The question raised here locally whether there should be a designated “homeless park” in Bakersfield addresses some of the desperate problems being faced by cities across America. Years ago I was writing about the potential crisis facing America when it became obvious welfare and prisons were “growth industries,” and not since the Great Depression has the prospect of soup kitchens and bread lines become such a specter rising from the past, even the despicable Caesar Bush finally acknowledging the country is facing economic uncertainties. Of course, he will find no fault with him and his administration for such “uncertainties.” As with university professors, God is on his throne and all is well upon the earth when you are Caesar or one of his dogs with their snouts in the public tax trough and don’t have to be personally accountable to anyone for your rice bowl.

Kern County is being hard-pressed facing expanding our county prison “infill” beds in order to alleviate overall state prison overcrowding. But the fact that California is further stressed because of the multitudes of illegal aliens receives little media attention, especially here in California, and the federal government as with California’s legislature is more interested in promoting slave labor than caring for the needs and safety of legitimate American citizens.

For those of you who have watched the History Channel presentation “Little Ice Age: Big Chill” it brings to mind Henry Thoreau’s thought on the subject of climate change, how slender is the thread of human life on earth and how easily it might be cut by just a slightly colder winter or slightly warmer summer. Though the cause or causes of the little ice age continue to be debated and the arguments over the causes of present climate change go on, no one is arguing the dramatic and potentially life-threatening impact of such change, no one argues the kinds of changes that have occurred in the past should they happen again with such intensity still hold the potential of wiping out entire nations, even being an E.L.E.

But it is patently obvious the nations of the world are not going to come to agreement and cooperate fully on eliminating greenhouse gases even should the human causes of these be proven beyond any doubt. There are far too many billions of people on this planet living in poverty demanding and consuming diminishing natural resources to entertain any Utopian notions of such cooperation on a global scale. And virtually nowhere in the world do we find the essential need of birth control among those unable to provide for the resulting children being made a national priority.

One example of the failure to teach and practice birth control here in America, if you have been following the reports of the homeless and the mentally ill forced onto the streets around America to make their own way best they can it’s enough to make you sick, and it isn’t difficult to believe the Devil is at work in this dreadful situation, and some would say among his servants are those corporations profiting from the causes of so much misery and suffering. This isn’t to say much of the suffering is not of human causes such as the failure to practice birth control among those that have babies with no thought to their future; far too much of it is. But in my opinion corporate greed with the cooperation of betraying politicians have created Plantation America which is devoted to promoting a slave population without the benefit of the old plantations where the slaves were properly cared for since they were considered “property” of value. This was the reason Henry expressed his opinion it was better to suffer under a southern overseer than a northern one, the plight of workers in the factory workhouses of the north being pitiable in the extreme.

Now, thanks to our Federal Caesar illegal aliens take the jobs in which an excess of unskilled American workers might find work and increasingly even skilled workers cannot find employment, and the once golden goose that had promised the American Dream is on life support, one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

Whether you believe there is a Devil or not, even as a metaphor it seems appropriate to describe world conditions in the words of Scripture the Devil “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” And the Devil or not with so many doomsday scenarios abounding it isn’t any wonder people are searching for something to give them hope. But I hear nothing from the present contenders for the Oval Office or elsewhere to offer us hope; I hear none of them offering specific and pragmatic answers to the questions arising from the desperate circumstances America is facing.

Whatever a person’s thoughts about claims those like Stalin and Hitler were demon possessed many of us at times have been tempted to take a hammer or baseball bat to our computers, but wouldn’t an exorcism be preferable? It’s really not all that humorous when someone suggests exorcists may be needed to cast the demons out of computers, but I recall a running joke in a cartoon strip where a magician is called in to fix a fellow’s computer every time something went wrong with it, and having worked with the things from the time you had to load DOS before you could do anything else it isn’t difficult to understand why early pc’s were thought to be more like magic boxes requiring prayers and incantations to fix them and keep them running properly, though most of us were more likely to use our more profane vocabulary on them while visions of hammers and baseball bats danced in our heads.

Some fifteen years ago I actually did keep a hard drive going with a hammer. When the thing locked up on me I removed the pc cover and using a hobbyist’s hammer, a very small one, gave the drive a gentle tap and it booted quite nicely. But unlike some people, I had a good working knowledge of computers and understood the problem with the drive. My using the small hammer rather than some other tool was more for the purpose of my being able to actually tell people truthfully, as I am doing right now, that I really did take a hammer to a computer to get it working. So there you have it: True story.

What got me to thinking about this was the Daily Mail report of Pope Benedict unveiling plans to set up specialist exorcism squads: “The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism. Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult. They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of ‘Godlessness’…” The article goes on to say the church is being “bombarded by requests for exorcisms,” but what really caught my eye was this statement: “The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.”

Well, I’ve already written about what I consider to be demon possession of TV, the increased level of violence and horrid noise that has pervaded so much programming and can best be described as nothing less than evil. So yes, I believe it to be in fact a “Demon Haunted World,” I do believe Satan has dominion over the kingdoms of the earth, a boast of the Evil One that Jesus did not challenge in the “Temptation.” But can we really open our minds to invite demons to take possession of us?

Many are the stories about demon possession and unclean spirits, but where are the stories of angel possession? The story of the Day of Pentecost in Acts is familiar to many, and in the first chapter of Revelation John writes “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Many Christians equate “being in the Spirit” or “filled with the Spirit” with a kind of angel possession; some ascribe the hysteria of glossolalia to angel possession and claim the gibberish is speaking in the tongues of angels. My opinion has always been the nonsense is as stated; gibberish.

However, I do believe there are angels and demons, I do believe there are such things as demon influence, even demon possession. But I also believe there are facts leading to the story in Genesis about the sons of God commingling with the daughters of men resulting in another species, monsters in human form preying on women and children especially, that these monsters in human guise are those responsible for the most heinous crimes and acts of cruelty against women and children in particular. How often are we faced with some such monstrous thing done to a child and asked ourselves the question how any human being could do such a thing to a child! For me the answer is such things are done to children by monsters, not human beings.

I’ll make it quite clear that I do not believe in the Roman Church’s power to exorcise demons by whatever means. But I will be equally clear in my belief there are such beings as demons. And more to the point, I believe we can invite such demons into our minds by engaging in what might well be called “unhealthy” ways of thinking. My extensive background in psychology enables me to consider what are offered by way of explanation for many things considered to be unhealthy for our minds; but I’m also acutely aware that most of psychology is nothing short of being described as per Tom Cruise; modern day witchcraft and the practitioners our contemporary witch doctors; though Dr. Phil is more representative of Nesferatu.

It is fortunate for me that I don’t have to depend on any of my peers or colleagues in academia or even our government for my “rice bowl.” I’m in the fortunate situation of no longer being under any thumb for a paycheck. For this reason I can express my views on a number of subjects without concern for the opinions of others, and this is a freedom and liberty I cherish. So when I write of things like angels and demons I’m not looking for approval of my views, but rather am only expressing an opinion of such things attempting to separate what I believe from what I know.

I know, for example, there is much evil in the world and there always has been. And it is easy for me to believe there is a malevolent supernatural power at work in visiting the many horrors throughout history upon humankind; I believe this because it makes sense to me. I believe the Bible to be the best resource available for an understanding of such evil, and I will continue to use it as my primary resource and don’t hesitate to recommend it to others seeking answers to the most perplexing questions of life and death. But with this caveat: Do the necessary research to understand the Bible, know its history and know its strengths as well as its faults and weaknesses. It remains a book compiled of the writings of men, no women allowed, but nevertheless it remains the best resource book available to us for an understanding of many things that would otherwise be totally inexplicable. And for those like me who find comfort in reading and studying the Bible, so much the better.

What with all the dreadful weather in parts of the country, those of us on the west coast can be excused for thinking our turn is coming in the form of the “Big One!” You know; the one that will cause the west coast to slide off into the Pacific and turn deserts into beachfront property. Well, maybe it won’t happen, but it does bring to mind a passage in the Bible about men’s hearts failing them for fear. Lord knows there is enough bad stuff going on all over to make us wonder what’s next? Well, how about an exorcism for such demonic thoughts? Demons or not, it sure isn’t a healthy way of thinking, this expectation of dreadful things happening. But I’m reminded of the not so funny joke; If you’re not paranoid you just don’t see the whole picture. And it was for good reason Thoreau pointed out with the introduction of candles and Christianity, though all the witches had been hung men still seemed a little afraid of the dark.

When logic dictates the pieces of the puzzle will never fit you are left with speculation. If you can’t make a picture of the pieces you are given, you begin searching around for pieces that will fit and complete the picture. The assassination of JFK could not have happened the way our government says it did; the pieces of the puzzle just don’t fit. The pieces don’t fit for the government version of 9/11 or the war in Iraq. The pieces don’t fit concerning Roswell and UFOs, and the pieces don’t fit for many things of the ancient past according to “official” or “expert” versions.

We have every reason to assume those in our government lie to us as a matter of course. But could they be lying to us about some things out of fear, because they know there are aliens among us or 2012 is in fact going to be “Doomsday?” Suppose you knew the end was near, what would you do? Go about business as usual, build an underground shelter and stock supplies, or take a gun and get what you want? If you were in charge of a nation, would you do as the Russians and Chinese building underground cities for the privileged few chosen to survive? Here in America there are doubtless such places for the “chosen few.”

The books have been written and the films made covering all kinds of speculation, but the worst fears are aroused by knowing those in our government lie to us; and have been doing so for many years. It is because of this historical record of lies and still ongoing every kind of conspiracy theory finds credibility among so many people. But it does remain a puzzle how those so unsuitable to make decisions favoring America rise to power; some great global influence pulling the strings? Well, I do believe there is a Devil so that simplifies things for me. True or not I can make some sense of things this way, I can make the pieces fit of what would otherwise seem to be lunacy throughout the world.

Granted the Devil, UFOs and Doomsday 2012 are pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit the particular picture of some people, but for others the pieces fit very well. All we have when it comes to the knowledge of some ancient cultures and their achievements is pieces of a puzzle. Oftentimes, the only way to make the pieces fit is to use our imagination and give ourselves over to speculation. I’m fortunate to have the time and ability to do this, and find such an occupation fascinating. I am especially fascinated by pieces of puzzles offered by “experts” that logic dictates do not fit the picture and doom conventional wisdom. Much in the same fashion I try to figure out why those in our government lie to us? What is the real purpose behind some of these lies? Rather than just become angry, the subject is one of fascination for me.

Whatever the reasons those in government lie to us, there really isn’t much I can do about the situation. And if the end is near, what could I possibly do about that? So, I hand things over to my mind trying to follow an oft-times elusive muse wherever, as in celestial fishing casting my line upwards toward the stars in hope of catching a “keeper,” but most often getting nibbles rather than hooking the fish. Still, even the nibbles as with all true disciples of Izaak Walton are enough to keep me angling, knowing as Thoreau pointed out the heavens are scarcely less dense than the waters below, something that as a pilot I came to fully appreciate.

To date, for example, in angling for ideas, pieces of puzzles, it occurred to me Egyptologists have failed to find any inscriptions around the pyramids or elsewhere exclaiming “Your Tax Dollars At Work,” or “Pharaoh’s Public Works Project (PPWP).” For those old enough to recall the WPA and other New Deal brainstorms of the FDR administration, one might expect to find such a thing among ancient Egyptian artifacts and those of other ancient civilizations, though the evil of taxes appears to have been a very early invention.

Many of you have read Henry’s marvelous tract “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.” And most of us can readily relate to many of the evils of government he writes about. But my mind keeps turning to the possibility our leaders are lying to us because they are afraid to tell us the truth. This in turn causes me to speculate about the possibilities, the reasons leaders might have for lying to us. The problem I have with such speculation is I can think of nothing good our leaders might be hiding from us and lying about.

But I can accept the Biblical version of God, by whatever means, having put the knowledge to do some things in the hearts/minds of special persons of his choosing. Superior knowledge of things like agriculture and iron must have come from some other source than the ingenuity of human beings alone. At that, many mysteries such as the Sphinx, the pyramids of Giza, the ancient map of the constellations and Nazca lines remain. But there is also the Devil to consider; whether it was some such malignant source that provided the means for us to annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons, and I don’t think the inventions of any means of mass-killing such as machine guns and bombs of any description were intended for our welfare. According to the Bible Satan has some of his choosing as well as God; Jesus certainly credited this. Considering the many horrors visited upon humankind, the many diabolical creatures represented in stone from ages past by all cultures I believe this to be true.

Perhaps you have noticed the increase of violence and mind-numbing noise on TV. Many times lately I have thought to view a program I found interesting only to have some nerve-wracking soundtrack forcing me to change channels. I recall some otherwise good films being wrecked by an unsuitable score, much like the inane smiles of news people while reporting on some tragedy. The “pieces” simply don’t fit.

This I know, it isn’t my imagination. The violence and horrid noise is increasing on TV. Is there some malevolent agency responsible for this increase? I ask myself who in their right mind finds some of these things acceptable to the viewing audience? It simply isn’t logical that those responsible for these productions can fail to understand that an irritating, distracting soundtrack will cause people to turn to another channel. But then it isn’t logical that those news people would smile while reporting on tragic events.

While I enjoy a mystery, while looking for pieces to fit some particular puzzle is a fascinating occupation, the concerns remain, as does the memorable statement of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!” As a consequence quite often I find myself looking to the implausible and improbable for pieces to fit a particular puzzle, though the risk remains I may yet stumble across just the right piece, the truth, only to discover as well that I can’t handle it.

Sam Clemens had a lot of fun with the Bible, and he certainly made many unique contributions to “biblical commentary,” an example being the case of Elijah and the false prophets. Sam, giving “credit” elsewhere as in many such stories, has Elijah surreptitiously dousing the wood at the altar with an accelerant while the prophets of Baal are distracted crying out to their god. Having failed to prevail on their false deity to bring down fire from the heavens and kindle the wood at the altar, with slight of hand Elijah strikes a match and touches it off.

The very exaggeration of such an impossibility makes Sam’s account all the more hilarious, while remembering he didn’t much hold with the miracles of the Bible; and his story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal is an exercise of exaggeration in order to call into question, to put it mildly, the miracles of the Bible. So Sam left it to readers to judge which was the more implausible; the Biblical account or his own outrageously impossible “explanation” of the affair, which explanation made indelibly clear his own opinion of such miracles by poking outrageous fun at them. The reader is left wondering how Elijah could possibly have pulled off this stunt of legerdemain as Sam describes it, but he also wanted the reader to consider how implausible the Bible version as well.

Over the years I became familiar with “pulpit stories” by a few preachers like some TV evangelists and others as outrageously implausible as Sam’s account of Elijah. The difference between these and Sam is their expecting listeners to believe their stories. Sam never expected people to actually believe the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco, but someone like Jimmy Swaggart or Pat Robertson would expect you to believe such a statement from them even if it made no sense whatsoever. After all, those like Jimmy and Pat are not humorists, despite some of their stories being laughable. But humor aside Sam’s version of Elijah and the false prophets makes as much sense as Jimmy anointing his old car with oil, praying over it and “healing” it when it needed a valve job he couldn’t afford in his salad days.

Despite his often humorous criticism of the Bible, Sam did take it very seriously in many ways. And much of his humor directed at the Bible and Christians had a very serious motive often involving serious questions and issues of life and morality, as the best of such humor invariably does. However, when it comes to trying to make sense of some things it is often wise to consider the implausible, even the outrageously implausible when trying to understand some of the mysteries confronting humankind.

Just how plausible is it the ancient Egyptians used kites to erect their monoliths, their obelisks and the great pyramids? Dr. Maureen Clemmons has demonstrated the possibility, and no matter how implausible serious scholars have given this attention. But some have suggested electric power had been utilized by the ancient Egyptians. The reason for giving implausible suggestions consideration is the fact that upon close scrutiny the plausible explanations fail to account for these and other great achievements of antiquity. Artifacts, structures and images from ancient times suggest many things, and one must often use their imagination in an attempt to interpret and explain some of these.

For my part, the Bible has always been a great resource book and one that contains the substance of an explanation of many mysteries. However, many of the stories of the Bible as with all ancient tales suffers the limitations of those telling the stories, most especially when it comes to stories of the supernatural and paranormal. It is only reasonable to expect some of the things described in the Bible being nearly if not completely incomprehensible to later readers, even as some of the prophetic parts of the Bible were virtually incomprehensible to the writers themselves.

As with all stories told by ancient poets, some things are provided by means of “theater” in order to make them memorable in their essence though eventually being at odds with advanced learning and knowledge. Many of you are familiar with the “dance” performed by Kevin Costner in “Dances with Wolves.” In just this manner many of the acts of ancient people were performed in a theatrical way, and the Greeks certainly refined this. But the “theater” of all ancient peoples has long been a means of passing the knowledge of one generation to those following. Once writing was available, tremendous advances in knowledge became possible, but people have never forsaken their ancient roots in the theater of their poets, the first historians.

My own speculations concerning “teachers” runs to the imaginative, since I consider it implausible the knowledge possessed by our earliest ancestors could have been of native origin. Our studies of native cultures have not accounted for things like the change from hunter/gatherers to sustained and methodical agriculture, and the many difficulties of metal-working, most especially of iron precludes such a thing coming about by the known human means and abilities of ancient peoples without unknown teachers with advanced knowledge of such things. But then, it is still being debated just how the great pyramids of Giza were actually constructed or why they were constructed.

I’ve said it many times, the loss of the great library at Alexandria was incalculable and a crime against humankind! We can’t even guess at what ancient knowledge was lost to us by this immense tragedy. But I have little doubt that what was lost would have pointed to ancient teachers, beings that would invariably take on the aura of the gods worshipped by the many ancient peoples of the past.

I give great credit to Henry Thoreau for building his little cottage and planting and cultivating his beans. His “experiment’ in living simply has been of great value and encouragement to me and untold numbers of others who have profited by his writing of his experiences. In one instance, he mentions the old farmer poking a hole in the soil with the handle of his hoe, depositing seed and covering it, and Henry supposed this old man had been doing the same thing in the same manner for decades, following the instructions he had been given by his father and his father before him back in time to who knew when? In the case of Yankee farmers, I have no doubt the trail would lead to Native Americans, who would explain their knowledge of such things was a gift of the gods to their wise men who in turn taught those of their various tribes.

But Henry failed to question who had been the first teacher of true agrarianism, though he mentioned some of the deities to whom such credit was given. I’ve often wished it were possible for me to press Henry on this question; I have no doubt it would have piqued his interest and we would have had a rousing discussion concerning the possibilities, especially given his fondness of entertaining notions about the various gods and goddesses of the different mythologies. I don’t think Henry would be quick to reject the ideas born of my imagination concerning the many mysteries surrounding us, both past and present.

While Sam Clemens poked fun, even he understood the miracles of the Bible were more easily entertained, more easily explained than the insanity of the world about him, an insanity that made less sense than crediting the various myths of the Bible. He also understood miracles have their dark side as well as their good. And who knows, maybe the ancient Egyptians did use kites or electricity to construct and erect their monoliths? Whatever your thoughts on the subject imagination, whether used for good or ill remains in my opinion “a gift of the gods,” though I continue to credit the possibility God in some fashion puts it into the hearts of some to know many things otherwise unknowable, and continue to make allowance for the possibility of both angels and demons in my imagination believing as I do that miracles by whatever definition or however explained do sometimes have a dark side as well as good.

Having spent years as a teacher I know the wisdom of the parable of not giving a man a fish thereby making him dependent, but rather teach him to fish so he can be independent. But I’m acutely aware of the problems arising from a lack of willingness to learn to fish coupled with a lack of fish, and the presumption of the simple parable is a man would starve to death unless someone were willing to keep giving him fish or someone taught him to fish. An inherent weakness of the parable is obvious; who taught the first guy to fish and how did he keep from starving? You must first learn something before you can pass such knowledge on to others, and this presumes “teachers” were there in order for our most ancient ancestors to survive, and the question will continue to be a mystery to me where the earliest teachers of agriculture and metal-working came from?

We know the early colonists in America would have starved to death without the help of indigenous Indians, but the questions remain how the Indians had learned the things they knew? Most of what is taught about this is no more than educated guesswork passed on to the naïve and gullible as “gospel,” but if one were able to speak to those ancient races preceding the colonists they would have said their knowledge had come to them from shamans who had been taught of the gods. It simply is not enough for “experts” to declaim on things like the beginnings of agriculture and metal-working prefacing their remarks by the ambiguous prefatory caveat “It is thought…” though you will hear this not only in classrooms but being repeated on the History Channel and others.

For those of us who were raised to fish as a necessary supplement to the family pot it was a real luxury to make the transition to “sport fishing,” creating and tying our own lures, learning the fine art of flycasting in pristine, wilderness trout streams. But even as a boy making this transition here in the Sequoia National Forest the essentials of fishing out of necessity for providing food never departed from me. However, I never ventured into the forest hereabouts without thinking about the Indians who had occupied this place long before the incursion of civilization with homesteaders and settlers, ranchers and farmers.

Before the dam was built here in the Kern River Valley, Isabella had a population of around 36 people and Kernville 115; so I trekked all over the area undisturbed. And in my forest forays I would come across evidence everywhere of the Indians who used to live here. I acquired a marvelous collection of arrowheads and obsidian tools used for scraping hides and other utilitarian purposes. There were holes in large rocks made for the purpose of grinding dried acorns and nuts for meal, and I would find small bones and beads used for decoration and jewelry. Various glyphs painted or chiseled in rocks were numerous, and I enjoyed trying to interpret them.

But even as a boy I could understand how harsh living conditions had to have been for the Indians, and how delicate the balance of survival. While the area was rich in game and fish, nevertheless it had to have been a constant battle for survival. Living on the mining claim without any utilities and having only a wood cook stove, a hand-dug well for water and an outhouse was Spartan enough to give me a realistic sense of what the Indians endured. But unlike the Indians, we did have the modern benefit of a battery-powered Zenith radio for entertainment and news of the outside world.

Looking back, it was an idyllic life for me with the whole of this forest area, the wild Kern River and numerous trout streams in which to explore, hunt and fish to my heart’s content. But life had to have been very harsh for my great-grandmother and grandparents. Yet, during the six years here they endured all the hardship without a word of complaint, and both my great-grandmother and grandmother died in their own beds here under those conditions without the benefit of hospital or other medical services.

In short, I have lived a primitive lifestyle and have no illusions concerning either the simplicity in living preached by Thoreau or what some today construe as “getting back to nature.” I also know what it is to grow things for necessary food rather than keeping a garden as a hobby, to raise and butcher animals, to hunt and fish out of necessity rather than being a pastime or “sport.” And many of us with a background of farms and the Dust Bowl migration together with the exigencies brought about by WWII with rationing and other hardships are not naive to being reduced to extreme circumstances of living in “survival mode.”

Many of us old-timers remember living with kerosene lamps, wood stoves, thundermugs and outhouses, and though knowing what it means to “do with, or do without” have no hankering for a return to those “good old days.” The difference between those that think they know and those having lived it are two very different things.

Both experience and necessity are often harsh teachers, but often as well the only teachers whose lessons must be learned for the sake of survival. So, with my background I look on the history of humankind with a sense of awe and wonder that we survived at all given the enormous odds against our species, and the words of “experts” touting “It is thought…” have not nearly the significance to me and carry little weight in the face of the realities of nature I have learned first hand.

For those that believe it was less than “miraculous” for our ancestors to have learned how to survive, to have a sustainable agriculture and discovered iron and make essential implements of it, you are left without a viable explanation otherwise. And who doesn’t wonder how the ancients discovered what fruits, nuts, and vegetables were edible? Sure, they could have observed what animals and insects ate and followed the example, but the history of agriculture does not follow this path.

One of the many things I learned to do here as a boy along with taxidermy and other “useful” skills was making my own clay pottery. The red clay soil to be found in what is known now as Wofford Heights was ideal to the purpose. But as with taxidermy and many other things, I had first read several articles on the subject of making things of clay. While I could very well have learned how to make pots and dishes of clay accidentally, it was much easier to have a “teacher” giving me guidance. And so it is with many of the things we take for granted today but somewhere back in time there had to be teachers, and when it comes to agriculture and iron for example it simply isn’t plausible such teachers came from our ancient ancestors.

Researching cultural anthropology and studying the ways of ancient peoples always leaves one with a sense of wonder how some cultures went in a direction of great achievement and others continued to exist as primitives. Henry Thoreau used the example of cannibals forsaking eating one another once introduced to the better ways of civilization, but the question remains where the civilized first learned their better ways? The answer isn’t always to be found in textbooks or on the History Channel. Surviving on nuts, berries, and insects, weaving mats of rushes and wearing nothing but animal skins does not promote a civilization. This required a methodical, sustainable agriculture and the use of iron implements. And while I admire my Indian ancestors, as a boy I had no desire to trade my shotgun or rifle for bow and arrows as a means of survival.

While some may believe our species learned about these things in the manner of “It is thought…” this just isn’t plausible. But if one demands an answer on the basis of what is actually known about the origins of these essential things, they are doomed to disappointment. Given my own personal iconography, my education and life’s experiences I’m of a mind like Sherlock Holmes that when the plausible and probable fails to explain things, no matter how seemingly implausible and improbable look to this for an answer.

It is quite understandable Obama would want to move into the Big House on “Plantation America” and put all the uppity white folks in their place just like Reconstruction all over again, but it is equally understandable the white trash Bill and Hillary are lusting for the very same thing. Caucasian or Negro slaves are slaves; and whether Obama or the Clintons, just like Bush both lust for Mexican slaves as well. However, as I have written in the past I can certainly see Bill sitting on the wide veranda of the family manse dressed in his white King Cotton suit smoking a cigar and sipping mint juleps, but my image of such a scene has Hillary out there in the fields leather whip in hand as the overseer whoppin’ slaves, leaving it to Bill to sell the cotton though his greatest skill is that of a feather merchant.

But enough of politicians and the corruption and lust for power common to this bottom feeding species, I have bigger fish to fry; and much more to my taste in the mysterious world of science and the paranormal, things that pique my interest far more than the mendacity and duplicity, the outright hypocrisy and disingenuousness of scoundrels pandering for office surrounding us like a foul odor.

It is nothing short of astounding, the marvels on the drawing boards across the world for magnificent, futuristic telescopes and radio equipment to scan the heavens. And from the heavens peering inward scientists and physicists are continuing in their work to understand the minutest particles of atoms. But a good portion of my life was devoted to understanding metals, how to mold and machine them into the required shapes. Over the years I learned the properties of all the various metals, the various alloys, the proper means to cast, shape, heat treat and work them for designated uses whether utilitarian or exotic.

As a tool and die maker an understanding of metallurgy, the properties of the elements and their transitional forms during the various processes of heating, cooling, and working was essential, as was a mastery of all the many machine tools essential to the profession along with the various methods of welding and foundry techniques. So when my curiosity is aroused to ask how the ancients discovered iron, I not only bring my academic credentials and qualifications to bear on the question but a very formidable background in metal-working, not something the usual academic would have in their favor.

For inquiring minds tracing the origins of things can be a stimulating exercise. But such searching for beginnings can be frustrating. It is generally accepted the transition from hunting/gathering to methodical and sustainable agriculture began some 10,000 years ago, but this is difficult to nail down. The same difficulty is met in attempting to determine the first use of metals. We are familiar with tags like Bronze Age and Iron Age, but as with agriculture pinning these down and trying to decipher transitions from one to another can be quite confusing and the thousands of books written on these subjects often serve to obfuscate rather than illuminate, which is only to be expected when facts are scant resulting in an abundance of theories and speculations.

Taking a thought from Poe I have pondered over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, but I also keep up with the various sciences and the latest investigations and discoveries. However, harking back to forgotten lore I still want to know many things that seem to be veiled by the passage of time, things like how were agriculture and iron discovered? While intriguing to investigate, it does become quite tiresome reading what amounts to the rehashing of many theories and much speculation about these things without any certain knowledge of the facts. But the available facts concerning agriculture and various metals while titillating do not answer the fundamental questions of origins which are generally relegated to educated guesswork.

Some take the view that planting sustainable crops and the discovery of various metals were “lucky accidents.” But like the constellations as a “star map” such lucky accidents simply do not happen. And some things like the constellations, the Sphinx, the great pyramids of Giza, and Nazca lines, the Mayan Calendar and various “zodiacs” declare something more than merely the native intelligence of past humankind; the evidence declares there is something else at work in such things.

Various mythologies offer tantalizing hints concerning the origins of many things, the Bible for example in Genesis chapter four mentions several items, and during the Exodus we read God put it in the hearts of certain people to know how to do things essential in constructing the Tabernacle. But however some of these things came about, I know a human ancestor in the far distant past did not see those constellations in the sky, I know some ancient did not suddenly decide to save certain seeds and plant a field of wheat, I know some ancient didn’t suddenly realize how to make a super-hot fire and melt the iron out of ore and shape it. These things happened, but in my opinion they could not have happened without superior, call it “supernatural” intelligence guiding ancient people, and God putting it in their hearts to know these things is just one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is the Vegans in “Contact” sharing their superior intelligence with earthlings. In sum, I don’t know how these things happened, but I know “in my bones” they did not come about by human intelligence or lucky accidents.

Those throughout history noted for being “gifted,” those like Newton, Einstein, Michelangelo and Da Vinci, the great philosophers, artists, and scientists of humankind are not to be explained apart from their “intuition.” Their abilities in many cases cannot be explained on the basis of what we call “genius” alone. There has to be something more to it than this, something more than the lucky accidents that have accounted for some of the marvels resulting, something that transcends such lucky accidents or even the hard work leading to some marvelous discoveries and inventions, none of which would be possible without the “discovery” and development of agriculture and iron.

It is difficult in the extreme to believe a chain of lucky accidents resulted in our unique solar system and our unique earth with its unique moon, that lucky accidents account for the demise of the dinosaurs and everything like the little bear’s porridge being “just right” for our species. “Alien Nation” and other such SciFi would have extraterrestrials mingling with humans, and there is always the suggestion of Atlantis or other past civilizations somehow imparting their knowledge to a future, fledgling civilization. But mythologies and SciFi have generally allowed room for superior malignant intelligences as well; and for good reason. Even if one indulges in the most improbable themes of SciFi there is the matter of good and evil ever before us and an accounting of such a thing must be given consideration. For this very reason in most mythologies there is latitude for both angels and demons.

As to the matter of life in its various manifestations, Dr. J. Craig Venter and his work with extremophiles, microbes that live in the most extreme of environments, has caused him to be awed by the capacity of these organisms to survive. “Given the wealth of biological and metabolic templates that nature has invented over nearly four billion years of evolutionary tinkering, scientists say, any sane program to synthesize new life forms must go hand in hand with a sustained sampling of the old. ‘My view is that we know less than 1 percent of what’s out there in the biological universe,’ Dr. Venter said.”

And small wonder, since scientists have yet to discover all the secrets of a single, living cell. It remains my contention there can be no “theory of everything” until we know exactly what life and death are. The efforts being made in the area of synthetic life are proving to be most interesting in peeling back the layers surrounding the mystery of life only to find more layers yet, much like particle research and astronomy seeming infinite in both mystery and diversity. But what those like Dr. Venter are discovering is that life can be manifest in extremely hostile environments. This would seem to advocate for life on other planets in the universe, but intelligent life in our form, ah, that is a whole different matter. Still, not knowing what life is advocates for superior intelligence existing “somewhere,” and the inexplicable mysteries right here on our own planet remain without an explanation apart from some kind of superior intelligence beyond that of our species.

In the meantime, I can’t do much if anything about what world leaders are doing to us and our planet. So, you may understand why I would far rather devote my time to speculation about the mysteries of our earth, our solar system and universe. I can’t do much about these either, but at least I feel my time and energy are better spent in this fashion.

It was an interesting touch in “Contact” when those deciphered messages transmitted to earth from the star Vega showed a Swastika flag and Hitler giving a speech during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. But as Carl Sagan pointed out, we don’t know what information other civilizations if they exist might pick up from earth. We can hope, of course, their first impressions won’t be based on Hitler.

There is a cautionary word in all this, something many people have pointed out regarding SETI; that we should be very careful what information is being transmitted into space for other intelligences to decipher about us, but the Beatles? WASHINGTON - The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way. NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe” across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star. This first-ever beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space is nostalgia-driven. It celebrates the 40^th anniversary of the song, the 45^th anniversary of NASA’s Deep Space Network, which communicates with its distant probes, and the 50^th anniversary of NASA…

Now I liked much of the Beatles’ music, but I disagree with those at NASA. Why not Mozart? Wouldn’t that put a better face on our degree of civilization than some Beatles’ tune notwithstanding the case made for this one? However, I know some hard core fans that swear the Beatles actually speak for all humankind and will not be dissuaded. For that matter, I don’t doubt some at NASA believe Willie Nelson or Frank Sinatra would be the better choice. The point being if a message is to be sent to potential civilizations around Polaris or in galaxies far, far away just who gets to make the decision about this? As the article points out NASA isn’t immune to commercial interests though following the money can be difficult in all government agencies.

But we are told it would take 431 years for the song to arrive at Polaris, so why worry about it? It isn’t like it should be of any immediate concern, and unlike the Vegans in Contact the “Polarians” if they exist might not have the ability or means to make anything of it. However, there is still the matter of considering what other civilizations would make of us earthlings if they are listening to or spying on our planet? Would it result in something like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and a stern warning from Klaatu, or possibly an assault and occupation or worse? While it’s impossible to put ourselves in the shoes of some extraterrestrial and see things from their point of view, it would be difficult to believe any superior civilization could possibly fail to see humankind as anything but a barbarous, violent and murderous species deserving of extermination.

There were sound reasons for both Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Clemens believing our species not deserving preservation; that because of our history of horrors with no promise of widespread humane and compassionate improvement humankind ought to become extinct. And, if one were to look at politicians for example as a distinct species who could possibly disagree? Some would include lawyers in this category, but whether or not there are definitely some species that seem to be asking for extinction; but humankind as a whole?

If Polarians or other extraterrestrials were to judge us solely on the basis of a Beatles’ song that might not be so bad, but what if they are watching American TV and making their decision on whether to annihilate us or not on that basis? Bad enough the Bible has it the violence was so bad in Noah’s time God was sorry he even created man and decided to make a literal wash of the whole affair. One may reasonably question whether the Deity was so naive as to expect better of Noah and his sons, but in no time at all humans were back in the business of slaughtering each other wholesale; and the book of Revelation paints a dim picture of our chances of surviving Armageddon. And it will be interesting to find out if those ancient Mayans might have been on to something; 2012 isn’t far off.

Walt Kelly had Churchy in “Pogo” reading a comic book about Martians destroying the earth but Porkypine tells him not to worry, that we could do the job ourselves without any help from outsiders. While Churchy was relieved to hear that I believe Walt had a pretty good handle on the situation. So, what the heck; put on a happy face and consider the bright side like Porkypine and Churchy whether we will beat the Martians, Polarians or whoever to the punch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To my good fortune I still have a treasured copy of R. E. Winsett’s 1931 edition “Latter Rain Revival” hymnbook, the one my maternal grandparents used in our small church on the corner of Cottonwood and Padre in southeast Bakersfield. One of the hymns I recall from childhood was titled “God’s Radio,” and the refrain went: “You’re in touch with heaven o’er God’s radio. You can talk to Jesus, get the answer right away, There will be no static, every word He’ll hear you say; In the air above, or on the earth below, You’re in touch with heaven o’er God’s radio.”

As a preacher grandad expressed outright disdain for the charlatans’ message over the airwaves “Put your hand on this radio and be healed!” accompanied by requests for “love offerings,” but God’s Radio continued to be sung in our church. Thinking back, perhaps grandad didn’t find the idea all that farfetched, maybe he believed communication with God was accomplished in some manner like the way radios worked. After all, even in the 30s there was much of actual mysticism associated with things like radio waves and one only need listen to some of the radio programs and watch some of the films of the era to understand this seeming naiveté of the times. We were still being thrilled by Buck Rogers and fantastic things like “death rays” and such, so it isn’t surprising people would think of communication with God or the departed by means of something like radio waves. Though apocryphal, the story of Edison thinking such a thing possible to contact the departed made sense to a lot of people back then.

My reason for calling attention to God’s Radio is reading the latest thoughts of astronomers and physicists concerning our universe. There is much speculation right now whether the theories of gravity may be all wrong, or whether a rapidly expanding universe may be simply the result of the way things react to all explosions. As I put it in the comments section of one website: “The simplest explanation of explosive force resulting in accelerating expansion and lessening gravitational influence is to me the better choice without esoteric presumed phenomena such as black matter or “extra” dimensions. However, until we know exactly what life and death are, what animates and departs with death, there can be no ‘theory of everything.’ For me, this is the primary weakness of attempts to understand a universal constant. We may accept such a constant, but not be able to understand it and perhaps it will remain an ‘unknowable’ part of such a constant. I think Einstein believed this, but drew back from the potential ‘paranormal’ implications.”

It’s an oft heard expression about shooting pool: “I’d rather be lucky than good,” and Sinatra sang true in “Luck be a Lady Tonight.” People like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump aren’t that smart, they were born under a lucky star. Astrology, the Tao, Feng shui, these and many similar things are honorable and serious beliefs among millions of the best educated people. Whatever one’s thoughts about the paranormal, things like “luck” have been a constant throughout the history of humankind. As an example of why so many continue to credit such a thing, you only have to witness how many in show business without any special talent to commend them become successful. And to prove the point how many politicians, especially those now running for the White House, have anything that really commends them to hold elected office? But luck and good fortune are properly in the domain of the paranormal with things like clairvoyance, déjà vu, telekinesis, and telepathy, things that do not readily submit to laboratory and scientific testing, verification and replication.

After many years it occurred to me that I am not a skeptic, but a questioner. It seems my often melancholy task to question things, especially things that while surrounded by an abundance of circumstantial evidence admit of no scientific proof. In discussing this with a dear friend who has had some experience with the paranormal, things like feeling she was somewhere that made her fearful without understanding why, the idea of telepathic communication with God or supreme extraterrestrial intelligences came to mind. Hence, recalling God’s Radio and wondering if “someone” is suggesting the questions that arise in my own mind and thereby preventing my becoming a skeptic, in which case I don’t really expect any answers to such questions though it seems my fate to continue reading, studying, thinking and speculating about the possibilities rather than retreating into a comfortable skepticism for some peace of mind.

It may very well be some like Newton and Einstein have better “reception” than others, their “radios” tuned to the proper frequency to receive communications from more advanced civilizations in the universe, and much like the hopes some pin on SETI are able to tune in on the “Universal Lyre.” The problem the people at SETI have is being able to scan the heavens with limited bandwidth. We know the necessity of the proper antenna being used to transmit and receive radio and other waves, we know you must be on the proper frequency when using any kind of radio to transmit and receive communications. In a similar fashion, some minds may be tuned to the proper frequency to receive information from advanced intelligences that would account for the genius of insights and “intuition” on the part of those like Newton and Einstein, even the builders of the great pyramids and the great inventors and artists like Michelangelo and Da Vinci.

One of the problems that seem to plague thoughts about communication from advanced civilizations and intelligences is the mode of interpretation of such telepathic communication whether by radio waves or other means. For example, if the prophets of the Bible were trying to communicate such things but limited by their own human understanding such things may not make any sense. It was one thing for God to tell Noah just how to build that ark, and quite another for the Apostle John to make sense of his apocalyptic visions and attempt to make sense of them in written expression. A “star map” may have been suggested to the ancients from “dwellers in the stars” resulting in a description of the constellations, and the Mayan artists may have been given their calendar but forced to configure it on the basis of their own culture. And so with the Nazca Lines, crop circles, etc. Ancient peoples did things that they neither had the science nor mathematics to do, and often seeming to have no purpose to them and making no sense to future generations. In far too many cases, some of these things became corrupt forms of religion even to the extent of human sacrifices!

In the old days of radio some of us would just turn the dial seeing what we could pick up, with TV people often “surf” channels, and today we do the same thing on the Internet. But in every case, if you really want to hear, see, or read something you have to be on the right “frequency” and stop there in order to receive intelligible communication. Dreams may be a kind of “surfing” where our minds travel unknown airwaves, but occasionally stop at something demanding our attention. There may be a sound reason in the stars for things like Joseph’s cup of divination and his ability to interpret dreams, for people like Nostradamus and Cayce, even for a Hitler and Stalin, though these latter two would at least suggest some malevolent mind than anything intent on benefiting our species, and we live with the ancient monuments in stone of both demons and angels. So, in the ways of astrologers things good and evil reside in the heavens.

This we know; the great scientific achievements of humankind have been made in a relative “blink of the eye” on the timeline of our species, and more recently things like nuclear weapons and computers that cannot be accounted for on the basis of normal human ingenuity alone. The phrase “A stroke of genius” may have more to do with what is “in the stars” than anything merely human; and perhaps God’s Radio is not so farfetched as it would seem.

Royal Crown Cola was a favorite of mine as a boy; but I didn’t pay all that much attention to those yellow pyramids on the bottles of RC. The color scheme was attractive, and the twelve-ounces for a nickel was a good deal and it tasted good. It would take a while before I began to wonder about those pyramids as well as the pyramid on dollar bills. It finally occurred to me that such pyramids were actually “alien” shapes that did not normally occur in nature and were not used in conventional structures. And the more I thought about this, the more the word “alien” suggested itself in respect to pyramids such as those of Giza, the smooth-sided kind like the Great Pyramid rather than the far more common step-pyramids found in so many other places globally. Four-sided structures are easy to understand, even those of step-pyramids, but not those formed of smooth sides reaching a pointed apex. To use a good Southern expression like that of Mammy in GWTW, “It ain’t fittin’.” And no matter how you try to explain it, those huge smooth-sided pyramids coming to a point on top “just ain’t fittin’,” they are alien to our eyes and minds and in some mysterious way just out of place.

But do a search of the literature on those Giza pyramids and you will quickly realize there are no simple answers to these alien structures. In fact, the more you study the subject the more alien they seem to become as even the experts are divided in so many different directions. One of the reasons for the paucity of answers is the fact that these particular and distinctive pyramids like so much of the knowledge of ancient civilizations were beyond what those ancients were capable of knowing, beyond their native abilities of design and construction on their own without “outside help.” I’ve used the example several times of the constellations as a “celestial map” and various “zodiacs” being beyond what the ancients could possibly have known to their unaided eyes or any mathematics or science available to them unless there was some outside help; one of the more common theories being that of advanced civilizations such as Atlantis in some manner preserving their knowledge and passing it on to ancient Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt.

As to various ancient structures given to the study of the heavens, many believe the Giza pyramids are oriented astronomically, and in a way not possible without help of some kind. As to the Mayan Doomsday Calendar, the same thing would seem to apply as well provided the calculation of 2012 is correct. A search of the literature here, as with the Giza pyramids, can be very confusing, but it is generally agreed very particular astronomical things will occur in this year, including those of a galactic nature important to our solar system.

Whatever one’s opinion, the Sphinx and Giza pyramids for the most part remain mysteries, as do so many ancient structures and science not possible to the contemporary people of the times and must be explained in some way unknown to us. And it is in the attempts to explain these mysteries so many theories of religion, UFOs, etc. gain adherents. For my part, I incline to the theory of advanced civilizations in some manner following catastrophic events that destroyed them imparting their knowledge to future civilizations. And why not consider the possibility of extraterrestrial minds unhindered by the constraints of any known physical limitations?

One idea is that of peculiar genius such as that of Newton and Einstein being imparted by telepathic minds in some way able to communicate their thoughts to the proper “receivers,” much in the manner of claims for “channeling.” And when some raise objections to this it still leaves the problem of trying to explain how the ancients accomplished things literally impossible without help of some kind. Granting the idea of some kind of telepathic communication from superior beings is in the realm of Psi and mysticism such as reincarnation, an idea embraced by some very notable people even of genius, nevertheless it remains a legitimate area of speculation in all attempts to explain the unexplainable.

One very peculiar but intriguing idea concerning the smooth and pointed Giza pyramids is the design would be suitable for enormous atmospheric pressures, including that of the greatest ocean depths. But what ancient and lost civilization would have needed such a design for any practical purposes? For the present it is a question in search of an answer, though many are willing to accept their astronomical design and orientation.

As to the Mayan Doomsday Calendar, my own thoughts as I consider world conditions is that whether true or not we seem to be on a doomsday path globally, and given the circumstances it is a legitimate question of how we are going to last another five years without something of catastrophic significance happening; nuclear, climatic, biological, or other? And those Giza pyramids will continue to appear “alien,” and perhaps the writers of the apocalyptic literature of the Bible, the inexplicable ancient structures and things like the Mayan Calendar may have had “outside help?” Whether or not, few would argue we need the kind of help we can’t expect of world leaders including our own.

Of course, unlike the mysteries of the Giza pyramids and the one on our dollar bill those pyramids on the RC bottle could simply have been a promise of a cold, thirst-quenching and refreshing drink set against an arid landscape. But I wonder? And before anyone is too quick to dismiss my wondering about such things given so much lunacy abounding in politics for example, who would be so uncharitable as to cast the first stone?

Wherever you go throughout my native Kern County you will find people living in abominable conditions, too often illegal aliens that are forced to live in places many would find unsuitable for the family dog or cat, without proper sanitation or even running water. It might be a junk trailer or even a camper, but people are crowded into these for the sake of slave labor and the rent charged for places no better than the sties and chicken coops on farms. Some are so crowded they deny anything like the “privilege” of closing a door for privacy, and some evidence the presence of people utterly ignorant of civilized living and hygiene.

But even here in the Kern River Valley we have our “gypsies,” those without jobs or housing that simply “camp out” wherever they can find a place to do so. Not long after I bought this cottage in Bodfish some years ago I had to enlist the aid of Carl Sparks to come with some of his deputies to clear out the “shanty-town” that had grown up around my property. Things had come to a head after my place had been burglarized, and when some of these people were running hoses from my property for water and I came home once to find the cops had six of them lined up in handcuffs next door.

Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” continues throughout the world, and even here in America instances of such atrocious working conditions may still be found. I was raised among the Okies and Arkies who had their own stories of being reduced to slave labor such as Steinbeck made infamously memorable. I’ve always known how to work with my back and hands, skilled with hammer, saw, pick and shovel. But where jobs were once plentiful in America, jobs that held the promise of advancing to something better have fast disappeared, shipped out of our nation by a duplicitous government and corporations to employ and feed the slaves for less money elsewhere in places like Mexico, China, and India.

Working in places like Watts and East San Jose, as a teacher as well as for CPS I’ve witnessed the intolerable conditions many children are forced into because of the irresponsibility of individuals and our government; local, state, and federal. Children invariably suffer because of the irresponsibility of the adults who have children in their “care.” Some time ago when three, small children came screaming and pounding on my door, one of them badly injured and bloody because of accidentally breaking a window with his arm I had to call 911. Only after the paramedics and the required fire truck arrived was it discovered the children had been left alone without an adult in attendance. The call was put in to the sheriff’s department and the children were placed in custody with CPS, as is usual in such circumstances.

If it were not for my broad experience working with children in so many diverse circumstances the stories I have told in some of my books would only be anecdotal, but from childhood on I have personally experienced so many of the dreadful things done to children this removes the things I write about from simply being anecdotes, the melancholy accidents that occur to children anywhere. Over forty years ago I began to tell parents things were not as bad as they thought in the schools, they were worse! And now things seem to be worse for children even in their homes. The conditions children are living in is a mirror reflecting an entire society, and the reflection is increasingly one of distress for children.

The better educated among Americans have only the number of children they can reasonably be expected to care for. But this is a diminishing factor in America as the preponderance of children are being born to the irresponsible and uneducated, primarily illegal aliens; the result being a diminishing hope such children will ever know anything but want and ignorance, too often left for responsible taxpayers to support in one way or another. But given the economic uncertainty for America, responsible taxpayers may soon not be able to support a burgeoning population of those that cannot or will not be productive members of society. And “subsidized housing” for a welfare population will certainly fail when responsible people can no longer afford the kind of taxation that comes with a growing population of “drones.” Knowing this, I reflect on the shanties many millions in America now inhabit and my own experience with such deplorable living conditions.

Affordable housing was a keynote of Henry Thoreau’s “Walden,” and since he realized how important shelter was he dwelt on this theme at some length including the experience of building his own little cottage by the pond. In one telling remark Henry asked whether it would be wise for the Indian to trade his wigwam which he owned for the comparative palace of the white man which he would never own. Henry also remarked on how rare it was for the citizens of Concord to actually own their homes and farms, that most were mortgaged, and often for more than they were worth the result being in many cases passing on to heirs property that was more of an encumbrance than something of value. The infamy of present money-lenders has a very old “pedigree” here in America, even going back to the times of the Bible.

I’ve experienced living in what would qualify as the “Irish sties” Henry referred to, one such shanty he bought for materials to use in the construction of his own cottage. The six years I lived as a boy on a mining claim here in the Kern River Valley without utilities of any kind and having an outdoor privy were an education in Henry’s “simplicity of life.” Later when I first read Walden I could easily relate to Henry’s thoughts on the subject, especially when it came to affordable housing. I knew why he could refer to that toolbox for the railroad workers being sufficient for shelter, though it might only be large enough to sleep in. For a dollar, Henry suggested, one might have such adequate shelter rather than rent a more commodious dwelling and find yourself worrying and looking over your shoulder for a “remittance man” dogging you for the rent.

With my background in building skills, when the tracts were being developed around the Saugus area in L. A. County I knew I could design and build a better house. Buying and subdividing some raw land in Acton, I did so. It was a three bedroom, two bath house with attached double garage. I had it sold before I finished the framing. Over the years, I continued to build and rehab many houses, but in all these efforts I never forgot the importance of “affordable housing” as per Thoreau. I never deluded myself that people were buying houses they would actually own, but as Henry warned were incurring mortgages that precluded their ever actually owning their homes. And the story of the Indian trading the wigwam he owned for something better he would never own stayed in my mind; I knew very well from personal experience exactly what Henry was talking about.

Few would argue the advantages of civilized living are vastly preferable to that of the Indian living in a wigwam, but what is the advantage of living comfortably yet in fear of exorbitant taxes, rent or mortgage that can have you out on the street at any time? One might suppose when enough of such people from the better classes are dispossessed and forced to live in third world conditions an answer to the millions being increasingly subsidized by taxpayers might be resolved.

I’ve always had an interest in “alternative housing and energy.” I’ve done a few experiments along these lines and know shelter and energy can be reduced to very small means. But in most cases government restrictions such as building codes prevent many of these things being utilized. A few shelving boards or bricks of adobe, even native rocks would provide shelter, and the absolute requirements of food and water might be available in the right locations, though even a “tent in the wilderness” is only suitable when such is the manner of a culture and society. Here in America people expect “better,” whether they can afford it or not. But when the means of better runs out…?

A neighbor of mine a few years ago was really into “Pyramidology.” So much so, that he actually constructed a pyramid of plywood and measuring a hundred square feet in his yard. The structure could not contain any metal, so following directions he screwed and glued, and when the glue had properly set he removed the screws and puttied the holes. The idea was to sleep in this structure and gain strength and insights otherwise unavailable to mortals.

While my neighbor claimed he received enormous benefits from sleeping in the structure, it occurred to me that pyramids are not the design of choice when considering shelter from the elements. In fact, they are not the normal shape of any structures; which makes the mystery of various pyramids all the more mysterious. Why would such a design occur to anyone when it is not a natural choice? From grass and mud huts to the designs of great cathedrals certain forms suggest themselves, but pyramids will always remain the “exotics” of architecture and you are not likely to find one being built in your neighborhood.

But pyramids come to mind when considering the seeming lunacy of our leaders that are bent on requiring We the People build bricks without straw. We have a number of crises looming on the immediate horizon, but none of those in office or running for office seem to be willing to give attention to these crises apart from lip-service and the predictably hollow and vacuous “promises.” However, as things worsen economically for ordinary American citizens the thoughts of affordable housing loom as the potential straw that breaks the camel’s back. And subsidized housing, living like rats in cages paid for by taxation without representation is not a part of the “American Dream.” And if heating bills double next year as we have been warned will happen, and drinking water becomes scarce, and gas and food prices escalate beyond our means, and so on…?

Is the proposed “stimulus package” an attempt to keep the Great Unwashed in its place, much as welfare is designed to “keep those people in their place” and out of places like Rodeo Drive and Malibu? And, of course, when a “Katrina” should occur you quickly discover whose lives are considered of value and whose are not, and demanding a “Chocolate City” only acerbates matters. But whatever the avowed purpose, whenever those in government express a desire to “help” us we can be excused the resulting cynicism.

Like many including Henry Thoreau, I have generally placed the value of something on the amount of my life I have been willing to exchange for the acquisition of it; but what of the value of life itself? In most cases, it would seem of very trivial value, especially considering the hundreds of millions sacrificed to Mars. And when the “value” is predicated on building things like the pyramids or the monuments of tyrants it would seem the only value is that of slave labor.

In calling into question the doctrine of the sacredness of life, Henry Thoreau remarked of a teamster “… does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny compared to the shipping interests… How godlike, how immortal, is he?”

While Henry’s comment must be taken within the context of his often quoted remark “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” his focus on “Self-emancipation” does call into question the Christian doctrine affirmed in our Declaration of Independence “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”

Most would agree that ideals are fine things; that our lives would suffer and be impoverished by the lack of ideals, among which are “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and this should be accorded to all. But such ideals must often bow to the practical necessities of life; and when these place the emphasis on wealth rather than any quality of life for the masses something must eventually break the cycle of such apparent inequality. In “The Crossing” the point was made to Washington that in the end all kill for profit, though our War for Independence had many worthwhile ideals driving it. However, the subject quickly turns on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness being the domain of the wealthy, not the teamster who because of his life of quiet desperation shows no spark of divinity. In short, his life is of no value compared to the “shipping interests.” His only value is how he best serves those interests.

The World Economic Forum going on in Davos, Switzerland calls to mind how unfair life is. Some like Bill Gates are vowing to do something to end poverty, but the issue of the necessity of birth control before you can realistically address the problems of poverty would seem to be of no consequence at this meeting. The reason being those like Gates understand the necessity of slave labor, as do all the wealthy like the employer of Henry’s teamster and those of the shipping interests. The stock exchanges of nations like America are a fair indicator of how well business is doing, but this is predicated on how well slavery is doing; and the bottom line is derived from the number of slaves serving their masters.

Women according to the religion of Islam only have the position of slaves dedicated to serving men, both in this life and the hereafter. But in the Industrial Revolution it took many women and children serving as slaves in order to reap the profits for the wealthy. The resulting workhouses in England and later in America were places where the barest means of subsistence and existence was the only thought and hope of the workers, a degraded life that despite his abolitionist views led Henry to favor a Southern overseer over a Northern one.

The plight of the poor moved the conscience of those like Dickens and Thoreau, but the dark side remained that of a population without birth control which would have removed the degradation of slave labor. Those noted for a “social conscience” seem to most often miss this point; that without birth control exchanging one form of slavery for another is far short of the ideal, and in most cases where socialism in various forms is encouraged the result is a preponderance of “human weeds” rather than worker slaves put to productive use.

Henry might pity the shepherd whose thoughts rose no higher than the hills about him, but there was a shepherd, David, whose thoughts did rise much higher than the hills about him, and he had a son, Solomon, who built a magnificent temple. This was denied David since he was a man of war with much blood on his hands, but the wars and blood made Solomon’s grandiose work possible, even as Emerson noted concerning the noble families that arose from barbarians. In all these things fields, vineyards, and orchards, flocks and herds are essential, and these require many workers, most of whose thoughts never rise higher than the hills about them.

But let’s educate the masses and enable and ennoble them so their thoughts are encouraged to rise higher than the hills about them. There is still the problem of the fields and flocks needing tending, and there is very little room in the Big House for plantation workers, and the need is comparatively minimal for house servants. If the wealthy are to have their monuments of stone or other, the need is for slaves not the educated masses deceived into believing they were meant for better things.

“Give us this day, our daily bread” is all most honest, working people ask who only want to earn their bread quietly and in peace. But when “bread and circuses” fail of their purpose and the people want for bread, then even the lives of quiet desperation may turn to lives of desperate measures. Here in America for example when so many live as dogs feeding at Caesar’s table in one manner or another the need for slave labor from Mexico “to do the work Americans won’t do” is the real focus of those like Bill Gates, those that know it requires many slaves to support the wealthy, to support their egos and build their monuments. Those at the World Economic Forum realize the “shipping interests” are all that matters, and the bottom line is based on the many millions of slaves whose thoughts are not allowed to rise higher than the hills about them.

History does seem to favor the few over the many, some very few seeming to have a “destiny” of greatness whether for good or evil. But when too many are led to believe their lofty thoughts without labor are supposed to sustain them, they are doomed to disappointment; and when that disappointment turns to anger it has some very unpleasant effects on a society. Here in America where TV leads so many to believe they “deserve” to live lives of “entitlement” without labor we are beginning to suffer from the effects of such thinking. And when “Caesar” is no longer able to deliver on the bread and circuses the portents are grave to consider.

There are far too many now that believe they are “entitled” because of lofty thoughts without labor, or because of race or some other factor. Even Henry was disgruntled about this, believing he should have been given a living by his fellows. And when anyone believes they are not successful because they couldn’t handle fame and fortune and all the while having done nothing worthy of fame and fortune, then you have the disagreeable result of the person feeling cheated in some manner. In this same way, many who have done nothing to get an education but feel they are “above” working in the fields or tending the herds are likely to use force to get what they feel they are being “deprived of.” In too many cases, these are only the human weeds resulting from people rutting like animals with no thought of a future for the resulting babies.

I’m inclined to believe Bill Gates has his sights on increasing the amount of slave labor available to him and his “colleagues” than the welfare of humankind. Otherwise, he and these others would be preaching a doctrine of birth control rather than methods of increasing the means of breeding of more slaves. But whether or not, the net result is the same. And where is the doctrine of the “sacredness of life” or any “spark of divinity” to be found among slaves, whether they be wage slaves or being one of Caesar’s dogs? And I ask myself, just what better than this can we realistically expect of those now posturing and pandering for the White House?

America is fast losing writers deserving of being called such, and in a youth-oriented culture I’m often reminded of the cautionary words of the elderly to young people: “We have been young, but you have never been old.” Of course, there was a time when I was young and believed I was smarter than I was. Such is the case with most young people; but invariably it takes growing old to realize you were never as smart as you once thought you were; and the increasing years serve to cause us to have fewer “answers” to many of the questions of youth.

You know the commercial where the caveman takes exception to the psychologist because she condescendingly considers herself smarter than him. I wondered at the time whether they should have used Dr. Phil in that spot. But when someone catches me making an error in writing I most often recall the film “Safe House” with Patrick Stewart. Not because of Alzheimer’s disease, but because of the errors that begin to creep into the writing of the elderly. Those of us that have reached the “golden years” know the “drawer” becomes quite full, and it isn’t at all unusual for age to not only often cast an azure tint over memory, but for homonyms and other such things to give us trouble. Our eyes begin to fail, and our minds don’t always keep track with what we are attempting to do, and peek in our minds may come out peak in our writing; not because we don’t know better, but such are the vicissitudes of the aging process. Alas, so are the many problems that accompany having lived long enough to remember youth, but unable to recapture it.

But those of us who have lived to an advanced age know what Bill Cosby meant when he said our minds begin to reside in our backside, because we often forget what it was we got out of a chair to get, only to recall what it was when we sit back down. And when we bend over to get something off the floor, we find ourselves asking whether there is something else we are supposed to do while we are down there before straightening up again.

As to writing, I personally admire the elderly that write and post to various blogs. That they are able to do so at all causes me to think “God love ‘em.” They are trying to keep their minds active, they have computers and are still learning new skills and often have something of value to share with others. So I’m not quick to jump their case because of typos or errors of either grammar or memory. Wherever possible, if a particularly egregious error should be committed, a polite email to the writer is most often graciously received. Certainly when I have made such an error I am grateful for being corrected.

Among my most treasured possessions are the letters from my maternal grandfather. Grandad couldn’t spell his way through a book of cigarette papers, but in his declining years he had managed to get hold of an old typewriter. Hunting and pecking he would laboriously type out letters to me, and sometimes they would be nearly indecipherable; but they remain treasures.

But there is another matter that has nothing to do with age; it has to do with something I learned many years ago. A person was trying to share his reading of “The Talisman” with someone and the person corrected his pronunciation of the word talisman. However, as it turned out the person doing the correcting of pronunciation had not even read the book. I generally welcome being corrected, most educated people do welcome such correction, but most would rather the person have at least read the book before presuming to correct them.

In the old Saturday Evening Post there was always a short article entitled “The Perfect Squelch.” When I was a boy I read one of these in which a person had given a speech, but it was obvious English was not his native language. When he had finished, someone commented to the fellow, “You seem to have a lot of difficulty with our language;” to which the speaker replied, “Yes, and I have equal difficulty with six other languages as well.”

When I am going over something I have written and an error suddenly leaps out at me I am grateful I was at least able to catch it. Unfortunately, I don’t always catch these. But nothing serves better than to learn a foreign language to teach you your own native tongue. When it comes to grammar and syntax, I was appalled by my ignorance of English while trying to master German, Greek, and Hebrew, and came to understand why as a boy I struggled so with Latin and Polish.

So, to all my companion oldsters who are hunting and pecking on the blogs I say keep at it; stay active and alive in your minds. We have something of value to contribute to a younger generation in hope of their taking heed whether we spell it correctly or memory should fail. And regardless of how full the drawer becomes, as long as you can see and write continue doing so. The Internet and websites are marvelous tools and venues for the young, but they deserve and need the guidance and examples of the elderly capable of making their thoughts known to others.

When you travel wilderness places like I have and you have the knowledge of government projects I do there is more than enough cause to believe seemingly fantastic stories about the things being done the ordinary citizen is never told about. I’ve done work in Silicon Valley and other places requiring top level security clearance, but on one occasion I was working on a secret project in a shop in Palmdale, and once well into this project despite my security clearance was not surprised when six federal marshals appeared and without explanation took what I was working on and closed down the shop. Once while being interviewed for a job near China Lake, I noticed something I should not have noticed. However, when I innocently called attention to this item and expressed some familiarity with it I was told to wait until the base police showed up to question me, and was politely though firmly ushered off the property.

I’ve had enough experience in the aerospace industry and intelligence agencies to realize the symbiotic relationship with the military to know when not to make waves. These days, you dare not even stop on the roads around Edwards or China Lake to take pictures of the wildflowers, so, all in all, I’ve been pretty fortunate. Certain agencies of our government are still in the business of making people disappear.

But if watching politicians was not enough to convince us there are parallel universes, that ghosts and space aliens are all about us there is the widening gap between the haves and have-nots to prove we do live in a very surreal world, that life itself is becoming increasingly surreal. Orbiting above us is the International Space Station, and here on earth people are still murdering other people in the name of Allah and dying of hunger while TV is devoted to such things of consuming national interest and great import as to whether an obituary is being written for Brittney Spears.

While some uncharitable souls may accuse me of being a few feathers shy of a full duck, when Larry King is devoting air time to UFOs you just have to know the game is afoot. But I found it passing strange the case of Steve Fossett was not mentioned, nor was that of Amelia Earhart. But given the peculiar circumstances surrounding Fossett’s disappearance and the unparalleled and virtually unprecedented search efforts to find him his is still an interesting case, and made all the more so considering proximity to Area 51. However, if aliens didn’t bother Howard Hughes… well, some might say they did and this more than the government drove him into seclusion.

That people are spending enormous amounts of time and money searching for mini-black holes in places like the Bermuda Triangle and elsewhere, speculating whether they may blink on and off, speculating about Atlantis and searching for clues to that fabled city, continuing to be absorbed in the Riddle of the Sphinx, decoding the Bible and proving or debunking many myths and fables the wide range of interest in possibilities natural and supernatural goes on apace. In the final analysis many of us humans are curious as Dee Dee in “Dexter’s Laboratory,” and with an “Ooh” of curious fascination upon our lips push that button just to see what it will do.

When you think about the enormous amounts of time and money being spent in esoteric research together with the resources devoted to exploring our earth, solar system and the universe all the while so many hundreds of millions are suffering from want and ignorance there does seem to be something nearly surreal about this. But right here in America when I first read “Tobacco Road” by Erskine Caldwell, a distant relative, it did not surprise me those people didn’t know you had to put oil in the engine of that car. For that matter, I was born and raised among the very same kind of ignorance as that of people like the Lesters, and those described by Steinbeck and Harper Lee.

In places like Weedpatch and Little Oklahoma, Southeast Bakersfield, I recall an old woman that believed she had to put a cloth in an empty light socket to keep the electricity from leaking out, and the old man that would never eat anything from a can that had been opened on the bottom because he believed this poisoned the contents; though when I opened a can of lima beans the other day and found a very large and very bloated dead fly floating in it I should not have been surprised; disconcerted but not surprised. One expression I recall from childhood is “You have to eat a certain amount of dirt before you die.” Of course, this was qualified by no one expecting to eat it all at once. However, with so many things going wrong with our food supply one has cause to wonder? The old Phil Harris song long ago had it right; some little bug is going to find you someday, and “to eat at all is such a foolish game.” Alas, we haven’t yet come up with a suitable alternative.

Potable water is becoming scarce. Many years ago I read a SciFi story in which some astronauts died of thirst because they could not bring themselves to drink the recycled toilet water provided in their spaceship. Now Orange County, CA is going to provide such water. Do you suppose the bottled water industry might have something to do with this? More and more we come to understand why the ancients drank such copious amounts of beer and wine, and New England rum was in such demand during the early years of our nation. As the haunting refrain goes, “People die from drinking whisky but drinking water’s twice as risky” or, as Tom Lehrer had it, what they dump into the bay “comes out of your tap in San Jose;” so, just to be safe: “Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air.”

“You’ve got to have a dream.” It’s a line from a song in “South Pacific,” and if dreams were for sale, there would be no lack of buyers. But dreams are not for sale; they are personal. Some time ago I was given a “Dream Catcher” the young woman had made especially for me. I don’t know if it works, but I treasure it nevertheless. A very dear friend just sent me a quote from Clarence Darrow: “Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.” It’s an appropriate expression for our times when our children have every reason to doubt so many things, but are forbidden to give expression to their doubts. Worse, our children are not receiving the kind of education that would enable them to verbalize or give written expression to their doubts. And without these skills how can our children possibly survive, let alone have a dream? And surreal will never take the place of a dream.

Despite the promised “fixes” by politicians the news is so bad from so many different directions lately few people in America are guilty of thinking things can’t get any worse. As we wait for another shoe to drop in the way of bad news I recall the scene in “Doctor Zhivago” when he pronounces an old man had died from starvation, but such a thing was not “permitted” to exist by the new revolutionary government. The mad dream of a “workers’ paradise” does not admit of such things like starvation, they simply are not allowed. And being forbidden to speak of such things, they simply do not exist. Because of political correctness and so much in the way of “entitlements” and legal protection for so many minorities of every description and the ACLU determined to force Americans to make bricks without straw, while there are many evils threatening America we are forbidden to speak of them, so they simply do not exist.

It wasn’t an original thought of Thoreau pointing out trade curses everything it handles, and it wasn’t original to Jesus pointing out the love of money is the root of every kind of evil. And when I read about the shortage of flour in Pakistan I immediately thought of the same thing being the basis of the French Revolution. It seems an abomination the leadership of Pakistan can afford a nuclear arsenal, but because of a shortfall, corruption, and ineptness in government the ordinary citizen is having trouble getting flour. But will we face the rationing I recall from WWII once more here in America; in my opinion, yes. And with a worldwide famine being a real possibility the next shoe to drop may very well be a jackboot.

Yes, in my opinion the bread lines and soup kitchens are about to return to America, the contemporary version of “food stamps” will give place to the real thing. And so will the concentration camps be returning; but this time, like so many of our jails and prisons, they will be filled by Mexicans. Our troops will be coming home, but only because the situation in America will require them to police these camps and our cities, secure our borders, and prevent politicians and their corporate bosses from being killed, much in the manner they were in France when the people had no bread.

The reason for this dismal assessment is watching and listening to the abominable “choices” We the People are being offered by way of “leadership,” together with the Bush dictatorship having sold out and betrayed America wholesale. No matter how much blame may be properly placed on his predecessors in the White House, and no one damns the Clintons more than I do for example, I can state categorically the present Bush has run the country as though he owns it and has acted as a dictator. The tragedy for America is the fact the Congress being so totally corrupt itself has been complicit in encouraging this dictator and his predecessors, and despite the threats to our nation there is no hope of this changing to save America. The only “hope” for change will be the threat to America having taken on such magnitude only the military will be able to keep order and offer any security.

Whatever our “new world order” will consist of coming from the election of our next president, the only thing I can think of that we can depend on will be that scene from Doctor Zhivago. We are well on our way to this since so many things are already forbidden to speak of, and being forbidden to speak of they simply do not exist. The fact so many nations are now facing the circumstances that brought Hitler to power and enabled him and his evil twin Stalin to slaughter so many millions with impunity is not anecdotal. These circumstances come about by the same mechanism now threatening America and other nations.

One could almost have some sympathy for the present contenders for the Oval Office. Not a one of them dares speak of the things threatening America; none dare speak in terms of the specifics of how such threatening things can be resolved. And not daring to speak of such things, as per Doctor Zhivago’s accusation, they simply do not exist. But is America faring any better and are our prospects any better than any other nation led of tyrants like North Korea where such things as hunger and starvation do not exist because to speak of such things is forbidden? On the “bright side,” the situation with Mexico will demand a resolution once the “right” people are being threatened, kidnapped and killed, people like American politicians and judges. And the ballooning problems with overcrowded jails and prisons, gang warfare, demands for social services and the closing of hospitals and emergency rooms, identity theft, counterfeiting and forgery will only accelerate the “solution.”

I may not live to see some of the futuristic wonders promised by science and technology I would like to see, but my prospects are good for living long enough to see what I have just written come to pass here in America. Many of us who lived the events of WWII never deluded ourselves the sacrifice and horrors of that period of time would not return, especially when we began to reflect on the many lies our government had told us then and would doubtless continue operating in the same manner no matter what ruin they are inviting for America. In the meantime, while it is still possible my advice to law abiding American citizens who do not own a gun: Get one!