Dear President Trump,

It is said that every cloud has a silver lining. And there are no darker clouds over this country than our shameful resignation to the killing of kids in schools. 

If you could announce a policy of creating safe schools, where we will never sacrifice another child to the false gods of the NRA or the Second Amendment, you’ll be forever in our debt and have our respect. Given the situation, such an accomplishment might completely eliminate the Democratic Party.

Just Save the Children…

Since you are a very stable genius, you and your cohorts could devise a way to let everyone keep their guns AND save the children.

I think most people, while they would prefer no violence in our cities, don’t really care if gang members want to kill each other over drug turf or testosterone-driven pursuit of dominance.

Just save the children.

I think most people don’t care if others want to own guns and, as the statistics bear out, put themselves and family members at a higher risk of dying by self-inflicted gunshots.

Just save the children,

I think most people don’t care if the guy or gal or children in the fields of America picking grapes, or cleaning the bathrooms at McDonald’s, or cutting America’s lawns, or washing their cars, swam across a river to get here, never committing a crime, but forgot to do the paperwork.

Just save the children.

I think this silver lining presents the perfect opportunity for you to accomplish something no one ever dreamed possible: a bill passed by Congress with no votes against it. What member of Congress in their right mind (okay, bad example, nevertheless) would vote against saving the children?

Just save the children.

Consider this: you’ve surrounded yourself with the best and the brightest. Surely among these acolytes, someone could craft a cogent and compelling strategy to protect our children.

And think about how this would elevate your status in the eyes of the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

And all you have to do is just save the children.

As a devout and lifelong man of faith, I know you’re inclined to offer prayers and thoughts to comfort the victims’ families and the country. But this happened in a church. Perhaps this is another message from God that even he (as we all know, there is only one sex when it comes to God, and that is the policy of these United States of America under our Christian God) needs your help.

Do this, Mr. President, and you’ll go down in history as the greatest President ever with a Nobel Peace Prize and the admiration of the entire world.

Never mind Rushmore, do this and you’ll be right up there on Golgotha with that other savior.

Sincerely,

Millions of Americans.

P.S. Think about it, all the children you save, out of appreciation for being able to go to school and not be shot, will probably grow up to be MAGA supporters and buy lots of gold sneakers, digital trading cards, Trump Cryptocurrency, and book rooms at your hotels and rounds of golf at the Trump-Gaza Championship Course. Something you’ll be able to admire in your seat in heaven.

Just save the children.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Benjamin Franklin

Some Americans are like moored boats in the tide, swinging to face whatever way they perceive is in their benefit, no matter the long-term cost and without consideration of the consequences.

We are in the midst of such a shift and it is a rising and relentless tide driven by ignorance, fear, and self-delusion.

Benjamin Franklin, in response to the question from Elizabeth Wiling Powel, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”, said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The first test came when George Washington, who had the support, influence, and opportunity to declare himself King or perhaps President for life, voluntarily walked away from the office after eight years, setting a standard unchanged until World War II and thereafter set in law as the Twenty-second Amendment.

The next came in 1860 with the secession of the southern states. Lincoln stood firm in the face of enormous pressure to preserve the union and remove the stain of slavery on the nation’s soul.

In the 1950s we faced a preview of our current troubles with the dawn of the McCarthy era. The country, gripped by irrational fear of communism, abandoned the Constitution in exchange for some sense of security. To the point where we changed the Pledge of Allegiance to include the words “under God” just to differentiate ourselves from the godless communists as if that was all we need do.

Again,  Dr. Franklin had it right. 

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

I wonder what Dr. Franklin and his fellow patriots would say about today’s situation.

Armed soldiers in the streets of American cities.

Masked government agents snatching people off the street without warrants or probable cause and secreting them in prisons without benefit of counsel or habeas corpus.

The Office of the President, granted blanket immunity by a neutered Supreme Court that has abandoned its position as an equal branch of government, ignoring inconvenient lower court rulings or even openly defying them.

Open and flagrant attacks on our allies while we take a virtual knee before dictators and fascists. Negotiating land concessions for other countries without their consent or participation.

A total and unequivocal abandonment of the American principles on which this country was founded out of some false sense of emergency or crisis.

Rosa Luxemburg, a brilliant thinker, writer, and philosopher–murdered by a government sponsored right-wing paramiilitary group– once warned “It is a dangerous path to use emergency measures as a manner of government policy.”

I don’t think even she would imagine such a thing happening in the United States, and yet here we are, (No doubt someone will feel the need to point out Luxemburg was a communist as if that negates everything she wrote. But like everything else, there is a nuance in her support of democracy that they will ignore.) 

A tidal wave of quasi-totalitarianism is rising in America. Many Americans have merely turned to ride the tide with resignation. Instead of reacting to the change and preparing to confront it, many are just hoping the mooring will hold. 

Some welcome it out of willful ignorance or petty vindictiveness toward their fellow humans.

Yet, there is hope. 

Tides, even those caused by tsunamis, recede. Let’s hope, when rationality returns, we have held on to our republic.

Well, the wise old owl Mr. Trump, the most intelligent man in history, has solved another insoluble dilemma caused by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and every Democrat since creation: the cost of electricity.

Or more correctly, the cause of the high cost of generating electricity.,

And it was so simple, renewable energy. Mr. Trump labeled it “The Scam of the Century.”

Now, when a man of Mr. Trump’s repute identifies something as the Scam of the Century, particularly something he says didn’t originate, orchestrate, or realize a profit from, one should take notice.

So let’s examine the realities, which are contradictory to Mr. Trump’s contention; therefore, they must, of course, be wrong.

Here’s a chart showing the levelized cost of renewable energy. This seems to show a downward trend in the cost per kilowatt hour.

Hmm, we must be reading that wrong.

Let’s look to other sources that might confirm Mr. Trump’s obviously superior position.

The average cost per MWh (megawatt hour or 1000 kilowatts) for various fuels 

Standalone Solar $32.56
Geothermal $36.40
Onshore wind $36.93
Combined cycle $37.11

Natural Gas $90.00

In simpler terms from another readily available (and thus perceived as false and fake news contrary to our own genius),

“According to a 2023 analysis by Lazard, renewable energy sources are emerging as the most cost-effective options for electricity in the U. S. The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for onshore wind and utility-scale solar PV stands at approximately $24/MWh, significantly lower than fossil fuel alternatives. A breakdown of the costs reveals solar, standalone at $32. 78/MWh, geothermal at $36. 40/MWh, and onshore wind at $36. 93/MWh. Combined cycle gas costs about $37. 11/MWh, while hybrid solar reaches $47. 67/MWh.”

It would seem something is amiss.

What Mr. Trump means, and we of inferior intellectual capacity failed to grasp, is the issue of reliability. If the wind ain’t blowin’ and the sun ain’t shinin’ what happens? Fossil fuels can burn at night, in the rain, anytime.

So perhaps it is the grid that’s the culprit. 

Fossil fuel responds to demand, and in our aging grid infrastructure, it was the best choice until recently. The cost of commercial-level battery storage which would mitigate the need for constant, demand-based generation of electricity, has also risen in capability and fallen in cost.

Could it be that the increasing demand for gigantic data centers is putting a strain on the grid and driving up the cost? Perhaps not, or Mr. Trump would surely have mentioned it.

And yeah, yeah, that guy Biden funded that Infrastructure bill to modernize the grid, but who cares? We know they are the cause of all the world’s problems.

There is another thing Mr. Trump didn’t mention, and that is the environmental cost of fossil fuel. 

Global warming is directly tied to increased extreme weather events and natural disasters. Climate-fueled natural disasters cost the US $165 billion in 2021. In the last five years, climate disasters have cost us a total of $595.5 billion. That’s one-quarter of the total disaster cost of the last 42 years.(https://www.arcadia.com/blog/true-cost-fossil-fuels)

And the last thing introducing confusion into Mr. Trump’s intent to cease support of renewables is this from Freddie Mac. Now, on the off-chance you are unfamiliar with Freddie Mac, it is a large entity that offers mortgages.  

They are not Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, or on the menu for the Presidential diet. They are in the business to make money. And they contend, among other things, that climate change is making ocean waterfront homes uninsurable. Read the Freddie Mac Financial Stability report that has been warning about the risk of climate change to the US economy since 2016.

And this independent report documenting the same risk.

https://econ.duke.edu/dfe/climate-risk/2021/02/burning-down-house-how-inadequate-climate-risk-disclosures-and-information

I looked for any reports from Trump University, but couldn’t find anything except settlement documents from some lawsuit.

The Scam of the Century may turn out to be just as we all expected, a scam, but one of an entirely different yet all too familiar nature.

We recently had dinner at the Waterdog Bar in Warren, formerly the Nathaniel Porter Inn.  The food and wine, of course, were excellent, but this is not a restaurant review, although it deserves five stars.

The building, built two hundred and thirty-five years ago in 1795, was named for a thirteen-year-old relative who fought at the Battle of Lexington. Read that again, fought at the age of thirteen in the opening salvo of the Revolutionary War. An age where today we might worry about leaving him alone in a house with a security system, cameras everywhere with remote access, and voice-capable devices that can call 911 and report the GPS coordinates of the address.

But that is also not the point of the story.

What struck me was that some of the original windows still adorn the building, Leaded glass windows that distort the view due to the imperfections of the 18th-century process. I wondered, because that’s the way my mind works, whose eyes once looked out over those two hundred and thirty-five years onto the streets I now looked at.

In 1795, Warren was very much involved in the slave trade and other maritime pursuits, both profitable and disastrous, departing from the port. (https://smallstatebighistory.com/caleb-eddy-african-slave-voyage-gone-awry/)

So it is reasonable to assume many a sailor, fat with the profits of their journey, spent time quaffing an ale or rum, trying to charm some buxom barmaid, and looking out on the very same streets. ( I’ve been waiting for the moment when I could include “buxom barmaid” in one of my pieces.)

It would be cool if, by some form of technology, one could look in those windows and behold the scene or look out from the very same windows and see the sights of colonial America and the people who once strode these streets.

Now that would be magic.

Two things I have to concede to Mr. Trump: he is very open about his high opinion of himself and painfully transparent about his motivations. His jealousy of Mr. Obama’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is, by his own admission, a significant motivation for trying to broker a settlement of the war in Ukraine, to the point of ignoring the causal Russian invasion as a minor distraction that merely clouds the issue.

And brokering is the precise term for it because, like a real estate agent, the higher the cost to the buyer (Ukraine) the better it is for the (Russian) agent. It satisfies his need for zero-sum negotiations.

From a practical perspective, what difference does it make if Mr. Trump’s motivation for seeking peace has nothing to do with the horrors of war, resolving the unlawful invasion of one country by another, or seeking peace for peace’s sake?

If the result is peace in Ukraine and a cessation of hostilities, isn’t that a worthy enough goal? It is, but what of the effect on his Peace Prize Envy?

The Noble Peace organization has this to say about the purpose of the prize.

“Since World War II, the Peace Prize has principally been awarded to honour efforts in four main areas: arms control and disarmament, peace negotiation, democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world. In the 21st century the Nobel Committee has embraced efforts to limit the harm done by man-made climate change and threats to the environment as relevant to the Peace Prize.” (https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/nobel-peace-prize/about-the-nobel-peace-prize/)

Interestingly enough, prior to World War I, the prize was awarded to individuals working to foster international peace organizations and efforts. It shifted to active politicians who,

…sought to promote international peace, stability and justice by means of diplomacy and international agreements, but prizes were also awarded for humanitarian work (Nansen, the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).” (https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/nobel-peace-prize/about-the-nobel-peace-prize/)

Somehow, Mr, Trump’s motivation is in direct opposition to the very purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize. And it would seem working in opposition to almost every other purpose would disqualify one for consideration. I don’t envision Mr. Trump redirecting the billions of tariff proceeds to Greenpeace. And leading the fight for preventing manmade global warming is highly unlikely.

Since Mr. Trump is, despite the hopes of many, not the manifestation of the second coming but on the downslope of longevity, he could put some of his money into founding a Trump Piece Prize.

Piece, Piece, we want Piece. A piece of this country and a piece of that. 

Let’s start with Greenland.

Pnyx hill Athens Greece, the birthplace of democracy, is less than 1000 meters from where I write this. If I look out my window I can see the the very top of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus which lies in the shadow of the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

Walking the hills where the voices of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle among others once rang out teaching students is a daunting experience. So much of the philosophy, natural philosophy (aka Science), and deep, sophisticated thoughts I have read over the years all began here.

• “The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.” Aristotle.

Greeks were writing and debating philosophy when most of the rest of the world still hadn’t mastered written language.

Even in this room—built almost twenty-four centuries after Socrates was compelled to commit suicide for arguing against certain popular beliefs (he was opposed to the concept of democracy because he believed certain individuals to be superior by nature, Hey, nobody’s perfect)—bears quotes attributed to him.

“Silence is a profound melody for those who can hear it above all the noise.” Socrates.

One can hear the echoes of the voices of Plato and his Dialogues and the logic of Aristotle if one can filter out the noise. Or close ones eyes and see Homer writing the Iliad and the Odyssey.

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” Plato

As an American, being in a country that has existed for more than 3000 years ago, one cannot help but be amazed by it.

And as one of the descendants and benefactors of these democratic principles, I wonder how these ancient Greeks might feel about how we have cared for their philosophies.

Looking up at that ancient hill where the first seeds were planted for democratic human interaction, I can’t help but think there might be a tear falling from their collective eye.