June’s Gallup Poll finds that Americans have lost confidence in Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, banks and organized religion. Confidence in Congress, however, has grown. Last year that institution inspired confidence in just seven percent of our fellow Americans. This year it inspires warm feelings in eight percent. The poll gives no information on how many people have confidence in the Gallup Report.

Gallup never asked me, but I feel free to announce that John Frary has no confidence at all in the eight percent of the American people who have confidence in Congress. This datum tells us what buoys the hopes of those Nigerian entrepreneurs who are constantly sending e-mails offering immense riches in return for financial assistance to free immense riches trapped in Nigeria. If eight percent among us respect and admire Congress then there must be something like twenty-four million suckers in the United States eager to be sheared, plucked, or bilked. Rich pickings indeed for those diligent African fraudsters!

According to a June 17 press release the stairway in the campus life and wellness center at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, has been divided into walking, running and texting lanes. The university’s creative director explains: “When you have 18-to 24-year-olds walking on campus glued to their smartphones, you’re almost bound to run into someone somewhere.” Also on June 17 the National Safety Council (NSC), issued a release estimating that 11,101 pedestrians glued their cellphones suffered injuries from 2000 to 2011.

I quote from the NSC release: “The rise in cell phone distracted walking injuries parallels the eight-fold increase in cell phone use in the last 15 years. It is just as important to walk cell free as it is to drive cell free. Pedestrians and drivers using cell phones are both impaired and too mentally distracted to fully focus on their surroundings. For pedestrians, this distraction can cause them to trip, cross roads unsafely or walk into motionless objects such as street signs, doors or walls.”

It’s inevitable that some busybodies in the Maine legislature will eventually propose a law to curb “walking while distracted.” The NSC calculation that 52 percent of these accidents happen at home can only inspire them to extravagant ambitions. Taking charge of people in their very homes is like their Holy Grail, the last, crumbling barrier to the extension of government power. How could they resist it?

On June 12 the world learned that Rachel Dolezal is not black. This, in itself, is not very shocking. Many people in the Unites States are not black. Me, just for one example. The problem arises because Rachel was president of the NAACP in Spokane, Washington, chairmammal of the Spokane’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University, former education director of the Human Rights Education Institute, and a licensed diversity trainer and consultant for human rights education and inclusivity in regional schools.

There is no legal prohibition against a white person occupying any of these posts, positions, or slots in the civic landscape. On the other hand (in case you haven’t heard) white folks are not very welcome in any of them. There’s an unspoken undercurrent of sentiment in the black community–“we don’t want no blots in OUR slots.”

As of this writing (June 18) Rachel has vacated all those slots, although she retains her licence to train, consult, and include. No question that the woman knows how to include herself, whether welcome or otherwise.

Speaking of inclusion, on June 15 Donald Trump has included himself in the thickening ranks of GOP presidential nominee aspirants. Certain liberal commentators have enjoyed referring to the Republican presidential nominee crowd as a “clown car” simply because of the large number compressed in a small vehicle. Now they have a real clown to jeer at.

Eric Bolling, on Fox Channel’s “The Five,” insists on taking The Donald seriously because what he says resonates with that odd and fuzzy entity commonly known as “The American People.” His co-host, Dana Perino, violently rejected that argument; going so far as to suggest that Bolling is angling for a spot on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

I don’t know anything about Eric or his motives, but I am siding with him against Dana on the central issue here. Donald Trump is a veritable geyser of Banana Syrup. It does not take much intelligence for the man to adapt his BS-spewing talents to whatever the polls tell him is annoying a large part of “The American People.”

He need only identify what’s bothering them and boast of bold and immediate solutions regardless of constitutional, political, or practical obstacle. Combine that what his scornful derision of “mainstream” candidates and he is assured of broad resonance despite his silly hair.

The fact that the Trump conglomerate went through bankruptcy in 2001, 2004 and 2009 is irrelevant. I don’t know why anyone would even mention those events.

June 15 was also the day that Jeb Bush (a.k.a JEB!) sent me an e-mail announcing his candidacy. It was addressed to “Friend,” which strikes me as rather stiff way to address his eleventh cousin (nearly as I can determine). Why not “Dear Cousin?”

As a public service I append a list of the sixteen Republicans who are suspected of wanting to become president. Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, The Donald.