TOP TWEETS

twitter 1Last 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 Accomplishedhttps://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.

twitter 1Seems 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

 

TWITTER – MY FIRST THIRTY DAYS


tweeter 4

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.

twitter 2In 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.

tweeter 6TWITTER-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

GAY LOVE AND CHRISTIAN PRIDE

UPDATE, JUNE 15, 2020: Today, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that discrimination against gay and transgender workers is unconstitutional. Gays and transgender people are now protected by federal law, which forbids discrimination

UPDATE, JUNE 26, 2015: Today, the Supreme Court of the United States approved the right of any two unrelated adults to marry. This article, written one year ago for both gay and straight Christians, remains relevant because it addresses issues of Christian marriage.


I’ve noticed (how could anyone not notice?) that some folks use the Bible to browbeat people who are gay. Every once in a while, not often, people are surprised to learn that persons leading the charge against gays are gay themselves. And people — sometimes — know.  Somehow, folks who have the courage to self-disclose become the target of people who are working through their self-loathing by bullying. It can become a heart-wrenching spectacle.

I’m old enough to remember years ago when Anita Bryant, the former Florida orange juice spokesperson, led a national crusade against gays. Her followers’ approach to the issue of homosexuality was to show up to Gay Pride events with signs reading, you are all going to hell.

In the midst of one of her anti-gay campaigns her marriage fell apart. The media reported, apparently in error, that her husband was gay. One reporter, who knew better, reported her husband was a homo-sapien.

Some folks who have found themselves on the receiving end of hostile condemnation have complained that Christians are rude and insensitive. I remember one kid complaining on TV about the awful treatment his gay parents received from Christians during a parade they attended. It hurt, he said.

Anyway, the Bible is clear, isn’t it?

God judges people with the same mercy (or lack of mercy) they show others, to paraphrase Jesus. Somewhere in the Bible is the promise that when our ways please God, enemies make peace with us.

Didn’t Jesus call folks to be peacemakers and witnesses of his love for all people? It must be possible to love gay people without scaring them half to death and humiliating them.

I’ve been thinking: why not write about a few well-known passages in the Bible that seem to address the issues of gay love and share a few insights? It seems to be a subject on a lot of people’s minds these days.

Of course, I’m not a theologian. I’m a pontificator, right? These ideas are my opinions, subject to change if anyone points out their errors.

Mostly, I’m asking questions about certain Bible verses to try to help people think about ways churches can make the road to Christ an easier walk for gay folks and those who love them. 

It’s a sensitive subject in some churches, my own included. I hope people don’t take my word for anything except to get their thinking started. Maybe some will talk with others they know and trust who might have a similar interest.

This article speaks to straight Christians, mostly, whose ideas about sexuality may possibly be shaped more by prejudice and ignorance than by what is written in the Bible.  I hope gay Christians will join the discussion. If any are reading now, insights are important. Submit comments at the end of the article, anyone who cares. 


The rainbow flag of the gay pride movement.
The Rainbow flag of the gay pride movement.

In the USA we have the LGBT acronym. It stands for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender. Some folks are adding “Q” for questioning; various other letters are sometimes added to include related like-minded groups. 

Fair enough. 

I think the LGBTQ acronym is appropriate for secular discussions of sexuality. It is a shield of unity for folks who are struggling to cope with the pain of society’s prejudice and bigotry.

But for Christians, it seems to me, gay sexuality discouraged by the Bible is more narrowly defined — transgender issues are not mentioned, for one thing.

Gay sex is described in graphic terms only in the Old Testament — a collection of books written thousands of years ago; it recalls for us that men who ”lay with men in the same way they lay with women” were put to death in Old Testament times in the same way as adulterers and those who practiced six other categories of sexual activity.

Oddly, under Old Testament law, a man who committed adultery could escape execution if his sex partner was the wife of either his uncle or brother. He suffered the curse of childlessness, instead.

Should a man sleep with a menstruating woman, both were punished by being cut-off from their people.

And for those who didn’t get the message that sexual sin was serious, the book of Deuteronomy reveals that newly-wed women discovered to be non-virgins were executed and their marriages annulled.

Punishments for sexual sins thousands of years ago during Old Testament times were severe.


Bible Jesus
The Bible contains 66 books, 31,102 verses, and over 727,000 words.

In the entire Bible (66 books, 31,102 verses, over 727,000 words) little is written on the subject of gay sex or relationships — on gay sex: a dozen or so verses in nine or so books — on gay relationships: one interesting story in the book of Samuel about the love relationship of David with King Saul’s son, Jonathan.

The Bible says their love was more deeply felt than the love between a man and a woman. In this story, at least, it seems the Bible permitted two men to love one another. But it  doesn’t seem to suggest, at least to me, that the love shared by David and Jonathan had a sexual dimension.

Some Christian leaders have written that homosexual activity is among the worst sins people commit. How is it then that homosexual activity is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments, the bedrock moral teaching of the Bible? How is it that Christ himself never mentioned it?

And if all sin — any sin — separates people from God, how can any particular sin be judged worse than any other, unless folks are speaking in a secular sense? And if they speak in a secular sense, aren’t they obligated to remember that, in America at least, people have protected rights to believe or not believe pretty much anything they want when it comes to religion or any other subject?

It’s something called freedom, and it applies to both Christians and non-Christians.


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Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave this life of sin.

In this article I am writing to Christians, both gay and straight. And in this context, I have to admit that a fair reading of the Bible reveals that the handful of writers who addressed the issue said plainly that sex between men was sin. Those who submit themselves to Christ Jesus have an obligation, as everyone does, to repent and leave this life of sin, as Jesus advised the famous woman caught in the act of adultery.

The woman’s accusers planned to kill her. Jesus saved her life and set her free.

Fomenting hysteria and supporting anti-gay political movements are unseemly for Christian churches, especially in light of the small number of verses about gay-sex in the Bible.

Churches better serve God when they transform themselves into safe places for gay men and women who belong to Christ to worship and enjoy the friendships to which they are entitled as members of the Christian community. 

A gay Christ-professing man or woman should never be afraid to lose friends or face church discipline for being true to themselves and others, even as their process of sanctification is ongoing.

[Sanctification is a technical term used by theologians to refer to the process whereby the LORD, over the lifetime of a believing sinful person, transforms that person to holiness. The process is not finished until after the believer dies and Christ presents them holy and spotless before God, the Father. The Editors]

It might be helpful to consider this: in contrast to its paucity of gay-sex verses, the Bible contains hundreds of condemnations of hetero-sexual activity including, but not limited to, masturbation, fornication, adultery, rape, and prostitution.  I mention these because an important theme in the Bible is that sexual ”impurity” separates people from God. Some leaders claim it impacts marriages and leads to consequences like divorce.

Depending on the translation, the word, homosexuality, appears only once (or twice) in the Bible — in the New Testament.  In one passage, the writer explains that the law of God is good when it is used properly. He says the law is made to guide breakers of the law, like those who practice homosexuality, to cite one group among eleven listed in the verse.

The Old Testament passages that warn men to avoid sex with other men are the basis of the New Testament passages just mentioned. Were it not for the sensitivity of some, these verses might go unnoticed.

The passages were written three thousand years ago — before modern medicine and antibiotics; before innovators invented condoms or even soap. If modern society lacked doctors, medicines, condoms, and soap, wouldn’t it make sense to caution men (and women) to avoid unprotected sex with multiple partners?


Christian leaders are not going to execute non-virgins. Not going to happen.
I don’t know of a single religion that advocates executing non-virgin women who marry, even though a verse in Deuteronomy seems to demand it. Execution has outlived itself. In the USA religious freedom means that extreme religious views have little chance to become law.

Many Christian leaders, perhaps most of them, say, no. It has nothing to do with health. The reason for prohibition is to promote sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman.

But the Old Testament was written when powerful men — many of them Bible heroes — took hundreds, sometimes many hundreds, of wives and concubines. Many less-powerful men in ancient societies couldn’t marry because powerful rulers reduced numbers of available women.

An argument can be made that polygamy increased temptation in ancient times for single men to couple. But there were risks. Those who practiced gay sex risked their health and lives. Effective treatment against infection was non-existent. 

In the same way, powerful men who practiced polygamy were themselves at risk for sexually transmitted disease should their wives submit themselves to other men.  Adultery became a capital crime punished by pulverizing offending women with rocks until they died.

The rise of HIV/AIDs in modern times is a reminder of what gay men suffered during bygone Old Testament eras. Most folks agree that sex in ancient times, despite its pleasures, always posed downside risks. Many of these risks have been mitigated in modern times.

It should be easy to understand why leaders of ancient civilizations took a keen interest in protecting vulnerable, often ignorant, people from harming themselves. These concerns sometimes migrated into their written documents, like those dozen verses found in nine books of the Bible.


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The story of Sodom is used to justify suppression of gays in many parts of the world. What does the story actually say?

What about Sodom and Gomorrah?  This famous story is found in the Book of Genesis, written about 3,000 years ago. It is the basic text in the Bible used to justify the suppression of gays in many parts of the world. It’s time to take a closer look.

What, exactly, happened in the ancient city of Sodom?

According to the story in the Bible, the LORD appeared to Abraham in the form of three men. They discussed the town of Sodom. Abraham, fearing for the lives of the innocent, argued that destroying the city was not just. The three men agreed. They would not destroy the city, they said, if they found as few as ten good men.

The LORD went to Sodom, this time in the form of two angels. They entered Sodom, where the men living there threatened them with rape, presumably because they were beautiful.

I don’t want to get into the complexities of Christian theology (because I’m not a theologian, and it’s a sensitive subject), but permit me to point out that some believe the three men who discussed Sodom with Abraham were the Holy Trinity; that is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Triune God as it were, of Christian orthodoxy.

Later, according to this view, the LORD entered Sodom in the form of the two angels mentioned earlier, who personified — or perhaps were — Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit. God the Father remained, presumably, at a safe distance outside the city, because some say the nature of his Holiness would have brought instant death to any sinner who looked at Him.

All the men living in Sodom, young and old, turned out to see the angels. Their reaction was not to welcome the representatives of the living God, but to attack the house where they were staying to gain access to rape them.

If you were God, what would you do? If the angels were brothers, is there anyone who would stand by and just let things happen? Of course not. God blinded the attackers to enable the angels and their host family to escape; He ignited a volcano and buried the city of Sodom under its ashes.

My question is this: was it the homosexuality of some of the men in Sodom that upset God? Or was it the predatory sexual appetites of all the men of Sodom for two of God’s most trusted messengers?

Certainly the attack provoked God’s sense of justice, and it became personal, because the men of Sodom threatened to degrade and possibly kill the two essential envoys God would ultimately task to redeem humanity. In fact, according to the view I described earlier, the men of Sodom attacked God Himself, a stupid thing for anyone to try.

There is a lot here to think about. The men of Sodom went to war against God, and God taught them the painful lesson that he protects his own, some of whom, presumably, lived in Sodom’s vicinity and had become its victims, much as God’s envoys almost had. Can there be any doubt, after reading this story, that God will defend those who belong to him?

It might be helpful to pause for a moment to say a few words about angels. The Bible describes angels as being neither male nor female; they don’t procreate or marry. They don’t have sexual relations.

It’s not that their sexuality is ambiguous. They don’t have a sexual identity!  They are not sexual beings. To paraphrase Jesusthere is no sex (marriage or giving in marriage) in heaven.

Keeping the words of Jesus in mind, it seems reasonable to believe that most will agree that subjecting an angel to a sexual assault rises to the level of a horrible crime punishable, in this case at least, by death.


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All the men in Sodom, both gay and straight, participated in the crime against God’s envoys. It turned into a war the men had no chance to win.

According to the Bible account, all the men in Sodom, both young and old, participated in this outrage. It means that some of the men could not have been homosexuals. In fact, the majority were not, if anyone chooses to use their common sense to read the passage.

Can any reasonable person extrapolate that all men from then until the end of time stand condemned, because they, like the men of Sodom, want to have sex with people they’ve only just met and don’t really know?

I’m not sure. Maybe. Yet some use this story to condemn only the men who were gay, and not only that, they condemn all gay men for all time. It doesn’t seem fair.

In fact it’s not fair; it’s not even biblical. The prophet Ezekiel gives the reasons for Sodom’s destruction in chapter sixteen of his eponymous book and explains clearly that other cities were worse in God’s eyes than Sodom, including, of all cities, the City of Peace: Jerusalem.  And he predicts that God will someday restore both Sodom and Jerusalem; and he explains why. Click on the link and read the chapter, anyone who doesn’t believe it.

Ok, readers. Maybe it’s time for a break. Take some deep breaths. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Exhale slowly. Good. Good. OK, then. Let’s move on.

May I now, please, be allowed to pose another question, this time from the New Testament? May I humbly ask if it is possible, just possible, that another Scripture passage is being misread by some possibly gay-intolerant Christians?

Many of us are familiar with the words written by Paul where he says of humanity, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

I’ve heard Christians say that this passage refers to lesbianism. But let’s slow down and think for a minute. Doesn’t it seem reasonable — wouldn’t the passage make better sense — if the shameful and unnatural relations Paul condemns are between the women and their husbands? Doesn’t the passage, when read properly, reflect the conservative attitude of Paul, who wrote it, and the attitudes of early Christians as recorded in other non-biblical texts?

Isn’t this view consistent with the passage Paul wrote exhorting married couples to keep their marriage beds pure and undefiled? Can there be any doubt that early Christians believed — based on their reading of passages in the Old Testament — that certain sexual acts were unclean and defiling, regardless of who performed them?


Saint Dominic's Catholic Church, San Francisco
Saint Dominic’s Catholic Church, San Francisco, California

After all, the early Christian Church permitted only missionary-position style sex to heterosexual couples who the Church itself married — and then solely for the purpose of producing offspring. Sex was of course forbidden to anyone not married.

In fact, sex was forbidden even to those who were married if they served the Church in any leadership position whatsoever — this according to the 33rd Canon of the Council of Elvira in AD 306. This conservative view has been the traditional position of the Catholic Church for centuries.

By this difficult — some might say impossible — standard, many congregants of the forty-thousand Christian denominations in the world today might be standing before God guilty of sexual rebellion and in need of forgiveness.

Straight Christians, many of them it seems, are in the same sexual predicament as their gay brothers and sisters.

What are we to do? How do we avoid Hell? One thing Christians might do is try to understand this simple idea: straight people are in the same sexual sin-boat as gay people. Of course, they are. Think about it.

Straight people want biblically-forbidden sex like almost everyone else. They are tempted to act out their unbiblical sexual proclivities, many of them, within their marriages and against God’s will — if we adopt the Church’s historically orthodox and conservative position on sexuality, which admonishes Christians to keep their marriage beds pure and undefiled.


I am the way, the truth and the life
Jesus brings forgiveness and grace to Scripture and offers hope to people overwhelmed by sexual suffering who once faced execution for their sexual behavior.

But those who belong to Christ Jesus are united by him, according to Scripture, into one holy people. Yes, each of us is self-condemned by our own behavior, even by our own unbiblical sexual behavior inside our marriages, if the view of the New Testament writer and the Catholic Church is fully accepted.

When studying the Bible, people learn that everyone — all of us; gay and straight — once we submit our lives to Christ are made righteous before God by Jesus’s death in our place on the cross.

The Old Testament death sentence for sexual sins is endured by Jesus alone who reconciles each person to God. Then, over time, God’s Holy Spirit transforms all into a people worthy to spend eternity in heaven.

And this is my view. The Bible plainly says that Christ Jesus provided a way out of our dilemma. Jesus really is the way, the truth and the life, as he said. As the Word of God, Jesus has the authority to both fulfill Scripture and to meet its demand for justice through his sacrificial death on a Roman cross.

This concept of grace is a central theme of the Bible. It is repeated twice; once in the Old Testament (Psalm 32) and once in the New Testament (Romans 4):

Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed are those whose sin the Lord will never count against them. 

Who are the people the Bible talks about, whose sins are covered? They are me and you and everyone we know.

Jesus brings the concept of forgiveness and grace to Scripture and offers hope to the fallen; hope to those who once faced execution for their sexual behavior. And Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, gives us the ability to treat our marriage partners with the honor, dignity, and respect owed anyone who belongs to God.

The Bible says people will someday live in a time when the law of God is written on their hearts. I really believe that time is now.

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The law is written on our hearts.

The law is no longer written on stone, unless it is our hearts that are stone. We know in our hearts — where the law lives — we must love more our wives and husbands, our gay sons and daughters, our gay sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, and especially our gay neighbors.

Shouldn’t we be praying for each other, that Jesus will give people the strength and grace to endure the sexual suffering they are sure to face in this life on Earth?

We know full well (because Jesus told us) that there is no sex (marriage and giving in marriage) in Heaven. This fact alone should give folks comfort, because it means no one will be taking their sexual identity with them.

All who enter Heaven will be free of sexual sin and sexual suffering. People will enter as brothers and sisters of Jesus, in complete victory over sins that once separated them on Earth. We will enter Heaven celebrating freedom. Everyone, even the most sexually-imprisoned, has this hope, in Christ Jesus.

This much folks should know. Love pleases God more than hate. They should know that tolerance and inclusion please God more than intolerance and exclusion, because the Bible says, God is love.

But those who belong to Christ Jesus know something more. If we honestly face our past and examine our hearts, we know that God loved us first, before we even knew who He really was, while we were still numbering ourselves — many of us — among the most God-hating people on Earth.

Don’t folks have a duty to love those who are like what they used to be — ignorant of who God is and ignorant, even, of who they themselves are? Of course they do. It’s difficult, because most want to forget the past and move on. No one wants to be reminded that everyone is trapped in a quicksand of sin; that absent Christ Jesus they have no hope of rescue.

Can Christians move on without first offering out-stretched hands to fallen friends?  Some can be found within our churches. They are sexual sinners like us.

And just like us, they always will be.


jesus resurrection flying-dove
God loved us first, before we even knew who He was.

I hope that Christians have love enough to accept their gay brothers and sisters in the name of Christ Jesus; that they have the wisdom to see that we share the same daily struggle against sin; that we have the presence of mind to beg Jesus to lift us out of the muddy waters of sin, together if necessary; to wash us clean with His blood that he shed for us in suffering.

Pray that the LORD forgives us, accepts us, and loves us unconditionally, which is nothing more than everything we’ve ever wanted.

Billy Lee

Post Script:  The story behind the publication of this article is told in Writing FreeThe Editorial Board

INERRANCY AND DOCTRINAL PURITY

How did the Christian Bible come to be?

It’s complicated. I’m sure I don’t understand it.

I imagine men wrote many books over hundreds, even thousands, of years. The best of these books were collected by other men interested in truth, ethics, and the nature of God.

These men were, I suppose, prominent in law, medicine, politics, philosophy, and religion. They selected books that presented a consistent view of their ideas about Jesus and what he had done. They prayed that God would guide them as they organized their chosen books into a collection, now called the Bible.

We know they believed God answered their prayers, because they included in the Bible this passage: all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness….

By AD 400 Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible called the Vulgate, which effectively set the Canon of the New Testament. The Canon of the Old Testament wasn’t fully agreed on until after the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.

One notable change: the Book of Sirach (which Jesus quoted) was dropped to make the Protestant Old Testament match the then current Judaic Canon.

In the 13th century, Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters. In the 16th century, French printer, Robert Estienne, divided it into verses.

Today, the shepherds of Christianity spend years studying the books of the Bible, their histories and pedigrees. Some believe God has called them to shepherd the faithful by keeping church doctrine consistent with the “inerrant” Scripture of the Bible.

In the two thousand years since the crucifixion of Jesus, the pursuit of inerrancy has led — by some accounts — to the establishment of over forty-thousand Christian denominations.

It seems reasonable to ask: if Scripture is inerrant and plainly written, why so many denominations? Are the large numbers the result of a godly pursuit of “inerrancy” or from other causes? The extraordinary number of denominations — many formed after the Protestant Reformation of 1517 — leads me to think that the natural tendencies of young pastors, chafing under the authority of those with whom they disagree, may play a role.

These leaders seem to share the conviction that God chose them to fight the good fight against false doctrine. They defend their understanding of God’s inerrant word against all comers. Sometimes, it seems to me, they end up increasing their influence but leave weakened churches and damaged denominations in their wake.

I think I know why these men don’t fight and win their battles within the denominations they were called to serve. I imagine it doesn’t occur to them, because they see themselves as protectors of congregants who could be eternally harmed by contact with heretics.

And, in truth, it’s stressful to submit to church authorities with whom they disagree, especially in matters of faith. Some can’t deal with it. The pressure is too great. They find themselves in an uncomfortable cognitive-dissonance between the truth of Scripture as God has revealed it to them and another compelling biblical principle: submission to the authorities established by God Himself.

It’s a psychological double-bind of excruciating pain for those who take seriously their vows to serve Christ. It takes a lot of prayer and the support of the saints to determine God’s will and muster the strength to endure it. These leaders sometimes choose to break away to form new churches — new denominations — where they can better manage their message. And in the end, if the history of the Church is a guide, God is faithful to justify the conscientious men who belong to Him and heal their divides.

Where does this idea about “inerrancy” of Scripture come from, since the Bible was written by men, and gently hides mankind’s many prejudices and ignorant ideas about history and science? If Scripture is inerrant — and I believe it is — its truth must come from God alone. God makes Scripture true, even when human logic, common sense and evidence seem to speak otherwise.

Sometimes God condescends to endow truth to Scripture as a concession to our hard hearts and inabilities to love each other the way we should. Jesus said as much when he replied to the famous question Pharisees asked about an apparent contradiction in the Bible concerning divorce, recorded in Mathew 19. Moses permitted divorce, contrary to God’s original plan, Jesus said, because people’s hearts were hard.  

The Bible plainly says we live in a time when the law of God is written on our hearts. The law is no longer written on stone, unless it is our hearts that are made of stone. We know in our hearts — where the law lives — we should love more.

Loving more means, it seems to me, judging less for one thing.  We should pray we can love more our spouses, our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, and especially our neighbors, both gay and straight.

Yes, making safe spaces for gay folks to worship Jesus and to grow in holiness within our churches is a controversial subject these days. But it seems to me that those of us who are straight share with our gay brothers and sisters a life-long desire for sexual sin. That we can better hide our sinful desires gives us no advantages before Christ, our redeemer, because he sees into our hearts and knows we are, by nature, sinful and in rebellion against God — pretty much all the time.

This much we know. Love pleases God more than hate. We should know that tolerance and inclusion please God more than intolerance and exclusion, because the Bible says, God is love.

But those of us who belong to Christ Jesus know more. If we honestly face our past and examine our hearts, we know that God loved us first, before we even knew who He was, while we still numbered ourselves — many of us — among the most ungodly on the earth.

jesus resurrection flying-doveShouldn’t we love those who are like what we used to be?

Of course, we should. Yes, it’s difficult, because most of us want to forget our pasts and move on. Will we really move on without first rescuing our fallen friends? Some can be found within our churches. Will we abandon them on a battlefield of doctrinal purity?

With God’s help, I know we won’t.

Billy Lee                                                                                                              

IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH AMERICA?

If might makes right, America is the most righteous nation to ever exist.

Most Americans — if asked before 911would say that nothing is wrong with America. America is where everyone wants to be. People risk everything to come here. End of story. And by the way, if you don’t like it, leave.

The attitude of most Americans before September 11, 2001 was to willfully and blissfully ignore the many blunders for which the United States is renowned in the rest of the watching world.

These screw-ups include but are not limited to:

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Codifying slavery in our Constitution (Article IV, Sec. 2)
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Southern States fighting the Civil War to preserve slavery.
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Conducting genocidal wars against native Americans.
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Depriving Negroes of their freedom after fighting a bloody civil war to give them their freedom.
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Permitting our country to slide into a Great Depression while doing almost nothing to fix it.  (Free coffee and donuts?)
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Dropping atomic bombs on Japanese cities.
America 2_61_070608_koreaUSExecutions
Killing 20% of the population during a senseless war in Korea.
America Al Capone
Allowing gangsters to run our cities.
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Unleashing a bloodbath of assassinations against politicians and entertainers in the nineteen-sixties and seventies.
America Che Guevarra
Executing foreign leaders (among them, Che Guevara, pictured above) while launching Bay-of-Pigs style military operations against small countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Chile.
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Conducting a genocidal war in Vietnam — simply to test a new generation of weapons. Jane Fonda, pictured above, was among the first who said it wasn’t right.
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Exploiting migrant agricultural workers.
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Overturning sixty years of tax law in the 1980s to allow undemocratic concentrations of wealth.

and on and on and so on.

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Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine

In 2001 Americans believed these idiocies lay in our past; our distant past. They were symptomatic of nothing; not worth noticing, analyzing or fixing. They had nothing to do with now. Nothing was going on now that we needed to fret about or repair. Like Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine, Americans could say, What, me worry?

America World trade center gold
World Trade Center Twin Towers.

In 2001 the Twin Towers came down. Buried in the rubble lay two-hundred billion dollars of 99.997% pure gold ingot (allegedly recovered).

The oil-rich Bush family‘s first reaction was to take the world to war. The ramp-up was egged on by profiteers, as war always is. And Wall Street insiders, under the cover of the War on Terror, began to deploy contrived financial instruments like bundled sub-prime mortgage derivatives (which obfuscated risk) to better suck dry the deep pools of the world’s wealth unaware.

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Blunders came fast and furious. By 2008 the leaders of the United States had made so many mistakes they created a financial meltdown. Millions of people lost their homes and jobs. The middle class lost fifty-five percent of its accumulated wealth — much of it in retirement accounts. The situation became dire, causing some people to believe God was punishing the USA for its sins.


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Before he made his Nobel Prize winning run for the presidency, Barack Obama’s pastor was Jeremiah Wright. During the early years of Obama’s term, hundreds of retired Chicago police officers set up a perimeter defense around Jeremiah’s church each week to protect congregants from death threats. Obama eventually resigned his membership to protect from harm his friends-in-Christ. It worked. Over the years the threats decreased; the church survived.

People decided to turn around and do the unthinkable: elect the nation’s first black president. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, screamed, the chickens have come home to roost, on all the news shows. Some people thought, maybe Barack Obama can calm down our angry God.

But as of 2014 — six years after the near-fatal financial meltdown — the USA continues to hover on the precipice of a Soviet Union style collapse.

It’s time to ask the question: Is something wrong with America?  And maybe one more: Is something wrong with Americans?

Before we ask or answer questions like these, perhaps we should ask an even larger question. Is America a place where people have any chance at all to do well over time?

It might be that geography and geology on this side of the globe are not suitable for civilization or sustained human activity. Whoever lives on this side — whatever their values or culture — may, in the long run, not matter.

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Historically, large populations of humans have been unable to establish themselves for long periods on our hemisphere.
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Hurricane Irene, 1999

The Americas have been inhospitable to humankind. Looking back over the eons, a case can be made — due to earthquakes, volcanoes, meteor hits, frequent ice ages, predatory animals, mosquito and insect bred diseases, droughts, floods, wild fires and hurricanes — that large populations of humans have simply not been able to establish themselves on our hemisphere for long periods; nor will they, ever.

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This disturbing graphic is one artist’s depiction of volcanic eruptions 100 miles southeast of Yosemite National Park — now a hundred years overdue. 

The United States endures, on average, a thousand tornadoes each year. This number is greater than all the tornadoes that occur in the rest of the world added together.

It wasn’t until 1920 that the population in North America reached a hundred million people. It is conceivable — under reasonably imagined scenarios — that the population of North America will soon collapse.

Some geologists believe the mammoth super volcano buried beneath Yellowstone National Park will erupt someday — perhaps soon.  If they are right, surviving humans will have to start over.

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Coastal shelf off Los Angeles, California

Other geologists believe seismic activity in the west may one day cause the loss of sizable portions of our continental shelf, perhaps precipitating a cataclysmic flood. Earthquakes in the Cascadia subduction zone have wiped-out huge swaths of our Pacific Northwest forty-one times during the past ten-thousand years. The next earthquake/tsunami is a hundred-and seven years overdue.

It is often said California is the eighth largest economy in the world. Should California or the Pacific Northwest slide into the Pacific Ocean, it would be hard for the rest of North America to keep going.

America Diablo Canyon Power Plant California
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, California

In addition to the deaths of forty million people, intensive seismic activity and floods could destroy California’s four civilian nuclear reactors (one active, but all storing dangerous quantities of radioactive waste) and the military’s nuclear sites, nuclear powered ships, and submarines. High-level radioactive waste would then pollute the Pacific Ocean and our coastal areas for many thousands of years (much like the disaster now unfolding in Fukushima, Japan).

The question of whether our continent is suitable to support an advanced civilization for more than a few hundred years remains to be answered. It’s not clear to me that it can.

But let’s return to the original question: Is something wrong with America?  

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Oakland, California Occupy Wall Street Riots, November 2011

Why does a country with our values do bad things? Why so much inequality, crime and perversion? Why so much addiction, pervasive drug use, bullying, child abuse, domestic violence and murder?

Why generational wars, gated communities, blighted inner cities, militias, and political extremism? Why concentration of wealth for the few and debt and despair for the many? Why the increase in home schools and private academies in a nation whose founding virtue was public education for every citizen?

Why so much hatred directed against a people whose only crime was hating slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the current hardships of discrimination in hiring, housing, health care, and policing?

America violent_crime
Why so much inequality, crime, and perversion?
Fortress America
Fortress America

Why can’t black people, for example, catch a  break after everything they’ve put up with, from lynchings to (for one black man, at least) being ridiculed on national television for mispronouncing correct answers on Jeopardy?

When we ask questions like these, it seems clear (to me at least) that something sinister is wrecking havoc on our dreams and aspirations. Something fundamental about the way we think and problem-solve is not serving us well.

Europeans like to point out that Americans solve problems by selecting and working through all the wrong solutions first. It’s what makes us so sure we’re right, when we finally stumble on the correct solution.

But how about another view? We live in a country where powerful people once owned slaves. Industrial tycoons operated private militias to control restless employees.

We live in a country where an entitled, strong-willed aristocracy has ruled for centuries a population who believes itself to be free; a democracy.

Old habits of thought and action have been handed down from each generation to the next on both sides.

America meet-the-lauders-the-cosmetics-tycoons-who-just-gave-away-a-billion-dollars-in-art
Cosmetic industry tycoons, Mr. & Mrs. Lauder

The powerful and wealthy have learned they can hire spokesmen (like Rush Limbaugh and Tom Brokaw, for example) to play on the fears, aspirations, and assumptions of common people to better confuse and seduce them into serving their interests. This manipulation of one class of people by another has led to a schizophrenic dynamic, which is one of the reasons people in other countries and cultures think Americans are crazy.

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Possible future if we don’t secure our democracy.

The lunacy will not end anytime soon. It seems our country is determined to follow its aristocracy wherever it leads. History is full of examples of elites who — deluded, depraved, and out of touch — led their civilizations into the abyss. It’s why our ancestors invented democracy — so cliques of wealthy, well-connected power-trippers couldn’t harm us.

Alas, democracy is not a form of government the elites of the world favor. And we may have lost our democracy a long time ago. Perhaps we never had one. We simply imagined we did, because our rulers told us so.

Billy Lee

Post Script — 19 October 2017 — from the EDITORS:  Nineteen months after the publication of this essay, Americans elected a self-proclaimed billionaire and entertainer who was unvetted as to his physical and mental health; unvetted as to his financial status; unvetted in his foreign entanglements; and who lacked any experience whatever in the art of politics.

He lost the popular election by eleven million votes to Hillary Clinton (3M votes) and third-party candidates (8M votes). 

Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and Evan McMullen garnered the lion’s share of third-party voting. 

The new president blamed his 11 million vote deficit on illegal voting by immigrants. He is now being investigated by the Justice Department and committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives for conspiring with foreign powers to rig the outcome.

He didn’t serve in the military, yet threatens to take America to war against Korea and Iran. Something is wrong with this picture. He is dismantling health-care and unleashing immigration pit-bulls like ICE on a population of young people who have no memory of having ever lived outside the United States.

It seems like an angry, racist pit-bull is loose in the china-shop. Maybe Billy Lee is right. If so, the United States is screwed. It really is. When this nightmare is over, a lot of broken glass is going to be lying around that everyone will somehow have to clean-up.

The good news? America has a way of surviving catastrophes of its own making. We’re good at managing unnatural disasters that we inflict on ourselves. Maybe to some the chances seem this time to be as low as one in a million.

Jim Carey said in the movie Dumb and Dumber, one in a million means we still have a chance. We might survive the mess of a failed presidency. It’s possible. Who knows? Many are ready to sit on the sidelines to “wait and see” what happens.

During WWII, millions boarded trains in Europe to travel to God knows where. What’s the worst that can happen? many thought to themselves as they watched German soldiers with dogs push families into rail cars.

Maybe waiting to see what happens is not the best strategy for survival..

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Note: On Tuesday September 24 2019 the House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.