It does seem at times I live with ghosts, and frankly I think celebrating a “Day of the Dead” is a great idea. I also enjoy Halloween and watching the old black and white classics like “The Mummy, Dracula,” and others. But once Hollywood started throwing in all the blood and gore in color I said no thanks. Not my thing at all. There is more than enough violence in reality without subjecting myself to such things on screen.

It may be my Indian heritage is the reason “Thunderheart” is a favorite film of mine, but I don’t believe anyone receives a vision by seeking for one. If there are such things, I believe they come unbidden as with the prophets and others in the Bible. Neither do I credit the various methods by which some claim to have access to the supernatural or those gone on before us. But I do credit the “Universal Lyre” of poets; I credit a “Sea of Consciousness” that would account for what seems to be telepathic communication between some individuals. And in this sense, the spirits of our departed loved ones may remain in communication with us. In the words of Jesus “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.”

Many people believe in ghosts, and since the most ancient of times these have been the stuff of both fancy and literature. Even now there are the various people that make claims for such beings. But I have never seen a ghost, nor am I at all sure I want to see one. I grieve for departed loved ones, but I’m not going to ask that they appear any more than I would ask for a vision. For whatever reason, if there is a hereafter it is designed in such a way that the departed have no physical contact with us. And I must assume if there is a God this is the best way of handling life and death.

I do believe the spirits of my departed loved ones and friends remain with me, and I find comfort in believing this. Though I ache with grief over my daughters Diana and Karen, wishing fervently I could put my arms about them and tell them how much I love them, as with my other loved ones it seems none of them have ever really left me. It is as though apart from not being with me physically they are still here; they haven’t really left me at all. For this reason I talk to them, but I don’t expect any audible reply. It is a confounding thought; what would be my reaction if one of them were to speak to me? I have no idea? But my belief that they remain alive here with me, as though this were a normal part of the hereafter, that they may see and hear me often gives me pause to consider the things I say and do. I would no more want to disappoint or shame them now than when they were here with me in body.

There is something to be said, in my opinion, for the philosophy of not offending the spirits of the departed. And if you believe as I do that when we depart these bodies we will once more be with our loved ones, if you have been blessed as I have with so many loving people now gone on before you, why not live in a manner that does them honor rather than hurtful things that would do them dishonor. Even granting we may still have our disagreements now as then, I needn’t worry about offending or disappointing God or angels so long as I live in a way that will not offend or disappoint these precious loved ones.

It takes someone like me given to whimsy and flights of fancy at times to wonder what would happen if Ms. Clinton died, and of course an assassination would be dramatic. Apart from those few that might personally mourn her passing, the political scene would certainly turn dramatically interesting as Democrats could draft Al Gore, appealing to his sense of patriotism to turn away from saving the world to saving America. And of course, an Oscar and Nobel on his resume would certainly lend stature to the presidency, notwithstanding legitimate criticism still nothing to be sneezed at. Perhaps Al Gore’s ego will get the better of him, as it has with so many others. If he was Roman Catholic he might believe sainthood within his reach, but failing that he may settle for the presidency.

While I might wish Ms. Clinton would just simply disappear, it remains a curiosity to me that Caesar Bush remains alive despite the many millions that hate him worldwide and wish him dead. Such a thing brought to mind my belief that the Devil makes mistakes. From the accounts in the Bible God is reported to have made mistakes, so why not the Devil? For example, after choosing them David and Solomon both disappointed God, so perhaps Hitler disappointed Satan. The Devil may have had more ambitious plans for Hitler, but Hitler succumbing to his own power may have become “unmanageable,” as so often seems the case with those having great power.

My good friend Byron, the Episcopal priest, stopped by yesterday and we were discussing various issues of the day when the conversation turned to some of the stupid things even brilliant people do. He knows my writing; and given to metaphysical speculation as I am, he knows I speculate about the possible errors God made in the Creation, this being characteristic of all those possessed of artistic and scientific creativity. So when I began to speculate Satan had made errors as well, it came as no surprise to him.

The basis of such metaphysical speculation on my part has to do with the assumption that both God and Satan have to work with the material at hand in the case of human beings. While the Bible records instances of the Holy Spirit coming upon individuals, even indwelling some, so the Bible records instances of Satan and demonic spirits entering some. Satan entered Judas, and while he got Judas to betray Jesus, the outcome wasn’t what Satan anticipated according to the Bible. So, it seems Satan erred in his choice of how to get the job done. But if we are to give any credence to the Bible, we must allow both God and Satan are limited by their choices of the human material they have to work with. And as with earthly parents, there are no guarantees concerning their children. Some will be saints, and some will be devils. But we may never know at any given time which we are dealing with, or what will be the outcome.

I speculate no matter how good the person may be, very few can be trusted with power and riches. The old story of power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely remains all too true. Satan may grant power and riches to those that do his bidding, but as with all tyrants he has no one he can trust. Eventually his servants, given enough power, will begin to disappoint the Evil One. As they begin to think more like their master, they begin to assume their own power and authority and use it to their own purposes.

But whether any credit there being a God or Satan or not, here in America we are suffering under a leadership that has proven it feels no obligation to We the People. These leaders have the power and the authority, and it has corrupted them. Because of this if Caesar Bush decides to go out in a blaze of glory by bombing Iran with the probability of truly starting WWIII in nuclear earnest there is virtually no one to stand in his way. Those that might be disposed to oppose him are too corrupt themselves to thwart Caesar’s purpose; and aside from that many good people believe the circumstances already set in motion are leading to no other viable option.

We read and hear Iraqi militants are feeding on corruption; and why not since they have those like Cheney and Halliburton as role models. Cook the books and lose a billion here, a billion there and it makes no difference whether in Iraq or our own Congress. Michael Corleone was correct in calling Kay naive to think the Mafia operated any differently than the government. However, since I am more than a little inclined to believe both God and Satan must rely on human instrumentality, and humans being both fallible and unpredictable in too many cases, it might explain why otherwise very intelligent people do really stupid things.

Much like the sheer stupidity, to be charitable, of Nancy Pelosi and her sponsors regarding the Armenian genocide debacle and the majority in the MSM turning illegal aliens into “immigrants,” J. K. Rowling has forfeited her chance at literary greatness. “Just when you thought it was safe to immerse kids in books about witchcraft, J.K. Rowling has to succumb to political correctness and ‘out’ Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore...”

As a literary person and one well qualified academically, a writer and author of books it is my place to judge other writers and authors. While I have commended the genius of Rowling providing children so much to fire their imaginations, I really don’t believe she caved to political correctness. Many talented people, even those of rare genius are capable of doing really stupid things. I believe this is what happened to Rowling; a moment of temporary insanity if you will. Unfortunately, it is not something she can recover from. She has made the declaration and there is no going back from it. Some mistakes remain forever beyond correcting.

The word “perversion” remains in dictionaries, and no amount of fame and fortune will change the dictionary definition of perversion. Rowling has allowed a pervert to subvert her work to her detriment and that of millions of readers; and this at a time when so much media attention is finally being given to the perverts preying on children, the target audience of Ms. Rowling; the children who have made her so successful.

No one doubts Ms. Pelosi is a very intelligent and well educated person, but the sheer stupidity of her espousing a genocide declaration against Turkey when that nation’s cooperation is sorely needed by America defies reason. Such things left those like Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln and many others wondering whether many seemingly good works were of God or the Devil. And in how many instances has even the best of intentions of some been turned to evil because of unintended consequences; which gives me pause to wonder if either God or Satan fully understands the consequences of their actions and choices. At least the Greeks were willing to accord their gods and goddesses the frailties and uncertainties common to humankind. So yes, as long as I have already been consigned to the outer reaches of perdition beyond redemption by orthodox believers of every kind I admit I can imagine both God and Satan slapping their heads and saying as I have done so many times myself, “How could I have done something that dumb!”

But when it comes to mythology, for me looking back it seems the America I was born into and grew up in was a fairytale, and had I not lived it I understand how it seems a fairytale now to many who never knew such an America, and when my generation is gone it may pass into legend creating its own mythology with the passing of time. But for there to be any future America at all presumes a leadership that will put the interests of our nation before that of its own, a leadership that will cease nationalizing debt while privatizing profits which at present seems only a fairytale wish.

Perhaps there is a philosophy of prayer, though despite the claims of various religions it is far from being a systematic organization of thoughts. Many of us as children were taught the prayer “Now I lay me down to sleep.” A pulpit joke I used to tell was about a little boy’s parents who found the prayer as a beautifully embroidered sampler in a store. Thinking to please him they bought it and hung it above the little boy’s bed. That night as he kneeled to say his prayer he looked up at the sampler on the wall, thought for a moment and said “Never mind Lord, there it is,” and without further ado hopped into bed.

No matter the religion, much of prayer falls into the category of mere form. The liturgies of various religions have evolved over the centuries and it defies either reason or logic why anyone can believe the mere repetition of such religious incantations, counting beads, burning incense or prayer papers, genuflecting and prostrating one’s self can catch the attention of any deity. Well, maybe such things catch the attention of a tyrant like Satan? I take it he likes to be flattered.

An honest Jew like Tevye would admit asking God whether the Almighty couldn’t choose some other people once in a while to represent him. There is no doubt in my mind that if Jews at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem were really honest when asked about it would reply they felt like they were talking to a wall. And, if most Americans were asked the question they would respond the same way concerning trying to get the attention of the White House and Congress.

However, calling out to God, especially in extremis, is for most of us as natural as breathing whether we feel like we are only talking to a wall or not; but for such talking to God being formalized by some ritual incantation really doesn’t impress me, nor do I believe it impresses God. So if you continue as a child saying your prayers at night before you hop into bed I hope it isn’t taking the form of the sampler the little boy found so convenient. If you are going to talk to God, then talk to God. I will continue talking to him along with my departed loved ones and friends and it isn’t anyone’s place to tell you whether you are only talking to a wall or not. But if talking to God takes the form of Caesar Bush or Iran’s mad mullah’s “privileged communication” with the Deity I will take issue with you.

While I do not believe in prayer as most consider it, no longer asking God for anything or to do anything, I find the Bible a fascinating source book concerning the subject. For example, why did Eli the priest think Hannah was drunk because she prayed silently though her lips were moving? No doubt Eli was familiar with drunkenness, including that of his own sons, but why pick on Hannah because her lips moved but no words were heard by the priest? I’ve never seen any drunks praying silently in church while their lips moved emitting no sound, but no doubt such things do happen. Still, it remains a curious story. Even more so when we read Eli was convinced of Hannah’s sincerity, blessed her and her prayer for a son was answered.

The story of Hannah has to do with the concept of Original Sin, in which women were cursed with childbearing and being dominated by men. To have a barren womb was a shame to women like Hannah; they were believed throughout their society to be found in disfavor with God. But to her husband’s credit he did not hold this against Hannah; in fact the story reads he loved her very much. As I continue to work on my book “Hey God! What went wrong and when are you going to fix it?” I never think of the subject of prayer that I do not think of Hannah; and I do not think of Hannah but I also think of the ignoble position of women in so many cases throughout human history. For example, Harvard’s president at the time didn’t think women have the brains for math and science. Suppose L. H. Summers had said women did not possess the higher faculties of mental processes required to be included in the King of Disciplines: Philosophy. Suppose he had said, “Women do not possess the mental requirements to be included in The Great Conversation!”

Why didn’t Harvard’s president call attention to the fact that women have failed to make their way into the most exclusive “Men’s Club” of all, the King of Disciplines: Philosophy? Since this omission of women from the King of Disciplines is the thorniest of all issues among all nations, it is not one that anyone of prominence wants to address. Even so, over the years I have come to realize that even among those of great prominence in the universities some have failed to note this Missing Half of Philosophy: Women!

Had Summers even been aware of this, it is not something to which he would have wanted to call attention. In my own experience of addressing this issue, invariably women have acted as though I were insulting them by calling this exclusion of women from the King of Disciplines to their attention. This despite the fact that it accounts for the failure of women to achieve the status of equal value to men resulting in their subjugation to men in the religion of Islam and others and their exclusion from leadership roles, an exclusion so sorely reflected in the United Nations.

But consider this: If Summers were aware of this omission of women from the King of Disciplines, and yet felt he could safely broach his opinion of the omission of women from the fields of math and science while ignoring the larger omission of their exclusion from Philosophy, it would speak volumes of his actual opinion concerning the higher mental processes accorded men as opposed to women.

A few, short years ago when I began to publicize the fact that women had confused “equal rights” for “equal value” and could not hope to be accepted on the basis of equal value to men until they had earned their place in the King of Disciplines, Philosophy, this generated heated responses from some prominent women. But there were others who understood and agreed, some even acknowledging the incongruity of women in the universities teaching courses in Philosophy seeming oblivious of the paucity of their own sex in this discipline. They were, in short, teaching the philosophies of men largely to the exclusion of women.

Whatever, it would have been well for Summers to frame his remarks concerning his opinion of why so few women achieve prominence in math and science within the larger context of their omission from the King of Disciplines. But men are notorious for their failure to address this issue. Why? I long ago came to the conclusion that even should men be aware of this, men in general do not want to invite women into this most exclusive of all male domains, the one discipline that more than any other emphasizes male dominance throughout the world and directs the course of history and nations, and as a result Philosophy remains far and away the most exclusive “Men’s Club” of all; and one against which women cannot bring suit claiming “discrimination.”

But when the first edition of The Great Books of The Western World came out over fifty years ago, I noted not one woman was included in the 54 volumes! It was then I realized something of great significance was at the basis of this glaring, and what had to be purposeful exclusion of women from philosophy.

On April 21, 2002 I wrote about the recent find in England of a 370-year-old book entitled “Woman’s Worth” proclaiming women to “excel men in virtues and rare endowments of the minde, and I think we shall finde that herein also women doe farre outstrip men.” I added this remark: “I can only hope Mortimer Adler will read this book before any new edition of the Great Books of the Western World is offered.”

Well, bowing to enormous pressure Austen, Cather, Elliot, and Woolf were added to the second edition of The Great Books. But if you read the history of this enormous undertaking of producing this set of books, if you read Mortimer Adler’s opinions of what constitutes the values he and the committee felt justified the inclusion of the various writers represented in this monumental literary achievement, you quickly realize the opinion of the men involved had not changed from the publication of the first edition to that of the second.

However, until women are included in The Great Conversation based on equal value to men, so long will Wisdom fail to be a part of any kind of attempts at peace in the world. The fact is that the barbarism of men makes wars, and the civilizing influence of women makes homes.

Somehow, the sop to women on the part of the committee and Adler adding Austen, Cather, Elliot, and Woolf to the second edition of the Great Books does not go nearly far enough. Honoring the “compatibility of differences” is not seen at the U. N., nor is it seen in America as the kind of relationship that honors and dignifies the compatibility of differences.

While Emerson faulted Thoreau for his lack of committing to a higher calling than gathering huckleberries, the great intellectual giant did commend Henry for his mastery of practical skills, something Emerson genuinely admired about Thoreau. People with real intellect and education rather than those for which such things are only a hollow affectation are quick to credit those that can do things, the practical things that keep a society functioning and growing. After all, the world is a very practical place that has only so much room for dreamers and artists. And even these require food and shelter.

During WWII there were a great number of activities for those of us on the Home Front, by which contributions were made to the war effort giving us the sense of participation, of doing things useful in fighting the war. Some of these activities enabled even children to make their contributions, things like peeling foil from gum and cigarette pack wrappers, rolling it in a ball and turning it in to a scrap metal collection center. I would help grandad flatten tin cans with hammer and anvil for the same purpose. Many children were also turning in metal toys for the war effort, most of which would command a very high price today as “collectibles.”

Few people today would think about wire clothes hangers being hard to come by, but even such a mundane though utilitarian item was scarce at the time, so, grandad made them. Grandad being a jack of all trades, building our house, the church and grocery store in Little Oklahoma (Southeast Bakersfield) there were construction materials around the place before the war, and having a roll of wire on hand he fashioned a jig of a board and nails, then cutting the wire to the proper length he would twist it around the jig and voila; a wire clothes hanger. Grandad was always doing things like this that made him my idol; grandad could do things, really fascinating and useful things, and he took the time to teach me to do things as well.

In so very many ways those of us living the events of WWII were made to feel useful in the war effort; we were making a contribution to defeat the Axis powers. Rationing was hard on many, but more were making jokes about it than complaining. After all, our boys overseas were fighting and dying; what were the hardships on the home front compared to that, especially when those small flags with gold stars in the windows of homes in the neighborhood reflected the reality of the ultimate price being paid by so many?

You could depend on the funny papers, The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s Magazine having cartoons about rationing; but very little of poking fun in such a way was of “gallows humor.” Most certainly there was no humor to be found in those fighting and dying overseas. Any such attempt at humor would have been met with an army of home front folk bearing tar and feathers.

Bill Mauldin was sensitive enough to know better than make light of the actual grim realities of what was happening on the front lines, though we all blessed him for the humor he was able to convey through “Willie and Joe” in the face of such grim realities. Which makes it all the more to be wondered why anyone would attempt “humor” in any fashion concerning 9/11, as some have done?

Much in the way of the preamble to Gone With The Wind, the way of life in the America of my generation of WWII is quickly passing away, likely never to be seen again, a time when people believed in virtue, believed crime did not pay, that honesty was the best policy. These values were taught in the homes and schools throughout that America. We trusted our leaders to have the best interests of America in view at all times in making decisions, passing legislation and making policies; it was a time when the courts had more concern for victims than for criminals.

Notwithstanding the legitimate faults and weaknesses that are to be found, my generation was a time reflecting the values of our Founding Fathers, whom we still held in the highest esteem, still reflecting the best of Western Civilization in our schools and society. Little did We The People realize that even at the time the America we loved and believed in, sacrificed so much for was already being sold out and betrayed by the universities and their product politicians so given over to greed and corruption, reflecting the amorality of the universities.

But “root hog or die” remains true, even as the Bible has it “if any not work, neither should he eat.” However, America is suffering from the lack of both people with practical skills and opportunities to apply those skills. At that, the slave labor provided by illegal aliens and welfare checks prevent many young people doing the kind of honest work with their hands that would give them a sense of self-worth rather than turning to crime and gangs.

Since the years when I was a vocational skills instructor, the shops in most high schools have been abandoned. And it is utter self-serving nonsense for politicians to mouth platitudes about “training” for industries that have been shipped out of America for the sake of profits. During the years I was teaching young people to work with both hands and minds, to run lathes and mills, do foundry and sheet metal work, auto repair and construction work, all the while learning to take pride in themselves through a sense of accomplishment I did so in the hope these young people would find a demand for such skills when they graduated. This is no longer the case.

So very much of the American character founded in being able to apply the practical skills to everyday living and earning a paycheck has been sacrificed for a Big Brother government as a way of life. It seems incredible that in just my own lifetime I have been witness to an era in which one paycheck was sufficient to take care of a family to this one in which even two paychecks are insufficient.

It took a lot of slave labor to keep Rome humming along. But as was the case in Rome the problem in America is one that reminds me of the frog in water being slowly heated not realizing it is reaching a killing temperature. It has taken a few decades for America to reach this same situation, an America being turned into a nation of slaves lacking the practical skills to do things for themselves, and a leadership that has sold out and betrayed our nation to the point where the opportunity to apply the practical skills for a paycheck, and one that will provide for a family is fast disappearing.

Working in the fields was not beneath the dignity of many Americans when I was a child. I was born on a cotton farm and raised among such people, the kind of people immortalized by Steinbeck and some others who realized the value of human dignity in working and earning a living with one’s own hands. But even then, the idea the laborer is worthy of his hire was abandoned to the greed and corruption of landowners and their toady politicians and now I have to wonder; where are the jobs to be found for the empty promises of politicians concerning job training?

While I thoroughly enjoy going through my book of Norman Rockwell pictures, it is an enjoyment heavily tinged with the nostalgia of melancholy regret for the America I once knew and is now gone. I’ve lived in some of the harshest conditions without any of the amenities we have come to take for granted and have no illusions about the “good ol’ days.” Still, the American character was rooted in the opportunity to apply the practical skills with hope of providing for a family, of offering hope to a future generation. We are now faced with the grim reality that such hope is fast fading for this generation of young people, and as I consider the vacuum of leadership in America and those running for office I have cause to wonder with genuine concern what is to become of such a generation?

While I remain skeptical over the tears of Ellen DeGeneres because of using her position in the media to take Marina Batkis to task, suspecting there may be more going on between the two women than a simple failure to adhere to a contract, it should not be forgotten there is a victim here, a poor little doggy that cannot speak for itself. This is where the attention should be focused as all animal lovers agree. These poor creatures have no other voice to speak on their behalf but that which human beings give them.

Whether or not there is more going on between Ellen and Marina than we are being told, whether the publicity is the end game or not, the really important issue of pet ownership and responsibility reminds me how careful anyone should be when it comes to the care of pets. Take the case of Mr. Cavendish and his beloved beagle Merl for example that appeared in The Weedpatch Gazette some time ago. After reading this heart moving tale I’m sure you will agree the media, and in this case especially Ms. DeGeneres, should display a more responsible grasp of the priorities:

Death of a Beagle

Mr. Cavendish was very anxious to pick up his pet beagle, Merl, from obedience school. It wasn’t that Merl was really disobedient, but he had acquired a few bad habits and Mr. Cavendish, being such a gentle person, just couldn’t bring himself to properly discipline his little friend. So, enrolling him in obedience school seemed the best solution.

Entering the school’s office he was greeted by the headmaster, Doctor Diabole.

With a warm handshake, the good Doctor bid Mr. Cavendish welcome and invited him to take a seat.

“Well, now, Mr. Cavendish, how very kind of you to drop in. I assume you’re here to inquire about Merl?”

“Why yes, of course, Doctor Diabole. I know I should have called before coming by, but I have been very anxious to see Merl and I had hoped he would be ready by now for me to take home. It has been very lonely for me without him and I’m certain he misses me as well.”

With a polite soft and delicate cough Doctor Diabole cleared his throat, and averting his eyes from Mr. Cavendish slowly folded his hands on his desk, and with bowed head as though reluctant to speak replied, “Ah, my dear Mr. Cavendish I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news.”

“What is it Doctor, Merl isn’t sick is he?”

“No, no, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact Merl is dead.”

Mr. Cavendish was stunned! What? Merl dead? How did it happen? He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Merl dead?

Attempting to comprehend the magnitude what he had just heard, tears suddenly filled his eyes and Mr. Cavendish struggled to control himself… his Merl, dead? It simply could not be true! He could not be hearing Doctor Diabole correctly! There must be some terrible mistake!

Doctor Diabole arose, and stepping out from behind his desk went over and put a comforting arm around the shoulders of the sobbing Mr. Cavendish.

“My dear sir, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but Merl proved incorrigible. In fact, he consistently failed an essential course on properly piddling. You know, of course, how a rolled up newspaper is used to gently correct a dog?”

“Yes, I know,” Mr. Cavendish replied with an effort past the lump in his throat all the while wiping his eyes with his handkerchief.

“Well,” Doctor Diabole continued, “Merl just didn’t respond well to such a training technique utilizing a newspaper. So I was forced to apply sterner measures with a whip. But even this proved insufficient and finally left me no choice but to beat him with a baseball bat.”

“WHAT!” Mr. Cavendish roared, jerking up from his chair.

“Now, now, Mr. Cavendish, I understand your concern, I truly do, but really, we simply cannot have dogs piddling just anywhere, now can we?”

“But, but, beating Merl to death with a baseball bat! You can’t possibly be serious! This is some kind of sick joke, right?”

“Not at all, sir. But you do have the option of having Merl stuffed and mounted quite attractively in a pose of your choosing, or we can simply give you his pelt.”

“Stuff Merl! Give me his pelt! Are you insane!?”

“Please calm yourself Mr. Cavendish. We here at the Kind and Gentle School of Obedience are not savages; we are not insensitive to owners such as you. But surely you must realize that the school’s reputation is at stake. We simply cannot be viewed as not taking our responsibility seriously. Nor, may I be so candid as to suggest that you, as Merl’s owner, would surely not wish it to be known you owned a dog that was so cloddish he couldn’t learn to piddle properly, now would you?

“You! You! ...!”

“Please now Mr. Cavendish, I do urge you again to calm yourself and try to put yourself in my position. Now beating Merl to death has to be put in its proper perspective. I’m sure you will, upon calm reflection, come to see the wisdom of my action. Your agitation is understandable, but do be civilized my dear man. After all, didn’t your parents beat you when they were lovingly trying to teach you to piddle properly?”

“No! They most certainly did not!” Mr. Cavendish shouted.

“Come, come now, my dear Mr. Cavendish it’s perfectly permissible and quite understandable to indulge in some fantasy, but for the sake of sound mental health it does no good to continue in denial and pretend such a thing didn’t happen. After all, I came to see the beatings my parents gave me were out of their purest love for me. Denial is very harmful, damage to the psyche and all that, you know. It would be far better to simply admit the truth of the matter rather than continue in such denial. Most harmful, you know, to a well-adjusted and healthy mind toward such things.”

“You sadistic fiend! My parents never beat me to get me to piddle properly and how dare you even suggest such a thing!”

“Oh, dear, I simply cannot deal with you about this issue if you continue in this hysterical vein, Mr. Cavendish. Perhaps it would be better if you simply left Merl’s final disposition to me. The choice of the pelt in your case, I would imagine. Yes, that would be best, I’m quite certain. I assure you that once you have Merl’s pelt in your hands you’ll feel much, much better and be able to put all this in its proper perspective. In time you’ll come to appreciate the wisdom of my action and the fortuitousness of no longer having to bear the disgrace of being the owner of such a shameless and incorrigible animal. Now my professional recommendation is a nice hot tub, a cup of tea and a good book. You’ll feel much, much better, I can assure you.”

Now being struck dumb and utterly incapacitated by his profound grief, without another word Mr. Cavendish allowed Doctor Diabole to quietly and gently usher him out the door.

Postscript: Oakland, California: A man, Damon Valrey, 25, was charged with murder for beating a toddler, Dante Jones, 2, to death because the boy was having problems with potty training. The little boy’s body showed signs of previous abuse including burns from scalding water.

While I believe the rural churches of America represent the very best of the true character and virtue of our nation, my experience in the bars has been one of finding a kind of honesty found nowhere else. Looking at the present crop of contenders for the Presidency confirms my long held opinion politicians and preachers need to spend time in the bars. And I don’t mean the upscale clubs as in “Cocktails for Two,” but the ones frequented by the Great Unwashed where three-piece suits and evening gowns are not proper attire.

As Sam Clemens mentioned of the upper classes’ deplorable lack of knowledge of poker making him “ashamed of his species,” so it is with the deplorable lack of knowledge on the part of politicians and preachers about the bars frequented by the common folks. Say what anyone will, I have found the folks in bars to be among the most honest of people, oftentimes more so than those I have known in the churches. Unfortunately, hypocrisy is more often associated with the churches than with the bars. For example, when it comes to men chasing women and vice versa the timeline changes dramatically. In the society of the churches it may take months before the first date. In the bars you quickly cut to the chase much like the scene in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

Life here in the Kern River Valley is not always serene. There was a shooting at Slugger’s Saloon a few nights ago, but the shooter’s target though hit in the chest was still alive last I heard, and a few of the other patrons held the malefactor for the police. Even without knowing the details of what was involved, anyone with my experience in various cuttin’ ‘n’ shootin’ joints surmises such disagreements generally come about because of disputes over a woman. From my own experience I have found women to be the one thing above others that men will fight over. Forget the wise counsel to avoid the subjects of politics, religion, or the Civil War in the bars; it is the fair sex that most often draws men into confrontation.

Now I have known Slugger for many years, I recall when she first opened her place and we became very good friends. And like most of the pubs here in the valley, she tried to run a nice place where people could socialize without fear of getting cut or shot. But there is just something about the ambience of booze and men chasing women that sometimes disrupts otherwise civilized behavior; though as a musician and singer in time past I have experienced the best of what some bars have to offer in the way of entertainment, I have met some of the very best of people including other musicians in the various bars I have frequented.

However, there are incidents like the time I crossed a motorcycle gang not knowing the young woman I expressed an interest in “belonged” to that group. She was interested in me as well, but when we stepped outside there was that gang behaving in a most threatening manner. It was quite a moment as she was torn between me and her gang. But it turned out there was a matter of dealing drugs involved, and it was this that determined her choice to leave with the gang. They in fact really “owned” her ever as much as any slave master.

Life in the bars, the curse of beauty some women suffer, the tragedies of alcoholism and drugs, the loneliness that drives some people to do things they would never consider doing otherwise, these are some of the things that caused me to write a book on the subject. Here is an excerpt from one chapter:

It isn’t, of course, all romanticism in the bars. A very beautiful woman I know well is getting quite drunk. She started early, and by the time the band began playing that evening she was well intoxicated. As I held her close to me while we danced, I told her once more how beautiful she was. She laid her head on my shoulder and replied, “But I’m drunk, Sam.”

I replied, “Drunk or sober, you’re still beautiful.”

And she is. But she doesn’t realize, herself, how very beautiful she is. Why? Her life has been, like so many other beautiful women I know, a history of men who have used and abused her. The curse of beauty in our society, having to cope with life decisions at too early an age, the complete victim of a culture that places a premium on youth and beauty that values women and girls in a totally sexual way, this beautiful woman pays the price of all of this degradation of morality and chastity. Her life, therefore, is a contradiction of her real beauty, and she honestly doesn’t see herself as truly beautiful.

It’s another time and another place. Since I have never been to this lounge in Oildale before, friends are making me acquainted with some of the patrons. One, a very strikingly beautiful woman wants to dance. It is obvious, however, that she is quite drunk. We make it through one dance and I rejoin my friends. When the band starts the next number, a real degenerate has moved on her and they both, drunkenly, try to dance. It becomes too much for me to watch anymore and I take my leave, making the appropriate farewells to my friends.

This particular woman, I have learned, has three children. She will get home somehow and her children will, as so many others I know in similar circumstances where drugs and alcohol play a tragic role, worry about mommy and the men that filter in and out of their lives; some of these children pay a very tragic price for mommy’s having “fun.”

I don’t believe it can be legitimately denied women need, desperately, to be the softness and gentleness, the virtuousness men need to inspire romance. But we live in a violent world and society that is the antithesis of such things, and women are made to be hard and tough in areas where women were never intended to be so.

While it isn’t very romantic, there is another common part of the problem of which the following story is all too typical as well. I was sitting in the living room of a beautiful young woman. She has two, small children and no husband. The ubiquitous tube as baby sitter was not working properly; a real cause of concern when you are trapped in a low-rent apartment complex.

A vicious chain of circumstances has robbed her of transportation; a common problem with the poor. When California passed the law requiring insurance for motorists she had been cited for not having such. Nor, like most people in her circumstances, could she afford it.

Her failure to provide proof of insurance resulted in the suspension of her license. She later got pulled over and the outstanding citation resulted in her car being impounded. It would cost her over $800 to get it back, an impossible sum of money. And the old junker isn’t worth it. As a result, like so many others she loses her car and cannot get her license renewed. With the care of the children, she has to prevail on others to go anywhere like shopping at the grocery store. This makes her especially vulnerable to predatory men who will take advantage of women and their welfare checks.

This lovely girl has only one outlet for entertainment, for some escape from the hopelessness of her situation; the local bar across the street. Here she knows and meets others in similar circumstances. If she can get a neighbor friend to watch her children for a while, she can play pool and visit. For a quarter, she can attempt to get a stuffed toy from the toy machine. And she has become adept at doing so. This enables her to give the children something when she returns. While very attractive there is no vanity in her, and she freely admits she engages in prostitution to make ends meet. Intelligent, she is woefully undereducated and sees no hope of a future for her and her children.

The leadership of our nation, the leaders in churches should spend some time in the bars frequented by people like this young woman. Until they have observed and talked to such people, until they have listened to the music and danced in such places, until they have heard the tragic stories first hand, they will never understand the real needs of the people they are elected and sworn to serve.

Most kids my age during WWII preferred Captain Marvel to Superman, as comic book sales of the time testify. One reason being most of us kids could more readily relate to Billy Batson than to Clark Kent. And after all, Billy was of our world not from some distant planet. Also, we could easily fantasize the magic of “Shazam” as actually being possible to a mortal if one were favored of the gods. Even to Christian kids this did not seem a heretical thought. Many of our comic book heroes of the time had supernatural powers, and we seemed to separate the mystical attributes of these various characters from what we were taught in church and Sunday school. Of course, there was enough of the supernatural and mysticism in the Bible to encourage our believing the same things might be possible for our comic book heroes.

However, while accepting Shazam changing Billy Batson into Captain Marvel none of us had any luck pronouncing such a magic word doing the same for us, which did not prevent our imagining such a thing was possible. Such is the wonder of childhood, believing so many things possible within the realm of imagination beyond the reality of our daily lives.

But with the passing of many years, I have come to realize that calling out to God seems of as little avail as trying to get Shazam to work for me when I was a kid. Like Lee Marvin in Death Hunt “I never did have much luck prayin’.” Though I often feel like the father in the New Testament crying out “I believe Lord, help thou mine unbelief!” it remains I never did have much luck praying.

And so, over a very long period of time I came to reflect that my calling out “Shazam” and calling out “Lord God in heaven” were very similar; and equally ineffectual. However, what worked for Billy Batson may work in prayer for those favored of the gods so I don’t entirely discount the possible efficacy of prayer, though I continue to think much of praying is in the category of us kids wishing pronouncing Shazam could be made to work for us.

My great-grandmother was the saint of my life. But once while I was building a magnificent structure out of wood blocks on the floor she accidentally hit it with her foot, causing the whole thing to collapse. She looked at the devastation and said to me in a mysterious voice, “The Phantom did it.” She knew the Phantom was one of my favorite heroes in the funny papers, but as an adult seemed not to realize he would never do something like knocking down my masterpiece any more than she would have done such a thing on purpose. As wise as she was, she had misspoken in an attempt to soften the blow of what she had done. The problem was that it would never have entered my mind to correct her, nor as a small child would I have known how to attempt an explanation of her error. Perhaps this is how I stand with God. I know he wouldn’t hurt me on purpose, but the explanations for such damage seem too much like my great-grandmother trying to soften the blow. But who am I to say to God: “You’re wrong.” Not only would it not enter my mind to do so, I wouldn’t know how to explain why God is wrong. And while I knew my great-grandmother was wrong, though I believe there were errors in the “Creation” as with all creative processes, I do not know if God is wrong.

But it often occurs to me as it did to Thoreau we may have good cause to wonder that while God might be lonely, the Devil has many friends. I will say if there were no Devil he would have to be invented just as an attempt to understand the lunacy of how America has changed from the time I was a child. Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a bill approving perversion in our public schools: From WorldNetDaily: “Mom and Dad” as well as “husband and wife” have been banned from California schools under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who with his signature also ordered public schools to allow boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, if they choose...The bills signed by Schwarzenegger include SB777, which bans anything in public schools that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices...

Knowing most legislators rely on legislative analysts rather than reading the bills they pass, I understand the unintended consequences of this. More people putting their children in private schools and a boon for salivating lawyers with more lawsuits at taxpayer expense against the public schools that don’t comply with what is very ambiguous language in SB777. Of even greater concern is the backlash this is bound to have on homosexuals as the great majority of sexually normal people who have a very natural aversion to sexual perversion grow increasingly angry over having the agenda of a very few forced upon every one. The high flown rhetoric of those forcing a homosexual agenda in the name of “rights” and “equality” cannot help but have an adverse effect on society as a whole.

While Schwarzenegger is rightly condemned for espousing perversion, though possibly unwittingly in this case, it is no less perversion when the White House and Congress refuse to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor. Both are an abomination to the America I knew as a child, the America so many were sacrificed for and continue to be sacrificed for.    Millions of Americans pray for our nation, that God will intervene on our nation’s behalf and deliver us from the wicked that seem determined to follow Satan and do his bidding, that are determined perversion, greed, and corruption will rule until America is destroyed. But I believe I can be forgiven if I think the prayers of these millions fall into the category of my saying Shazam as a kid. It may have worked for Billy Batson but it didn’t work for me.

One of the major obstacles that may be standing in the way of prayer is what we have in our leadership, many of whom declare they are believers; that they believe in prayer. But if we are to judge by their actions, none of us credit their profession of belief, none of us credit their prayers. Whether true or not, this is the leadership of America, a leadership that by every bit of evidence determined by their actions seem sold out to the Devil, sold out to an agenda of perversion, greed, and corruption. While I may not be any judge of the efficacy or lack thereof concerning prayer, I’m far from being alone when it comes to being a judge of hypocrisy. There is a definite foul odor always accompanying mendacity, as “Big Daddy” observed, and that odor is overpowering throughout the leadership of America both political and religious.

I will not excuse those leaders in the churches who make a pretense of their prayers ever as much as any Pharisee despising the Publican, all the while faring sumptuously in palaces and wearing soft clothing. Where are any in politics or religion qualified to tell We the People we should repent in sackcloth and ashes in order to gain favor with God? Until America has such leaders, I can be forgiven for believing Shazam is of more efficacy than the prayers offered by the present leadership of America whether religious or political.

But I recall when I joined the Captain Marvel Club in order to be able to decode the secret messages how disappointed I was to find out it was only the alphabet in reverse. This didn’t prevent my continuing to enjoy the comic books, but somehow Captain Marvel just wasn’t quite the hero he had been to me before this. Still, that was a comic book hero; I have a right to expect more from the “real thing” in America’s leaders.

Long before Thomas Wolfe’s novel, “You can’t go home again” was an oft used expression and one with which I was familiar even as a child. But Wolfe couldn’t possibly know how prophetic his story would be of America coming out of WWII. While a person may come to terms with themselves concerning change and dealing with life, it is considerably more difficult for nations, which quite often throughout history have gone through horrendous convulsions and bloodletting in the process of change and adapting to new conditions wrought by such a process. America was birthed through such a convulsive process, and the wars since that time have been unrelenting, each bringing about further changes in our nation. We are witnessing changes taking place in America even now due to the wars presently ongoing with no end in sight and escalating.

The nuclear age changed the world, and there is no going home from that. The nuclear genie was let out of the bottle, and there is no putting it back. But Tevye made a good point in “Fiddler on the Roof” concerning tradition. How else could a people hold together without their traditions he wondered? And when accommodation to change was demanded by circumstances, he wondered just how far he could go without breaking in adapting to such changes that threatened tradition; that threatened his very way of life?

Among my more valued books are The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, and The Faith of America volume about Norman Rockwell filled with favorite pictures. The two books are a fair representation of the America I was born into and knew as a child. At this stage of my life I leaf through both books with melancholy nostalgia, realizing that not only is it impossible for me to go home again, but that so many of America’s traditions have been betrayed there seems no going home again for our nation.

As a witness to the changes that have been wrought in America following WWII by “removing the ancient landmarks which the fathers have set,” I will say many of such changes have not made our nation any stronger or freer, but quite the contrary. My generation respected and honored our flag for example. We didn’t question “In God We Trust,” because most of us subscribed to this. Same sex so-called “marriage,” those of my generation would have expressed both disgust and incredulity at the mention of such a thing. Abortion on demand as means of contraception? Unthinkable! As would have been “Press one for English” and the explosive growth of pornography. And none of us would have dreamed those in our government would lie to We the People wholesale, betraying our nation on every hand for power and profits.

Just recently Jack Cafferty expressed my own opinion when asked which of the present contenders for President offered any hope of change for the better in America: “None of them,” was his frank and candid reply. Neither Jack nor I consider ourselves cynics, but we do consider ourselves pragmatic realists.

Long ago I abandoned some of my conservative views; I came to oppose the death penalty because of its capriciousness state-to-state, I began to favor the legalization of prostitution and marijuana, I stopped opposing abortion believing this is the right of a woman to choose without the interference of men. But some of my conservative views remain unchanged over the decades of my life such as our Second Amendment right to own and carry a gun, and believing people should be personally responsible and fully accountable for their actions despite politicians, lawyers, judges, and the ACLU.

But as a pragmatic realist, I know a nation cannot possibly be any better than its leaders, and it is in the abject failure of America’s leadership to be personally responsible and accountable my thoughts turn to what our nation used to be before our traditions were sacrificed for the “greater good.” Yet, I am not naive to the fact that the seeds of America’s destruction may have been sown by the failure of the Founding Fathers to abolish slavery by our Constitution that resulted in Lincoln’s War followed by federalism and welfare as a way of life for millions, a situation that cannot possibly be resolved by laws fair and just to everyone.

America won the war against the Axis powers because we still had a sense of tradition, we still considered ourselves a nation with a national identity. This is no longer the case. We are a fragmented and divided nation on many fronts, so much so that there is no certain solution to the problem apart from some Draconian circumstance forced upon America such as a nuclear attack. And even at that, would we have the kind of leadership that would do what would be necessary in the interests of America? Response to 9/11 and the enormity of greed and corruption exposed in government gives me just cause to wonder.

Tevye had every reason to wonder how far he could go against tradition without breaking. Americans like me have every reason for wondering the same thing. There are times when I question whether I live in a haunted house, whether I live with the ghosts or spirits of departed loved ones and friends. No less is the question of whether the America I used to know is now only a ghost, one represented by those like George Washington and Norman Rockwell, those old comic books and strips that so very well recounted the changes taking place in America, but continuing to hold on to many of the best of the traditions that made America great.

The America I was born into and knew as a child is now only a ghost, and there seems no Dickens that will get the needed attention of our leaders, no spirits taking them on Scrooge’s journey to the past, confronting them with the present, and causing them to cry out for a chance to change the future for the better. I suppose a miracle is needed to save America from becoming nothing but a ghost, one that acknowledged a nation is defined by heritage, culture, a national language and secure borders, a miracle that would cause our leaders to turn from their wicked ways and do what is best for our nation. Short of such a miracle, I confess I have little hope anything less than that will prevail.

If Oscar the cat can sense the imminent death of someone and go curl up with them in order to comfort them during their final moment what else might be “out there?” While I like to give myself a wide range of speculation concerning the supernatural and even willing to credit things like UFOs, it often strikes me that so many proclaim themselves to be “moderns” in scientific thinking yet are so susceptible to what is no more than outright fraud among some academics.

The universe is unimaginably vast containing things unknown and perhaps unknowable; the universe contains things even beyond our capacity to imagine. We still do not know what life is or its origin; these remain open to speculation even among scientists dedicated to the study of life. But there is a “comfort zone” not just for those holding religious beliefs, but even for scientists unwilling to admit there may be things contrary to their beliefs:

The Latest Problems with the “Man Evolved From Apes” Thesis: By Frank Pastore, September 3, 2007: Cavemen are popular once again... I’m talking about the two discoveries that came out in August that should force all those “man evolved from apes” evolution charts in schoolbooks to be redrawn. You know the ones. You’ve got the knuckle-dragging, club-wielding ape on the left hand side and a businessman carrying a briefcase on the right hand side, with all the hypothetical evolutionary links filled in between... What’s been discovered is a 10.5 million year old gorilla and that two of our “ape men” ancestors actually lived together... See, the problem is—these two discoveries render all previous human evolution charts wrong. But, the bigger problem is—unless you’re a scientist—you’ve likely never have heard about it outside of this column or at least until you’d see the trailer for Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” coming out in February 2008. As Stein exposes, there’s been a virtual Inquisition by Darwinian fundamentalists against anyone who dares challenge The Book—Darwin’s infamous 1859 “Origin of the Species.” No longer about following the bread crumbs of inquiry in pursuit of truth, Big Science is now all about enforcing doctrinaire dogmatism. Dare question the problems with naturalistic evolution—as I do here—and be guilty of blasphemy. Ask for explanations about the still missing “missing links,” the absence of transitional forms, the sudden Cambrian Explosion, or the gaping gaps in the fossil record, and be branded an unbeliever—one who must repent of their sins, recant and do penance or be damned to academic hell for all time... Make no mistake. Fundamentalists are those who censure skeptics and prohibit inquiry. Today’s fundamentalists are not the Christians who, like me, are eager to examine the scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution, but those who deny that opportunity from ever happening. The real fundamentalists are those who chair the various science departments at our major universities—those unwilling to allow dissent... First, as reported here on August 9, two alleged ancestors of man, Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis, were found to be living together about 1.5 million years ago (MYA). This is a big deal because Erectus was supposed to have evolved from Habilis before later evolving into Sapiens (us). Think of it as finding out dad and grandpa were actually brothers, not father and son. This chart on Early Human Phylogeny at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History will have to be revised—again. The mythical evolutionary tree of life with man’s ascent from ape is looking more like a patch of thousands of blades of grass with the passing of each generation. Sapiens ends up all by himself—an evolutionary orphan—almost as though he just appeared in the fossil record fully formed—as though he were created and placed here. Imagine that. The second discovery, reported here, pushed the hypothetical human-ape split back another 10 million years, to now around 20 MYA. How so? The traditional theory is that man evolved from chimps about 6 MYA, chimps evolved from gorillas about 8 MYA, and gorillas evolved from orangutans about 14 MYA. But, with the discovery of a 10.5 million year old gorilla in Africa, this pushes the human-ape split back to at least 20 MYA. But between 15-20 MYA, there were dozens of primate species in Africa, and the hominid trail goes completely cold after 7 MYA. It looks like a dead end—or to the true believer, at least a serious detour over uncharted territory. Bottom line, not only do we find that dad and grandpa were brothers, but now we find out that we were adopted—or created. As the authors of the report on all this in the British journal Nature noted, “We know nothing about how the human line actually emerged from apes.”

Years ago it puzzled me that while some espousing evolution and the ape to man theory were as devout in their beliefs as any Bible thumper, they could never explain how male and female developed. It occurred to me there should be volumes of evidence showing how this happened. But the fossil evidence for such a transitional thing remained a closed door. Wherever scientists poked, the results were male and female without any transitional forms. Puzzling enough that modern man and civilization could suddenly appear only a scant few thousand years ago after so many millions of years without such development. Writing? Now just how did that happen so suddenly? Not to mention marvels like the pyramids and other such things. Atlantis? Who knows?

But to consider just one example of the marvels of human beings as opposed to ape-like creatures, I love airplanes and flying; I love stories and films about airplanes and flying. But I have never lost my sense of awe while watching a B-52 or some jumbo jet taking off and wondering at the marvel of such a thing. These behemoths of the air, how could the minds of human beings have conceived such marvels; then have thousands of other men and women actually construct such wonders? Sure, I know the physics involved, I know the hands on work that goes into such construction, but it remains a source of wonder to me. And just what is it that makes us get into these mechanical marvels and take to the air, knowing these things are subject to any number of catastrophic failures? Why have so many been so captivated they are willing to risk their lives in order to do things like taking to the air? As a pilot, I never got into an airplane and took off without the thought “This thing can kill me.” But this did not prevent me from flying. Nor has it prevented people from strapping themselves in and taking off in rockets to the moon and the space station.

The opening chapters of Genesis continue to hold the answers for me to many questions, though I have no way of knowing what the facts were leading to the story of Creation and that of humankind. However, as with The Fall were Adam and Eve also cursed with a “stupid gene” that led to things like the invention of gunpowder and airplanes? How about things like the automobile and splitting the atom? Computers?

There are a host of things that distinguish modern man from the many failed lines of other creatures, so many over millions of years that simply died out and disappeared. One of my own speculations has it Satan as a god had the power of creation, but his creations like the dinosaurs were truly diabolical and early attempts at human-like creatures failed and better gods intervened with the creation of the Adam, and it has been hell on earth ever since pitting the Evil One and his kind against the creation of the better gods.

I believe there was a decision on the part of the gods to create humankind; that we carry about in our bodies the very spirit of the gods and this compels us with divine curiosity to engage in many dangerous activities and inventions while reaching out to the stars, to climb a mountain with no other explanation but “Because it is there.” But there is that dark side to consider that may also lead to our very extinction. The conflict between good and evil has not played itself out yet; but there are those seemingly committed to the extinction of our species whether there is a Devil or not, whether we are children of the gods or not. But then there is Oscar the cat, and scientists in the electronics industry are having fits trying to understand the “tin whiskers” plaguing solder connections. And Steve Fossett has not been found despite all our science.

One thing my generation had in abundance was heroes. While I was raised by Christian, God fearing and Bible believing good people, as a child when faced with some moral dilemma like whether to take those forbidden cookies the decision might not be based on considering what Jesus would do, but rather what Dick Tracy or the Phantom would do.

You see, when someone like my great-grandmother said something was wrong, that was gospel to me as a boy and I’d be quick to go to fist city with anyone that disagreed. However, Jesus was somewhat esoteric to me as a child, but the funny papers and comic books of the time had real heroes I admired and to whom I could more readily relate. Some will construe this as an early indicator of my lack of moral perception. After all, once you admit Dick Tracy and the Phantom trumped Jesus when it came to moral decisions you obviously already had one foot in hell as a child, a point emphasized by Sam Clemens through Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Face it; when a boy would rather play the role of a pirate than a preacher, an Old Testament prophet or New Testament Apostle he is a sure-fire contender for perdition.

Alas, my failings and shortcomings during childhood were manifold. But the good people who influenced my life, who emphasized doing right rather than wrong were often secondary to the moral instruction I received from the funny papers and comic books, the radio programs and films of the time. The difference between then and what was to come was the fact children of my time could depend on good overcoming evil; the good guys like Dick Tracy and the Phantom would always triumph in the end. Unfortunately, children today don’t have the heroes I knew as a child. The grim reality of the times mocks what is construed as the innocence, the naiveté and altruism of yesteryear, and children today are not taught the kind of morality I was taught as a child. And certainly they would seek in vain for any in positions of leadership in America that invite emulation, let alone any they would construe as “heroes.”

The “superheroes” of my time like Superman and Captain Marvel did not factor into my moral decisions very much because they were beyond the kin of whether or not to steal cookies or try to cheat while playing marbles. In somewhat the same fashion, the caution that God or Jesus was watching you didn’t have the same emphasis in my life as a child as did my heroes like Dick Tracy. The reason being I could think of becoming a man like Dick Tracy, but I couldn’t possibly relate to God or Jesus in the same manner. What kid ever thought he wanted to grow up to be a man like God or Jesus? Foreign as such a thought would be to any kid, the very impossibility of such a thing would prevent it ever being credited. Ah, but to grow up to be a man like Dick Tracy, that was attainable; and heroes like the Phantom and Tarzan, our cowboy heroes and some others were there as well.

There is no doubt in my mind the masterful Sinclair Lewis had some fun with his Elmer Gantry’s preaching Jesus was no sissy, attempting to cast Jesus in the heroic role of real two-fisted manhood. The failure to do so was not because there was any lack of examples of Jesus being a real man in the New Testament; bravery and courageousness are characteristics of Jesus. The problem was the same I encountered as a child; I could relate to Dick Tracy and others in a way impossible for me when it came to Jesus. He was too much in the category of the superheroes of my time; fascinating to read about, but impossible of attainment. Besides, casting out demons and performing miracles was somewhat beyond my understanding, and I knew I couldn’t perform magic like Mandrake or make myself invisible like the Shadow, I knew I couldn’t fly like Superman, but I could be a good guy like Dick Tracy fighting bad guys.

In many ways, Jesus was too much like the “virtual reality” of today’s electronic games and special effects. The reality is far removed from any kind of virtual reality. Who in their right mind would compare “virtual sex” with the real thing? Cops and soldiers can train with virtual reality for the “real thing,” but nothing will take the place of the real thing. Pilots and astronauts train in simulators, but all of them will tell you it isn’t the same as the real thing. Firing electronic “guns” in simulation will never take the place of a .44 magnum’s roar and kick or firing a real machine gun, and most especially not when a real person is firing back trying to kill you and the whizzing sound of bullets flying by is the real thing.

The many years have passed and I no longer have the heroes of childhood to emulate, nor do I spend much time thinking about God or Jesus watching what I do. They remain in the category of superheroes or virtual reality. What I do have is the belief my loved ones gone on before me may be watching; and more than any deities or heroes this prevents me from stealing those cookies. For me, this is the moral equivalent of belief or faith in any deities. And while politicians pander for votes declaiming on their “faith,” I think it would serve better to know their pedigree in respect to whether they have any like my departed loved ones to keep them straight and honest, those they believe they will have to answer to rather than their various professed deities.

I’m not sure but what the phrase “black and white” is no longer acceptable as a measure of determining something obvious, perhaps failing the test of political correctness these days, but it remains the way children view their world. To a child, some things are simply right and some things are simply wrong without the many shades of grey that will come to plague them as adults, acerbated by the legions of lawyers running the country that invariably make issues grey that would seem to be obviously right or wrong. Leave it to the Devil’s disciples, lawyers, to try to make everything some shade of grey without any moral distinctions of simply right and wrong. In this way, monsters continue to be free to prey on children, and murderers are judged by their degree of intelligence and social factors rather than the heinous acts of which they are guilty. One may be excused for eventually concluding most politicians, lawyers, and judges are pedophiles, molesters, drunks, and thieves given the decisions they make favoring criminals over their victims.

To give Jesus his due, since the present crop of politicians is making professions of “faith,” it would serve them well to consider the words of Jesus that unless a person is “born again” they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. I have come to believe Jesus may have been cognizant of better science than many of his proclaimed followers. I think Jesus may have had an idea about that 96% of the universe scientists theorize is unknown and perhaps even unknowable. Long ago I began to entertain the thought that while death was pronounced on humankind because of The Fall, we will be “born again” into an afterlife even as we are born into this one, but with the promise of “resurrection bodies” not subject to disease, death and decay.

Another thing to which politicians, and others, would do well to pay heed that profess to be followers of Jesus is his injunction that unless one becomes like a little child they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In this Jesus affirmed the simple verities of childhood where the issues are never grey, but simply black or white, right or wrong. And the real heroes are those that choose to do what is right no matter how appealing the Devil’s offer to do wrong.

Good people will do good. I don’t believe good people need deities, heroes, or even departed loved ones to whom they think they will have to answer. No matter the evil and corruption we face in America, I think good people are able to separate good and evil and reach moral conclusions without the dubious benefit of being preached to by clergy, pundits, or politicians. The real problem I think we are facing is the declining options of choosing good over evil. And it is in this decline of options to choose the good Dick Tracy has fallen to the wayside and children no longer have the heroes I knew as a child.

If Muslim fanatics expect to bleed America dry through endless wars they will get all the cooperation they need from our Federal Triune Dictatorship. And while some people believe Caesar Bush is the poster boy for their argument in favor of abortion and birth control, something his own parents might agree with, the whole issue of sex needs a sober analysis devoid of emotions and so-called “humor.” There is nothing funny about sex; it is a very serious issue that demands some very serious discussion. And though Sam Clemens had a lot of fun with Adam and Eve, for me the issue of sex begins with attempting to understand the story of The Fall in Genesis where it would seem women got the worst of the deal and trying to figure out why this should be?

Certainly many of the ills of the world are due to overpopulation. Here in America politicians are determined to acerbate the problem through open borders for the sake of slave labor and continue extorting the responsible to support the irresponsible, to socialize America out of existence through slave labor and unproductive mouths. But no politician dares address the issues of birth control as a condition for social services. Yet the question remains why those that rut like animals without any concern for the resulting babies be supported by responsible taxpayers, by those that have only the children they can care for and offer a future?

It comes down to sex, often mindless sex for the sake of pleasure only without any sense of personal responsibility attached, and perhaps the answer is in the Genesis account of The Fall. Over a long period of time I have been laboring over a writing project with the working title “Hey God! What went wrong and when are you going to fix it?” Most religious people are not amused. For example, a fellow who previously had been very friendly withdrew his invitation for me to attend his church when I told him about it. But one chapter deals with the issue of sex and “original sin” in the Bible. Needless to say, it is proving to be the longest and most complicated part of the book.

Life is not molecular; it has no atomic structure and may properly belong to that 96% of the universe scientists presently theorize is unknown, and possibly unknowable. But as I continue to mull the possibilities in the beginning chapters of Genesis concerning Creation and God breathing the breath of life into the “Adam” making him a living soul, it seems the gods determining to make the Adam in their own image with this breath of life may have been somewhat confused in the creation of Adam and Eve. In any event, something went terribly wrong according to the account given.

Adam can’t find a suitable companion among the creatures brought before him to be named, so the gods decided to provide him with Eve. But Eve is beguiled by the Serpent (that may have been jealous of Adam and Eve); she in turn tempts Adam, and things really fall apart. The gods hedged their bet by providing a “test” for the first couple. And though Adam “takes it like a man” and blames both God and Eve for his failure, for whatever reason Eve and her daughters thereafter take the brunt of “the curse” and have been paying dearly ever since, with even the New Testament blaming Eve for being deceived. No matter one’s opinion of this seeming injustice, no one can fail to see women pay a far higher price for “original sin” than men, and far too often are treated no better than prey with men as the predators.

To begin, once having eaten of the forbidden fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” Adam and Eve realized they were naked and tried to cover themselves. Maybe this is where sex reared its head for the first time. The gods were shaken up and claimed Adam and Eve had become like the gods themselves, knowing both good and evil; sex being implied. So the Serpent told a half-truth, neglecting to mention the antidote to the forbidden fruit and the first couple was kicked out of the Garden to prevent them eating from “the tree of life” that would have enabled them to live forever like the gods. But before this happens, the judgment against the first couple is that women would suffer pain through childbirth, that they would forever after be subservient to men. And so it has been throughout human history, anecdotal blips of the occasional woman being in charge notwithstanding.

The story involving the curse pronounced against the Serpent may possibly be that of Satan’s fall, and though succeeding in deceiving Eve the promise given is while humankind may suffer at the hands of the Devil, the children of God will prevail in the end. In the meantime, as per the Scriptures Satan has dominion over the kingdoms of the earth, being confined here and going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and setting those in positions of power according to his choosing making it as miserable as he can for those that would attempt to live by the precept of the Golden Rule.

But sex has been construed from earliest times to be the cause of The Fall and God’s judgment against Adam and Eve, with women being blamed for the most part as sinful creatures, even unclean and sin by definition, that tempt men to sin. Dear Harper Lee certainly took fundamentalists to task on this issue, but the history of it goes all the way back to the story in Genesis, though the Roman Church and most especially the religion of Islam carry it to real extremes.

Nevertheless, there is no getting around the fact that while men make wars while women attempt to make homes this whole issue of the power of sex has a lot to do with the wars men make. And in this sense, sex may rightfully be viewed as the sinful thing the ancients construed it to be; especially since it is the power women wield by their sex that promotes so much evil in the world. The whole field of pornography since the most ancient of times proves the power women have over men when it comes to sex. And it may rightly be thought this is most certainly not a good thing, since both men and women suffer as a result and it was with this justification Sam Clemens observed “men and women are natural born enemies.” While he joked about this, I believe he may have credited the Genesis story more than he admitted.

The “marriage bed” has been the most successful institution in providing some relief from the results of The Fall, but from the most ancient of times men having several wives and concubines has been approved while this has been denied women. Certainly a most unfair double standard, as was pointed out so delightfully in “Paint Your Wagon,” but one that might easily be understood in the light of the judgment pronounced against Eve in the beginning. But attempting to understand why this happened the way it did according to the Genesis account is one of the most difficult of tasks. And while the New Testament teaches a doctrine of monogamy, the kind of sinful human nature resulting from The Fall does not accommodate itself to fidelity, but rather what has become “serial monogamy” here in America where the old “Till death we do part” has become an antiquated anachronism.

Love may be a form of temporary insanity; whether or not it will inevitably be betrayed by either death or infidelity, a point that led Sam Clemens to express his conclusion “death is the only pure and unalloyed gift of God.” As romantic as I am, there are some very hard cold facts of human nature that are not easily overcome by romanticism. Answers to this conundrum of life are difficult to come by. While I credit the ancient myths, especially those of the Greeks, with much truth, and while goddesses play an important role throughout it is the male deities that inevitably have the upper hand. Except when it comes to the power women wield through sex, including the historical fact of prostitution where women, not men, have power. This is certainly an important issue in the Biblical account of the “sons of God and the daughters of men” along with various other mythologies, and a study of the mythologies having to do with the various goddesses I believe sheds some light on the reason women are judged so harshly. There must have been a reason why David and Solomon were so easily undone by a pretty face while another launched a thousand ships, none of which ended in “they lived happily ever after.”

But I’m going to keep working on the book, though the speculations run far ahead of my attempts to put them in any meaningful written expression. Of this I am certain: While sex lends itself to much levity, much like economics, as Thoreau pointed out, it cannot so easily be disposed. Life is disproportionately unfair, and sex lends not a little to the unfairness. The subject lends itself to the making of many books, but I believe there is a need for mine. I tell myself there must be a plan in all this; I’d hate to believe the gods are a’ dither like politicians exclaiming “We gotta have a plan!”