January 13th, 2021
By Ed Raymond
Where Do We Belong in God’s Universe?
In the 16th century the dominant religious “theory” was that everything on the planet from God down to minerals and rocks were links in the Elizabethan Chain of Being. The earth that came from the disintegration of rocks was at the bottom of the chain. At the top of the chain was God. It progressed downward to angels, demons (fallen angels), stars, moon, kings and queens, princes, nobles, men, wild animals,…
January 11th, 2021
By Ed Raymond
The Scientific Method, Darwin, and Religious Erosion
People who study us and our surroundings use the five following methods to come to a conclusion, basing it on this scientific method: hypothesis, observation, prediction, experiment, and confirmation.
As an example, the experts in past pandemics used this scientific method to determine that a vaccine will work against COVID-19. They observed what the virus did to people. They predicted it was similar…
December 27th, 2020
The Gadfly: Autopsy of a Political Party
Ed Raymond
Why did Trump win Robeson County?
The southeastern corner of North Carolina is a low-lying area in one of the poorest sections of the state. It is the home of the Lumbee Indians, the largest Indian tribe east of the Mississippi River. The town of Lumberton is near the center of the county. It is poor farming country, and is heavily wooded yet rather swampy.
I became rather familiar with the area when our battalion…
December 17th, 2020
The Love Of Dogs--And The Super Rich And Superpoor Of Teton County
President Harry Truman is a favorite of mine. He read a lot of history books, threatened to punch a music columnist criticizing his daughter Margaret’s singing, kept a sign on his Oval Office desk: “The Buck Stops Here,” and insisted: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Almost all presidents had dogs. Research at Duke University on dog intelligence points out that over thousands of years dogs…
December 4th, 2020
Mission Possible
President Joe: your first important mission, if you choose to accept it, is to ask 90 million American registered voters why they didn’t vote in 2020. Then tell Chairman Tom Perez and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to wake up from political dementia and call each non-voter for an exclusive interview. Why didn’t we have 50 million more voters? We had an election that really didn’t move us on the arc to FDR’s “Four Freedoms”:…
November 14th, 2020
Is There Personal Liberty? When Does It Begin And End?
It was bound to happen to an inquiring mind. Scientists around the world are monitoring sewage for outbreaks of COVID-19 because victims of the virus have had the very infectious virus in their feces. At least 65 universities in this country are taking samples of sewage daily from dormitories and campus sites to see if the virus is present. When tests prove their existence, the residents of that sewage system are tested to see who…
October 21st, 2020
PQ: “With this COVID-19 pandemic, we are already in another Great Depression. Soon we will have millions of citizens living in ‘Trumpvillas’ when they are evicted or foreclosed on.”
by Ed Raymond
Where Was That Messenger From?
During the vice-presidential debate, there were three beings on stage who tried to obey the established rules that responses to questions must be limited to two minutes: two were moderator Susan Page and candidate Kamala Harris, the other…
October 7th, 2020
by Ed Raymond
What Century Are The Catholic Supreme Court Judges Living In?
If Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed there will be six Catholics, two Jews, and one former Catholic on the Supreme Court making monumental decisions about how Americans are going to live out our lives. What centuries will they represent? The Roman Catholic Church, of which I was a member for 27 years, has been bedeviled by sex, politics, and power grabs for 2,000 years. It is suffering the death…
September 29th, 2020

The Trump Knives and Branding Irons Have Done their Work
Poor “Moscow” Mitch. Absolute power does corrupt. Chimps, bonobos, and Homo Sapiens share over 99% of DNA. The Senate Majority Leader could not even wait for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body to reach room temperature before he announced the Senate would vote for Trump’s nomination to the Supreme Court as soon as possible. Bonobos love each other and use sex to pacify relationships. Chimps and humans love…
September 20th, 2020

The Death of Empire by A Thousand Cuts
Some empires last longer than others. Rome was one. The Chinese empire died the death of a thousand cuts they made famous a thousand years ago. But the Chinese heart that was sliced centuries ago evidently was put on life support, because it is beating strong after getting shocked back to life about 300 years ago. Lingchi, the death of a thousand cuts, was applied for three reasons: public humiliation, for treason and other serious crimes, and for…