WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT

"What God hath wrought."   It's a verse from the Book of Numbers (23:23) in that strange and foreign and surely un-American book which Jews and Christians supposedly live by. 

                                        

                                  WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT

"Come see what God hath wrought."  

But this?  Don't blaspheme--or God will send you someplace to burn forever.  God didn't create these United States:  united in greed and hatred of the poor and xenophobic arrogance.   Not these United States, violent and murderous, where everybody has a gun and the nation itself owns more weapons of destruction than all the rest of the world in all of human history.  

God isn't responsible for these United States.  And you can't blame his son--the un-American known as Jesus--for what we have wrought.   Jesus told us--told even the Americans--to love one another:  to take care of the poor, not to steal, not to kill.  

"What God hath wrought."   God didn't  make this.  What we have wrought is not God's work:  not what any god made or created or designed.  We have wrought iron--and destruction, and war.  God wrought love--and life, and peace.

And while I'm at it:  God didn't make the North America than Americans inhabit today.  God didn't make those refuse-concealing mountains in New Jersey--or the Love Canal in New York.  God didn't make those topless mountains in eastern Kentucky, either, or the valleys full of poisoned landfill between them.  God didn't make America's polluted and poisonous rivers  or the air we can't safely breathe.  God didn't make the poisonous pesticides we use to put on the food we eat, or the poor deformed beasts that we eat pretending it is the meat of cattle and chickens.

"What God hath wrought."  False accusation is the sin called calumny, or slander.  We

are the guilty ones.  This world is our doing:  what we have wrought.  And yes, it includes our perverse and unpolitic politicians and their supporters.

                                                                       Bert Hornback

   THE NEW YORK TIMES IS GUN-CRAZY--JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE USA


Here's today's  prize New York Times  headline:  "SPAIN'S SOCIALIST LEADER TAKES HIS SHOT AT FORMING GOVERNMENT."

     The headline writers at the New York Times are gun nuts .  Every day somebody "takes a shot at" something in the great American newspaper.  I guess that with gun-shots everywhere and all the time in the United States, living there you automatically think and speak in terms of violence.  And as the leader of sophisticated intelligence in America, the New York Times  has to lead in violent language as well as everything else.

     If you live in the United States, shooting becomes part of your everyday speech.  (And if you live there long enough, you may well get shot.  Lots and lots of people do, every day. ) Everybody in American "takes a shot" at everything--and everybody.  Does Bernie Sanders have a shot at the presidency?  Did Donald Trump shoot himself in the foot with the KKK?  Does John Kasich have a shot at the Republican nomination?  Has poor Ted Cruz shot his wad already?  This is Hilary Clinton's second shot at the Democratic nomination.  If Sanders gets too close to Clinton, they will have a real shoot-out.

     Real shoot-outs happen every day in the United States.  Everywhere.  And most everybody has--and carries--a gun.  Several years ago a  "Christian" minister in Kentucky asked all his parishoners to bring their guns to church the next Sunday--and promised he would be wearing two of his guns.  People drove a hundred miles and more to attend.  The little church was packed with gun-toting Christians, praising Jesus.

     (I remember the World War II song, "Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition."  It was even better than "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war."  I remember, too,  many years later, clearing out my aunt's and uncle's apartment after their death.  My sister and I found four pistols and a huge rifle--and a big box of dangerously decomposed black-powder shells.  The aunt and uncle lived in a second-floor apartment in a nice, safe part of a town of 50,000 people.)

     Twenty years ago I was in England with my usual group of thirteen University of Michigan literature students.  One was a very good, bright, pleasant young man who always responded to things he didn't like--a bad joke, somebody passing our big van on a curve, noisy drunks in a bar--by pointing his right index finger, raising his thumb, and making a sort of "pow" sound.  One night in Dorchester some of my students were playing darts at the Sun Inn, where we stayed every year for a week.  We weren't very good at darts, but we always played.  Actually, we were so bad we were the entertainment.  That night Jesse aimed his dart, threw, and it stuck in the wall of the bar, about a foot from the target.

     One of the locals guffawed rather loudly.  Jesse looked at him, pointed his right index finger, raised his thumb, and went "pow!"  There was silence in the bar.  And then the man who had laughed said, "Oh.  I forgot.  You're an American."

     The man didn't need to say anything more.  Jesse caught on immediately.  He turned red, ducked his head, and left the room.  I never saw him do his little mime again.

     Maybe the one good thing about selfie-sticks is that their users--mostly Americans--can take "shots" of (or at) themselves.

     I wish the New York Times could quit "shooting" things--or people--every day.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT ELECTING A PRESIDENT

WHAT DO DECENT FOLKS DO?

American politics is almost always bad news. If not before the election, most certainly afterwards. One way or another, we make it happen that way. Now, with an election coming, it seems that we are to be offered two candidates, neither of whom should be president. No, that's not right: we are choosing two candidates, neither of whom should be president.

We do elections like football games. Exactly the same way. Players get bought, almost everybody cheats, “winning” is everything. Cheerleaders, lies, screaming fans, lots of news analysts and pundits and slogan-slingers, pompoms and bands, and dirty tricky. And us fans cheer and boo and cry things like “Kill, Bubba, Kill!” Bread and circuses have been replaced by poisonous hotdogs and violent football games.

Now, with another “big game” coming up, the American system--such as it is--is going through an utterly crazy “nominating” process. There will be “party” candidates. But Donald Trump isn't in the same “party” that the others are in. Or maybe he is in the same party Hilary Clinton is in. He is in the ruthless, cocksure, ignorance-first, self-propelling wing, she in the ruthless, smart, buy-me wing. Bernie Sanders is a thoughtful, honest socialist--which means that, in America, he has three strikes against him. Ted Cruz is a mean, nasty, and seemingly stupid oaf. Marco Rubio is as innocent as a Republican can be: a know-nothing with smiles. Ben Carson must be a rich idiot, retired from “practicing” medicine and now running for president without knowing anything about anything. And Chris Christie: an embarrassing opportunist with the tiny mind of an oversized bedbug. Which leaves John Kasich, who seems a decent man, and a thoughtful man.

Maybe Bernie Sanders and John Kasich should run as a ticket. They could do so, by putting thoughtfulness and wisdom ahead of party and political labels. Their values seem much the same. They both seem decent people--maybe the only two decent people in the whole bunch of presidential candidates. And they are both intelligent. Clinton is intelligent, too--but her intelligence is simply smart, not wise, and she focuses her energy on power, money, and triumph.

On the Republican side, if you don't count Kasich there's not enough intelligence or understanding or compassion or decent political trhoughtfulness to fill a filibuster.

Political candidates always run for office promising to “bring us together.” Nonsense. This is football: and when players come together they push each other down in the mud, and step on each other. That's what football is all about. (In New Orleans, two years ago,) professionals got extra pay for hurting each other: but they weren't charged with assault: assault with intent to do bodily harm. Nor were criminal charges filed against the coach who

though up this scheme and ran it.

Let's have a revolution, and put a third pair of candidates on the ballot. Not Michael Bloomberg--but maybe Michael Bloomberg will support their candidacy financially. He is seemingly a good man, even if he is immorally rich.

Let's find a way out of this mess, and vote for Bernie Sanders and John Kasich. And to hell with “Democrats” and “Republicans.” Let's elect Bernie Sanders and John Kasich to bring us together.

Bert Hornback

WHAT DO DECENT FOLKS DO?

WHAT DO DECENT FOLKS DO?

American politics is almost always bad news. If not before the election, most certainly afterwards. One way or another, we make it happen that way. Now, with an election coming, it seems that we are to be offered two candidates, neither of whom should be president. No, that's not right: we are choosing two candidates, neither of whom should be president.

We do elections like football games. Exactly the same way. Players get bought, almost everybody cheats, “winning” is everything. Cheerleaders, lies, screaming fans, lots of news analysts and pundits and slogan-slingers, pompoms and bands, and dirty tricky. And us fans cheer and boo and cry things like “Kill, Bubba, Kill!” Bread and circuses have been replaced by poisonous hotdogs and violent football games.

Now, with another “big game” coming up, the American system--such as it is--is going through an utterly crazy “nominating” process. There will be “party” candidates. But Donald Trump isn't in the same “party” that the others are in. Or maybe he is in the same party Hilary Clinton is in. He is in the ruthless, cocksure, ignorance-first, self-propelling wing, she in the ruthless, smart, buy-me wing. Bernie Sanders is a thoughtful, honest socialist--which means that, in America, he has three strikes against him. Ted Cruz is a mean, nasty, and seemingly stupid oaf. Marco Rubio is as innocent as a Republican can be: a know-nothing with smiles. Ben Carson must be a rich idiot, retired from “practicing” medicine and now running for president without knowing anything about anything. And Chris Christie: an embarrassing opportunist with the tiny mind of an oversized bedbug. Which leaves John Kasich, who seems a decent man, and a thoughtful man.

Maybe Bernie Sanders and John Kasich should run as a ticket. They could do so, by putting thoughtfulness and wisdom ahead of party and political labels. Their values seem much the same. They both seem decent people--maybe the only two decent people in the whole bunch of presidential candidates. And they are both intelligent. Clinton is intelligent, too--but her intelligence is simply smart, not wise, and she focuses her energy on power, money, and triumph.

On the Republican side, if you don't count Kasich there's not enough intelligence or understanding or compassion or decent political trhoughtfulness to fill a filibuster.

Political candidates always run for office promising to “bring us together.” Nonsense. This is football: and when players come together they push each other down in the mud, and step on each other. That's what football is all about. (In New Orleans, two years ago,) professionals got extra pay for hurting each other: but they weren't charged with assault: assault with intent to do bodily harm. Nor were criminal charges filed against the coach who

though up this scheme and ran it.

Let's have a revolution, and put a third pair of candidates on the ballot. Not Michael Bloomberg--but maybe Michael Bloomberg will support their candidacy financially. He is seemingly a good man, even if he is immorally rich.

Let's find a way out of this mess, and vote for Bernie Sanders and John Kasich. And to hell with “Democrats” and “Republicans.” Let's elect Bernie Sanders and John Kasich to bring us together.

Bert Hornback