​From dark to dumb and dumber

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

What age has been determined to be the worst in world history?

Historians have estimated about one third of the population of Europe died of the bubonic plague, also known as the black plague, from the fifth century through the 15th century of the Middle Ages. The early years of this era are also often called the Dark Ages by historians. During this disastrous time, the Roman Catholic Church (with its denizens and popes in the Vatican) burned thousands of “heretics” at the stake on street corners in many Italian cities to make an impression on other nonbelievers. Savonarola was just one Catholic priest who carried matches and torches.

Remember when Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich was going to last a thousand years? This entire thousand year time period is sometimes called The Dark Ages because it has been described as a period of ”intellectual darkness” between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, which by the 18th century turned into the Age of Enlightenment. Before the Dark Ages we had the Classical Age of the Greeks and Romans which had really “hot stuff” like ugly and beautiful gods and goddesses, with men and women like Plato, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Nero, Cleopatra and Cornelia. But we had great people during the Dark Ages who brought bright light — think Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo.

During the Age of Enlightenment, we also had several very dark things happen. As an example, the Magdalene laundries operated by the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, for almost 200 years in what was called the most “Catholic” country in the world, hid “fallen girls and women” from parents, neighbors, and the world while they had their illegitimate babies. While they worked long, tedious hours in the laundry, they had to avoid un-celibate priests in dark halls and rooms. It’s estimated that the laundries sheltered up to 300,000 girls and women trying to avoid scandal.

In St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in County Galway, 796 bodies of babies were discovered in a huge septic tank placed there by nuns. No burial records exist, but there is a strong effort to identify as many babies as possible so they can be given a proper burial by the churches. There were eight Catholic organizations associated with the various laundries, but only two offered financial support. The organizations that have refused to help the identification and burial work, have used a rather shocking reason for the denial of support: ”It was part of the system and the culture of the time.”

What will we call the Age of Trump? How about the Age of Neroism?

Nero was dictator of the Roman Empire at age 16 and died at age 30. He was tyrannical, cruel, committed political murders, famous for his debauchery, was self-indulgent and was thought to have started a fire that destroyed much of Rome so he could build a new estate on the outskirts. After the fire he had some early Christians burned at the stake for starting the fire. During a rebellion he escaped Rome, was tried for treason in absentia and sentenced to death and committed suicide in A.D. 68 while still acting like a teenager. No doubt he was a malignant narcissist.

At this moment in our history we basically have co-presidents; one who is 78 with the mind, morals and common sense of a toddler who needs a diaper now and then and a 53-year-old teenager who has morphed into Nero as he makes unconscionable decisions regarding budget and tax cuts that will kill millions of people in the world if not stopped. Elon Musk, at times the richest man in the world, purchased the presidency for Donald Trump and serves as the president’s shadow. Here we have three Homo sapiens who are two thousand years apart but have the same devastating characteristics of jerks, pricks, assholes and victims of the disease diagnosed as malignant narcissism as defined in the latest “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM), prepared and published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Among many, there have been two books written in the 20th century that have probably accurately predicted our future. Thomas Huxley in “Brave New World” has five intellectual levels of citizens ranging from common workers to directors and world controllers. All are born and controlled by oxygen levels and drugs in canisters to fit certain jobs in society. In George Orwell’s“1984” history is constantly rewritten so it can be repeated many times. As Trump has captured the 24/7 news cycle for over a decade, I don’t have to summarize his ideology. He has one only for a few seconds after communicating with his last person. We need to know more, now that he is the whispering Prime Minister by Trump’s side.

Musk’s DOGE is doing dog s--t all over U.S., veterans, and federal workers

A team of reporters fromRolling Stonehas written a revealing paragraph about the often-richest man in the world who claims his 20-year-old transgender daughter is dead while her dozen younger siblings are neglected by him. Vivian is very much alive and says she hates her father.

“With DOGE, Musk has gleefully banished tens of thousands of federal employees, canceled lifesaving aid, and repeatedly threatened America’s safety-net programs, all as part of a purported hunt for waste, fraud, and abuse. He’s governed as an out-of-touch corporate villain, laughing about this carnage while partying, posting, delivering big payments to voters (although the amounts mean virtually nothing to him), and cashing in on new contracts and business opportunities — sometimes appearing high out of his mind,” Rolling Stone reporters say. “Even administration officials and Trump loyalists on Capitol Hill joke about the latest outrages of ‘Prime Minister Musk.’ At every turn in his crusade of destruction, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has dared the courts and a weak Democratic opposition to stop him.”

Several board members from his corporations have told reporters from the The Wall Street Journalthat Musk is a prolific drug user of LSD, cocaine, Ecstasy, and various mushrooms — which he denies — while admitting having a prescription for ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic. Many MAGA supporters at the annual CPAC convention noted Musk appeared to be high. He ran on stage wearing dark sunglasses, black cap and t-shirt and had some difficulty stringing sentences together. And who will forget the dance with the swinging chainsaw and the Hitler salutes? Besides these dramatic and troubling scenes most likely based on alcohol and drugs, he has all of Trump’s characteristics of the jerk, prick, asshole, and the diagnosed problem of malignant narcissism pinned on Trump by 27 psychiatrists and psychologists. He also has wives and family members who don’t trust him, as Trump’s older sister claims she doesn’t trust her brother Donald.

Can we learn about sex from comparing brains and other body parts?

Desmond Watson is a six-foot-six-inch, 464 pound defensive football tackle who was selected in the National Football draft to play for some team that has five-foot-four-inch, 120 pound women on cheerleading teams. This is all about body parts. If we removed the brains and kidneys from Dennis and a cheerleader, placed them on a table, could we tell from whom the parts came? Maybe the male kidneys would be larger, but they might have to be weighed to tell the difference. Could we tell the owner of the brains? It would be difficult. Male brains usually average 10% larger than female, but when it comes to usage and synapse traffic, there is virtually no difference in intelligence and cognitive abilities between the brains. So, it’s extremely difficult to guess whether the brain is from a male or female.

The baby born with a female brain may have male genitalia — or vice versa, because genetic scientists have identified at least 74 different genders belonging to the LBGTQUIA+ community. It’s been going on for 300,000 years. That’s the answer to why a two year old boy wants to wear dresses and play with dolls. What’s between your legs is important for two purposes, but the brain tells those appendages what to do. The Lyin’ King has signed an executive order claiming there are only two genders, male and female. But remember: his brain has been addled by malignant narcissism and his genitalia has likely been worn out by several affairs, wives, convictions of assault and rape and — at minimum — 27 other women accusing and charging him with sexual harassment and rape. Remember: the Manhattan village idiot has beautiful hair but not much underneath.

Does our “heritage” include bloody metal cilices and whips?

When I wrote about the very “conservative” anti-woman Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei years ago I never thought it would last because it was so medieval, so Dark Ages. I didn’t think personal torture and personal whipping would be popular in the 20th century. But just last week The Guardiangot my attention with the headline, “I became like a slave: why 43 women are suing the secretive Opus Dei Catholic group in Argentina.” The article included the fact that the organization was recruiting both males and females in at least 70 countries. Preying on female members of large poor families. Catholic priests convinced young girls to enter a type of monastic life where they would remain celibate, did what they were told and worked hard. This is what happened to one girl in Argentina out of thousands around the world.

When she was 12, Andrea Martinez was given a pink dress. Then she got a schedule of what she would do each day — for nine solid hours. She was then given a cilice — a spiked metal chain that she would wear for two hours while it caused a bloody leg. She was also given a spiked whip with which she would beat herself as she prayed every day. Interested? Read about it.

Then I Googled to see how active Opus Dei was in our capital city today compared to what it was doing when I wrote a column about it at least a decade ago. Lo and behold, Kevin Roberts, the author of the Lyin’ King’s Project 2025 (which he knew “nothing about”), was a prominent member of Opus Dei and was also wearing a bloody cilice and striking himself with a bloody whip while leading the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation and serving in Trump’s “kitchen cabinet.” Here are just a few projects in Project 2025: limiting access to abortions, eliminating LBGTQ+ rights, eliminating Department of Education, ending DEI programs, eliminating contraceptives of all types, encouraging the use of ovulation tracking (often called Vatican Roulette by nervous practitioners), encouraging the close relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the government of the Divided States of America.

More about Roberts of Heritage, Roberts of the Supreme Court and more about Opus Dei and Pope Francis next week…We are going from Dark Ages to Dumbest Age in this evolutionary process.