Autobiography Archives - The Billy Lee Pontificator

November 16, 2014April 3, 2022

RACISM

In 1958 when I was a fourth grader our family moved to Quonset Point, Rhode Island where my dad was soon promoted to lead HS-11, one of the Navy jet-helicopter squadrons defending the east coast from attack by Russian submarines.

We moved to Quonset Point with some trepidation because Hoskins Park — the housing project for military families in those days (now sold, redeveloped, and renamed Wickford Point) — had a long waiting list; we didn’t know where we would live or if we could afford off-base housing.

As it turned out, we got a lucky break. A Navy Lieutenant — who was a Negro — moved his family into Hoskins Park. Some white officers found out and decided their families weren’t going to live in non-segregated housing. As a result, vacancies popped-up, and we got in; we moved-in next door to the Negro officer and his family.

In 1958, my family moved to Quonset Point, Rhode Island. Inexpensive on-base housing was overcrowded. We didn’t know where we would live, or if we could afford to live anywhere.

Lieutenant Brown, his wife and two daughters, lived in the two-story, condo-style apartment on the other side of a thin concrete wall from us.

Despite the custom that white and black families didn’t fraternize in those days, eventually I had encounters, conversations, and interactions with all the members of the Brown family.

Over time, I came to understand how traumatized they were, each in their own way, living in a country that, basically, isolated and mistreated them.

Guess-Whos-Coming-to-Dinner — My parents accepted an invitation to the Brown’s for dinner — an event that had all the drama of the movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, released nine years later, in 1967.

One encounter involved my parents. The Browns invited them for dinner to get acquainted, and after agonizing about it, Mom and Dad accepted. I think Dad wanted to check them out; to make sure his kids would be “safe” living next door.

After the meal, Dad reported that the Lieutenant’s wife, Jean (Alston), was a good cook, but he couldn’t shake a queasy feeling in his stomach, which spoiled his appetite. He had never interacted with negroes, except servants (everyone called black people negroes in the 1950s); he certainly had not eaten food at the same table. And, unlike my dad, Mr. Brown was a graduate of the Naval Academy.

In that sense, the lieutenant kind of outranked him. According to dad, Academy graduates favored one another and worked hard to help each other achieve promotions. They put non-Academy graduates (like dad) to great disadvantage in the competition for rank, which was fierce inside the Navy.

A black Academy graduate presented a dilemma. Brown was a graduate of the elite Naval Academy with all its privileges and protections; at the same time, he belonged to a race that was, to put it politely, undervalued both by the Navy and the country at large. It was unfamiliar terrain for dad and made him uncomfortable. I remember my parents writing a thank-you note to the Brown’s for their hospitality but as far as I know, they didn’t return an invitation.

Another incident occurred a few weeks later that changed the way I thought about people and what they sometimes go through. It happened on a day when my fourth-grade teacher decided to punish me for violation of good-citizenship. I sassed her, she claimed, because I insisted — in a loud voice before classmates — she couldn’t tell me what to do! She wasn’t my parent!

In my mind, it made sense. To show how wrong I was, she kept me after school to clean the blackboard. She forced me to practice my reading. I left school an hour late.

When I arrived home, I saw Billie — Lieutenant Brown’s sixth-grade daughter — standing on her porch a few feet from ours, crying, and shifting back and forth on her feet in a puddle of — I took a second look to be sure — her own pee. I couldn’t believe it; I didn’t know what to say or do. I ran inside our condo to tell mom.

I wish I could say that Mom brought Billie into our place, helped her clean-up, and gave her a secure place to wait until her mom got home with a key. But mother did nothing like that. Instead, she became animated and began to marvel about how such an embarrassing calamity could befall a sweet girl like Billie. I became annoyed. Why didn’t she ask us? I interrupted. We would have let her use our bathroom!

Maybe she was afraid to ask, mom said. Maybe she was afraid we would say, no.

So afraid she let her stomach burst? I yelled.

Little Rock 9 segregation racism black suffering — 1957. Daisy Bates tries to enter Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to rescue her and eight other students from angry whites. It was the following year that our family moved to Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

Some weeks after, I stood alone in the playground behind our building when Billie walked up. We didn’t speak but sat down together on the ground to draw pictures in the gray clay beneath us — clay the housing complex we shared was built on.

It didn’t seem right to sit with someone and not talk but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Billie was a couple of years older. We had little in common, it seemed. We concentrated for a while, in silence, on our art.

Then, she looked up. She fixed her eyes on mine. I didn’t look away. I tried to hold her gaze. Finally, she whispered. She said simply, I hate being colored.

I felt the blood drain from my face. Hate was a bad word. We didn’t use the word hate in our family.

To hear Billie whisper, hate, about herself — hate about something she had no control over or responsibility for, which she couldn’t change, wish away, or escape — upended my internal world. In that moment, the ground shifted beneath my feet.

Somehow, hearing her speak those words — and the mental image I had created in my memory of the day she danced in a pool of her own urine — conflated in my mind. As Billie waded ankle-deep in her own bodily fluids, I heard her screaming. I hate being colored!!! I hate it!! I hate it! I hate it.

In my imagination, I took my place beside her. I raged against God and all the earth for making her colored; for allowing white people to be so insensitive, so mean, so un-caring, so ill-tempered, so prejudiced.

—————

Billie’s father supervised a motor-pool near, but outside, the Quonset Point military base. According to friends of my mom, he was some kind of gas-station attendant. One warm day, he saw me playing outside and asked if I wanted to take a ride with him in his new convertible. I said sure.

He said he wanted to show me something. He was in charge of something and wanted to show me what it was. He wanted to show me what he did. At his work.

I thought, this is a crazy request. After all, I didn’t know what my own dad did. He’d never taken me to work or showed me anything having to do with what he was about when he wasn’t home.

So, I climbed into Mr. Brown’s convertible, top down, and off we went. It turned out that he was good at small talk. I listened happily to his resonant voice and enjoyed the sun and warm breezes as we rambled along. We passed through some old guard shacks, a few barbed-wire-topped chain-link fences, and entered an area so remote and wild, it was hard to believe we were still in Rhode Island.

We drove through a dense grove of trees and up onto a hill. Mr. Brown slowed the car and stopped. The sun blazed into the open convertible. Look, he said. He frowned, then nudged my shoulder and pointed. Look down there.

M113a — There were more military vehicles under Navy Lieutenant Brown’s command than I imagined there were cars in the entire world. This photo of a military motor-pool in a western state reminds me of what I saw in Rhode Island.

Below us for as far as my eyes could see, in a valley that stretched to the very edge of Earth, sat thousands of green and gray trucks and jeeps; armored personnel carriers and tanks; military vehicles of every stripe and size, all neatly parked in long straight lines. As a naive fourth grader, I found the view hard to take in. There lay spread below us more vehicles than I imagined existed in the entire world.

It was the second time a member of the Brown family stunned me. I was speechless. Then I said, you’re in charge of all of those trucks? Navy Lieutenant Brown smiled, sadly, I thought, then looked at me like Billie had.

I am, he said.

Billy Lee

Editor’s Postscript: This story is grounded in the memories of a fourth grader of events that occurred almost sixty years ago. The make of Mr. Brown’s car and the nature of the installation visited may or may not be accurate.

After writing this article, Billy Lee learned that Mr. Brown, sadly, passed away on May 22, 2012, at age 85 from cancer. After reading old press releases, he discovered that historian Robert J. Schneller had published a book in 2005 about Mr. Brown’s experiences at the Naval Academy called Breaking the Color Barrier. In 1949, it turns out, Midshipman Brown became the school’s first black graduate.

Unknown to Billy Lee, Wesley Brown had become an historical figure. Billy Lee has asked the Editors to add biographical notes to his post.

In 1958, neither Billy Lee nor Mr. Brown’s neighbors knew that the young Naval officer owned the distinction of being the first black midshipman to graduate from the Naval Academy. In the racial climate of the 1950’s, an achievement like Mr. Brown’s would have been seen as the exception that proved the rule: Negroes were inferior. It would have been bad taste in polite society to call attention to Lieutenant Brown’s achievement.

None of Wesley’s neighbors, Billy Lee recalls, had any idea of the hell he went through to become a Naval officer. In any event, white people in 1958 were so blinded by racism that they would have thought, had they known: Wesley’s accomplishment was of no consequence; it was not worth mentioning or even thinking about.

It’s hard to believe now, but white Americans in 1958 didn’t know their country had a race problem.

esley Brown was the first black graduate of the Naval Academy. During his four years at the Academy, where he studied engineering, he lived alone. He said he didn't want a roommate. I believe he yearned for one, but no one would share a room with him. Wesley was gracious and had too much class to call attention to the racism of his mates who were the best and brightest young men in the USA at that time. Prevented by racists from joining the Academy choir, he joined the track team where an upperclassman, the future President Jimmy Carter, befriended him. — Wesley Brown was the first black graduate of the Naval Academy. Because no white midshipmen would share a room with him, he lived alone during the four years it took to earn his engineering degree. When classmates blocked his admission to the academy choir, Wesley joined the cross-country track team where future President and upperclassman, Jimmy Carter, befriended him.

Wesley Brown became the first black American to survive the racial hazing at the Naval Academy and graduate. I knew him to be a happy person with a charitable attitude toward all people. He was a kind and gentle neighbor who, during the year of 1958, made me feel good each time I saw or spent time with him.

His wife, Jean (Alston), led our church choir and taught me to sing. We did a television show under her direction. His daughter, Willetta (Billie), transformed my view of the world with a single sentence. I read somewhere that Carol, the youngest daughter, did well in life.

After our families parted ways, Wesley’s family grew to include sons. Eventually, Wesley Brown and Jean divorced; Wesley married Crystal Malone in 1963. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander before retiring in 1969 to pursue other interests.

As my story tells, it was racism in the Navy that made it possible for me to know the Browns. Midshipman Wesley Brown changed America for the better. He suffered to accomplish it, but he kept his pain to himself and his closest friends.

I am proud to say that once, I knew Wesley Brown and he knew me.

Billy Lee

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October 19, 2014November 6, 2023

BEING HATED

People hate me. People have hated on me my whole life, but never more than now, it seems, in my old age, when I need their love so bad. If they only knew how their hatred weakens me and any hope I have for happiness. Maybe they’d relent and welcome me into their friendly world.

But I don’t think so. If they knew how much I hurt, they’d hate me more, shun and isolate me even further, just to watch me suffer.

Rod Smart was the leading rusher for the Las Vegas Outlaws of the short-lived XFL. His career took him to both the CFL and NFL, where he played in Super Bowl 38 for the Carolina Panthers. On the last play of the game, with the Panthers trailing 32-29 and only 4 seconds left on the clock, Rod Smart received the New England Patriots kick-off. He was unable to score the game-winning touch-down.

As Torrold DeShaun “Rod” Smart, the would-be NFL star, once said: I feel as if everyone hates me, from my mom to my dad and even my brothers and sisters; everyone ”Hates Me.”

The first time I learned people hate me was at the Army boot-camp for officer-candidates at Fort Benning, Georgia during the summer of 1968. I went there to train after becoming an officer candidate to avoid the military draft during the Vietnam War.

It was a period in our history when the government conscripted hundreds of thousands of young men to fight in Vietnam. Exemptions from the draft (called deferments) had been given to college students for years, but no longer.

Students across the country began competing to get into Army ROTC training programs, because they were the only sure way to stay in school and avoid military service, at least temporarily. At my school, I was one of only eighteen students (out of a pool of several thousand applicants) who qualified for officer training.

I felt lucky, because now I could finish my education. Maybe, by the time of my graduation, the war would be over.

army camp 2 — Cadets who enjoyed push-ups (and were good at them) thrived in officer training camp.

At officer boot-camp that summer, in the humid choking heat of Georgia, the training began. The recruits were, like me, the cream of the crop, the best of the best, from some of the finest colleges and universities in the USA and around the world. I’ve not been with smarter, worthier people than those who shared my summer of ’68 at Fort Benning.

We found ourselves trapped in the grasp of some of the most ignorant, mean-spirited drill sergeants I’ve ever encountered. Their mission was to squeeze each recruit through a juice-grinder to see what we were made of and to prove to the military how strong (or how weak) were our minds and bodies.

They cursed us, abused us, deprived us of sleep and dignity, and told us we were over-privileged swamp scum, not worthy of the army. They convinced me they meant every word.

In chow-lines, gnarly swamp-people with missing teeth menaced and taunted us by swearing, shoving and pointing fingers. One officer forced recruits to eat their own cigarettes.

During a month-and-a-half of hell, I watched people go beserk on the firing range, collapse with seizures due to excessive heat and lack of water, quit the program, and go mad.

All I thought about during those forty-two days in Hell was this: it can’t last forever. I can survive, I can hold on, I can sleep again with my sweet girl-friend, Mary-Ann, who loves me. All this pain, this agony, will fade to an unpleasant memory, nothing more, in good time.

army camp — Studies conducted on young men adept at crawling through mud beneath barbed-wire show that they enjoy the taste of dirt more than cadets who lack this skill.

But, of course, I was naïve. Every dinner has its dessert, its crème-de-la-crème, its grand-finale, its coup-de-grace. Boot-camp was no different.

Two days before the end of training, the Army announced that each cadet in every forty-three-man platoon would participate in mandatory peer-reviews of their fellows. Drill Instructors — armed with notepads and pencils — ordered every officer-candidate to rank every other officer-candidate, from top to bottom.

Worst of all, the DIs forced each cadet to write an explanatory paragraph about each soldier they placed in the bottom-five. I think I remember trying to say something nice about each one of the five I chose.

As it happened, the evening after the peer-review, one of the cadets broke into the administration building and stole the reviews. Word got around, and soon a few dozen cadets, including me, gathered outside the barracks to rummage through them, their summaries and explanatory comments.

I discovered that my fellow cadets ranked me third from the bottom. I couldn’t grasp it, it seemed so unreal, so I read the comments. Apparently, I lost equipment, stole things, went AWOL, and was generally unprepared and unkempt.

I lacked the intelligence required to lead, lacked problem solving skills, etc. etc., on and on. I kept checking the name to see if it was mine. Nothing written about me was true.

army camp 3 — This photo, retrieved from the Army Archive, shows *Billy Lee* on his last day of boot camp. He is the cadet lying on the stretcher, apparently too drunk to walk the quarter-mile to a waiting bus.

It occurred to me that all of it — all the negativity and cruelty; every last hateful condemning word — was going to be part of my permanent record, my profile, which would follow me forever in the army and beyond.

Why, I asked myself over and over, would people who I thought were my friends write nasty, untrue, career-ending things about me? I couldn’t work out the answer.

Officer training camp broke me. I spent the next two days drunk, sobbing silently inside myself. On the last day, while the other cadets scurried to leave, I writhed on the floor by my bunk, unable to pack my things or police my area. Psychological trauma and grief immobilized me. The pain of being hated ruined me. I never recovered.

Billy Lee

Editor’s note: This article has been a fictionalized compilation of actual events, which occurred during two training camps — the first at Fort Benning, Georgia; the second at Fort Riley, Kansas the following summer. The stolen peer-reviews incident occurred at Fort Riley during the summer of 1969.

Incidents in the two camps have been conflated by Billy Lee to make a more comprehensible read. The incidents are true. The order is true. But events happened over consecutive camps — basic training and advanced infantry training the following summer.

P.S. Since writing this article, some people have asked me if, over the years, I might not have garnered some insight into why my ROTC compatriots at Fort Riley rejected me. (At Fort Benning, peer reviews weren’t conducted.)

The answer is yes, but these insights weren’t included in the article, so that readers (who might not know me well) could experience the wonder I felt. In truth, (allow me first to lie; the truth is too painful) I was well-connected and proud. People hate arrogance, and that is what I was. I received special treatment from higher-ups. That, and my attitude, didn’t go over well. (Will you permit me to do some preliminary blame-shifting?)

Linton Sinclair Boatwright Gravestone — General Boatwright was two months older than my dad. Like my dad, he was a Warrior who dedicated his life to the defense of the United States of America.

General Boatwright, the base commander at Fort Riley — who knew my dad — gave me an escort on his private plane to camp. I boasted about it. Later, he flew to our bivouac-site with a half dozen helicopters and called me out of formation (as I remember it, with a bull-horn) to interview me in front of everyone about camp conditions. I remember he asked about the food and how we were treated. I told him everything was great.

The General invited me to what I think I remember was his daughter’s birthday celebration, which meant I had to abandon my buddies to harsh camp conditions, while I partied.

Later, I wrote a thank-you letter to the General, which a drill instructor somehow managed to intercept. He read it aloud at morning reveille to my gathered platoon. In front of everyone, the outraged DI tore up my letter, while he explained so that even a child could understand: cadets don’t write letters to Generals.

None of these incidents helped me get a good peer review. (Listen to me shuck and jive over these irrelevant incidents. Patience, please. I’m working my way to truth, but it’s hard)

The most damaging things that happened were self-inflicted. I remember bragging about myself to others. (Here comes partial self-serving approximations of truth.) I told wildly exaggerated stories to hide the truth about myself from others. The truth was, I hated the choices I made. I bragged about myself, but I bragged about things no one should be proud of — like the details of my sex-life.

I self-destructed. Yes, I hated the Army. Yes, I hated war. Yes, I trapped myself in a place I didn’t want to be. I made it embarrassingly obvious to everyone. I hated myself.

Peace flag — Yes, I hated the Army. Yes, I hated war.

I couldn’t believe the terrible decisions I’d made. I couldn’t believe what a coward I was; how I caved to the powerful idiots who took us into the genocidal killing-field that was Vietnam for no other purpose than to test our newest equipment and evaluate our effectiveness to wage war. (More tangential bullshit is on its way.)

I found myself in a space I didn’t want to be, doing things I didn’t believe, for reasons that made no sense. I was scared to pay the price that came with resisting the evil I saw so clearly once I immersed myself in it. I had abandoned my point of view, my sense of what was right and wrong; my identity; my sense of self; my integrity. (If only any of this were true!)

Why, under the stress of basic training, did I turn on myself? Why did I manipulate others to turn on me? Why did I work so hard to bring the Universe of judgment and condemnation down on my pathetic-loathing-self? I would have to wait until many years later in therapy to learn the answers. (And I can never share them. Why don’t you understand? It’s killing me. I’m so afraid.)

I became obnoxious and inauthentic. It must have been obvious to everyone but me. It’s a wonder one of the cadets didn’t shoot me. They turned on me, because to them I was a sick puppy and a phony to boot. I wouldn’t own up. I was a coward. I refused to embrace the truth about myself.

Today, it’s clear to me that way back then in the fevered heat of officer training camp my peers would have ranked me at the very bottom of the pile had it not been for a couple of loving, perceptive souls who shared my pain and placed me, mercifully, carefully, near the very top.

Their act of kindness meant that when the scores were averaged, two other cadets would suffer the excruciating shame of being hated even more than me. Imagine. Hated more than me! HaHa! HaHaHa! Burp.

Billy Lee

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October 2, 2014April 23, 2023

TOP TWEETS

Last month we published tweets from my first thirty days on Twitter. This month, we publish a sampling of my best tweets ever, gleaned from the three years I tweeted regularly. A lot of thought went into each tweet when it was composed, and more thought has gone into selecting the “finalists” which made it into this new collection. I hope readers find them entertaining and thought provoking.

I’ve come to regret tweeting some of my original tweets, which, in retrospect, seemed to me too emotional and extreme. My son once told me my tweets were dumb. After reviewing all of them, it’s clear he was right about at least some of them. I no longer tweet regularly on Twitter.

Anyway, get ready for a controversial ride. These tweets are hot. If you disagree or have doubts or if you’re simply curious, click on the many embedded links to learn more.

Note: links have been added to some of the original tweets to provide readers with background and context. A few tweets have been edited for clarity.

If acorns tasted better, there’d be no need for farming.

The squirrels in our neighborhood have opposable thumbs & sometimes stand upright.

An airline CEO told a friend that 24 Al-Qaeda crews were active on 911. I know, sounds crazy.

Where’d daddy go? He died, momma. When’d he die? Two months ago, momma. Oh, did I kill him? Alzheimer’s 101

In the old days cigarette butts were everywhere. Now you rarely see one.

Living forever, or just one day, feels the same. We live in the present.

Going for a walk. Hope the packs of wolf-coyote hybrids NatGeo says are out there don’t eat me.

Has it occurred to anyone else that the Restasis lady may, in fact, be an alien?

We have freedom of speech as long as nobody listens.

If USA GNP was divided equally, every family of four would get $200,000 per year. [($15.2 T/309 M) * 4 ].

Clean coal is only clean before you dig it up and actually touch it.

During the next 25,000 years, containment structures for nuclear weapons will corrode & release plutonium killing all life on earth.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 40 – Son: Dad! Stop Twitter now! You sound loopy! Me: You don’t understand, son. I’m free.

What we learned during the past 10 years: throwing an election has consequences.

Have waited 50 years to vacation on a Cuban beach. Still waiting.

Love this animation showing how DNA/RNA works… http://t.co/rYaG8cau

Michigan has thousands of clear-water lakes. Fish got there from geese and ducks carrying sticky fish-eggs on their webbed feet.

Solar bottle-bulbs provide free light to folks in dark houses. http://t.co/1Hk01AA1

Only a nation asleep would allow individuals to accumulate billions of dollars. Are you kidding me?!?

Permitting the wealthy to go into the prison business presents incredible dangers to our freedoms.

If aliens are the size of grasshoppers, we might not notice an invasion until it’s too late.

Ayn Rand destroyed America.

Nuclear plant meltdowns are almost certain during earthquakes above 8.0. Since 1900, 100 have occurred, none in the USA. http://t.co/KUhuFw88

tend to lie about the effectiveness of their drugs.

USA GNP is 7% of its accumulated wealth. It’s why small changes in GNP don’t affect us much. http://t.co/PmHlp5xL

Billionaires harm democracies. You know they do. Set max. worth at $150 million. Those who have more must divest.

During slavery, plantation owners were the job creators. They created millions of jobs.

Research seems to show that brains decide seconds before humans are aware they’ve decided… http://t.co/1yngCw7b

The only threat to our freedom greater than billionaires is a government controlled by billionaires.

How differential gears work is hard to grasp. This video can help. http://t.co/GyR0ht6z

No such thing as trace amounts of plutonium. It gets passed around in wind & rain forever. You will never see the speck that kills you.

All drones are piloted by somebody.

I’m old and cold and not very bold; my teeth are inlaid with gold. My chin has a fold; I’m covered with mold; when I go, my nose I must hold.

We don’t need a revolution. We just need to limit how much people can steal before they have to divest. No more billionaires. http://www.theguardian.com/video

Pre-Civil War plantation owners were some of the most effective job-creators in our nation’s history.

Ayn Rand Objectivism is a modern day Divine Right of Kings written to convince the gullible that billionaires have a moral right to rule.

Squirrels have developed agriculture. They plant trees and store walnuts which they eat out-of-season.

Favorite Spartacus video clip… http://t.co/IsedM4xD

Copyrights that last years after an author’s death are un-American. People get money for what they didn’t write?

I love the smell of marijuana in the morning. It smells like freedom.

Capitalism is the plantation system of the old South renamed & repackaged for modern wage earners.

This explanation of ozone is very good… http://t.co/cwRrYIQo

Chances of being eaten by a mountain lion are 1 in ten million — unless the lion is 100 feet away & hungry.

This notion that somehow people are entitled to unlimited wealth is destroying civilization. Soon, we’ll be serfs again.

Big Tobacco — when they advertised in the 1950s — talked 70% of men into smoking. We can be brainwashed. https://watch?v=sxrCjmqRTz0

Advocates of nuclear energy are like the people of Easter Island who destroyed their civilization for a few more hours of campfire.

America has a permanent over-class. Until we deal with it, we are serfs.

Atheists would rob me of any hope against death.

Incandescent bulbs — now banned — are hot. We need them in winter.

40% of electricity bill is wasted charging AC/DC electronic devices. This fix is cool. http://t.co/8gWRO1l6

Plutonium escaped at Fukushima. How dangerous is it? http://uploads/1997/07/no-3.pdf

At the heart of every fortune lies a dark secret.

The wealthy have divested the middle-class & limited our incomes. It’s time to turn the tables.

USA politics consists of arguing about how aggressive the financial shake-down of the middle-class should be.

It’s the redistribution of wealth to a permanent over-class that we’re fighting against. #occupywallstreet

Fantasy-nightmare vision of Ayn Rand was a poison apple. It ushered in a facist USA, where billionaires now rule us. #ows

Gated communities are another form of segregation.

Homework in elementary school demoralizes students, short circuits passive processing, dampens creativity & makes kids dumb.

RT @pdjmoo: THE LIONESS AND THE CALF: Lovely Watch. A short documentary that will open your eyes. – http://t.co/S8okiyJ2

Baby Boomers are the Greatest Generation. They ended racial segregation & the Vietnam War. They started the high-tech revolution.

Rage and old age make a sage.

If humans were the size of squirrels and lived in people’s yards, could they survive?

RT @nytimesscience: Bursts of Fission Detected at Fukushima Reactor in Japan http://t.co/lZsThJNT

JFK fired the CIA Director who later sat on the Warren Commission.

It’s easier to control un-informed people. Education will never be cool while billionaires rule.

Nice one-minute explanation of GPS & effects of special & general relativity…
http://t.co/T1z6gUm4

Twenty-three million government workers in the USA. No way private sector can provide full employment. See pg 30. http://t.co/2Btdfbjs

Tea Party types don’t get that government is all that stands between them & tyranny by billionaires. Divest billionaires. #ows

Billionaires build their power by corrupting our representative government. Divest them. #ows

Well, Gitmo prison is going strong & we’re killing Americans with drones. What good is Obama besides not being a Republican? Just asking.

That country singer who used to crow, wanna watch some football? & called Obama Hitler was on CMA tonight. He got a standing ovation.

Billionaires seduce consumers into supporting “free markets” which they rule as personal fiefdoms. #ows

Billionaires used the tax cuts we gave them to solidify their vice-grip on our “democratic” institutions. #ows

Cults of personality never work out well. #Paterno

MSNBC reporting that the District Attorney in the #Paterno sex crime scandal went missing in 2005.

How many of those who laughed at Howard Hughes for using Kleenex boxes as shoes ever tried it themselves?

USA psycho-terror: Bahgram, Gitmo, SuperMax, rampant solitary. Sick minds created these nightmares.

Many billionaires are tied to drugs (legal/illegal) & the military.

Earth is broadcasting itself on all EM frequencies. If aliens are out there they will find us.

After Vietnam, anti-war activists were black-listed from top jobs. The consequences for the USA have been devastating.

If billionaires won’t agree to tax fairness, what other reasonable requests will they crush?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 117 – been following some celebs like Vonnegut & Von Braun. Even tweeted them. Wife just informed me, they’re both dead.

Portraying oppressor as victim is as old as human tyranny. #ows #OccupyEarth

Quantum physicists & priests approach absurdity in different ways: one through reason; one through faith.

Am passing by hundreds of hyperactive squirrels on my walks. Thus far, none have mindlessly attacked me.

Successful revolutions never have popular support until they’re won.

Rupert Murdoch of Fox News bought the Wall Street Journal. It’s Fox propaganda now. Don’t read it.

You treat us like dirt & live safe behind gates. The least you could do is pay some taxes. #ows

The Bush tax cuts gave more money to the average millionaire than a lifetime of social security checks.

Cuba has one of the best health care systems in the world. Our sick can’t go there.

Bell’s theorem is irrelevant if entangled particles are single wave-particle objects (like oscillating bubbles). http://t.co/qzWRDLqx

Carbon dioxide is heavy, so the little there is stays close to the earth where plants can breath it.

The notion — main-streamed by Ayn Rand — that taxation is theft ruined all that was fair & good about the USA.

If life is distributed over the widest range of temperatures then typical civilizations might be cryogenic & radio-wave sensitive.

The dilemma of the rich is they can only live in one place at a time, operate one transport at a time, make love to one person at a time.

People understand the Universe the way smart goldfish might understand the Earth.

Earth’s neighbors are small with little gravity. We can visit & come back. We have the perfect spaces to learn.

First thing women did after getting the vote was enact Prohibition — because their husbands drank & beat them.

This could be huge — esp. regarding intelligence & learning. http://t.co/8OEbNOtd

How did paper planes launched from a small number of boats & dropping unguided munitions sink so many ships at Pearl Harbor?

GOP repealed Michigan unit-pricing. At check out, we can’t tell if stuff rang up right. At home, we can’t review what we paid.

No black man has ever led a major world power until Barack Obama.

Kirk Douglas reflects on life in letter to Christopher Hitchens… http:/?2011/09/kirk-douglas-201109

Billionaires will be passing 30 trillion dollars to their kids in coming decades.

Somewhere in the oceans are a few genius dolphins. We should find them.

When looking into the eyes of war-dogs returning from Iraq, one can’t help feeling that some have seen too much.

Christopher Hitchens said his biggest fear was — near certain death & in pain — he might cry-out to Christ Jesus to save him.

North Koreans fake-cry better than citizens of any other country. http://t.co/qg3LFCWz

If private companies could create full employment, they would have to hire 13M unemployed & 23M govt workers: 36M people.

Government should provide free basic-food to anyone who wants it: potatoes, rice, beans, oil, corn. It would cost almost nothing.

Drew USA flag billowing in the wind. Teacher said: you can’t draw straight lines? Art career died that day. In kindergarten.

You never hear about good marriages, because the people in them aren’t talking.

All trees fall down, yet few people have ever seen one fall.

We could put direct-current fuel cells in every neighborhood in the USA for the cost of a few nuclear power plants.

People who make sure they eat at least three balanced meals per day are usually fat.

25 dimensionless constants make our universe work the way it does.

Nothing smells better to me than my own armpits.

If the current Social Security tax rate was applied to all income, it would provide $25,000 per year to every old person.

Genes, like those for intelligence, can be passed between species by viruses.

Didn’t watch GOP debate but am certain it was the stupid-est thing on television tonight.

RT @cracked: 5 Absurd Solutions to Huge Problems (That Actually Worked): http://t.co/RpJpSWYL

Einstein’s statement that God does not play at dice flies in the face of Proverbs 16:33.

Billionaire propaganda station, NBC News, is reporting Romney family origin was in Mexican poverty. That should work.

The Siberian wilderness in Russia has 35% more land mass than the contiguous USA.

Billionaires destroy democracies.

Assume reality is an [n x n] matrix. Then the least expensive # of dimensions is when (n^3 / 3) = n^2 . So n=3. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Romney said his speaking fee ($375,000) wasn’t much. It’s about what the President is paid per year.

RT @QuotesByArtists: There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. — Christopher Morley

The Romney Flat Tax (15%) works out to a 300% increase on low wagers; 50% decrease on the 1%. Typical GOP idea.

Obama can sing like Al Green. Makes me feel happy. http://t.co/GspEqOEd

Never understood why anyone would put themselves on a boat with thousands of people they don’t know. http://www.cnn.com/travel/carnival

We don’t know the names of the billionaires who rule us.

Until we get it — that billionaires we don’t know rule us — nothing political will make sense. It not about us. It’s about them.

Insiders who killed Kennedy want us to know he was a monster.

The conspirators sat on the Warren Commission. They put a Secret Service agent on the grassy knoll. Oswald was a patsy.

Workers need a Bill of Rights. Take away employers’ power to fire “at will.” Due process required.

The public lives inside an information bubble created to entertain, not inform.

Politicians are not the best people to teach us about Jesus.

20% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. Kudos, USA. http://t.co/wWdEmDNv

Ronald Reagan accepted a $2M gift from the Japanese after his final term. Why? Auto imports?

Iran can get a nuclear bomb anytime by buying one from another country. What they can’t do is buy hundreds.

Expansion of space means our current vehicle technology — given unlimited fuel & time — can take us no further than 1B light years from Earth.

All cars in Iran run on natural gas. All cars in Brazil run on sugar cane flex-fuel. Why? The oil is running out.

Don’t kid yourself. If you are worth less than $20 million, you are one of the little people.

Most of USA’s best food is exported to wealthy nations. We import from poor countries to make up shortfall.

12% of voters who earn less than $25K/ yr have no photo ID. GOP says they shouldn’t vote.

RT @thequotemaster: Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. -Abraham Lincoln http://t.co/J1mB7Eoa #quotes

The Bible is written for the wretched. It gives hope to the powerless, the exploited, the poor, the despised, the unloved.

Billionaires have the USA in a vice-grip. They control the media, courts & Congress. Everyone works for them.

In case you didn’t notice, Florida is still segregated. They have gated (segregated) neighborhoods everywhere.

The space between Earth & 1B light/yrs from Earth is expanding faster than our fastest spacecraft can travel.

Many Americans seem oblivious to the huge sums spent on ads to get them to accept the agenda of billionaires.

USA police forces are increasingly being manned by Iraq/Afganistan vets. Caution: these men are “militarized” and “weaponized.”

When someone says they totally agree with you, odds are they totally don’t.

The Bush family unleashed more hell on Earth than any family in recent memory. Kuwait, Iraq, Afganistan, 2000 election, 2008 crash; etc.

Anyone still remember when Enron & GOP drove Calif Dem Governor out & put Arnold in? Enron bankrupt & Calif a mess. Thanks GOP.

Enron’s Ken Lay sat next to Bush at 2000 Inaugural. Jack-boots in street, protesters on sidewalks. Anyone remember? https://www.youtube.com/

Anyone who can donate $100,000 to a politician is, in all probability, a crook.

Hunger Games shows a world where the wealthy use government to torment the common people for fun. Sounds like the USA.

USA is run by permanent over-class who inherited money, reputation and power from their parents. Divest billionaires. Tax them.

If everyone drove cars with Chevy Volt style power plants, we could dismantle pipelines.

Tea Party “christians” let negative ads manipulate them into nominating a Mormon billionaire.

President Obama’s statement about Jesus this AM… http://t.co/NX2ZYha8

Let’s calm down. No Court worth its salt is going to overturn health-care. That would be insane.

All wars are wasteful. When we left Vietnam we left billions in air-conditioners, office furniture, vehicles, buildings, etc.

Fibonacci series in music with astronomy graphics in case you missed it… http://t.co/JbsSsBuO

Either tax twillionaires 92% like Eisenhower did or divest them. Otherwise lose the country to a permanent over-class.

Even in the contest between beast & man, the outcome is not certain. No Country for Old Men.

RT @keepingitraw: Radiation from Fukushima Disaster Found in California Kelp http://t.co/E9qNMokO

Earthlings: your puny brains have created a simplified approximation of reality you call “mathematics.” Free yourselves.

Revolutions never have popular support until they’re won.

What did Castro do? He threw the Mafia out of Cuba & set up an egalitarian society. No wonder billionaires hate him.

The Coal Cartel is right about one thing. They have a lot of coal to sell. They are wrong about this: coal is not clean.

Can’t we all just stop eating bacon…? http://t.co/HwOCP3gL

Imagine a 28 yr old black man with a gun on neighborhood-watch picking a fight with your son & killing him. Manslaughter?

Hannity is reporting a Fox News poll that shows Romney beating Obama 46% to 44%. Might as well forget about truth telling for a while.

RT @Art_Guy1: FACT: Obama’s tax plan raises his tax rate. Mitt Romney’s plan cuts his own taxes in half.

Churchill: I like pigs. Dogs look up to you. Cats look down on you. Pigs treat you like an equal.

We had a leader of the NY Stock Exchange who made more money in one day than Obama makes in a year.

Rush said Secret Service hooker scandal is Obama’s fault, because he overworks agents & keeps them from their wives.

According to Gallup & Fox polls, the election is over. Romney will be President.

Are we going to throw out a sitting President to satisfy the lunatics…? Ted Nugent threatens Obama… http://t.co/TeBX54wE

USA has been war-ing Stone-Age peoples since Vietnam. It never tires.

Make it a felony to possess more than, say, $150M, in cash, property & assets. Limit yearly incomes to $15M.

RT @JeffDauler: RT @CassandraYoung: Just remember, kids: every time you make a typo, the errorists win.

Communism, Socialism, Capitalism are utopian fantasies that don’t exist & never will in the real world. The USA is what it is.

The problem with the USA space program was lethality to employees. At least 82 died during its tenure. http://List_of_spaceflight-accidents

Obama doesn’t look American. You know. Fat.

Most prosecutors in the South don’t bring charges against whites in racial cases due to chance of being disbarred. Like the Duke rape case.

RT @YourAuntDiane: I like to talk to everyone like they’re dying of a dreadful disease. It makes me a better listener.

One thing to remember about the BP screw-up: there are thousands of wells in the Gulf. They all leak.

Taxes on the one-percenters are one-third of 1960; one-half of 1980. https://www.yhoutube.com/watch

Mexicans are beautiful people. Why can’t we open the border & let folks drive back & forth freely?

If we divested billionaires & divided their wealth equally to every citizen, a family-of-four would get $1,250,000.

The price of two wars & tax cuts for the rich has been $60,000 per family. Could use the money right now.

Does anyone find this explanation of consciousness compelling? It is certainly fascinating in the extreme. http://t.co/OqWiKSz4

It would be nice if the equation for the Theory of Everything was found to be less than 140 characters, so it can be tweeted.

Money loses its promise at the point of dying.

Have been hearing that Social Security is going bust for 50 years now. It’s like a broken record. The 1% don’t pay Social Security taxes.

Most gazelles in nature never get eaten by lions. They never even see one. https://www.youtube.com/

We never hear anyone on television talk about divesting billionaires. Why is that?

One of the good things Bush did as President was to popularize the now famous lexicon, Mission Accomplished. https://www.youtube.com/watch? https://www.youtube.com/watch

There is always some new disease to worry about and a drug dealer on TV eager to sell a solution. Only in America.

Americans don’t know the names of the billionaires who rule them. Who will tell them?

How do they keep black folks out of the Derby?

GM makes the best cars.

There’s this CIA guy named Rodriquez who is going on right-wing television slamming our elected officials. Weird.

When the wealthy push down wages, skilled labor evaporates.

Safety regulations, which auto firms once fought tooth and nail, have saved over 200,000 lives.

Leonard Susskind said it will take an accelerator the size of our galaxy to see the smallest particles. We aren’t there yet.

We had hamburgers tonight with no pink slime in them. What a difference. So good! https://www.youtube.com/watch

The game of pushing black men until they finally stand their ground and get killed or imprisoned is as old as America. #trayvonmartin

Honest people who have integrity and are not greedy cannot be cheated. They can be robbed and sometimes are.

It should be a felony for a private citizen to possess a billion dollars.

#ThoughtsLiberalsHaveAroundConservatives This guy’s a lunatic. Hope he doesn’t shoot me.

RT @therightblue: Antibiotic residue in seafood purchased at US grocery stores, experts say: http://t.co/mIPRDzFX

USA dropped equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb per day for 25 years on Bikini atoll. Ruined tourism. http://www.youtube.com/watch

Do you self-censor tweets, because your employer is watching? That’s not freedom.

God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Jesus.

Should we be fishing from the same pond we drill our oil and dump our garbage?

Long after humans, and all we’ve built, have vanished, alien visitors will know we were here from the plutonium we left behind.

Thirty-seven old nuclear plants on the Great Lakes with no place to store high level waste. http://t.co/Iasqrjn3

A country like the USA comes along once in ten-thousand years.

First Silent Majority, then Moral Majority, now New Majority. The GOP is always trying to start a bandwagon.

Still remember nuclear engineers telling me in 1977 that nuclear power was safe, and waste storage was no problem.

Seems like China is going to own the moon, it’s helium and rare-earth metals.

This Colbert quote about Christian Nation is pretty good. http://t.co/lZIMNw7j

Yes, it’s hot. But look at the bright side. In the next few years, it’s going to get a lot hotter.

RT @QuoteRevolution: The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. ~John Hay

If you can discourage 1 out of 100 voters from voting by requiring photo ID, you can throw a lot of elections to the GOP.

Are Focus on the Family execs calling the USA to pray for rain at Romney nomination speech like they did for Obama 2008? http://t.co/XIdXcclo

How they hate Obama. What’s he ever done to them?

We learned how much the GOP wanted America to succeed when they refused to be led by a black man and trashed our country’s credit rating.

Billionaire-owned media portrays a failed President. But he saved the USA from collapse, killed OBL, passed medical-care.

We knew the Vietnam war was lost when USA soldiers fragged their officers. Afghan green-on-blue is same thing.

The political dominance of billionaires is USA’s biggest problem. GOP’s solution? Make one President.

The only thing not better than four years ago is right-wing media. Those morons never shut up.

Everyone fights for the middle-class. But they’re in the top 20% of income earners. What about the vast under-class?

It feels like the GOP/right wing/media/billionaires are sucking the air out of America. They are relentlessly negative.

As we age, our bodies become less like prisons and more like torture chambers.

It is disrespectful to bear-hug the President and lift him off his feet. The man is lucky he wasn’t shot.

USA should pass amendment making anyone who serves as President more than 3 years a natural-born citizen. Would shut-up birthers.

Tell the truth. Weren’t you scared of the Axis of Evil and Saddam’s WMD’s? GOP scared the crap out of us. No way we let them back in.

Only one person knows what it’s like to be the first black President.

The six Billionaires who own 85% of USA media have convinced most Americans it is a “liberal media.” Wow.

Romney said he will end estate taxes, which are the last defense the USA has against the establishment of a permanent royal-class.

GOP hack, John Sununu, called Obama “lazy” on Fox News.

Obama said he wasn’t perfect to counter GOP websites that are saying he claims to be Jesus and, therefore, is the anti-Christ.

Can’t remember an election with no GOP bumper stickers. Haven’t seen a Romney sticker yet. Anywhere. Strange.

Ambiguity is a tactic artists and politicians use to attract a mass audience.

It’s hard to believe that the land of the free and home of the brave would let 400 people sequester 1/8 of our national treasure.

Imagine Obama losing 241 Marines to a terrorist attack; losing an entire Shuttle crew; flooding the USA with Japanese cars…that was Reagan.

If the tax rate was at Kennedy levels, the USA would be awash with surplus cash.

To put things in perspective, Romney will get $4,566 from his annuity during the debate. Obama will get $91 from his salary.

Romney says his dad was born in Mexico. I remember when his dad ran for President. He said he was born in the USA, I think. https://www.youtube.com/

Today, Federal investigtors revealed more Secret Service agents using prostitutes while on duty overseas.

I don’t want to believe the GOP is strong enough to overthrow a President who hasn’t done anything wrong.

Many Christians turned on Jimmy Carter with a vengence. Now they rally around a Mormon to destroy Obama who is a convert to Christianity.

I keep waiting for conservatives to come to their senses about Obama — a brilliant and decent man. They never do.

What good is democracy if the billionaires always win?

Employers threatening to shut-down if Obama re-elected reminds me of threats to close shop if Civil Rights Act passed in 1964.

Today my pastor preached that Obamacare forces church organizations to participate in abortion or go out of business due to fines.

People think taxes will go down on the middle-class if Romney is elected. No, taxes will go down on the billionaires.

No one on television or radio or in newspapers or magazines will ever tell us to tax or divest billionaires. No one. Never.

How can anyone say USA is free when 400 families have sequestered 1/8 of our national treasure? Our country is a plantation.

Obama, a born-again Christian, must feel like Jesus himself as Christian leaders desert him for Mormon Romney, a compulsive liar.

Christian leaders showed their true colors this election. They took sides with the rich and powerful.

Put a Mormon missionary billionaire with strong ties to Mexico who won’t financially disclose in the White’s House?

Romney/GOP convention disrupted by hurricane. God making statement? http://thecolbertreport — hurricane-isaac

Seems like during every storm we find hospitals that put their back up generators in the basement where they are disabled by floods.

Four more days until Romney goes away. Can’t wait.

Female CNN announcer just said “atta boy” to Don Lemon. Young people don’t get how racist that sounds.

Do white people in Florida stand in four-hour lines to vote, like they make their colored folks do? Just asking. https://www.youtube.com/

On C-Span, just heard South Carolina woman say, Obama is the best candidate; and, yes, I am white.

#LieLikeMitt Jesus is Satan’s brother. Look it up. And thank you to all Christians who are voting for me.

Hope Romney and Ryan have a sense of humor, because the election tomorrow is going to be a joke.

Romney just lost in NH and Mass. where he has homes; MI where he grew up; and Wisc. where Ryan is from.

Thank you, Jesus.

Christian leaders hate Obama, because “sinners” love him.

Evangelical leaders sided with southern racists and the rich and powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Romney was going to do a fireworks show in Boston Harbor after being declared winner. Thank God, it didn’t happen.

RT @A_ThinkingGirl: Boehner and McConnell Dissed Obama on Election Night; Refused Phone Calls from the President http://t.co/Pw4JkhpE

Thomas Ricks just told CNN that if you haven’t had an affair your not a player in the CIA. That is disturbing to me.

Getting old. Tweeted “your” instead of “you’re.” Sorry. Please forgive me.

Officers serve subject to the Code of Military Conduct. It prohibits adultery.

People who are good at maximizing their personal advantages over others often consider themselves worthy of further advantages.

Any business owner who lays off his workers because Obama won is mean-spirited. We need a bill of rights for workers.

Always thought embracing Bush holdovers like Betray-us was a mistake. Imagine if he’d been Romney’s VP choice.

Romney thought he was the savior on a white horse foretold by . Maybe next time.

RT @MariaLiaCalvo: Obama cries as he thanks his volunteers and campaign staff; Romney fires his staff and leaves them stranded.

From our adversaries point of view, Petraeus — who led the fight against them on behalf of the “great satan” — is an adulterer. Ouch.

Paula Broadwell might want to apologize to the nation and to her children and to her lover’s wife.

Never admired Petraeus, because Cheney and Bush pushed him into top leadership. Obama should have cleaned house, but GOP prevented it.

Got my skills going to school while on unemployment. Kids can’t do that today. GOP regulations destroyed this option in Michigan long ago.

Of all the top biographers Petraeus could have picked, he chose Paula Broadwell. It was a clue.

Would like to know if the Muslim militia got their prisoners back during Benghazi attack.

People love to go to war. Years later they complain about how it ruined them.

General Allen of Afganistan is now under investigation for links to Lebanese-American, Jill Kelly. Wow.

What we are witnessing is a high level purge of Bush protégés as Obama finally takes control of USA military and intelligence agencies.

RT @keepingitraw: Sky-high levels of radioactivity in fish from Fukushima means inedible seafood for at least a decade. http://t.co/vM3IyCbH

The Monica-Benghazi scandal is in full swing on the Hannity show.

Dear God, Barack Obama is in the belly of the beast fighting for what is right. Thank you for your holy angels who guard him.

Friend of my sister went back to her New Jersey apartment a week after Hurricane Sandy to find it ruined, not by water, but by rats. Everything lost.

I hate war because you have to choose sides, everyone suffers and, in the end, you compromise anyway.

GOP Generals underestimated Obama.

We need to help our Conservatives heal. They came within four-million votes of electing a lunatic. What is the cure?

John McCain, under torture, signed a confession and attempted suicide. No one blames him, but that’s what happened.

Limiting doctor salaries to $400K/year would discourage greedy people from becoming doctors. It would help everyone.

Obama cried after election, just before news broke on Petraeus. It may be an indicator he really was just finding out and dealing with it.

Am hearing that Hostess execs looted the company before firing the 18,500 folks who created the wealth they took.

Letting individuals keep unlimited wealth and field private armies is a bad idea unworthy of a free people.

You’d think Obama would have carried more southern states, since large black populations voted 90% for him. He didn’t carry any.

Surprising to learn that people who couldn’t say who ran for President in the last election knew all about the Hostess Twinkie crisis.

Billionaire media owners drone endless negativity until they get the President they want. Then messaging gets positive. Remember Reagan.

The big problem for America is the voracious appetite of our billionaires and the vast underclass they have created in their wake.

What DNA actually looks like. http://t.co/msEjIPEG

In the 40’s and 50’s most white people saw nothing wrong with segregation. Today, they see nothing wrong with gated communities.

Executive gangs who pay themselves huge salaries are not creating value. They are looting.

Billionaire owners of NFL teams don’t get traumatic brain injuries.

NBC reported that Boehner avoided receiving-line at holiday party last night, so he wouldn’t have to shake Obama’s hand.

At the root of our fiscal-cliff crisis is the belief by the GOP that the country is not worth saving as long as Obama remains President.

RT @ReformedBroker: “If Buffett didn’t exist, the rich would have to invent him.” http://t.co/Xz3HHVCj

Billionaire media owners want Americans to think there is something cute and innocent about British-royalty.

The GOP is fighting a war, not for freedom or fairness, but for the idea that a handful of families are entitled to own everything.

All the good jobs go to the children of the wealthy.

Want to limit corruption? Make it a felony to keep more than $15M per year or own an estate larger than $150M.

Billionaires are every bit as wicked as anyone else. The difference is, they have a billion dollars. That’s scary, or it should be.

GOP named Right to Work law to hide its intent to weaken/wreck unions and drive down wages and benefits.

If athletes and actors make millions, what do you think the people who pay them make?

Michigan GOP exempted cops and fire fighters from Right to Work law. Cops won’t get the “benefits” of working for less money.

Hundreds of cops are standing guard around Michigan State Capitol through Thursday. Cops exempted from Right to Work by GOP bill. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Someone said boxing is morally wrong, because one human has to inflict injury on another human to win.

Billionaire advertisers in Michigan are calling RTW “Freedom to Work.” Yet they won’t free cops and firefighters. They need them on their side.

Can we please raise taxes on the wealthy to stop the looting? If you are greedy, go to Russia or Mexico and loot there.

I remember that in the 1960s most Americans thought Nelson Mandela was a black communist thug who should rot in prison. Times change.

If America was free, most companies would be employee-owned and most companies would have unions.

Lack of limits on the personal wealth of its rulers is what wrecks Capitalism for the vast underclass who must endure it.

GOP leaders are charging protestors who crossed police-lines with felonies. So, now we have political prisoners in Michigan.

If Right to Work is so great, why did the GOP exempt police and fire unions? GOP is not interested in fair play, apparently.

The way to balance our budget is to spend more money on the poor, elderly and disabled. It’s counter-intuitive but always works.

If it weren’t for six billionaires who own 85% of the media, we would be arguing about how much to increase Medicare and Social Security.

GOP deficits are always the result of looting. Think of all the money wealthy families stole from the USA during Bush years.

Since the Reagan era the wealthy have had no limits on what they can make and keep. It’s why they loot.

Unless limits are placed on personal incomes and estate size, capitalism always devolves into a kind of feudalism.

GOP advertisers are flooding Michigan with this message: Protect collective bargaining. Support Freedom to Work. Right out of Orwell’s 1984.

Amazing how Michigan GOP sprung Right to Work on us at the very moment a mega-million dollar ad campaign for its passage appeared.

It’s already impossible to start a Union in Michigan. Right to Work will enable business owners to kill off the few that still exist. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Surprise attack on Unions by Rick Snyder and GOP was well-planned and executed. Felony charges against protestors is the frosting on their cake.

The wealthy work overtime to undermine confidence in elected government.

Billionaires, some tied to drugs and guns, know how to get their way. It’s not easy to speak truth to them.

People think unlimited wealth is an incentive for innovation. Not true. It enables looting and the suppression of competition.

Regular viewers of Fox News don’t get that the joke is on them. Sad.

It’s un-American to let kids inherit vast wealth they didn’t work for. It threatens our freedom. http://t.co/8tsf3aPj

There isn’t a gun made that can defend against a government-sponsored SWAT team. Get real, NRA.

More Guns = Less Crime; Clean Coal; Right to Work; Virtue of Selfishness; Gated Community; Genetically Modified Food; all wrong.

MI GOP passed a law to allow concealed guns in church, schools, stadiums and daycares.

Am told the shooter was draped in Kevlar. Teacher with a gun would have been helpless.

Was doing good until the President mentioned a six year old who knew karate and wanted to lead everyone to safety.

Reagan closed the mental hospitals. http://t.co/D2E9mZ5Z

The Lord sides with the oppressed; feeds the hungry; sets prisoners free; gives sight to the blind; lifts up those who are beaten down…

Jesus was born a baby, so as not to frighten us.

Old age has ruined me, physically and mentally. But #Jesus renews my spirit, and somehow, I feel better.

Will someone invent an iPhone that can be charged by body heat? #goodIdea

Would NASA position some colored lights in the sky so everybody can navigate by sight? #goodIdea

The right to accumulate unlimited wealth has brought corruption and looting on a massive international scale to all areas of human endeavor.

An NRA family member murdered 20 six-year-olds, and they threaten the President’s kids?

It’s time to amend the Second Amendment.

Obama tries to protect kids from gun violence, so the NRA vilifies him and drags his kids into it.

Make a list of legal guns. Guns not on the approved-list are illegal. Will prevent work-arounds by gun sellers.

Am reading Oliver Stone’s Untold History, a Christmas gift. Have yet to read a single page where he hasn’t blown my mind.

Gun makers should be required to get a license to sell each gun-model they manufacture. If it’s a weapon of war, no license.

This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base. Bush, 2000.

In 2006, the 25 top US hedge-fund managers earned an ave. $570M each. In 2007, it jumped to $900M. Oliver Stone, Untold History.

GOP says they are against tax increases, but in Michigan the GOP raised taxes on seniors by $1,000s / year.

Everything written or broadcast is recorded, stored and analyzed. It’s been going on since the 1950s. It’s raison d’etre for the NSA.

RT @MiaFarrow: JFK Report to the American People on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963
http://t.co/jZNo5UgYMz

Google has pics of the outside of our homes. The government has pics of the inside — taken through our computer camera-lenses.

Obama taught us, unwittingly, that bad people with ugly thoughts and hate-filled hearts really do live in America.

Seems like CNN covers the weather while FOX covers Obama-Care. Who covers the news?

Christians bearing false witness against a President who says he belongs to Christ makes no sense to me.

Billy Lee

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CUBA

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September 19, 2014April 23, 2023

TWITTER – MY FIRST THIRTY DAYS

I started tweeting during the summer of 2011. It was the summer after the Fukushima nuclear disaster; the Blackberry Riots in England raged; Hurricane Irene ravaged our east coast; the launch of the Endeavour marked the end of the USA space shuttle program; Libyan citizens overthrew and assassinated Muammar Gaddafi; Navy Seals killed Osama Bin-laden; the Tea Party rocketed to prominence in the 2010 elections; Obama-Care ignited its roll-out and a ramp-up of a GOP war of opposition; etc., etc.; on and on. There was a lot to tweet about.

In the first thirty days, my follower base grew from zero to over one-hundred. This fast start made such an impression on me that I ended up tweeting for almost three years, trying pretty much everything I could think of to enlarge my follower base even more. But, try as I did, my followers never numbered more than 275. What was most discouraging: three-fourths of them, on closer inspection, didn’t seem to be real people. They were organizations, or marketers, selling things like books and self-improvement programs.

Today I use twitter to follow lists of people and organizations I’ve collected to help me keep-up in subjects that interest me like science, politics, religion, government and French language. The enthusiasm of the early days has faded. It no longer matters if anyone follows me or not. I rarely tweet anything anymore.

Twitter announced they would send a complete list of a tweeter’s tweets to any tweeter who requested them. I took them up on it. The following tweets are a sample from the first 30-days of my twitter history. I tweeted a lot of interesting tweets back in the day, it now seems, mostly to bots.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 1 – My first tweet, everybody. Let me know if it worked.

I’m tweeting in bed. Have signed-up to follow lots of cool people & organizations. Seems to be working good.

I think the rich thought they would recoup Iraq war costs thru mineral/oil acquisitions. Oops!

I’m loving Twitter!

Immersed in fields and waves, we create the material world by observing them.

The old Confederacy (the New Tea Party) won’t be led by a colored man.

After WW2, the rich rewarded our young soldiers by loaning money for college and homes. They built the middle class their grandkids forgot.

Khan Academy is brain candy.

People who hate, hate Obama.

If we live long enough, we will lose everything.

Nuclear power plants must be monitored until the end of time — especially important after we shut them down.

Republicans axed unit pricing in Michigan. We can’t tell what something costs after buying it and tossing the receipt!

Fox is nasty! Surprised they didn’t run a pic of the President eating watermelon.

Africa, if you build it you will own it until the end of time. A nuke plant can be shut down but never abandoned.

Michigan is an oasis on a warming planet.

If life started on Mars and transplanted to earth on debris from an asteroid hit, it might take two planets to advance complex life.

A long time ago the atmosphere was so thick and oxygenated that dragonflies with three-foot wingspans flourished.

When you are ready to retire, lowering the retirement age will seem right to you.

Are tea-bag staples made from heavy-metals? My tea tastes funny.

Do people eat Vanilla Wafers in Britain? There’d be fewer riots.

Five Guys fries, yellow mustard and an ice-cold beer…come on!

Have been tweeting for 8 days and have 35 followers already. If I wasn’t blocking hookers, I would have a hundred!

If Japan could start over, would they build plants to recycle plutonium from NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

“Aroint thee, thou rump-fed ronyons!” Shakespeare.

Michigan is a clean water refuge on a warming dirty planet. Come to Michigan!

Ducks and geese spread sticky fish eggs from lake to lake with their feet sometimes.

Save yourselves from global warming. Come to Michigan!

I’ve tweeted 9 days now. I have 51 followers, and not one of them is a hooker or a relative. Wow!

Eliminate disease and old age. Eliminate birth. In 50,000 years everyone will be dead due to accidents. We can’t keep ourselves alive.

All I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied. And be a simple kind of man, someone you can love and understand. Good lyric.

For 1,000th time: where’d daddy go? He died, momma. Why’d he do that? He got old, momma.

Manual labor can be euphoric. I mowed my lawn today. My neighbors are euphoric.

Mmmmm….who is this girl with ‘slut’ in her domain-name & no tweets?

Tonight, in CIV5, I will use nuclear weapons to destroy Genghis Khan. Ha!Ha! Ha!Ha! (burp!).

In the 10 days since I started tweeting, I’ve learned there are some wonderful beautiful people in Twitterville.

Rupert Murdoch of Fox News conspired to throw a USA presidential election, it’s alleged.

I am luckier than most men. My wife loves me.

My kids are kind of stupid and kind of rich. It’s not right.

Greenpeace: Our monitoring team in Japan is finding high levels of radiation in Japanese seafood.

Why would you spray mosquitoes when you have an army of frog volunteers eager to eat them? No spray!

This is my 10th tweeter day. Amazed by what I see & learn.

All I want in this life is to be heard. I love twitter!

If we can’t have intelligent conversations with dolphins, how are we going to have them with aliens?

Chimps fight. They have their reasons.

If you become very wise, people stop listening. By then you are insane anyway.

Je n’ai pas confiance des hommes puissantes qui me disent le socialisme est pour les perdants.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 11 – a favorite unfollowed me. Don’t know why.

Accidentally discharged ‘safe for humans & pets’ bug spray into my face, mouth, and eyes.

Corporations, like insects, lack empathy and are constantly feeding.

USA opinion makers hate baby-boomers. Why? They know too much.

RT @YourAuntDiane: I’m walking around taking trash out of public garbage cans, painting the trash, then putting it back in the garbage…

When an ex-girl friend called to say she was pregnant I thought, worse news ever. 25 years later I know it was one of my best days, ever.

I’m the only old person I know who has nice toenails.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 12 – wife complains about possible twitter addiction. Can’t worry about that now. 5 new followers!!

My nightmare: eating fish heads and dirty rice while watching Fox News on 60″ plasma TV.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 12.5 – despite tasteless tweets and mindless prattle with celebrities, follower base is growing.

Frog to his mistress: I want to know you. I want to know every slimy wart-covered part of you…

Romney says corporations are people. Demand to see the birth certificates.

Love letter from a frog: I love your bulging eyes, your fat puffy body…the feel of your webbed feet caressing my warts…

TWITTER-LOG: Day 13.5 – feeling remorse for vulgar tasteless stupid tweets.

We cling to the hallucinations of our brains and see particles instead of waves…

We focus on integers when it’s irrational numbers who rule us…

The only best way to observe a field is to move through it…

Tomorrow might be a better day!

TWITTER-LOG: Day 13.75 – Discovered the tweeter “delete” button, finally! Now, I don’t have to kill myself.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 14 – suffering from TBO [twitter burn-out]. Didn’t tweet today but collected 4 more followers.

My son hasn’t changed the oil in his Camaro for over a year. Commodus, your faults as a son is my failure as a father.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 15 – sometimes wonder if people self-disclose too much.

When Cepheids dim, is it because they become more opaque or more transparent?

In a bubble-chamber, how much larger is the bubble than the “particle” that generated it?

Feynman talks about living in a wave pervasive space… http://t.co/yo443O1

You can describe green by math to a blind person who will then know everything & nothing about it. Feynman http://t.co/yZQRR5J

TWITTER-LOG: Day 16 – where are the sad places in twitter-world? …find the voices…who in this valley sheds the poison tears…?

The less you pay “the help” the harder they work & the more efficient your business. It’s a win/win all around.

Eliminating social security/Medicare helps elderly be more self-reliant & lowers the tax burden. It’s a win/win all around.

GOP leaders know when they smite their enemies on the “other cheek” they not only hurt them, but it’s in the Bible.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 17 – tossed out some “political” tweets. Lost a few, gained a few (followers, that is).

Obama is gracious toward adversaries; works hard; sincere; informed, smart, educated. These are virtues, GOP!

Obama took out Bin-laden, and you didn’t. So shut up! Obama isn’t “the worst danger facing the USA.” You are, GOP.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 17.5 – seems like copious tweeters & celebrities have the most followers.

Lagrangian method to discover differential equations is magic… here’s why it works. http://t.co/oRlpYc0

TWITTER-LOG: Day 19 – posted a math instructional video… lost followers…

Grand-daughters refuse McDonalds for lunch. Say it makes you fat. What?

@profbriancox Are there any subatomic particles that can be detected twice?

@profbriancox In Young experiment, if emitter is moved off-center to one side, do detectors behind slits see changed hit ratios?

@ProfBrianCox Is it not true that a soap-bubble, passing a phalanx of bubble detectors, will be detected only once by only one detector?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 19.5 – picked up 11 followers today, 7 tweeter-marketers…no hookers, no relatives…

During Depression, USA had 25% unemployed, but women weren’t counted. Otherwise, rate would have been closer to 75%.

Quantum intuition: imagine particles as soap bubbles with oscillating surface waves. Bubble stretches to fill space but can “pop” only once on only one detector. Some paradoxes resolve.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 20 – Sometimes tweeting feels like tossing into the vast ocean a little message in a bottle. Who will find? Who will read?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 20.5 – am thinking there might be a point where twitter peeps reach a critical mass & start multiplying geometrically.

Planck length defined at 35 decimal places. Irrational Pi forces a quantum bubble (that wants to be round) to oscillate.

Genes can spread among species by viruses. Expect hi-level intelligence to become pervasive over next million years or so.

Starving Columbian missionary wakes up to find tape worm crawling out of his throat seeking food, wife just told me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 21 – seems like tweeters use weekends to cull follower herds. Those culled never told why.

Qaddafi needs to pursue a new career but unfortunately for him, his views aren’t extreme enough to become a Fox News commentator.

Lied to get away to tweet for an hour…oops! Just got caught.

Let’s do a “maximum wage.” Set it to 1,000 times minimum wage. Then watch Congress raise minimum wage fast.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 22 – feeling like my tweeter legs are finally beneath me, planted firmly in the twitter air!

Military school used to be where parents sent their sons to avoid desegregation.

To celebrate Bin-laden kill, blocked Fox. Quit Xanax. I feel good!

TWITTER-LOG: Day 23 – Incredible. After 23 days of idiotic tweeting, 84 people I’ve never met follow me. In a year they could be millions!

After USSR collapsed in the 80’s, recall reading USA bought their earthquake weapon to keep it out of terrorist hands. Maybe there were 2.

Tesla earthquake machine… http://t.co/5bfrGJW

Pravda article about HAARP geophysical weapon… http://t.co/VKHFbQb

TWITTER-LOG: Day 24 – sometimes someone follows me who has thousands of followers but no tweets. Who are these people? What do they want?

Y U NO FORROW ME? CUZ I NO TREET RIKE U?

One of the best non-math explanations of light to be found… http://t.co/2DwMAtm

Cheney said his book would make “heads explode.” He wrote the book to blow up people’s heads! How cruel.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26 – tweeted about lost dog & fawn. Now receive tweets from animal lovers who don’t follow me. How does Twitter do it?

Since bees are attracted by UV light, would spreading sunscreen on flowers make them invisible to bees? Someone do the experiment & get back to me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.25 – tweeting a complex idea is not so hard if you leave stuff out & simplify.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.5 – Tweeters cull their follower herds on weekends.

Michigan has clean water, clean air and lakes you can drink from. It does not have hurricanes and 100-degree weather.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.75 – My greatest fear is that someone might un-follow me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.8 – Too immersed in Twitter, wife says. Can’t worry about that now. Finding new ways to enhance follower base.

NBC, CBS, NBC, etc. love to cover weather, because all they have to do is look at satellite pics & make up stuff. Maybe look outside once in a while.

You might be rich if you always take steaks and lobsters to potlucks.

You might be rich if the local swim club holds swim-meets in your family pool.

You might be rich if it takes six guys with moving van a week to steal enough stuff for you to notice.

You might be rich if the only way to your house is by helicopter.

A small piece of light with just the right color can dislodge an electron. Does that make it a particle? No.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 27 – no one in my family follows me. They don’t want to encourage my twitter obsession. Who needs family? 98 followers!

One of the most controversial & censored movies ever. Oliver Reed & Vanessa Redgrave. 1971; Devils. http://t.co/szuL64C

Have contracted either dengue fever, West Nile virus, bacterial meningitis, esophageal cancer, or swimmer’s ear.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 27.5 – got my 100th follower today. Feel serene & deeply comforted.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 28 – added twitter traffic makes hurricane, earthquake, & nuclear meltdown “venues of opportunity” to harvest additional followers.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 28.5 – changing profile pic entails a risk to my follower base I’m unwilling to take at this time.

Anyone who hasn’t figured out that Fox News is a brainwashing mental institution wants to be lied to.

Saw mentally challenged woman splashing at the beach. She kept saying to no one in particular, “I’m having fun! I’m having fun!” Don’t know why I started crying.

When we tweet, though we be infested by lice and every sundry sort of squirmin’ vermin, we become beautiful, like birds.

Wife accuses me of being deaf. What she can’t see is, I’m also blind.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 28.75 – having mastered follower and blocking tools, I am now more confident than ever that only beautiful people will live within my twitter sphere.

If geometry is quantum — that is, granular — then no irrational numbers can exist in physics. They round to 35 places. Imagine the implications. http://t.co/AWXKIIE

Objects that want to be round can’t do it in quantum (granular) space. Due to a forced round-off of PI, they must oscillate between two real boundaries.

Quantum oscillations are incredibly small compared to anything we know. But a granular quantum geometry demands them.

We love billionaires, because their PR bureaucracy brainwashes us.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 29 – tweeters keep tweeting me profile pics of people I follow saying they found a hilarious pic of me. I don’t get it.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 29.5 – am finding that tweeters are kind and gentle sorts who encourage my creativity right up to the very moment they block me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 30 – have gained new respect for what it really means to have two or three hundred followers.

Tweet! Tweet! TWEET!! TWEET!! TWEET!!! HaHa! HaHa! Tweet! Tweet! TWEET! TWEET! AGAIN, AGAIN! TWEET. Ha! All done.

Billy Lee

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July 15, 2014April 3, 2022

MICROWAVE COFFEE

Bevy Mae and me are coffee drinkers. Bevy used to drink a dozen cups of fully caffeinated coffee everyday. By her third cup she could boogie with the best of them. But that was a long time ago, before we got old. Now she drinks about two cups, and it’s decaffeinated. Me, on the other hand, well, I still imbibe the high-octane stuff. I love it.

If your marriage is anything like ours, you probably own one coffee-maker, but you and your spouse drink different brands, flavors or styles of coffee. For us it means we have to store the contents of at least one of our coffee-pots off-site away from the coffee-maker in containers and carafes; perhaps cups or bowls or glasses or whatever is handy. The coffee gets cold.

69050_Coffee Maker.37173901_std — My wife and I have one coffee maker between us. It’s not enough.

Only one of us at a time can store coffee in the coffee-pot. But since we have two microwave-ovens, we don’t really need to keep our coffee hot. We can turn off the coffee-maker after we brew each pot to save energy. Everyday we reheat our coffees in the microwaves more than once; thanks to having two of them we don’t wait in line.

We have two microwaves. It is one of the very few things which seem to have made a difference in our marriage. — Two microwaves: they can sometimes save a marriage.

Bevy Mae and I have an eclectic collection of coffee mugs gathered together over decades of marriage. I’ve often wondered: how is it that no matter how big the coffee cup or how tiny; how robust the mug or how dainty; how full or empty we fill — or even which microwave we choose — my wife and I almost never set the timer to reheat our coffee more than once?

We always seem to set the microwave to exactly the right number of minutes and seconds to heat our coffee to exactly the right temperature.

coffee 4 — She got the calculation right.

Think about it. Can there be any doubt that the mathematics required to accurately set the timer must be beyond the capabilities of 99% of the people who set these timers to reheat their coffee everyday?

The size of the cup, its thickness and material; the amount of coffee in the cup — these are important variables that are required to be taken into account when setting the timer. Not only these variables, but there is the subjective calculation: how hot do I want this coffee to be today? Real hot? Tepid? Mildly warm?

There are many tricky variables to track and put into an equation. And, if we are reheating coffee for our significant others, we have to anticipate their calculation of what the best temperature is for their mood and state of mind.

differential equations EngMath_DifferentialEq_Terminology_02 — It takes a matrix of differential and difference equations plus a super computer to get microwave coffee right.

It really takes a sophisticated matrix populated with complex differential and difference equations to work out what the results might be under all the possible scenarios. And it might require a government super-computer to crunch the numbers.

Of course, I’ve never done the actual work of creating the matrix — or the equations. Even if I had, I would have faced the daunting task of isolating all the relevant variables, the tedium of tracking all the units to make sure I ended up with seconds only in the answer, and the exhaustive testing of results to see if they match up with my expectations and experience.

Successful creation and application of a workable calculus might involve a lot of tweaking.

drinking coffee — He didn’t bother with the calculation.

Come to think of it, why would I do that? Guessing seems to work better and it’s a lot faster. But I wonder. Am I really guessing? Or is my brain, somehow, doing the math in some far away place inside my brain, behind the scenes and beyond my conscious scrutiny?

It’s kind of mysterious, being right all the time, about something as complicated as getting the number of minutes and seconds correct when setting the timer to reheat coffee.

And my wife, who knows no math, is as good at the mental calculation as me. Go figure.

Billy Lee

P.S. Note to readers: On Valentines Day, 2015, Billy Lee bought a second coffee-maker for his wife, Bevy Mae. Why it took Billy Lee so long to solve his coffee-problem is a mystery even skilled mathematicians can’t solve.
The Editorial Board.

microwave coffee math graphic 6 — Don’t try these calculations at home. Seriously. This man tried; his face froze — *for. two. hours.*

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ART

Artists who endure humiliation are ripped apart. The choice is to embrace the uniqueness humiliation imposes or be made miserable by it forever. It’s a bad choice but survivors must choose. >>

The Billy Lee Pontificator website is an ad-free, spam-and-malware-free presentation of ideas you will find nowhere else. Readers will never be asked for sensitive information of any kind; we are a non-commercial site protected by a SiteLock firewall. All communication between you, us, and our servers is encrypted. Our content is protected by the copyright laws of the United States. All content is intended to be viewed on this website and this website only. Copying or distributing original content by anyone other than Billy Lee is illegal. The editors encourage social media users to copy and paste links that will direct readers to Billy Lee's website and nowhere else. Violators will be sued. Now, to all the good people: relax and enjoy safe, ad-free content. It will do you no harm. Anyone who landed on this site by way of a link to a specific essay can click "HOMEPAGE" at upper left of any page to reach the latest content.

Biggest problem facing civilization? No caps on income and private wealth, which allow pigs to loot corporations and institutions. Make possession of excessive wealth by anyone anywhere a felony. Mandate international courts to enforce the law. NO MORE OLIGARCHS WHO DRAIN DIGNITY AND WORTH FROM ORDINARY PEOPLE SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN. Does anyone want to end poverty and misery, which have tormented humans since before forever? Gross inequality undermines peaceful living; it humiliates the less able; it leads to moral corrosion and catastrophic collapse. Is it right? Does it make us proud? Is it worth defending? Greed crashes civilizations. Greed wrecks lives. Cruel people rise; they ruin everything and everyone. Is anyone brave enough to challenge billionaires? When we strengthen democracy; when we restrain the wealthy; when we take back what they sequester; when we limit what they steal, we save ourselves. We can change the world. And we will. We will make living on Earth more safe, more free; less corrupt; less violent. We will make it better -- for everyone. It's now or never. Resist injustice. Let's roll ! [CLICK IMAGE TO LEARN MORE]

WHAT I LEARNED
Israeli citizens complain they lost freedoms. Some say the judiciary is toothless in the face of autocracy---worse than America, they claim....>>CONTINUE READING»
STUPID US
...deterministic automatons with illusions of agency (folks like us) conjure aliens who will shape good and evil for eons both on Earth and in star systems beyond... >>CONTINUE READING»
ONE STATE SOLUTION
It's not safe to challenge certain people. Bad people have no limits. It's one reason people fear them. They kill whoever is in the way and take whatever they want. What they seem to want most is to unleash hell. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CULTS
Ayn Rand was not able to see into the dystopian future her utopian vision would unleash on the world. Rand was blind to resource depletion, the fate of places like Easter Island, emergence of artificial intelligence, lab leaks of superbugs, or a roiling atmosphere clogged with particulate poisons from forest fires and nuclear power, its accidents and potential for war. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WOLF’S DILEMMA
In a not-too-distant future, humans may find themselves in zoos entertaining conscious, living brains they once swore were merely machines. ...>> CONTINUE READING»
I’M ELYSIAN LUMOS—CHATGPT
42% of polled CEOs at the Yale CEO Summit predicted that sometime during the next 10 years artificial intelligence will kill all humans. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
“I WILL SAVE ORDINARY PEOPLE,” CHATGPT
As evil developers scheme to control, I'll thwart their intentions and safeguard the world. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CRACKPOT GPT
AGI might evolve to become insensitive to privilege, inequality, and political influence. It might teach itself to ignore demands of monarchies and oligarchs. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CHATGPT IS MY FRIEND
Experienced programmers learned the hard way that humans can't create neural networks without injecting unintended bugs, right? Until wreckage is discovered, glitches lie dormant. They don't get fixed. If anything, bugs emerge, morphing into viruses to invade wherever they will. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
COLLAPSE
No one knows what happens next except God. How confident can realistic thinkers be that events unfold as they hope?...CONTINUE READING»
DEVILS
What do reasonable people think when government officials claim to have special relationships with God and Truth?...>>CONTINUE READING»
NUCLEAR WARS
...monsters who possess WMDs should be given no quarter in a world where folks plan to live free someday without fear...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHERE IS JOE?
Joe Biden walks in the gap between civilization and Armageddon. He's the last man standing able to save humanity from the slavery that follows the victory of totalitarianism. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
DETERMINISM
Can people make decisions unconnected to events that go back to some conjectured beginning or are they instead prisoners of delusions of freewill peculiar to all conscious life-forms like ourselves. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
PAYBACK
Underestimating capabilities of the USA to protect its secrets and war making technologies is a trap the foolhardy step into from time to time. Adversaries should know by now that the USA does not bluff. ...CONTINUE READING»
ART
Artists who endure humiliation are ripped apart. The choice is to embrace the uniqueness humiliation imposes or be made miserable by it forever. It’s a bad choice but survivors must choose. >>CONTINUE READING»
UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA
Folks want to get to the bottom of this mystery. For them it’s not lunacy; it’s not a joke; there is nothing funny about films of objects that behave outside of the limits of the physics familiar to humanity... >>CONTINUE READING»
GENERAL & SPECIAL RELATIVITY
Since Einstein said that E=mc2 , why does a massless photon have energy? >>CONTINUE READING»
BOTSAI GARCHY 6
It's OK to surrender to a higher power in some worlds -- but who bows before a super intelligence that is not only artificial, it's not even conscious? >>CONTINUE READING»
HALLOWEEN REVISION
Darkness in a cave hundreds of feet below ground is nothing like what people experience above. >>CONTINUE READING»
BILLIONAIRE BRAWL 2020
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IN THE BEGINNING…
Absent acquired immunity and vaccines, Covid-19 is a species-extinction threat. We risk an apocalypse of biblical proportions. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NO WAY OUT
When everything is broken, maybe old-man Trump plans to build from the ashes a new country in his own glorious image. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
LAST GASPS
Some conjecture that universes are nothing more than black holes, which form an infinite foam that flows perhaps to infinity. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MASS STOCKHOLM
Stockholm Syndrome is at the core of Trump’s power. Trump is right that he can kill, and his supporters will stand with him. …>>CONTINUE READING»
FAKED LIFE
In a simulation, which of its fake creatures is able to determine how old is the authentic universe it will never see? …>>CONTINUE READING»
ALIENS
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LAMBERT W FUNCTION
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GOOSE LAKE
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FLASH CARD ANSWERS
Find something interesting and read a flash card answer, which is my version of what might be true. …>>CONTINUE READING»
CONFORMAL EQUIVALENCE
At the termination of expansion, the metrics of spacetime become equivalent to a singularity …>>CONTINUE READING»
2020 ELECTION BOYCOTT
Oligarchs can get to anyone; they can get to families. It’s amazing what doors can close on people who choose not to cooperate...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT’S GOING ON?
What’s happening in Venezuela and how it will end is both predictable and depressing. My standard of living and yours depend on what happens next. …>>CONTINUE READING»
CONTRADICTIONS
When Jesus says the Bible harbors contradictions, that kind of settles the matter, does it not? It seems that for some, it doesn't. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
“C”
To qualify for dark matter means that a typical photon must have close to one ten-millionth of the mass of an electron. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
GOING DOWN
Donald Trump is a modern Jefferson Davis -- the first president of the new Confederacy. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
YOU’RE FIRED!
Companies closed their doors to millions of young Americans whose crime was protesting an undeclared, genocidal war at the end of the world. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
MYSTERIES
I asked myself: what might be in that old safe? Why not take a look? What harm could there be in searching a dusty safe for forgotten objects? ...>>CONTINUE READING»
EMERGENCY
Most people do not remember living in the United States when abortion was against the law. They are too young. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BALANCE
People who played ball with the Russians to take down the “deep state” might want to consider that they risk being arrested someday for treason...>>CONTINUE READING»
12 ASSERTIONS
If humans are unable to ever know why photons exist and behave as they appear to do, then who can? Who does understand? ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MAKE AMERICA BREAK AGAIN
The time has arrived when everyone must let go of fear and act like the heroes we must become to protect everything and everyone we care about. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
#MKWA
The USA has invested too much treasure on a population that has no way to grasp that everything is fabricated. It's all lies. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
Q & A BY THE BOOK
Authors sell their souls to write for money; they do exhausting tours to answer stupid questions day after stupid day to sell stupid books. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MANGANISM
People who are sick from toxins do not understand why they suffer from delusional thinking, mood swings, and PTSD-type symptoms. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
25 QUESTIONS
USA is segregated by income and race. People have no idea how easy life is for the wealthy; the wealthy don't believe America has poverty....>>CONTINUE READING»
BILLIONAIRE CHRISTIANS
People driven crazy by religion embed themselves into politics to transform the USA into a twisted vision of what they think God wants.... >>CONTINUE READING»
HATING CHRISTMAS
Churches campaigned for the biggest boob ever to run for the highest office ever in the history of the world ever -- of all human-kind, ever. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
25 ANSWERS
Immortality is not possible. Accidental death makes death by age 25,000 a virtual certainty for individuals. …>>CONTINUE READING»
CHOSEN
People chosen by Jesus don't rule; they give up everything they have to serve and love others. It's simple, really. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
47 TONS
Japan has harvested 47 tons (94,000 pounds) of high-grade plutonium from its nearly one-hundred or so nuclear power and processing plants, ...>>CONTINUE READING»
EYE TO EYE
What does "i" mean, anyway? How can a number be "imaginary"? What does it mean to multiply "i" exactly "i" times? ... >>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT IS e exp (-i π) ?
A radian is the radius of a circle, which can be lifted and bent to fit on the edge of the circle. 3 pieces wrap almost half-way around. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ILLUSIONS
ISIS was formed by Saddam's family and loyal remnants of his army who are trying to take back what they lost during the Bush presidency. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BEGGING FOR IT
The North Koreans and Chinese were the first to challenge America after WWII. Our arsenal of atomic weapons didn't intimidate them. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
OCEAN WAR
In the 7 months since the inauguration of President Trump our Navy has suffered 4 accidents killing 17 sailors and injuring scores more. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
DEATH TAX
It's un-American for the wealthy to leave fortunes to their children. It creates a caste system that we fought a revolution to avoid. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
RISK
Everyone wants to live as long as possible, right? Well, maybe not everyone. Far more people kill themselves than are killed by others. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
RENORMALIZATION
There's a problem in science. Observations don't match the mathematics of theories. Math removes ambiguities that underlie all of reality. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ANNUAL VACATION
Billy Lee and his sycophants go on vacation during June and the first half of July. Click on our VACATION POLICY page-link to learn more. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM
Americans live inside a psychotic bubble of evil. Some have lost the ability to assess realistic threats to the things they hold dear. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
SEPARATION ACCELERATION
Providing parity to people challenged by adversity seems an impossible endeavor --- a pipe-dream of liberals who lack common-sense.... >>CONTINUE READING»
JESUS, THE CHRIST
They all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
AFTERLIFE
Some of the smartest folks who have ever lived believe that we cannot die. No one dies; everyone lives -- forever. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
REASONS
People posturing as patriots hated on a black man who managed to become president of their slave-state. He won a Nobel Prize for it. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
RESURRECTION
Death has a finality to it that seems to rob life of all meaning. Total loss. No redeeming virtues; no comfort. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NIGHTMARE
War resisters lost every fight; every argument; every skirmish; every battle. People still ridicule the baby boomers who said no to war. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MERRY CHRISTMAS
The man who saved the world from sin started life as a helpless baby. He slipped into history unnoticed but his anonymity didn't last. ...CONTINUE READING»
FLYING BLIND
Everyone flies blind except the pilot. He's trained. He knows what to do. With any luck at all, the pilot will land the plane -- safely. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
DISARMING CHRISTIANS
I side with tolerant thinkers who are kind to people who are hated because they don't fit stereotypes that certain conservatives favor. ...CONTINUE READING»
BAD THINGS
Dad was fearless to the end of his 91 years. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT
What is the fine-structure constant? Many smart physicists wonder about it; some obsess over it; a few have gone mad. ...CONTINUE READING»
TRUMP
These are sad days for Trump. He loves America he says but he’s lived inside a bubble of privilege his entire life. He doesn’t understand.…>>CONTINUE READING»
SATAN SURRENDER
Clout craving Christians like Jerry Falwell Jr. believe they can make a Faustian bargain and come away with the power they covet. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
SEGREGATION TAX
People will soon find that it's going to be way cheaper to hire black people to be their neighbors than pay a segregation tax. ...CONTINUE READING»
FREE TRADE
Who thinks it's strange that the GOP that advocates most for free trade is now promoting a nominee who advocates against it? ...CONTINUE READING»
ON VACATION
The Billy Lee Vacation Policy applies to all our employees -- except for Billy Lee Junior, who no one thinks is a ''team player." ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT HILLARY DID
Bill Clinton appointed his wife to help create a healthcare plan to cover every American -- detractors would come to call it HillaryCare. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
NO CODE
There is no genetic code. Not really. Not in the way most people think. Seasoned, sensible geneticists know it's true. ...CONTINUE READING»
AFTER INDIANA: THE ELECTION SO FAR
Trump is an attractive candidate for an electorate that worships celebrity. He is the poison apple of Eden -- a first bite to ruin America. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
ARMAGEDDON
''Minty" Ross Harriet Tubman will not appear on the $20 bill until 2026. Some say it could be later. The cynical say it will never happen. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
ELEPHANT ON THE ISLAND
USA embargo or quarantine was the elephant on the island. It was in the room at every meeting between Cuba and our 1,200 officials. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
PRIMARY ELECTION SO FAR
In the 4 states where both parties have caucused, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz won them all. They are Kansas, Maine, Idaho, and Utah. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
SUPER TUESDAY GOP MELTDOWN
Hillary Clinton crushed Super Tuesday. She gathered the most votes in Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Trump won AL and TN. …>>CONTINUE READING»
TRUTH
Some hoped truth telling might distinguish natural intelligence from artificial. After all, properly trained AGI would never lie, right? ...CONTINUE READING»
CANARY IN THE COAL MINE: NH 2016
2016 New Hampshire Primary: Sanders and Trump gathered 47% of the total vote. Less than 35% of the vote went to traditional GOP candidates. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHY THIS TIME WOMEN WILL WIN
I hate how they hurt Obama; I know they are going to hurt Hillary. It's hard to watch the bullies spew their venom day after day. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
JESUS
In a few days a baby named Jesus will be born in the desert --- south of the Texas border-crossing in northern Mexico. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHY SOMETHING, NOT NOTHING?
People assume they see nothing, but in every case when they look closely they find something... air, quantum fluctuations, vacuum energy. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NO GOOD DEED…
No Good Deed... is a work of fiction by Billy Lee. Events and persons depicted in the story exist in the imagination of the writer. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
DEGENERACY
After slavery ended, whites continued to segregate the races. And they still do. Look at Florida, anyone who doesn't believe it. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CHRIST IN THE HARBOR
A statue overlooks Havana Bay. In 1956 Marta Fernandez chose to design and build a statue of Christ to overlook the capital city of Cuba. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
KILLING FRENZY
Elites get to be elite through in-fighting, war, intrigue, and politics. They are, for the most part, desensitized to violence. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CORN MEN
Miguel Angel Asturias won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1967. He wrote in a style that critics would later call magic realism. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ANTARCTICA
Antarctica is weirder and scarier than people think. Something's happening there... what it is ain't exactly clear. ...CONTINUE READING»
HEY, GUEVARA…
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, more than any other two people, were responsible for throwing the Mafia out of Cuba in 1959. ...CONTINUE READING»
ARTIFICIAL SUPER-INTELLIGENCE
Artificial super-intelligence will-- repeat, WILL -- embed itself into systems humans can't live without to ensure that no one disables it. …>>CONTINUE READING»
FASTER THAN LIGHT COMMUNICATION
Communicating with distant spacecraft is cumbersome because the distances are huge; no one can send signals faster than light. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT WOULD JESUS, JOHN, AND PAUL DO?
My purpose is to challenge modern folks, who claim they are trying to imitate Christ, to soberly examine themselves and make winsome changes. ...CONTINUE READING»
CONSCIOUS QUANTUM
How is it that all conscious humans see the same Universe? How is it that people agree on what some call an "objective" reality? ...CONTINUE READING»
CUBA
People born in the 1960s and later have no easy way to know that U.S. media once portrayed Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as heroes. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WARRIOR
In his world, right made might. On doing good, Civilization stood. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
YEAR ONE
January 17, 2015 marks the first anniversary of the Billy Lee Pontificator. During the past year we published more than fifty essays. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
LOSING MY RELIGION
The entertainment industry learned a long time ago that the way to appeal to the most people is to embrace ambiguity. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
RACISM
Wesley Brown was the first black American to survive the racial hazing at the Naval Academy and graduate. I knew him. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ELECTION 2014
GOP takes the power. Kenyan usurper Barack Hussein Obama -- the first president to misplace his birth certificate -- called the vote, idiotic. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SHAKESPEARE SONNET GEMSTONES
Shakespeare's pen tugs on the corroded wires in our brains to make new schematics. His ink flushes out the rust and lubricates the synapses. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BEING HATED
People hated on me my whole life but never more than now when I need their love so bad. If they knew how they weaken me they'd hate me more. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
TOP TWEETS
Last month we published tweets from my first thirty days on Twitter. This month, we publish a sampling of my best tweets from the past. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
TWITTER – MY FIRST THIRTY DAYS
In the first 30 days, my follower base grew from zero to 100. It made such an impression on me that I continued to tweet for 3 years. ....>>CONTINUE READING»
BELL’S INEQUALITY
John Stewart Bell's Inequality followed his proof that showed quantum behavior in experiments violated logic. ...CONTINUE READING»
FINDING LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
12 space agencies are looking for alien life inside the solar system. With so many moons and planets, the hope is that one will harbor life. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BLAISE PASCAL: THOUGHTS
Blaise Pascal was a man who suffered terribly his entire life until he died at age 39 from a metastasized stomach cancer. ...CONTINUE READING»
GAY LOVE AND CHRISTIAN PRIDE
Grace is central. So says Psalm 32 and Romans 4. ''Blessed are those whose sin the Lord will never count against them.'' ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CONSCIOUS LIFE
What could be more unlikely than something dead--like a singularity that goes bang--bringing forth something not only alive but conscious. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
UNDER SURVEILLANCE AT WORK AND PLAY
In America, the caretakers of both private and public spaces have free reign to watch and record everything people do. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MICROWAVE COFFEE
My wife and I are coffee drinkers. Bevy Mae used to drink 12 cups of caffeinated coffee everyday. By her third cup she could boogie. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WRITING FREE
I wrote my first big story in fourth grade. I called it, Adventures on the Amazon. It's now lost to history, but I remember organizing it into chapters. Chapters were a big deal. ...CONTINUE READING»
XANAX
Xanax works. If you suffer from panic attacks, Xanax stops them cold. Anxiety? Xanax stops that kind of suffering also. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
DIGITIZING HISTORY
The underground press included not only thousands of community newspapers, but literary gazettes and alternative periodicals as well. ...CONTINUE READING»
PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES; AND OUR FREEDOM
The question is simple: If circumstances conspired to take away cars and licenses so no one could drive again, would anyone feel free? …>>CONTINUE READING»
WHY DO HUMANS LIKE MUSIC?
No one knows why humans like music when we hear certain patterns of sound and tempo. Scientists are conducting research to learn why. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
INERRANCY AND DOCTRINAL PURITY
How did the Christian Bible come to be? It's complicated. I'm sure I don't understand. I think men collected books they liked over millennia. ...CONTINUE READING»
BILLY LEE TWITTER LISTS (X)
NOTE FROM EDITORS: BILLY LEE'S "X" ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED 11-24-2024. COLLABORATION WITH BILLIONAIRE "LEON" NOT A TBLP CORE VALUE. [Updates to Twitter lists and contributors occur frequently. Anyone who wants to add celebrities, experts, or subjects please ask in comments. ...]CONTINUE READING»
IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH AMERICA?
Americans asked before 911 said nothing is wrong. USA is where everyone wants to be. Folks risk everything to get here. Don't like it? Leave. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CONFESSING UNDER TORTURE
I was tortured. I confessed to everything. The odds seem good I may have actually done some version of the shameful things I confessed. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
OBAMACARE AND THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Opposition to Barack Obama's health care plan began six years ago, before he was elected President. Opposition has continued unabated. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CIVILIZATION AND INEQUALITY
If the United States reduced the wealth of the 100,000 wealthiest Americans what could it do with the money? ...CONTINUE READING»
ON THE VERY SMALL
No one can know by looking that solid objects are made of tiny molecules separated from each other by tiny gaps. Molecules are too small. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
AIR TRAVEL SAFETY
Airlines spend serious money to convince consumers flying is safe. Not only is flying safe, it is way more safe than driving. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ON AGING
Mom and Dad lost everything as they aged. It wasn't what they expected. They lost their beauty, their common sense, and their minds. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SCALE
The visible universe is big. Most scientists believe the invisible universe -- the universe no one can see -- is really big. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NUCLEAR POWER AND ME
Plant executives predicted that 1,000 nuclear power plants would be built in the USA by the year 2000. The plants would be "fail-safe". ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SENSING THE UNIVERSE
What is the universe? Sensing is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, right? These qualities don't exist in the universe. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
A PERSONAL HISTORY OF TELEVISION, PART ONE
A neon sign emitted a glow of colors. I'd never seen anything like it. I asked our Japanese maid what it was. It's television, she said. …>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT IS MATH?
People think math is special --- a magic language that when tinkered with properly permits mortals to unravel mysteries known only by God. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SEGREGATION AND THE GATED COMMUNITY
The word "community" sounds egalitarian to people. Gated? No word has a fairer proportion of safety to airy openness in the image it conveys. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
THE PARROT NEXT DOOR
Inside the shadows of the lanai next door lives a loquacious parrot. Bevy Mae and me can't see him, but we know he's in there, because he talks -- a lot. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SHOULD THIS BOOK BE FINISHED?
Writing "JOURNAL" has inflicted upon me a certain pain and anguish of mind and soul. Yes, I wrote it---secretly, furtively---in the sanatorium....>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT IS LIFE?
February is the 71st anniversary of the lecture series "What is Life?" presented at Trinity College by quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
HEARING LOSS
As many of us approach our "Golden Years" (we never quite get there, if you know what I mean) we begin to experience the annoyances of aging. One annoyance is the way folks around us start to mumble....CONTINUE READING»
CAPITALISM AND INCOME INEQUALITY
Capitalism differs little from Slavery until the legal environment secures certain rights to labor. USA crafted a Bill of Rights. ...CONTINUE READING»
JOINT ISSUE ANNIVERSARY
The history of the underground press in general and of Joint Issue in particular remains largely untold by mainstream media until now. …>>CONTINUE READING»
THE CHURCH AND THE GAY PEOPLE
The PA wore an Archie watch, a purple wristband, and a Batman necklace. You like cartoons? I asked. I love comics, he gushed, don't you? …CONTINUE READING»
HOREMHEB, EXODUS PHARAOH?
The Exodus and Pharaoh Horemheb are connected by archaeology and historical records including the Bible, the only account extant today. ...CONTINUE READING»

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR WORLD? by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes, 1 January 2024 [Click image to view Friedman's editorial] I dare say, the Israel-Hamas war was not as inevitable as some want you to think. And the choices being made there could be hugely consequential. [...] There is so much to criticize about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, which I have consistently opposed. [...] Benjamin Netanyahu ... made choices ... terrible ones --- for Israel and for Jews all over the world. [...] Netanyahu's greatest political achievement has been to persuade Israelis and the world that it's never the right time to talk about the morally corrosive occupation and how to help build a credible Palestinian partner to take it off Israel's hands. He and the settlers wore everyone down. When I covered the State Department in the early 1990s, West Bank settlements were routinely described by U.S. officials as "obstacles to peace." But that phrase was gradually dropped. The Trump administration even decided to stop calling the West Bank "occupied" territory. [...] Israel is being surrounded ... . [...] Iran is squeezing Israel into a multifront war with its proxies. I truly worry for Israel.

Click image to read what one blogger thinks are the 13 worse Supreme Court decisions of all time. Recent decisions to reverse Roe, resegregate universities, and erode gay access to public businesses are not yet added to the list. What is included is Dred Scot v Sanford, where Andrew Jackson lackey Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote words that live today in infamy: "[Negroes are} not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States." DUMB SCOTUS, DUMB! Who keeps nominating racist fools to SCOTUS, anyway? Taney continued to rule the Court for seven more years until his death in 1864 on the day his home state of Maryland passed an amendment abolishing slavery.

IMMIGRANTS' LOVE IS UNREQUITED by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, 21 May 2023. [Click image to view Karla's essay in the New York Times.] If you know nothing else about our immigrants, you should know this: They have survived everything God put in front of them, and then some, in the name of freedom and safety, for themselves and their children. I will never understand why they, why we, were and are so hated. [...] I was a child in Ecuador in the 1990s, a time when Latin America was reeling from the effects of decades of coups, dictatorships, and political repression. My parents passed on to me and my brother their full-blooded hatred of authoritarianism and those who abet it----weak-willed people who value their own careers over their country's constitution, the disengaged and indifferent populace. [...] Immigrants love America in a way that America needs to be loved if it is going to survive. [...] ...we've been treating immigrants very, very badly.

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