An Analog Soul Living In The Digital Universe

 

I started life as an analog child with a.m. radio, 78 rpm records, and black and white film. Today, that analog life has been replaced with digital 0s and 1s. This is not to lament some loss in quality of the material, on the contrary, I would argue that most digital presentations are superior. On the flip side, we can be nostalgic about the content of old analog sources but that is not the issue here.

The issue is the rate at which all of this has occurred, and that is mind numbing. In my eight decades of observation, the advancements have been spectacular. However much audiophiles may criticize the lack of “warmth” of a digital recording versus a vinyl record played through a tube amplifier, I find quite the opposite. Science is on my side as measurements generally show that vinyl recordings and tube amplification have lower fidelity, higher noise, and more distortion than high-resolution digital audio. It is perception that differs.

But I digress, as I often do. This is about the mind-warping advancements of our digital environment. While our next generation will need to deal with the impact of artificial intelligence, there is one advancement that is here in the present; and it is scary.

Russia has deployed AI-enabled weapons with autonomous functions capable of identifying and targeting humans and objects without human intervention. That is to say, a “robot” can now “decide” who to kill or what to destroy without consultation with its creator. This closely approximates the AGI of Skynet, the theoretical autonomous systems of sci-fi movies like the Terminator series. In those movies the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) had the cognitive ability to learn, reason, and act across any domain, exceeding the proficiency of humans.

We aren’t there yet. But, as we have seen, who would have thought we would be mimicking Star Trek where a character can just touch a devices and say, “Computer, (insert just about any question or topic here,)” and get a quick and thorough answer or explanation. In the AGI of Skynet fame, it initiated a recursive cycle where it re-writes its own code to accelerate learning. It did this using a “cloud-based” global network hooked into all digital infrastructure across a variety of disciplines.

The perceived indifference within this movie sci-fi scenario is not malice, but it inherently disregards the value of human life. In our world, we only see this when the human guidance of AI is provided by sociopaths. We saw this same dynamic of computational indifference play out in another sci-fi classic, 2001, A Space Odyssey. There, the autonomous AI computer HAL 9000, perceived the humans to be a threat to its mission and made the decision to eliminate the entire crew to prevent its own deactivation.

I guess we can all rest assured that our own AI does not yet have such capabilities. It is controlled by our leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping. They epitomize only the very highest levels of human morality. On second thought…, the tagline from the movie The Fly seems to be echoing from the old analog universe of 1986. “Be afraid, be very afraid.”

Sleep Deprivation

Getting less than 3 hours of sleep per night causes severe, immediate psychological consequences, including acute cognitive dysfunction, extreme emotional instability, and a high risk of hallucinations or psychosis. Chronic restriction at this level impairs brain function, leading to paranoia, manic-like symptoms, and severe depression. Research shows that psychotic symptoms can manifest after just 72 hours of such sleep deprivation.

I say this after reading that, during an analysis of Donald Trump’s postings on Truth Social, it was determined that he can’t be getting more than 3 hours of sleep each night. As of May 2026, analyses of Donald Trump's Truth Social activity suggest he is getting approximately three hours of sleep, with active postings recorded between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on over 80% of nights in April. This pattern has raised concerns regarding his health, behavior, and potential for "erratic" decision-making. .

Anyone who follows the president’s posts and daily activities, can see evidence of the psychotic symptoms described in the first paragraph above.

Greed is Good

Donald Trump never met a problem he couldn’t ignore, deflect from, or falsely claim to have solved. That is his skillset. His Mr. McGoo-like vision and foresight have gotten us, and the world by proxy, into another war. Like all wars, everybody loses. Well, almost everybody. The military industrial complex wins. The oil companies win. China wins. Russian wins. The Trump family wins.

The national debt now exceeds the GDP at a level not seen since the end of World War II. Your children and your children’s children will be paying for the largess of this and previous administrations for decades. We crossed the WWII threshold at the end of the first Trump presidency, and the gap between the GDP and National Debt is now over $7 trillion and climbing.

Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "If you can't solve a problem, enlarge it." By that he meant, trying to solve a complex issue by focusing only on small, restrictive details often leads to failure. Instead, by expanding the scope to view the problem as part of a larger system, new perspectives, constraints, and innovative solutions become visible. That is the vision of a President and Commander-in-Chief who was qualified for the office. Had Trump looked at the big picture before aligning taxpayers with Israel and before poking the hornets nest that was Iran, he might not be in this smoke filled swamp looking for an exit.

President Trump was warned that the Strait of Hormuz could be used as leverage. Trump’s intelligence sources informed him that Iran's control over the chokehold was considered a more potent tool for disruption than a nuclear weapon. Donald Trump has never been one to use intelligence, facts, or valid concerns to get in the way of making a fast buck. Like all Trump gambles, he is playing with OPM, Other People’s Money. His multiple bankruptcies in business were his guide and we are the victims.

On the other hand, he, his sons, friends, and extended family, are all positioned to profit from the war and its extension. He is in no hurry to end the war. He has no realistic chance of running for office again, so this is his last hurrah. His last chance to turn an outrageous profit while others suffer.

As of May 2026, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have invested in several military-connected companies, focusing heavily on drone technology and defense contracting, particularly companies that stand to benefit from increased Pentagon spending and the war. The grift is on and Trump family fortunes and our national debt are on a similar chart path, “to infinity and beyond.” As a side note, in 2026, 37% of Americans have less than $500 in savings.

So, while gas prices are placing the lower classes at risk of financial ruin, the Trump family is counting their bitcoins. Meanwhile, people around the globe who are dependent on fertilizer for crops, are risking starvation. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. President Trump tells us that we are winning. This is like Gen. Douglas MacArthur talking about retreat saying, “We are advancing in another direction.”

I mentioned earlier that Trump should have seen his Iranian military quagmire coming and should have considered Eisenhower’s advice to always look at the big picture. I called the president myopic and chastised him for his lack of vision. This could have all been avoided with a bit of planning and foresight.

This of course ignores the fact that this accomplished grifter might be playing the long game. This might be just what he wanted. A protracted war, the loss of military weaponry now in need of replacement, a huge boost in the already-bloated Pentagon budget, and a big win for the companies in which the Trump family now has a vested interest. We do know that the Trump family has already generated an estimated $4 billion in value and revenue since January of 2025. A simple presidential tweet can send stock prices and stock futures bouncing like balls in a Pachinko.

Most of the recent Trump family financial windfalls have been from cryptocurrency ventures, international real estate deals, and licensing fees. He and his family have been leveraging and profiting from his presidency. Their financial gains from the protracted war in Iran will depend on how much money the Pentagon gets to put toward new missiles, drones, and materials. The latter two are of financial interest for the Trump empire as they are invested in drones and the mining of materials with defense applications.

Myopic and clueless, or clever like a “greed is good” Gordon Gekko acolyte. I give you our very own President Ivan Boesky, aka Donald J. Trump, aka Don E. Coyote.

Good for the Goose; Not Good for the Gander

A friend recently posted a story where Tom Jones (British singer living in London) as coming to Trump’s side denouncing “violence” as promoted by Jimmy Kimmel’s “expectant widow” joke about Melania. My reply is included below. I did not bring up the fact that Mr. Jones and Mr. Trump have something in common. Jones bragged about having slept with up to 250 women a year while married to his wife Linda. He called his affairs and infidelity, “fun and games.”

My reply…

Political satire has long been a part of the American landscape. Jimmy Kimmel’s comment that Melania had “the glow of an expectant widow” was made before and not after the violence that took place at the Correspondents’ Dinner. Kimmel had no way of knowing that would happen. At the time the line was delivered, the reference could easily have been nothing more than about the age difference between a 56-year-old former nude model and her billionaire, overweight, almost 80-year-old husband. Jokes about golddiggers have long been part of comedic banter. Taken in context, there was no imminent threat involved and no violent act was suggested.

President Trump has never shied away from violence or threats of violence against others. He regularly uses violence against others as part of his demeanor. If called out later he will often say, “I was only joking.” Trump himself has a long record—singular among American presidents of the modern era—of inciting and threatening violence against his fellow citizens, journalists, and anyone he deems his opposition. At a campaign event on October 31, 2024, Trump said of former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it ... when the guns are trained on her face.” Was he just joking or was he threatening violence?

Trump’s violent rhetoric and use of violence in his speech is part of his personality. He can dish it out, but he can’t take it. He is incredibly thin skinned for someone in politics. He is notorious for his asymmetric retribution against those he deems to have offended him.

Certainly, you remember his claim that he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it. Was he joking that he could kill random New Yorkers and be found innocent because he is so popular? Should people in New York feel threatened? No, it was political satire or rhetoric.

 The American Holy War

Promoting the war in Iran as an American holy war, is as outrageous as it seems. Claiming this to be a battle of righteousness against the forces of evil, the MAGA savior Donald Trump with Pete Hegseth as his disciple of lethality, are at the forefront. They are embarking on this 21st century Crusade with the full support of Trump’s pastor, Paula White-Cain. Trump’s Easter message to the MAGA faithful was filled with death and destruction rhetoric and a sarcastic closing of, “Praise be to Allah.”

Trump took the admonition of pastor White-Cain to heart when she told him that, “God is using you to defeat evil.” It was this message that perhaps prompted his meme post depicting him as Jesus. Pete Hegseth, not to be outdone, delivered a Bible sermon at the Pentagon where he invoked Ezekiel 25:17 and prayed for those beset by “the tyranny of evil men.” He then vowed to “strike down…with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother.”

That Hegseth quote was not written by a biblical scholar for the King James Version of the Bible, but by Quentin Tarantino for the movie Pulp Fiction. For that movie, Tarantino adopted a biblical manner and created a stylized amalgamation of biblical sounding jargon as a dramatic monologue for the character played by Samuel L. Jackson. Tarantino lifted most of that speech directly from the opening of the 1973 Sonny Chiba Kung Fu film, The Bodyguard. So, not really the Bible at work here, and not a prayerful invocation from Pete Hegseth, the Righteous, but a quote actually from Chiba, the Bodyguard via Quentin Tarantino, the Director.

Our religious daily-double of Trump and Hegseth, is perhaps closer to a creation from a darker entity than it is from any true motivations inspired by the teachings of Christianity. In the Editor’s Letter by Susan Caskie, Executive editor for The Week, she quotes from Hegseth’s Pentagon prayer in the name of Jesus that U.S. soldiers might use “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” He went on to request in his “prayer” that: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”

Ms. Caskie then brought up a 1905, Mark Twain short story, “The War Prayer.” In that tale, a stranger comes to a church where a congregation is praying for their boys as they head off to battle. That stranger warns them not to involve God in what they are about to do. He reminds them that they are asking the Almighty to “help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste to their homes with a hurricane of fire.” Put that way, it is a tough sell to make war sound holy.

[The graphic accompanying this post has the actual last page of the Mark Twain short story. It's legibility may vary by screen size.]

Late-Night Comedian and Star of Truth Social...

President Trump’s recent attempt at self-aggrandizement projecting himself as a tough guy threatening Iran is not new or original. I first heard the quote in 1966 as the punchline of a macabre joke told by a card-carrying member of the American Nazi Party (ANP). The guy telling the “joke” actively campaigned for ANP founder, George Lincoln Rockwell to run for president. The storyteller was Hank, and he looked like a tall, lanky Abraham Lincoln dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and skinny black tie. He was a talented cartoonist and told the story while drawing illustrations on napkins in a pizza and beer joint. These were my college days, filled with “characters.”

I think we can all safely assume that Donald Trump didn’t create the meme on his post. Anything dealing with intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is a foreign concept. No, someone else developed the graphic and that person just re-invented it for Trump. Perhaps it is fitting that it was first used in neo-Nazi circles telling of an elderly, long-hidden Hitler, hiding in Argentina. In that story, a group of neo-Nazis recognize their leader and try to convince him to return to power. He at first refuses claiming it is a thankless job. He finally relents but on one condition, “This time—no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

Yes, Donald Trump only steals from the best. Any original thought would die of loneliness. He can joke about a war he started and one in which he has been hopelessly outwitted by a much weaker adversary. He can joke about the misery and hardship this war has caused millions of people throughout the globe. He can joke while burning through billions of our hard-earned tax dollars. He can joke while Americans struggle making ends meet from his recklessness. Just don’t let anyone else try to make a joke on late-night television or post a cryptic seashell image.

It can be noted that the phrase in question was also used as the title of an Alice Cooper song on his Billion Dollar Babies album of 1973. I’ll leave you with the lyrics of this early “shock Rock”/glam artist’s song, No More Mr. Nice Guy:

[Verse 1]

I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing

'Til they got a hold of me

I opened doors for little old ladies

I helped the blind to see

[Pre-Chorus]

I got no friends 'cause they read the papers

They can't be seen with me

And I'm gettin' real shot down

And I'm feeling mean

[Chorus]

No more Mr. Nice Guy

No more Mr. Clean

No more Mr. Nice Guy

They say he's sick, he's obscene

[Pre-Chorus]

I got no friends 'cause they read the papers

They can't be seen with me

And I'm feelin' real shot down

And I'm, I'm gettin' mean

The Illusion of Progress

 

In 2015, during a commencement speech at Dillard University, Denzel Washington said, “Don't confuse movement with progress." It is an important message that reminds us that not all activity results in meaningful progress. I find that much of the turmoil surrounding the leader of the MAGA party, is just movement without advancement. His followers rightfully deride the painfully slow progress of a government debating matters ad nauseum without taking any action. The mistake with MAGA is that they then cheer their Yosemite Sam leader when he fires his two six-shooters from the hip and at least hits something. It doesn't matter what he hits. Anything will do. Tear down the east wing of the White House without consultation. Start a war without provocation or imminent danger. Neither extreme represents progress.

This goes to the notion that it is important to plan your action, consider the consequences of your actions, and then execute the plan. Motion and progress are not synonymous. Donald Trump pulled the trigger on Venezuela, captured their leader, and brought about a regime change. One leader in captivity but not much else has changed. It cost taxpayers around $4 billion to do this.

A short time later, Trump pulled the trigger a second time. This time in Iran. There were no pre-announced objectives and the explanations that came later have been conflicting and fluid. At a cost of up to $2 billion per day in military expenditures, taxpayers should be entitled to a reasonable explanation of why the president decided that this was a good idea. Even if prohibiting Iran from developing a nuclear capability was a laudable objective, was this the best way to get there?

Mathematician Kate Ertmann wrote of the chaos theory and how it might explain some of what we are experiencing under Donald Trump. She talks of individual biases that inform our own decisions. A chaotic tuning parameter is when those biases become all encompassing, to the point where an entire administration’s decisions are led by one person’s belief system. She recommends taking immediate action, even a little nudge sometimes, to counter his deviations from legal or accepted behavior. This may not stop something from happening, but even a nudge may redirect its final destination. The Iranians used the Strait of Hormuz to nudge the whole world and Trump’s easy win is now a “clusterduck.”

The term helter-skelter references a state of utter confusion, disorganization, or reckless hasty action. Charles Manson used the term to describe his apocalyptic race war scenario. His psychological profile included extreme narcissism, paranoid delusion, and manipulative psychopathy. In psychology, a "helter-skelter" mindset refers to a state of mind characterized by chaotic, disorganized, and reckless haste. It is a way of operating without order, planning, or methodical arrangement, where actions are taken in a confused, frenzied rush.

This is not to draw direct comparisons between Manson and Trump, but to show some parallels in their thinking that should give us all some pause. With Manson we have charismatic authority and manipulation-check. Manson’s psychological profile included extreme narcissism often exhibiting irritable outbursts-check. Delusional thinking where Manson thought he was a prophetic messiah figure-check. Manson’s followers were conditioned to share his delusion in a cult dynamic where the leader’s distortions became their absolute truth-check. Hmmm, maybe I am making a more direct comparison than I thought. One difference, Manson’s cult killed nine people. The Trump war in Iran…

The Third Rail-Part II

This is to be a continuation-poking of the third rail topics of religion and politics. As religion shapes individual and collective identities, it is often co-opted by politicians to mobilize voters. Religious identities are used to polarize groups, influence viewpoints, and to establish a camaraderie with politicians espousing a similar religious ideology.

None of this would be a particular problem except for the fact that the guiding principles of morality within the framework of any religion are so quickly abandoned when politically expedient. Religion and religious teachings can provide a moral structure for political activity, but too often those guidelines are twisted and reinterpreted beyond any correlation with the original religious intent. Religion in that instance is a means to an end and not a filter of morality.

In a free society, the adoption of a specific religion like Christianity as state sanctioned, threatens individual freedom of conscience, fosters inequality among citizens, and undermines democratic equality. The core democratic principle of pluralism, where the promotion of diverse viewpoints is seen to be essential, is contrary to the adoption of a single religious viewpoint.

With estimates suggesting that there are over 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, it is understandable that there are a few disagreements of religious philosophy. Even within Christianity that represents 63% of the U.S. population, that group is split with 42% Protestant, 20% Catholic, and the remainder split by other Christian faiths. The next largest group is the religiously unaffiliated. This group is currently growing in number with the decline of Christianity and contains atheists, agnostics, and “nones” or “nothing in particular.” This group is currently estimated around 29%. This leaves the non-Christian faiths of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu at around 6%.

[It should be noted that most of these estimates from Pew Research were given in ranges and I chose a middle ground for the range when possible.]

The current trend to adopt some version of Christianity flies in the face of the intent of the founding fathers who wrote our Constitution. According to some estimates of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the breakdown of religious faiths included 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, and 3 deists. Prominent figures like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Quincy Adams were deists who believed in a rational God who focused on nature and providence but not specific doctrines. Most of our founders seemed to be skeptics of orthodox theology and were seen to be nuanced in their religious beliefs.

While we certainly need some moral structure within our legal system, the adoption of any singular state-adopted religious doctrine represents a threat to freedom of conscience. This confusion of moral principle is exacerbated by a domestic world leader who envisions himself to be God or certainly a god-like figure. I need not remind the reader of his well-publicized breaks with accepted moral behavior. The mere fact that his name is being actively redacted and documents are being withheld in a case involving his association with a group of pedophiles, should give anyone pause. If you wouldn’t trust the president to babysit your attractive teenage daughter, why would you trust him to provide the country with moral guidance?

I would never question anyone’s religious beliefs. It is a matter of personal choice. If a religion offers you solace, peace of mind, or comfort, it should be your choice and yours alone. It should never be a mandate of government. Our government should get its own moral house in order before trying to mandate some twisted version of Christianity for all to follow.

----------------------------

Postscript: The quasi-religious White House Easter Egg Roll of 2026, is normally is a children-themed celebration of the Easter season. This year’s event was somewhat “unhinged” by some accounts. It featured commentary by the president about gas prices, the war in Iran, and the 2025 drop in egg prices. There were chants of “4 more years” that delighted the host. The event was sponsored by Meta, YouTube, and Waymo. All have financial matters pending before this administration.

Also: For an eye-opening documentary on the dangers of religious extremism, I would recommend Trust Me: The False Prophet on Netflix. It is a 2026 four-part true-crime documentary series that exposes Samuel Rappylee Bateman, a polygamist cult leader who proclaimed himself a prophet following the incarceration of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs. See if you don’t see personality parallels between Sam Bateman and a prominent political figure.

The Third Rail

 

Royal Castle, an old burger chain that used to reign in Miami and parts of the south, hired young teens and old men to fill counter positions. As one of those teenagers, I met an old-timer who worked the graveyard shift. He was a “character” who had once run a speakeasy during prohibition. In the early 1960s he worked his overnight shift to the delight of the “blue-haired” set in North Miami. His “ladies” would come in and he would greet them with, “Step right up ladies, seating is in the main dining room. What color tablecloth would you like.” They would venture forward to perch on one of the available ten stools and he would wipe the counter in front of them with a clean towel.

As some of my late shifts would overlap with his, I listened to his tales from the “good ol’ days” when he was in his prime. The stories were particularly good after he made a trip to his car trunk for a couple of sips of White Horse scotch. One piece of sage advice he passed on from his speakeasy days was that you can discuss almost anything, but never politics or religion. Those two subjects were verboten: the “third rail” of topics. The metaphorically electrified danger zone. A bit later in life, I would receive this same warning during bartender training, from another wise senior. Throughout my life, that advice has served me well. That was then, this is now.

As I am now a person with more life in the rearview mirror than road ahead, I feel it is time to poke that third rail and its 750 volts. Both topics are unique, but I find that they also have much in common. While American politics was originally designed to maintain a degree of separation between church and state, modern politicians seem bent on using both to their advantage. They want to use the fervor of the faithful to conflate messages and promote certain causes that will be of benefit, if not for the voters, certainly for the politicians.

Wars started in the name of politics are generally unpopular but religious wars have been a long-standing tradition. While most wars are motivated by competition for resources, territory, or political advantage, religion is often used as cover for the more distasteful excuses. The Thirty Years War was perceived as religious, but it was really more about power dynamics than just faith.

The recent conflict between a Jewish country, a Muslim country, and a mostly Christian country, we are calling the War in Iran, certainly has religious overtones, but it is more about political power, ego, and economics. Pete Hegseth calls Iran a “crazy regime… hell-bent on prophetic Islamist delusions…” while Sec. of State Marco Rubio calls them “religious fanatic lunatics.” The current conflict between Iran and Israel has been going on for roughly four decades starting after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It has also been a “shadow war” of proxies with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza supported by Iran.

To view this current conflict through a strictly secular lens would be a mistake. Jews and Muslims have been fighting for the past 1,400 years with the 7th century rise of Islam. The modern political conflict going back to the rise of Zionism in the late 1800s. This has not been a continuous war but one characterized by long periods of coexistence.

How America got sucked into this recent semi-religious battle is a question that can only be answered by our ruling White House Christian-Atheist. Perhaps he sought personal glory in a quick decisive win. Admitting that he got conned by his better in Israel will never happen. His Art of the Deal skills have him “painted” into a corner by others who have literally centuries of experience. He probably thought that since the waterway in Hormuz was “straight” it wouldn’t violate his anti-Woke policy. Perhaps he should have looked at a map to see how “straight” it is. But I kid our resident genius.

The melding of religion and politics was seen by our forefathers as something to be avoided. Trump and others use it as a cloak of invincibility because they not only have God on their side, but Trump also thinks he is God. As we have seen for most of human existence, religion can be a double-edged sword that cuts for both good and evil. In the hands of a politician, religion is a double-edged sword dipped in poison: it is always used for evil purposes.

Donald Trump hosted a game show called The Apprentice. He relished using the tagline, “Your fired!” Perhaps its time for American voters to return the favor and give he and his cronies the same admonition. A midterm turn-around in the House is a distinct possibility and a Senate democratic majority is within the realm of possibilities. Impeachment and removal are perhaps a pipedream, but political castration in the midterms and a lame-Duck Donald president for his final two years will perhaps be a survivable outcome.

The Elephant in the Room

How long will we continue to ignore the oversized pachyderm sitting on the sofa? We are no longer talking about random peccadilloes, this man has literally pissed off the pope. He has insulted, demeaned, and dismissed all of our former friends, and now he wonders why they won’t come help him in his hour of need. It’s impossible to continue saying, “He’s only joking.” He is like the elderly relative sitting at the end of the dining room table eating his soup with a fork. You can’t just say that he isn’t hungry.

His recent posting of a picture of himself as Jesus healing a sick man wasn’t a joke. He was serious. In the glaring light of day the criticism was swift. A Christian activist said of the post, "There's no context where this is acceptable." Trump’s response was totally ludicrous, "It's supposed to be as a doctor making people better," he said. "And I do make people better. I make people a lot better."

This flies in the face of reality. He posted this picture right after criticizing the pope as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.” He was responding to the pope’s condemnation of his war in Iran where Pope Leo said that it has led to “absurd and inhuman violence.” Now Trump wants you to think this post was depicting him as a doctor. He said this with a straight face.

This is no longer a minor problem. The picture itself is troubling enough, but that he would think people would believe he wanted to look like a doctor, is the height of demented thinking. To help hide and explain away the whole thing, the White House announced that the Truthsocial post under the president’s name was made “erroneously” by some unnamed staffer. That may be true, but calling himself just a “staffer” in the White House is more humility than I have ever heard from our president.

Lessons From Vietnam

History is where the past provides lessons of caution for those directing the future. Vietnam was such a cautionary tale and there are many people today who don't know the complete story. That story goes back to the end of World War II in 1945. Truman secretly supported the French in Vietnam during the First Indochina War and provided economic and military aid in 1950.

The fear of communism was the bogeyman of the 1950s. Eisenhower adhered to the Domino Theory where non-communist South Vietnam was a lynchpin stopping the world spread of dreaded communism. Kennedy also adopted the Domino Theory and escalated U.S. involvement with American military “advisors.” Their numbers increased to 15,000 by 1963.

Lyndon Johnson, while doubting the chances of success, used a series of “events”, namely the first and second Gulf of Tonkin incidents, to justify a massive escalation of U.S. troops. The first incident was minor where North Vietnamese boats fired on the USS Maddox. The second incident was totally fabricated. It became the excuse for retaliating.

Nixon became the fifth president to be involved in the Vietnam, and it was involved in his undoing. While claiming to deescalate the war by turning things over to the South Vietnamese, he also ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia and sent ground troops there. Then the dam broke with Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers that showed that the entire war was a stack of lies, kept secret by four presidents.

Nixon attempted to censor the release and publication of the Pentagon Papers. He lost that effort in the Supreme Court 6-3. He established “The Plumbers” as a secret group of spies to conduct “special investigations” to discredit Daniel Ellsberg. They broke into his doctor’s office (psychiatrist) to dig up dirt on Ellsberg. They failed to find anything. They were later to screw up Watergate, ending the Nixon term.

The Pentagon Papers outlined the public deception and coverup. The public learned for the first time that the Gulf on Tonkin incident was a lie. They learned of the secret bombing in Cambodia. They learned of the falsification of data to claim that we were “winning” the war. They learned that the entire government policy surrounding the Vietnam War was bogus and that the government knew the war was unwinnable.

The cost of that war was the loss of over 58,000 American lives, 300,000 wounded, and an unknown number of the 2.7 million troops who came back psychologically damaged. The total human toll was estimated at 2,450,000.

A series of U.S. presidents believed in the threat of the spread of communism and used that threat to justify a 19-year, 5-month, and 29-day war. They each deceived the American public. They lied for political survival. They each feared “losing” the Cold War. Nixon purportedly created the perception of his own instability to help with negotiations with Hanoi. Secrecy and misinformation were used to manage public opinion and created a “credibility gap.”

Fast forward to today. Our president started a war for reasons that are difficult to articulate, possibly because even he doesn’t know why he did this. Perhaps he thought it would be another easy Venezuela-like victory. In hindsight, not much has changed in Venezuela. One dictator is swapped for another.

In Iran, one ruling cleric is swapped for another. The problem is that clerics don’t “rule” Iran. The IRGC, the BRF (Basij Resistance Force), and the IRGC Quds Force were established after the fall of the Shah in 1979. (The CIA and British MI6 had installed the Shah in a 1953 coup.) The latter Iranian group , the Quds Force, is like our CIA and is an unconventional warfare branch for external proxy militias around the world. The BRF is a paramilitary force used to control domestic dissent. At an estimated 1 million strong, the heavily armed BRF can easily put down any insurrection among its 93 million unarmed people.

The fall of the ruling cleric and the conventional navy and air force, did not defang Iran. Like Vietnam, their's is a war of attrition. They can continue their asymmetric warfare to the continued discomfort of the most powerful man in the world. He is powerful, but not a student of history. Unlike Nixon, he doesn’t have to fake instability.

Not A Clue

We didn’t know where we were going. We didn't know what we were doing once we got there. We didn't know why we went. We didn't know how to leave. We DID know we didn’t have to go. We went without proper planning and didn’t think through the consequences. When things fell all apart, we didn’t know how to fix it. The planning for an exit began long after it was going to be very difficult to manage.

If you are going to start a war of choice where you are the aggressor, a wise person would take time to plan, consider the options, consider the possible consequences, have contingencies, know precisely what your objectives are for victory, and have an exit strategy. It shouldn’t be, let’s blow up some shit, make some demands, hope for true regime change from an unarmed populace, and leave.

For a man who wrote a book called The Art of the Deal, it seems that there isn’t much art to his deals. Now that he has once again obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability, he’s looking to “make a deal.” It would seem from all of this, that his “Art” is more Jackson Pollock’s second cousin than Rembrandt.

His latest series of deadlines and extensions are a sign of desperation from a man without a clue. He is now hoping to get out of this mess and claim, “Mission Accomplished!” Since nobody knows what the mission was in the first place, he can’t be challenged.

What can be challenged is his claim of being a winner. Trump “won” nothing. There are no “winners” in war. Russia and China benefited more from this effort than the U.S. or Israel. Gamblers and stock market investors with inside information may have seen financial rewards. Low- and middle-income Americans were big losers. We will be paying for this war for generations to come. Iranian citizens were big losers. Netanyahu got a job extension. Donald Trump is now completely out of the running for his Nobel Peace Prize.

The Myth of Making America Great Again

The MAGA movement used the message of its motto to promise a return to an American ideal of greatness. We were always told of America's greatness. Any discussion that contradicts that notion is considered unpatriotic. Some would go so far as to call such negative musings treasonous.

What does MAGA even mean? The key word is “Great.” Tony the Tiger claimed his sugary Frosted Flakes were G-R-E-A-T! Frosted Flakes are a low-nutrient, low-fiber, high-sugar, highly processed breakfast cereal with little nutritional value. Except for a cartoon character saying they were great, their only value seemed to be to keep children quiet while eating. This would be just before a sugar-high ended the solitude. But what makes a country great? Anyone using such a term should define it and explain how they plan to go about achieving greatness.

While I will state that I am thankful for having been born in this country, and certainly wouldn’t consider living elsewhere, I will be the first to also say that there is much room for improvement. I was born in 1945 and grew up during the 50s and 60s. We had high consumerism, low inflation, low unemployment, and the middle class expanded, enjoyed economic prosperity, and moved to the suburbs. It was a time of Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best. America became an economic superpower.

To be great again implies that America was great once. I would have to say that America was indeed great during the period described above. We had just successfully played a key role in winning a world war. With the massive industrial production and mobilization for World War II, we had escaped a great depression. The nation rallied and was unified in our common cause. By the end of that war in 1945, with pent-up consumer demand, unprecedented manufacturing dominance, and aggressive government investment, America enjoyed a “Golden Age” of prosperity that lasted until the early 1970s.

Our economic decline began in the 70s with stagflation. It manifested as a toxic combination of stagnant economic growth, high unemployment, high inflation, high government spending, and a series of energy crises. The US supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War (1973) and Arab members of OPEC cut oil production and embargoed the U.S. Then the 1979 Iranian Revolution further cut oil production. Stagflation was exacerbated by spending on the Vietnam War, the end of the Gold Standard, the devaluation of the dollar, cheap foreign manufacturing, a shift to a service economy with lower paying jobs, and a Federal Reserve who maintained low interest rates too long.

Reagan used the MAGA slogan in 1980 and Clinton used it again in 1992. Political promises to improve life in America are worthless without effort and commitment. Donald Trump dusted off the old MAGA slogan and got elected with it two times. He claims he invented the slogan, of course, and now holds trademark ownership for its exclusive political use.

Whatever is meant by the slogan, it certainly doesn’t mean shifting trillions of dollars away from making life better for Americans, in order to make life miserable for people living in some foreign land. Did bombing a country 6,300 miles away to eliminate a problem we “already fixed” eight months before, justify making healthcare unaffordable for Americans? Did it justify eliminating food programs for the poor? Should it necessitate eliminating energy assistance for low-income Americans? Does it have to cut funding for public housing? What of cuts to education and child care? Should it necessitate higher food and energy bills for all Americans? How is any of this "Great" for Americans?

To me, being “Great” does not mean that our education system should be ranked 11th overall in the world (16th in science, 34th in math). Among high income nations, our healthcare system consistently ranks last or near-last overall. In the developed high income countries group, we have the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates. I’m sure there are other studies with varying numbers, but most will indicate that we are certainly not at the top of any such rankings. We are not “Great” by those measurements.

Much of this was driven home with two lead stories on 60 Minutes on April 5, 2026. The first story covered a volunteer medical services group providing free dental and medical services to rural residents. This was the RAM or Remote Area Medical program. 60 Minutes interviewed people sitting in a freezing parking lot for several days just to get to see a doctor or dentist. One woman had driven from Alabama to this pop-up clinic in Tennessee and slept in her car for two nights to be in line for dental care. It was not uncommon for young people with a few dental issues to request that all their teeth be pulled because they knew that their natural teeth would eventually have problems they couldn’t afford to fix. Dentures were a financial decision, not a medical one.

The second story featured in our Great America, centered on our inability to build high-speed rail facilities. Certainly, Asia and Europe have risen to the task, but not America. High speed rail is generally defined as rail systems operating at 155mph or more. America has a few systems in the planning but none in operation that can maintain such high speeds over distance.

America is a GREAT country in which to live, but only if you are financially secure. It can be a GREAT struggle if you are not affluent. We can and should do better. We need a shift in priorities, not more rhetoric.