Simple solution. The Ivy League and NYU antisemitic protesting students shouting, “We are Hamas,” should spend a semester living under the rule of Hamas, or maybe under the rule of Iran’s theocracy.


But That Won’t Happen


Too bad the protesting Ivy League coeds fail to understand the difference between living in a democracy and living in a theocratic and tyrannical land where civilians are used not only as shields without regard to their safety, but also abused of their freedoms. Too bad that they won’t know that as women they would be deprived not only of an $80,000/year Ivy-League education, but  also of an elementary-school education.


Should the Victims Bear Some Blame?


Like the lingering horrors of American slavery etched into the minds of African Americans generations removed from pre-Lincoln America, so the horrors of the Holocaust lingered in families of Jews who survived and migrated to the U.S. after 1945.
Becoming successful in their new land and eager to assimilate and fit into a free society, the Jews carrying that lingering horror sent their children to Ivy League schools, donated indiscriminately to endowments worth billions, and ignored the warning signs of liberalism’s growing elitism and Marxist-socialist/Nazi thinking.


That elitism has now played out in a general trend of censorship of ideas and anthropological/social truths that evolved in a vacuum of isolation. Freed from the experiences of living in a restrictive theocracy or tyrannical culture, some members of the Ivy League faculties either unconsciously or purposefully adopted a pervasive antisemitism and chose to encourage through active influence or passive acceptance ideas that we now see on the campuses.


That wealthy Jews have eagerly funded Ivy League schools is no surprise, given the nature of our species’ need for social acceptance. The membership rolls of country clubs, yachts clubs and gated communities record the post war efforts of Jews—and African Americans—to find acceptance in mainline society, including acceptance among graduates of the Ivy League schools.


Similarly, Jews have sought inclusion in liberalism’s bastion of contradiction, the Democratic Party, which undeniably was a partner to the antisemitic KKK yet professes a compassion for all. Yes, American Jews—and African Americans—joined a party that at one time held them in disdain,; such is the gregarious drive in our species.


Do the victims bear any blame for their plight during these antisemitic movements? Not directly, of course. No one can be cited for encouraging hatred and persecution against himself. But many are guilty of seeing something and saying nothing, of going along with a moral decline fostered in a climate of ignorance or indifference born out of an elitist isolationism.


Will the Social Pendulum Swing?


Direct social contact between protesting antisemites and those they praise for murdering Jews is probably not going to happen short of an exchange program.

The Ivy League and other students praising Hamas need to spend just one semester living among members of Hamas or living under the restrictions imposed by theocracies like Afghanistan and Iran. Only direct knowledge will provide the force that makes the social pendulum swing enough to change a cultural movement among the young.

Want to live in a whirlpool of complexity? Read through the U.S. Department of Education’s “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance.” The online “unofficial version” runs 1,561 pages (34 CFR Part 106 [Docket ID ED-2021-OCR-0166] RIN 1870-AA16). It centers on Title IX, and is the work of Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Department of Education. *


Big government is nothing if not BIG. Those 1,561 pages aren’t the work of a few people. The OCR has more than 550 attorneys and other staff. The Department of Education employs in total 4,400 employees with an annual budget of $68 billion, not one dollar of which, as I understand the department’s mission is directly spent on educating a single child. What do they do? Well, we know they write big reports—1,561-page-long reports. And they regulate, prescribe, and proscribe to the nth power of detail in their mission to impose not equality as much as equity.


So, Title IX


Any educational institution that receives federal funds is bound by the provisions and dictates in Title IX. Originally enacted in good faith to support women, Title IX will now support athletes on women’s teams who have to wear supporters, i.e., jock straps. It will also ensure that biological males will be able to share restrooms, dorm rooms, and lorckerrooms with biological women. What could go wrong? Surely, 550 attorneys wouldn’t write a document that jeopardizes a demographic of women 15-24 years old!
Surely, some of those lawyers know they have created a Möbius strip of paragraphs so convoluted they turn back on themselves to rob women of equality.


But maybe not. The proof of the convolution lies in the many attempts in the document to clarify previous clarifications. Title IX forbids discrimination on the basis of gender and is supported in this restriction by a 2021 Executive Order from Biden but it allows separate teams for the sexes. So, a school can have a girls’ basketball team, but cannot prohibit a male from participating on the team if that male identifies as female. Seems the lawyers can’t resolve the issue of sex versus gender when gender is the arbitrary issue at hand.


Now, imagine a junior high school girl on a girls’ basketball team, a college coed on a university team, or a coach of a women’s team. Do I have to make a comment here? Want to frustrate your brain? Read through the sections on menstruation and lactation.




*https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-07915.pdf

That no U,S. Democratic Senator chose to hear the articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Homeland Security that the House sent to the Senate bespeaks cowardice, ignorance, and disdain. 1) Fear of opposing the Party’s open border policy over political blowback, 2) Ignorance of the Americans injured, raped, and killed by illegal aliens, and 3) Disdain for Americans who pay with their tax dollars for preloaded debit cards, free transportation, free housing, free health care, and free education for illegal aliens.


The next travesty associated with illegal immigration rests squarely on the shoulders of those Democratic senators. God forbid that any one of them suffers a personal loss at the hand of an illegal immigrant, but it seems that only such a loss would convince them that the policy of open borders and the incompetence on the part of the Secretary of Homeland Security do not serve the best interests of the American people.


As I have said many times, that which is not personal is meaningless. Within the bubble of party loyalty and protected by chance, the Democratic senators, who chose not to hear the evidence have committed themselves to continuing an open border and have become complicit in the child abuse, rapes, human trafficking, drug deaths, and crimes generated by illegal aliens. But, hey, it’s not personal; none of their family members have suffered; none of their daughters or wives have been raped; none of their grandchildren have been abused or dropped off in a foreign land to fend for themselves.


If any of those senators’ family members were to experience a crime, injury, or death at the hands of illegal aliens, surely that senator would have a perspective other than the one provided by the Democratic Party. But that which is not personal is meaningless. Protected by chance, they see no meaning in addressing the issue that which by chance and bad fortune has weighed so heavily on the American families that have lost loved ones.


“Party of the People”? I think not. 

 Ever get stuck beginning something?


Where to begin? Where to begin? No, I’m not thinking about broaching a delicate subject subtly or brashly.  SUBTLY: “The garlic in that pizza we ate left a lingering taste.”  BRASHLY: “Frank, I’ll be frank; go rinse with mouthwash; your breath stinks. And while I’m ripping the bandaid off, I might as well tell you that you have chronic halitosis.”


Oh! Wait! Think I got it! I’ll rip the bandaid off the way Katie Couric, one-time Today Show hostess, darling of the Left, and hundred millionaire told Bill Maher that Trump supporters were anti-intellectuals. Classic Leftism in the tradition of Hilary Clinton, who proclaimed they were “deplorables.” Now we know they are deplorable AND [here come the synonyms] despicable, pitiable, wretched, grubby, contemptible, uneducated, and stupid.


Trump supporters! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t exterminate them all because someone has to be left to do the manual labor like cleaning the donkey pen at the zoo. Ah! The rich Left. They understand what the rich Right doesn’t. Katie knows more than any of those who supported Trump.


And she will always be smarter, always more intellectual because her ad populum statements are beyond dispute. Her argument lies in declaration and name-calling.   She is another self-apotheosized liberal proclaiming a “truth.” Fall on your knees; hear the angels’ voices.


ANECDOTE: My late ultra-rich friend told me that while he was on his way from visiting one of his business locations to another, he stopped at the foreign car dealer where he had bought cars like Bentley, Rolls-Royce, and Porche, just to see what was in the display room that day. There a Bentley caught his eye. As he was looking at the car, a young car salesman whom he had never met, walked over and asked if he could help him. My friend said in his down-home way, "it's a pretty nice car.”


In his ignorance and condescension the salesman said in a dismissive tone, “Well, that's a pretty expensive vehicle.” As my friend was about to leave the dealership, the owner, who had sold numerous expensive cars to him, walked in and greeted him by first name. He asked what brought him into the show room. My friend responded that he was just in the area and stopped in to see what might be in the show room, and then he said, “But this young fellow doesn’t seem to want to sell me this car.” You can guess the outcome. Yes, the salesman’s employment ended abruptly. He had judged my friend by his down-home language, khaki pants, and shirt with the company's logo on the pocket.


Like Katie Couric, the salesman did not see the character and background of my friend, who not only owned his own jet, but had used it to travel around the world, where he met with dignitaries in many foreign countries. He had also entertained American presidents, English Lords, and famous actors, comedians, and singers at his resort. His business stretched across the country, and he employed thousands. And cars? At his resort he had a building dedicated to housing his collection of expensive antique cars. In short, not only could my friend have bought the car in the show room, but he could also have bought the entire dealership and its inventory of expensive cars. Politicians on both the Left and the Right courted him for support. The salesman saw only a plain speaking older guy in street clothes.

Unlike the salesman, Katie will suffer no ill consequences for her judgement and stereotyping because she speaks in and to a showroom full of the like-minded head-bobbers.


Recently, I addressed this blatant condescension on the Left (3/4/24: ”The Left’s Anti-intellectualism: A Neanderthal Tries to Respond”). It’s tiresome, isn’t it. The Lefties won’t stop, however, because they have a ready venue of like-minded support in major media outlets. They stand together in a Great Hall of Mirrors, a showroom of broadcasters with national and even worldwide reach.


Whoa! Just thought of a title for this little essay: "The Great Hall of Mirrors."  And in that hall, everyone sees his left side as his best side. Of course, that's because the mirrors never reflect the right side.

Do you find it strange that in an age of information overload, so many people favor generalities and ignore details? This is especially true in the politically charged environment of the present. Thus, the Right generalizes the Left and visa versa. The process exudes mental laziness while affirming a sense of security and dismissive superiority. “MAGA fanatic,” “Commie subversive”…Basically, many revert to name-calling when a reasoned argument requires a detailed analysis.


But how detailed?


Ignorance Breeds Haughtiness


Ignorance runs in the human family. The irony is that in our ignorance we pretend genius or at least savvy. We are nothing if not sure in our perspectives.Yet, as Kurt Friedrich Gödel (b. 1906, d. 1978) demonstrated with mathematics, no knowledge system is complete in itself. Logic ultimately rests on axioms and assumptions; math can’t prove itself. Incompleteness is the rule, but you would never know that today if you engage someone in a political argument. When it comes to debating the other side, everyone is sure, positions are certain, and only selected details apply—often manipulated details, many of which were selected by algorithms devised by “those in the know,” that is, by single-minded people either consciously or unconsciously supporting an agenda through words or algorithms that enhance or censor, depending on the views of those who write the algorithms: Thus, the recent shutdown of debate over the causes and cures of COVID led by haughty sycophants in the media [Shoot! Did I just revert to name-calling?] who were little different from those who made Galileo disavow his claim that Earth revolved around the Sun.


The pretense to savvy among haughty people “in the know” runs as deep as the subconscious and derives from an unfathomable realm of manipulators hidden from ordinary mortals like me—and maybe you. As Cathie O’Neill argues in her book Weapons of Math Destruction about software systems that manage our finances and our lives, “These mathematical models [are like gods] opaque, they're workings invisible to all but the highest priests in the domain: mathematicians and computer scientists. Their verdicts, even when wrong or harmful, are beyond dispute or appeal.” (3).*


Look at the ostracism or cancellation of people who chose not to get the mRNA vaccine or who argued against vaccinating little kids and also against closing schools. Look also, at those who extolled the vaccines as unquestionably protective, some of who still contracted and then spread the disease, including multiple-dosed President Biden and the apotheosized Dr. Fauci. And look, too, at the unprovable claim that “Well, the vaccine kept the reinfected from getting sicker.” How does one prove that? Read O’Neill it again: “Their verdicts, even when wrong or harmful, are beyond dispute or appeal.”


The aim of social media algorithms is a change in both belief and behavior. The public is reduced to generalities and compliance backed by the threat of ostracism—solitary confinement on a grand scale to use an oxymoron. Detailed explanations and arguments are anathema. Selected details inductively supporting predetermined generalities remain, and no counterarguments are entertained. Speaking of oxymorons…


An Unknown Eminent Scientist


The enlightenment of the 18th century gave rise to the science of the 19th century and some very important discoveries that propelled a number of researchers into a shrine of eminent scientists still visited by 21st century physicists. Among those enshrined is Albert A. Michelson of the Michelson-Morley experiment that disproved the concept of an enveloping Ether (aether) through which lightwaves were thought to travel like water waves. Debunking the ether came on the heels of James Clerk Maxwell’s formulas that tied electricity to magnetism and that explained fields so essential to today’s understanding of matter and energy, atoms and radio waves, subatomic particles, and the strange world of quantum mechanics with its wave-particle duality. For physicists the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were exciting times. It seemed as though humans had finally broken from mythical explanations of the universe to enter an age of reasoned understanding. Those heady times ballooned the optimism of the previous century of Enlightenment: Humans were on the threshold of knowing all there is to know. Think Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s in the foregoing context of 19th-century science that Michelson wrote,


    “While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance—where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals. For Michelson and his contemporary “eminent scientist,” mankind had entered an Age of Refinement.


If those 19th-century experimenters were alive today, they would rejoice that their intellectual descendants at CERN keep adding details like the Higgs boson and the lifespan of an accelerated muon. What’s next? Or rather, what’s the next level of refinement in physics? The nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy? A LIGO refinement of gravitational waves?


The rise of modern physical science and the proliferation of social scientists has yielded another set of details—and a new kind of details, those that can be manipulated to control belief and behavior. The details of The Russian Collusion, now thoroughly debunked and the Hunter Biden laptop, now thoroughly proven, stand as models of blatant manipulation of details in favor of a generalized agenda of quashing political opponents’ thoughts and policies. Social “scientists,” like network pundits with an agenda to push, choose the details that make their case. “Crime is down” is a recent example that is taken out of the context of a shift in how the FBI now categorizes and counts crimes.


Refinement Is All about Details


Democritus and Leucippus gave us the concept of atoms. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, physicists like Bohr, another enshrined scientist, refined the concept of a world made of atoms. Over the past hundred years others used increasingly more sophisticated experiments to further refine the refinements of Bohr and his contemporaries. In short, we live in a time of increasing decimal places: Atoms to protons, neutrons, and electrons, to quarks and muons, and neutrinos, and—in the distant future possibly—to strings. Smaller and smaller and smaller, unimaginably more detailed, so detailed that it takes considerable intellectual effort to keep up with the refinements. Who has time to examine all of them? Who can check their veracity? You? I venture to guess that you did not awaken today to ask, “What’s the morning’s news out of CERN?” “What’s the source of details on this new story about food safety, drugs, and political intrigue?”


As in solving problems in Euclidean geometry, refining rests on axiomatic thinking and assumptions. All the proving we seek rests on acceptance of general understandings. We can’t see quarks, but we can detail their appearance in protons and neutrons. Two up quarks and one down quark make a proton; just the opposite makes a neutron. And those seeking further refinements stand apart from humanity in general, those many humans who really don’t care about atomic composition. We don’t all have research jobs at CERN do we? “Just give me the basics, man. I have people to see and places to go. Besides, I pretty much know all I have to know. Stuff is made of atoms. That I’ll grant.” And the axiomatic thinking extends into the realm of everyday politics as exemplified by networks like MSNBC and NPR, both of which seem to wear their bias like a heavy pendant on an even heavier chain around their necks.


We run with familiar systems and perspectives because they provide the bare minimum that is sufficient enough for us “to get by.”  Once we have accepted the general, we find details—even peripheral details—to support it.


Publishers’ Clearing House Day


Even the least “scientific” among us has access to an indefinite number of details if we choose to look. But who has the time or the inclination? The details are like the mail in the words of Seinfeld’s Newman who, when asked by George why postal workers “go postal,” says, “Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming; there's never a let-up. It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out but the more you get it out the more it keeps coming in. And then the bar code reader breaks and it's Publishers’ Clearing House day.” **


Thus, we choose generalities as protection against the onslaught of details. So, we yield to O’Neill ’s “weapons of math destruction.” Refinement has become both boon and bane: Boon because it provides an avenue for better understanding, bane because it overwhelms us and prevents our discovering truth.


* 2006. New York. Random House. Crown Publishing.


**Find the scene on YouTube

The headline reads “Boston pushing for 15-20 mph citywide speed limit after pedestrian deaths.” * I predict the new slower speed limit will trigger people.


Road Rage on Steroids


Have you ever driven through Boston? I have. Numerous times. Maybe my experiences with Boston’s drivers are anomalous, but they have added up to my impression that “This is one impatient and angry city.”


I remember hearing a trucker say over his CB that Boston traffic makes Pittsburgh a drive in the park. He made that comment as I was stuck in traffic in a university van with the school’s name on the side. He recognized the school’s proximity to “the Burgh,’ and made that comment when we asked over our CB radio for help getting into the traffic flow. I say “flow,” but “molasses” is more appropriate for Boston’s rush hour when during warm weather, honking is accompanied by one particular hand signal (or finger signal) and a generous effusion of wash-your mouth-out-with-soap epithets.


So different from Pittsburgh, where people generally give a left-hand wave or flash of headlights as a sign to another driver to take priority at a four-way stop. Basically, “You go first.”


In contrast, during Boston’s rush hour I’ve been passed by someone speeding by in the left emergency-vehicle berm next to the cement Jersey barrier. And Ive been held up in traffic when a big rig driver decided to abandon his tractor-trailer cattywampus in two middle lanes.


Can a City Be Angry?


A city is more than its buildings and roads. Its people have a regional dialect and attitude by which outsiders can characterize it.


Parked on a street at Harvard, my students and I looked at our Mao to plot the best way to our next destination. One of the older students walked toward pedestrian on then sidewalk to ask about directions, beginning with “Pardon me, could you direct us to….” Can indifference be thick enough to cut? But not just one passerby ignored him. Several did, until by chance a recent transfer from Pittsburgh walked by, sensed our problem, and offered help. When told how others ignored us, the ex-Pittsburgher said he’s gotten used to the Bostonian attitude and to the road rage. “That’s the way people are here.”


Anecdotes are never proof, but they accumulate to leave impressions that are hard to ignore. And my impression is that the effort to impose a slower city-wide speed limit will become a thorn on Boston’s drivers’ seats, exacerbating their impatience.


The Characterization of a City Begs a Question

​Do Regions have personalities?


I have no doubt that Bostonians are neither less nor more patient and peaceful than citizens of other cities. But I wish my experiences with their drivers had been otherwise. I’ll keep in mind that I don’t have daily year-round experience in the city, but rather just about a dozen or so visits.


I believe that experience has taught each of us that “place” is more than geography, more than location. Of course, generalizations don’t allow outsiders to know the widely varying composition of personalities that inhabit a city. Anecdotal information has a narrow focus, so my experiences in Boston that led to my personal assessment—I’ve heard the same from others, by the way—might be wholly unwarranted.


And bad apples can spoil the basket filled with good apples. By chance, I might have seen only the angry side of Boston and heard from only those with similar experiences. My greater familiarity with “the Burgh” has provided me with many more anecdotes that average out to favorability. I see the angry Pittsburgh driver as an anomaly, whereas I assume the peaceful patient Bostonian driver is an exception.


What’s your assessment of your city? Are you an exception or a rule?


*https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/boston-pushing-for-15-20-mph-citywide-speed-limit-after-pedestrian-deaths/ar-BB1l4UOq

Want an example of time travel? Uh…I meant traveling times, the ancient world traveling into the present. Just peruse the popular talking points centered on the April eclipse. Across the nation you’ll find people talking about the purely physical phenomenon of casting a shadow as a “foreteller” and harbinger. Yes, the astrologers are having a resurgence among the citizens. No doubt some are collecting a windfall in private readings. We’re reliving ancient times. If it weren’t for the threat of salmonella and bird flu, there would be chicken guts on the streets with soothsayers reading them for prediction.


Of course, astrologers offer less messy prophecies. They merely point to alignments of celestial bodies to foretell: “You are going to win the lottery, meet the person of your dreams, and have great health this year. All that wonderfulness is headed your way if you don’t squander it on distractions.”


Determined, Thus not Accountable


The blame for the persistence of astrology doesn’t lie solely in public education—at least not entirely. It is generally true, however, that just as many Americans can’t point to where they live on a map because the study of geography has ebbed from classrooms, so many can’t place where they live in the local universe and can’t explain the nature of stars, planets, and the physical forces, like gravity, that relate them. But ignorance of the physical world is just one of several reasons for American readiness to accept astrological forecasts.


Vanity plays a role. There’s comfort in knowing the causes of both fortune and misfortune reside in a world deemed predestined and accountability-free. Imprecise language also plays a role in acceptance. Astrologers have always had the ability to tell people what they want to hear by offering generalities from which the listener infers specifics derived from a wishlist of possible outcomes or a personal history of failures or successes.


The Perfect Fit for Our Liberal Age


The predetermined world of astrology is an appropriate context for American
Liberalism, the philosophy that places blame everywhere but in the individual actor. “Society made me do it,” the criminal can say. Or, “The fault lies in my stars.” Those two statements are corollaries or reflections of each other. It’s difficult to say which of them is more fundamental. Both belong to the Liberal’s mindset. Look no further than bail-free releases that has placed dangerous criminals back on the street, where they continue to victimize innocent people.


Who Subscribes?


I found this online at a site called Astrologify.* I cannot verify the information:


According to the website, 32% of Americans living in the Northeast believe in astrology. That percentage coincides with this one: 32% of Democrats believe in astrology. The Northeast is, after all, a bastion of Liberalism and a Democrat stronghold. In contrast, 25% of Americans living in the South believe in astrology. And 24% of Americans living in the Midwest believe in astrology. Consider that both of these flyover regions are also
Republican regions and that 29% of Republicans believe in astrology.


What about Christians?


The statistics seem to suggest that more Protestants are aware of the First Commandment than Catholics. How so? That commandment forbids the worship of false gods. Astrology implies putting one’s life in the control of the stars and planets, the “false gods” that are forbidden; yet, 31% of Catholics believe in astrology, whereas only
22% of Protestants believe in astrology, the same percentage as American Jews.


What’s Your Sign?


I recall comedian Bob Nelson’s routine as a drunk at a bar trying to pick up a girl. “Hi, babe, what’s your sign? Im a Feces, but you can call me Number 2.” Think of that the next time someone engages you in a conversation about astrology.






*https://astrologify.com/astrology-statistics/

Mokgweetsi Masisi, President of Botswana, just threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany because Germans apparently have a problem with hunting trophies, you know, an environmentalist’s save-the-tusked-dolphin-owl kind of thing. Germany, which to my knowledge has not had a pachyderm population since the demise of the mammoths and mastodons wants to save Botswana’s herds by banning elephant trophies. Botswana, in contrast, with an estimated 130,000 elephants does have an elephant problem, a burgeoning population of pachyderms whose numbers it wants to reasonably thin.


I suppose President Masisi’s threat derives from another country’s citizens attempting to interfere in Botswana’s business. He seems particularly irked because Botswana’s effort to curb poaching has led to those growing herds, or as he says, ”It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world.” *


Masisi won’t carry out his threat to send 20,000 elephants to the land of pretzels, beer, Lederhosen, and Wienerschnitzel. Would he send them by plane to Berlin? By ship to Hamburg? Or have some modern day Hannibal march them from Africa to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and Iberian peninsula, then over the Pyrenees, and into Bavaria? It is an empty threat.


America’s Elephantine Problem


Unspoken threats can be more serious than articulated threats.


In contrast to Germany, the US doesn’t have an articulated threat of forced migration from another country’s leader; it has, instead, the unspoken indifference of Central and South American leaders that quietly facilitate city-size populations of migrants marching into the country.


Americans inundated with illegal immigrants would probably prefer an influx of 20,000 elephants. Sure, they might destroy some crops and trees, but they won’t require free phones, transportation, housing, education, seed money, and health care.




* Nadine Schmidt, Sarah Dean and Ingrid Formanek, CNN, reporting on a story in Bild. Online at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/botswana-threatens-to-send-20-000-elephants-to-germany-in-trophy-hunting-dispute/ar-BB1l0NVa   

Cafe talk:


John: Did you see story about the number of people who died from accidents at the Lodi Parachute Center in California, a place that sells sky diving experiences? According to an online report by Andrew Chamings,  “21 people had died in accidents tied to the center since 1985.” *


Jill: Twenty-one? What 20 people decided to jump after the first death? It makes me think of Cervantes’ main character Don Quixote de La Mancha, who decided not to test his helmet’s ability to protect him even though the test on his previous helmet proved its ineffectiveness against a sword strike. So, 20 people died jumping and number 21 thought, “This time it will work.” 


John: Don Quixote… one of my favorites. Sky diving is just the kind of adventure that the man from La Mancha would appreciate. I liked the thoughts Cervantes has Quixote espouse. One is particularly relevant to recreational sky diving. Quixote says, “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” Recreational sky divers must be among the most bored people on the planet.


Jill: And among the most foolish, risking life for a moment’s thrill.


John: The Don also says, “Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die.” And sure enough those 21 people, they let themselves die. Oh! Maybe not intentionally, but they increased the chances of dying by jumping. How many of them wore Quixote’s failed helmet?


Jill: And yet people still sky dive for recreation. What’s that blogger guy keep sayin’?


John: Who? Oh! You mean Conte. “This is not your practice life.” He keeps sticking it in his blogs.


Jill: It should be posted at the Lodi Parachute Center, the foot of Mount Everest, and the entrance to every school.




*https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/deaths-california-lodi-skydiving-center-19361603.php

rony Escapes the Feebleminded


That the White House banned all “religious” symbols from the annual Easter egg hunt is an irony that only the feebleminded would miss. Somehow the self-proclaimed elites at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. fail to associate the “holiday” celebration with its origin.  Duh. Easter, the primary religious reason behind the faith of an estimated 2.2 billion Christians. Yeah, faith, Mr. WH Staffer.


Secularizing Doesn’t Require Abandoning Religious References


Holiday? Yes, Holy-day. Holy, as in religious feast day, a liturgical designation specific to followers of Christ. Easter for Christians is the promise that this life—which is not practice, by the way—doesn’t end in an oblivion called death. Easter is the promise that there’s “something more,” something—an existence—that is beyond time, something that has no earthly or cosmic analog.


Skeptics might scoff at such belief, but chances are that in their skepticism, they embrace other beliefs, such as there is no afterlife. Christians might question the skeptics on the very grounds that skeptics use for questioning them. “No afterlife, you say? Your proof?”


White House staffer: “Humans invented religion, indeed, invented God, just as they invented Godzilla.”


Christian: “And scientists, without physical evidence expect me to accept the hypothesis that “virtual particles come into existence out of nothing to make a world of something. Just how does that process work? I can accept a world I cannot see, but I have trouble with your faith in virtual particles. How does your faith differ from mine?”


White House staffer: “We can’t support the display of something that might offend people.”


Christian: “Aren’t you selecting whom to offend?”


Bizarre Game of Twister


It appears that the folks at the White House want their cake after devouring it. They have established that a traditional Easter egg hunt is worth continuing without continuing the very essence of the tradition from which it originated. They appear to be obsessed with not being “religious” lest they offend some random person who is similarly obsessed with not being religious—i.e., someone driven by disdain for any beliefs not his own, usually someone who mocks or dismisses others’ faiths while professing some other faith, such as faith in big government run by anonymous bureaucrats like those who shut down the country during COVID to the detriment of businesses and kids.


Easter egg hunt without religious symbols? It’s like playing some bizarre game of mental Twister, neurons trying to contact different markings on the politically correct game mat.


But Haven’t We Secularized Christmas and Halloween, also?


For differing reasons, there have been efforts to eliminate all public references to faith, particularly Christian faith, mostly on the assumption that permitting a religious display in the public forum is a promotion off the religion. Yes, secularizing is now an American tradition that seeks to eliminate not every reference to religion, but rather any Christian reference.
The removal of public crèches is evidence. Yet, there’s little pushback from local governments that are willing to allow Satanists and other groups to emplace public displays based on First Amendment rights.


BC, AD, BCE, and CE


Even so-called bright people fail to see the irony in their Twister games. Since the time of Dionysius Exiguus, European cultures have run on a time scale divided into BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord,” specifically, all years beginning with the 754th year after the founding of Rome). Dionysius, living half a millennium after the birth of Christ, might have been off the mark by four to six or seven years; thus, the current year isn’t necessarily 2,024 years AD, and that means all those “millennium parties” at the turn of the century weren’t truly millennium parties.


Did I just write AD? Sorry, I meant CE, that is “the Common Era.” That’s the abbreviation used nowadays by “scientists”, “historians,” and “academics,” all seemingly unaware of the irony. They still divide the time scale by the date of Christ’s birth, but…well, as Shakespeare wrote, “a rose by any other name….”


Every science and historical journal uses the politically correct temporal designations. All today’s “intellectuals” subscribe to the use of BCE and CE, seemingly without recognizing their dependence on Christ’s birth as the foundation of the time scale. They have convinced themselves that doing away with BC and AD has freed them from the shackles of religion and somehow elevated them to objectivity. Do they not realize that the Year One still marks Christ’s birth?


The PC White House, Mainstream Media, Government Agencies, and Iconoclast Liberals


Who is more obsessed with religion, the Evangelicals or those who attack or attempt to quash their language, values, and traditions? Who are the real fools, those who simply carry on traditions two millennia old without making a public issue or those who obsess over others’ beliefs and practices under the assumption that a religious symbol on an egg will cause harm?


Egghead? It’s a word that needs to be redefined. Sorry for the pun, but the yolk, hard boiled or not, is definitely on those in the White House--even though they won't get it.