Most quotes are from memory.  They may not be the exact words.

Regarding the internal workings of a biological cell: Things there are not only stranger than we imaging but stranger than we can  imagine.

– – – Biologist J.B.H. Haldane

An independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor the agencies of observation.

– – – Nels Bohr, Father of Quantum Physics

Past present and future are a stubbornly persistent illusion.

– – – Albert Einstein

The “father of Western philosophy”, René Descartes hypothesized “mind-body dualism”, that mental and physical action carry on in parallel but distinct courses.  Philosopher Gilbert Ryle scoffs at this notion as “the ghost in the machine.”  In The Second Creation  Robert P. Cease and Charles C. Mann  conclude, based on the findings of Quantum Physics, Descartes–as I see Ryles too–does appear mistaken, “not because there is no ghost, because there is no machine.”

Physical constructs are free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.

– – – Albert Einstein

View this fleeting world like this:

Like stars fading and vanishing at dawn,

Like bubbles on a fast moving stream,

Like morning due drops evaporating on blades of grass,

Like a candle flickering in a strong wind,

Echoes, mirages, phantoms, hallucinations, and a dream.

– – – The Buddha

Thoughts to ponder.

Two and a half millennia back, China started building a wall to hold out uncivilized nomads to the north.  Eight centuries later Hadrian’s wall bisected Britannia to protect Roman occupiers from invasion by native Celts.  In 1961 the German Democratic Republic built a wall to corral capitalists in and, more important, keep their people out of West Berlin.  Today, despite repeated insistence Mexico will pay, Donald Trump wants billions of American taxpayers’ dollars to build a wall along our southern border to keep folks he views as brown-skinned riffraff out.

Apart from walls being archaic defenses, Trump’s notion of one between the United States and Mexico is dumb!  At the beginning twenty-fist century, it’s like quarrying stone with hammers and chisels, hauling it on ox carts, and hoisting the blocks by muscle power–Whoa!  Hold on there!  Sweat equity!  Is that it?  Mexico’s share?  Donald, you clever devil!

Between satellites, fixed and rotor wing aircraft, drones, motion detectors, regular and infrared cameras, guard towers, and control rooms like those monitoring electrical grids, gas and oil pipelines, water and sewer systems, and air and railroad traffic worldwide, augmented by boots on the ground, America can guard her southern border with sophistication and efficacy exceeding and probably cheaper than some stupid wall!  Donald!  Get a grip!

The history of border walls testifies to the failure of border walls.  We go around, over, through, and under them.  Border walls are monuments to fear, fear of strangers.  And we’re all strangers.  Quoting the Swamp Sage Pogo Possum–remember?–“We has met the enemy and he is us.”

How many of us possess the wisdom, depth of character, and courage to do what this man did?  And virtually zero publicity.  https://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/12/11/10733/

With 5% of Earth’s population, American civilians own nearly half its guns.  We are 25 times more likely to be killed by a gun in the United States than any other country.  Some say easy access to firearms accounts for the lopsided numbers.  Others argue, “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”  Failing to recognize the implication for America’s values and culture, gun advocates say we commit more murders because we have more mentally ill and murderous people.

The strain and complexity of human life trigger and exacerbate mental illnesses, and mental illness lies at the root of all murder–in war and peace.  Nevertheless and thankfully, worldwide the number  of people who kill others is miniscule.  While America’s efforts to understand and treat mental illness fall shamefully short, the average American is no crazier or homocidal than a neighbor in Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America.

Despite the shocking numbers, we are not more murderous either.  Humans have always slain each other: Cain and able; the Crusades; the Spanish Inquisition; Conquistadors massacred Central and South American natives; Great Britain colonized half the globe by force or arms; Stalin annihilated millions of his own people; Hitler’s “Final Solution”; Hutus wiped out 70% of Tutsis; suicide attacks, and truck bomb rock Europe; ISIS beheads infidels; Mexican drug-cartels murder hundreds; Bashar al-Assad methodically massacres Syrians, adults, children, babies!

Americans murder more because guns are easy to get, simple to use, quick and reliable.  For premeditated killing a gun is quicker and more certain than a knife, baseball bat, or poison.  Far too often, guns trigger a permanent solution to a temporary grievance.  Say, I’m some hot-head or just having a bad day when the neighbor’s dog craps on my lawn.  Not owning a firearm, I charge down the front steps, kick the mutt in the ribs, punch the neighbor in the nose.  With my 44 Mag handy, I just step outside and blow pooch and owner away.  When some jerk cuts me off on Interstate 5, without a gun, I shake a fist flip him off, call him a “stupid son-of-a-bitch!’  “Carrying” the ol’ 38 Special, I roll down a window and waste the dumb bastard.  Gangs who once “duked it out” now shoot it out; today drive-by shootings are common as fender-benders.  When was a six yer old girl accidentally killed by a rock from a drive-by stoning?  At the point of “ending it all” pulling a trigger is quicker and less problematic than hanging from the balcony, leaping from the thirteenth floor, or slitting my wrists.

No NRA!  Get a grip!  Americans do not murder in such alarming numbers because we are crazier or more murderous.  We murder because we have so damn many guns!  More guns than people!  For a single murder or to massacre a kindergarten class, the tool of choice is a gun.