of To Kill A Mockingbird on behalf of children five years ago, and why I was invited to do a book signing of it April 6, 2001 at Russo’s to coincide with TKM being the featured book for the whole city to read. The folks at Russo’s and I have enjoyed a personal relationship of years standing, and they have always welcomed my books.

Among the reasons for my writing the critique was the increasing madness pervading the leadership of America, a madness that is leading America to becoming a pariah among the nations of the world due in large part to a system of government that seems to hate families and children.

Copies of the critique went to Mayor Hall, the Californian, the Beale Library, and nearly two hundred copies were sent to various organizations secular and religious, columnists, and politicians. Over this past five years requests for the critique continue to come, though requests are now delayed until a new edition becomes available. While only 24,000 words in length the critique covers a good many questions arising from the novel; and some of my comments have resonated with many people.

From the critique I point out my favorite non-fiction book is Thoreau's Walden. My favorite novel is To Kill a Mockingbird. It, together with Walden (and Emerson’s essays), occupies a space on the table next to my bed. And perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to give both books to college graduates along with their diplomas.

One reason for my keeping Harper Lee's wonderful and masterful novel so close at hand is the fact that I was a contemporary of the era Miss Lee describes; and I was born into, and raised in, the identical culture with the identical kinds of people straight out of the Dust Bowl and Grapes of Wrath with the identical ignorance and prejudices all around me (and diet and idiomatic dialect), described in the novel, which is not to discount the very best of civilized manners and behavior portrayed by Harper Lee characteristic of the South.

And thanks to my maternal great-grandmother and grandparents, I am most familiar with the best of the values, sense of justice and fairness, good manners, and civilized behavior so characteristic of the best of Southern people like Atticus Finch. And I am ever grateful loving people so representative of him raised me. But I am also well acquainted with what cruel poverty and ignorance can do to any people of whatever culture or race.

Riots and rhetoric, films like To Kill a Mockingbird, A Woman Called Moses, Mississippi Burning, Ghosts of Mississippi, A Time to Kill, The Tuskegee Airmen, Miss Evers' Boys, and Amistad, have not changed things for the better; and the world lacking wisdom, with evil seeming to be ever in the ascendancy how can they? Nor can Hollywood have it both ways; pretending to fight discrimination on the one hand and hypocritically supporting violence and perversion on the other.

In respect to the kind of madness and bullying that seems all-pervading and prevents good people from seizing the initiative in acquiring wisdom, Harper Lee has Calpurnia telling the children, “You're not going to change any of them by talkin' right; they've got to want to learn themselves. And when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.”

And sure enough most do not want to learn but do all they can to silence people like me who as with Harper Lee don’t “talk their language;” they not only have no interest in talkin' right, they want to bully others into talking their language no matter how ignorant or self-serving, to be polite to their idols, myths and superstitions no matter how harmful to wisdom. The worst of these insist on everyone either talkin' their language or they will mount a jihad in order to destroy anyone who does not! In spite of how very, even selfishly, ignorant their own language may be, they not only do not know better, like the ignorant Ewells of the novel, they have no interest in doing any better.

The Pulitzer was given Harper Lee for all the “right” reasons. At least all the right reasons adults were capable of knowing. But the Pulitzer is not awarded for some of the major things Harper Lee points out; things like the fact Jews can be just as ignorantly prejudiced against Negroes as any southern Caucasian, that some Negroes are no more interested in doing any better than the ignorant white trash Ewell’s.

Thinking back to that era where I was a contemporary of the kinds of people and place Harper Lee wrote about it wasn’t surprising I would relate to the novel when it first appeared; that I would immediately go see the film when it was released; that I would require reading the novel by my pupils in literature classes, generating many an essay about it.

The one interview Harper Lee gave was to Roy Newquist and originally appeared in his book of interviews, Counterpoint, published in 1964 by Rand McNally.

To the question by Newquist about those seeking reward from their writing Harper Lee replied, “Well, I've got news for them. (You must think I regard writing as something like the medieval priesthood—and sometimes I wish our government could see its way clear to support our writers on bread and water and shut them up in a monastery somewhere.) People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. I don't believe this business of "No, I don't write for myself, I write for the public." That's nonsense. Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself. He writes not to communicate with other people, but to communicate more assuredly with himself. It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”

In this way Harper Lee summed what every real writer knows “in their bones.” But when asked about her further aspirations as a writer Harper Lee replied “As you know, the South is still made up of thousands of tiny towns. There is a very definite social pattern in these towns that fascinates me. I think it is a rich social pattern. I would simply like to put down all I know about this because I believe that there is something universal in this little world, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing. In other words all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama.”

But the film great as it is betrayed Harper Lee, which may be one reason she stopped writing. The film made Atticus a card carrying member of the ACLU; it condemned all those in the South that did not subscribe to the ACLU party line. America was changing rapidly in the wrong direction due in large part to the ACLU bastardization of the main points of Harper Lee’s novel, one many acclaim as the “Novel of the Century!”

Columnist Jay Sekulow asks the relevant question “Who elected the ACLU?” He goes on to cover some of the issues where this infamous organization has thwarted the will of We the People extorting our taxes to support it while at the same time cutting the throats of Americans and America. I recommend people read the column and go online to “What’s wrong with the ACLU” for a grasp of the depth of this organization’s betrayal of America, a betrayal that continues unabated because the ACLU is so well funded not only by money extorted from taxpayers but funded by so many of the enemies of America.

We will never know what Harper Lee may have gone on to contribute as the “Jane Austen of south Alabama.” But I do know what the infamous ACLU has done in stifling voices like hers raised in defense of the South she loves and the America of We the People.

It has always been a wish of mine that my great-grandmother and grandparents had written an account of their experiences. But life was hard, and unlike Steinbeck they were too busy earning a living in the face of harsh realities to write. The father of renowned author Henry James would criticize by saying if you were really living life you had no time to write. But Henry’s father wasn’t referring to chopping cotton or picking fruits and vegetables.

However, I wanted my children to know the stories told me by my great-grandmother and grandparents together with those about the unique childhood I lived among the Dust Bowl folks and my life on the mining claim in the Sequoia National Forest. The resulting book was titled The Lord and the Weedpatcher. It was a “work in progress” from the beginning. Eventually I would include pictures of that bygone era, and many stories would continue to be added as I would recall them.

Since several of my books including TLW are either out of print or in the process of revision to bring them up to date it has been a daunting task consuming much of my time attempting to get a handle on things. Then just today I received a note from my publisher work had been slowed because of their need of a massive computer update of their own. What with nearly 300,000 new titles a year now being published one wonders how any publisher keeps up with things.

Steinbeck isn’t the only one who wrote of the Dust Bowl migration. Many have written of the Okies and Arkies that came west to settle in various parts of Kern County, and many of these having lived it with a far better perception of this migration than the “silver spoon” Steinbeck. My grandparents could have told the famous writer a thing or two about the misperceptions in his book, and several of the people who actually lived in the Weedpatch Camp have done so.

As to the stories I like to write they are the ones that largely appeal to children and young people. Such stories were my stock in trade as a teacher as well. There was seldom a lesson I was teaching that could not be accompanied by a story, which helped not only to make the lesson clear but memorable.

Nor am I through with the life experiences that continue to be the stuff of such stories. Take the following for example:

Life in the country has many rewards in exchange for the advantages of city living. A few of these rewards are the first blossoms appearing on the nightshade plants here on my property, and the annual event of momma and poppa quail bringing their newly hatched babies to the water I supply them. Here in the Sequoia National Forest we have the California Quail- distinguished by their beautiful colors, the cute topknots and marvelous, varied sounds they make. Being precocial, the babies are hatched covered with down and can very nearly fly from the time coming out of their eggshells.

Having no need of hunting for the family pot any longer, I simply enjoy watching the quail and squirrels hereabouts. There are few things that gladden my heart more than to simply watch and listen to the various critters the forest supplies. Granted, I would enjoy it far more were it not for Nature red in tooth and claw that shows no mercy for baby quail, bunnies, and ducks for example.

Notwithstanding, I have always hated zoos. Wild animals should not be caged. A pen pal recently wrote me about her desire for a raccoon when she was a young girl. Her doting father supplied her one, and in no time at all she discovered how quickly a raccoon could rearrange the furniture in a house. My being raised to a wild forest environment I suffered no such illusions about having a raccoon for a pet; nor a bobcat either. Much as the big pussycat was fascinating to watch in the wild, it never crossed my mind it would accommodate itself to a bowl of milk and “Here kitty, kitty, kitty” in our cabin.

Not altogether abandoning the desire for “exotics” I did have my share of experiences with things like the skunk that went off in our cabin, the porcupine I lassoed and observed for a short time close up, a baby great horned owl and other critters, but people that want a lion or tiger for a “pet” have to have rocks in their head.

But when it comes to catching critters none can best my daughter Karen catching the Colorado Cottontail barehanded when she was a little girl; but I came close with a baby California Quail.

I saw the quail enter the yard, momma and poppa with their brood of chicks, when out of nowhere comes the resident cat scattering the quail. As I ran outside intending to intervene I caught sight of the cat chasing what looked like one of the tiny mice I see occasionally. Not so, it was one of the baby quail. The chase was on around the pressure tank for my well. When I reached the spot I saw the baby hunkered down under the large water line going into the tank.

No one is going to catch a baby quail by chasing it. But under certain circumstances some critters will allow a very slow approach. The little thing didn’t stir as I very slowly lowered my hand over it; when close enough I made a quick grab capturing it. This presented a problem. While the tiny chick quickly settled down within the warmth and darkness of my hand gently closed around it; what does anyone do with a baby quail in hand, particularly with a cat in residence believing it has a vested interest in said baby quail? How best to return the tiny chick to its family with the cat about?

I waited for the cat to visit her food dish; something I could count on. Knowing where the momma and poppa quail had come from, once the cat was in the house I shut the door and carried the baby quail to its point of origin. Once the tiny chick was released it took off at warp speed, seeming to know exactly where it needed to go.

Some will think this is much ado about nothing. Just look at the great number of quail throughout the Valley; what is one baby quail more or less? Henry Thoreau remarked on his “wild chickens,” the partridges of Walden. He commented on the innocence to be seen in the eyes of these partridges that seemed to reflect all that was best to be found in Nature. If you can understand this, you can understand how the eyes of a single, baby quail can melt the heart, stirring a response of what is the best in humankind as well.

America suffers under a Federal Triune Dictatorship dedicated to the very worst of human traits like greed and avarice, not representative government serving We the People. Aiding this treasonous betrayal of America the judiciary, universities, and all our schools and institutions of government are now defined by the ACLU rather than the 85% of Americans calling themselves “Christian;” which is the reason Mark Steyn is correct in his book “America Alone.” But I had anticipated Steyn by writing on my website together with a personal letter to Bush following 9/11 that America would find itself alone not only because of the reasons Steyn gives, but because of the refusal of our leadership to immediately respond with cruise missiles on Kabul and Baghdad that very evening of the Attack on America!

But Caesar Bush and Company had another agenda than protecting America and answering the Attack on America appropriately with those missiles. And time was needed to safely spirit away Caesar’s Saudi “friends” while plotting “Get Saddam whatever it takes!” among other things. However, the success of Caesar’s duplicity needs continued affirmation his plans could not have succeeded without a complicit Congress and Supreme Court.

Now the gauntlet has been cast before Islam because of 9/11 no matter what construction is placed on it, no matter the lies and deceptions of a Federal Triune Dictatorship, and it needs continued affirmation the haters and plotters, the followers of the barbaric, woman hating bloodthirsty religion of the sword Allah and his pervert “prophet” imbibe hatred of all non-Muslims, the “infidels” with their mother’s milk. As a consequence all Muslims are the enemies of civilization! And it needs equally continuing affirmation that Mexico is an enemy of America ever as much as Iran or North Korea, but even more dangerous than either of these to our national and economic security because of the treasonous traitors in government refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor, votes, power and wealth! This despite the fact they are inviting not only the destruction of America but their own as well!

As to Islam specifically here in America virtually every Mosque is a safe haven for terrorists plotting against us all the while the traitors in our own government refuse to secure our borders and will not make any attempt to account for and identify millions of illegal aliens in our midst, any one of which may be plotting against America. Don’t even attempt to call this “overdrawn” when these illegal aliens are unknown, unidentified and have no legal right to be in America making them all criminals while our own police are told not to check the citizenship even of criminals! But from Muslim taxi drivers and shop owners a little Sharia here and a little Sharia there aided by a complicit ACLU and the fact Muslims like Mexicans do not assimilate but colonize and pretty soon the whole camel or Pedro is in the tent.

Certainly it would help if preachers throughout America were to follow Doug Giles advice: “A minister has the responsibility of massive influence woven into his job. Instead of using it to fleece his sheep, to molest altar boys, or simply to dole out clichés like a drugged up Kathie Lee, why not re-align with the scripture and focus on fixing this mucked up culture?”

I do not doubt the claims those like Rove call the followers of those like Falwell and Robertson “goofy.” Anyone watching the high jinks performed by too many TV evangelists and their followers knows many of these certainly qualify as goofy. And while I don’t find fault with those who enjoy their religion the fact remains as I wrote some time ago the real heart and soul of America is to be found in the thousands of rural churches throughout our nation that have no TV broadcasts, whose ministers perform their duty just as Giles suggests. Further, those that rise to positions of prominence in the churches “wearing soft clothing” and “living in king’s palaces” do so in contradiction to the plain words of Jesus that God’s true prophets are not among such. While in the words of Paul those who preach the Gospel have a right to live of the Gospel, he didn’t have a palace, Rolex, and Rolls Royce in mind. And I’m sure neither Jesus nor Paul would have approved of those calling themselves “ministers of the Gospel” collecting diamonds or having air-conditioned dog houses.

But despite the efforts of even the best among clergy the Devil (by whatever definition) owns the MSM, so Rosie gets the play proclaiming evangelical Christians “a worse threat to America than Muslim radicals!” One supposes Rosie knows nothing about 9/11, Al Jazeera, etc. But in her case since she is fat and ugly I would recommend her wearing a burqa if she is so enamored of Islam as opposed to Christianity. And there are a lot of other haters of America and Christianity out there who would do well to do the same, among which most of those in our Federal Triune Dictatorship would qualify. Like Rosie, a burqa wouldn’t hide their sins but at least they would all look the same, a definite improvement since they all think the same.