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The Question


Pope Francis arriving in US - CBS News

Pope Francis arriving in US – CBS News photo

Reading time – 72 seconds  .  .  .

Pope Francis is visiting the United States this week and there is a question that begs an answer. Here are the facts.

  • By the time his visit is complete he will have been received at the White House and will have visited the homeless.
  • He will have addressed both a joint session of Congress and the United Nations.
  • He will have said mass multiple times for well over a million people, doing so both in English and in Spanish and he will have visited the birthplace of American democracy in Philadelphia.
  • He will have been serenaded by both Andrea Bocelli and Aretha Franklin and he will have visited prisoners in the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.
  • He will have gone on parade through Washington DC and Central Park in New York and hundreds of thousands of Americans will have seen him.

Not all the people who show up to see the pope will be Catholic. They are not all there to pay homage to their religious leader, yet they come by the hundreds of thousands. They inconvenience themselves, standing and waiting for hours, often in profound discomfort – some overnight – just to catch a glimpse of him.

The question is: Why do people do that?

The answer: hope.

You don’t have to be a Catholic to want a piece of what this pope represents. You just have to have a hunger for something that you can’t seem to find, something that gnaws at you and creates a hollow spot within that is frustrated for something substantial.

We’ve come to a time in America and in much of the rest of the world when our challenges seem overwhelming, when cooperation has been displaced by crude hostility. Neither our politicians nor those in Great Britain, Israel, Greece and many other countries seem to be able to carry on a civil conversation, much less solve problems.

We are far more than weary of the selfish, greedy posturing of politicians, lobbyists, and of slick marketing lies. We are far more than weary of self-destructive denials of reality and the rejection of learning. We are far more than weary of being marginalized and of seeing the hopes for our children crushed under the heel of brutes. Little wonder we feel nearly hopeless.

Pope Francis arrived in America with a message. It isn’t one of proselytizing or bible-thumping and, in fact, other than the masses he will say, his message isn’t particularly religious.

Even without saying a word his message is one of hope. It is a message we hunger to hear. It is a message we want our leaders to hear and act upon.

We need hope for a better tomorrow. It is the only way forward and every one of us knows that in our bones.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Coming Together for Survival


http://bit.ly/1ORt5Yu

copy/paste into your browser: http://bit.ly/1ORt5Yu

Reading time – 41 seconds  .   .    .

A while back we had some assurance that there wouldn’t be a nuclear war with the Soviets. It was called “mutually assured destruction” – acronym MAD – and, not surprisingly, the Soviets wanted to continue to live as much as we did. That calculus for the prevention of nuclear war fails completely, though, when those on the other side long to be martyrs. It’s like threatening a suicide bomber with capital punishment. It just doesn’t work.

That makes mandatory the continuing prevention of a nuclear capable Iran and it will take the best efforts the world can muster to accomplish that. We need people in Congress who will keep their eye on the ball. Otherwise, global warming, income inequality and the rest of the American political battlefields will become less than incidental.

Brad Schneider published an essay in The Times of Israel that speaks to this issue. His level-headed attitude and call for a coming together isn’t just sensible: it will be critical for survival. You can trust that people living just few hundred miles from Iran, which has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, are quite clear about that and intent on ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon. And America – we – referred to as “The great Satan” by the Ayatollahs – are next on Iran’s hit list. See what I mean about survival?

Have a look at what Illinois 10th Congressional candidate Schneider has to say and see what you think.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

One More Time, Jeb


Bush Kept Us Safe

Jeb Bush Twitter feed – September 17, 2015

Reading time – 2 minutes, 19 seconds  .  .  .

To you: Betcha you’re going to have an opinion on this.

To Jeb: You told the lie again, a lie that has been repeated since 2002, this time at the CNN Republican candidate debate. You defended your brother’s legacy by telling us that he kept us safe. Let’s check out your claim.

The attack on September 11, 2001 came on George W. Bush’s watch. 2,996 people died that day and 422,000 New Yorkers have suffered from PTSD because of that attack. It happened after he had been warned repeatedly about an imminent attack on the U.S. by Islamist extremists, warnings which he dismissed and ignored. Jeb, you might want to check with some of the survivors and family members of those who died on that awful day as to whether your brother kept us safe.

President Bush lied to Congress and to the American people, claiming that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda, something that is absurd on its face. al Qaeda membership was entirely religious extremists and Saddam was a secularist who hated them.

Your brother lied about a WMD threat from Saddam Hussein. Perhaps you recall his National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice stoking fear by telling us that the smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud. And you might also remember the lies about the yellow cake (ref: Amb. Joseph Wilson’s report) and the aluminum tubes. Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated those lies to the UN.

At the same time President Bush was calling for an authorization to use force against Saddam, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was calling for restraint. They were the experts doing the inspections and they were finding no weapons of mass destruction or even a hint of them, so, Jeb, your brother actually protected us from nothing at all.

Without question Saddam was a bad guy, but consider what had been going on in the Middle East and what the present world circumstances might be if we had not invaded and overthrown him.

Saddam’s army had fought a war with neighboring Iran for years and they were bitter enemies. Had Saddam been left in power he would have been a natural check on Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapon capabilities. He was brazen enough to have attacked Iran to protect himself from such a threat and we might not be concerned with a nuclear Iran today. Instead, we live with a negotiated agreement, hoping it will prevent an Iranian nuclear threat. By attacking Iraq, just how safe did your brother keep us?

Saddam was a brutal dictator, but he kept rival factions in check in the Middle East. Were he still in power there would be no ISIS/ISIL. There would have been no beheadings, rapes, torture, murders, destruction of ancient sites or any of the rest of the carnage. There would be no caliphate and Americans would not be getting recruited to join that savage bunch and wage jihad on fellow Americans.

6,855 American military people were killed in those unnecessary wars (counting all coalition forces the number is 8,301). About 2/3 were killed in Iraq and 1/3 in Afghanistan and over 300,000 American military people are suffering from PTSD. (Check here and here for more on that. Note that the estimate of the number of our military people with PTSD from those wars has grown significantly since the Rand Corporation report in 2008 and has been estimated at over 500,000.) And all that warring cost us trillions of dollars that we put on the national credit card for our children and grandchildren to pay and which will drag down our economy for decades. None of that would have happened without the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Your brother didn’t do a very good job of protecting our military folks or securing safety for our future.

Your brother’s administration ordered the torture of prisoners in full and obvious violation of international law and United States law. We are still detaining dozens of prisoners at Guantanamo and will never know what happened to so many who were sent to “black sites.” In the process of all that, we became despised by millions and the torture we did has been used as a recruiting tool for yet more religious extremists to volunteer to attack Americans.

Absent the dishonest invasion of Iraq there would be no flood of refugees from Iraq and somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis would still be alive. The number is uncertain because we made no attempt to measure either Iraqi deaths or the number of those who fled their homes to avoid war or those who are doing so now.

You tell us that your brother, the former president, kept us safe, yet you offer no proof or even a hint of support for your claim. It might be inferred, based on what has been said by former Bush administration people, that because there were no additional massive attacks on America like 9/11 that your brother kept us safe. Tell that, though, to the citizens of Madrid and London and to the people who were on the airplane with the shoe bomber.

2,996 people died in New York, 6,855 of our military are dead, hundreds of thousands are dead or displaced in Iraq, ISIS poses one of the greatest threats to humanity, Iran has made great progress toward getting a nuclear bomb to use on Israel and on the United States  .  .  .  the list of horrible things caused by your brother could go on and on and none would exist if we had not invaded Iraq.

Your brother kept us safe? It’s a great, chest-thumping bumper sticker, Jeb, but it’s a lie.

PS – pass this along to Dick Cheney.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

News Flash


mayologoReading time – 43 seconds  .  .  .

Caution: The following is satire. Sensitive readers should close their eyes and chant, “I can’t see you, I can’t see you.”

September 17, 2015 – Rochester, MN

In a stunning announcement at their press conference today, doctors and neurological scientists at The Mayo Clinic released the results of a study that has been ongoing for 69 years. Their findings have already rocked the worlds of neurology and brain science.

Drs. Robert L. Barlodz and Sharon C. Korlowski explained that it has long been considered an absolute truth in the scientific community that the greatly expanded neocortex – the frontal lobe of the human brain – is the logic and analytical center, the locus of consciousness and that its presence is the primary reason for the intelligence and capability differences between humans and all other species. They said that a great many studies have been conducted by scientific and medical institutions throughout the world and all have indicated that this is true, as have the observed results of large numbers of people with traumatic brain injuries. Indeed, it has been believed that in the absence of full capability of that part of the brain, even the appearance of normal functioning would be impossible. Today’s announcement changed that.

It was revealed by Drs. Barlodz and Korlowski that due to a congenital anomaly – a birth defect – Donald Trump has no neocortex.

After making their shocking announcement, the neuro-scientists said that in their intensive study they had observed that Trump appeared to to have accommodated this major brain defect and at times displays certain neocortex-like functions, although these have been labeled pseudo-brain activities and, clearly, they have no logical content. Dr. Korlowski reported that they are hoping that continuing investigation will help them to better understand Trump’s aberrant behavior.

Dr. Barlodz closed the press conference by saying that should they be able to observe the making of any sense at all by the subject individual, it would be quite surprising.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Get Up


William McNary - Justice Project 2015

William McNary at the Justice Project 2015

Reading time – 47 seconds  .  .  .

“Democracy is a verb.”

That’s what William McNary told us, speaking on July 26, 2015 on the Winnetka, IL Village Green at the 2015 Justice Day event. It was 50 years to the day since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to 10,000 people gathered in that same place for the North Shore Summer Project – 1965. The imperative to be vigilant in the fight for civil rights remains and will do so for a long time.

Think about that as you listen to the Republican presidential aspirants at the CNN debate on Wednesday, September 16. What kind of future for the American people do they envision and what will they do to create it? Do they appeal to our better angels or do they take the lazy route to a nomination by stoking anger, fear and hatred? Do they enlighten us or do they dumb us down?

Let your own vision for America, for an American Dream that you want to live and to leave to your children and grandchildren, guide your thinking. And for the sake of you, your children and your grandchildren, get up and get active.

Get up and get active, because we cannot afford more never-ending wars or more American children living in poverty (1 in 6 do now), more gun massacres and more Americans forced into bankruptcy because of catastrophic medical expenses. We cannot afford more American students unable to compete with their Asian rivals because of archaic, out-of-date and unequal education, or a planet ready to assault itself and us with acts that won’t be of God, but of us. And we cannot afford the more than 2.4 million incarcerated Americans, more than any other nation – ever.

Make your voice heard – for example, right here on this post in the “What do you think?” section below.

Pass a link to this blog to three others and insist that they subscribe and comment – that they get up and get active – because you and a lot of other people are counting on them.

Democracy is a verb. Get up.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Candidate Don Quixote


Miguel de Cerrvantes

Miguel de Cerrvantes

Reading time – 44 seconds  .  .  .

Miguel de Cervantes told the tale of Don Quixote, an old man, perhaps with dementia, who did things that looked crazy to more able-brained observers. In a peasant hag he saw a lady – his lady – a woman of the highest order and worthy of his adoration and of his defense of her honor. She was inspiration to his knightly duty.

To him, the flea-bitten mule he rode was a great and noble steed and he tilted at windmills, seeing instead dragons that must be slain to protect the people. These and more are metaphors for the dignity, honor and duty to do what is right, not because of an expected reward, but simply because it is the right thing to do. It was, for Don Quixote, an honor and an imperative, irrespective of the scoffing and judgments of others or the cost to himself. Don Quixote stands as a fine and lasting metaphor for a life of service and it is a primary reason for the enduring popularity of Cervantes’ tale.

To our candidates for public office at all levels of government:

If you cannot see the duty of service in the way of Don Quixote, if you cannot do what is right simply because it is right, regardless of what is in it for you – some reward of power or money or fame that you imagine should be yours – then you are unfit to hold office. If you are not in service of what is right you haven’t the stuff to be a leader of the people. Stand down before you confuse and degrade things still more.

I want to know who is stepping up to do what is right.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Congressional Monkeys


Rhesus monkey

Rhesus Macaque

Reading time – 1 minute, 19 seconds  .  .  .

My brother recently sent along a story (thanks, JHA) that is an adaptation of the findings of a 1967 ground-breaking experiment with rhesus monkeys performed by Gordon R. Stephenson. It is presented here for your review. See if you can read this without nodding your head in fundamental agreement at the end.

Start the experiment with a tall cage containing four monkeys. Hang a banana on a string dangling from the top of the cage, out of the reach of the monkeys. Then place a set of stairs under the banana. Before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana. As it does so, spray all the monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey will make an attempt to reach the banana. When the second monkey starts up the stairs, spray all the monkeys with cold water. The next time a monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will assault and stop it. There is no further need for cold water.

Next, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new monkey. The new monkey, having no experience with the cold water spray, will see the banana and attempt to climb the stairs to reach it. Immediately, all of the other monkeys will attack him to keep him off the stairs in order to avoid another spray of cold water. After another attempt and attack, he will know that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted and he will not try again.

Next, remove another of the original four monkeys, replacing it with a new monkey.  The newcomer will head for the banana and will then be attacked by the other monkeys. Note that the previous newcomer will take part in the punishment and do so with enthusiasm.

Then, replace a third original monkey with another new monkey, followed by a fourth.  Each time the newest monkey takes to the stairs in an attempt to get the banana he will attacked by all the other monkeys and will not try to reach the banana again.

Having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, none of the monkeys will try to climb the stairs for the banana, because in their experience, being attacked while trying to get a banana is the culture of the group. It’s the way it has always been.

And that is how today’s House and Senate operate, with no members having a memory of a time when hard negotiations led to compromise for the betterment of the country. Instead, we see near-universal demand that, “It’s all about me and my getting my way and I’ll attack you if you disagree with me because I’d rather get nothing done than to compromise.” (Look for a Disambiguation on this topic soon.)

And that is why, from time to time, we need to replace all of the monkeys at the same time.

Note: This narrative is meant as no disrespect to rhesus monkeys.

Here is a link to the publication of the original work by Stephenson.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

You’re So Smart


Sen. Martin Heinrich, (D-NM)

Sen. Martin Heinrich, (D-NM)

Reading time – 9 (not a typo) seconds  .  .  .

The time is growing short for Congress to figure this out. Happily, you can help.

This is your time to be the smartest kid in class, the first in your neighborhood, the person in the know.

About the Iran deal.

Everything you need is right here, oddly in New Mexico.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Spirit


Reading time – 47 seconds  .  .  .

Religion is all about rules laid down by people who lived a long time ago, rules commonly called dogma. Those people said (or somebody else said) that the words of their dogma were given to them by God or inspired by God. It is an act of faith to believe what cannot be proven, like the holiness of those written words. Billions of people make that leap of faith willingly. That is their religion.

Spirituality is different. It has no rules. There is no dogma and it requires no faith. It is simply about how we live our lives and the energy and passion we put into the world. Whether we’re living in the tiny cracks of life or on the mountain tops, we are all spiritual. The only question is whether we recognize it and the effect of our spirit on ourselves and on others.

And that is what has me troubled these days, as we see that about 30% of people who self-identify as Republicans say that they support Donald Trump. He lashes out in mean spirited ways and declares his judgment of doom on those he doesn’t like. He has simplistic and misleading answers for any question and everything is metaphorically punctuated with a middle finger. The more he does his crazy, angry dance, the more Republicans seem to like him. Compounding that are the other candidates who carpet bomb the country with their negativity, their mean attacks and their outright lies. Each of them has followers, too.

What is that saying about the spirit of all these followers? Not their religion. I’m talking about the spirit in them. It’s looking pretty mean and angry, judgmental and vindictive.

Spirit is about how we live our lives. We demonstrate our spirit in that way and it appears that a lot of Americans are living in very dark ways. That’s an evil spirit that affects all of us.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

If I Agreed With You


http://www.zazzle.com.au/if_i_agreed_with_you_wed_both_be_wrong_t_shirts-235415623791821038

http://www.zazzle.com.au/

Reading time – 16 seconds  .  .  .

Frequent business travel offers many opportunities to learn.

For example, I saw a guy wearing this T-shirt at O’Hare Airport last week. It pretty well defines our national attitude toward open-mindedness, eagerness to learn, tolerance of change and even to creativity.

How’s that working for us?

If it isn’t working well, what can you do to help to change things for the better? Try this notion.

My pal Ozzie Gontang likes to say, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” As you can see, he’s a pretty smart guy. He’s wise.

So, what you can do about all that closed-mindedness in America is to be open-minded. Go ahead – I promise that just listening to people with whom you disagree won’t damage you or compromise your integrity. And for one brief shining moment America will be the better for your effort.

Then, after listening to those people with different thinking than yours, you still have the opportunity to call them an idiot and things will be back to what passes for normal in America.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

ACTION STEP: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe.  Thanks!  JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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