Notes from Underground – November 2024

11/6/24 – We are surprised by the popular vote, but then again, the polls were misleading and unhelpful.

11/6/24 – To the brilliant people saying the Harris Walz campaign shouldn’t have told voters that a certain evil person is a fascist. Campaign strategy is not our thing. We are in the business of telling the truth as we see it, and that is the truth. We have a moral obligation to warn people of where things are heading. We care about all of our fellow Americans, and we are not going to withhold highly important information for some cynical political calculation. The Democratic Party made numerous mistakes, and once decisions have been made, you have to make the best of them to try to win the election against someone who is entirely unfit for the presidency. There are limits to this though. One of those red lines is withholding information about the dangers the other candidate poses. If the correct campaign strategy were to withhold this information, we still would have focused on it. Also, others can dissect the data, but from the exit polls, that message (protecting democracy) turned out her voters. It just wasn’t enough to convince the other voters who prioritized other things. You could sense that the Democrats were losing this battle, especially with certain segments of the electorate, if you paid any attention to voter sentiment, which the Democratic Party is really good at not doing.

11/6/24 – By the way, if your takeaway from this is, we really should have pandered more to progressives, you really are f—king stupid, and there is no help for you or the Democratic Party. I became an Independent because it refused to have any form of primary, effectively giving its voters the middle finger. Well, the country has given the Democratic Party the middle finger now, hasn’t it.

11/6/24 – This was a foolish decision for those who voted for a certain evil person. However, the Democratic Party and the liberals were not listening to the people. We told you this numerous times, in numerous ways. When moderates and centrists are telling you that your policies are liberal excess and that you should have a primary, and things like that, you really should listen. In any case, you might want to create a plan to leave. It will get that bad…. Or you can stay and fight. It’s obviously a personal choice. Don’t feel bad. You did what you could. The country might not make it, but God is always with us wherever we end up. God loves you. Keep the faith.

11/6/24 – Remember this article. It came out yesterday morning. It infuriated us, but we didn’t have a chance to respond to it, this line in particular: “Then there was the crowd demanding an ‘open process’ to pick the nominee once Biden stepped down. The idea was daft from the start.” We were one of the “daft” ones. We’re not going to say anything more about it because that would be cruel. It is what it is.
Ignoring bad advice is a key to winning

11/5/24 – The Democrats will likely lose the presidential race. It was going to be a very tough election for them to win no matter the ticket, but their original sin was to not have an actual competitive primary and also to allow the progressive wing to have as much influence as it did. Please tell us how daft we are. Good night.

11/5/24 – We’re ready for this election to wrap up. Everybody is exhausted and stressed out. To everyone who did anything to help Harris Walz, thank you! To the people who did a lot, thank you very much! No matter the outcome, we can all hold our heads high. We did what we could, and we did our best. We want to thank, in particular, Kamala Harris. She was put in a tough spot. She worked hard, which is all we could ask. We are proud of her. She is a patriot. Anybody who voted for Harris Walz, on this point, is also a patriot. Let’s pray that God saves us from the evil one. God’s will be done.

11/4/24 – On this eve before election day, our closing argument is this. Sacrifice is sacred. Self-sabotage is stupid. We also understand that there are those who think if they vote for a certain person, they will “own the libs.” We ask you to reconsider the wisdom and the virtue of this goal, and the projection of events to come. Many liberals are well-educated, highly skilled people who can find work elsewhere or withhold their labor or taxes and bring the country to its knees. You only have to look at the brain drain that has occurred throughout the world as their best and brightest fled authoritarian regimes. However, if you’re poorly educated, as much of MAGA is, by definition, you’re more vulnerable to macroeconomic developments, and a certain evil person, who you likely intend to vote for, is more able to enslave you. You might think you’re voting to “own the libs,” when in reality, you’re voting to be owned. For this act of betrayal to your fellow Americans, to our country and to yourselves, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves. We did our duty as your fellow Americans, and we told you the truth. You were warned.

11/4/24 – To all of the supporters and voters of a certain evil person, we care about you, and we did everything we could to help you see the light. You own your decision for the rest of your lives. Here are a few more articles that you can read and/or listen to and, if you haven’t voted already, we hope will convince you to vote for Harris Walz. They are from people who love our country, and who care about it and all Americans – including you.
Let’s not pretend Democrats don’t engage in culture war issues. They do, and it detracts from the economic issues on which their sense of morality is generally clear and correct. Wealthy Democrats are more likely to vote for higher taxes on higher income earners than Republicans of any class. Why would these Democrats do this, especially when some of their taxes go to the very people who want to “own the libs”? Because they value a society that takes care of its people.
America’s Class Politics Have Turned Upside Down
Why are our brave and patriotic members of the military, who risk their lives to protect us, not suckers and losers, as a certain evil person thinks of them? Because they value a society that protects its people.
Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’
Why are many conservatives unwilling to vote for a certain evil person, who has violated many if not all of their core tenets, and are even willing to vote for the presidential candidate of the opposing party? Because they value country over party.
How to Prevent the Worst from Happening
Sacrifice is sacred. Character takes on many forms, and a country is only as good as the character of its people.

11/3/24 – Democracy
They say democracy dies in darkness
Doublespeak with forked tongues in ancient rhymes
Beats into the hearts of misguided men
Foreign flags raised high, house roofbeams brought low
With broken glass, in hallowed halls there lies
Democracy defiled in broad daylight
From Cain and Abel to the end of time
Man cannot govern without divine light.

11/3/24 – The Second Coming

11/2/24 – Fascism
Turning and turning in the widening chasm
Americans cannot hear Americans
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
Mere fascism is loosed upon the world
The flood of lies is loosed, and everywhere
The integrity of truth is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

11/2/24 – The American record continues: Clarence Thomas, traitor. Ginny Thomas, traitor. Samuel Alito, traitor.

11/2/24 – “Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric comes ever closer to a textbook definition of fascism, threatening to imprison political opponents and suggesting that unfriendly news outlets should have their broadcast licenses revoked. And as Ms. Cheney points out, the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this summer that Mr. Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for certain official actions he took while in office may embolden him to test his powers further than he did in his first term.”
Why is the presidential election so close? Here are five reasons.

11/2/24 – Could someone calculate the bills that a certain evil person hasn’t paid? For example, what is the total that his campaign hasn’t paid to the cities in which he holds rallies? Understand what this is. It’s the security and other personnel, ordinary residents, who are not being paid for their labor. Let’s read this again: They are not being paid for their labor. It is a form of wage theft. Do you know why he feels that this is his right? Because a certain person has no value for human beings. He thinks of himself as a king, and he thinks of the rest of us as his peasants and subjects.

11/2/24 – Some supposedly widely cited meme from 2015: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” Krugman says, “It’s hard to explain why this is perfect, but it is.” It is perfect, but it’s not hard to explain. It’s obvious. You just have to use your eyes, your ears and the thing that sits in your skull.
Leopards Are Telling You That They Will Eat YOUR Face

11/2/24 – Some more examples of self-sabotage. Reasons? See below. It’s the same reasons over and over and over again. When you don’t have your priorities in order, you’re f—ked. Please do have a nice day.
Revenge Voting Over Gaza Is a Mistake
Muslim American Support for Trump Is Self-Sabotage

11/1/24 – Save our democracy. We’ll fix everything else after that. We will. As God designed it, in the long-run, nature tends toward balance. Have some faith.

11/1/24 – Some more truths. “In the past, I might have written this essay asking fellow faithful Catholics to examine their consciences and figure out how we can best align our voting choices with our values, but instead, I will say only this: As a Catholic, I simply cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump…. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the annual number of abortions actually went up by 11 percent from 2020 to 2023, the first full year after Roe v. Wade was overturned. So rather than protecting the unborn, I would argue that this Supreme Court has done more to protect Mr. Trump.” Ouch. “Focusing on a person’s dignity and well-being through access to health care and education helps families thrive and has a trickle-down effect on the unborn. I call it ‘supply-side pro-life!’… This faith calls us to care for the marginalized and to uphold the dignity of every person. It calls us to work for a future that is rooted in love and justice. It calls us to insist on leadership that aligns with the values we hold sacred. While we are going to continue to advocate for the dignity of the unborn, let’s admit Ms. Harris has Catholic cred on other important issues. Advocating for policies that support working families, a big deal in Catholic social teaching? Check. Affordable health care? Check. Family leave? Yes, please. Her focus on environmental issues aligns nicely with Pope Francis’ call to care for our common home in ‘Laudato Si’. And on immigration, even though her primary campaign message on this has been cracking down on asylum claims, she’s been firm about providing humane policies and a pathway to citizenship, which the Catholic Church has long supported.”
Jeannie Gaffigan: Harris isn’t perfect. But as a Catholic and a mom, I cannot vote for Trump.

11/1/24 – The dominance of white liberals in the Democratic Party is ruining it. Those people are out there for many people, especially almost all minorities, not just black people, who are generally more socially conservative. Also, the simmering gender wars need to stop. It’s counterproductive. Men need women, and women need men. We have different strengths and weaknesses, and we complement each other as God designed it. The way to court men, black, white, whoever, is simply to tell them the truth. They have value as men, and we need them as they are. The problem is that white liberals have lost touch with some fundamental aspects of reality and human beings, such as gender differences are real and also helpful as they are. Instead of the culture wars crap, which are often the luxuries of bored well-to-do white people who desperately need attention to be focused on their “fragility” while other people are genuinely struggling to survive, there should be more focus on “kitchen table” issues, such as economic policies tailored to poor and lower middle-class people of all races. This is a moral imperative. The culture wars are not.

11/1/24 – Let’s speak some truths, shall we. Let’s start with something simple – self-sabotage is stupid. Anybody who is not a favored kleptocrat and votes for a certain evil person is effectively engaging in an act of personal self-destruction, not to mention destruction of our democracy. This is obvious on its face since once you lose free and fair elections, you become an oppressed slave. So, they can all justify their votes with some mirage of, “He cares about people like me…,” or “I was better under…,” but they will regret that inaccurate assessment once they realize that they got conned. The only thing that really matters is that the evil one is, well, evil, a fascist and will destroy our democracy. Everything else is moot. That’s the truth, no matter its political resonance. Some truths that must be spoken might not register because people are too focused on stupid s—t, but they still need to be spoken. More examples of self-sabotage are to come.
Of Course Black Men Are Drifting Toward Trump

Notes from Underground – October 2024

10/31/24 – This Halloween’s best costume goes to the kleptocrats, such as a certain evil person and his evil partner in crime, Elon Musk, who are wearing as costumes the uniforms of ordinary Americans, to con them into thinking they are one of them. They are engaging in this disguise to steal this country’s riches that has been created by the ordinary people who they loathe. The trick is on any and all of their supporters or voters. Happy Halloween!

10/30/24 – Most people – even well-educated people – have a hard time understanding basic macroeconomics. Basic macroeconomics. A government’s budget is nothing like an individual’s or even a large corporation’s budget. If you’re voting for a certain person because of his business background, not only was he a failure at his businesses but that experience DOES NOT translate well to managing a country’s economy or finances.
What should be the most obvious is that a government has control over its money supply. This is part of what we call monetary policy. No individual or corporation has this power. The other important difference is that government spending is part of the GDP identity: GDP is Y = C + I + G + NX. It is a hugely important part of the health of our economy. You can see it in this graphic here.
Components of GDP: Explanation, Formula and Chart
Elon Musk is a degenerate on every level: personal, moral, intellectual. It is absurd that a know-nothing with a severe god complex – who the American people have not elected to any position of power – thinks he should determine how our country operates. If his plan is implemented, there will be a severe recession, and it will damage our economy – in the long-term, not just in the short-term.
He and a certain person – the evil one – want to enslave the American people. Just know this now before you cast your vote. These people are all plutocrats. If you think they care about ordinary Americans, you are dead wrong. They despise you. They think you are stupid lowlives. Get it? You vote for them, and you could be helping to prove them right….
Musk’s Plan to Cut $2 Trillion in U.S. Spending Could Bring Economic Turmoil

10/29/24 – So, this is what you do. You drive, fly or take a train to a swing state and door knock for Harris Walz. If you can’t do this, you get on the phone and make calls. Some people are dedicating serious time to this because it’s just that important. Enjoy being outside during the best time of the year and getting to know your fellow citizens. The American people are wonderful!

10/29/24 – So, this is what you do. You go to vote early. Why? Because there will be fewer people, and you can be as neurotic as you want. You fill in everything extra carefully, especially your identifying information and your signature. You get your ballot. Then, you carefully fill in your ballot. Stare at it. Did you select Harris Walz? Are you sure? Stare at it again. Is the oval filled in perfectly? (In some states, you can take a picture of your ballot.) This is worthy of your obsession, not the other things people are getting distracted by. Then, you fold it up. Then, you unfold it, and look at it one last time. Then, you bring it to the ballot counting machine and watch it go in. Verify on the screen that it was processed. Lastly, you proudly put on your “I voted early” sticker and feel really good about yourself because this was the most stressful election of your life. You did it! You just contributed in the most meaningful way possible to saving our democracy. Patriot.

10/28/24 – We’re not giving the world an accurate representation of our people. Americans are some of the nicest people in the world. In our day-to-day lives, they are kind, helpful, generous, and very polite. Even if they might not like you for whatever reason, they tend to be polite. Yet that’s not what the world sees. They are seeing MAGA’s anger, gun violence, hateful rhetoric, etc., all of the negative expressions without seeing the positive ones. This skews their perception of our people.
We are also considerably warmer than some other parts of the world, such as northern Europe. Even in the Midwest, where people tend to be reserved, or the South, where people tend to be polite over honest, they express themselves. This natural expression, even if it is in disagreement, is an expression of warmth. They trust you enough to tell you what they really think and feel. They trust you to not get (too) offended but to accept it as where they’re at. It’s a testament to the openness of our society and the exercise of our right to free speech. We need to make sure that the world sees us as we actually are, not as some angry, uncouth caricature. Those people are few and far between.

10/27/24 – Many Americans are frustrated with the illegal immigration situation. It needs to be addressed. The frustration seems to be that especially more recent immigrants are getting the benefits of residing in our country without contributing to it over long periods of time. We need to consider if we’re giving resources that could be going to our indigenous people or our black people who were descendants of slaves to these more recent immigrants, who are coming here illegally. Our indigenous people lost the most, and our black people gave the most. Also, there are poor white people who have not been able to climb up the ladder for whatever reason, and they have also contributed greatly to our country. All of our fellow Americans are worthy of our sympathy and help. In general, we need to address in a calm and compassionate way this sense of unfairness they feel that is not entirely wrong while still maintaining our values as a nation to other people and other countries. There is merit to MAGA’s and other Americans’ argument, and perhaps more importantly, we are not doing a good enough job of responding to their pain.

10/27/24 – Door knocking is the best part of politics. Truly. Most Americans – yes, even many MAGA – are just really nice people. You will likely have some unpleasant interactions. It just goes with the territory. If you teach, you know exactly how this goes. You reflect on it, and think next time, I’m going to try this or that and see if it works better. Or I’m going to pause and just be present with this human being where they’re at. It is impossible for every single interaction to go perfectly. You will make mistakes, but you will also learn so much about others – and yourself.

10/27/24 – Is it possible for us to keep our eyes on the prize for the next 10 days? We have to save our democracy from the fascist groomer. Who cares about endorsements? Certainly not the people who read them or don’t read them. Come on, people. Progressives, we need a broad coalition to win. Deal with it. Nobody cares about your feelings. We care about our democracy. Focus on the things that actually matter. Thank you, and Happy Sunday!

10/26/24 – Pennsylvania, people! Democrats need to focus on it more.

10/26/24 – Also, according to the Times/Siena poll, his unfavorability ratings went from +6 on October 6 to +2 on October 23. In two weeks, public opinion of the person everyone knows all too well, who is more awful than ever, supposedly improved 4 points in their poll. Really? Based on what? Or did they change their methodology?

10/26/24 – The small donor donations, volunteers and ground game, and the favorability ratings, according to 538, as of today, a certain person unfavorable +8.7 and Harris +1.4, don’t reconcile with him winning the popular vote, which he never won. It wasn’t even close. You have to look at the totality of evidence, and when it’s not reconciling and going against established trends, such as Republicans having a big disadvantage in the popular vote, reconsider the methodology.

10/26/24 – If your poll is showing that a certain person is leading in the popular vote, you need to check your methodology.

10/25/24 – To the people who claim that Kamala Harris lacks core convictions, with respect, please do STFU. She has spent much of her life fighting to protect innocent people from predators. That’s not just a core conviction but also part of her life’s work. That’s what she’s doing right now also. She’s what stands between a groomer and the rest of the country, between autocracy and democracy. What have you done? Does this core conviction translate well to the Americans who are so obsessed with their own personal inconveniences, such as a moderate level of inflation, that they are prioritizing it over saving our democracy and everything else? Apparently not. It is what it is, but stop pretending that this situation reflects some deep weakness for the Democratic presidential candidate. It doesn’t.

10/24/24 – The most dangerous and most blatant groomer in the country right now is a certain person. Think about what it means to condition someone to something. “[A certain person] condition[s] his followers to accept his Big Lie about the election.” He has “conditioned” them to accept any lie, no matter how outrageous. A certain person is a groomer, and unfortunately for MAGA and, frankly, for the rest of us, they have been groomed. Regarding the question: “Is there ever a moment when you’re remembering too much?” Regarding January 6, no. Never forget.
Trump and the January 6 Memory Hole

10/24/24 – We want all the men in our country to know something important – our country and the women in our country need you. We have always needed you. Among many other things, we need your strength, your protection, your toughness, your vulnerability, your kindness, and your solidarity. We also very much need you to help us save our democracy by voting for Harris Walz.
We don’t want you to be anybody else but yourselves. We want you to be men. (But don’t do the annoying things, though, you know…toilet seats and such. Nobody needs that.) So, whatever messages the extreme right propagandists and a certain person are sending you, just ignore them. Work with the women in our country to build a nation we all deserve to live in – one that values all people and treats all of them with dignity and kindness. Thank you for everything you do for us and our country. God bless you.

10/23/24 – For a potentially historic election like this, you might want to get some Harris Walz merch.

10/23/24 – This is not a forecast, and everyone Team Harris Walz needs to push until the end. However, the small donor money might be a decent proxy for votes, as James Carville mentioned in The New York Times and as The Washington Post reported. If people are engaged enough to donate, they are likely engaged enough to vote. Did anyone analyze the data from 2020 with this hypothesis? Perhaps compare with this year.

10/21/24 – Speaking of working-class chic, our families were not financially wealthy, but we were wealthy in other ways. Our parents made us home-cooked meals with whole ingredients almost every day, partly because they couldn’t afford to do otherwise, but also because it simply tastes better. This is a very good idea. Small farms are much better for our environment, and this type of food is much healthier for our kids.
Another way we were wealthy also seems to have gone out of fashion. We not only ate good food together, but we also talked about culture, especially novels and art. Our families were filled with readers, and we enjoyed the art of a good conversation on textual analysis, art, and other topics that are often associated with the rich. We weren’t rich, but it didn’t matter because libraries are free and museums can be too.
Don’t think that just because you don’t have money, you can’t offer your kids a wealthy life. You can. Take the time to cook and eat healthy food together. Take the time to study and discuss the finer things in life. We are a product of this poor but rich life. You don’t have to have a lot of money to be cultured and healthy. You simply have to value the right things.
Harris should take Walz’s ‘liberal’ school lunch program national

10/21/24 – We are in the stage of the election when the plutocrat pretends to be a pleb. We all know that Harris and Walz were plebs because we all know that they weren’t born rich. We can all keep track of the plot and the point, right? Because that’s the plot and the point. Now, the amusing part of the absurdity is this: here is an evil, dictator wannabe, who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life, who calls his supporters, who for all of their shortcomings do actually work, “basement dwellers;” this person is trying on, that’s right, working-class chic. It’s a costume that’s he’s donning on his latest set. Next, the flannel that fills Walz’s closet because, well, he’s Minnesotan. We’re waiting for the hunting photo op, much like his son does. No, a certain person is not going to f—k working-class Americans over. He and his cronies, such as Elon Musk, also a plutocrat pretending to be a pleb, are not going to horde the nation’s wealth that working-class Americans create. He’s an everyday, working man, just like you.

10/20/24 – On this World Mission Day, we’re on a mission to save our planet, God’s glorious creation that is in great peril. Our planet is on the brink. It is entirely conceivable that all life on earth, which is also all known life in the universe, could come to an abrupt end. As people of faith, perhaps we should not be surprised, but being human, we likely still are. We want to thank our spiritual and religious sisters and brothers of all faith traditions around the world, who are often also indigenous people, for holding the line in this existential battle against the western scientism that is destroying our ancestral lands and the planet at such a rapid pace, we haven’t even fully processed the damage.
We want to give a particular shout out, again in the same week, to our American indigenous friends. We never forget what they did to you, in their arrogance and their unwillingness to live respectfully alongside nature, as you had done for millennia, instead of crushing it into nonexistence. Indigenous people of all spiritual and religious traditions, such as Jains, who treat our natural world with divine love and compassion, understand your pain and your loss. It’s actually all of humanity’s loss, but so many people are too busy amusing themselves to death to recognize the impending death of our planet.

10/20/24 – We would have liked to have shared this yesterday, on the Jewish Sabbath, but unfortunately, we were just too pissed off. We’re still not feeling joy, but maybe that’s the best time to share the article. Sukkot runs until the 23rd, so we have time to find some kind of joy by then. However, the topic couldn’t be better timed: “No matter how you feel, for seven days, practice humility, count your blessings, and gather with family and friends to share in food and drink – and joy will find you.” The killing of the monstrous terrorist Yahya Sinwar, at the start of Sukkot, October 16, was also rather providential.
PS We also noticed that several Christian authors have been writing articles supportive of the Jewish people, particularly during their holy time, which is now also a time of pain. Thank you for these acts of kindness and solidarity. Never again is realized by the sum of individual acts such as these.
Why Humility Is the Key to Well-Being

10/19/24 – At this point, the only thing the world needs from scientists is to clean up the mess they made on earth as noninvasively as possible. Give us back the planet that God gave us. That’s all we want and need, and then, simply disappear from our lives. Thank you, and have a nice day.

10/19/24 – We have a question for Elon Musk: Off the top of your head, can you name a single descendant of Genghis Khan? All this effort to dominate will leave him as a cautionary note in the annals of history, just like every single egomaniacal loser that came before him. (The hashtag belongs to Jack Dorsey.) #TheJesusWay is the only way.

10/19/24 – All true, but another truth is that in addition to businessman, Musk views himself as a scientist, an engineer, a neuroscientist, whatnot. The left supposedly despises the person that has a god complex just like the scientists that they love for doing the very same things: space exploration, basically eugenics (creating humans or superhumans in the lab), replacing humans with AI, etc., just without the overt greed. Ambition, including intellectual ambition, by the way, is also self-interest, in case the left is confused about that. It’s often confused. When you can’t see your own contradictions, in great part, because the self-proclaimed intellectuals have created an intellectual and social bubble around themselves, you’re in a sad, sad state. This is true of MAGA land, and it’s true of lalaliberal land.
Trump Is Elon Musk’s Trojan Horse

10/19/24 – The most dangerous person in the world is a human being who mistakes themselves for god. There are plenty on both the right and the left.

10/19/24 – Why is this presidential election so close? Because we have extreme groups on both sides who are vying for control, and the center is not holding. That’s why. As a country, we deserve to see a truly broad coalition of voters for the winning candidate and candidates with a true mandate. We cannot continue as we have been. This last point regarding the coalition was made by David Brooks, who is more or less a moderate/centrist, and who many on the left refuse to even read. Right now, the extreme left dominates the media and academia, and their science gods are a menace to all life any and everywhere.
Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This?
“The New York Times columnist David Brooks, a longtime Republican who is backing Ms. Harris, recently explained why he is still not ‘fully comfortable’ with the Democratic Party. One reason is the self-congratulation that Democrats can’t seem to help displaying as they dominate the most highly educated segments of society: ‘The more they dominate the commanding heights of society, the more aggressively progressive aristocrats posture as marginalized victims of oppression.’ But most of my Democratic acquaintances have a response to this: They refuse to read anything by David Brooks.”
Why is the presidential election so close? Here are five reasons.
They call themselves intellectuals, and they won’t even read an opposing viewpoint. It’s disgusting. They are pseudo-intellectual quacks. Read it, leftists and scientists. You might actually learn something about yourselves and how much of the country sees you. It’s an objective and accurate assessment.
Confessions of a Republican Exile

10/19/24 – It is definitely a hard call which extreme group is more dangerous. In the short-term, the extreme right, with its affection for demagoguery. In the long-term, the extreme left, with its affection for “science,” by which they mean f—kery. In either case, human civilization and the planet will suffer, in many cases irreparably. Hard truth.

10/18/24 – As someone who considers nature my best friend, personally, I feel quite resentful and bitter about the damage “science” has done to it. So, the science worship will never be well-received for several reasons. Who do you think creates this crap that has done irreparable damage to our planet? Their job is just to observe the world God created and report their findings so we can better understand our natural biological and physical world. Instead, they want to bomb fjords and redirect ocean currents. (Totally absurd.) From weapons of war, including chemical and nuclear weapons, to industrial and household chemicals, to everything, they have done more damage in the past 100 years to the planet than all of human civilization before it. And this is who the left worships while simultaneously claiming to care about the planet. OK.

10/18/24 – This is a long article from 1998, and many readers are going to get lost in all of the details. The Atlantic should offer a summary…. (Ignore anything related to evolutionary theory, seriously.) As we understand the unnecessarily involved article and as it relates to climate change, the key points are that abrupt cooling can happen, often following a warm period, and the planet can take a long time to warm up again after the cooling occurs. The occurrence of abrupt cooling has to do with loops of global currents and (salt) flushing, which can fail for various reasons, one being that too much fresh water mixes with saltwater. This failed flushing later prevents adequate warm water from flowing far enough north to prevent the formation of ice sheets.
Now, for normal people, this means that the dumb MAGA were right in one sense: climate change is a natural phenomenon. However, they understand this change as solely moderate ebbs and flows. These exist, but so do the dramatic changes. The super smart science worshippers are also right in the sense that humans do affect these natural climate changes. Of course, we do, come on MAGA. What don’t we affect?
“We must be careful not to think of an abrupt cooling in response to global warming as just another self-regulatory device.” But that’s what it is. The earth has an internal mean reversion thermometer if you will. However, the scale of the climate’s response would likely be beyond what it would be in the absence of human contributions to climate change. This seems like an entirely reasonable conclusion.
Where the article goes off into lalaland: We are not at all fans of playing God and trying to prevent this natural cycle. Just accept the planet’s cycles as they are, or you can end up doing a lot more damage than you would otherwise do. If one wants to proactively enact policies to prevent displacement, food shortages, or other disruptions from climate change, that’s obviously fine. However, the planet is not a toy for overly confident scientists. It’s God’s creation, and the more they do to it, see the chemicals that are choking life on earth, the more trouble we get into. That’s a fact. If the scientific community had humility and intellectual honesty, they would acknowledge it.
Also, this is yet another appalling example of the science worshippers’ self-idolatry and their seething hatred of religion. “Medieval cathedral builders…undertakings were a far larger drain on the economic resources and people power of their day than anything yet discussed for stabilizing the climate in the twenty-first century.” (Read the suggestions to understand how preposterous this statement is.) We get it. They want more science jobs. That means more taxpayer money funneled to scientists to play around with their science toys, such as our planet. This also pulls resources away from people who don’t have their cushy, well-paid white-collar jobs and are simply trying to feed their families. And what would they deliver for the rest of us? “Fixing” the planet God created that science is currently destroying. Genius. From the gods of finance to the gods of science, some things never change. These people’s arrogance is truly disgusting.
The Great Climate Flip-Flop

10/17/24 – MAGA, you can bounce around from one billionaire to another, hoping that they will save you out of pity. (FYI: Your odds would be better buying lottery tickets.) Or you could try a strategy that actually works: Find solidarity with your fellow Americans, including liberals, who, like you, actually have to work to make a living. Just an idea.

10/17/24 – An interesting feature of modern capitalism is that companies are less inclined to compete for your business by providing you with a great service or product. (How do y’all feel about customer service?) They seem more interested in monopolizing the market. Does that sound familiar to anyone who knows their American labor and economic history?
It is an interesting strategy to pour money into a certain person’s campaign, find and support a scion, but ultimately decide only you can serve your own goals. It’s a very Muskian approach: The only plan is to change the plan. Many of these plutocrats or their progeny would enter politics to control the wheels of power. What better way to dominate markets but to dominate the law and to tailor it to serve oneself?
Although Musk has spread his sperm to rival Genghis Khan, he is still waiting to reap the financial dividends from his sperm spreading. In the meantime, how long before Elon Musk announces his bid for_____ (anything but president or VP since he’s ineligible) or requires repayment from a certain person by being given a powerful political position to serve, of course, himself? He, like a certain person, is entirely self-interested. Elon Musk, traitor, might be a step above, a certain person, insurrectionist, but, you know, this isn’t the shiniest moment in American history.

10/17/24 – MAGA, you want a better life. You have to unite with your fellow laborers, all of them. We don’t need a savior. (Some of us already have one in Jesus Christ. Thank you very much.) We are each other’s champions. We welcome you with open arms.

10/17/24 – MAGA, your “savior” will make you into a slave. You have little power now. You will be completely powerless in his fascist state. You have been warned.

10/17/24 – Don’t believe us. Listen to your fellow laborer, a descendant of this brutal legacy.
John Russell speaks at the 2024 Democratic National Convention | DNC Day 4

10/17/24 – Greed + Fascism = Terror

10/17/24 – If you aren’t one of them, you are what we call a laborer. Know what that means. Know what it has meant in our country’s history. It has meant that your life can be treated like it’s worthless. It has meant that you and your family can be subjected to state-sanctioned terror and oppression. MAGA wants to go back in time. That’s where they’re going to take us.
Plutocracy

10/17/24 – Elon Musk, traitor. Timothy Mellon, trust-fund traitor. While our valorous military sacrifice their lives to protect our country, our citizens and our freedom, these parasites want to devour more and more of our nation’s wealth even if it costs us our democracy and our freedom. Know who they are.
Elon Musk has given $75 million, so far, to put Donald Trump back in the White House

10/16/24 – We need more independents and union member leaders running for office. Solidarity forever.
Democrats thought their Senate hopes were dead. They were just in Nebraska.

10/16/24 – Cowards and pustules.
Liz Cheney says she regrets her past support for Donald Trump: Full interview

10/16/24 – There are pustules on the body politic. These pustules are filled with unprincipled ambition and greed. These pustules have different names, but they all share the same ignoble title – traitor. They have betrayed our country and our people. For this great sin, every single one of their names will be followed by their disgraceful title, traitor, and they will all be written into the American record. To a certain person’s wealthy donors who are trying to hide their names, current or future Americans will figure out who you are, and you and your progeny will be remembered as traitors to our democracy.

10/16/24 – Mark Milley reportedly told Bob Woodward that a certain person is “fascist to the core.” This is an objective and accurate assessment.  

10/16/24 – MAGA, he lost the election, and he lied to you about it. As God as our witness, that’s the truth.

10/15/24 – Let’s consider some other forms of denial. Rather apropos, how about election denialism. We’ve had countless number of media figures, politicians, celebrities, you name it, try to convince MAGA that a certain person lost the election, all to no avail. Although it seems impossible to succeed at this daunting task, we would be remiss if we stopped trying. We do think MAGA can get there. It’s just a matter of if it will be too late for our country by the time they do.
MAGA, he lost the election. It’s a fact. There was no rigging or cheating. He simply lost, and he lied to you about it. We understand. You need someone to believe in because you have been let down. (Both parties did let you down.) He comes along, says what you want to hear, and it’s like music to your ears. Many of you are also predisposed to loyalty, which is usually a positive trait, with some exceptions. One of the most important exceptions is when you’re wrong in your assessment of the character of the person to whom you’re giving your loyalty. Instead of being your champion, he has manipulated your emotions to his own benefit and to the peril of our country.
What are some of the objective assessments of a certain person? He is a “person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is about.” This article compares him to George Washington, who Americans revere for many great reasons, foremost among them are: his sacrifice for our nation, his leadership by example, and his self-restraint. From the article, “No president in history, not even the worst moral weaklings among them, is further from Washington than Trump.” It is an objective and accurate assessment. MAGA, we encourage you to listen to or read the whole article. You might learn something about Washington, our first president, a certain person, our country, and most importantly, yourselves.
The Moment of Truth

10/15/24 – Public service announcement: Time exists. We understand that its abstract nature might make it hard for people to fully grasp it, but let’s try. From the beginning of the universe, as matter was created, so was time. Time marks the birth, and wait for it, the change and the death of matter. From our perspective, this is part of the divine order. Civilizations and calendars vary in how they measure time, but they all measure this abstract concept.
Now, why does this come as a public service announcement? Because it seems that some people want to deny the existence of time. This is as futile as denying the existence of our sun. With time, comes change. No one can stop time and change. You can rage against the dying of the light, but our sun will remain, marking the seasons and the years, and you will die. So too, at some point in the distant future, will our sun.
Our climate is changing. You can deny this reality, but it might end up being a very costly denial. If you are a homeowner, know that just as mortality is real, climate change is real. If we measure superiority by survival, some of the world’s most superior creatures are insects, such as the cockroach, which has outlived the dinosaurs. Although inconvenient for evolutionary theory, let us not confuse intelligence with survival.
Continuing to live in areas that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change is continuing to engage in the denial of the existence of time and change. Although the human brain is sophisticated enough to come up with all kinds of delusions and irrational justifications, this doesn’t mean that they are actually in service of our own survival, not to mention, even remotely tethered to basic physics.
So, again, why do we point out all of these facts in the context of a public service announcement? Well, you might consider adjusting your plans to account for these changes. You might consider accounting for the fact that time exists, and it doesn’t care about you. Even if human beings didn’t contribute to climate change (we do), the climate would change, in ways beyond our control, because it obeys God’s divine order. And since the beginning of the universe, God’s divine order involves time and change.

10/14/24 – It is an interesting strategy to go to some of the bluest states and the bluest cities to try to convince their happy people to be miserable too. Looking at you, a certain person/Vance. We understand that this ticket has a penchant for insults and are perpetual malcontents, but, you know, the rest of us just don’t and aren’t. It might have something to do with our high-quality of life because we live in places where people care for each other instead of hating each other. Next time, come to learn kindness instead of coming to preach hate. You might actually grow as a human being.   

10/14/24 – “The quiet as old as the beginning of time.” As someone who practices contemplative prayer, the quiet is part of my connection with the divine. How can one hear the voice of God when one is always listening to the monkey in one’s head, other people, and the sounds of our unnecessarily complicated lives?
Traditional Republicans were also often conservationists. They understood the value of the natural world. By investing in nature, we also invest in ourselves. Investing in it, including the wild, pristine parts, is wise. 
Personally, nature was my first friend, and it remains my best friend. In it, I found a divine comfort that continues to serve me well. Just as God is always there for me, nature is always there for me. Reveling in God’s creation in its abundance and awe makes me feel grateful simply to be alive. What a gift life is, my own and everything around me.
Like all of us, our indigenous sisters and brothers weren’t perfect, but they understood and respected the value of nature. We could learn from them and return to a way of life that respects God’s creation. White people have been dangerously good at obtaining material wealth and worldly power. They haven’t been good at appreciating the wealth that they had no role in creating, our natural world whose value is infinite, and divine power. Let’s replace this misguided value system with one that elevates God’s creation, in its splendid biodiversity.
We have suggested that people, especially our fellow Americans during this election season, breathe. We also suggest that they spend some time breathing in nature and in silence. Silence is an ancient prayer, one that is as old as the beginning of time. There was no matter, no light, and no sound. There was also no time. There was nothing. Everything that you are, everything that you feel, see and hear, none of it was made by you. It was all made by our creator. All we did was change the composition of God’s existing material. In our misguided pursuit of material wealth and comfort, we have lost so much.
Preserving biodiversity isn’t just about protecting our planet and God’s other creations. It’s about restoring ourselves. We are not whole. We are not oriented to our creator. So, how could we possibly be whole? Instead, we are broken and lost. We either choose to control our destructive, insatiable appetites for power, wealth and comfort, or we lose everything that actually matters. We lose what God gave us, and we will have only our transformation of it. It will be a disappointment and a regret. It already is.
Nations Must Protect What Is Still Wild

10/13/24 – One of the amazing aspects of The Atlantic, founded in 1857, is how long it’s been around. Its own archive is also a national treasure. There aren’t many publications that can boast this. As the article mentions, it has endorsed a candidate for president only four previous times in its entire history: Lincoln, for obvious reasons, in 1860, Lyndon B. Johnson because of the unfitness of his opponent, Barry Goldwater, in 1964, Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, both times because of the unfitness of the opponent. And here we are again, America. Again. Three times with the same guy for the same reasons. God help us.
As The Atlantic notes, this election is yet another turning point. Of the three times, 2016, 2020 and 2024, this time is the most crucial. We are asking you to think about something bigger than yourselves. We are asking you to think about the fate of the American experiment. We are humbly asking you to trust our judgment and our ability to see into the character of this man and into the future of our country under him for a second term. If you can’t trust us, then look at yourselves. Look hard. When you have to preface your support of someone with, “I don’t like how he talks or treats people…,” there is a serious problem. Whatever words come after those words are irrelevant, no matter how important they seem at this particular moment in time. In other words, do not be penny-wise, pound-foolish.
The Case for Kamala Harris

10/13/24 – “I was looking for a country I want to live in.” An informative and funny article about the important and patriotic work the National Archives does. In families, there are often a few people who tend to the documentation of its history. They make the family tree, preserve the photographs, and painstakingly go through a life’s worth of stuff to keep the things that must be kept. They do so for future generations to see, read, feel and weep as they connect with their ancestors.
Our country is a family, and we are making our collective history each and every day we live here. Every day, often without realizing it, ordinary Americans are contributing to our National Archives. Think about the implications of this. Will you be proud of what future Americans see documented about you and your family?
The Equalizer

10/13/24 – “Penny-wise, but pound-foolish.” One of the sad facts about Republicans is that they tend to vote based on lowering taxes and presumably raising their own personal finances and quality of life. This is not a smart approach. Of course, we expect the government to be good stewards of the American people’s purse, and where there is “fraud, waste and abuse,” as the phrasing goes, it should be eliminated. But a people who are pound-wise understand that paying taxes is an investment in ourselves, our country, and the world.
Do you really want to live in a country that does not invest in itself and its people? You can’t live in a bubble. You can’t pay for your own infrastructure, military, local, state and national parks, police, emergency responders, etc. You also can’t pay for your own safety net. Do you know why? Because you don’t know what might happen in the future, not just to you, but also to your friends and family.
A government is more than a bureaucracy. It is a statement of values, and on a practical level, we pool our money to express those values. Solidarity is a verb, and one of the most common expressions of it as Americans is simply paying our taxes. Do so with a generosity of spirit, without grievance, jealousy or bitterness, and do so with the wisdom of investment in yourself, your own family and the other Americans without whom you couldn’t build this great country.

10/13/24 – To everybody: Disconnecting is healthy and wonderful. The more usual and regular posts will start again soon. Hope you enjoy this beautiful fall day. Peace be with you, friends.

10/13/24 – To MAGA world, who are also our fellow countrymen and women, we have a suggestion. Disconnect from the unreal world you’re living in, and spend some time in the real one. Don’t follow anything related to the news or your absurd conspiracy theories, which are like an alien invasion of the mind. The lies have taken over your brains, and they have ceased to operate in the way God intended. Remember: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Truth is fundamental to Christianity. When you stop practicing truth, you stop practicing Christianity.
Instead of living in your unreal world, come hang out with us in our blue areas. Go to where your “enemies” live, and see how they live. You might find that it’s actually quite nice. We have a high-quality of life because we pay for it. We pay more in taxes than in red states, and our money goes to our people, our schools, our parks, our roads, our infrastructure, our everything that we value. Are we ever excited about paying taxes? No, but we understand that this is the cost to live in a great area that is well-managed and that this is what it looks like to take care of each other. We also, are you ready for this, help the red areas of the country pay their bills. More likely than not, we send you money.
But this isn’t about money. This is about our country. This is about you stepping out from behind the screen that is feeding you a world that doesn’t exist and stepping into the world that actually does. Come and check us out. We welcome you. Come and talk with your fellow Americans and see how we live, how we treat each other, and what we value. Then, let’s talk. Tell us what you find. We’re listening to you. God bless you.

10/8/24 – Studying the Christian and Jewish texts is addictive. It’s like gardening. You start with one plant, and before you know it, it’s acres of garden. Just like that, the bumble bees are so fat that they fall asleep on your flowers. They are so gluttonous that they don’t care that you are stroking them. They are in bee paradise. You start with one word; well, what about this one and that one. Before you know it, you’re feasting on the Word of God.

10/7/24 – To the Jewish people, we love you. God loves you. We pray for the safe return of the remaining hostages, for the beautiful souls brutally taken from you, for God’s comfort to their families and to you, his Chosen People. We don’t really have the words for moments like these, but you already have them. Today, we pray and read our religious texts. Remember this: although it might not always feel like it, you are not alone. You are never alone. God is with you, and there are good people in the world who will always be there for you, no matter what. Peace be with you. Shalom.
October 7, 2024: Sources for Grief and Comfort

10/6/24 – As a point of clarification: we are not interested in “determining the authenticity of people’s faith” (see below) as it relates to conversions. People will come to conversion in different ways, different measures of head and heart that is impossible for others to truly understand. However, the long initiation process in traditional Christianity is intended to act as a vetting process. It is an important process to retain. However, we do feel entirely comfortable, in fact, that it is a duty to maintain the integrity of the religion and to ask people to leave who violate fundamental tenets of the faith. A red line is worshipping a false god, which is what “Christian nationalists” are doing. It is extremely damaging to the faith, and if left unchecked, it can metastasize and corrupt the body of Christ.  

10/6/24 – The Catholic Church’s leadership is not rising to the challenges of the moment. The leadership has not been focused on Jesus Christ and our faith. It is preoccupied with worldly things.

10/6/24 – Tomorrow, October 7 will be reserved for the Jewish people, who have been persecuted throughout much of their existence. We wish them peace and love. We have been and will always be there for them. Even if the entire world turns on them, we will never abandon them. Our loyalties are always with the people who sacrifice the most and who are the most vulnerable.
The plight of the Palestinians also brings the world much heartache. We are sympathetic to the cry of their innocents. All people of goodwill wish there would be peace in the Holy Land. For the three Abrahamic religions, it is a sacred place. The scale of Palestinian deaths and the destruction of their lives are painful to us. We blame the current Israeli “leadership,” mainly Netanyahu.
Our parent religion is Judaism. This is a historical fact. Any denialism of facts will be met with assertion of truths. We do not receive lies with sympathy. We also do not receive any violence with sympathy. A sad fact about the Middle East is that militant Islam has terrorized the region. It does so presently in Afghanistan and Syria. It has repressive regimes, such as in Saudi Arabia and Iran. All of them treat women as property instead of as human beings with the rights endowed to them by their creator, the God of Abraham.
Militant Islam has driven massive populations of Muslims to misery and fleeing to the safety of regions beyond their homelands. It is a cancer that has metastasized throughout much of the world, especially African countries, with notable exceptions, such as in India. We want to thank our Muslim brothers and sisters in India who have resisted the siren call of extremism. Thank you for peacefully and patiently fighting against Hindu extremism in India.
Islam is the youngest of the Abrahamic religions. This is a fact. Yet it wants to dominate the lands to which the parent religion, the Jewish religion, belongs. This is simply unacceptable. Extremist Islam has driven out the Christians who are original to the Holy Land and the Levant. These Christians can trace their ancestry to the origins of the faith and to this land. They cannot live there because of how violent and intolerant the region has become due to militant Islam.
We have some suggestions for Islam. Practice more peace, humility and tolerance. Also, Judaism and the more traditional forms of Christianity, such as Catholicism, have long periods of initiation into the faith. In the Catholic tradition, it can take over a year to convert. We also do not force people to become or to remain Christian. It would be a violation of their God-given rights and would be spiritually meaningless. Although cradle Catholics are initiated by baptism as infants, it is only one of the three Christian rites of initiation. The other two span the life of the young person. We want people to understand and to think deeply about the demands of our faith. They are considerable, and it is not an easy religion to practice correctly. We also want people to build a personal relationship with our God, especially the Son in the Trinity, Jesus Christ. We ask MAGA “Christians,” who often belong to denominations with less extensive initiation rites, to leave Christianity. They are always welcome back when they can adhere to the tenets and the rigors of our faith.
We encourage Islam to adopt a rigorous initiation process, as both Judaism and traditional Christianity have. We also encourage Muslims to allow their adherents to leave the religion if they so choose. God does not force religion on anyone. We come to him by our choice. We choose to give of our free will our hearts and our lives to him. This change would greatly mitigate the militant strain in Islam. God made us free. Respect the God of Abraham. Peace to our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. May you be instruments of God’s peace.

10/4/24 – Love is more important than politics. We ask blue-collar workers to vote with us, your fellow laborers, for Harris Walz because we think they will be better for labor and for our country. However, we want our first responders to know that you have our hearts, and we have your back no matter what. If a certain person ends up disappointing you, we will not blame you. We will keep fighting for you because you fight for us.
In Michigan, Harris doesn’t get hoped-for firefighters endorsement amid shifting labor loyalties

10/4/24 – Flashback Friday. 8/31/23 – “Men (as a group and to a significant extent) are larger, faster, and stronger than women. This cannot be disputed, and it cannot be understood as some irrelevancy, because it comes with an obvious moral question that each man must answer for himself: Will he use his strength to dominate the weak, or to protect them?… The opposite of toxic masculinity is heroic masculinity…. [I can’t remember the number of times I have cried, more accurately, sobbed when I have thought about this.] Heroic masculinity is the understanding that someone has to climb the endless staircases in the towers. On 9/11, 343 New York City firefighters died at Ground Zero, and there wasn’t one of them who didn’t know, or at least suspect, that he was climbing to his death. They didn’t do it because of a union contract or an employee handbook. They climbed those towers because they knew that it must be written into the American record that heroes were there that day, and that the desperate people inside those buildings had never—not once—been abandoned.” To those who sacrificed their lives for us and their relatives, know that they live in our hearts, minds and souls. We love them with a genuine, grateful love that’s as eternal as their heroic souls.
In Praise of Heroic Masculinity

10/4/24 – To the propaganda: start humbling yourselves and start treating your fellow laborers (and Americans) with more respect and value. You are not better than they are. Start practicing some humility.

10/4/24 – As a reiteration of the argument made in September 2024: The statement that “all people are equal” is false. It is objectively false. The statement that “all people are created equal” is true. It is not an objective statement. It is a moral declaration based on Judeo-Christian tenets. Any conclusions derived from it as an assumption, therefore, depend on this Judeo-Christian belief. Liberal atheists: stop deluding yourselves to claim the contrary.
Although we are unaware of all of these developments regarding conversions and such, we do know that for over 2,000 years, the church has been evolving. We also have no interest in determining the authenticity of people’s faith. Christianity will continue to evolve, and believers of various stripes will come and go. We welcome all new believers to the church, but we want the wealthy, well-educated ones to remember something: you are not the heart of our church. Our church belongs to our God, and Jesus Christ valued above all the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized.
Personally, I would love to claim that my heart just knew, and it alone informed my confirmation. However, it was not the case. I read and analyzed the Gospel for and by myself, and I decided it was true. I also realized that I loved Jesus Christ, while simultaneously understanding that this was a totally irrational love. I marveled at it then and still do now. My head led, convinced by logic, and my heart sealed the decision.
There are millions of people around the world who come to Christ because their hearts just know. They don’t have the same kind of self-consciousness or even surprise that I had at my heart. They might be illiterate, poor, powerless, but they understand him better than many of us will ever understand him. So, while we welcome everyone, the rest of us, including myself, need to walk into the Lord’s house in a posture of humility and gratitude.
Some of Christianity’s Biggest Skeptics Are Becoming Vocal Converts

10/3/24 – To all the blue-collar workers out there, we want you to know something important. We respect you. We value you. And we hear you. The only difference between blue-collar workers and teachers, nurses, and others is that the latter group has to have a college education to work in their profession. We are all laborers. That’s all we are, and that’s all we want to be. Blue-collar workers, we have your back. We are not elites. We are simple folk like you. We work hard, and we come home to our families and our communities that we love. Many of us are God-fearing people.
The Biden Harris administration did more for blue-collar and union workers than the Democratic Party has done in a long time. A certain person is lying to you. The older generation was right. The Republican Party is the party of the business elite. That is who a certain person is. He is a business elite. Although his running mate has more potential to be convinced of our positions, at the moment, he has become a business elite. They are not being honest with you.
Did the Democratic Party before Biden Harris leave blue-collar workers behind? They did, and they need to own that. However, the Biden Harris administration has made changes that we can build on. On a cultural level, the “wokeness” on the left is out of control. Let’s push back on it by splitting the ticket: voting for Republicans or Independents on other races, not the presidential one. Remember: we are laborers, like you, and we have mutual interests. Vote for Harris Walz, and work with us to move this country in the right direction. Solidarity forever.

10/2/24 – Please note that both abortion and immigration are important issues for Catholics. We do not like dehumanizing treatment of immigrants. Stop the demagoguery. Some commentary on the VP debate without the breathlessness. “The U.S. bishops have been lobbying for comprehensive immigration reform for decades. To learn more about their efforts, visit the bishops’ Justice for Immigrants website.”
Vance and Walz showed Americans how to politely disagree. Here are six Catholic takeaways from their debate.

10/2/24 – The liberals went from holding their breath during Biden’s disastrous debate performance to hyperventilating over Vance’s strong debate performance last night. Maybe try just breathing properly. It was a VP debate a month before the election, when most people have already made up their minds.
But of course, that’s not what this is really about. It’s about their sudden realization, with great fear, that Vance has real political potential. (We wrote about this way back when, after the Republican National Convention.) Ironically, the liberals presumably underwent a similar realization, with great elation, with Kamala Harris. In any case, all the breathless commentary all the time is rather tedious. Breathe.
Childish insults and demeaning comments are beneath Vance, who is obviously not an idiot like a certain person. It is also insulting to his own character and intelligence to cover up for a certain person, especially denying that he lost the election and incited January 6th. Many of us watched it with our own eyes. A certain person lost the election, refused to accept his loss and incited an insurrection. These are the facts, and many if not most Americans agree on them. Don’t insult our intelligence or your own.
We also understand that kissing the ring means reciting the lie. That’s the present state of the Republican Party. Vance’s political prospects are promising, but they would be even more so if he would stop dancing with lies. Also, as far as unpopular positions, such as abortion, both sides ended up sharing their positions but in evasive ways. Late-term abortions are not popular, and that’s why Walz (and Harris) danced around it. An abortion ban is not popular, and that’s why Vance (and a certain person) danced around it. Both men had more in common than misspeaking. They both avoided telling the truth about inconvenient lies and clearly and directly stating what their positions are when they know they are unpopular. Here’s an idea: maybe just tell the truth and moderate those positions.

10/1/24 – Thank you to both VP candidates for a substantive and civil debate. The American people won.

10/1/24 – The propaganda, which doesn’t include The Atlantic, needs to own up to the fact that they have contributed to the dumbing and the decline of the American youth. The proof is in the pudding. If their scientism and their wokeness are so great, then why is the American youth so much worse off? On practically every metric, they are worse off than they were: attention span, productive struggle, intellectual ability, especially critical thinking and analytical ability, writing ability, which has always involved argumentation, creativity and facility with language, mathematical ability, interpersonal skills, mental health, and on and on. There likely isn’t an educator of a certain age that hasn’t noticed a marked decline. It’s pathetic. So, spare us the bulls—t. It’s either there, or it isn’t there. And it’s definitely not there. The propaganda, which is dominated by liberals, often atheists, is in great part to blame for it because they help set the cultural tone for the country. They pushed us and the culture to this place. And now, here we are.
The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books

Notes from Underground – September 2024

9/30/24 – The analytical approach to the God question was best answered by the religious idiot, Blaise Pascal, called Pascal’s wager. (To those of you who say you want God to show himself to you before you can believe in him: please know that you do sound very much like a genius when you say that.) On the empirical side, the literature around spirituality, and mental and physical health is quite extensive and consistently suggests a positive relationship. (A particularly interesting area for those in the healthcare field is how to incorporate these findings into the practice of medicine, as part of a holistic approach to healing.) This positive finding is also consistently found for prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering, donating, helping, etc. The question is: with so much empirical evidence supporting religious/spiritual practices, why would one choose not to be religious/spiritual? The answer must be liberal indoctrination and the accompanying societal pressures: the liberal atheists’ pressure to be cool and smart by not being religious. Well, we, religious idiots such as we are, will continue to be quite idiotic with our inferior brains, our dumb happiness, our irrational gratitude and so on and so forth. Poor us.

9/30/24 – Many years ago, a friend of mine came to my place with something important that she wanted to share with me. She just had a conversation with another student, and she says to me, “Do you know what she said to me?” Obviously, I didn’t. “She doesn’t want to think.” A look of disbelief must have come over my face. “I know,” my bewildered friend says, “Who doesn’t want to think?” Apparently, a lot of people, and a lot of them are the very same people who try to convince you how smart they are because they don’t believe in God. Happy Monday!

9/30/24 – Actually, let’s take this to its logical conclusion. We already replaced entire portions of our brains that are activated when we engage in spirituality with cellphone use, which is clearly a superior activity…well, according to the liberal atheists. Why bother to think at all about anything? Why stop here? Let’s go all the way. What does the brain really do anyway? AI can do everything for us. Do our laundry, make our beds (that we’re always in), clean our homes, write our papers, do our jobs, do our research…. We can just hang out alone at the pool or better yet alone in our own bedroom.

9/30/24 – So, the perfect, all-knowing humans the liberal atheists like to worship, their gods, who go by their godly name, scientists, were wrong about the appendix. It actually serves a purpose, after all. Interesting. The rest of us, intellectually inferior religious types with clearly deficient analytic abilities, will have to make note that their gods, our humans, can actually be wrong. Oh, wait. It’s actually noted right there in the opening of our religious text. Forgot, blame said deficient intellectual abilities.
But yes, let’s continue this trajectory. Pretty soon, we won’t have to see anybody ever again. We can just do pretty much everything right from our bedrooms. Evolution. Progress. Courtesy of the cool, smart liberal atheists. They are so cool and so smart that they have no need for other human beings…well, except for their gods, our humans, the scientists. That’s what robots and AI are for, after all. Let’s outsource or eliminate any social interaction and dedicate our entire brains to…what are the words…stupid, social, emotional, inferior, spiritual brain is struggling again…got it, rational reason. The other parts of our brain are useless. Genius.
The Death of the Dining Room

9/30/24 – The Catholic Church celebrated the Mass of Solidarity yesterday for world migrants and refugee day. It’s a lot of fun. Readings are done in different languages, worship music and dance from around the world, food and refreshments, and we come dressed in our traditional clothing. God created life in splendid diversity. God always walks with his people. God loves you.

9/28/24 – One last point for the day because there is no way we’re backing down on this. It’s way too important. If you’re a liberal atheist (or even a none), go ahead and ask yourself these simple questions. Watch the young people in the Elevation Worship & Passion Music video below, and ask yourself, could you be in that state? Could you appeal to a higher power with such surrender and love? Do you even have an idea what that might feel like? Now, understand this. Those young people can be in that let’s call it spiritual mode of being in the spiritual world and switch back to being in an analytical mode in the natural world with no problem. Can you or your kids switch like that? (Doesn’t that support Tony Jack’s findings?)
You can try, but you can’t convince us that your inability to do this is somehow superior. Whatever findings there are in the research that kids who are raised with religion are less analytical (good at math, science, etc.) is likely due to confounding factors, such as a lower socioeconomic class, because we know it is positively correlated with rural communities and some poorer urban communities. Don’t try to tell us that this ability is not, to put it into secular terms, a skill, and a highly valuable one at that. It would serve one well through all the inevitable adversities one will face in life. And the data, you know, the science, show it. Flattering oneself with some BS by saying you believe in “science” not the flying spaghetti monster will not change this fact or this reality. But go on with yourself, you’re so cool and so smart.

9/28/24 – The only way to rein in these liberal excesses is to start splitting the ticket. Obviously, getting rid of a certain person.

9/28/24 – There is absolutely no intellectual diversity among the country’s elite, especially the propaganda. They are almost all liberal atheists, give a token this or that. This discrimination in ideology and background has led to glaring imbalances in reporting, intellectual perspectives, and a dearth of critical thinking. Critical thinking is practically nonexistent on certain issues, especially those related to science.
The propaganda has also contributed to the underdevelopment of millions of children’s brains in the country – an entire generation – because of their obvious liberal atheist bias. Those people have no community and no spiritual life, and this has damaged young people’s development. Who knows if they will ever recover from it. All of this and other factors have left deep scars on our country and its people, especially young people’s health. Shame on the propaganda!

9/28/24 – The propaganda (and many elites) would like ordinary Americans to know that they are young, cool, smart, sophisticated, rich and generally so much better than you. You should therefore allow yourselves to be indoctrinated by them, the superior Americans. However, no matter their self-glorifying estimation of themselves, the reality is that much of the country doesn’t trust or like them. And they shouldn’t. They have betrayed the trust of the American people. They are snobs and elites. The reality is that they’re a big part of the reason we’re in this mess: two dysfunctional parties, one headed by a demagogue, and extreme polarization. The disdain is mutual, and the American people’s disdain of the media is justified. No matter how hard they try to indoctrinate you, think for yourselves, and be your own people.

9/28/24 – The liberals like to flatter themselves by thinking that they are free-thinkers and critical-thinkers. They are not. It’s a lie. They are conformists who copy each other’s positions and thoughts. They have caricatures of identities.

9/28/24 – As a metacognitive exercise, when posed with the Linda problem in the video below, I couldn’t answer the question. I refused to choose since I didn’t see any evidence to support either choice. From a purely probabilistic perspective, if I didn’t see any evidence for either, I should have chosen “bank teller,” for obvious mathematical reasons. However, this “answer” would not have been based at all on the information provided, but on pure math.
What was interesting to me is that the vast majority of people actually see evidence in the description for choice b, “bank teller and active in the feminist movement.” Where? Apparently, this is supposed to be based on her age, marital status, personality trait of outspoken, college major of philosophy, concern for issues of discrimination and social justice, and participation in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Are these the characteristics of feminists? In my catalog of mental associations, am I supposed to find some pattern between this description and “feminists”?
I don’t have this association. I have known strong, barrier-breaking women, but none of them would fit this description, and none of them would describe themselves as feminists. They were religious women in traditional marriages, well-educated, with professional occupations that fit their interests and talents. One woman quietly did the hard work of helping migrant and other women for many years. Ultimately, my own personal experience carried more weight in my decision-making than stereotypes of feminists circulating in the culture, which might also give some insight into my unwillingness to yield to societal pressures and stereotypical associations, especially when they go contrary to my own lived experience. In the end, from an analytical and from a social, emotional perspective, nothing in the description gave me any information I could use to even make an association, leave alone a decision, which would also critically depend on how “feminist” is defined.

9/27/24 – Remember: the most important thing in life is not to pursue goodness and truth. It’s to pursue coolness and liberal groupthink.

9/27/24 – The propaganda is also really, really cool, with great taste in music. (They desperately want you to think they’re cool.) It’s not the same canned s—t, regurgitated over and over again for the masses. It’s not the same cheap, misogynist, violent lyrics repeated over and over again with hardly any lyricism. It’s novel and at tiny desks, so obviously, it’s good…and, of course, cool.

9/27/24 – The propaganda, which is full of liberal atheists, is never defensive. They are too rational for that. They only operate out of cold, calculating, unbiased reason. That’s why they have been promoting scientism for decades.

9/27/24 – One of the rather bizarre aspects of liberal atheists is that they are not particularly good at metacognition, especially when it comes to social and emotional reasoning. They seem oblivious to the fact that they are actually (or should be) switching from one mode of being, thinking, and interacting to another, from analytic to empathetic, and vice versa. It has all blurred together in their minds and in their reasoning as “rational.” However, it is not. In fact, some of the most sophisticated ways in which people reason is totally irrational, such as love. In the Christian belief system, love, the most irrational of reasoning, reigns supreme, and with good reason. It’s because love is the greatest of all.
The liberal atheists, deficient in metacognitive abilities, project onto evolutionary theory, some tortured, labyrinthine “logic” for why people would care about say disabled people, gay people, or anybody else, that from a strictly genetic might makes right perspective does not make any sense, which, by the way, goes contrary to the Christian belief that all people are created equal.
The liberal atheists claim that somehow, much like the magical primordial soup, for magically social reasons, this irrational love for others, no matter their objective value to society or to survival of the fittest, fits into evolutionary theory. It does not, and this is an intellectual lie. One only needs to observe how the world actually works, often in the absence of love, to see that it’s not true, you know, empirical observation. The liberal atheists entertain this lie because they can’t bring themselves to be truly intellectually honest since it would lead them to a conclusion that is unfavorable to their intellectually biased conclusion: evolutionary theory is rational reason that explains the totality of human life and its existence. The absolute and objective truth is that is does not, and it never will.

9/27/24 – IQ tests as they are presently designed are critically flawed. They are giving a biased and incomplete picture of human intelligence. At a minimum, they must include measures of social and emotional intelligence, which is the primary way in which human beings reason – that’s correct, reason.

9/27/24 – Some of the words that liberal atheists love saying the most are “science,” (how else could they signal that they are smart, really smart, but by repeating “science” over and over and over again), “evolution,” and “gay.” But isn’t there an inherent issue here? By evolutionary theory, aren’t gay people inherently inferior? What possible benefit to the evolution of the human species could people who are attracted to the same sex offer? In fact, in godless communist regimes, they have tried to violently purge them from society because they view them as threatening the social order and having minimal value in their transactional framework. There is nothing within evolutionary theory that gives gay people any protection from this dehumanizing conclusion.
In the religious context, and as the video below mentions, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, a fundamental tenet is that all people are created equal. As Tony Jack explains, this is objectively not true. It is our belief based on our religious texts and traditional practices. This is why even fundamentalist or conservative Christians who practice the faith correctly make the distinction between the person and the behavior. The faith doesn’t allow them to view any person as inferior because we are all children of God. This obviously also applies to liberal Christians, but they interpret the same texts as God made gay people as they are and/or we are called to love, and they don’t take issue with their behavior. Therefore, of these two frameworks, evolutionary theory and Judeo-Christian beliefs, the latter is more protective of all people, including gay people.

9/26/24 – So, keep in mind certain points of clarification as you watch this interesting Ted Talk about some neuroscience research on different ways of thinking: analytic and empathetic. Firstly, as anyone who’s been paying attention knows, MAGA and “Christian Nationalists” are not really religious people. They are political people pretending to be religious people. So, this doesn’t apply to them. These findings apply to genuinely religious people.
Intuitively, it makes sense that the brain switches modes, if you will, between analytic and empathetic. We’ve all known people with whom we share some difficulty in life (we might have been these people ourselves, well-meaning, but…), and they start analyzing our problem and telling us ways to “fix it.” We were actually looking for empathy (being present for us in our emotions as they are) and support. Also, in “solving our problem,” there’s an implicit criticism. If I were you, I would have done it this way, which is better than the way you’re doing it. In other words, you’re handling it wrong. Obviously, helping does often involve providing guidance and advice, but the delivery and timing matter a lot. First, just let people express their emotions, and be there for them in that space non-judgmentally and supportively.
Lastly, he closes with the point that you can gain this same benefit from reading about history, anthropology, art, literature, etc. This is not the same. Art and literature can provide great insights into the human condition, but the effect is definitely not the same as nurturing a healthy spiritual life. In any case, worth watching and considering…with an open mind, of course.
A scientific defense of spiritual & religious faith | Tony Jack | TEDxCLE

9/26/24 – There is the graceful way of getting old, and then, there is this way of getting old. Richard Dawkins and his ilk are boring trolls. See also the post below regarding narcissism.
The New Atheists Are Getting Old

9/26/24 – So nice to see young people not staring down at their phones but looking up at God. We would like to tell the young people out there: enjoy your youth and beauty, and know this: getting older is glorious. It’s liberating and enriching. We pray that as our children of God age, their faith ripens and that they live and spread the Good News as Jesus intended it to be, for everybody, faith, hope and love.
Same God (Live from Passion 2023) | Elevation Worship & Passion Music

9/26/24 – “When does so much racism, misogyny, and xenophobia finally become so toxic that Republicans join with other decent people in rejecting such behavior?” The entire world is waiting for an answer to this question. This was once the party of Lincoln. What a shameful disgrace!
MAGA Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

9/25/24 – On a different note (because really how much of this can a person take), one of the amazing things about The Lord of the Rings (the book) is that it started out as a linguistic exercise. Tolkien, who was educated in the classics, wanted to create a fictional language, and after doing so, he built the fictional world around it. Why is this amazing? Well, if you read the post below, in the Jewish and Christian traditions, God speaks, and the universe is created. Tolkien was Catholic, and at least subconsciously, he ended up mimicking this process. His fictional word leads to the creation of his fictional world. We are so blessed to have the spark of the divine. Let’s use it to glorify our creator, and let us always be grateful.

9/25/24 – “‘[T]o put it another, even more familiar, way, if Trump supporters blamed Jews for nailing their Messiah [a certain person] to the cross.” To MAGA: Do you know the number of people who think that you worship a certain person instead of the Christian God? It is a wide and varied group that were not prompted by anybody or any media. They came to that conclusion observing your own words and actions. Do you know how spiritually shameful that is? Think about Moses and the Israelites after they had been delivered out of bondage. Think about the first, very first, commandment. Then, think about what David Frum just wrote. Also, you can’t claim to be a good Christian and hate the very people who gave you the religion. Not only does it go against basic decency, but it also makes no sense.
Trump’s Threat to American Jews

9/25/24 – Hillary Clinton talks about her own conflicts and mistakes in this opinion piece. Are the conspiracy-minded figures on the right, who claim to be so Christian, capable of doing the same? Are they capable of doing an examination of conscience? One of the fundamental Judeo-Christian beliefs is that we are all sinners, which goes back to original sin. So, let’s see their spiritual work. Put it out there as she, the person the right vilified, has done. By the way, you might also want to read the first book on her bookshelf. Truly practicing Christians regularly do spiritual work, and The Prodigal Son is a common parable for deep meditation. Think about how it relates to the opinion piece.
The opinion piece is also worth reading because it’s a glimpse into how hard practicing true Christian tenets is. Jesus was deeply compassionate, and sometimes, this is mistaken as being less demanding. He was arguably more demanding. In his ministry, Jesus was primarily a rabbi (a religious leader), teacher, and a healer. To this day, these are the professions that have some of the highest ethical standards, as they should. You’re dealing with people’s souls, minds, and bodies. Handle with care. He asked us to go against our worldly and survival instincts, and to follow him, to do as he did. Can we do that? Read in the piece what repentance and redemption look like. Does it look easy?
It’s easy to beat your white chest and proclaim your Christianity like it’s your white birthright even though it’s a religion that originated from a brown Jew and his Jewish followers in the Jewish homeland. (For those who are counting, yes, that’s Jew and Jewish exactly three times in the same sentence.) It also spread first to communities that were not white. (Additionally, we treat Greeks and Romans as white, which is not exactly genetically accurate.) From its humble beginnings, Christianity was never a white man’s religion, but a world religion. Don’t forget it, and do the work.
To Err Is Human, to Empathize Is Superhuman
What’s on Hillary Clinton’s Bookshelf?

9/23/24 – Much of this terminology requires a “crank dictionary” or social media, neither of which is going to happen. So, forgive us for not wanting to compromise our sanity to more fully understand the madness. Even without this insight, it’s obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention that the Republican Party has become a magnet for truly crazy, conspiracy-minded people. As a brief sampling: a certain person, you know, the chosen one who is in actuality, well, evil, then there is the black Robinson who is quite jealous of MLK Jr. and wants to bring slavery back seemingly oblivious to the fact that he would be the enslaved not the enslaver (the man needs to seek treatment for his self-loathing and loathing more generally), lies about immigrants eating cats and dogs, and on and on. All of this is the inevitable result of thinking that you’re persecuted, the end of times is nigh, Christianity is under assault, and whatnot. It’s persecution psychosis, persecution complex driven to insane levels by social media, a demagogue and other inflammatory factors.
All one has to do is stop thinking like this. Just stop. If you say you believe in God, you have to actually mean it. Love and trust God. You can see this contraction play out in their own minds and words. Their fears run them around, yet they say, they believe “Christianity will stand the test of time.” Which is it? Of course, Christianity will stand the test of time…in spite of the incredible damage the “crank Christians” have done to it. Let’s just break this down. In the 80s and 90s, they thought they were the silent majority so that justified treating Christianity like a political party. Now, they’re realizing that their extreme political positions pretending to be Christian tenets aren’t broadly popular. So, they’re telling themselves that they’re fine with being the minority, but they’re still going to influence government to force other Americans to do things their way. One person cited of all people the Apostle Paul, someone who was executed by the Roman emperor, as inspiration for this approach. Are they kidding us? They are not martyrs for the faith, and they need to stop flattering themselves with this delusion.
If they are “disappointed,” they have no one else to blame but themselves. When even liberal atheists are telling you that you seem to be worshipping the wrong god, meaning a certain person instead of the Christian God, you might want to pay attention. (They think they can bear witness to the faith after this?) They made a deal with the devil, and now, the devil has political considerations that are not favorable to them, which was inevitable. MAGA, or as their chosen one likes to refer to them, the basement dwellers, need to accept that they got conned. In fact, a certain person doesn’t care about anybody but himself. So, it’s simply a matter of time before all of his constituents are disappointed, particularly, the disgusting, greedy rich who are bankrolling him.
Even David French, who seems genuinely appalled by the degradation of the Republican Party, still hasn’t figured out the real problem. He needs to go deeper in an examination of conscience. He says, “Leaders don’t simply enact policies; they dictate the cultures of the institutions they lead.” To some degree, this is true. However, this is a democracy, and we, the American people, collectively build our country, every aspect of it, including our institutions. Also, Christians aren’t supposed to be focused on earthly leaders, institutions or culture. We’re supposed to be focused on serving God and serving each other. Here’s an idea: stop forcing your idea of Christianity down anybody’s throat, stop associating Christianity with politics, and stop with the persecution psychosis. This might be particularly hard for white people, who are coming out of the European tradition, to understand, but Christianity is not a political party or a state religion. It is simply a religion. All Jesus asked his followers to do is to love God, love each other and live the faith. You live it by humbly doing the Lord’s work day after day. Stop pursuing earthly power. Start pursing divine grace.
Christian Conservatives Face Reality: Increasingly, They Stand Alone
MAGA Wants Transgression. Mark Robinson Is the Result.

9/23/24 – One conclusion is abundantly clear: losing religion has been a disaster for our society and for our world. So much has been lost, and nothing has been gained. Also, the damage that has been done to Christianity by its self-proclaimed protectors must be repaired.

9/22/24 – Happy Sunday! God of Day and God of Darkness

9/21/24 – Some poetry courtesy of the Bible, “Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of these.” Matthew 6:28-29

9/21/24 – Parents need to be held legally accountable for their kids’ cellphone addiction. It’s a form of child neglect and, in some cases, child endangerment.

9/21/24 – Everybody needs to leave X. It’s especially ridiculous for journalists, politicians, and the media to be on it. It’s propaganda and owned by a dictator-wannabe enabler. Come on, already. You need to model what you want to see in others. As Jesus said, “hypocrites.”

9/20/24 – The cheaters, also known as a certain person’s campaign, must be prevented from changing the electoral vote allocation in Nebraska and in requiring a hand count in Georgia. He is a sociopath who wants to undermine our democracy. Stop him! Also, in addition to Pennsylvania, Harris Walz need to push in Nevada and Arizona.  

9/19/24 – Y’all, don’t treat people like they’re dumb. Of course, people should learn and grow, but it’s a matter of whether or not people perceive it as such or as opportunistic flip-flopping to get elected. Walz’s change in position related to gun restrictions seems like a genuine change as a) the society changed (even Gen X didn’t have this level of gun violence, it was just starting at that time) and b) he was a teacher, and, naturally, he probably had a strong reaction to kids being gunned down in their classrooms. In case the media forgot, voters are also human beings, and they understand that people change and grow because they have likely done so themselves. They also intuitively understand the conditions under which this happens organically and the ones under which it’s being forced.
Having read several articles about undecided voters (and channeling Holden), there is a considerable number of them who view Harris as phony and flipflopping to get elected. Are they wrong? The truth is that on some issues, probably not. Unfortunately, we have an election system where politicians stake more extreme positions during primaries and move toward the center during the general election. It’s BS, and it really needs to stop. See ranked-choice voting. So, of course, voters find politicians opportunistic and phony. It’s because they’re being opportunistic and phony. Instead of trying to gaslight them with some phony evolution in ideology or policy position, make the authentic parts shine such that they outweigh the inauthentic parts in voters’ minds. Stop BSing voters and simultaneously claiming to be better than a certain person.

9/18/24 – A certain person loves himself so much, he can’t possibly love anybody else. A cautionary tale for us all.

9/18/24 – One thing is for sure: narcissism is rotting people’s body, mind, and soul. Also coming out of the Jewish tradition, Christianity has historically placed a lot of emphasis on discipline in thoughts, words and deeds. This is not fashionable right now, but it is the way to live, and it desperately needs to make a comeback. Tip to pretty much everyone: stop seeking attention and start seeking goodness, truth, and beauty. Attention-seeking is not a healthy way to live a life. Instead, focus on substance and soul consciousness.
Caravaggio (clearly an Italian name) is known for a style of painting called chiaroscuro. (Also Italian, think clear and obscure combined. Another tip: If you’re trying to learn a Romance language, one of the easiest ways to remember the vocabulary is to find the English version of the same word, e.g. clair(e), also meaning light, is French for clear, and clarity is similar to the Latin root, clar(a/um/us).) Chiaroscuro is basically strong contrast but with paint or similar medium not photography. (If you’re an artist, you know that this effect has historically been easier to achieve with paint and the like than with photography, which is highly sensitive to light and speed.) In Caravaggio’s depiction, the Greco-Roman mythological figure Narcissus stares longingly at his own reflection. The figure is light, and the reflection is dark upon even darker water. Contemplate the poetry in the painting for a bit.
In his depiction, narcissism might seem to be focused on one’s looks, vanity, but it doesn’t have to be focused on personal appearance. It frequently takes other forms, such as attention-seeking. Let’s consider all the different ways one might seek attention: wanting to be famous, wanting to be on stage, wanting “followers” and “likes,” wanting to be published, wanting one’s name on other things, wanting people to admire you, and on and on. If “fame” happens, which, unfortunately, it does even to people who don’t seek it, let it be a byproduct of seeking the good, the true and the beautiful. You must also actively reject the allure of gazing upon yourself. To refer to Michelangelo (yes, again), he signed his name once in a flex of ego. He didn’t do it again, and he really didn’t need to. The latter part of his life was focused on a project that does not bear his name and is not associated with his name alone: the redesign of the Vatican. He simply felt called by God to do the work.
Let us all consider: when you have a bunch of followers, fans and such, does it change the quality of your work and your personal development? Are you trying to please them to maintain and grow this following, or are you trying to please, in religious terms, God, the only audience that matters? There needs to be a purity of intention or the quality of the work and of your person will become compromised. Another considerable benefit is that you’ll have a life in which you can more fully enjoy simple pleasures because you’re more present. Instead of looking into murky water to find even the slightest reflection of yourself, no matter how dark the figure, raise your eyes to God, to our creator of light, and say, I am here to do your will and to bring you, not myself, glory.

9/18/24 – This is a highly relevant and interesting question. Again, thank you to the Jewish people for thinking about these worthwhile questions, which effectively consider not just how to live a meaningful life but one that connects us more deeply to the divine, starting millennia ago. There are numerous types of work, which category, e.g. melakhah (creative) and avodah (menial toil), do types of work fall into? Also, does their categorization depend on individual tastes or habits? Also, when we labor with our bodies, is it spiritually different from laboring with our minds, both of which can be creative? (Michelangelo, yes, it’s an obsession, labored with both, and clearly he was driven by a desire to connect with the divine.)
In the Christian tradition, specifically, coming out of the Benedictine tradition, we say “ora et labora,” pray and work, and work, even repetitive, uncreative tasks, can be treated as a form of prayer. In general, work can be divine and an integral part of our fulfillment. However, our identity is still supposed to be centered around God, not our jobs. This likely overlaps with the Jewish tradition, a certain distance that needs to be maintained with work.
Where Christian and Jewish traditions depart is on the elaboration of what types of work are not allowed on the Sabbath. So, this opens up ambiguity for the rest of us, such as Christians, who don’t have the detailed guidance. What exactly constitutes work? What work should we avoid, and can our own preferences substitute for the missing religious guidance? For secular people, they often don’t think about this in religious terms for obvious reasons. It’s usually thought about in terms of work/life balance. This is even more ambiguous, as there isn’t even a mandate to set aside a single day primarily to worship God.
Not to disagree with the author of The Atlantic piece, Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, but simply to consider, say one hates doing the dishes but loves folding the laundry, would this latter task be work (menial toil)? Technically, it’s a chore, but as Lydia Sohn, author of The New York Times piece, asks, do we really want to outsource all of this type of labor? Instead, might we approach it, to use eastern spiritual language, as an opportunity for Zen.
Productivity Is a Drag. Work Is Divine.
The Household Chores You’re Avoiding Are Key to a Deeper Life

9/17/24 – Maybe a certain person would get shot at less if he toned down his demagogic rhetoric. Until then, maybe the money that taxpayers, including the majority of the country that loathes the man, pay should be redirected to secret service for the Haitian immigrants and the school children who had to evacuate their school because of a certain person’s hateful rhetoric. A certain person should hire and pay for his own security detail.

9/16/24 – Many Christians find Einstein’s, a Jew who fled Europe during WWII, General Theory of Relativity and Lemaître’s, a Catholic priest, Big Bang Theory convincing. People can knock themselves out with a theory that isn’t testable or pray that one day it will be, but until it is, just don’t waste our time. No offense, but such is science. Happy Monday!

9/16/24 – Who knew that physicists and economists had so much in common. Apparently, both groups have a penchant for mistaking (mathematical) beauty for truth. Also, what applies on a micro level may not apply on a macro level. So, one would be wise to be cautious about trying to get fundamentally different dynamics to fit together like one jigsaw puzzle.

9/16/24 – “After the service, some parishioners gathered at Rose Goute Creole restaurant for a traditional Haitian meal of rice and beans, fried plantains and pork.” Sounds delicious, but where are the cats and dogs? Remember: As Christians, we are called to lean in to our suffering. Look upon our Lord on the cross, an innocent man crucified based on false allegations, a death he freely chose. We all have a cross to bear. May we do so filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May our suffering bring us closer to God. May we embrace it.
To our beautiful Haitian sisters and brothers: Don’t be afraid. God is with us. Jesus didn’t leave us orphaned. The vast majority of Americans stand with you. We don’t believe the lies, and we don’t practice the hate. We try to love as Jesus loved us. Don’t let hateful people change you for the worse. It’s not easy, but when they show you hate, you show them love. Let us be instruments of God’s peace.
Haitians in Ohio find solidarity at church after chaotic week of false pet-eating claims

9/15/24 – Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the universe, is coming. In anticipation, let’s consider a few things. One can listen to the Psalms sung in Latin or English. It’s lovely, but one wonders, how did this sound in the original Hebrew or Aramaic, or even in Syriac, which is also a Semitic language?
Shakespeare translated into another language is not the same as in the original English. Something is always lost in translation. (However, translation is still better than nothing.) If you’ve ever tried to memorize Shakespeare, it’s a lot easier to do so if you understand its melodic cadence. A word might have many synonyms (semantics/meaning), but it’s harder to find a synonym that sounds the same as the original word.
“Certainly the psalms were songs as well as poems, as the headings of many of them indicate. The religions that sprang from Judaism have all used music and chant as part of the experience of worship, and there is every reason to assume that this was influenced by the practice of the parent religion. Over the centuries, music that accompanies worship has been developed into a high art.” This is absolutely true. The church’s tradition of music comes from the Jewish tradition.
Sometimes, we say the Lord’s Prayer. Other times during the liturgical calendar, we sing it. It’s always powerful, and it’s pretty incredible how musical this simple but complete prayer can be. We sing it without any musical accompaniment. Somehow, we all know the tune. Saying the Lord’s prayer feels like praying. Singing it in unison feels more like an appeal to and a glorification of God.
Imagine you, little speck of a human being, are singing to our omnipotent, omnipresent God. “Where were you when I made the universe?” I didn’t exist, but now, my pathetic little offkey voice is singing to you, my God. We’re glorifying you, our God, through song. How incredible is that!
In the Jewish and Christian traditions, God speaks, and the universe is created, and in the Christian tradition, the Word was made flesh. Words have power, and as we approach Rosh Hashanah, let’s thank our Jewish sisters and brothers for showing us how to use words and song to express our feelings, such as our love for God and for each other.
Music and Jewish Prayer

9/15/24 – Dear Church, we aren’t one-dimensional people, and we don’t want to be one issue voters. God bless you. Happy Sunday!

9/14/24 – Assuming the Fed lowers the target interest rate (to mitigate the risk of recession), if Harris raises the federal minimum wage (which would put upward pressure on wages), and consumers save more and spend less (which would put downward pressure on prices), the economy might rebalance to a better place. Perhaps the administration could consider creating an index fund, managed by federal employees, to supplement Social Security. They could create some tax incentives to encourage using it to save for retirement. Instead of always thinking along the lines of tax cuts or even tax credits, we need to think in more creative and holistic ways.

9/14/24 – The American people deserve a second debate with Harris so that a certain person, the smartest person in the world, can show the world how superior he is – again. Make debates great again.

9/14/24 – If you’re not white and you’re a woman, you’re doubly stupid. If you’re a white man, by the superiority of your genes alone, you’re the smartest. If you’re orange, however, your orange genes make you the smartest, most superior person in the world.
The Real DEI Candidates

9/14/24 – The Harris Walz campaign needs to make Pennsylvania a priority. It needs to spend more there than a certain person’s campaign.

9/13/24 First, read this from a little over a month ago. 8/12/24 – We don’t want to indulge in it too much because we might jinx it. But we’re feeling too joyful to not indulge in it just a little bit. It’s just too good. Like when you eat one small bit of ice cream and then a little bit more, and then you stop.
Now, you get to watch two little clips, like when she baited him into the unhinged immigrants eating cats and dogs, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country.” And then, you get to eat a little bit more ice cream (or cats and dogs if you’re an immigrant), “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. This is a radical left liberal that would do this.” But then, you must stop. You cannot – repeat cannot – eat the entire gallon of ice cream.
READ: Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript

9/11/24 – Let’s pray for the victims and the first responders of 9/11. We love and remember them all.  

9/11/24 – A certain person quoted Mike Tyson, the domestic abuser, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Well, Kamala Harris just shook a certain person’s hand: “Everybody has a plan until someone shakes their hand.” Was it obvious to others that she kept baiting him, and he kept falling for it? Then, there was her description of a certain person inviting the Taliban, a terrorist organization, to…wait for it…Camp David. Then, there was his own pride in being played by autocrats, such as Victor Orban and Kim Jong Un. His ego is so desperate for flattery that his brain lacks even the most basic self-awareness to realize that the quality of the flatterer matters more than the quality of the flattery. Yes, that’s some fine skills and temperament for negotiation. The emperor wears no clothes, and we pray that when his supporters get bored and leave his rallies early, they might look back one last time at that diminished figure, by age and by his own demons, and see him for who he really is: an insecure con man.

9/9/24 – If a politician can actually be honest with the American people and win elections, they are worth their salt. From Americans to fellow Americans, stop expecting the sun and the moon. This is the real world not a fictional dream (or is it nightmare) where a demagogue says everything you want to hear and makes you feel so so good, but it’s total bulls—t. The truth is that you can’t get everything because that’s simply not the way the world works, yes, even for Americans.

9/9/24 – Just as it was her call to choose her VP running mate, Harris needs to approach the debate as she feels comfortable. However, if we were, by some dream or is it nightmare, in her place, we would have moderately detailed policies that are open to the direct input of the American people. We would say that we are fighting to preserve our democracy and also trying to make it more responsive to the people. Therefore, we would like to actively solicit the direct input of the American people as we refine our positions.
What would they like us to do to make the economy work better for them? How would they like us to address inflation? Typically, inflation is managed by the central bank, and they feel that they have achieved a “soft landing,” meaning they have brought it down without triggering a recession, which is the theoretical tradeoff. The central bank feels pretty good about this. Would Americans rather have a recession but inflation come down further and faster?
Some have argued that Biden was too generous with the stimulus and that the extra money he sent Americans during the pandemic, when many Americans weren’t able to or allowed to work, caused inflation. Was he too generous, or was that the right approach given the tough situation?
Others have said that inflation was caused by supply chain disruptions. Whether or not one follows macroeconomic data, supply chain disruptions were (and still are to some degree) obvious. You could see gaps on store shelves that did not exist prior to the pandemic. What would Americans like us to do to reduce this? We ask because the supply chains we have now were created by free trade economists across the political spectrum who argued that this reduced the cost of goods for consumers? Should we make everything in the United States to potentially minimize supply shocks? We can do that (with considerable re-engineering of our economy) but most everything will cost more? Is this a tradeoff Americans are willing to make?
Economists like to say that there are always tradeoffs. It’s likely the only thing they consistently get right. There are always tradeoffs. So, let’s ask the American people: would they have rather gotten less financial support during the pandemic to avoid inflation later? Would they rather have risked their lives to continue working during the pandemic when there was no vaccine so that they wouldn’t have needed the extra stimulus? Would they like to have more autarky (economic independence) but generally more expensive goods and services? We believe that Americans have the right, as part of our extraordinary experiment in self-governance that we continue to perfect, to make these value judgments and have them reflected in our policies, but they should know one important thing as they do so – there is no free lunch in economics or in life. You always have to trade something off.

9/9/24 – To our fellow Christians who don’t like a certain person, remember that we are Christians first and foremost, even before being Americans, leave alone party, and we’re asking you to set aside differences on the highly sensitive matter of abortion for this particular election. We are also asking that you understand that on this issue, for as surprising as it might seem, we fundamentally agree. The sanctity of life is not in question. It is a central tenet that is nonnegotiable. What has always set Christians apart, from the very first practitioners of the faith, is our abiding love for life and our belief in the spark of the divine that every single human being possesses. The earliest Christians would save abandoned infants that were discarded in a society, the pagan Roman Empire, that was marked by ruthlessness and callousness toward human life.
Our differences are about how and to what degree we account for human sinfulness, fragility and the brokenness of our world. We do not agree on placing this burden entirely on women or indiscriminately overriding their God-given right to free will. However, this does not mean that our accommodations are limitless. They have limits, as they should, and those limits need to be reasonable for both parties, the innocent unborn and their pregnant mothers. We also agree on conservatives’ end-of-life positions to a considerable degree. We definitely agree on the immorality of assisted suicide for people with disabilities. It has been a consistent position of the faith that human beings are not disposable and are not to be discarded because they are or have become inconvenient. That is the position of people like a certain person, and we know that this is exactly the kind of person and attitude toward life that the earliest Christians rejected. Please do not mistake our willingness to make allowances for the human condition on this issue of abortion as an implicit or explicit compromise on the core value of the sanctity of life.
We are asking our fellow Christians of any and all political persuasions to understand these fundamental tenets are not in question and to vote for Harris Walz for this election with one goal: to save our democracy. Like Liz and Dick Cheney are doing, our fellow Christians would not be compromising anything about their position on abortion. They would be making a pragmatic decision that would save our nation. Many lives were sacrificed to liberate us from the British and to preserve our union. Please honor this sacrifice. Please do this for our ancestors and for our future.
After this election, Christians, across denominations, need to hold meetings to find common ground on abortion and related issues. We are well-suited to do this work, and it’s long overdue. It would help our nation heal and right the ship. If we, as Christians, who worship the same God, cannot model dialogue and constructive conflict resolution, what message are we sending the world about our faith? We tell the world that our faith is powerful and that it will transform them. We need to show this. We need to put our words into practice and use our faith for reconciliation.
Pro-life Voters Are Politically Homeless

9/8/24 – As a random and final Sunday observation: One of the odd things about taking communion in different parts of Europe is that the communion line can be chaos, with everyone basically rushing up toward the front of the church. In the United States, people are extremely respectful, calm and orderly. Two sets of pews merge into one line, or each side of the pew or pew gets its own line. In the Lutheran churches, you go up to and kneel at the altar. People wait patiently for the elderly, parents with young kids and the disabled. Nobody is ever pushy. We are in the Lord’s house, after all.

9/8/24 – Having said all of this, spending time by oneself is necessary and a form of self-care. Different people will have varying needs. One of the main problems with being in others’ company is that one has to process their words, needs, etc., and there ends up being a lot of words and emotions everywhere. It can feel like a lot. It’s helpful to consider the religious communities. They are obviously communal, yet they also spend a lot of time in quiet, solitary prayer. Finding some combination of these ways of being: alone in prayer, nature, reading, or simply silence, with community or companionship “in passing,” and with established community that is consistent and recurring, such as friends, family, neighbors and our religious communities, would likely be ideal.

9/8/24 – Both of these articles helped me remember a moment in my life that I still find remarkable. It was many years ago, and I was fairly young. I was living in Paris. It was lunch time, and I was hungry. I popped into a pleasant-looking and very typical Parisian restaurant that was catering to the lunch crowd. The restaurant was almost full, and I was seated at a small table for two. A few minutes later, the hostess asked me if I would be OK with a gentleman joining me. I said that’s fine. It didn’t take long before I realized this was not an uncommon occurrence, and there were expectations regarding La Politesse. You share the bread being the most important. It was Paris, after all. He made a gesture for me to take it first at what was my table and being a lady, which I found rather charming. You offer polite gestures and greetings but not lengthy conversation. You are simultaneously eating alone yet with company. It was civilized, orderly companionship in passing.
Party of one: Restaurants are catering to a growing number of solo diners

9/8/24 – Pretty certain most of us are guilty of this. It seems accurate to say that we are so much more tired than we used to be, and it’s hard to diagnose the reason(s). Many of us don’t even have as many demands as previous generations that had bigger families, and we have so many more conveniences. As an educated guess, it might be that as our societies became more individualistic, we also became more exhausted, which can easily become a vicious cycle leading to us spending less time together in person. Technology and the ever-increasing expectations regarding our professional lives, credentials, etc., might also be factors. In any case, finding ways to break out of this cycle would be good for all of us.
When Life Feels Too Busy for Friendship

9/8/24 – It’s all very tiring. Go to church. Take a break from the rest. Jesus loves you.

9/8/24 – Is Pennsylvania going to hold?

9/8/24 – Democrats would be wise to be careful with abortion. They have support among liberal Christians, but it’s not the secular, we can do anything we want with our bodies kind. It’s accommodative, not an unrestrained right, and it’s more European in law, for as surprising as that might be for the American left.

9/5/24 – David Brooks has an article, “The Junkification of American Life,” that’s also worth reading (and happens to be related to Bai’s critique). Bad habits are easier to not develop than to break. Good habits are harder to develop than to break. The entire key to living a wholesome, productive, healthy life is to try to get yourself on and stay on a virtuous cycle. Then, continuing good habits and avoiding bad habits won’t feel hard. It will feel natural, even routine.
Brooks said that once one tastes good wine, one won’t want to drink Kool-Aid. Not if one has already damaged their palate. When you do drugs, smoke, eat bad food, consume bad things in general, you’re damaging your sensibilities, your body, mind and soul, whether or not you (fully) realize it.
If you’re having a hard time exercising adequate discipline to break yourself of these bad habits, start with simple things: make your bed every day, brush your teeth twice a day, keep your bedroom clean, put your phone away at work, go to your place of worship every week. Choose something small that you could improve, and start there. The goal is to do it consistently until it becomes a routine. Then choose something a little harder. Keep repeating this process.
RE Brooks’s passing comment on ambition, see below.
8/24/23 – “Here’s the question we all need to ask ourselves:… what do I love when I long for achievement?… What do I want when I want accomplishment? What am I looking for in this aspiration?” Recently, we discussed suffering in the context of Job’s life. (See below.) Here, we discuss success in the context of Augustine’s life. One can suffer not just from deprivation, pain, loss, or other negative experiences, but we can also suffer in the midst of our success. Are we going to blame God for this too? What aren’t we going to blame God for? A well-ordered, well-directed love provides protection from the brutal onslaught of the world and the whims of fortune and provides protection from our own egos. The one we’re made for is the one who made us, and it’s only by directing our ambition to glorifying and pleasing him that we can find rest. “Be our glory, let it be for your sake that we are loved.”
PS The audio isn’t the best.
Reforming our Ambition: James K.A Smith

9/5/24 – Matt Bai has an article in The Washington Post, “I understand Trump voters. Do I also have to empathize with them?” which is in part a response to Kristof’s article, which was in The New York Times. (These are worthwhile debates to have.) As is often the case, the Gospel is a good guide for difficult questions or situations. If liberals and others, patriotic Americans, feel anger, even rage at some points, toward a certain person, that’s entirely understandable. It’s also understandable to feel hurt, anger, frustration, and so on toward his supporters without whom he would have disappeared a long time ago. The problem is that giving voice to it doesn’t help the situation, or anything really, even oneself in the long term.
As Bai described, it is true that there are those who would have their dog run over to extend tax cuts, which was a rather clever and accurate description, and there are other deplorables, yes, deplorables, such as the white supremacists who also support a certain person. (Then, there is Elon Musk who is somehow managing to carve out a special spot in the pantheon of despicable autocrats, wannabes and their enablers, by vying to “outwit” the Hitler variety, who was in fact elected, by aiming to have control over the American government, and therefore, the American people, not by election in our democracy but by buying his way to power by supporting a certain demagogue, financially and by spreading his propaganda. Has anyone noticed that both of these people also have no idea what it means to be a good man or a family man? Coincidence? No.)
The most famous example of anger in the Gospel is when Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables in the Temple. What was his intention? To purify the Temple. He clearly chose not to take a diplomatic approach or to try to persuade people but to do so by force and with angry rebuke. Then, there are the numerous examples of Jesus trying to persuade people to follow him. He never uses anger in these cases.
The question is: what is the purpose, and what approach serves that purpose? If the purpose is to persuade voters, anger is not the way to go. It’s love and compassion. If the purpose to rid the country of the scourge of slavery, purification at any costs is the way to go. Word to the wise: we have one mutual goal – keep a certain person out of the White House. It should be ample motivation to keep you on your best behavior. Keep your eyes on the prize, your tongue in check, and listen with the ear of your heart because it will win more votes, and it’s also the right thing to do.
PS The circle example below was in response to Kristof’s piece. Feel free to practice it to get yourself in a place to do this hard work of healing our nation.

9/2/24 – Today, let’s also remember and honor the millions of people throughout the work who work without compensation, sometimes in generational debt bondage, basically slavery. They deserve to be liberated, to have dignified work and to bear the fruits of their labor. They, like all people, have rights, especially the right to be free.
IJM

9/2/24 – On this Labor Day, let’s remember that our two-day weekend was brought to us by unions and the Jewish people, the ones who taught the world the value of respecting rest as a divine mandate, a day for God. In the Catholic tradition, ora et labora.
Shabbat as Social Reform

9/1/24 – Belated Shabbat Shalom to our Jewish friends. Every Sunday, Christians’ Shabbat (Sabbath), we thank our Jewish brothers and sisters, without whom we would not have our beautiful religion. We want them to know that they gave us everything, and we are forever grateful to them. Our hearts break for the victims of Hamas’s terrorism and their grieving families. We hear, see and feel your frustration with Netanyahu’s terrible leadership. We understand the ramifications this has had on the Jewish people and the Palestinian people, who are suffering unnecessarily. May the God of Abraham help us find peace and unity.

9/1/24 – We are strongly opposed to any form of religious oppression, discrimination or persecution, and we are strong advocates for religious freedom. Usha Vance is Hindu, as is her right, and this personal choice needs to be respected. Hindus and Hinduism deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, as do people who practice any other faith or no faith.
India has always been a religiously pluralistic country. Before Hinduism arrived and became India’s majority religion, people practiced various forms of spirituality that basically worshipped nature and the creator (some still do), similar to our indigenous brothers and sisters in the United States. Christians and other religious minorities, especially Muslims, have been persecuted in India, particularly after the BJP inflamed religious intolerance.
For Indians, Kerala state has historically had a proud tradition of religious tolerance. Lean on them to revive Gandhi’s India. For Americans, remember our country was founded on religious tolerance, and when you treat religious minorities disrespectfully, it negatively impacts Christian minorities in other parts of the world.
In any and all cases, religious bigotry is unacceptable and not in keeping with Christ’s teachings. As Christians, we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ. We are asked to follow him. As Catholics, we are to be in communion with Christ. He is to live within us. Jesus never persecuted anyone. He was persecuted. Walk humbly with the Lord. Let the Holy Spirit guide your mind, heart and soul.

9/1/24 – Jesus said that we should love our enemies. The persecuted church practices this better than any other Christians in the world. In the face of brutal discrimination and persecution, they extend their persecutors grace. To our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ, we love you, and we pray for you all the time. You are always in our hearts.
Barnabas Aid
Global Christian Relief
The Voice of the Martyrs

Notes from Underground – August 2024

8/31/24 – Note: This post is not for canvassing or engaging Republican or MAGA voters. That advice was provided below. If you are having a hard time engaging with these voters in a way that’s helpful to the Harris Walz campaign, try a restorative practice, a circle, with people having a similar difficulty. Imagine that we are in circle, and the talking piece has been passed to me. This is how I, personally, would express my thoughts and feelings if asked how I feel about Republicans and MAGA supporting a certain person. (This post is longer than what I would normally say at one turn.)
I feel hurt and betrayed that Republicans would support a certain person. I thought that, as Americans, regardless of party, we have a certain understanding about who we are and what or who we support. I thought that we had a shared set of values that we weren’t willing to compromise on. That didn’t hold. A certain person came along, gave voice to the anger and frustration of many on the right, and what I thought we implicitly agreed upon fell away. For this reason and others, it has been a real challenge to not allow my judgments about a person’s character based on who or what they support to affect my feelings toward a certain person’s supporters, who are also my fellow Americans.
The most problematic aspect for me about a certain person has little to do with policy. I view him as someone who has no value for life, including human life. To me, he shows this all the time, particularly in how he treats our military, especially our wounded or dead members. In the framework of our shared values, I thought we revered them and treated them with the utmost respect. He doesn’t. They disgust him, and he calls them suckers and losers. Yet, on one of the most sensitive issues, one that is closest to my heart as a matter of honoring those who sacrifice for our nation with their bodies and their lives, his supporters continue to support him in spite of his disrespectful treatment of our military. To me, this is the greatest of betrayals.
Of the MAGA members who participated in the Jan 6 insurrection, it was the political counterpart since it betrayed our Constitution and what I thought was our mutual understanding of the necessary restraint required for successful self-governance. I understand that they think that they were cheated out of the win, but they weren’t. Joe Biden won fairly. At this point, after so much time has passed, yet they have persisted in the big lie, I don’t view a certain person’s supporters as actually believing the big lie, but as not wanting to believe the truth because it doesn’t conform to what they want to believe as true. It is as if they want to will a lie to be a truth. It doesn’t work that way for anyone. I feel that we have to have a set of shared values that we abide by whether they work in our favor or not, or our whole society and the American experiment falls apart.
I also feel betrayed by Christians, who are often white evangelicals, who support a certain person. Their support for him makes me question their faith, and I have to regularly remind myself to extend them grace. It feels like a lot of work, and at times, I feel quite exhausted by the amount of work all of this takes. As many defectors in their ranks have expressed, I feel that they sold their souls in a Faustian bargain. They say they value the sanctity of life, but they end up supporting someone who has no value for life. This doesn’t make sense to me.
Now, this person’s obvious lack of principles surrounding the sanctity of life, which has been there this whole time, is being expressed in policies that they don’t support (see his flip-flopping all over the place on abortion), and they might feel betrayed. From my perspective, they already betrayed the sanctity of life when they voted for someone who has no value for life. Value for life isn’t limited to a fetus. It applies across the board. Anyway, there is more I could say, but these are the points that cause me the most pain: my feeling of being betrayed by my fellow Americans and my brothers and sisters in Christ on core values that I thought were nonnegotiable.

8/31/24 – This election is shaping up to be very much about gender, but not really about things like trans. It’s about much more fundamental aspects of men and women. Are there differences between them? Obviously. Is it a good thing that there are differences between the genders? Yes, obviously. Now, let’s talk about abortion. This issue ends up affecting women more than men because there are obvious differences between the genders.
You can say, for example, that you don’t care if Walz can change a tire. You care about his character or his governance record, for example, on abortion. That’s fair, but his expression of being a good man is connected to his position on abortion because of this fundamental difference between men and women.
Think about men who have no respect for women. They tend to express this in two general ways: one, they don’t help them, and two, instead, they use them to help themselves, for example, for sex. Like most humans, women want to be loved, and these men exploit this healthy desire to serve their sexual desire. If the women get pregnant, they are the ones left dealing with the consequences of this exploitation and misplaced trust.
What liberal voters hear when conservatives talk about abortion is that they assert that there are fundamental differences between genders and simultaneously say that they don’t care how this impacts women even though it impacts the more vulnerable gender more than the more powerful gender. What they hear is an indifference to the challenges and pain of half of the world’s population.
We have yet to see conservatives address abortion in a way that is coherent and compassionate toward both – by both, we mean both – of the most vulnerable of the three parties it takes to create new life: women and fetuses. Rather understandably, liberals prioritize the rights of the woman over the rights of the fetus for two main reasons: one, the woman is a fully formed human being and two, they think this is a decision that pregnant women (without whom the fetus would not survive) have the right to make. As it relates to this, the questions that conservatives have to answer are: Why do they think they are better suited to make this decision for women (by governmental fiat), and what gives them the right to do so?

8/31/24 – Humans are emotional beings by God’s design. There is no shame in it. Everybody has a right to express their anger and frustration. Do so with confidants or to the moon. Releasing negative emotions will help you stay sane and also prepare you to move into positive emotions.

8/29/24 – Nature is your friend. Love people, but also take breaks from them by spending time with the friend God created for us. Adam had Eve, and Eve had Adam. They both had the Garden of Eden. God sent us a message from the beginning. If you’re always doing something with technology, you’re not availing yourself of this natural therapy. God designed life to be complementary, but you have to spend your time in life, not doing unhealthy things in artificial life.

8/29/24 – Wise advice. Brooks also provides research that supports the values and actions in the Gospel. Changing oneself takes time and patience. We all have to keep working at it because changing ourselves and our world for the better depend on it. It’s not an end. It’s a lifelong endeavor that’s a blessing.
How to Influence People—And Make Friends

8/29/24 – The purpose of church is to worship the Christian God together. If you get too focused on other things, even really helpful things, like feeding the poor, you’re not doing the main thing you’re supposed to be doing. Worshipping our God is what unites Christians. Everyone is going to have their own way of being spiritual, but if you can, in the midst of hundreds or even thousands of people, kneel in a pew and pray with the rest of the world practically disappearing, you’re where you need to be. You’re with God. You have to nurture that core relationship before you can serve anyone else.
The Zoom meetings were unlikely to be the problem. Although they have their drawbacks, Zoom meetings also help people from all over gather together, and they can be highly effective. It was the way they went about the meetings. That said, if you want a healing circle, it is best to do it in person. They should never be contentious. They are sacred, respectful, healing spaces, and the facilitator needs to bring it back to this space if it moves away from it.
The purpose of this church’s Zoom meetings is unclear. What were they trying to achieve? The dynamic of the meetings also seems off. Was one or both parties hurt? Was one party excluded, and if so, how? Were there disagreements on the theology, for example, related to gay marriage? You need to clearly identify the harm first because it determines how to approach the healing.
In any case, having only this article to work from, it seems like it was unsuccessful, because firstly, the purpose of a church is to worship God together, and everything else comes after it. If you work from, we love the same God, and our God tells us to love each other, it’s a natural common ground. It also seems unsuccessful because they seemed to be fighting for their positions and not coming into the discussion in the spirit of understanding and reconciliation. To listen with the ear of your heart means that the ear and the heart has to be open. If they are closed, and your mouth is open, well, that’s not the idea.
Why Did This Progressive Evangelical Church Fall Apart?

8/27/24 – To our industrious, hand-working American women who know how to get things done, how to build things, and how to fix things, we salute you. You work alongside our industrious, hand-working American men, bringing your talents and skills to bear, and do the teamwork that makes our dream work. Thank you.

8/27/24 – To the men who mistake a certain person for masculinity, we want to tell you an obvious secret. He has soft, useless hands. You can tell this just by looking at him. He doesn’t know how to do anything – by anything, we mean anything at all – (it’s rather disgusting, actually) with his pampered hands. He doesn’t know how to change a tire. He doesn’t know how to repair concrete. He doesn’t know how to do anything with plumbing or electricity. He doesn’t know how to put up drywall. Nothing. The man can do nothing.
As a chick who knows how to cut tile with a tile saw, I would never let him do this precise aesthetic work. If you think it’s easy, try to cut delicately patterned marble tile. Basically, whether the task requires more brute strength, which many highly resourceful women end up delegating to their physically stronger counterparts (yes, gender differences as it relates to physical strength are real, and we’re more than OK with it, especially when the tradeoff is being able to create brand new mini humans), or more aesthetically involved work, a certain person would not be chosen for the task. He doesn’t even know how to, are you ready for this, prep and paint. Can you actually see him using those worthless hands to fix damaged plaster?
Obama used his hands to indicate a certain person’s obsession with “crowd sizes.” Well, don’t let a certain person’s obsession with “crowd sizes” detract from the real problem. A certain person claims to be so masculine yet he has soft, useless hands. In fact, he is so pathetically worthless, if you, a man working on say a home improvement project, needed someone who can actually help you with it, you might end up asking the delicate looking, artsy chick (they work at the home improvement stores, go talk with them) who actually knows how to use a tile saw, fix walls and do landscaping, you know, useful things. Thank you, and have a nice day.

8/26/24 – Believe it. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13

8/25/24 – Lincoln quoting Jesus said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” The full except from the Bible is: “So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: ‘How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.’” Basically, Jesus is saying that one cannot drive out darkness with darkness. We can only drive it out with light.
This brings us to two points. Firstly, Biden was not able to see what many of us were. The more he clinged to power, the more he became like a certain person, who we used to refer to as the evil one, the devil. His campaign became darkness and depended on voters’ fears to reelect him to the office even though he was no longer fit for it. Secondly, we have to remember to revisit our past and ancient friends. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The blueprint to get out of our predicament has been there this entire time. All we needed to do was read or remember it, and then apply it.

8/25/24 – Nobody wove “gird our loins” into their speech at the DNC, which is rather unfortunate. Imagine Michelle Obama saying it with her manicured finger and her facial expression, “gird our loins and do something.” Definitely a missed opportunity.

8/25/24 – Without being aware of it, Christians, perhaps especially Catholics, who regularly practice the faith correctly and have been going to church, have been getting valuable training their whole lives for free. (Be sure to tithe.) Use this gift given to us by Jesus Christ transmitted directly through the church and indirectly through our parents to make the world a better place. It is a gift that needs to keep giving. It was given to us by grace. Give it with grace.

8/25/24 – We hear that a certain person is in a funk. As Christians, we believe in repentance and redemption. At any time, this person is free to end his campaign to focus on the much needed spiritual and personal work he has avoided his entire life.

8/25/24 – On this Sunday, we would like to give a special thank you to the Republicans, especially the Christian ones, who spoke at the DNC. As an act of conscience, they broke with their party, and some also broke with their church. We understand the gravity of the loss. We appreciate their sacrifice and commend them for putting country above party. We promise you we will do the same if the tables are ever turned. Adam Kinzinger’s speech was great, thank you. We know it might feel not just awkward but also spiritually disorienting or lonely, but he did right by the Lord, which is the only thing that matters. Jesus said that he wouldn’t leave us orphaned, and he didn’t. He is always with us. Peace be with you, our fellow patriots and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

8/24/24 – The Catholic Church’s faithful who are practicing the faith correctly are primed to be peacemakers. The Church should offer training in restorative practices and dispatch the laity to areas of conflict, in their communities and around the world, to be repairers of the breach and restorers of the peace. This would be a valuable service to the world and a way to engage the faithful in one of the oldest traditions of the Church.

8/24/24 – The Democratic Party should never have abandoned rural voters. It was immoral, and political expediency doesn’t justify it. There are also many minorities and immigrants in more rural areas. Do they not matter just as much as the ones in urban areas? We should not take any Americans for granted or treat them as disposable. Their needs deserve to be met. Their voices deserve to be heard. And they deserve to be able to vote for candidates who genuinely care about them, not a demagogue who’s pretending to care about them. We also encourage urbanites to go to rural areas, hang out with your fellow Americans, or simply check out their cities and take in our beautiful countryside. We, as Americans, are so blessed. We are one country, for better or for worse. It’s like a marriage, and to make it work, we have to care about each other.

8/24/24 – To our beloved Ukrainians, Happy Independence Day! We know it’s hard. Our Revolutionary War went on for over 8 years. As we presently fight for our democracy, Democrats and others are fully aware that we’re fighting for yours too. To celebrate and to gird our loins (don’t you love Scripture), let’s quote some more Scripture. As Democrats reminded our nation a few days ago, “[W]eeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Keep the faith. You will prevail.
Psalm 30:5

8/24/24 – When Democratic volunteers go door knocking or calling, the temptation is going to be to talk about a certain person or get mired in policy. Don’t do either of these things. Instead, as we say in the Catholic tradition, listen with the ear of your heart. Listen to the person not to solve their problems, but to really hear them. Hear them with your heart. You can briefly provide the policy, but you’re not in a position to solve their problems. You’re in a position to love them, and how you do that is by really listening to them.

8/24/24 – The Democrats’ huge advantage is that they can, without contraction or hypocrisy, lean into a politics of love. When they interact with voters, of any political affiliation, they have one job and one job alone – to make the person feel loved. They are to be as teachers are with students, meet voters where they’re at. The Democrats might not be well-received. They might be met with hostility and anger, skepticism and cynicism, but they are to make voters feel loved, cared for, respected, and appreciated.
True Christian evangelicals know this well. You don’t convince people of the faith by fighting with them, mocking them, bullying them, appealing to fear, etc. You model the faith with love and compassion, as Jesus taught us and did, and then you keep walking. What is important is not that you convinced them but that you loved them and that they feel loved.
Warren got a standing ovation because Democrats know and appreciate how hard she’s fought for them. You might disagree with her politics. Some might find her to be a statist. But she has strong convictions about fighting for the poor and the middle-class. She works hard and is a tried-and-true policy wonk. God bless her for it. However, when Democrats engage with voters, don’t be a policy wonk. You don’t need to study plans, policies or anything else. All you need to do is connect on the most fundamental of levels with your fellow Americans. Connect with them as people with whom you’re building this amazing country and as human beings. Remember: love conquers all.

8/23/24 – During the DNC, there were so many great speeches. It’s obvious that people are putting their all into defeating a certain person, leveraging their talents as much as they can, in whatever way they can. Harris and Walz both did what they needed to do and then some. Their different identities, backgrounds and styles complemented each other well. The Obamas, dependably great, didn’t disappoint. Also, in their different styles, they gave the base expression to their own legitimate anger toward a certain person. It’s the Democrats’ Party and party, after all. Oprah delivered a moral perspective, as an Independent. And on and on. It was an embarrassment of riches. But one person, an entirely unexpected person, stood out: Gus Walz. He reminded everybody watching of the most powerful thing in the world – love. His father’s genuine expression of love was reciprocated with love and pride without self-consciousness or restraint, beautifully effusive, fully in the moment. And we loved him for it. At a political gathering to nominate the Party’s candidates, the people who the Party hopes to wield political power, this DNC will be remembered for showing the world the power of love. They say that Gus has a superpower. If it’s love, they’re right because that’s what it is.

8/22/24 – Well, well, well, what do we have here? Is that the…Democratic Party? Yes, in fact, it is. You would, however, be forgiven if you had mistaken it for the Republican Party in terms of optics and embracing patriotism. Why the Democratic Party ever ceded patriotism, flag, country, our military or anything else that is at the core of the American experiment is a mystery? That said, if the party had never given up these American things, we wouldn’t have noticed how prominently they were now put on display and the associated message: we are the party that embodies the American ideals in who we actually are, not just in words and optics. We waited to comment until the end of the DNC to see if it was a passing thing or if this was a new party identity and message. Not only did it not pass, it intensified as the convention progressed.
The party also made some more overt gestures with respect to faith. Scripture was quoted during several speeches, with the delegates, who were Biden’s, by the way, at least once reciting passages before the speaker. (See Hakeem Jeffries.) Delegates had them memorized, which indicates that the Christian faith has been there this whole time. Its expression within the Democratic Party was simply suppressed for some unknown reason.
We are the United States of America. We are not France, and we don’t want to be that country. We would never allow a vulgar mockery of the Christian faith, such as one of the most sacred moments, the Last Supper, during the Olympics. Yes, what a great idea. Let’s mock the moments before Jesus’s sacrifice, during which he washes the feet of his disciples, one of the most moving acts in his ministry, by referring to, wait for it, the pagan hedonism of pre-Christian times in the ancient European world, where men would rape young boys, like they presently do in Afghanistan. You know, the very activities that Christianity said was immoral and denounced. So liberal, avant-garde. No, it’s actually not. It’s European filth. The French call it laïcité. It’s not secular. It’s bigotry. It’s hatred of religion. It’s not freedom. It’s repression. It’s not inclusive. It’s exclusive. It’s not cool. It’s disgusting. And it is what we, as Americans, should never allow ourselves to become.
To return to the point, at the convention, there were many “God bless,” or “God bless America,” especially at the end of speeches. We are our own country, and that’s who we want to be. This country started with Christians who were persecuted in Europe. The Judeo-Christian values of our first settlers are the bedrock of our nation. When we say, “God bless you,” we need to mean it. Go through the stories of community and neighborliness shared during the DNC. We have those stories because that’s how we live. Whether blue or red states, that is the American way of life, even now during a more individualistic period. We still help each other. We are still there for each other.
The Democratic convention was a success because it didn’t do what France did during the opening ceremony of the Olympics. It didn’t offend other people’s sensibilities and faith. It didn’t impose misguided values, packaged as “artsy,” on a diverse audience with differing values. It stuck to positive, inclusive messages that defined our nation to unify us. What the Democratic Party was doing before was not as overtly offensive as what France did, but it definitely pandered to a certain limited sensibility that is more interested in being a caricature of cool than in simply being a good, helpful, kind person. Great job. Good night. Now, win by respecting your voters and earning their votes. Win by reaching out to voters who are different from you and showing them that you care about them and that you will fight for them. That’s our country at our best.

8/18/24 – The Democratic Party needs to improve its processes and have competitive presidential primaries every four years. Period. No more turns or next in line. The definition of stupid is to keep making the same mistakes. However, Klein’s general point and observations hold. The Republican Party never pulled together to get rid of a certain person. That’s what it should have done. A certain person is a danger to the Republic. Regarding the role of government, the hatred on the right of the government makes no sense. We pay taxes. It’s not a handout. We collectively pool our money and give it to the things our country and its people value.
Spending Americans’ money on ourselves is the role of the government and the financial expression of our rights as citizens of this country that we build together. We would like to give a shout out to all the beautiful “cat ladies” who have chosen not to have children, for whatever reasons. Maybe some just didn’t find a suitable partner, and as is the Catholic tradition, they didn’t want to engage in the Sacrament of Marriage without feeling certain it would be for life. Maybe they wanted to marry someone of the same faith and the same tradition so that they could raise their children in the faith and the tradition. Maybe they are responsible, careful adults who take marriage and parenting very seriously. Maybe criticisms can go in both directions, and it’s best to just generally stay out of other people’s business. To return to the point, thank you to the “cat ladies” for paying for the well-being and care of other people’s children. We applaud you. Thank you also for not contributing to an overpopulated planet and climate change in this way. (The Pope might want to consider more deeply the inherent contradictions of some of the Vatican’s positions as it relates to these matters.)
When we pay our taxes, which is a patriotic act, we’re saying to our fellow Americans, we are in this together, and we’re going to put our money where our mouth is. It’s all well and good to talk about patriotism. It’s another thing to put your life on the line or to contribute your money to your fellow Americans because you care about them. In many respects, taxes are like insurance. Some of our taxes will benefit all of us, some of us, and some will benefit only other people and not us. We are good with this arrangement because strong countries have people who support and contribute to the collective good, not just to themselves.
Defense is very important, and this is where the left lives in its own idealistic world. We have enemies who will destroy and enslave us if we aren’t able to defend ourselves. One can wish it weren’t so, but it is so. Deal with it. We can have debates about the size of the defense budget and whether those contracts are being granted in an unbiased manner, and such. There is room for improvement on both ends, too much spending and too little, for example, on our Navy fleet.
The Republicans are disgustingly selfish and greedy when it comes to taxes. Their approach is designed as a winner-take-all system. It’s effectively a lottery that impoverishes the rest of the country and turns our economy into a plutocracy and a kleptocracy. Nobody is so smart, talented, or hardworking that they can justify this inequality. Those people need to stop lying to themselves. It’s unbridled greed. It’s an addiction and a moral weakness.
It is also a deficiency of our economic system. The Republicans talk about communism. Look at the Russian and Chinese economies. The Republicans’ diminishment of “big government” would turn our economy into what communist economies have become. It is a mystery why Republicans who aren’t ultra rich fall for such a scam. These wealthy Republicans’ immoral ambitions are also reflective of what we discarded, a monarchy with its royalty amassing ill-begotten wealth and crumbs left for the peasants whose labor did not go to their needs but to fund the extravagance of the lottery winners, whose positions were often acquired through military might and violence. One could go on at length on this topic, but it is Sunday. Remember: give to Caesar what is Caesar’s (not for Caesar but for us, Americans, and our collective good) and to God what is God’s. Jesus loves you. Happy Sunday.
Donald Trump’s Gift to the Democrats

8/16/24 – Whenever you feel lonely, think about Jesus. We are never alone. He is always with us. Let’s fill our beautiful churches with our loneliness. Let’s fill our beautiful world with our loneliness. Especially to those struggling with addiction because of loneliness, you are not alone. In fact, you’re in good company. Instead of turning to a drug to relieve the pain, turn to God and to someone who can walk with you, a fellow broken pilgrim on a spiritual journey to reconcile with God. We can say with certainty that restoring your relationship with your creator will make you whole. Christians, let’s remember our fellow sojourners in the present and in the past, our ancient friends who have made a similar journey. We don’t have to cure ourselves of our loneliness. We just have to be with each other and with God, just like the Apostles and so many Christians who came after them. May God bless you and keep you.

8/16/24 – Christians, let’s nerd out alone and together for a bit. Although categorizing Jesus’s relationships comes with some dangers, it is an interesting question whether his more, let’s call them, intimate relationships were actually outside of his relationships with his disciples, which were characterized by a teacher/student dynamic instead of a confidant/companion one. This podcast also provides some food for thought about loneliness and community versus companionship.
Embracing Loneliness and Finding Your People

8/15/24 – Regarding “Republicans’ language,” it was never their language. It has always been Americans’ language. Freedom. Democracy. Constitution. Our creed. City on a Hill. This is what Democrats and many Independents believe in and are defending. We believe that America is more than just an economic powerhouse or the most powerful country in the world. We believe in this country’s ideals. Like the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., we believe that our country can live up to the words our Founding Fathers put on paper. We believe in the American people, that we have the perseverance and the commitment to these principles to realize our ambitious calling. Similarly, the Christian God doesn’t belong to any one party or people. The Christian God was not white. He was a poor, brown Jew from the Jewish homeland. These values and the Christian God will always belong to the people who truly believe in them.

8/14/24 – Although it would be a treat to see the first not just woman but also woman of color beat a certain person, the race the country deserved to see was two Indian-American women with different political views battle it out. Instead, we have to listen to a certain person ramble on nonsensically, 99.9% of the time about himself. Get serious, America. Let’s have real debates. Let’s have representation that is worthy of our greatness.

8/12/24 – We don’t want to indulge in it too much because we might jinx it. But we’re feeling too joyful to not indulge in it just a little bit. It’s just too good. Like when you eat one small bit of ice cream and then a little bit more, and then you stop. “The prospect of not just being beaten, but being beaten by a woman of color, has sent Trump into a frenzy in a way almost nothing else could.” And trolling the crowd size. It’s been fun and so so good.
Trump Can’t Deal With Harris’s Success

8/9/24 – “They will not replace us” takes a new meaning. Biden, a white man, chose Harris, a woman of brown color (not orange brown but actually brown). Then, Harris chose Walz, a white man. Flanagan chose to mentor Walz. Walz chose Flanagan as his Lieutenant Governor. If he wins, she will “replace him” as the Governor. So, they will actually replace us, but it’s in a mutually beneficial and supportive way. Maybe support more, cook more, hate less. Happy Friday.

8/9/24 – Make democracy fun again.

8/9/24 – Both Harris and Walz seem to love food, but that’s also just normal. Most people love food and love talking about the food they love or even just food in general. A good argument could be made that if 90% of the world’s conversations ended up about food, we might also end up sharing a table and solving our problems the easy way. We just stop caring about winning the arguments and start cooperating.
Usha Vance also brought up food in her speech, but she’s Indian, and the world would be disordered if she hadn’t. When you focus on hate, as a certain person does, there is no room for anything joyful or enjoyable. A certain person’s “power” depends on everyone being miserable, angry and hateful. It’s some weird s—t.
Well, Democrats, for all their intellectualism, abstractions, and such, which can get a little out there, are showing the country that they also just enjoy life in the most elemental yet diverse of ways, with food.
Food is also a celebration of our incredible diversity, which, of course, a certain person hates. Sure, maybe hotdish, lefse or lutefisk is not your cup of tea, but when in Rome…. (By the way, when in Rome, one must have a cup of Italian coffee and fresh Italian pasta.) Food is our collective cultural legacy. It nourishes our souls and our cells. Many restaurant owners go into the business because they want to share that love and culinary and cultural history with others. One of the greatest things about America is that even a smaller city can have food from all over. Our diversity is our strength. God bless America.
The Hotdish Ticket

8/8/24 – Make democracy great again.

8/8/24 – Walz’s knowledge of agriculture and agriculture-related legislation is a real asset. Is he using it to win over voters in swing states? Also, rural Americans like public schools. He can lean into that part of his background and knowledge also.

8/7/24 – Some thoughts for Republicans who don’t like a certain person, Independents who also don’t like a certain person or are undecided, or moderate Democrats who find the Harris-Walz ticket too liberal. It is a very liberal ticket, but let’s breakdown the substance. (We will return to Cass’s points soon…. There’s just been a lot going on in the news.) But until we incorporate his criticisms, consider:
Climate change is real, and they have both been strong on enacting policies to address it. If you’re in the Cass camp, we can find middle ground as it relates to the timing and the weighted mixes of various energy sources. We don’t want people to have to choose between providing for their families or protecting our planet, which all children need, including theirs as well.
On economics, inequality is also real, and Harris and Walz are both champions of the poor and the middle-class, which is critical to a well-functioning society. Giving corporations and the ultra-wealthy more tax breaks won’t create more jobs, and the last tax cuts went too far. So, anything Harris-Walz does regarding them would just rollback that imbalance. (To rich people: stop with the greed. It’s unhealthy for you and harmful to our society.) Also, both sides should remain open to compromise as it relates to economic policy. Be creative. Be flexible.
Regarding unions, although there is always the potential for abuse, as there is for any similarly structured organization, unions help support a strong middle-class. We also want our citizens to be fully engaged in the communities we build together. Union participation and activism is one way to inspire civic engagement. However, unions should not alienate their members, who have different political views, as is their right, and should try to be inclusive and balanced. Unions are good for everybody regardless of class, race, geography, etc.
We need to address abortion like reasonable people. We understand that this is a sensitive issue, especially for some religious people. However, everybody needs to stop being all or nothing. Find a middle-ground. That’s what is required to have a well-functioning pluralistic society.
Complete non-issues:
Free school meals, taxes should go to keeping kids well-fed so that they can learn. This is not controversial. It’s basic to any decent society. On healthcare, we’re not going back. Our citizens deserve better as it relates to a safety net if they fall ill or have preexisting conditions. This is also basic decency. Paid family and medical leave, again, basic, and just aligning us with the rest of the western world. This is what our taxes are supposed to go toward: food, healthcare, families.
Where they go too far:
They are too liberal on certain social issues, such as trans, drugs and such, but ultimately, these polices affect a small percentage of the population, and there is an argument to be made on letting adults make their own decisions. These are not make-or-break issues, and over time, the country will come to a reasonable place on them via the democratic process, the vote, and via the culture itself. Trust the wisdom of time and your fellow Americans to work it out.
Decision by comparison:
Education – Changes do need to be made in K-12 and post-secondary. However, we are not “abolishing the Department of Education.” That’s absurd and crazy. On this issue, the other side is not even in contention. Theirs is not even a plan, leave alone one worthy of consideration.
Immigration – The Biden-Harris administration did not do enough on it. It’s been weak on the border. Our immigration policy is a mess, and the border is a free for all. However, the other side is not just weird, but truly bonkers on this issue. We need to be compassionate, true to our values and agree on and enact responsible policy. We need actually competent adults to do so, and the other side isn’t it.
Foreign policy – Last but not least, we need responsible, thoughtful people who can be leaders without over-extending our citizens and resources or acting irresponsibly. The other side is a disaster on anything related to foreign policy. God help us all if they win, especially as it relates to this issue.

8/6/24 – The other candidates were also excellent. There is a great bench of talented, competent politicians on the Democratic side if only the party could get its act together….

8/6/24 – Minnesota is doing very well – very well – and Governor Walz cares about everybody. If you want competent, compassionate governance, that’s what it looks like. He also chose a Native American Lieutenant Governor, Flanagan, who has been a strong advocate for our indigenous brothers and sisters. That’s very important in a state like Minnesota. We don’t agree with all of his policies. He has been too progressive in some areas, but that’s OK. We live in a pluralistic society. Nobody gets everything their way. There have also been some other mistakes, but that’s inevitable. Nobody is perfect. He has our full support. He’s kind, inclusive and governs well. That’s the point. You vote for the person to do their job well, not undermine our democracy, indulge their narcissism, or focus on appealing to a certain person, to a party of one instead of all of their constituents. If the country votes for him, he will help MAGA also because that’s just who he is. Congrats to him!

8/4/24 – Some related articles to read.
The Christian Case Against Trump
A new movement aims to remake evangelicals’ relationship to politics

8/4/24 – Today is the feast day of St. John Vianney. It’s a good reminder for Christians who are seeking earthly power instead of divine humility. The Jesus Way is not about power in this world. It is about faith, hope, love, humility, compassion, caring for the least of these and so on. Also, Jesus doesn’t force the Way on anyone. They choose it because they love him. While Napoleon sought empire, or a certain person seeks to make our democracy into a dictatorship, Vianney led his flock away from sinful ways to Christ not with political power but simply by living the faith. He started his priesthood by scolding people about their sinfulness but later changed his approach to tirelessly working in the confessional. To our MAGA evangelical brothers and sisters, you aren’t serving God with your approach. You aren’t saving souls, and you aren’t changing hearts. You’re pursuing the wrong thing in the wrong way. Evangelization means living the faith, walking humbly with Christ as a sinner yourself, but trying to do as he asked. It’s about pursing the right thing in the right way. It’s hard work, and it’s definitely not about worldly power. Happy Sunday!
Saint John Vianney

8/2/24 – There are few people whose DNA are “pure,” meaning almost entirely from one genetic ethnic group. These people are usually geographically and/or culturally isolated or come from generations of tightly controlled marriages, such as in India, and have been procreating within the same ethnic group for a long time.
It is absurd to treat all Europeans as if they are all the same ethnic group. They are clearly not. Their differences are also obvious linguistically and culturally. Almost all Europeans are mixed. Also, when Scandinavians, some of the “whitest” people in the world, first started immigrating to the US, they were not treated like the English immigrants who had arrived first. The Scandinavians were treated more like indentured servants.
So, “us against them” is pure fiction and fantasy. The truth and reality are that white people, just like most groups of people in the world, are not a monolithic group, and their DNA proves it. The reason a certain person wants to create an us (white people) versus them (nonwhite people, who are obviously quite diverse) narrative is that his modus operandi is to divide and conquer. It is a time-tested strategy. It often wins, and the people always lose when they fall for it. Don’t be a sucker. Don’t fall for it. It is scientifically and historically baseless.

8/1/24 – Such a sad story. Think about how many elderly and/or disabled people are being “thrown away.” The madman Modi has been so fixated on fueling divisiveness and hate among Indians, he’s neglected important problems, such as India’s growing elderly population and the inadequate infrastructure and support for its citizens to help take care of them. The Hail Hindutva Party has been busy enriching the rich and powerful and turning ordinary Indians against each other with religious bigotry. They and their dear leader, monster Modi, have made the disgusting rich disgustingly richer with disgusting weddings while the poor have gotten poorer. Shame on them! It’s a disgrace!
The elderly are also God’s children. All of us belong to him. It’s unconscionable to treat them this way. No people at all are disposable. It’s a violation of God’s divine order.
As India ages, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children
At a home for India’s unwanted elders, faces of pain and resilience

Notes from Underground – July 2024

7/31/24 – All this while, we didn’t know a certain person was white. We thought he was orange. He looks orange, so we thought he was orange. What is the race of orange people? Pretty certain it’s orange. But he says he’s white. He likes Nazis, who also call themselves white, even though a rather prominent Proud Boy doesn’t look white. Is he Hispanic, or is he white? Are Hispanics white? Maybe they’re Indian? No, not that kind of Indian. They’re the other kind of Indian, the Kamala kind, from Asia. Wait, are they Asian, or are they Middle Eastern? What are Indians? Maybe they’re like Nikki Haley, tan white people? Is it tan like orange tan or brown tan, like actually brown people? All brown people are…wait, what are all brown people? They’re so many of them. Too many, there should be more white people says the orange person who says he’s white. And we all know what white people are. We all know what Europeans are. White, right? Wait, what are they? Africans were all over Southern Europe. Are they still European? Why do they look so different from Scandinavians? Strange. In any case, what matters is that according to a certain person, who is always right about everything, Kamala Harris is not the person she says she is. Don’t be fooled. She’s the person a certain person says she is because he knows everything…except the color of his own skin.

7/29/24 – This is psychology 101. The problem for many liberals is that they don’t seem to understand basic human psychology. Actually, they don’t seem to understand many basic aspects of being human. For example, with the “Latin” below, I didn’t “intellectualize it.” As is true for many people, when I read, I hear the associated sounds of the written words in my mind, and the sounds did not fit the patterns of sounds I had thus far encountered in a language that is no longer spoken except in church. That was all I needed to think that the author had made up the “Latin” and that there was no way it was real Latin. Based on relatively minimal exposure to or training in the language, my brain made a conclusion about the language with very little deliberate cognitive control on my part, and the conclusion was correct.
Human beings are the most complicated creatures in the world, yet liberals want to distill us into automatons or experiments. This is because they tend to think of us as just another animal but smarter. Since we’re just smart matter, we can do anything and everything with our bodies. It’s all fair game. Except for it’s not. David Brooks also spoke to this aspect of liberals’ sort of irrational rationalism in The Atlantic, which we have previously referenced. If you believe in God, it is much easier to understand and accept certain parameters around our freedom. God granted us freedom and free will, but that doesn’t mean that we can do anything we want. Some might say this is contradictory. Others might say it’s what we call life. In any case, if we can’t actually talk about our values and our policies as a nation and the impact they are having on our people with some level of maturity and depth of thought, we’re betraying our greatness and previous Americans who sacrificed for our country. We have to stop the current cycle of idiocy. It’s harmful to our country in every respect.
In this piece, she also talks about the note she got from one of her neighbors in Detroit. Let’s assume the neighbor was black. Since liberals love identity politics, perhaps this example of the same fundamental human psychology that animated that part of Vance’s speech will resonate better with them. Our black neighbors have every right to resent the gentrification of their neighborhoods. Their ancestors were brought here against their will, brutalized, treated as property instead of as people, and their labor was uncompensated. More recently, they were discriminated against with redlining. Now, the communities they have built over generations in spite of this violent and hostile history are likely being permanently altered by people who have not sacrificed anywhere near as much for the country or the communities they have built. If you can’t understand how they might find this unfair, then you really aren’t able to understand other people’s pain, and no degree, no pedigree will help you. In fact, it might hinder you. You also need to be able to understand people’s pain regardless of their identity, which includes their skin color. These are basic skills necessary to functioning well as a human being in our society and our country.
Decoding JD Vance’s Brand of Nationalism

7/28/24 – Community is everything. Start building it. Stop staring at your phone. Start engaging with people, including, perhaps especially, people who are different from you. Jesus loves you. Happy Sunday!

7/28/24 – Aside from being dressed down from time to time and being asked to have correct values and conduct, one of the benefits of going to Catholic mass on a regular basis is that you will likely learn some Latin. Having never encountered this phrase before, I knew it wasn’t real Latin because, well, come on, “carborundum.” Wikipedia says it’s actually of Tamil origin. Funny though.
More like this. The press needs to fix the problems they are creating. Yes, your readers might not find it as fun. Junk food is more “fun” than healthy food. It will also kill you. We need to be a healthy nation.
A path toward civility in politics

7/27/24 – The New Yorker got so bad it was removed from consideration. Of NPR, The Associated Press, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post – at present – the worst is…The Washington Post. NPR seems to have improved under its new leadership, but we’ll see. They all still suffer from liberal bias, just to varying degrees.

7/26/24 – This is the analysis of a first-generation American. The person didn’t go through a process of assimilation. It happens in stages, and depending on the age of the person when arriving in the United States and other factors, there can be a transformation, a change of the heart. It is true that America is the land of opportunity, but that’s not the reason to fall in love with it. That’s transactional. It’s also not about personal responsibility or “agency.”
Do you love America? Or do you just love living in America (while times are good)? There are a lot of immigrants who don’t actually love America. This is not to denigrate them or say that they are bad people but that they actually love their homeland. Their feet are in America, but their hearts are somewhere else. They can be entirely upright citizens, contributing to our society, following our laws, being good neighbors and such, but would they be willing to die for our country? If we’re being honest, probably not. If they remained emotionally detached, which many recent immigrants are, there is likely a certain amount of opportunism to their participation in our country. It’s contingent on things going better than what they left or what some other country has to offer.
As a practicing Christian, I can tell you, I would rather die than denounce my faith. That’s deep love. As an immigrant, although there have been times when I think about a certain person being reelected, and suddenly, I find my thoughts drifting to Canada. Does one really want to put oneself through that dreadful experience again? Just escape and ride it out. Others can hold down the fort. Then, after entertaining fleeing, I settle on fighting instead. Why stay and fight? Out of love. This is the country and the people that I love. I want to stay and fight with them. This is where my feet and my heart are. It didn’t happen overnight. It grew as I grew. That’s a love with deep roots.
Vance didn’t insult America, but he should be careful to remember that love of country is not transactional or opportunistic. Yes, we’re a wealthy, powerful country. The thing I miss the most of my ancestral lands is its ancient civilization, thousands of years of tradition and connection. It’s hard not to feel nostalgic for it. That’s not something America can offer, but it has something else. America has a creed, one that has helped change the world for the better. It’s a beautiful, inspiring set of beliefs. Our creed and our country are worth fighting for. They are worth dying for. And when we die, may we be laid to rest on this soil, whether it’s foreign or ancestral to us. There is nothing morbid about that, and there was nothing morbid about Vance’s reference to the cemetery. Choosing to be buried thousands of miles away from your ancestors in your adopted home is a final declaration of love. Your feet, your body will be laid to rest on American soil where your heart belongs.
J.D. Vance’s Insult to America

7/26/24 – Tip: Whenever The Washington Post trots out Kate Cohen, the liberals are desperately trying to convince you of something they find important.

7/26/24 – Why are Americans stuck with the worst elites? What is it about our country that produces these terrible people? Might it be this? They are so naturally smart that they need every possible advantage in the world. (Should we ask Kate Cohen and her kids? They have all the answers.)
Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene

7/26/24 – Let’s consider the elite press geniuses’ response to the American people finding them to be liberally biased. Being even more liberally biased. 1. Our democracy is at stake. Yes, so at stake that Democrats were unwilling to have a competitive contest for it. And yes, they think the American people are so stupid that they didn’t notice. 2. People like Kate Cohen, not to flatter herself but with her precocious kids, who are smarter than your God-believing kids, are trying to convince you that the Harris movement (it’s a movement now, right) is fun. Politics is fun again! Aren’t you having fun? There are memes and bright colors, coconuts, and it’s all gamified. Yes, we’re all dumb, young people filled with life because the 81-year-old is off the ticket. It’s a new world. If it ends like it did with Hillary, that will be fun too. A lot of fun. Definitely a new world. Enjoy.

7/26/24 – To be clear, the issue isn’t really with Kamala Harris. It’s with the Democratic Party and the process. Harris was likely complicit in a coverup, but she is also the VP, so that wouldn’t be surprising. She’s not objectionable in terms of her character. In many respects, she’s in a tough place. If she loses, it would be hard to blame her, since she didn’t benefit from a proper vetting, such as a competitive primary. If she wins, the coronation will hang over her historic election. In the history books, it would never be a clean win. In many respects, she’s also ending up a victim of Biden’s (previous) ego problem and the Democratic Party’s cowardice.

7/23/24 – I have been a Democrat my entire adult life since I became engaged in politics. I’m an Independent now. I will never donate to or volunteer for the Democratic Party ever again. I do not support undemocratic institutions. Go f—k yourselves.  

7/23/24 – The entire reason the Democratic Party is in the position they’re in is because they did a smoke-filled room instead of a competitive primary, coronating an infirm man in spite of the polling that said he was going to lose. Because the wise, elite party members are so intelligent they couldn’t see this obvious situation coming, after the disastrous debate, they then went back to said smoke-filled room and decided Kamala Harris was going to be the presidential nominee.
The American people are being asked to believe that this person, who lost very early on in the last competitive primary, is a great candidate, very “meme-worthy,” something about coconuts, and a “brat.” It’s all so Gen Z. Well, the rest of us – adults such as we are – are not buying this BS.
If this is the approach the Democratic Party or any party is going to take, it would be best for voters to never donate to them because they are effectively funding an undemocratic process and body. Although it is prudent to have certain safeguards to prevent unelectable or unfit candidates, especially those who are dangerous to our Republic, from becoming the nominee, this goes well beyond that. It’s a coronation. This year, 2024, voters get to choose between a monarchy with Harris as queen or a dictatorship with a certain person as dictator. Yes, this is what countless American patriots died for. It’s a disgrace.
The Party Is Not Over

7/23/24 – We do not like or respect our elites. They are not good people, and they are unintelligent and incompetent.

7/23/24 – The elites routinely violate right and wrong because they don’t have a strong moral compass. Their character is weak and compromised. Hard truth.

7/23/24 – It’s easy to say nice words. It’s another to live your values. Maybe if these self-idolizing elites had a come-to-Jesus moment, they might be able to make this important distinction. Jennifer Rubin had nice words about centrism in The Washington Post. Many of her points are correct, but who is this person? Well, she’s one of the members of the elite press who participated in the deception of the American people by carrying water for the Biden campaign. She believes in centrism so much and that Biden is one of the more recent best examples of it, next to Ronald Reagan, that she was willing to compromise on something more important than where one falls on the political spectrum. She was willing to participate in the deception of the American people, undermining the very democracy she claims to care so much about. Morality isn’t about nice words. It’s about one’s character. It’s about being unwilling to do things that violate one’s sense of right and wrong. It’s about being willing to do things that uphold one’s sense of right and wrong, no matter the cost. She made a political calculation that compromised her integrity. It was the wrong thing to do, and that’s where things stand.

7/22/24 – If this insane, insulting s–tshow continues, we’ll become Independents. We’re not putting up with this.

7/22/24 – Let’s see what others have to say about this incredibly undemocratic process from the party that claims to be protecting democracy. So many choice words, let’s choose one for each.
Dumb.
Democrats, fear not an open convention
Neurotic.
Are Democrats really going to do this?
Mistake.
Democrats Are Making a Huge Mistake

7/22/24 – What are these same elite members of the press doing now? Feeding the dysfunctional process, of course.
“Those Washington journalists who shrugged off their peers’ attempts to raise this issue also need to reflect on their actions. The signs of Biden’s unfitness were there to see, for those who wanted to look. Too many didn’t.”
Thank God for That

7/22/24 – Our country with so many great people has the dumbest, most incompetent elites. They are simply incapable of doing their jobs well or learning from their mistakes. Yes, the voters were pissed off about Biden’s coronation, so let’s do Harris’s coronation. Genius.

7/22/24 – For the Democratic National Convention, it goes without saying that we don’t want whoever the presidential nominee is to talk about him or herself and to go on for a long time. Talk about the American people and what you plan to deliver for us. Be direct. Be honest. Be truly inclusive. For our platform and policies, we also want a concerted outreach to…wait for it…Republicans and Independents, particularly those who live in rural America and blue-collar workers. Whoever governs, they are doing so for them also.
Rural and blue-collar Americans have not been treated fairly by our party, and it is a long overdue correction. They are good people, helpful and generous. They feed us. They protect us. They do hard and necessary jobs that allow people in urban places to do theirs. Rural and blue-collar Americans deserve better.
We can’t be a party about a certain class of people, who look a certain way, who have a certain education, or who live in a certain way. The Democratic Party has to be a party about what’s best for our entire country – all Americans. By all Americans, we also mean white Americans who have traditional values and who have helped build this nation for generations. They have not been given adequate respect or priority, and we care about them.
Also, certain policies that favor urban citizens might need to be scaled back or changed to give our rural and blue-collar compatriots more support. We encourage other urban Americans to advocate for their needs because it’s the fair thing to do. Rural and blue-collar workers often don’t have the numbers or the influence that urban Americans can have. It is incumbent upon us to consider a variety of needs, not just our own.
It’s also a matter of equity. Equity doesn’t just apply to minorities or historically marginalized people. It applies across the board, including to white people who have lived here for generations. We also ask that the press go to their communities and give them the coverage they deserve and have not gotten. The press needs to fix their prejudices and biased coverage.
This is not about politics. This is about the kind of country and people we want to be. We want to be true to our higher purpose and fair to and appreciative of all of our fellow Americans, no matter which political party or policies they support, with which we might disagree. If we are to live our creed, we will make this effort and this change. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s choose to take a different path, one that will unite our diverse nation, one that will be true to our covenant.

7/22/24 – In our democracy, we want a free and fair competitive process. Nobody is entitled to anything, no matter their current position, their years of service or their connections. We want our politicians to earn our vote and the process to be open and fair to all candidates. We don’t want “turns.” We don’t want “next in line.” We don’t want the Democratic Party elites to put their thumb on the scale. We encourage all candidates to run, especially governors and ones who have a proven track record of working across the aisle and appealing to Americans who are Republicans or Independents as well as Democrats. In short, we want a true democratic process to prevail.

7/21/24 – God bless America. Americans, be true to our covenant with God.

7/21/24 – To the Democratic Party, we want you to respect our democracy. We do not want a coronation. We want you to let Democrats decide who should be on their ticket. Also, going forward, every four years, we want a full, competitive primary. Every four years, Democrats get to evaluate the job performance of the President – not every eight years. Every. Four. Years.

7/21/24 – Dear President Biden, thank you. Stepping down as the nominee was the right thing to do. It was the patriotic thing to do.

7/20/24 – This would also help solve our polarization problem. Like always, the main issue is a matter of the heart, but this political change would definitely help. “To unite the country, we need institutions responsive enough for us to have our arguments inside of them. We need institutions that incentivize politicians to negotiate. I’m convinced that the solution is the new Alaska model for elections: abolish party primaries and let all candidates, identified by self-selected party labels, run on the same unified ballot in a state-funded primary. Then take the top four or five vote-getters forward to a final round and use an instant runoff with a ranked ballot. The first candidate to rack up more than 50 percent, via first, second, and if necessary third choice votes, wins.”
How the path to unity can be paved

7/20/24 – We can work with Vance, and we should. We should build that relationship and leverage it to bring our parties together, which would be truly healing for our polarized nation. Let’s make a concerted effort to break our unproductive discourse and politics. Naturally, there will be some or even many points of disagreement, but he generally seems to be a reasonable guy. The biggest problem for him is selling out to the degree he has, but that is also where the GOP is at right now, unfortunately. Also, we’re all sellouts. It’s just a matter of degree.
All nations are nations. All nations are not also creeds. America is both a creed and a nation. Also, America’s creed stands apart in being both deeply rooted in the Christian faith (see below regarding a city on a hill) yet secular in its founding vision and documents, as it should be. It is also special because our democracy became the model from which European countries developed their own democracies, most notably France.
Vance is just reminding us that our elected officials also need to serve their people. Our brave men and women aren’t to be treated as a standing world army to be dispatched at the whims of politicians with idealistic notions of how the world ought to be. We cannot cannibalize our population, especially our youth, to be “the world’s police.”
Also, these involvements have often been received with ingratitude or even derision. Aside from Ukraine, look at Europe. We saved them twice from their own self-destruction, and they treat us and our military as if it’s their national security safety net and, frankly, with contempt. We have been effectively subsidizing their national security while they spoil their lazy population with social safety nets that we don’t give our own people. Only now, because of a certain person, are they trying to develop more of their own military might. They should have done this all along. It is a reasonable reminder. He served in Iraq as a Marine, and that experience might have helped shape this view.
A reasonable argument can be made that America is unique in its creed. It’s a cherished part of our ethos, our origin story, and it gives our natural passion a higher purpose. Most Americans are aware of our prominence in the world, and it is important to us to represent our nation and those who came before us well. It is important to us to stand for something worth fighting for.
However, we do need to balance this idealism and our involvement in the world with a certain pragmatism. We can’t expect or ask our citizens to constantly set aside their own needs or desires to serve a greater good. It will exhaust us. Arguably, we’re already exhausted from it, and this understandable fatigue, which rural populations disproportionately bear and without adequate recognition or appreciation, might have helped give rise to a certain person.
The part about the cemetery was powerful. As an immigrant, it resonated with me. One of the hardest parts about being an immigrant is losing your connection to your ancestors and your ancestral land. In general, it is comforting and moving to visit our cemeteries that honor our patriots who have served in our armed forces. They are the blood on which the Statue of Liberty stands. Her torch burns brightly because they were willing to be the light, even at the expense of their lives.
When you leave your ancestral lands, you don’t want to feel uprooted, for as counterintuitive as that might seem. You want to feel like you can belong in your adopted home by growing new roots. Walking through the cemeteries that honor generations of Americans who fought for our creed and our nation reminds us that our own bodies will become part of this same shared sacred soil. It’s an honor.
At some point, most of these Americans also arrived here as immigrants. They too became Americans. And some of them sacrificed greatly for this nation, for our freedom and our democracy. During this part of his speech, Vance referred to his wife, a child of immigrants, and their children. It evoked a sense of rootedness and ancestral connection in an adopted home that is the living American creed. We like to say that we are a nation of immigrants, and we are. Just look at our cemeteries. They are filled with people from all over the world, and their bodies are now part of our shared American soil.
J. D. Vance’s Empty Nationalism

7/20/24 – Maybe the press can take some advice from Pope Francis and start smelling like sheep instead of stilling on their ivory perches, preening and proselytizing their personal beliefs. The country wouldn’t be in this mess had the press done their jobs correctly, which we told them they weren’t doing.

7/19/24 – How much does the Biden/Harris campaign pay Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post? Instead of telling voters who the nominee should be, here’s a novel idea for our democracy. Maybe get out of Washington and talk with some ordinary Americans in our diverse nation, and ask them what they think and want. Call us old fashioned, but there was a day when that was what reporters did, not pretending to be objective when they are actually paid mouthpieces for a campaign.

7/19/24 – The last night of the RNC was too loud, and a certain person rambled on way too long. It’s true that Americans are great people. They often don’t leave people in need. They are brave and helpful. God bless Corey Comperatore, who was killed, and David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who were injured. May Corey’s lovely soul rest in peace. That was best part of the RNC, including the moment of silence.

7/17/24 – If Democrats think they can win with Biden/Harris against this ticket, they are totally wrong.

7/17/24 – Setting aside teaming up with a certain person, Vance has many likable qualities. He’s a wholesome family man, his patriotism and military service, his hilarious Mamaw, his belief in redemption (see his mom), and there are several points, especially regarding the people left behind from free trade, catering to Wall Street, leaving behind rural Americans, and the general lack of responsiveness of the political establishment to the American people. He also has a great story. Regardless of his political views, his tenacity inspires respect. Lastly, he’s not ancient….

7/17/24 – Quite insightful and accurate. What happened to this person? Oh, that’s right. He sold out his soul and his community to realize his political ambitions and enrich himself. Imagine that.
“The great tragedy is that many of the problems Trump identifies are real, and so many of the hurts he exploits demand serious thought and measured action—from governments, yes, but also from community leaders and individuals. Yet so long as people rely on that quick high, so long as wolves point their fingers at everyone but themselves, the nation delays a necessary reckoning. There is no self-reflection in the midst of a false euphoria. Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.
I’m not sure when or how that realization arrives: maybe in a few months, when Trump loses the election; maybe in a few years, when his supporters realize that even with a President Trump, their homes and families are still domestic war zones, their newspapers’ obituaries continue to fill with the names of people who died too soon, and their faith in the American Dream continues to falter. But it will come, and when it does, I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other. And then, perhaps the nation will trade the quick high of ‘Make America Great Again’ for real medicine.”
When the realization comes, the very author of the words above will be part of their disillusionment. There is no shortage of people who lack integrity. Quite sad.
Opioid of the Masses

7/16/24 – It’s f—king ridiculous.
Believe Your Own Eyes

7/16/24 – Vance was a smart pick. He’s an anti-establishment candidate. On the Republican ticket are two outsiders, one of whom remade the party in his own image. On the Democratic ticket, there are two establishment candidates, one of whom voters are telling the party they don’t want. What is the Democratic Party’s response? We don’t care what you want. When they lose the presidency, they will have nobody to blame but themselves and the weak, old man who can’t let go of his ego, his pride, his self-absorption, even if it’s for the good of the country, yet still wants to claim moral superiority. The mood of the voters is decidedly against incumbents, and biden embodies what they dislike about the political powers that be and how they treat them – with good reason.  

7/14/24 – Solitude and silence can have a lot of value, especially during emotionally heightened moments. We’ve been thinking a lot about Matthew 26:52. Many people characterize Jesus Christ as a pacifist, and this verse is commonly cited as support. When faced with injustice, Jesus’s response wasn’t a call to fight, but a call to not fight. To the people who deeply love Jesus, now is a good time to find solace in Scripture. (Jesus belongs to the world, and the invitation is open to all people.) Jesus fought with love and not with anger or hate. As we often do in centering prayer, be still with God and his infinite love for a while. The world can wait.

7/14/24 – Today is the Lord’s day. We are salt and light. Do something to reflect our higher calling. At a minimum, don’t engage in things that aren’t morally correct. Don’t make people who already feel bad, feel worse. You don’t have to say things you don’t feel or aren’t true. You also don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to blame the secret service, whose lives are just as valuable as anybody else’s and who are professionals and patriots. You don’t have to blame in general, to criticize, to justify and so on. Breathe, pray, rest. Remember, we are all sinners, and God still loves us.

7/13/24 – It is no secret that over half of the country does not like a certain person who got shot today. To that half of the country: you might be tempted to make uncharitable comments, especially on social media because it inspires that kind of response, but remember that, at the end of the day, the other half of the country are your fellow Americans. They like the guy, and they likely feel sad and shocked. Be careful what you say not for the certain person but out of compassion for the ordinary Americans who help build this country with us. Don’t get into arguments with them. Don’t engage in conspiracy theories. Don’t even speculate. Just go do your own stuff: read, watch a movie or TV, listen to music, play with your kids, sleep. Good night, America.

7/11/24 – Apparently, nobody is telling the weak dotard, biden that he’s going to lose. Did you know that? The entire country knows that he’s going to lose but, apparently, the candidate does not. Bubble, anyone. Must be nice to be so privileged and so close to death that you don’t have to care about the living.

7/11/24 – The idea, the idea, the idea that Putin, (meaning Zelensky), Trump, (meaning Harris)…. This man is a joke. He also again babbled incoherently. Any ordinary American we interact with is more coherent and a better communicator. Also, the elites need to stop with “the depth of ____ knowledge.” Since when did the standards get so low for public officials? It was boilerplate tripe, and half of it made no sense or was word salad. The elites are too biased to analyze the weak dotard, biden correctly and are not good at assessments of knowledge.

7/11/24 – The American people are so much smarter than the elites with their fancy papers, titles, and they are stars, don’t you know. The elites were so busy looking at themselves in the mirror and on camera, and developing their “curated personas,” they completely lost touch with the real world. And, here we all are, in hell.

7/10/24 – We always hope that people will do the right thing, but the fact that we’re even here reflects poorly on the weak dotard, biden. He said that Pelosi et al. weren’t going to ask him to step down, which was more than slightly narcissistic. Technically, they have not done so – yet. What is he going to do if they do (explicitly instead of just implicitly) ask? What is he going to do if more and more elected Democrats ask?
People who have supported him are publicly asking, and the sad little man remains in his sad little bunker with his sad big ego. It’s truly embarrassing for us as a nation. We have been embarrassed by our leaders, now, of both parties. First, the evil one, trump, everything about him embarrassed us. Now this. Do the American people deserve this global humiliation? No, we definitely do not. There is something broken in our democracy, and it’s not just the Republican Party. It goes beyond that.

7/10/24 – Pathetic.
The Abyss Stares Back at Joe Biden

7/10/24 – If you’re wondering who the least competitive candidate is, just ask yourself who the evil one, trump, wants to run against. This is not hard. What the Democratic Party is doing is malfeasance, and Democrats can rightly blame them when they lose.

7/9/24 – There aren’t enough black, female Democrats to make up for all of the other people who can’t stand biden and/or are not going to vote for him. Stop talking about their support as if it somehow changes the calculus. Get real, people, or things are going to get real for you.

7/9/24 – We are loyal to God, our Constitution, the American experiment and people. We are not loyal to any one person, including the evil one, trump, or the weak dotard, biden.

7/8/24 – Cass’s analysis (see below for link) about the opioid crisis isn’t wrong, but it’s also a crisis of a culture that is too willing to experiment with the human body (see many liberal views on this) or, at a minimum, does not give the human body as God’s creation adequate respect. (In general, it is important to also consider the existing culture or changes to it that contribute to the trends we see.) As the article notes, it is also a crisis related to economic and other distress. The opioid crisis and other deaths of despair have been inadequately addressed by both parties. Our leaders have failed the American people in this respect.
Ideally, we have a cultural shift to one that is hopeful about our future and one that supports people emotionally, physically and spiritually to break cycles of substance abuse. Our bodies deserve to be treated with respect. It is one way in which we show ourselves respect, and American culture deviates from older cultures in his regard. We over-medicate, and the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry are complicit in this approach to the inevitable distress humans will face over their lifetimes, either physical or psychological. They should be held to account. (See Derek Thompson’s articles on this.) More soon.

7/8/24 – The weak dotard, biden: the people love me, they really, really love me; it’s the elites who are trying to get rid of me. No, the elites are the reason we’re in this mess, you dishonest cretin. They enabled his deception by not acting on what voters were telling them they wanted. The weak dotard chose not to run in a competitive primary. Instead, he stomped his entitled my little pony foot until his senile highness was coronated the Democratic nominee against the will of the voters. (By the way, the russian poop, putin uses a similar argument.)
But the polls, they are always wrong. Yes, in 2020, they overestimated the weak dotard’s performance, and he barely won in the swing states. Now, he running behind in all of the polls, and if they are overestimating his performance again, it’s going to be a bloodbath. That’s the truth. Whatever narrative he has going on, just like with the evil one, trump, is pure fiction. The only thing the weak dotard cares about is his ego. If he loses, he’ll comfort himself with, well, I did my best, leaving our democracy in tatters, or this: “We have not failed, the thinking goes; we have been failed, by the American people,” Cass. The weak dotard, biden will sing the opposite song: it’s not my fault; it’s the voters’ fault. With each passing day, we can’t stand him that much more. He’s truly a disgusting figure.

7/8/24 – After much discernment, we won’t be voting for the evil one, trump, or the weak dotard, Biden. No amount of rhetoric or fear mongering from either one of them or from either party will change our minds. The evil one was out of the question from the beginning. If the Democratic Party and the country need to learn a hard lesson before the party can figure out how to respect and listen to the people it is supposed to serve, so be it.
Our conscience with our maker is what matters the most to us. The weak dotard has violated our sense of right and wrong. You don’t deceive people to serve your selfish ends, and that’s what he did. He also took his voters for idiots. He is no John Winthrop, no George Washington, no Abraham Lincoln, or even a moderately good president.
He is a sad little man, a poor leader, who could have had a decent legacy, but instead, he broke with God. He lost his higher calling because he became too attached to worldly glory. (See the numerous examples in the Bible. We want to take this opportunity to thank the Jewish people for receiving and preserving this divine wisdom.) We simply cannot vote for someone with a debased character who has betrayed his maker. God’s will be done.
Hubris of Biblical Proportions

7/7/24 – Firstly, “a city on a hill” does not come from Reagan. He just added the word, “shining.” The phrase comes from the Bible. Specifically, it comes from Jesus. “Matthew 5:14-16 ‘You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
As it relates to American exceptionalism, it is a phrase that’s associated with the Puritans, specifically John Winthrop’s sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.” Here is the relevant excerpt: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.” (It should remain required reading for all English majors.)
The phrase is rightly associated with our origin story. It defines the ethos of our country when it was just a seedling, a few colonies that didn’t have much of a chance of making it. From this seedling blossomed the more elaborate text the Founding Fathers created, which delineates our rights and our responsibilities, and declares our freedom as given to us by our creator and our independence as our own nation. These acts alone were some of the key realizations of “a city on a hill.”
“A city on a hill” is the cornerstone of the foundation of our country, and no matter if you are indigenous or a more recent immigrant of a different faith tradition than Christianity, you can adopt it like it is a part of your personal story. Why? Because Jesus said so, and he belongs to the world. As he said, we are salt and light.
America isn’t exceptional because of its power, its wealth, its elites or even its institutions. As it was in the beginning, it’s exceptional because of its people. Its people are salt and light. To this day, we are aware of what we stand for in the world and that if we fail, it’s not just yet another failed nation, but as “The eyes of all people are upon us,” “we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world,” a cautionary tale of those who dare for freedom, rights and self-governance.
As if through an act of divine providence, we have a lot to think about this Fourth, this Independence Day, and beyond. Neither the evil one, trump, nor the weak dotard, Biden define America. Our people are so much better than them, than our elites or even our institutions. Our country is resilient because of its people, and its fate is ultimately in our hands, we the people. Just like with the Puritans, unless our people give up, unless we betray a higher calling, our American experiment will not fail. John Winthrop was using the Lord’s words to summon courage, determination, fidelity to God, and unity in his flock. We would do well to revisit his sermon and to remind ourselves of the bold majesty of our origin story. We owe it everybody who sacrificed greatly for us to not fail. They are watching us, and as it was then, so it is now: the world is watching us.

7/7//24 – On this Sunday, the Lord’s Day, a day of well-deserved rest for our ordinary but extraordinary American compatriots, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are smart, hard-working, competent people, and our day-to-day lives run so smoothly because of you. You are kind, friendly, helpful and generous. You make our lives pleasant and enjoyable. We are confident that you will be there for us when we need it because you have yet to fail us. With all of the failures with the elites, the institutions, external challenges, such as wars and pandemics, you have kept your heads down and have done the work, as you always do. You have kept true to our American ideals and values. If we never read the news, we would think our country was practically perfect, and that’s because of you. We respect you and really appreciate you. May God bless you and keep you.

7/6/24 – In this piece by Oren Cass are some of the outlines of bipartisan governance. As is often the case, we disagree in some places, and in others, we agree. In general, the elites would be wise to set aside their partisanship and build upon it. Also, the elites, especially in the media, need to stop fueling “culture wars,” and start focusing on doing their part to facilitate sober, balanced governance that considers the different needs and values of our diverse and large populace. We are a big advocate of direct democracy, which reflects our confidence in the goodness and competence of the American people. The democratic republic we have must reflect the will of the people as much as possible. The legitimacy of any leader is directly tied to the person’s success in doing so.
“But while elected officials and their technocratic advisers may have special insight into how the people’s goals are best achieved, only the people can determine what those goals should be and whether they are being met.” It is not the place of elites to determine what the American people should believe, think, value, want and so on. It comes with the presumption of moral, intellectual and other superiority. It is insulting. It also circumvents the collective wisdom that is the cumulative result of each person’s humble wisdom and the natural result of a well-functioning democracy. One of the beauties of our system of self-governance is that it is not dependent on the intelligence, goodness, or wisdom of any one individual or as, in communist structures, party elites. It is dependent on the collective wisdom of the people of our country, the ordinary people that live across our vast territory and share through their voice and their vote their lived experiences. Any leader worth their salt will listen to them and find policies that balance what might be competing needs or interests, much like the law, when exercised correctly, also does.
The American family is not adequately supported. We would all do well to consider what the point is of having children if once they are born, they are handed over to other people to raise. The liberals might find this quaint, but in much of the world, the joy of having children is very much in raising them not just in giving birth to them. Children are the continuation of our ancestors, literally and figuratively, a remembrance of the past in the future. Also, in some parts of the world, our blood lines are tied to our land, on which our ancestors lived and died, sometimes for millennia.
To the Americans in rural parts of the country who understand this connection to our ancestors and to our land and are grieved by its loss, know this: many of the immigrants that are desperately seeking the safety and security of American life actually share many of your values. They are people with traditional values, much like your own, deeply rooted to family, community and faith. They are not leaving their ancestral lands without regret. It is very likely that they wouldn’t leave them at all if they didn’t feel that they had to. If you don’t believe us, go and ask them. They very often love their homelands and are fully aware of the same sense of loss you also feel, just in a different context. This is not a guidance on policy, but a call for understanding. What we would like to see is a decrease in vilifying and an increase in understanding that can motivate realistic and compassionate policies that both address our concerns and needs and stay true to our values.
This is true: “Taking the majority’s preferences seriously, even when they conflict with the preferences of more sophisticated experts, is often disparaged as populism.” A negative interpretation of “populism” is justified when it is wielded by a demagogue who is inflaming the (possibly legitimate) grievances of the populace not to remedy them but to serve the person’s own ends. See the evil one, trump. A positive interpretation of populism, when it is not being abused, is that it is responsive to the will of the people.
Lastly, let us remember: “‘The administration of the government, like the office of a trustee, must be conducted for the benefit of those entrusted to one’s care, not of those to whom it is entrusted,’ observed Cicero more than 2,000 years ago.” The elites are to serve the American people. If they cannot do this, they need to step off the stage. We are not interested in their egos. We are interested in bettering our own lives. Help us improve our lives, do the jobs with which we entrusted you, or go away. Thank you.
PS In subsequent posts, we will consider and critique some of the proposals provided in the order they were presented because they deserve commentary. The American people’s feedback deserves to be taken seriously, not just dismissed as originating from an inferior caste of people. Please keep providing Americans with actual solutions to our problems, solicit our input, and we will give it to you. This is our democracy, and that is how this partnership, the American experiment, is supposed to work.
Dear Elites (of Both Parties), the People Will Take It From Here, Thanks

7/5/24 – After watching the interview, it’s clear that America has two delusional liars running for president, with only a few years difference in age between them. Biden has a lot of excuses for anything and everything that is unfavorable to him. He is going to lose, and he’s totally in denial about it. He’s in a narcissistic bubble.
Three things were particularly striking with Biden. First: His reaction to any kind of data that is unfavorable to him is reflexively dismissive to the point of being pathological. Second: His narcissism is out-of-control: “I don’t think anybody is more qualified to be president or win this race than me.” That’s dangerous for the whole country. He seems more like the evil one, trump, with each public appearance. Third: Cognitively, his recollection is poor, and he routinely doesn’t talk in complete sentences. Instead, he often speaks in fragments or sentences with missing words that a typical native English speaker would not leave out. There are also memory failures that are beyond an average person’s, even for an older person.
What the American people deserve is two different candidates. As it relates to these two terrible candidates, they need to answer hard questions without any advance notice of what they will be that force them to recall facts, specific policy details, and other granular information. What both of these people are doing is just spouting campaign propaganda, general talking points, or lies. We will grade them on accuracy and clarity.
Biden failed today because he evaded questions, and the answers he provided were just high-level campaign talking points, lacking in substance. He declined to have an objective assessment of his mental fitness. Most importantly, he seems to care most about himself, not about what’s best for the country. PS What’s wrong with his voice? Is it permanently weak and raspy?
President Biden sits down for interview with George Stephanopoulos l ABC News exclusive

7/5/24 – The American experiment, our democracy, one of the greatest endeavors in world history, is supposed to be something we, the people and the leaders we elect, do together. Instead, the power and the prestige of the positions of leadership go to the heads of the leaders we elect, and they start treating the very people who put them in those positions, effectively, with contempt.
The same dynamic happens with the press and other elites. They get some grade-inflated piece of, often Ivy League, paper and start thinking that it confers upon them a measure of superiority, usually in the form of intelligence. It doesn’t.
Both of these groups don’t work in service of their constituents, the countless Americans who do much harder things than they do, who day in and day out, work risky jobs that require sacrifice and impeccable character, physically hard jobs that require discipline, which often lack prestige or adequate compensation.
The cult of prestige characterizes much of American life, and it has eroded our social cohesion by effectively creating an unofficial caste system, the people with their names and/or faces on things, and the masses of people who remain unknown but are also the people who actually keep the country moving forward on the most necessary of levels.
The people always deserve to be heard and respected. Our leaders and others in positions of privilege are supposed to work with us to build a city on a hill. Instead of treating the American people as partners, they treat us like kings treat their subjects or as conmen treat their victims, peasants to be exploited to serve their egotistical and other ends.

7/5/24 – In the category of things we won’t say but are glad to hear and read.
Biden has a woman problem — or two — in the White House
We typically follow the mainstream media, and that’s it. We have a life, and there are many fine things to do with it, things that have nothing to do with politics. (Maybe the Bidens and Harris can find some other things to do with their lives too….) However, given the extraordinary situation, we used the Google for some other sources. One might consider The Young Turks, who like much of the country and unlike the mainstream media, seem to actually have been on top of things.
Will Biden DROP OUT Or Stay Defiant? Here’s What Insiders Are Saying.

7/5/24 – The truth is that Biden, his family and his administration deceived the American people about his fitness for office, and the propaganda (the press) was complicit in this deception. They will try to spin it because they’re great at spin, not so much at truth, but that is the truth.

7/5/24 – The propaganda was so focused on virtue-signaling and pandering to extreme liberals that they focused on stupid culture war issues, such as trans, instead of important issues of national and international consequence, such as the presidency of the United States. It is a dereliction of duty and an embarrassment of monumental proportions to them and to their profession.

7/5/24 – When the history books are written, the Bidens, the Democratic Party, and the propaganda (the press) are going to be held to account. They will look bad because they acted dishonorably. Also, it’s hard to believe that one is writing these words, but one feels bad for the donors….

7/5/24 – The selfish, arrogant, narcissistic Biden family is trash. They should be ashamed of themselves.

7/4/24 – On this Independence Day, if Americans are frustrated and angry about the state of our democracy and the blatant hypocrisy of the elites, it is entirely justified. There will be many remarks from them along the lines of perfecting our union, lofty words and such. It is unlikely that any of them will take a close, hard look at how at their own hypocrisy and their own actions contribute to an illiberal democracy.
It is not the media’s role to be advertising for celebrities or others, such as the Taylor Swift campaign that has happened several times over the recent past. It is also not their job to carry water for or to be spin doctors for any politician of any party or any party. It is also not their place to think for the American people. They are to report the news, what is happening in the country and what the American people want or think as dispassionately as possible. That is all they are supposed to do. Instead, the press has become propaganda. This is damaging to our democracy and to our social cohesion.
The people voted for Biden. He won fair and square. The people are not asking him to resign. These ideas are coming from the overweened, pseudo-intellectuals who make up our elite class, whether politicians or press. They hold themselves in such high-esteem that they don’t think twice or even think about the fact that they are not actually reflecting the will of the people but instead deciding for them what it is.
What the people said is that they don’t want Biden to run again. They do not want to reelect him. They have wisely determined, in spite of the media completely failing at their jobs in this regard, that he is too old and incapable of fulfilling the duties of the highest office in the land for another four years. That is all they have said. The American people also rejected Kamala Harris for the presidency. Biden chose her as his running mate. The people never chose her for either the presidency or the vice presidency. This is the same person that the elites want to now place in the presidency and at the top of the ticket for the next election using a political legerdemain.
The political machinations that disregard the will of the people need to stop. We are a democracy. It is utter hypocrisy to point to all the ways in which the Founding Fathers fell short of realizing the noble ideals beautifully laid out in the documents they created, yet in the present, perpetuate a political system that marginalizes the will of the people, their voice and their vote. Both of the parties, the politicians and the media, almost all of the elites, are guilty of this. There were two great sins committed at the birth of our nation: slavery of black people/genocide of the native inhabitants and not allowing all of the American people to determine their destiny. The elites are guilty of continuing this latter sin. On this Independence Day, let’s pray that they examine their conscience and sinfulness and repent. Amen, and as always, God bless America.

7/3/24 – We don’t want Kamala. We want to win. Is this actually hard to understand? Give it to us, you f—kheads. If the elites were as smart and concerned about our democracy as they claim to be, they would be myopically focused on that one thing and that one thing alone. If they were so moral, they wouldn’t have enabled the weak dotard’s dishonesty with the American people, his grotesque egotism and the denialism of his weaknesses, including his stutter, which he claims he overcame as a child. It is a bald-faced lie. Nonetheless, dumb hoi polloi that we are, we saw through the bulls—t. If the media had done their jobs, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. There was clearly a double-standard in how they covered the evil one, trump, and how they covered the weak dotard, Biden. And now, the elites with their goddamn hierarchy and “turns.” F—k their turns. We don’t give a s—t about who’s next in line. The people made Obama. Do they remember that? They wanted Hillary. We put him next in line, and he remains a popular president. The elites are arrogant a—holes who always think they know better than the American people. They don’t.

7/2/24 – Who does this guy, Stuart Stevens, think he’s fooling? Hey Americans, the elites think you’re extremely f—king stupid. The weak dotard won the primaries! Democracy in action! You’re overruling the will of the people. Shut the f—k up. It wasn’t a goddamn primary. It was a coronation because he’s the precious incumbent. So apparently, the country and Democrats need to be deprived of an actual primary, and we all know it. On top of thinking hoi polloi are imbeciles, he insults us by telling us we’re wimps who don’t know how to fight. We know how to and want to fight, but not for Biden – for ourselves, the American people. We’re also doing that by telling the party to give us a candidate that we actually want and who will actually win. Then, he went on to blah, blah, blah about how the parties have changed. What does that have to do with losing the election with the weak dotard? Lastly, nobody with a modicum of objectivity would describe the debate performance or Biden more generally as “steady, calm and confident.” The reality is the reality. The truth is the truth. Deal with it, and stop insulting our intelligence and our character, signed the American people.
Let’s see who else thinks the American people are complete idiots. Well, Jennifer Rubin. Yes, what we all saw with our own eyes: the weak dotard being unable to sound even remotely coherent let alone fact-check the lying moron’s lies (yes, it was Biden’s sole responsibility to do so), it was actually the fault of the format, the moderators, who could handle the endless lies. Many people, actually. Many of us would jump at a chance to take down that evil, lying moron of the first order. It would be sport, delicious and glorious. We could finally put on full display what a complete evil, insane idiot he is. Instead, our blood ran cold as we realized that we are…wait for it… going to lose the f—king election. That’s right. In fact, in the sane half of the country, there was a collective audible, “oh my God,” as the horror of our predicament descended on us one incomprehensible response after another, not to mention that Biden looked like the walking dead, which is where our democracy is going to be a few more months from now unless he is replaced.
Americans, understand this: the problem with all of these people is that they don’t actually have any respect for us, the people of this country who actually make it great. We are to believe what they want us to believe, do what they want us to do, and think as they want us to think. We are stupid, after all. They are smart. We are unaccomplished losers. They have pedigree. We are nobodies. They are somebody. They tell us this all the time, in so many different ways. We keep telling them to go f—k themselves, but since we are nobody to them, they don’t actually listen to us, the American people.

On the Jesus Way, the Way

Neal E Johnson, Unsplash

Well, what do you have to say, America? Are we proud of where we’re at politically and culturally, as a nation? Are you contributing positively or negatively to the present state of our country? The Jesus Way, the Way is not easy. It is extremely demanding, and when we say it’s the only way, we don’t mean the only religion or even the one true God, which is a separate theological matter, but the only way to live to realize heaven on earth.

As we do at church, let us start with an acknowledgement of our sinfulness: The Confiteor (I Confess).
“I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.”

When we heard of the assassination attempt, we weren’t shocked, angry or even saddened. It’s hard to feel much towards someone who has waged war on our sensibilities and values for approximately the past decade. Instead, we put it out of our minds as quickly as we could and went about our day. Perhaps we should have felt more, but the truth is that we didn’t. We also didn’t want to give it any more time than we had. This reflects, in part, the way politics has consumed too much of our lives, and our unwillingness to give it, especially certain people, any more time than we have to. There was an implicit insistence on our previous lives before a certain person came to dominate the political and cultural scene and a prioritization of our lives over him and over politics more generally.

Some might argue that he was the president, not an ordinary citizen, so his problems deserve more attention. That’s a job title. It’s not a relationship. Perhaps his life should matter more to us than the countless innocent Americans who are murdered by violence, but it doesn’t. There are people who we’ve never met, whose stories have broken our hearts and, in some cases, haunt us for the rest of our lives. We’re glad that he didn’t die, but had the assassination attempt been successful, would our reaction have been more intense? Probably. Would our hearts have been broken the way they are when we hear about parents torturing and murdering their own children? Probably not. The truth of the matter is that the innocence or guilt of the victim ends up as a considerable factor in our emotional response.

We all know that he is not innocent in inciting violence. We all know that he cheered the assassination attempt of his own Vice President. Also, is it fair to the Secret Service, who literally put their lives on the line, to protect someone who regularly traffics in violence and hate, effectively inviting violence in all of its manifestations? In fact, there is likely a strong positive correlation in his rhetoric and the general degradation of the body politic as well as the increase in political violence. We can’t and don’t want to unknow any of these things. We can’t and won’t pretend that they are negated by an assassination attempt.

When we heard about the identity of the assassin, our first thought was, he’s practically a kid. It wasn’t that he’s a monster, evil or anything along those lines, but in the description: white man, twenty-years-old, it was his age that was the most striking. I thought back to when I was twenty and the poor judgment I had, trying to be an adult but not really knowing how. There are a lot of people with mental health issues, especially young people, so who knows what was going on there. As someone who’s invested in the development of young people, it was also a painful reminder of how we’re failing as a nation in their moral and spiritual formation.

The temptation is to blame and to direct one’s thoughts to the external. As a spiritual matter, however, the responsibility is to direct one’s thoughts to the internal. The internal is what is actually important. As an examination of conscience, do I feel any guilt about not having a stronger emotional response regardless of the emotion? No, I don’t. My emotions are what they are. In the prayer above, we don’t confess our emotions. We confess our thoughts. Were all of my thoughts morally correct, constructive, kind, and such? No, they were not. There were many thoughts; some were kind and charitable; some were not. That’s the truth, and that’s an examination of conscience. I confess the thoughts that didn’t follow the Way, that didn’t live up to the high standards set by Jesus Christ.

However, ultimately, even if I had felt great sadness or some other strong emotion, the response would have been the same: a call for restraint, reflection, and spiritual centering. The response was effectively independent of the emotions. The thoughts, which were broad and conflicting, somehow reconciled through God’s grace to a more spiritually centered place. This process doesn’t happen automatically. It takes effort. America, are we willing to put in the effort to become a better country? If so, we have to exercise more self-control as leaders and as ordinary citizens. Also, arguably just as importantly, we’re setting a bad example for young people, who learn from us. The lessons we are teaching them through our own words and actions are not good.

The Washington Post wrote that Senator and Reverend Warnock asked his congregation to pray for a certain person. They initially offered a muted response. He asked more forcefully, to which they said, “Amen!” This is a hard process. It is difficult to rise above a certain person’s own unrepentant sinfulness, especially as it relates to contributing to political violence and the normalization of cruelty and coarseness in our discourse. However, the Way demands that we love our enemies. Does that mean absolving them of their sins? No, it doesn’t. That’s not our role. That’s ultimately between sinner and God. However, it does mean fighting with love and not with hate. It does mean praying for them. It does mean not trafficking in conspiracy theories or even speculation and stoking fervor when one should be asking for and practicing calm, reason and restraint.

Biden tried to do that, but as many of us have noted, he’s too old for the position he holds. Additionally, his own moral authority has been damaged. It is clear that his administration, complicit with the media, was not forthright with the American people regarding his health. There is a marked decline, and he cannot be our leader for the next four years because of it and his moral failure as it relates to it. As we mentioned before, neither can a certain person, for all the same and obvious reasons as we and many others have outlined numerous times. The assassination attempt doesn’t change anything as it relates to the fitness of either of these candidates. They are both unfit for the highest office in the land, but for different reasons.

Power can be seductive, and the assassination attempt might entice people by his defiance in the face of an existential threat, a reaction similar to the perceived existential threat that has animated the right for some time and has now become embodied in one man. For many, a certain person’s instinctively raised fist and verbal utterance, “fight,” might be attractive. The AP photographer’s picture, which was artistically excellent, might become iconic, but with the wisdom of time, it is likely to also become unflattering. If fight, flight, or freeze are the instinctual response options to a perceived threat, are any of us surprised a certain person defaulted to fight? Likely not. Now, let us revisit the Way. What is it asking? It’s asking us to go against that instinctual response. When Peter cuts off the Roman soldier’s ear, Jesus responds with the phrase many of us know by heart, with variations on the exact phrasing, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword,” and he heals the Roman soldier’s ear.

We hope that the assassination attempt changes Americans’ hearts. May it make our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh; may it soften us to help us realize our full potential, to be a city on a hill. We fear that it is unlikely to do so because too many Americans, as good and capable as they are in their daily interactions, live a parallel life in which they unintentionally “feed the beast,” in great part, because they are unwilling to exercise adequate self-control and maturity as individuals to serve the collective good of our country. In any case, we cannot continue like this. If we persist on our present path, we are asking for a harsher reckoning than if we recognize and rectify our sinfulness now.

God doesn’t set our agenda. He doesn’t control us individually or in the collective. Omnipotence doesn’t make puppets of its people. What God gives us is life and free will. He gave us options and the ability to make our own choices. Jesus didn’t force us onto the Way. We choose to follow him and to take it, as demanding as it is. In the collective, our choices as Americans will determine our destiny, as it has since our founding. Every great leader we’ve ever had has appealed to our conscience, to us as salt and light, to rise above ourselves, our baser instincts and to choose the path that holds true to our values and our ideals as a country, as hard as that might be. Americans, the Way is demanding; it asks a lot of anyone who chooses to follow it, but it is the only way to truly solve our problems and to realize our promise. Please choose of your own volition to take it. God bless you all.

Notes from Underground – June 2024

6/30/24 – Another terrible aspect of the egotistical old men clinging to power pretending our democracy is their kingdom is that it sucks up all of the oxygen in the room. This was religious freedom week. Could we focus on anything but that horrible debate and the glaringly obvious miserable situation? We don’t care about any of these politicians and their precious egos, feelings or ambitions. We care about the things that actually matter to us, which is not them.
God bless the persecuted church and all people who aren’t able to practice their faith, no matter what religion it is, in peace and freedom. We pray for you all the time. Remember: We love you, and God loves you.

6/30/24 – We’re trying very hard to stay calm. Centering, center, center. It’s Sunday, and that’s something.

6/30/24 – It might be hard for the elites to process because they are in rapture with themselves and their feelings of superiority, but much of the country doesn’t really give a s—t about them. We care about our own lives. Hard to believe, we know. The elites think we should be watching them preen in front of the mirror. We’re not interested. The elites don’t think much of us ordinary folk, but we don’t care, and we don’t think much of them. So, either give us candidates that will advance our own lives or, well, f—k off. Thank you.

6/30/24 – There have been so many calls and good arguments for Biden to step down, yet this egotistical degenerate refuses to do so. For example, see the numerous articles and arguments on The Atlantic and The New York Times. Also, don’t pretend the obvious parallels with the right don’t exist. It’s not just an irrational loyalty to Biden even though it’s been obvious for a long time that he wasn’t up to another four years, it’s also the cult of personality that is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right, only in a different form. AOC, Ilhan Omar, Bernie, all of these people are ridiculous and an embarrassment to our country. They are not politicians. They are personalities. The geriatric problem exists also across both parties. For example, Pelosi should retire. We are a goddamn democracy. The two main parties in our democracy need to start acting like it. The Democratic Party needs to be a role model and break from loyalty to any politician/personality. The person can either win and advance the party’s agenda and the country’s interests, or they can’t. Biden simply can’t. Accept it, and choose a fresh ticket. We have many suitable alternatives. Shapiro, Whitmer though. The blue wall must hold.

6/28/24 – America’s geriatric political class, of both parties, is costing us our democracy. Is the Silent Generation the most selfish generation in American history?

6/28/24 – The donor class needs to force the arrogant, selfish, weak dotard to step down.

6/28/24 – Regarding teaching the Bible in public schools, it likely violates the Constitution. Setting aside the legality, the Bible is arguably the greatest book ever written, but it’s mostly a Jewish religious text, you know, the fat Old Testament part. Given this fact, the “conservative Christians” pushing for this education might want to consider having rabbis instead priests or pastors explain the text. Should students also learn some Hebrew and Jewish history, and the huge impact their religious texts has had on world history and moral and intellectual thought? None of this would be bad, but it’s important to remember to whom the Christian Bible belongs. It mostly belongs to the Jewish people because it’s mostly the Hebrew Bible. Shalom.

6/27/24 – Shapiro, Whitmer. Replace Ruth Bader Biden. Do it now. The only thing that matters is swing voters in swing states. Win the f—king election. Save our democracy. Do it now.

6/27/24 – Let’s do a quick review: “5/7/23 – Does it matter what voters want or just what the Democratic establishment wants? We want a real f—king primary in our f—king democracy. Give it to us! Or are the a—hole elites going to subject us to yet another failure, but this time of a greater threat than 2016? Biden was senator forever, 2 terms as VP, and now 1 as Pres. It’s been a good run. He got a lot done in one term. He’s too old for another term. Move the f—k on! How much clearer can we make this? “His overall approval ratings have slipped to a new low, more Americans than not doubt his mental acuity, and his support against leading Republican challengers is far shakier than at this point four years ago…. 26 percent of independents who support charging Trump in any of the three cases say they would definitely or probably vote for him against Biden, while 48 percent back Biden and the rest would support neither, would not vote or are undecided.” The warning signs are flashing red, and the Democratic establishment ignores them at the country’s peril.
Biden faces broad negative ratings at start of campaign, Post-ABC poll finds
5/8/23 – It’s f—king ridiculous. “Taking questions from the media promotes public accountability. It also shows that the president is willing to defend his positions and instills confidence that he can do the job. It is widely known that Mr. Biden is gaffe-prone and that news conferences are not his forte. But as he runs for a second term, he should be eager to show he can handle all aspects of the job.”
Biden no longer does press conferences. That’s not acceptable.
7/13/23 – Is Biden exchanging love letters with dictator modi, as the evil one, trump, did with kim jong un? 7/13/23 – The American people deserve better leaders. Biden is a weak dotard, and the evil one, trump, doesn’t even deserve comment. Putin is vulnerable, and Biden still can’t figure out how to take the f—ker out. This is the person who is going to have a rematch with the evil one. This is a miserable situation. 11/7/23 – Biden’s ego might very well cost us our democracy.” You get the idea.

6/27/24 – Just putting this here: Josh Shapiro: ‘We want a leader who loves this country.. Donald Trump is the opposite of that’

6/27/24 – Well, that was pretty much pure torture. Too depressing to go into. That is all.

6/24/24 – An argument could be made that the United States has become the most decadent of western countries. Our economy is good, yet look at the dissatisfaction. Americans live a comfortable life that others, even in other western countries, don’t have. We tend to own our homes, which in and of itself is a big difference from Europe. We have cheaper imports than other western countries, another exorbitant privilege. America has become too decadent, too comfortable, and we’re becoming detached from reality and losing perspective. We are also losing a collective sense of gratitude for our abundance and our responsibility to the rest of the world, in part, in return for it.
Also, perhaps being the lingua franca, also an exorbitant privilege, comes with an exorbitant cost. There is likely more teenage (and adult, by the way) neurotic musings on the internet written in English than in any other language. Thus, that many more opportunities for native English speakers to be drawn into neurotic musings. On the positive side, there is an easy escape out of this trap of our own making: stop thinking about ourselves.
America’s Top Export May Be Anxiety

6/24/24 – The adage goes, “It’s better to give than to receive.” This saying is often associated with Christianity, but its origins are likely with Jewish, perhaps specifically Hasidic, wisdom regarding orienting oneself to God, a devotion to the divine. “‘The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah itself,’ the rabbis teach.”
The Beatitudes are arguably some of the most inspiring and the most challenging of Jesus’s teachings. They describe a reversal of the world order. There are some related reversals to consider. What if the best self-help is self-transcendence? Instead of neurotically naval-gazing, what if we look up at our creator in gratitude and love for all that is given without being earned, which is everything we have, including our lives themselves?
How Hasidic Wisdom Can Improve Your Life

6/23/24 – Remember no matter how rich or powerful you are, if God so wills it, everything can be taken from you in an instant. Happy Sunday.

6/23/24 – One of the best parts of going to church is you sometimes get dressed down a bit. Sure, you might feel a little uncomfortable, but it’s good. It keeps you humble and focused on the things that matter.

6/21/24 – Get serious, America. Get it together before it’s too late.

6/21/24 – It used to be that children were named after their ancestors. Now, they’re named after trends. Progress.

6/21/24 – On a fundamental level, the brain wants to do one extremely important thing – form connections. A word is formed of one or more morphemes. The words are associated with meanings (semantics). A word with the same sound and spelling (homophones) can be associated with different meanings; thus, the context will determine the meaning. Basically, just like the composition of the human body, you’re building outward from a single cell into a more complex whole through a series of connections.
The goal with learning is to make as many connections as you can. When a person reads an entire book, you have long, connected ideas that can form new connections in the reader’s brain to present and previous knowledge or to generate new ideas. In addition to other reasons, you want kids to engage with the same text from beginning to end to practice attention span, depth and complexity of thought and to engage their imagination. They will also naturally start forming “movies” in their brain of the continuous stream of information, which is the best “storage” for retention and retrieval of information. There are so many good reasons to encourage this activity.
The brain’s fundamental nature does not change based on the color of a person’s skin. What is changing are the expectations and the pedagogical approach. Teaching to a test is not teaching. It is cheating. The responsibility for every administrator and teacher is to help children develop cognitive functions that are connections-oriented, exploiting the natural predisposition of the brain to optimize the student’s faculties. By cheating pedagogically, they are also cheating these kids out of their future and the potential realization of their talents. It’s insulting to them and a disgrace.

6/20/24 – Speaking of choices, American parenting is a disaster. American parents simply do not know how to parent. Gentle parenting is a joke, and no serious country would engage in this absurd experiment. Let’s just let the kids decide. Yes, let’s just abdicate our responsibility as parents. It is definitely related to the balanced literacy approach that went bust. Let’s just let the kids decide. Yes, let’s just abdicate our responsibility as educators. (Note that teachers often don’t make curriculum decisions.) America needs to stop treating children like guinea pigs.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t need reinvention, and letting kids do the work adults should be doing isn’t balanced; it’s lazy and irresponsible. Balanced parenting and schooling is between strict and compassionate. Kids need phonics. Kids also need actual books. Just work backward from what were the highest standards in academia.
We used to have blue book exams until the education got so bad that students couldn’t actually pass them. As someone who’s done them and done well, you need the actual books. It’s part of how your brain keeps track of the material, so you’ll know where you’re at in the book even if you’re not consciously aware of it. A packet is not a book. (Also, there is the cover art and other such artistic elements that matter to developing refined sensibilities.)
You also need phonics. For many people, myself included, their parents taught them how to read when they were young. They pointed to words and sounded them out, and kids’ brains are wired to connect sounds to meaning. With the added visual information, they’ll connect the written word to the spoken one and as always to the meaning.
It doesn’t need reinvention. The human brain has been wired for language in the same way from the beginning. It just needs the same execution that worked for generations upon generations. America’s addiction to the new is costing younger generations greatly, everything from discipline, attention span, range and depth of thought, personal responsibility, and on and on. New isn’t always better, and sometimes, it’s quite bad. Stop with the experimentation. Do what previous generations did. It works.
The Gentle Parenting Bust
The Schools That Are No Longer Teaching Kids to Read Books

6/17/24 – Every Sunday, practicing Catholics perform the sacrament of communion. “You just eat the wafer thingy.” Well, it’s a little more poetic and spiritual than that. But exactly what is it? Cannibalism? No. But everything we eat becomes a part of us. It literally forms our cells. All that said, your cells are still your own. If we eat our little chicken friend (can we eat our chicken once we’ve become friends?) or the eggs our hens produce (perhaps easier to do, but the egg is supposed to become a little baby chicken), do we become connected to them in some special way?
There is some place of overlap with the Hasidic wisdom as described below, the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist and, perhaps rather oddly, veganism. Fundamentally, they all seem to be particularly aware of something along the lines of: You are what you eat.
Add to this some other truths: You are what you consume (more generally). You are what you believe. You are what you love. Etc. Yet, we spend very little time thinking along these lines with any spiritual clarity or mindfulness. Every choice we make makes us.

6/17/24 – Word to the wise: we get it. You really want to kiss your backyard chickens because they are so darn cute. Don’t. It’s not healthy for you or the bird.

6/17/24 – What should humans’ relationship with animals be? “Having thus dismantled the strict hierarchy between man and nature, we might then forge an environmental awareness built around the simple yet audacious notion that we are deeply a part of the world rather than lords over it.” Obviously, we are considerably different from insects and many other, actually, all other animals. Given the choice, most of us would save a human over a cockroach. So, we have in mind some sort of hierarchy even if we think we don’t. Would the planet be better off if we thought about ourselves as equal to animals or if we actually practiced being good stewards in a hierarchical relationship with humans being a creation apart? Also, what is truer: hierarchy or no hierarchy? Maybe it’s a bit of both, or is that contradictory? It’s a lot to think about.
How Hasidic Wisdom Can Change Your Relationship to the Natural World

6/15/24 – And yes, the evil one is also a f—king idiot. You got to feel sorry for the people who have to try to keep a straight face listening to his s—t. One of the most loathsome people in human history.
The 7 DUMBEST Trump Statements

6/15/24 – “Modi seemed to have been carried away by a God complex. During one interview, he claimed to be not biologically born, but instead an incarnation of divinity sent to Earth to do the Lord’s work. At other times, he spoke of a 1,000-year vision for the nation. Like many autocrats and would-be autocrats, Modi appeared to have lost touch with reality and become a prisoner of his own myth.” There was someone else…. Who was that again? Oh yes, this: “I am the chosen one”
The sycophants of the evil one, the felon, the loser, who will go down in infamy as the most treasonous traitor in American history, will get slapped too. It’s a just a matter of time. Their reputations will be forever stained. Justice will come. Know it now.
The Humbling of Narendra Modi

6/14/24 – Our indigenous people were the first “Americans.” It’s appropriate that Flag Day began in a city named after a native chief. “There is no politics in Flag Day…. All are welcome.”
The kids get it. “The Stars and Stripes ‘represent a nation where immigrants like my grandparents are welcomed, where diversity is celebrated and where justice is present for all,’ wrote Neel Sood, a 4th grader from Bridgewater, New Jersey.
Adell, Wisconsin 7th grader Ryan Spang wrote that ‘the American flag represents unity. We are one nation, united by our similarities and differences. We support people in our communities in times of need and we cheer them on in times of achievement.’”
Americans celebrate their flag every year, and the holiday was born in Wisconsin
Waubeka, Wisconsin — the ‘Birthplace of Flag Day’ — celebrates the Stars and Stripes with passion

6/14/24 – One of the dangers to any society is when its people make what should be thoughtful assessments and decisions on baseless associations. Both the left and the right are guilty of this. The evil one, the felon, the loser, trump does not own the American flag. In fact, he is the antithesis of a patriot. He is a treasonous traitor. Never forget it, and let’s all remember it today, Flag Day. Let’s also remember what the flag represents. It represents the freedom that men and women pay for with their lives. It is a priceless freedom.
Flag Day is also the birthday of the US Army, which reflects our military’s sacrifice. Our military keeps us free. They are heroes. They are not saints. They don’t need to be saints to be heroes. Our military has had individuals who do wrong things, as does every institution, but our military is the most important one we have. Without a strong military, our people would long ago have been made slaves of by another country with a powerful military. The left with its cheap idealism would do well to remember this today and every day.
Old Glory, our stars and our stripes, represents our past, the 13 colonies with the stripes, our present with the 50 united stars, and our future. It is laden with symbolism and meaning, its colors representing our nation’s values. Fly it high and proud. We’re Americans, after all. We have a creed that is written into our sacred Constitution that gives people their God-given freedom, rights and dignity, and our flag reflects it to the world. It’s the beacon for our Constitution, our country, and the best of our people.
We also hold holy the sacred ground on which American patriots, such as the Marines who gave their lives in World War I and the Americans who died at Normandy during World War II, who saved Europe from fascism, are buried. We remember them. We honor them. We love them. We weep for them still. Why? Because they deserve it.
The evil one, the wannabe fascist dictator, is incapable of understanding these feelings, our devotion and our gratitude to them. In his narcissistic, transactional framework: why would one do something for a cause or for someone else, especially sacrificing their own life? They must be suckers and losers. Why would Jesus Christ sacrifice his life to save others? To the evil one, trump, Jesus was also a sucker and a loser.
“For days after his death, the table he frequented remained empty out of respect:” Jamal Mitchell, the hero, who was recently slain in Minneapolis, the same city in which George Floyd was murdered by a policeman, was honored for this courage, compassion and sacrifice. We wept for both of them, and we will continue to remember both of them. We also honored the First Responders who were killed or injured in the line of duty in Burnsville for the same reasons. To their parents, especially their mothers, you raised good men; you gave the world a gift. Nothing about their identity matters except that they died while serving us and the communities we live in. They lost their lives to help others. They didn’t have to enter into service. They chose to do so.
We come together as a community in times of need and of sorrow and to honor our fallen American patriots and heroes because that’s what good people do. We lay flowers for them, continue to remember them, and cry when we think of them. The reason why we don’t think of the people who sacrifice for as suckers and losers is because we have a soul.
We also don’t treat the flag or the Bible as cheap props to sell something that we don’t actually practice or believe. The flag, the Bible, these people mean something profound to us. We wouldn’t disrespect them by using them to serve our selfish ends. When we hold them high, we do so as a beacon to the world of what they represent. Our fallen heroes represent the greatness of Americans at our best. Fly proud Old Glory: remind the world of our best people and our values. To our patriots and heroes, we don’t deserve you, yet you gave us yourselves anyway. Thank you.
Since When Does Donald Trump Own the American Flag
Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
Trump Is Lying to the U.S. Military

6/11/24 – Old Glory flies high and proud, as it should. Remember our ancestors who sacrificed so much, sometimes their lives, for us to have our freedom and our rights. Teamwork makes the dream work, and America is a glorious mess. We can do this, America. We can listen to the better angels of our nature. We can create new music, new dance, new art. We can be gloriously weird, genuine and creative. We can get along, respect our differences and build a country worthy of ourselves and the patriots who came before us. All American, but human first. Be proud. Be united.
The Next Great American Mega-Genre

6/11/24 – Indians figured out that they’re stronger together and that other little thing, their Constitution protects them. Will Americans figure it out? All Desi, but human first. Be proud. Be united.
“Customers from both India and Pakistan attend biryani-loaded cricket screenings at both the Royale and Spice & Curry. While the Indo-Pak banter prevails, there’s no trace of any hostility. ‘It’s all politics. In Nassau County, there’s a big population of Indians and Pakistanis. And they get along,’ Haroon says…. While the customers might have their preferred cricket team or biryani, they are bound by the love for both. ‘The food is going to unite the love. No matter what kind of rivalry they have on the field, when they’ll be back, they’ll enjoy the food,’ Singh says.”
Cricket and biryani go together like baseball and hot dogs

6/11/24 – You are what you believe. Believe wisely.

6/10/24 – What’s is the difference between a lie and willful self-deception?

6/10/24 – The other thing that happens is, well, living in one’s own fiction. “Now the producer’s public apology has made clear that the film was based on misleading data and false claims…. Earlier this week, Weidong ‘Bill’ Guan, the chief financial officer of the company, was arrested and charged with involvement in a multiyear, $67 million money-laundering scheme…. The setbacks for Salem and The Epoch Times are just the latest glitches in the alternative-reality universe.”
A Bad Week for Backers of the Big Lie

6/10/24 – After reflecting over several days on the conviction and courage of the Greatest Generation, our present culture stands in stark contrast. It might not be apparent, but both the right and the left do this: blaming others for their own inadequacies. This happens all the time in an educational system gone awry, and, of course, there is the perfect example of it, the evil one, the felon, the loser, trump.
“As we saw, the big problem with self-enhancement is being confronted with the painful reality of your imperfections in the long run. That is the moment when we note cognitive dissonance, in which two beliefs—I am excellent; I am not excellent—are in incompatible tension. This tension can stimulate an external explanation: that I am naturally excellent, for instance, but being thwarted in my efforts by outside forces or people. This can be true, but it tends to be simply another form of self-deception, one that leads to a lot of misery. Scholars have shown that people with a weak capacity for emotional self-regulation tend to blame others for their poor choices. This form of delusion can dispel bad feelings about oneself in the short term, but scholars recommend that owning one’s decisions is a better long-term strategy to manage negative emotions.”
You’re Not Perfect

6/6/24 – “D-Day comes down to individuals…. Small numbers of individuals can make a massive difference.” Such a wonderful remembrance of The Greatest Generation on the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the incredible sacrifices they made to save Europe and the grace they showed working with our former colonizer, the British. We will rightly honor them hopefully forever. We are so proud of them, and they make us proud to be Americans. May God bless them.
Special talk on the 80th anniversary of D-Day with Alex Kershaw

6/5/24 – To the rich: Economists like to say that time is money. Time is actually divine, priceless, and life. No matter how rich you are, time is not for sale. It belongs to God and God alone. How are you spending your time, your life? Chasing money, fame and/or power? That’s no way to live a life.

6/5/24 – To the poor and marginalized Hindus and other Indians: You are more than touchable. God loves you with a deep and abiding love. To our Christian God, you are equal to everyone else. You are not a slave, an indentured servant or inferior to anyone. You are a child of God, made in his image. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different.

6/5/24 – Poor and “low-caste” Indians figured out that they were getting played. They were being tricked into hating their compatriots, fellow Indians, who just happen to practice a different religion (so what?) so that the rich and powerful can keep them down. Will Americans figure it out also?

6/2/24 – There is a textile waste problem in the United States, which is causing environmental problems in some parts of the Global South, but that doesn’t mean one should stop donating their clothes. One should try to recycle as much as possible, and donating is one form of it. Donating clothing and other items also helps many people. In addition, people often donate good-quality clothing. If you can, try to have your clothes or shoes mended by a tailor or cobbler, respectively, before donating them. Also, usually when you consign your quality clothes, if they don’t sell, they go to charitable organizations, such as the Goodwill.
However, textile waste is a real problem that requires all stakeholders and a global approach. Also, water consumption, environmentally harmful processing and other production problems, such as forced or child labor and poor working conditions, in the fashion industry need to be fixed.
It’s also true that many countries in the Global South make much higher quality clothing than what Americans in the United States tend to wear. This might seem paradoxical since the United States is considerably wealthier. Many countries in the Global South have artisans creating the fabrics. The tailoring is good, and the designs are innovative and beautiful.
The west, including, perhaps especially Europe, is fixated on brands, les marques. It’s mainly because consumers have a hard time assessing quality without it. Europeans, however, tend to buy fewer but higher quality items. Many of us have been too busy or cheap to put too much energy into our purchases at some point or another, but one will save money, time and the environment by doing so.
Another more recent factor is that Americans’ tastes and trends have gone markedly downhill. The fast fashion nightmare is ruining the planet and is an eyesore. Please try to develop your own sense of style.
Also, Americans don’t have good habits when it comes to taking care of their clothes. Even if you buy inexpensive ones, they can last a long time if the material is good and if you follow the care instructions. All clothing should be required to have tags that give consumers information on the composition of the fabric and how to best clean it. (Recently, clothing is being sold without information on the composition of the fabric.) Some people have sensitive skin and need particular fabric, and knowing how to care for clothing helps us care for our planet.
In general, try to take the time to consider what you’re purchasing, if you really need to buy it, and if there are better alternatives. Don’t chase trends or buy based on brand names/expensive clothes. There are three key elements to look for to find quality clothes: fabric, tailoring and design. Try to make what you purchase last. It’s good for your wallet and the planet.

6/2/24 – You are what you consume. Consume wisely. Happy Sunday!

Notes from Underground – May 2024

5/30/24 – Let’s pray, pray and pray that the evil one, trump, goes to prison and then to hell. May he burn in hell for eternity.  

5/29/24 – It’s not traditional or modern. It’s not east or west. It’s not Hindu or Muslim. It’s not black or white. It’s not either/or. It’s both. We’re not going backward. We’re international. We’re connected in a way we’ve never been, and we like it that way. We’re going forward because it’s our future.

5/29/24 – If you were lucky enough to see her 1998 exhibition, it was masterful.
Shirin Neshat’s Turbulent

5/29/24 – Today, nerding out on some art. Don’t worry, Auntie. Their beautiful Indian hair is still long. They can let it down, wear it in a braid, and do the traditional Indian Bharatanatyam. The classical Indian dance that originated in the South of India, in Tamil Nadu, tells stories using music and dance. Art from all over the world can be combined in creative ways to make new art because all art tells stories and gives expression to the human condition.
Hybrid Bharatham EPISODE 6 | Usha Jey Choreography | Empire State of Mind – Jay Z ft. Alicia Keys

5/28/24 – Nerding out on Christianity and religions in general is so much fun. Enjoy!

5/28/24 – Let’s consider this. So many nonbelievers, atheists, agnostics, and even some quasi/skeptical “believers,” pretty much all of them think they would truly believe if only they saw basically some sort of miracle. Well, Jesus’s disciples saw plenty of miracles, and he had to keep telling them they had little faith. Who can forget Peter walking on water until he fell like a stone when he saw the wind. What changed between this and they themselves performing miracles? There is Jesus’s resurrection, but they had already witnessed the precursor to the resurrection, raising Lazarus from the dead. One could argue that what really changed was that they received the Holy Spirit. So, instead of needing to see or feel like Thomas did, maybe we just need to receive our advocate, the paraclete. As formless and fleeting as the wind, yet more powerful than our sensory perceptions.    

5/27/24 – There have been many people on the right who have been willing to criticize the right. We’re still waiting for members of the left to step up and do so with the left. We cannot fully realize our greatness as Americans and as a country if only one side is willing to do an examination of conscience.

5/27/24 – Christianity will survive the clergy abuse. It will also survive the factions within the laity who don’t practice the faith correctly. Christianity is not to be used to advance either the left’s or the right’s political agenda. It is an ancient religion, deeply rooted in love, hope and faith. It is not about worldly power, money or fame. It is about sacrifice. It is about serving God and each other. Nobody is required to remain within the church. If one can’t orient themselves to God, to Jesus Christ, and to these core tenets, please leave the church. Thank you.
“‘For some on the religious right,’ Malcolm Gladwell wrote in an American Spectator essay in 1986, ‘advancing a political agenda has come to take precedence over even the most basic ethical considerations.’ This has been a decades-long through line.
Another reason things are playing out the way they are in the white evangelical world is that its leaders are giving in to the ancient temptation of proximity to political power, choosing to be court pastors in order to win the favor of the king. They are thrilled to be taken seriously, thrilled to be offered invitations to the halls of power, thrilled to be seen having influence in this world. In my years in politics, I’ve never found a group as easily seduced by political power as evangelicals….
There is also this unsettling fact: Too many people who claim to be Christians treat Jesus as a ‘hood ornament,’ to quote my friend Russell Moore. Christianity is for them an add-on, something they use to validate their preexisting ideological and partisan political beliefs. The Bible is useful to the extent that it acts as proof text for what they already believe.”
Praising Trump With Faint Damnation

5/27/24 – An older article that identifies a recurring weakness within conservatism. Tradition definitely has its place. For societies, it can create a sense of stability and continuity. It also gives us the opportunity to remember our ancestors, our compatriots and others who have helped shape our common history. It is filled with memory-making and memory-sharing. It brings us together in our shared identity and our shared humanity. However, maintaining tradition should not come at the expense of fundamental values, such as justice and accountability.
“But it was the church’s conservative instincts, the insistence on institutional loyalty, obedience and the absolute authority of clerics, that allowed the abuse to spread unpunished. What’s more, it was a conservative hierarchy’s bunker mentality that prevented the Vatican from reckoning with the scandal.”
A Time for Contrition

5/27/24 – Any day that honors our veterans and our shared history as Americans, whether indigenous or immigrant, recognizes the best aspects of the great country we’re building together. This is not the finest moment in our existence as an independent nation, but as long as the Statue of Liberty still stands, we’re still Americans. For as much as some people want or claim to see a multipolar world, it would be so only to a minimal extent. The United States is still regarded as the guardians of the free world. It’s an immense responsibility, and not one many of us really want. (Whenever any other country wants to bear this cross for us, please just let us know.) And the most demanding parts of it fall on our veterans. May we honor them and their sacrifices not just today but every day. May God bless them and keep them.

5/26/24 – “Napoleon Bonaparte once taunted a Catholic cardinal by threatening: ‘Your Eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?’ To which the cardinal quipped: ‘Your Majesty, we Catholic clergy have done our best to destroy the Church for the last eighteen hundred years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.’”
Nothing and nobody will ever succeed. The church are the followers of Jesus Christ. We are the followers of the way. He never abandoned us, and we will never abandon him. Two-thousand years later, Jesus is awe-inspiring, and the Spirit continues to work in mysterious ways. Glory be to God in the highest.

5/26/24 – A couple of excellent articles from The Atlantic if you’re actually interested in developing as a human being. Remember to take breaks from the tech and the politics to focus on living in the world, for others and for God. Also, everything that really matters in life takes work. It’s healthy work. Embrace it. Happy Sunday and enjoy the articles!

5/26/24 – “The growing phenomenon of the nones, however, is not evidence of a lack of interest in spiritual life. Many today who previously fell away from their faith—or never had one to begin with—are seeking something faith-like in their life. They are open to thinking about such commitments, but just don’t know what to look for. Maybe this describes you. If so, ironically, the research data on why people say they became nones in the first place might hold the answer of what to focus on to set you on your spiritual path.”
How to Find Your Faith

5/26/24 – “From their earliest days, the Dominicans have done battle with lies, folly, and ignorance, and what the Order of Preachers has taught to combat falsehood still serves today…. You have probably been told that college is a place you go to figure out your career plans and life ambitions—where you discover what your passion is, what you’re good at, and what the world needs specifically from you…. The second big lie you may have absorbed osmotically through the culture has to do with pain and suffering…. Perhaps the biggest lie of all that can hold back your life’s journey in the modern world is that you should seek your own individual truth in life.”
What Monastic Mystics Got Right About Life

5/21/24 – This is not the place for the battles of the day. We aren’t here to affirm or to condemn. We are just here in our moments together. People are diverse, and they are designed by their creator to be different. Both the extreme right and the extreme left are trying to make everyone uniform, wanting everyone to conform to their ideas, their thoughts and their ways of being in the world. You don’t have to agree with people. You don’t have to affirm them. You’re not their therapist. You also don’t need to condemn them. You’re not sovereign over them. Just be another human being living humbly alongside them.
If you’re worshipping together, focus on glorifying God together. If you’re studying together, focus on learning together. If you’re working together, focus on doing a great job together. If you’re doing creative work together, focus on making great art together. Nothing else matters. Can you do these things with someone that is of a different race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. from you? Or, for example, do you need the person to conform to your identity, your values, your whatever, before you can worship God together? If you do, then where is your relationship with God because God created the person with whom you can’t worship because the person doesn’t align with your preferences? So, who really needs to change?

5/21/24 – In Christianity, a well-directed spiritual journey is all about being closer to God. One does so, perhaps paradoxically, by being closer to other humans and all of God’s creation. One also does so by retreating from time to time from the world into quiet and contemplation. Humans and life in general can be exhausting. Like Jesus often did, sometimes, we just need to be with God by ourselves: read our Bible, pray our rosary, or just think about how amazing God and his creation is. Contemplation of the divine fills us with gratitude, love and peace. When we feel quite uncharitable to everyone because they can be so annoying, taking time to just be with God helps soften our hearts, replenishes our patience and gives us rest. Then, we can go back to building stronger relationships with humans, which brings us even closer to God. It can be a virtuous cycle.

5/19/24 – To the persecuted church, we love you. We pray for you all the time. You are our best. May God be with you always and forever. May he give you comfort: spiritual, emotional and physical. In many ways, Christianity is not an easy religion to practice correctly, but it’s worth it. They will know us by our love and by our unwillingness to abandon our God. In response to those who persecute you, for as hard as it can be, never seek revenge. Like our Lord, seek only truth and justice. God bless you all.
Open Doors USA
Barnabas Aid
The Voice of the Martyrs

5/19/24 – With respect for Pope Francis, he appeases too much. He concedes too much. Wear red for the martyrs of the faith: past, present and future. Christianity is worth risking everything for, including our lives. That’s what Jesus did for us. We either believe in him and in his teachings, or we don’t. We either trust God, or we don’t. Don’t do politics. Just do pure, uncompromising faith.
The Vatican’s Gamble With Beijing Is Costing China’s Catholics

5/19/24 – The temptation to abandon unwelcoming churches is common, particularly for people of color, LGBTQ+, and others. Don’t. If true Christians leave the church because it’s become dominated by social club Christians, with their spoiled, precious white children who they don’t want around nonwhite children, or even worse, “Christian” nationalists, who are not real Christians at all, then how can we reform the church? Reform doesn’t come easy, and it will never come if we quit and let them win. Think about the persecuted church, past and present. They sacrifice everything. We can deal with some discomfort. Reclaim, reform and rename in Jesus’s name because it’s his church. It belongs to him and, therefore, to those who genuinely want to follow him.

5/19/24 – Happy Birthday to the Church. The mother of Jesus, Mary, is also the mother of the Church. There would be no Christianity without her because there would be no Christ without her. If anyone tells you Christianity is a male-dominated religion, please remind them of these basic facts.

5/18/24 – If one is delusional enough to think that God needs an advocate, one is delusional enough to think that the evil one, trump, is the messiah. Tomorrow is Pentecost, one of the most important days in the liturgical calendar. It is the day that Mary the Mother of Jesus and the Apostles receive the Holy Spirit, the advocate that God sends to us because we are the ones who need an advocate, not God.
Neither MAGA nor the evil one, trump, are the chosen people. According to Christianity, the Chosen people were the Jewish people, but with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’s own actions during his ministry, any person can be saved. However, redemption is not guaranteed. Jesus alone is the judge. One is free to go through their lives in a state of delusion, but at the Last Judgment, what matters will be reality and truth.
Jesus is their savior, Trump is their candidate. Ex-president’s backers say he shares faith, values

5/18/24 – To all Christians everywhere: Serve the Lord, with a clarity of conscience, of heart, mind and soul, and nothing and no one else.

5/18/24 – As Christians, we often ask our Lord and our God, Jesus Christ, a Jew, to help us be instruments of his peace – his peace that he modeled and gave to us. We can’t do this if we can’t be absolutely honest with ourselves and with others about who we serve. If we are motivated by anything but truth and justice and serving our God, instead of being instruments of peace, we would be serving ourselves whether or not we realize it.
As Christians, we are called to love and support both the Jewish and the Palestinian people alike. It’s not either/or. It’s both. The truth is that the war against Hamas isn’t going well for the Israelis and the humanitarian cost to the Palestinians has been too high. The truth is that many Israeli and American Jews have spoken out about it. Many Israeli Jews have protested their own government’s policies, and recently, the Israeli Defense establishment has spoken out publicly against Netanyahu’s leadership or lack thereof.
Netanyahu’s selfish motivations are nothing new, and he is yet another among several authoritarian leaders, such as the Russian, the Chinese, and the Indian ones, and of course, the evil one, trump, who put their interests above the interests of their country, the people they are supposed to serve, and the world more generally.
The protestors and others among American liberalism are choosing to ignore these truths, the internal dissent within Israelis and the Jewish diaspora. Acknowledging it would complicate their neat narrative of us versus them: Palestinians good, Jews, bad. But of course, the protestors are not motivated to be instruments of peace. They are motivated by something else, something that ultimately serves them, but like David French’s piece below, they just can’t see it.
The Israeli Defense Establishment Revolts Against Netanyahu

5/18/24 – The Atlantic has taken what is, at present, an unpopular stance in the liberal press and in liberal circles. It pushed back against a rising tide of anti-Semitism, especially on the extreme left. Even prior to this particular inflection point, The Atlantic was more moderate than other mainstream publications. In journalism, it takes courage to go against a prevailing narrative or popular perspective, but one that is morally wrong, and The Atlantic deserves recognition for doing so.
Tuesday, May 7 marked the 2024 Days of Remembrance Commemoration, to remember the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. If one is dispassionate, nothing in our evaluation of the war against Hamas should change the horror of the Holocaust. There are no two sides about the Holocaust or anti-Semitism. They are pure evil.
The protests on college campuses are not primarily driven by morality and humanitarianism. They are driven by tribalism and trends. They don’t seek truth, justice or reconciliation. They seek attention, and the liberal press gave it to them. The press also often gave the protestors their implicit support in their coverage.
Don’t Both-Sides This One, Joe

5/18/24 – David French should be commended for being honest and open. As Christians, if our faith has been practiced correctly, we should be primed for brutally honest introspection in any and all contexts. What else is an examination of conscience? How can we have a good relationship with God if we can’t even recognize our own sinfulness? By doing so, we naturally better understand our own souls and psychology, and we also better understand human psychology more generally.
One of the greatest threats of tribalism is that it obscures truth. If one is blinded or biased by loyalty, to oneself or to others, how can one be honest or objective? As Christians, we are called to be loyal to one and only one entity – our God. We are called to be committed to God, and with it, to truth, to see oneself and the world without fear or favor and through the eyes of the divine.
I Was a Republican Partisan. It Altered the Way I Saw the World.

5/17/24 – This summer (We’re only a few weeks away. Time flies!), instead of scrolling like an idiot on your phone and wasting away your brain, do something creative. Especially, do something with language, i.e., spoken/written languages, but also music. Duolingo, which can be free, is rather logically branching out beyond spoken/written languages to include math and music. (Math is also a language.) Libraries sometimes lend musical instruments, or you could try Buy Nothing or Craig’s List. Learning any of these types of languages is very good for your brain, and as importantly, connects us in healthy ways with other people and cultures.
You can also do creative writing, make visual art, or dance. If you don’t have a lot of money, just check out books by great artists from your local library or go to museums when they are free and copy the images. You just need pencil and paper. Take a dance class. They can be a little expensive. See if they offer a discount rate. YouTube has free videos that teach dance and music. You could also do gardening, which is basically painting with plants.
All of these activities also require patience, persistence and consistency, which are some of the most important traits to develop as a human being. The creative arts is the learning that makes you complete. Don’t cheat yourself out of it because you’re too “busy” mucking around on your phone or because you think academics is the only thing that matters. Academics and the arts are complementary. It’s not either/or. It’s both.

5/16/24 – Sometimes, one just wants to listen to a black (negro) spiritual. No autotune, as it should always be. Just a talented woman with a beautiful voice. Enjoy!
 Joan Baez – Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Live, 1969)

5/15/24 – Sometimes, one just wants to listen to some Mozart. Music is universal. It can be made, played and appreciated by anyone. Enjoy!
Gloria from Twelfth Mass by W A Mozart. Conducted By James Varrick Armaah

5/14/24 – Ora et labora. Laborare est orare. “God instituted prayer in order to allow his creatures the dignity of causality,” Pascal. We can’t be both puppets and people. However, we can be and are independent people yet also God’s children under his care. The exercise of God’s discretionary power is a mystery. Accept it, and keep praying.
Work and Prayer by C.S. Lewis Doodle

5/14/24 – The theory of evolution in a nutshell: Correlation is causation. We share a bunch of genes with other forms of life. Thus, we came out of the same source of life, the primordial soup, which will remain unspecified. Life evolves based on survival of the fittest. We are motivated by this result and this one alone. Like other animals on the planet: Kill or be killed. Of course, there is no prayer. There is no mystery. There is no morality. There is only might.

5/13/24 – Let’s do everything we can in every way that we can to triumph over evil, and the evil one, trump. Let’s also pray, pray and pray some more, and put our faith in God. It’s not either/or. It’s both.

5/13/24 – Not as well-known as some of Serge Gainsbourg’s many hits, such as Bonnie and Clyde or Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais, but it might come in handy on say, November 5, 2024. Don’t let us down, America. Don’t let the world down. Everything is at stake.
Serge Gainsbourg – Requiem Pour Un Con [Orange]

5/13/24 – Protests aren’t always in the streets. Arguably the most effective protests are just doing the Lord’s work day in and day out. They are directing our gifts in the myriad of forms they take to help good prevail against evil.
“The more expansive work on the album is a 44-minute symphony for violin and orchestra titled Dedication. Who’s it dedicated to? Lyndon-Gee, writing in the album’s booklet, treats it as an homage to the ‘life-force’ of the human race — which encompasses not only tragedy, but also love and renewal.”
What’s past is present for Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov
If you want to help, you can’t just virtue-signal. That’s actually not helpful. What’s helpful is understanding that human beings are often walking contradictions. It’s rolling up your sleeves and doing the work in spite of or because of this truth. “‘I am so distracted,’ Zielinski says. ‘I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. If I’m doing one thing right, I’m just forcing myself to do it, forcing myself to bring myself to that space knowing that faith in God will fill in the rest.’… He looks for God in the world, in the suffering, in the daily work, in others. ‘Thy will be done,’ he prays. ‘Take the work of my hands today and the mistakes I make. Remedy them. Take the good that I do, augment it, and let it be.’”
Inside the prayers of a middle manager at a Denver family shelter saving — and turning away — homeless families

5/12/24 – The men and women start singing separately but end up singing in unison. Some paradoxes make a whole. Happy Ascension Sunday!
Christus Paradox | Alfred Fedak / Sylvia Dunstan

5/12/24 – The number of times we have wept for Ukraine’s children, it’s countless. On this Mother’s Day, let’s collectively weep for the world’s children who have been abused, neglected, tortured or killed. The world’s children, our children, who have insufficient food and water, housing, health care, education, or other basic necessities of life.
They came out of their mother’s womb as God’s perfect creation, just as they are, and our imperfect world that doesn’t adequately value life, human and all life, treated them like pawns and commodities. It treated them as disposable. Our children are our collective treasure and responsibility, and we are failing them.
The mothers of Ukraine need you

5/11/24 – Americans are an industrious people. We hustle. We work really hard. God bless you all (even MAGA) for contributing to our great country. Remember to rest though. That’s also important. (To MAGA, don’t vote for the evil one, trump, and don’t waste your hard-earned money on a loser. You’re better than him.)

5/11/24 – This Mother’s Day, please pray for Ukrainian mothers, who along with their husbands and children have sacrificed so much to remain free and democratic. They are a testament to courage, resilience and strength. We admire and respect them. They inspire us. Slava Ukraini!
Also, please consider donating to United24, or purchasing some cool merch, especially the vyshyvanka or MUGA (because it’s sass) hat or t-shirt, from Saint Javelin. If you’re unable to donate or make a purchase at this time, you could spend some time learning about Ukraine, its culture and its people, or sending emails or letters to them to show them that our support is steadfast. They need to hear from us. They need to know that we’re still here for them. We’re Americans, after all. Like Ukrainians, we persevere.

5/9/24 – Let the body of Christ model unity for the rest of the world. Let us be instruments of God’s peace. Let’s have more interdenominational and interfaith exchanges and events. Let’s show the world that love doesn’t have boundaries. Instead, it reaches across divides.

5/9/24 – Churches are a feast for the senses and for life. They are beautiful and complete. They do everything. You can volunteer your time and talent and donate your money to help people materially and physically. You can help yourself and others spiritually.
They are also a sensory delight. Our churches are still patrons of the arts. They commission works while being architectural works of art in and of themselves, with their grand, elegant spaces. They have incense, organs, and incredible music. Perhaps most importantly, they have pews to rest your weary body or to kneel in silence with God and find peace.
Vespers of Ascension was today. Even if you’re not a terribly religious person, the sensory experiences in our religious spaces will help you come into your body, mind and soul in ways nothing else can. God is great. God is good. We are so blessed.

5/6/24 – Our diversity is part of God’s creation, and it’s a thing of beauty. From Catholics to our Evangelical sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus liked to have fun too. Have a drink, listen to some good music, sing, dance (it’s OK if you suck at either or both, nobody cares) and relax. Everything will be OK (or we’ll all die in the apocalypse, but that’ll be OK too). Just don’t vote for evil people, like the evil one, trump. Don’t sell your soul to the devil.
PS All the limited edition vinyl is gone. Don’t bother. The Black Keys, consistently good.
The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High) (“Official” Video)

5/6/24 – Pope Francis is a man of the people. He understands human frailties. He is compassionate and kind. And apparently, he likes a good empanada. Who can blame him? Let the pastoral pros just do their jobs in peace. To the haters, please find something productive and helpful to do. Maybe spend less time on politics, conspiracy theories and the end of times obsessions, and more time on tending to the needs of your flock and your communities.
How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers

5/5/24 – We can spend our whole lives trying to decipher the mystery of creation, in its tremendous diversity, but we will never really understand it. No matter whether people are gay, trans, black, white, whatever, as Christians we are called to love. The New Testament goes to great lengths to teach us this. Pope Francis was entirely correct to welcome transgender sex workers. We are always to reach out to the marginalized. It’s what Jesus did and would do. Expressing compassion doesn’t mean you agree with other people’s words, actions or ways of being in the world. We don’t need to pretend to believe in false things, but we do need to be compassionate and kind. Be like Jesus. Happy Sunday!
They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love

5/4/24 – Unless one is completely delusional, typically speaking, one’s identity is connected to their physical person. It’s true of race. It’s even more true of gender. You can pretend you’re white when you’re really black, but people will think you’re crazy and will still think and treat you like you’re black. You can pretend to be black when you’re actually white, but people will think you’re crazy and will rightly criticize you.
Obviously, many people don’t fit neatly into a race. For example, what race are Indians, Middle Easterners or Latinos? The truth is that most of us don’t fall cleanly into the three main categories we have created for race: black, white and Asian, but most of us do fall into some category. Indians are Indians. Middle Easterners are Middle Easterners, and Latinos are Latinos. Most of us put ourselves into the category that best aligns with our genetic composition, our DNA, to the best of our understanding. We usually base this on our knowledge of our heritage and lineage, and what we can physically see about ourselves.
No matter the actual complexities and overlap of these categories, the natural genetic mixture has always been formed with a man and a woman creating new life. It is never anything but a biological man and a woman, and this needs to remain so. Biological sex is dichotomous, divided into two distinct categories. There are two complementary reproductive organs that come together to divinely form new human life. This is not to be scientifically experimented with, or all human life will be threatened.
If people are born with one set of reproductive organs and want to identify with the opposite sex, they are, of course, free to do so, but it is also unsurprising that the general public will receive it even more critically than people claiming to be a different race than what they actually are. To criticize people for not going along with black is white, up is down, right is wrong, is to claim to love truth but only when truth loves you back the way you want to be loved. That’s not how truth works, and that’s not how reality works. What is simply is. Would you like to be white when you’re black? Well, you’re not, and claiming to be white doesn’t make it so. Bleaching your skin won’t make it so either. Your DNA doesn’t change, and your DNA is the truth. That’s the truth. That’s also the science.
If one is looking at a penis, but the person identifies as a woman, well, this is obviously a disorder. The person’s physical reality and their psychology identity are not in alignment. Therefore, the reason people are accommodating what is obviously not genetically true is out of a sense of compassion, an understanding that the person suffers from a disorder. We are not pretending that reality isn’t actually reality because that would make us all crazy.
This is not the same thing as being sexually attracted to someone of the same sex. For gender identity disorder to fall under an umbrella category of homosexuality is simply wrong. No matter how one feels about the morality regarding homosexuality, it is not a psychological disorder. There is no misunderstanding of or detachment from reality. The reality is that homosexuals are attracted to the same sex.
There are people who might say that homosexuals’ brain chemistry is off, or they feel this way, but they shouldn’t, or they shouldn’t act on it or whatever, but any of these judgments are still based on the person, in reality, being attracted to the same sex. There is no incongruity with respect to their genetic composition. In fact, the genetic reality is part of the definition of homosexual or heterosexual.
Everybody needs to stop being emotionally driven about everything. Look at what is and what isn’t. The idea is to be as clear as possible in one’s thinking. One can’t do that when one’s thinking is clouded by one’s emotions. Also, stop following social trends. Groupthink doesn’t make you smart. It makes you shallow and stupid.
Psychiatrists learned the wrong lesson from the gay rights movement

5/3/24 – Animals aren’t just animals. They are God’s creation. Like all of us, they belong to him. “He said to them: ‘My brother and sister birds, you should praise your Creator and always love him: He gave you feathers for clothes, wings to fly and all other things that you need. It is God who made you noble among all creatures, making your home in thin, pure air. Without sowing or reaping, you receive God’s guidance and protection.’”
St. Francis and the Animals

5/3/24 – On a day-to-day basis, Americans are remarkably polite and helpful in their in-person interactions. Foreigners routinely comment on it. Although we could be better at greeting each other before asking questions, as is the culture in much of Europe, Americans are more polite overall. They regularly say “please” and “thank you.” They open doors for each other. They are considerably more helpful.
However, when they’re in their cars driving, which creates a certain illusion of anonymity, they become less polite. When they’re behind a screen, which has even more anonymity, they can become obscene. What happens when this natural human tendency meets a man intent on manipulating it for his own gain? An entire nation can collapse. That is what we’re watching unfold in real-time.
Stop with the extremism. Have real conversations with real people in real time. Get some fresh air. Go birding. Be like St. Francis and talk with our animal friends. Be weird in a cute way instead of crazy in a dangerous way.

5/3/24 – Wow! Look at that beautiful bird. Blue rock-thrush. Lucky photographer.
Hobbyist photographer snaps photo of extremely rare bird in 1st U.S. sighting

5/3/24 – Millennials and Gen Z are destroying the fashion industry with their bad taste and addiction to fast fashion. It’s also damaging our planet. Just buy well-made clothes and shoes, which don’t have to be expensive, and wear them until they wear out. If they stop fitting, donate them. Bring your shoes and boots to the cobbler. Mend your clothes or repurpose the material. High-quality brand names are feeling economic stress because of them.

Notes from Underground – April 2024

4/30/24 – It is good to think about one’s identity, but use actually meaningful sentences. Stop slapping labels on yourself like you’re merchandise marketing yourself to a public that speaks in strings of single words. Present yourself like a unique individual not like a caricature of all things trending. It is quite annoying and meaningless. Happy Tuesday!

4/30/24 – As a country, we need to find a reasonable compromise on abortion that both respects the rights and the needs of the mother with (equal) respect for the sanctity of life. Figure it out.

4/30/24 – Considering all things, since gender dysphoria is a gender identity disorder, wouldn’t it make more sense to treat is with neurological and/or psychological treatments than with physical alteration?

4/28/24 – Birds make everything better and more beautiful. Happy Sunday!

4/28/24 – To escape is sometimes to just look at the beauty and the art in the world around you.

4/28/24 – Other ancient civilizations, for example, those in Asia, such as in India and China, and in Africa, such as in Egypt, which to a certain degree represents the Arab world more broadly, don’t get adequate recognition.
The focus tends to be on what is characterized as the western ancient world, Greece and especially, Italy, which was particularly powerful and influential in the west. However, other ancient civilizations have also had great influence, especially in other parts of the world.
These beautiful pictures capture the romance of the intersection of the ancient and the modern in Cairo, Egypt. If we lived in the world we deserve to live in, one of peace and a truly shared humanity, we would all be able to better appreciate the timeless artistry of kilim rugs, the delicate loveliness of minarets, and the intricate beauty of Islamic and Arabic art and architecture. If we lived in the world we all deserve to live in, we would be able to live in our shared heritage by sharing it with each other as a people of God.
It went viral because we all want this, whether or not we (fully) realize it. “The next day, he was surprised to find that the post had gone viral. People all over the world were resharing it across social media. ‘It evoked emotional reactions of comfort and tranquility, nostalgia and connection,’ he says.”
These dreamy photos of historical Cairo will transport you to another time

4/28/24 – A beautiful piece that speaks eloquently to the universal truth below, while capturing the particular spiritual and earthly journey of the Jewish people. Jewish artists often grapple with the tension of that truth by trying to capture the eternal nature of their spiritual sanctuary, their tabernacle, their ancestral land, which is the state of Israel, and the realities of the Jewish experience in its myriad migratory forms, those due to persecution or war, but also those simply in search of opportunity and a touch of wanderlust. There are many similarities to others’ experiences, and to recognize this truth is to recognize our shared humanity.
“The experience or memory of the modern Jewish artist has included the shared reality of pogroms, wars, persecution, and a modern-day version of Biblical wanderings. Jewish artists’ work intertwined with the reality of the time, as with Felix Nussbaum, the Polish painter who later moved to Berlin and eventually died in Auschwitz with his wife, also an artist. His work reflects wide-eyed fear, as in his 1943, ‘Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card.’
And thousands of years after the wanderings of the Jewish people in the desert, some critics understand Mark Rothko’s large canvases with blocks of color as a modern day tabernacle. In this way, Rothko, as with many Jewish artists, was both creating a sanctuary serving as a place of worship and also a mobile place, reflecting the enduring reality of wandering in the history of the Jewish people.”
Jewish Art: A Brief History

4/28/24 – In this polarized era, it’s more important than ever to remember that there is no us and them. The truth is that there is just us, and by us, that means all life. Just look at the known universe for proof. We are all immigrants or migrants, even those of us who have lineages that go back millennia to our ancestral lands because we are all guests on a planet we had no role in creating. We are here by God’s invitation, and our time on our temporary home has an end date. From dust we were made, to dust we shall return.

4/23/24 – It just passed…finally. Slava Ukraini! (Please excuse the dysfunction in the USA. What can we say? It’s a miserable and unnecessary state of affairs.)

4/23/24 – Foreign aid packages need to be brought to the floor separately. It’s not fair to the countries involved or to the American people to package them like this. Ukraine and Taiwan are easy. (The only reason MAGA Republicans are taking issue with Ukraine is because they are traitors, sympathetic to the russian poop and followers of the evil one, trump.) Israel is not easy. There is no compromise on Israel belonging to the Jewish people, however, the war is unacceptable as it is currently being conducted.

4/23/24 – It’s a bit surreal to watch Bernie Sanders, a Jew, fighting for Palestinians during Passover. He is right that the war stopped being (exclusively) about Hamas. Update: He just said that he would vote no…of course.

4/22/24 – It is important to note that there are many good journalists, some of whom risk their lives to tell important stories and help us protect our rights, freedoms and democracy.

4/22/24 – The propaganda has lost the public trust. It’s going to be hard to get it back.

4/22/24 – “What’s happening there? Why is NPR telling me what to think?” Right. As every educator knows, it’s a lot easier to think for your students or to tell them what to think than to teach them how to think for themselves.

4/22/24 – The propaganda, who generally hate Christianity, might consider that the Pope routinely dresses down the clergy in rather humiliating, public fashion. Where is the dressing down of the propaganda? At least, we have these couple examples of well-deserved criticism.
I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
Chasing sensationalism contributed to the evil one, trump’s, win.
Trump, Project 2025, the Supreme Court and the Election with Hillary Rodham Clinton
Oh yes, and we all still notice that the propaganda also serves as Taylor Swift’s advertising campaign.

4/21/24 – Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. Billy Graham was a man of deep faith, who genuinely loved the Lord and brought millions to Christianity. However, the church is mostly made up of clergy who quietly do the Lord’s work day in and day out. They are the good shepherd who tend to their flock. They go to their people in or out of distress, sometimes in the middle of the night, for births to deaths and everything in between. We appreciate them, but we don’t thank them enough. To our good shepherds, thank you. You help us heal our brokenness with your wisdom, kindness, love and compassion.

4/21/24 – The church is incredibly diverse. How could it not be? It spans the globe and has billions of believers. This is an interesting article about the misuse of the term “evangelical.”
The Line Between Good and Evil Cuts Through Evangelical America

4/21/24 – Truth: You can’t be freed from suffering. Anyone who’s telling you that you can be freed from suffering is lying to you. Signed, simply being human.

4/21/24 – Happy Sunday!

4/21/24 – The Vatican is correct as it relates to human dignity. It is very important to maintain the organic, natural nature of human beings. Once that is destroyed, the continued existence of the human species will be gravely threatened. Within liberals, there is a paradox that they simultaneously want a more natural world, free of chemicals, the torture of animals, the extraction of fossil fuels, etc., but when it comes to preserving the natural order of humans, our own species, they go full-blown scientism. Whether or not one agrees with the Vatican, it is much more consistent than either liberals or conservatives.

4/19/24 – The logic was something along the lines of: If the other party is fighting, we’re winning. Really!? Is that how that works? In that case, who needs foreign enemies. They just need partisanship, right? The reason we do the right thing is because we are people with integrity. You don’t capitalize on other people’s mistakes to try to elevate yourself. It just ends up bringing you and, in this case, the country and the world down. It wasn’t the right thing to do. It was wrong.

4/19/24 – Flashback Friday.
10/25/23 – This. They didn’t get the evil one, but they got someone who’s worse than McCarthy. “10/4/23 – Apparently, they are planning to nominate the evil one, trump, for speaker. So, if they do so, what will Democrats do? Or they didn’t bother to think through their position? 10/4/23 – McCarthy also prevented the federal government from shutting down. If one is going to say a bunch of negative things that are entirely correct, one does also need to acknowledge the positive things that are also correct. There are certain people who are evil, such as the evil one, Trump, and one doesn’t need to do this with them. But McCarthy isn’t evil. He’s actually a rather run-of-the-mill politician. “Kevin McCarthy gave up his soul not for Wales but for something worse—Donald Trump. It will be of little comfort to McCarthy to know he’s hardly the only one to have done so.” Didn’t the evil one want the shutdown? McCarthy was punished immediately after he did the right thing and prevented it. Tell us: how do reinforcement and punishment work? What message does this send to other Republicans who do the right thing? Encourage the behavior you want to see in others.
Kevin McCarthy Got What He Deserved
10/18/23 – Taking a cynical, calculated approach to Republican dysfunction is not the way to go. Jim Jordon as Speaker is not a good outcome for the country and, therefore, for Democrats. They should have helped McCarthy keep his job, or find some suitable Republican alternative. Do the right thing and stop with the machinations or indulging in schadenfreude. Grow up!
10/2/23 – If need be, Democrats need to vote for McCarthy so that he can retain his job. We need to move beyond politics and start solving our problems. We need to work together as Americans and as global citizens.

4/19/24 – Too much politics. Not enough principles. Too much tech. Not enough analog. Too much social media. Not enough real-world interaction. Etc.

4/19/24 – We said a long time ago that Democrats should have crossed the aisle for McCarthy. They did not. Think about how much misery they would have saved Ukraine and others if they had done the right thing from the start.

4/16/24 – Much is uncertain. One thing is certain. Extreme liberals will destroy life on the planet with their scientism (science worship), aided and abetted by the propaganda.

4/13/24 – One idea to help revitalize rural areas and small towns is for them to invest in charging stations for EVs. This would help both the environment and these areas, as people could spend time and money in them while their vehicles charged up.
Also, this article/podcast addresses several questions about EVs.
You asked, we answered: Your questions about electric vehicles

4/10/24 – Yes, it’s a propaganda event, but only for a country that prides itself on state-sanctioned baby rapists, sodomizing rapists, rapists more generally, and, of course, torturers. A country that no longer produces anything of any value to the world. A country that has become a full-blown kleptocracy. A country that violently represses its own people. A country whose leaders care about nothing else but power and money. That’s the modern Russian state. It’s sick and sad.
“‘To be able to show off an American citizen who has chosen to reinvent themselves, to reform themselves and become a part of the Russian war machine seems to provide evidence that Russia is winning a much bigger spiritual war,’ he said.” Sure, Russia is winning a “spiritual war,” but only if you’re on the side of evil.
US military veteran accused of having explicit images of a child apparently joined Russian army
“Kamardin, 33, recited a poem condemning Russia-backed insurgents in eastern Ukraine. The next day, police with a search warrant burst into the apartment he shared with his wife Alexandra Popova and another friend, and took the poet into custody. Police beat Kamardin, Popova and their flatmate, and raped the poet, both his wife and his lawyer said.”
A lonely radio nerd. A poet. Vladimir Putin’s crackdown sweeps up ordinary Russians

4/10/24 – The evil one, trump, doesn’t give a crap about abortion. He’s a self-serving lunatic who’s desperate to stay out of prison.

4/10/24 – The world needs fewer people and more animals. Happy Wednesday!

4/2/24 – One shouldn’t get everything their way. Part of being a mature, reasonable person is conceding even if you might be right. Grace has tremendous value. It is dignified. It is love.

4/2/24 – Some more great pictures from Easter.
AP Photos: Easter Sunday around the world

4/2/24 – The way many Israelis and its government have treated both Palestinian Christians and Muslims is not correct. Also, this war is not well-executed, and it has turned into at least as much a quest for revenge as for justice. Netanyahu is a terrible person. (We also had a terrible leader, the evil one, trump, so we can sympathize with the Israelis who would like to get rid of him but can’t.) There have been too many innocent lives lost, harmed or displaced, including the tragic deaths of the workers with World Central Kitchen. May their courageous, humanitarian souls rest in peace.
Do all reasonable people wish there were peace in the Middle East? Of course, we do, but if people think the problems in the Middle East are isolated to Israel, they are not. That is simply fiction. Christians have fled the entire Levant due to war, persecution, discrimination, or Israeli’s restrictions. The rest of the Middle East, which also holds considerable religious significance for Christians, has treated them even worse than Israel has.
The propaganda would know this if they followed the persecuted church at all, but they don’t. So please spare us the anti-Semitism masquerading as deep concern for Christians. The propaganda hates Christianity, and we all know it. They also hate Islam because they hate religion in general. So, if you’re Muslim, don’t fool yourselves.
This is not actually about Muslims or Palestine. It’s actually about many liberals’ hatred and jealousy of the Jewish people. Look at how white people, especially Europeans, have treated them throughout history. Their fragile white egos can’t handle a successful ethnic group that is not white.
Israel belongs to the Jewish people. Period. Not Christians. Not Muslims. Ideally, all three Abrahamic religions could live there in peace and religious harmony, but that doesn’t seem to be the way things are playing out. This is quite unfortunate, and there is much blame to go around. Is it what Christians want? No, it’s not, but the right thing to do is to respect that the land belongs to the Jewish people and just leave if we can’t make this work.
Don’t begrudge the Jewish people. Christians and Muslims would have no religion without them. This is also a historical fact. It’s not worth it to continue to fight like this. Let the Jewish people have their land. Let them have peace. We can’t have peace in the world without grace and love. This is a way to express love of God, whether Christian or Muslim, by showing the Jewish people, who have been persecuted throughout history, some grace.

4/2/24 – God bless the persecuted church around the world, today and every day. God loves them with a deep and abiding love. May our God of hope sustain them physically, emotionally and spiritually. Pray for them, our true believers in Christ.

4/2/24 – One of the paradoxes of Christianity is that (then and perhaps still now) the people who were best suited to adopt its beliefs were the Jewish people. Why? Because, aside from Jesus as the Messiah, which they don’t believe unless they are Messianic Jews, the vast majority of Christianity’s beliefs and traditions came directly out of Judaism, and everybody else were Gentiles, who, at the time, had no spiritual formation in Christianity’s core tenets.
When Constantine converted to Christianity, he had no knowledge of the faith because he wasn’t a Jew. He was a pagan, who came to believe in monotheism while still not fully understanding the Jewish theological concept of one God. He also didn’t initially know the Christian rites that existed from the beginning, such as baptism, or its moral expectations, such as the Ten Commandments. He routinely violated the commandments, such as murdering his own wife and son, and procrastinated on baptism to avoid going to hell.
How is this still relevant 2,000 years later? For as surprising as it might be, because there is still considerable ignorance about the faith, its beliefs and demands, and ironically, especially from the “Christian Nationalists,” who sometimes still worship Nordic or pagan gods. Also, looking at the state of Christianity in Europe, the supposed cradle of Christianity, it is clear that its strong pagan streak, presently manifested as hedonism and/or science worship, is particularly obstinate among the self-described superior white race.
“Christian Nationalism” is a political movement with allusions to a religion that they barely understand. The degree of Constantine’s sincerity is debatable. Likely, it was a combination of genuine belief, however flawed in its understanding, and political ambition. MAGA are generally less sincere in the faith, and they reveal their theological and historical ignorance regularly.
Where Constantine ended the persecution of Christians and maintained religious freedom for all even while establishing Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, MAGA are damaging the faith in their quest for political power and by forcing their more extreme religious values on a secular, diverse society.
Lastly, Constantine may have confused Jesus Christ with Sol Invictus, the son god, but it was at the origins of the faith, i.e. about 1,700 years ago, and at least it was still a god, not an evil, dangerous demagogue. What is obvious to many observers, even the nonreligious who don’t know much about Christianity, of our bizarre, modern-day religious saga is that MAGA treats the evil one, trump, like their messiah, casting aside Christians’ true Messiah, Jesus Christ. There is a Commandment about this. It’s the first one because it’s the most important.

4/2/24 – Everyone needs to stop rewriting facts and history according to what matches their feelings or views. Everything is hard enough. It’s obnoxious and intellectually and morally wrong. Knock it off!

4/2/24 – God loves Palestinians and Israelis alike, but Jesus was not a Palestinian Jew. Thou shall not give false testimony. He was a Hebrew, an Israelite from the land of what was then Judea. He was not Palestinian. There were Jews, and everybody else were Gentiles. Palestinians were Gentiles. They are Arabs. The Romans were colonizers. Everybody knows this, and it’s right there in the Bible. Stop making things up! Judea was and is Jewish land. Accept it, and move on.
This Easter, let’s not try to pretend Jesus was a ‘Palestinian Jew’

4/2/24 – To all of the overt and covert racists who think black people are inferior, just sit your ignorant a—es down. You know nothing. There is no evidence to support these views. Black people are beautiful, smart and talented. They are a gift to the world, and God loves them as they are.

4/1/24 – That’s fun. They looked amazing! There are some churches where entire African families will come dressed from head to toe in the same beautiful African prints. Lovely, and so cute! Everybody is welcome to our churches, especially the poor and marginalized, no matter how they’re dressed. We come dressed not to impress others with worldly things, but to show our respect to the God we love. It’s great when people come dressed well, and when immigrants come dressed in their home country’s traditional attire. It puts on full display the diversity of the Body of Christ.
These parishioners showed off their “Sunday’s best” this weekend

4/1/24 – Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” He is.

4/1/24 – Our civilization has taken millennia to develop. It can be destroyed in seconds. Remain humble and faithful to the Lord. All glory is fleeting.

4/1/24 – Before we have to return to the insane asylum that is American politics and other worldly preoccupations, let’s reflect on what was a soul-reviving Holy Week. It was a much-needed blessing and break from a world gone mad.
One would be forgiven for thinking of Christianity as a “white man’s religion,” but as the late Billy Graham said, it’s not. One of the many intriguing questions is: why did Rome become arguably the center of the faith, in which resides Vatican City, even though Paul and Jesus’s disciples evangelized throughout the world: the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa? Within what we now consider to be Europe or “the west,” why wasn’t the center Greece?
Perhaps Jesus, who most historians and theologians understand to be a brown Jew, meaning neither white nor Roman, thought that “the white man” most needed to hear his message. Rome was the center of earthly power. Also, wouldn’t it be poignant if the very people who put Jesus to death were conquered by him? (No, it wasn’t the Jews. Stop with the anti-Semitism. Ultimately, Pontius Pilate was in charge of the province of Judea, and he made the call.) This reversal of power for the ancient persecuted church in Rome is often attributed to Constantine’s conversion, but perhaps it should actually be credited to God.
The Roman Empire is no longer. Italy is a small fraction of what was once that mighty empire, but Christianity has come to dominate the world. One can find it almost everywhere on the planet. It takes different expressions influenced by the people and the culture that make the universal religion its own.
Linguistically, in the Catholic Church, there is often a considerable amount of Latin, some Greek, and some Spanish during standard masses. The language Jesus spoke, however, was Aramaic, which is most closely related to Hebrew and Syriac, all three of which are Semitic languages. Syriac and the Syriac rite are still spoken and practiced in Eastern churches.
That said, both Greek and Latin played a considerable role in the early church, but the closest language to Latin, which was the language of the Roman Empire, that is spoken in the Catholic Church as part of its standard Liturgy of the Word or of the Eucharist is actually Spanish, since it’s a Romance language. It is definitely not English.
There is also the outstanding question: exactly how “white” are Italians and Greeks anyway? They certainly don’t seem genetically as “white” as the people from England to which a certain political camp is peddling American exceptionalism. The Pilgrims and Puritans were Northern Europeans, who hadn’t experienced conquest from, for example, the Moors of Africa. They were much more likely to be raided by Vikings to their north.
Therefore, genetically, ethnically, and linguistically white people don’t have any special inheritance to Christianity. In addition, Romans came to dominate Christianity through power and politics, starting with Constantine. This is obviously contrary to the message of Christianity, but the arc of this worldly power was relatively flat and short in comparison to the high and long arc of Christianity’s divine power.
MAGA’s claims to Christianity are, as usual, absurd and detached from historical and other evidence. More generally, the cross isn’t a flag, a country, a culture, a language, a people or a genetic ancestry. It is the most powerful expression of God’s love in human history. It is a love that we don’t deserve but was given to us nonetheless. To use this love to spread hate again goes contrary to Jesus’s message. If we are to escape from our self-inflicted misery, there is only one way – the way of the cross, and this way, this truth, this life belongs to the world, from the beginning to the end, from the alpha to the omega, no matter the language, culture or people.
AP Photos: Young and old participate in Holy Week religious processions on Italy’s Procida island
Good Friday in Latin America
Hours to make and seconds to destroy, Holy Week flower carpets are a labor of love in Guatemala