Government Is Good     

...says the letter writer.

   "Sixty-one million Social Security checks reach their beneficiaries every month. Only one passenger has died in a scheduled airliner accident over the past nine years.

   "Our schools graduate almost 3 million young people every year who are  ready to become productive, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. Our traffic signals work, our professionals are appropriately tested and licensed, our fires are fought, our weather is predicted, and our parks are beautiful.

   "Our government has survived and won wars, put men on the moon and brought them back safely, and steadily fixed many flaws, including slavery and segregation. 

   "Meanwhile, corporations and businesses beyond counting disappear every year through bankruptcy."

To which we say:

It's good to acknowledge what goes right.
The man overlooks what isn't going right.

Plus, the U.S. Government accomplishes its 
part using the power of law and courts,

and running up $20 trillion in debt.

Corporations and small businesses

are governed by laws and regulations,

are subject to stiff competition and changing markets, 

and have no option for creating long-term debt. 

      Jimmy

   

A Fish Story to Believe 

   You will see this only on Views By the Sea. 

  Whales can fly, and we have proof.

Views' Researchers Uncover Plot    

   You may have heard that some Democrats want America's motto, 
In God We Trust, removed from all money and public places. 

   In further research, we have discovered their plot to alter Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, redacting words they hate. Here are a few lines from their proposed document, rewriting history:


WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these truths to be self evident, that all Men (and Women and those who choose to be other) are created equal, that they are (given by government) by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights (.)  that among these are  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - etc. 

Okay. We're kidding.

But, you know there are politicians who would approve.

And there are those who wish we would not separate, but meld 

with other nations, under central world government.

      Jimmy

Religious Freedom in Decline 

   Our founders began the Bill of Rights: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment

 of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

   Sounds clear enough. But Christianity is under attack by leftists intent on centralized control, and that would include power (restraining, directing, regulating) over individuals, churches and any ministries not politically correct. The ACLU defends the liberties of political favorites only. 

   Courts already have forced Christian bakeries to accommodate gay weddings, or pay huge fines and risk going out of business. So much for freedom of conscience. It's not like people can't order their cakes somewhere else.  

   Come to think of it, does the Constitution permit the government to outlaw bigamy? Christians agree with New Testament standard - one man, one woman - and we desire that practice throughout our culture, for good reason. But can the government require all religions to comply? Just curious.  

   When progressives/leftists gain enough political power, look out. Bully governments will have it their way.

   The U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom released its annual report. Ten countries remain Tier 1 - Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Six additional countries have been added: Central African Republic, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Syria and Vietnam. 

   These governments "engage in or tolerate systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom." 

   The commission also recommended the State Department designate 12 countries as Tier 2, along with three non-state actors - Taliban, ISIS and Shabaab. 

   Jews are well acquainted with persecution. Christians are too, in many countries. Who will be next on Tier 1? 

     Jimmy

So, Now He's a Good Guy?    
  

   We have read that North Korea has perhaps 
three rulers, and that Kim Jong Un is just the face 
of leadership. Maybe he's not even the top dog, 
as was his father and grandfather. 

   That wrinkle alone provides mystery enough for this year's emergence of Mr. Nice Guy, formerly "Little Rocket Man."

   Here are four possibilities. Pick your favorite. 

1. President Trump got North Korea's attention with tough talk, and a couple missile shows in Syria. That and sanctions.

2. Xi Jinping enjoyed having North Korea as a buffer between the free South and his subjects. But now, sanctions are bugging him too, and he can keep his little partner only if the North plays nice, and the sanctions stop.

3. Kim cozies up to the South, which wants peace and an official end to the Korean War, in order to drive a wedge between South Korea and the U.S. This is way out, but could the two Koreas agree to peace and denuclearization, cutting the U.S. out of negotiations and verification arrangements? 

4. Kim isn't shutting down his nuclear test site voluntarily, without getting anything in return. He accidentally blew it up with a 100 kiloton bomb last September. There were four earthquakes, and a risk of radiation, even in nearby China, according to Chinese geologists. 

   And the fifth of four possibilities: Kim wants to go to Disney World, and then Mar-a-Logo, but there are conditions...

       Jimmy

Comparing Cultures Pre-War    

Einstein

   
   Albert Einstein characterized Western culture as
"individualism in the extreme, cut-throat competition, exerting one's utmost energy, feverish laboring to acquire as much luxury and indulgences as possible." 

   To him, Japan was "harmony and equanimity, strong family bonds and public civility enforced by social norms." 

   Finally, he observed, "The Japanese rightfully admires the intellectual achievements of the West and immerses himself and with great idealism in the sciences. But let him not thereby forget to keep pure the great attributes in which he is superior to the West - the artful shaping of life, modesty and unpretentiousness, and the purity and calm of the Japanese soul."

   Less than a decade later, the Japanese soul was crushed by the spirit of militarism. And Einstein was forced out of Germany by the Nazis.

   He urged Western powers to threaten Japan with an economic boycott. Instead, the war that drew in his adopted country (USA), and sunk the Japanese ships he had sailed on, ended only with a bomb - a power derived from the law Einstein had set down as a clerk in the Swiss patent office: E=mc2.

Smithsonian

Arriving in Jerusalem     

Einstein

     Taking advantage of his long sea voyage, absent "visits, correspondence, meetings and other inventions of the devil," Einstein took on the mathematics of gravity and electromagnetism. 

   In January 1923, arriving in Jerusalem, Einstein's secular brand of Zionism was tested. He was unmoved by the Wailing Wall, where he wrote, "Obtuse ethnic brethren pray loudly, with their faces turned to the wall, bend their bodies to and fro in a swaying motion. Pitiful sight of people with a past but without a present."

   But he was impressed with Tel Aviv, a "modern Hebrew city stamped out of the ground with lively economic and intellectual life. The accomplishments of the Jews in but a few years in this city excite the highest admiration. What an incredibly lively people our Jews are!"  

   Jericho was "a day of unforgettable magnificence. Extraordinary enchantment of this severe, monumental landscape with its dark, elegant Arabian sons in their rags." 

   Although Palestine, and later the State of Israel, remained a passion for the rest of Einstein's life, his diaries and letters give the impression that Japan interested him more. 

Tomorrow:  It all turns sour

Smithsonian

The World Famous...Tourist   

Einstein

   He discovered space-time. Then he discovered that there was much he didn't understand, riding a rickshaw in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). 

   Albert Einstein and his wife, Elsa, toured the world from October 1922 through March 1923. They saw Egypt, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Palestine and Spain. 

   Like others, he was amazed at the beauty of Japan and the refinement of its culture. He wrote, the Japanese are "pure souls as nowhere else among people."

   His diary, which will be published in English next month, shows him as a tourist. He felt "ashamed of myself for being complicit in such despicable treatment of human beings..." (the rickshaw runners). He found "diplomats and other big shots" at the German embassy in Tokyo "boring and stuffy." 

   Einstein was surprised that, for all their architectural and artistic talent, the Japanese people never seemed curious about things scientists live to understand. But he praised them for their "earnest respect without a trace of cynicism or skepticism."
  
   He himself was curious about them: "Among us we see many Japanese, living a lonely existence, studying diligently, smiling in a friendly manner. No one can fathom the feelings concealed behind this guarded smile."  

   Einstein enjoyed that Japan was free of anti-Semitism, while in Germany, being a famous Jewish scientist came with risks. A fellow Jewish scientist already had been assassinated by Nazi thugs in 1922. 

Tomorrow: His view of Jerusalem

Smithsonian