Columns
Life From Above
Israel has imposed a total blockade of humanitarian aid to the citizens of Gaza. No food, no water systems and no medical supplies are allowed to the more than 2 million people who live there. Israel enforces its prohibition militarily. Israel also bombs hospitals, schools, places of worship and residences. Since October 07, 2023 over 52,000 Gazans, including thousands of children, have been directly killed by Israel and many more are dying each day due to lack of food, water and medical care. The Zionist led government of Israel in March 2025 publicly announced these actions to be its official policy. Israel has received massive amounts of United States military aid to help enable it to implement these actions. The United States has the moral and legal responsibility to cease aiding this humanitarian catastrophe.
The moral issues are subject to debate, but the legal prohibition of United States military and civilian aid to Israel is specifically required by Section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Six United States Senators have just signed a letter addressed to the Comptroller General, Gene Dodaro, citing the Foreign Assistance Act, asking for an investigation of Israel’s, and other countries’, denial of human rights to others while receiving U.S. aid. The Act provides no presidential waiver for such actions. Aid to Gaza’s residents should be both massive and immediate. And history provides a guide. From 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949, the United States and Great Britain operated the Berlin Air Lift that flew over 250,000 humanitarian flights over Stalin’s blockade of aid to Germany’s war-ravaged populace. Food, fuel, medical supplies and other non-military aid helped save countless lives. It would also be apropos for the West to help Palestine because there would have been no state of Israel in 1948 without America and England.
The United States has far greater capability in 2025 than it did in 1948. We can and should alleviate the suffering we helped create. It is both our moral responsibility and our legal duty under our own laws. Also, the only truly permanent road to peace and prosperity involving Israel and its neighbors must come from a Marshall Plan type of solution. America knows both the Berlin Air Lift and the Marshall Plan were humanitarian actions that helped bring much of the world peace, stability and prosperity since WWII.
Since history has proven how greatly we ourselves can profit by simply doing the harder right things, let’s do them. After all, our own laws require them, even if we do not do so because it is right and just.
Anti-WWIII
To be anti-Nazi is to be neither anti-Teutonic nor anti-Germany any more than to be anti-Zionist is to be anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. The United States and our WWI allies, such as Great Britain, should have required Nazi Germany to abide by its 1919 Versailles Treaty obligations and perhaps there would not have been a WWII. While it is correct that the treaty ending WWI was needlessly vengeful towards Germany and woefully shortsighted by the victors, at least Hitler’s illegal re-occupation of the German Rhineland in 1936 should have alarmed us.
Instead, the world did nothing but dither while the Nazis invaded Poland (1939), Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France (1940), then Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941. The United States did finally react in 1941, but that was because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and, as we declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on us.
But as the Nazis invaded its defenseless neighbors and even slaughtered its own citizens, the world’s democracies, mainly the U.S. and Britain, fiddled. Surely, we learned that the slippery slope from a self-described victim such as Germany to a genocidal invader such as the Nazis must not be appeased, or worse, enabled. Yet, the United States not only helped create Israel in 1948, we have since enabled the Zionists to bomb Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran.
Just as students did in the 1960’s and 1970’s when the United States bombed Viet Nam and Cambodia, today’s students at many colleges and universities are exercising their First Amendment rights to address their grievances to our government. Our government has responded by bombing Yemen, deporting scholars and further enabling the Zionists. The American people have a right, even a duty, to call anti-Zionism what it is and not be intimidated from calling out what it is not, anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism.
The Zionists want to prevent Iran or any other Middle Eastern country from being able to defend themselves as Israel already can, with nuclear weapons. As Hitler began his hegemony gradually, the Zionists are steadily invading and occupying Gaza, Yemen, Syria, the West Bank and Lebanon.
WWII may be what the world thought WWI was, the War to End All Wars. Unfortunately, about 50 million people died during WWII. If Israel, with our full knowledge and support, starts WWIII by bombing Iran, we will have once again failed to learn from history.
I suggest we own up to our myopic view of the Zionists, not the Jewish citizens of Israel, and that we not allow the shouted tropes of anti-Semitism to still our voices for fairness, understanding and peace. Hitler, unlike the Zionists, did not have nuclear weapons. If we want to prevent a true eve of destruction, as we discourage Iran from procuring nuclear weapons, we should dismantle Israel’s.
Smoke
Pope Francis will be buried in a plain wooden coffin outside of Vatican City at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. Six other popes are buried there also, although none after the 17th Century. St. Mary Major Basilica is not within Vatican City. Vatican City is impressive by design. Michelangelo’s La Pieta is there as is the breathtaking Sistine Chapel. The Pontifical Swiss Guards, all of whom looked to be first round NBA draft picks, are stationed in and around St. Peter’s Basilica and appear to have been chosen by their opaque facial expressions. Even non-Catholics are awed by the pomp and circumstance of Vatican City. In short, it is the antithesis of a wooden coffin. However, its ostentatiousness brings Pope Francis’ humility into sharp contrast.
The first pope I remember was Pius XII (1939-1958) who was succeeded by John XXIII (1958-1963), Paul VI (1963-1978), John Paul I (1978), John Paul II, (1978-2005), Benedict XVI (2005-2013) then Francis (2013-2025). Naturally, Francis, the most current, stands out as the best-known and most accessible to us in 2025. The modern media age makes all world leaders more ubiquitous and familiar.
But it was not the media that created Pope Francis’ character of humility and grace. The record and memory of the original Francis of Assisi guided the ecumenical kindness and inclusiveness of Pope Francis. When one travels to the town of Assisi in the Papal State of Umbria, Italy, the tomb of St. Francis has the look and feel of acceptance and equality. Pope Francis chose his name carefully.
Pope Francis appeared to open his heart to all without reservation as to status, wealth, sexuality or frailty. As Francis often said, “Who am I to judge?”; the Vicar of Christ indeed. Pope Francis dedicated his leadership of over one billion Catholics as well as his concern for countless Muslims, Jews, pagans, non-believers and other Christians to the causes of peace and human suffering throughout the earth. When the smoke from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel turns white, it will be good for us all, Catholics, atheists and sinners of all beliefs, if a third Francis can be found to lead the way forward.
Ah, Spring!
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was one of America’s best-known authorities on the universality and similarity of religions and myths we humans have created and lived by for hundreds of thousands of years. Campbell saw these recurring cultural explanations and superstitions as deeply imbedded in our daily lives. One similarity many of these phenomena have is they often center around springtime. While mankind has left countless records of beliefs in supernatural beings long before Judaism, Christianity and Islam, these three currently ascendant faiths each reflect the significance of spring’s influence, especially in stories of rebirth. The famous prosecutor of the Charles Manson Family, Vincent Bugliosi (1934-2015), even based his understanding of Manson’s motives for murdering people he did not even know on Manson’s convoluted interpretation of the Biblical Rapture myth (Revelation: Ch. 14, 15-20).
In the springtime, Jews celebrate Passover with eight days of special prayers and a Seder supper. The Judaic legend is that God gave Moses the laws of the Torah and Moses passed those commandments for living onto the Jewish people. The Torah is the record of those guidelines.
Christians celebrate their belief in a promised rebirth and their God’s instructions on behaving, as delivered directly from God – the Son, Jesus. Christians have a period of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday and an Easter dinner. The New Testament contains those principles to live by.
Muslims venerate the Quran as the word from their God spoken through Muhammad for a period of time they call Ramadan. Each day starts with a meal, Suhar, then a period of fasting ending with a second meal, Iftar.
Jews and Muslims view themselves as descendants from the same progenitor, Abraham, and worship the same God. Christians also worship that God but further deify Jesus as God. These ostensibly symbiotic religious phenomena have not produced consistently symbiotic relationships between and among the three groups.
Repentance, reflection, prayer, forgiveness, generosity, hope and joy are some of the elements in each of these three religions springtime celebrations of rebirth. For Christians, Easter Eggs are a ubiquitous symbol of what many so-called pagan cultures use to represent these same important rituals.
However, springtime is not just for organized religions. It may be mere coincidence that our government sees springtime as a propitious time to suck tribute from us, but I doubt it. When April 15 rolls around the IRS starts its period of concentrated accounting for any money we may have somehow managed to stash aside. It is time for what President Abraham Lincoln, the creator of the income tax to finance the Union’s Civil War, called “A new birth of freedom”, yeah, right.
Call me a cynic, but I do not see it as a mere happenstance that as most of America is awash in the good feelings brought on by Passover, Ramadan and Easter our government is demanding from us what it wants to spend on its own priorities. I see method in the timing of TAX-TIME and spring flowers. I am even a little superstitious that the first hummingbird that appeared at Peg’s feeder showed up April 15. Its avaricious slurping reminded me of other blood suckers that appear for “rebirth” along with the dandelions.
The Battle Is Joined
If one builds a cabin in the woods that looks like it is a tree, one should not be surprised if nature’s creatures consider one’s home their home. Such is our situation but Peg refuses to accept it. Now that the vernal equinox has passed, the last freeze is history and deer season is over, nature has returned. And, just as multiple creatures are mating and munching on millions of prairie flowers and tender shoots, Peg cannot contain her enthusiasm. She gleefully joins in the annual rites of spring planting and propagating, regardless of how many seasons I remind her that the main beneficiaries of her tilling, mulching, watering, seeding, spraying, dusting, covering, pruning and growing are the animals who see us as squatters on their terrain. They see themselves as entitled to the fruits of her largesse with the two of us the gleaners of what may have been missed by the rightful inhabitants.
Each year is but another proof that we are mere transients in Mother Nature’s bait and switch drama of new hope and old reality. On the other hand, Peg does help assure that our fragile economy does not completely collapse. She also sees to it that I do not simply observe the wonders of waving grasses and cavorting wildlife. Someone, me, has to get things from point A, Walmart, to point B, Peg’s flower and vegetable beds. I am sure the exercise is good for me.
I do wonder who is responsible for the deer knowing that hunting season is over and woodpeckers seeing our log cabin as an aid to avian nuptials and nest building. Just yesterday I thought Peg might be somewhat amenable to my reasonable laissez faire approach to living in the country as we were awakened by an incessant banging just outside our window. I looked out to see a downy woodpecker rapping hopefully against our cabin. According to the Stokes Beginners Guide to Birds, the rapping was not just for insects but was also an attempt to send out romantic messages for a mate. Actually, I found his “music” to be every bit as melodic as the cacophonous cackling of contemporary entertainer’s love songs. Perhaps he will get lucky. I hope so and soon as he starts with the break of dawn.
Another reason I think Peg may be open to fewer attempts to realign nature was we also had eight deer in our front yard munching on Peg’s freshly planted ferns. She immediately turned from “aren’t they cute?” to “Jim, get your shotgun”. I mumbled something about needing shells and continued to watch the destruction.
So, Gentle Reader, at least those of you who do not feel a seasonal urge to revamp nature in our own image, it looks like another inter-species battle is going to be waged by Peg. I sympathize with Peg’s desire to dance around the maypole of spring. However, I am okay with sharing space with our wildlife, especially since it was their space to begin with.
Broad Strokes
When I was two years old, my Uncle Bud was in the Philippines training to be part of our invasion force into Japan when President Truman made the final decision to use our atomic bombs. My family never doubted the morality of the decision. Based on Japan’s military tradition of bushido and the fact they would be defending their homeland, it was estimated that America would lose a minimum of 250,000 and possibly up to 4,000,000 soldiers in “Operation Downfall”. From my family’s viewpoint, the loss of 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was justified by Japan’s “pre-emptive” attack on our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 07, 1941. Of course, the average Japanese citizen played no part in and had no control over the Emperor’s and his government’s military strategy. In general, today’s nuclear weapons are estimated to be more than 3,000 times as powerful as either Hiroshima’s “Little Boy” or Nagasaki’s “Fat Man”, with concomitant increases in fallout.
According to a May 13, 2013 article posted on the Internet as authored by Nick Turse from Mother Jones, Politics, if Israel used a nuclear weapon against Tehran, Iran, an estimated 5.6 million people would be killed and another 1.6 million injured. That would be about the same total as the number of Jews the Nazis slaughtered in the Holocaust. Hitler justified the Holocaust by blaming Germany’s Jewish population for Germany’s economic woes after WWI. However, it was not the Jewish citizens but the draconian conditions foisted upon all Germans by the June 28, 1919 Treaty of Versailles that prevented Germany’s recovery. Hitler just used the minority Jewish population as a scapegoat to help the Nazis take power, much as the Zionists in Israel, as aided and abetted by President Trump, are using the Iranians as an excuse to invade Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. It is always helpful to have a group to blame and hate, especially if one can use differing religions to stir the witch’s brew.
President Trump has publicly threatened to bomb Iran and has just dispatched approximately one-third of America’s bombers to be positioned to protect Israel from a counter attack or to prepare for a bombing or land incursion of Iran by our own forces. Just as the United States chose to use its atomic bombs so that my uncle and our other military personnel could avoid the almost certain bloodbath of a Japan landing, Israel, or even the U.S.A., might seek to avoid losses by using nuclear weapons. If so, there are other countries with nuclear weapons who might see “pre-emptive” strikes as the most rational self-defense; China, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan and India are nuclear capable. So are France and the United Kingdom. But even though we have fought two wars against England and a couple of war-lite fights with France, American war with either is currently unlikely.
And it is not just nuclear powers the United States might need to be cautious about. After all, President Trump has challenged Mexico, Canada, Greenland, Denmark and several South American countries, not to mention Turkey which has never been averse to a fight. America need not look hard if we want to turn words, or tariffs, into bombs.
Perhaps we should not assume we and/or Israel can just impose our desires on other countries with impunity. As has been proved for thousands of years, the “Glory of Rome” almost always ends up falling on its own sword or is hoisted on its own petard. Two hundred and fifty years is but a moment of hubris in the panoply of history’s irony.