Donald Trump is blaming Barack Obama for yesterday's gas attack on Syrian citizens! Could he be more irresponsible? Do an internet search for 'Trump blames Obama' and see how many listings appear. At some point, Trump has to accept the fact that he is now president and, at the very least, make an attempt to look the part. He's the new sheriff in town and somebody just murdered scores of innocents on his watch. Talking about the old sheriff being weak just doesn't cut it.
   Maybe, just maybe, the fact that this administration recently made statements to the effect that Bashar Al Assad's tenure as the leader of Syria will be determined by a vote of the people. Well, we can see where an election in Syria would be headed after Assad kills everyone who opposes him.
   Apparently, Russian warplanes assisted in the attack and this has to trouble our current president immensely. It's very easy to imagine Vladimir Putin coordinating with Assad in this attack as a way to test Trump's willingness to challenge Russia. If Trump doesn't react forcefully, all the distraction about Obama will be ignored and his ties to Russia will be ever more obvious. Putin is nothing if not aggressive and this is a perfect way for him to test the water of Trump's wading pool.
   We're just beginning to see how deep the level of our president's understanding of the world really is. Just like health care, 'Who knew foreign relations could be so complicated?'

An apology to feminists.

   It is my personal belief that if life has any purpose at all, it is in the capacity of humans to rise above their animal instincts and create a harmonious society of individuals whose interests are frequently at odds with one another. This requires the elevation of tribal interests above those of the individual, by the individuals themselves. Of course, when I refer to 'tribe', I refer to all of humanity, and the harmonious society is civilization. The act of civilizing humanity is synonymous with rising above our animal instincts, on an individual basis, and as a society. A society is only as civilized as its meanest members, so it is presumptive for us to collectively refer to ourselves as a civilized nation. Societies may contain individuals who serve as good examples of civilized behavior, but world history has yet to witness a completely civilized nation. The civilization of humanity is an ongoing process, with no end in sight. It requires the free and liberal education of every member of every society to help them rise to this level of self-awareness, self-control, self-government.
   This elevation of tribal interests above the individual's interests may seem counterintuitive; yet it is almost always, in the long run, beneficial to the individual to act in such a manner. That is why I label this attitude 'enlightened self-interest'. Maintaining this attitude is almost impossible without an ever-abiding sense of forgiveness. We have to allow room for the freedom of our neighbors to express their individuality, and they, ours. Forgiveness is the cornerstone of civilization.
   Now that I have called your attention to the necessity of forgiveness, I must confess a certain inability on my behalf  to completely rise above my own animal instincts regarding women. Before you jump to any preconceived conclusion, please consider my upbringing. I come from a good Irish Catholic family, two parents of unassailable virtue who raised six children- an oldest daughter followed by five boys. I also had a fabulous extended family with many cousins and wonderful aunts, uncles, grandparents and other relatives. It would be hard to improve on the family life that I knew as a child. Of course, there were fights and other incidents that kept us firmly grounded in the real world, but my family situation bordered on the ideal. I had three boy cousins that were my age and I had someone to play with whenever our families got together. The women in our family had to be strong minded and independent just to keep up with the activities of the boys. My mom, my sister, my aunts and my cousins were (and still are) all impressive, self-sufficient individuals- none of them required a man to provide them with an identity. And that is at the root of my problem with women.
   I grew up expecting all of them to be that way. As a matter of fact, I almost certainly had too high an opinion of women in general. In my earlier years, they were unadulterated vessels of purity- a Catholic notion grounded in fantasy. My blundering attempts at seduction revolved around the idea that marriage was the only worthy goal of a relationship. Needless to say, this approach resulted in a succession of repeated failures. I was a very physical boy trying to force my behavior into someone else's very metaphysical concept of sexuality. Not a good approach. Only after I finally did get married did I realize that I had nearly abandoned the great physical pleasures of sex in favor of some high-minded ideal of love.
   My first wife, Renee, was a beautiful and exceptionally kind hearted person whose personality led me to try and shoehorn myself into my preconceived notions of what a relationship should be. I always loved her and still do. She was entirely blameless for the failure of the marriage. It was more the fact that I started college soon after we got married and there followed a cascade of sexual opportunities that were irresistible to me. I never did cheat on her but I came pretty close. I asked to be released from the bonds of matrimony and she allowed it to happen. What followed was a comedy of errors.
   I could no longer pretend to be interested in just one woman at a time. That didn't stop me from falling in love, but there was this strange development where love for an individual woman just meant an increase in my love for all women. The more I wanted one, the more I wanted them all. It was almost a dilemma for me, but I managed to avoid it by honestly confessing to the objects of my desire that I only wanted sex from them and nothing more. To my never-ending surprise, this worked like a charm. Suddenly, it was easy to get women to have sex with me.
   Before I go any farther, let me make clear that I don't foster any grandiose notions about my sexual prowess. I always considered myself average in that regard and still do. I am a fun person to be around and consider that to be the source of any attractiveness that I possess. What intrigued me was the different rationales that those women would employ to allow themselves to sleep with me. Some were convinced that once they gave me what they had to offer that I would certainly never want anyone else. Others were convinced that I was lying when I said that I only wanted sex. Quite a few did it out of their competitive nature. If I asked and they said no, I would simply turn to the next pretty girl and hit on her. This would disturb the first girl who would then come after me. It was a great and wonderful time in my life that I would recommend to all young people- sleep with as many partners as you can in order to find out what you really want in a spouse.
   But I should add that I really only did it as an experiment. I came to realize that my original ideas about women were almost completely unfounded. Women are very sexual creatures, every bit as determined as men to get what they want, and every bit as liable to be mean, vicious and untrustworthy. I always wanted to be in a dependable relationship with a woman; I just had to go out and test the waters more than my Catholic upbringing would have recommended. I now have been with my beloved Janice for almost twenty years and things are as good as, if not better, than they were at the beginning. And this leaves me at the point where I must apologize for my instincts.
   I cannot look at an attractive woman and not feel a sexual impulse. I will always find something physical to appreciate about her- her face, her hair, her eyes, her lips, her skin, her hips, her legs, and yes, her tits and ass. My first impulse is always to consider looking her in the eyes and caressing her into submission, or bending her over a railing and nailing her from behind. My experience tells me that she's going to want something or other along those lines. But my better self constrains those impulses and I try to treat her like just another one of the guys.
   So, to all those women who feel oppressed by the evolution of society, I apologize. You are every bit my equal. You deserve equal pay for equal work and you are certainly capable of anything that you set your mind to. Your perspective on life is different than mine and equally valid. I truly do respect your worth as a person; I admire your talents and hard work, but I will never stop wanting contact with your physical attributes.
  

   I love religious people. You know, the ones who are truly humble and who try to do the right thing at all times. They're friendly and easy to get along with; they will go out of their way to help others; they don't cheat, or lie, or steal; they work hard and hardly ever complain. In other words, I love those who walk their walk, whichever walk that may be-the one they profess to believe in. Even those whose beliefs are dark and hopeless, as long as they are true to their stated beliefs, they deserve respect.
   On the other hand, I hate what religions do to the minds of their adherents. Dogma, that great dam of free thought, restricts people from expressing new ideas about the things that they supposedly believe in so strongly. If an idea produces opinions that rise to the level of a belief, surely it can withstand a thorough analysis. (In the same vein, authorities in any arena should stand ready to answer any question with which they are presented. Of course there are things in every area of study that cannot be answered by anyone, but whoever claims to be an authority in a certain subject should be able to answer almost every question posed.) By eliminating doubt, blind faith suppresses that flow of ideas that hallmark the advance of civilization. Whereas civilized behavior ought to be the goal of all religious inclinations, religion itself prevents different peoples from achieving a unified code of ethics and ethical behavior within a society provides the only support to that society's claim to being civilized.
   My understanding of sharia law is simple and undoubtedly incomplete. However simplified by me, apparently it expects corrective intervention between and amongst citizens whenever unlawful behavior is observed. If you observe your friend stealing something, you are expected to try to prevent it. Likewise with all other obvious ethical transgressions.
   In a functioning civilization, all members would serve as rectifying agents in regard to themselves and one another. Seems like a pretty good idea to me- establishing the pursuit of ethical behavior as an occasional theme of everyday conversation. Of course, humans will always find ways to circumvent rules that limit their freedom to act as they please. 
   A friend in Nevada once told me a joke about his Mormon friends, whose faith expects them to refrain from consuming alcohol. It goes like this: How do you prevent a Mormon from drinking all of your beer when you take him fishing? You invite two Mormons to go fishing.

   This is no attack on Mormons; without a doubt, every religion has a version of this joke that applies to their stated beliefs. My personal belief contends that righteous behavior only concerns behavior that has society-wide implications. Other than that, everything is in play, as long as the behavior affects no one besides the individual or some unique group whose beliefs allow such behavior. This idea provides a perfect segue from one unpleasant topic (religion) to another (politics).
   Under what amorphous cloud of reasoning would political correctness be expected from everyone? How stale and uninvigorating life would be without the freedom to get laughs at the expense of our friends and relatives! Typical gatherings with my friends would fail any test of political correctness by a large margin. Why? Because our affections for one another are unquestioned and we provide license to one another to insult, assault, hurl pejoratives, and impugn each others' characters. Group size has everything to do with this concept. The way to provoke laughter is to state the unexpected. Comedians would lose half of their arsenals if they weren't allowed to say unkind things.
   There is one group whose ability to say those types of things should be limited by political considerations-politicians. They are expected to represent the entire population in serious matters, and as such, they should not be allowed to insult anyone. It is a standard of honor that a civilized society should expect from those who have a hand in passing laws that affect everyone. If they happen to say improper things in private, and are recorded unaware, some level of understanding should be extended by the general population.
   

I am watching Trump at CPAC.
The smarmy, smug attendees, especially the young ones, are despicable. The false patriotism is the only thing that unites all of them. What is the fixation with the flag ? The voters who supported this thief loved the flag too, but theirs was the Confederate battle flag which lead hundreds of thousands of their duped forebears to death against the very flag now fetishized at CPAC. This CPAC crowd was spawned by a mythologized version of Reagan, united by and committed to cutting taxes for decades now, so they support Trump because they envision $$ taken from the safety net and channeled into their already overstuffed pockets, as opposed to the voter deplorables (absent at CPAC, largely a Heritage Foundation elitist set) united by hate of minorities and of anybody getting anything not going to them. What truly unites these two disparate groups is their lip-service Christian identity, which constitutes my biggest problem with them - hate/exclusion of struggling refugees, and fetishization of self- interest as their dominant, maybe only, moral virtue, constitute the epitome of precisely that which the Sermon on the Mount preaches against; none of these people can call themselves real Christians. CPAC is now a union of the despicables and the deplorables, a sum of everything that's wrong with the American character.

   The economy and the environment are inextricably intertwined. Anyone who thinks they can advance the interests of either without addressing the concerns of the other is running a fool's errand.

   After reading a few things about presidential advisor Steve Bannon and some of his stated ideas, I think it is quite clear that Donald Trump wants to start a war with Islam. Of course, he will refer to it as 'militant Islamic terrorism', while he clearly thinks that the United States is a Christian country. These twin misconceptions (that the U.S. is a Judeo-Christian nation, and that Islam has a monopoly on terrorism) lead the hyper-militant Bannon and his trusty sycophant to the absolute belief that their aggressive stance toward dissent equates to the quashing of a mutinous rebellion against morality. If you're against them, you are against everything that is right and holy in the world.
   This inability to see two sides of an issue will provide the basis for Trump's downfall. There's no way that his approach to governing will work in the real world. In his business dealings (and probably his personal life as well), Trump has had to answer to no one. He can label every defeat as a victory, every setback as a gain, and every bankruptcy as a testament to his business acumen. Whoever disagrees gets fired.
   He doesn't seem to understand that his new position makes him a servant of the people. This is his first real job, and he moves from never having had a boss to having 350 million of them. It's an untenable situation. His impeachment is inevitable. If the Republicans manage to get Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, their next move will be to get rid of Trump. He will have served their purposes and we all know that they don't really like him at all.
   If, however, the Democrats manage to stall Gorsuch's appointment, things will get sticky and there will be some real unrest in the country. Either way, this is truly a pivotal point in our country's history. Gorsuch's appointment would leave a very bitter taste in the mouths of Democrats who saw Merrick Garland's nomination wither on the vine. The denial of Gorsuch would create a firestorm on the right, claiming that the will of the people had been denied. How do we avoid a boiling over of conflicting emotions among the general population?
   The thing to do is to amend the Constitution and hold an election for the Supreme Court. I don't see any other solution that would satisfy the general population. Of course there would still be some sore losers no matter what outcome may be reached. I would think that it would provide a chance for the country to let off some steam. Maybe for future vacancies in the court, the sitting president could nominate his choice and a Senate committee of the opposition party could nominate another candidate, in order to avoid the primaries of a general election.
   The Supreme Court vacancy supersedes all other political considerations of the moment. I expect Trump's presidency to implode without any outside assistance.

  Speaking of cheating on the blog instead of coming up with something original, I was also considering the notion of instinct and its current popularity in our country. The entire concept owes its value to nature and, in some respects, is an absolutely admirable trait. When a mother protects her young, when people strive to improve their lot in life, when people respond viscerally to an injustice, when heroes disregard their own welfare to save others- these are all wonderful examples of instinct bearing out its value in a socially important manner.

 But there is another side to instinct that is as ugly as ugly can get. When people automatically blame others for their own problems, when people denigrate others because of their differences, when people take advantage of others' weaknesses because it creates an advantage for themselves, when people cheat because they can get away with it- these are examples of our instincts' serving against our best interests. 

 Everyone is familiar with sports teams whose talent is not as great as their opponents, but whose teamwork enables them to defeat another team with greater talent. It is always thus- people working together will defeat those who glorify individual achievements over teamwork. I write this as a notice to those who think America can get away with isolating itself away from a global economy. We need our trading partners as much as they need us. It is in our best interests to help bring their quality of life up to our level instead of trying to treat them as inferiors. Otherwise, they will team up on us and we will lose. 

 Robert Frost speaks directly to the issue of instinct in his classic poem "The White-Tailed Hornet". He expresses wondrous admiration of the insect's innate ability to fly out of its burrow like a bullet "And stab me in the sneeze-nerve of a nostril". It's pretty generous of Mr. Frost to admire an animal after such an attack, but then he gathers some second thoughts about the event. Here is the final stanza of Robert Frost's

 "The White Tailed Hornet"

Won't this whole instinct matter bear revision?

Won't almost any theory bear revision?

To err is human, not to, animal.

Or so we pay the compliment to instinct,

Only too liberal of our compliment

That really takes away instead of gives.

Our worship, humor, conscientiousness

Went long since to the dogs under the table.

And served us right for having instituted

Downward comparisons. As long on earth

As our comparisons were stoutly upward

With gods and angels, we were men at least,

But little lower than the gods and angels.

But once comparisons were yielded downward,

Once we began to see our images

Reflected in the mud and even dust,

'Twas disillusion upon disillusion.

We were lost piecemeal to the animals,

Like people thrown out to delay the wolves.

Nothing but fallibility was left us,

And this day's work made even that seem doubtful.

The key idea is that projecting negative images of other people actually projects reflections of ourselves.