So some Science Men made a study, to determine why the humans kill one another. And it seems like they've decided to blame squirrels.

They went all the way back into human history, did these Science Men, and then into the ways and means of the other primates, and then into the lives and loves of other mammals, and, or so they say, they found there some other mammals, that are sometimes about killing each other, and so, they Concluded, that some distant mammal, somewhere back there, must have been the one, that Invented the Killing.

However, this study, it appears, to contain, Libel.

The researchers found that some species, like bats and whales, hardly ever kill each other. Others, like ground squirrels and tree shrews, do so relatively often.

No. There are ground squirrels all over the place here. They never kill each other. I think, that this study, maybe, it is just shit, made up.

Yesterday afternoon I cycled by the google news, to learn what it had determined was then most Real, and Important. And there I encountered this headline:

Texas Lawyer In Nazi Uniform Opens Fire At Strip Mall, 9 Injured

Yep, I thought, that about sums it up: the Americans, these days. Wanna-be Nazis. Dishinged law-jockeys. Uniforms. Shootings. Strip malls. Hurt people.

Certainly explains what would be occurring, among the Americans, in several hours hence: the debate between The Mad Bomber, and The Hairball. For no decent, civilized nation, would it throw up those two, as the finalists, to be the president. But a nation where Lone Star barristers bedecked in Adolf-wear shoot up people at strip malls—that nation, surely, could.

Extraterrestrials, surveying all the Americans, never would they select such creatures—The Hairball, and The Mad Bomber—as the best the denizens of the land-mass could produce. But, the Americans did.

The Hairball, he did not receive the majority of the votes, in the Republican primaries, but he certainly hauled in by far the most. While over in the Democratic version, The Mad Bomber—so sorry, but it's true—outpolled The Cranky Brooklyn Deli Man, by some three million votes.

These two—The Hairball, The Mad Bomber—they are what that decided minority of the Americans, who participated in the primaries, presented to all the Americans, as the two, who might best be the president.

Thing 1. Thing 2.

Yee. Haw.

I have never been to teacher school, so I really have no idea what all they learn in there. I had long assumed, however, that one of the very first lessons, it would be that, once in the classroom, the teacher, s/he could not force, the public-school tots and tykes, to recite the pledge of allegiance. Because the United States Supreme Court, it had said so. And unequivocally. And way back in 1943. In West Virginia v. Barnette. And with some pretty ringing language, too.

To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.

But I guess that just isn't in the lesson plan, West Virginia v. Barnette, there in the teaching schools. Or, if it is, the teachers, when they come out of the schools, they decide they Just Don't Care. Because, just about every day now, there comes some tube, with some news in it, about some teacher, somewhere, yanking a tot out of a chair, or heaving a tyke right out of the school, because the child, as is his or her perfect right, declines to stand and chant gibberish to a piece of cloth.

On Sunday The Mad Bomber gifted Fristian Phrenologists all and everywhere with Christmas in September, when she woozily wobbled at some 9/11 shindig, and then collapsed, bodily, into a van. Like any sick animal, she sought refuge in a place she associates with safety and comfort—in this case, her daughter's apartment. From which she emerged some 90 minutes later, smiling brightly, petting a small child, and pronouncing it "a beautiful day in New York." Then, she went on her way.

But this would not be the end of it. Oh no. Because, in these days, all and everything, and always, it is filmed. My bowel movement, yesterday morning, for instance, it was filmed by two separate cameras: one, fixed to a small drone passing by the bathroom window; two, an in-the-bowl "Colon Cam," apparently now standard equipment with such plumbing fixtures, connected directly to the federal Department of Howdy Doody, so that the health of the colons, of all the people, it may be monitored, and in real time, and for the Good, of All the Nation.

And so, of the Bomber's wamble and fall, there was Footage. And this Footage, it went out unto the tubes. And the tubes, lo, and yea, verily, they, and immediately, became unsane. Great crashing waves of ecstatic orgasms, they pulsated through the Fristians, as they rhythmically ejaculated, great streams of Theories. She'd stroked out, The Mad Bomber. Her battery-pack, it ran down. She'd ODed, and on jimson weed. Anus Jones, he was on the case: Parkinson's. The Express weighed in: advanced vascular dementia, and she will be dead, in six months.

The Bomber people then rolled out, as would-be Moses, to attempt to part this red sea of Fristing, the Bomber's personal sawbones, who said she'd diagnosed the Bomber with pneumonia on Friday—and, it was this pneumonia, that had caused the Bomber, to must needs be wheelbarrowed on out, from the 9/11 bacchanalia.

But the Fristians, they were not buying the pneumonia—they would not buy anything, even if the Bomber were to undergo a complete physical, live and on the television: the Fristians, they would say it was fake, like the moon landing. Meanwhile, the Normal people, in the press and elsewhere, they were wondering why the sam-hey the Bomber, she didn't just announce the pneumonia on Friday, rather than sitting on the news, until after she'd had a bad jimson-weed reaction, in front of all and everybody. "I didn't think it was a big deal," the Bomber said of the pneumonia, while aides mumbled anonymously about "privacy." But the Bomber, of all people, she should know that, for those wanting to be the president, there is no privacy, and everything is always a big deal, about each and every body part, which belong, to all the people, at all times, and not to the presidents, or the president-tryers: her husband, after all, was the man whose penis was intensively dissected by the people, and for eighteen straight months, until utimately it was actually impeached. With the very semen, of the Clenis, entered, as Evidence. On its way. To permanent, stained, display. At the Smithsonian.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Bx4oY4mt0]

So the other night I was watching on the television a show. And in it a man was trying to open his safe. It was a combination safe. He was spinning the big black dial, to and fro, in some obvious, mumbling difficulty, about remembering the correct numbers.

Watching this, I suddenly realized, that I don't know, how a combination safe, actually works. I know there is something in there, in the safe, called "tumblers." But I don't really know what they are. I know that, generally, you have to hit, with the black dial, three numbers—turning left, right, left; or maybe right, left, right—and if you perform this operation properly, the safe will open. But I don't know what the actual mechanism is—how the safe, actually, works.

And I lay there wondering: how long, has it been? That I haven't known this? That I haven't known, how works, a combination safe? Have I always not known, how such a safe works? Or did I know, once upon a time, but the knowledge, it has since swirled down the drain, of the creeping dementia? I don't know. I'm pretty sure, that I have never known, how such a thing works. And then I wondered: why? Why, have I never known?

Soon the show, on the television, it was getting away from me; and then it was lost to me, and I no longer knew what was going on there. I really don't know, now, whether the guy ever successfully entered his safe, or not. Because I was tumbling, there in my mind, which was being revealed to me as a vast empty cavern of non-knowledge, through all the things, that I don't know. There seemed to be an endless amount of them. And it is, now, three days later. And I am still counting. All the ways. Of what I don't know. I believe I could still be so counting. With the last breath. Of my life.

I learned recently that the new guy at the cigarette store, he is a genuine hero.

Like everyone who works there, this young man, he is Syrian. And, like too many of them, he is tangled up, in deep blue, with the immigration authorities, of the Americans. Because, and for no reason that makes any sense to any decent human being, these Syrians, they must "prove," to these authorities, that they should be "allowed," to remain in the United States. Otherwise, they shall be "removed."

This, is preposterous. Because Syria, it is a charnel house. Everyone in the world, with a bomb, they are at present, hurling it onto Syria, or handing it over to someone else, to hurl. All three of the empires—Eurasia, Eastasia, Oceania—are amuck there. Anyone who is Syrian, who manages to get out of the place, needs to be welcomed, and immediately, wherever they might happen to land. The immigration authorities of the Americans, they have no right, to require any Syrians, to run any gauntlets. The job of these authorities, it should be to confer citizenship, if that is what is wanted, and at once—together, with fulsome apologies.

Each of the Syrians at the cigarette store, s/he has a different story. Because all of the humans, they are different from one another. Even, as they are all the same. If these people, they want to tell me their story, I listen. But. I do not pry.

The other evening, this man, he told me his story. Seems there came the time, when he came of the age, in which he would be drafted, into the Syrian military. "I don't want to be in a war," he said. "I do not want to be shooting anybody." And so, he left Syria. And then, eventually, in the course of things, he made his way, here. "Sometimes, yes, I will watch war in a movie," he said. "But I don't want, to shoot any people."

Absolutely: goddam: right.

Not only should this young man be permitted to remain in the United States, but a statue should be cast of him, that will then be placed on a float, that will be towed, slowly, down all the streets, in all the lands, in all the world, with softspeakers, that will broadcast, from the float, his story, and also encourage, all and every one else, in all the world, to do, as he has done.

Because, the very first thing, that needs to happen, before anything else can, is that all the humans, in all the armies, in all the world, need to put down the guns, and walk away. If everyone were as this young man, all the armed conflicts, in all the world, would, in this instant, cease. All of the people, in all the politics, all of the generals, all of the weaponsmakers, they are but big impotent mouths, without the millions of humans, who pick up the gun, and then go out, and shoot, and kill, as they are told.

So for a while I lived next door to the Manson family. This was after Chuckles, Tex, and the wimmins, they went into the prison. These Mansonoids—the neighbors—they were the remnants. Those left behind. True believers. Bitter clingers. Dead-enders.

The family's pathetic patriarchy, it was still in place. With a little Manson mini-me, occupying the Chuckles position. In charge of the bloviating, and ordering the women to and fro. The women, they did all the work, both in and around the house, and out in the World, where they gathered in the coin, mostly through waitressing. Before they went on shift, they would heavily apply the makeup, to obscure the X carved into their foreheads. Carved in honor of Chuckles.

I listened to the mini-me's spiel a couple times. It was the usual revised standard version: Chuckles, he was innocent, he had killed no one, ordered no one killed, he was misunderstood, a prophet, without honor, in his own country, he was all about Love. Yes, it was true, soon would commence a race war—Big Darkness, Soon Come—but Chuckles, he didn't try to spark it or anything, he was just trying to get his people Clear.

Like Chuckles, like the people of The Hairball, the Manson mini-me—well, brown people, they gave him the vapors. A black man lived across the street, and the Manson mini-me, he really didn't like that. He especially didn't like that the black man, he had a white wife. And that, together, they had produced several lovely children, in various fine shades of brown. Sometimes, when these children would come out to play in the street (nobody really drove on this street), the Manson mini-me, he would get weak, and have to go inside, and lie down.

First things first: although the Building & Loan has for the nonce been saved, and George (a.k.a. Johnny), he does not now have to go into the prison, all is, not yet, not Saved, from Lost.

Because, while the people have kicked in roughly $3000 to the caucus99 kitty, and further pledged some $855 per month, so that Johnny does not elsewhere have to earn his crust, still, that latter figure, it is but one-fourth the amount Johnny said he requires, or one-half that of which he has said he might, with, settle.

So. Let us open our hymnals. And proceed first to this Dallasdoc canticle, and next to this davidincleveland evensong. There, let us give. And give generously.

Hast thou given? Okay, then. On with the show.

Nobody much thought the Americans would bomb Nagasaki. Not even after they'd crisped Hiroshima. The Americans. Because Nagasaki, it was even less a "military" target, than had been Hiroshima. And, it was hard to fly the airplanes in there. Finally, also, there were all those Catholics, in the city. For more than 400 years, Nagasaki, it had been the principal redoubt, in Japan, of the alien faith of Catholicism. The place, it was veritably crawling, with Catholics. And, it was presumed, the Americans, they would be more averse, to frying co-religionists, than those Japanese adhering to their own, native, heathenist faiths.

The first problem with these assumptions, is that, there in 1945, many of the Americans, they regarded Catholicism as a faith every bit as strange and dangerous and deranged, as Shinto or Buddhism, or whatever heathenism it was the Japanese were always on about.

Less than 20 years before, Al Smith, candidate for US president, he had been beaten like a gong by Herbert Hoover, not least because so many of the Americans believed that Smith, as a Catholic, once in the Oval Office, he would immediately deliver the keys to the American kingdom unto the Vatican, which would then commence to forcibly seed the land with popery, and from sea to shining sea.

Four years before that, Smith had been blocked from receiving the nomination by members of his own party, the Democrats, as convention delegates from the Southern states, many literally members of the Ku Klux Klan, declared they'd be damned, if they would surrender the party to a man in thrall to the Whore Of Babylon, united with Jews, Freemasons, and—yea, verily—Satan hisself, in a fiendish plot to destroy everything White and Right, in Amurica.

Nagasaki was actually more or less founded as a Catholic city, by a daimyo who'd gone over to the Western weirdness, not so long after white people had first bulled their way into Japan, back in the mid-1500s.

With the bullers, came their priests. Who hopped around the islands like fleas. The various head-cutters then vying for power in Japan, they vacillated in their treatment of these pests: sometimes they were given free rein, sometimes they were crucified. Eventually it was decided some of the white people, and some of their pestiferous priests, could remain in Japan—but only stuffed into a couple remote holes, one of which was Nagasaki.

By the time August 9, 1945, rolled around, the Urakami district of Nagasaki, it had been considered the "heart and soul" of Japanese Catholicism, and, indeed, of Catholicism throughout the Far East, since the sixteenth century.

And that district, it was ground zero, for the Americans' atomic bomb.

The Americans. They blew it all. Away.

Day One of the Republican National Convention, it has now passed into history. Which has firmly rejected it. However, as no Mexicans or Muslims were actually killed on stage, this must be accounted a Victory, and one for all Mankind.

But killing Mexicans and Muslims, that was certainly the theme of the evening. The speaking schedule was clogged, like a larded-up artery, with: (1) Muslim-murdering serial killers, primarily of the waterhead variety, associated with the Navy Seepholes; and (2) various people claiming their relatives had been foully murdered by "illegal immigrants," deaths which must be avenged by either deporting all the Mexicans, or burning them in big bonfires out on the open plain.

It is true that one on-stage death was only narrowly averted. That was when the Cleveland fire marshal intervened to prevent Willie Robertson, The Hairball's fellow television-salesman, from, as part of his prayerful presentation, preparing for those assembled one of his family's favorite recipes: Barbecued Negro, Stuffed With Waterfowl.

The fire marshal next ixnayed a proposed last-minute addition to the program, insisted upon by The Hairball himself: an on-stage cross-burning. This was intended both to honor The Hairball's father, Fred, the noted Klansman, and also as a defiant response to Republican strategist Rick Wilson's characterization of the convention: "On Earth 2, you'd be showing the Republican Party isn't this stupid white boys' club. But The Hairball has rejected everybody who's not in the stupid white boys' club. At this point, we might as well have a giant cross burning out front."

The fire marshal's dousing of both the Negro-barbecue, and the cross-burning, this sent The Hairball into one of his patented frenzies. He was espied raging around backstage, fulminating about "needless regulations" and "political correctness," then getting on the phone with someone back in New York, a certain "Fat Tony," instructing this Tony personage to seize the fire marshal off the street, take him to some place quiet, and there "pound him into porcelain."

"I want you to make him into a toilet!" The Hairball heaved. "So I can shit in his mouth!"