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n our early days, humanity did a great disservice to itself in two arenas that continue to haunt us today, causing completely unnecessary suffering. Both are disguised as methods to unify people but, in actuality, are the source of great division. They create an us-versus-them mindset, leaving minimal to no space for a royal we. Both arenas are equally bad. When they combine, they espouse a particularly heinous mindset. The first is a result of insignificant fiefdoms becoming nation-states that use violence to hoard natural resources for the few at the expense of the many. It leads to a brainwashing where society elevates the state to a near god-level of worship for which they are willing (or coerced) to sacrifice their one and only lives. For what?

In the dystopian and satirical novel, 1984, a dystopia slowly becoming true in the current state of the USA, power was the result of inflicting pain and humiliation upon others. We are not that predicted society...yet...but the sequencing of events leading to that dystopia is emerging, beginning with mass surveillance of the citizenry, heavy governmental polarization, propaganda messaging, and widespread disputes about what is factual, as encoded in the mantra, "Fake News!" America mirroring the superstate Oceania feels not too far off on the horizon. As in the book, the party in charge is attempting to rewrite history with the removal of any information in the National Parks that warn of the unseemly underbelly on which the union was forged, so that they may never be repeated. So much for learning from history so that it is not repeated!

am drawn to the effulgence of trees. Though many sport flowers, they tend to be less ostentatious than their perennial brethren and sistren who require garish displays to attract pollinators for species propagation and perpetuation. Nor are they querulous, choosing instead to exist with quiet dignity in service to all who choose to partake of their fruits, their shade, their branches to hold nests of birds, squirrels, and countless other beings needing protection from the elements and predators. Plus, they help other tree species obtain nutrients with their root networks in the wood-wide web. They selflessly anchor soil and animal communities in diverse environments, giving rise to healthy ecosystems that are rich in biodiversity. They are DEI advocates.

A nimble mind changes when new information is consumed. Not change willy-nilly, the way a rabbit changes direction to avoid a charging predator. Changes with a graceful arc as new information is validated or changes course when it turns out to be faulty. Even if faulty, the information is not useless; rather, it can be stored as comparative reference when future ideas waft their way. An immature mind will bend to any gentle breeze while a neglected mind holds steadfast, refusing to deviate no matter how convincing the evidence, even if it arrives on the wings of a Category 5 tornado. The trend is for older adults..

I spent the past five days at the edge of a forest on two sides, a pond on one, and open prairie punctuated with tall trees on the fourth. The multitude of habitats should, in theory, attract a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. Mostly, I encountered birds by their vocalizations, occasionally glimpsing them as they emerged from deep shadows, flying from tree to tree in their unending quest for food and to defend their territories against invaders. Or, as with Lord Vulture, I would glass them as they soared effortlessly and silently on broad wings that rarely flapped, angled expertly to circle, rise, and descend, covering vast distances with minimal exertion. What a glorious life!

I was born at the cusp of the 'Cultural Decade,' the 1960s, an era of massive cultural shifts. My formative years spanned the 'Me Decade' of the 1970s. Those 20 years witnessed massive social upheaval and the rise of the counterculture that challenged entrenched norms around family, gender, authority, and morality. The old guard had the US entrenched in the deeply immoral Vietnam War, a war lost, taking the shine off the imagined invulnerability of the US Military-Industrial Complex. The youth of the day, tired of being cannon fodder and beholden to the whims of the powerful elite, engaged in the largest, sustained anti-war protests in US history. Their slogans included the iconic "Make love not war,"

It is a human cognitive defect that we call some animals good and put them on a pedestal, with dogs and cats on the highest pedestal, while labeling those we don't like as evil, including rats and roaches, whom we target for annihilation. The warped approach is an offshoot of our obsession with sin, a word that meant missing the mark. It has come to be associated with offending God and is saddled with moral baggage that would see the sinner destined for an eternity in Gehenna as punishment for a finite transgression. Humans are the only beings the God freaks claim have free will, a necessary component in the moral equation without which the knowledge of right or wrong, good or evil cannot exist. This gainsays the Adam and Eve narrative, exposing the Abrahamic deity for the evil bastard it is. Neither Eve nor Adam had a comprehension of good or evil before eating of the tree's fateful fruit. They could not be morally culpable for their act of so-called disobedience. Punishing not only them but saddling every human born since with Original Sin exposes Sky Daddy's dereliction of duty. He should have taught them to navigate life's challenges with integrity rather than punishing the unaware. Sky Daddy failed mud man and rib woman and had the nerve to blame them for his shortcomings.

A jaundiced approach toward divergent cultures is to rate them with reference to their own, which, unsurprisingly, is typically viewed as not only the best culture for all people but the only correct cultural expression. It is a form of jingoism with undercurrents and overtones of racism. It is perfectly normal to compare and contrast an unknown entity against a known quantity with the goal of understanding differences. The problem arises when the unknown, such as cultural norms and practices, are judged with a ruler calibrated

In terms of being a manly man, Crazy Horse was a virtuoso. To the colonizers, he was a bloodthirsty savage standing in the way of white prosperity and of the god-ordained Manifest Destiny. The term was a gimmick, a euphemism masking the horror of genocide and used to justify the forced removal of the indigenous, breaking treaties, military violence, reservation confinement, and the destruction of cultural life. At its core, it was a racist ideology...not surprising in a land where nonwhites were, still are, routinely savaged by individuals and governments.

I assiduously monitor my beliefs, whittling away those that don't stand up to scrutiny and evidence, keeping those that do and adding them to my constitution of true truths...held loosely so they don't twist into a noose. Doing this helps ensure I am not weighed down by the burdens associated with untruths. I revel in the lightness of the freedom that comes with not carrying unnecessary falsehoods. It enables me to channel my thoughts and actions into real realities, which underpins my devotion to a personal policy of truth. In some sense, being beholden...

It is not long after growing out of our layette that we become conscious of who we are, concerned about how we are perceived, and learn to wear the mask likely to show us in rose light when interacting with others. As we mature, those masks multiply commensurately with the number of people we encounter and engage with. The person we are with our parents bears little resemblance to the persona we express around

In human minds, our species, for those willing to acquiesce to the simple, indisputable fact that we are animals, is indomitable; that we are antipodes with respect to all other species with whom we share the grand and glorious planet Earth. That we are animals is hotly disputed by those believing mud man and rib woman are made in the image of a god...further proof we dwell in a special realm a smidge lower than the gods and significantly higher than the nonhuman beings. That imagined separation, an act of arrogance, is an excuse to

Despite being portrayed as wifty, as beings easily distracted by bright, shiny objects, ravens are considered to be in the top 10 of the smartest animals on the planet. Humans set the criteria for measuring intelligence, meaning it is no surprise humans are ranked first on the intelligence scale. Intelligence, for the purposes of the rankings, is understood as the mental or behavioral flexibility of an organism to solve problems occurring in its natural environment, culminating in the appearance of novel solutions not previously part of the animal's normal repertoire. By this arbitrary standard, the Raven people rank sixth

Ever since I broke a fingernail grip and let go of my final, tenuous grasp on a need for an afterlife to assuage my ego, I have felt free as the birds who laugh at the borders they fly over without needing official government documentation. I no longer struggle with apocalyptic visions of the infernal destinations proclaimed in the Abrahamic unHoly Books. I no longer fear an eternity of hellfire and brimstone. Nor do I fear the equally hellish place in the clouds where I would be forced to bow down and praise a megalomaniacal deity for endless days and nights, a chattel slavery marketed as bliss. I can't put a finger on the auspicious moment I accepted the afterlife is a myth designed to manipulate the fearful, only that I have unshackled...

The capacity for love is almost universal in humans, the exceptions being those with mental conditions that are classified as antisocial personality disorders. These include sociopathy and psychopathy. Love began with mammalian attachment when natural selection favored caring for one another. That became the foundation for pair bonding to cooperatively raise offspring. From this evolved romantic love, emerging some 5 million years ago after the split from the Great Apes. It is tied to...