I have recently witnessed the “super religious” (evangelical) among us cling to their thirst for power over “militant secularists” who they say are behind a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order,” as former AG Barr has preached. In their longing to do away with the separation of church and state they appear willing to stomach dishonesty, cruelty, and the trashing of the Ten Commandments. How in the same breath can they proclaim their religion yet rally around opposite values? And does “secularists” includes those of other faiths?

Today I reached into my book pile and pulled out Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, which more accurately describes my own personal religion. I found nothing militant in it…

“Every person you have ever met, every person you will pass in the street today is going to die. Living long enough, each will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?…

“The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty and love.” I don’t know if I agree with him on consciousness –didn’t get into that chapter yet.

I just realized I feel rejected by Anderson Cooper for leaving CNN…

I’m wondering if Trump plans to sell the U.S. to Putin…

I’m planning a poem on my death called “Chortlings.”

I just hate it when I see a photo of someone much younger than me sitting with their great-grandchild.

If evolution boo boos can grow a tail on a puppy’s forehead, why couldn’t it also make monks fly and some folks have esp? ((Photo; Puppy named Narwhal with tail on his forehead adopted by …abcnews.go.com › story)

I’m both gullible and a little paranoid–a confusing mixture.

I just now realized why some people slurp when drinking anything hot: it helps cool it! Insight on 12/15/2020

I wonder what others have learned from the zooming endeavor?

I wonder if it’s right to interfere by force with another culture’s cruel practices?

Eerie to think mankind (via Israeli unmanned spacecraft April, 2019) has left life on the moon. “There’s no danger of the tardigrades colonizing the moon; to reproduce, they’d need to return to Earth and rehydrate.” Oh shucks… (From The Week August 21, 2019). The image of a few thousand tiny “water bears” taped between DVD-sized etched nickel discs that contain a “library” of human civilization is difficult to erase from my mind’s eye. Is it an answer to how to do it or how not to do it?

I wondet when it will be a-okay to try and interfere with privatization?

“Many of us Lowdowners read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in high school–and it’s still being taught.” The 1954 novel depicts the gradual descent into barbaric darkness by a group of English schoolboys shipwrecked on a small deserted island. “Its portrayal of innate human depravity was hailed at the time for its unblinking ‘realism’. ” Only …it was total bullshit, reports Hightower.* I won’t include many of Golding’s shortcomings as reported in the article, but suffice it to say he had not studied behavioral science, and in order to better understand the boys’ fantasized situation Dutch historian Rutger Bregman became curious about what would really happen if kids were left alone on an island.

He finally discovered a real situation that occurred in 1965, when six bored schoolboys ages 13-16 from Tonga took a small fishing boat out on a lark, but were caught in a sudden storm and blown far from home. Their mast and rudder broke, and they finally washed up on the shore of a desolate rocky island where they were stranded for more than a year. After 15 months stranded on the deserted island a passing fishing crew rescued them.

Fifty years later Bregman located a few of the 1965 survivors, curious to discover “how it went in real life.” Their rescuers found the boys healthy–physically, socially and spiritually. I don’t want to be a “spoiler,” and maybe you knew all this already anyway. I’m going to check out Bregnan’s 2019 work: Humankind: A Hopeful History.

*Nov. 2020 Hightower Lowdown