Did Santa bring you any good books?

Did you get any books for Christmas? I got one--an ESV archeology Bible. My NIV was lost in the move, so rather than fret every day I just asked for a different one. But here's what Bob got. I'm reading the one on the far left, "An inside job" by Daniel Silva (2025). It's not a genre I like, but I'm really enjoying it. He's a good writer.

As I age, I read less and less, although I have plenty of time. I just can't find a comfortable place with good light.

Mamdani tries to make NYC Venezuela

Not my words, but exactly my thoughts from the newsletter of investment advisor Joel Ross:

"Mamdani has only been in office a few days and each day it gets much worse as he announces his appointments. They are all far left radicals who will destroy the city. Their policies are socialist to communist and anti-capitalist and anti- landlord. The result will be a much worse education for poor kids and a far worse rental apartment situation. No developer is going to want to start a new multi project. Dealing with evictions has just become totally impossible. Schools will experience a downgrade in education in the name of diversity. The homeless will begin to reappear in parks and on the streets in spring. Tisch as police commissioner is all that prevents crime from going way up again, and we will see how long she lasts. Now Mamdani has lashed out at Trump for arresting Maduro. That is right out of the Socialist manifesto. He already is virulently anti-Israel. He knows nothing of how to run the city but suddenly he thinks he knows about geopolitics. He is dangerous because now he has a bullhorn and will be read and followed on social media. We can expect much more of that. He abolished the Adams committees and definition of anti-Semitism. His father is a rabid outspoken anti-Semite who actually is a professor at Columbia-where else. This is going to bad or worse than we all expected."

So true about Mamdani's parents. All bad ideas come from academe, and it's probably worse when they are Communists who flee from India via Uganda.

He's appointed a "tenant advocate" who thinks home ownership is "white supremacy." Landlords should be fleeing the city. Zohran Mamdani’s new NYC tenant advocate called to 'seize private property,' blasted homeownership as 'white supremacy'

This corruption didn't begin with the Somalis

Before tracking down "root causes" and supply chain history of the Somali day care fraud, I hope Congress stops and looks at two basics: Head start (turned 60 in 2025 in the failed War on Poverty which we lost ) and the corruption in the nonprofit arena (got really bad during Bush I who wanted to reduce federal employment with "faith-based" solutions).

By any definition and all the studies, Head Start has failed miserably--40 million children, their parents and the tax payers. Not every daycare is a head start model, but it's been ingrained in generations that children will be better off if mom leaves home to work and someone not family takes care of the kids. That's the old south slavery model, isn't it? By 2nd grade all academic gains are lost.

 
The whole nonprofit grants from the federal government model so the money is controlled locally is riddled with corruption, nepotism and graft, The Somali thing is the tip of the iceberg, and it's not just day care. It's good intentions gone bad.

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/fbci/qr3.html?

Some think the Head start failure is a result of this year's fraud investigation (60 years), but it was declared a failure at 50 years and 40 years,  It's never passed the smell test. Head Start is in turmoil - The Hechinger Report

Epiphany, January 4

I remember when I first learned about Marco Polo, the 13th century Venetian diplomat who lived in China as a young man. I was about 10 years old and we were living in Forreston, IL so it was probably 5th grade. I just loved history. And it was about that age and this time of year we were also singing, "We three kings of Orient are," the hymn that tells about the 3 Magi arriving to worship the new born king led there by a star. I learned about 50 years later, there weren't 3 kings, but 3 gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh, so no one knows how many Magi showed up. The 19th c. hymn writer wrote it for a children's play.

 
We celebrate that event on January 4, so I was reading today about an illuminated French manuscript of 1410 of "The Book of the Wonders of the World" by Marco Polo written in 1298. The original no longer exists, but there were hundreds of copies and translations and it was a best seller, some beautifully illustrated. Over the years, many people have doubted certain stories in Polo's travel account.
I was quite surprised to read that while traveling through Persia (Iran) the locals told Polo a "true story" of the 3 Magi and told him to visit a fortress to see their tombs. The 3 bodies were together and still intact with their hair and beards. The story known in that area was "they set out for a distant land in order to adore a prophet who had been born and to offer him 3 gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh. . ."

Of course, even as a teen, Polo knew the Bible story, and perhaps he wanted to enhance it--but still, he thought there were 3 Magi just like the guy in Pennsylvania who wrote the hymn hundreds of years later.

  

Cover, Magnificat, January 2026

Ending the old, beginning the new--while sick

 We had plans to go to a friends' home for dinner last night (prime rib and the trimmings) but Saturday I felt a cold coming on and by Wednesday it was really out of control. So Bob went alone. He also went out for orange juice and kleenex this morning, but I'll be down probably the rest of the week. I've watched some Hallmark movies but am too tired to read. Bob is sleeping through all the football games, so it's not an exciting New Year. Back to bed.

Happy New Year anyway! May 2026 be good to you.

The $9 billion fraud in Minnesota "for the children"

I've heard but not researched that some MSM are complaining that MAGA type citizens are overly concerned about $9 Billion fraud in child learning scandal in Minnesota. But I do know that the investigation began during the Biden administration, that the NYT has had a story about it, that local watchdog groups were investigating and the buck didn't stop at Walz's desk. He says he's been working on it, so why is $9 billion the tip of the iceberg and the learning centers are still open?

Hey, that's Bill Maher

 Bob has taken to watching old reruns of the TV series, "Murder She Wrote," and today I looked up from my blogging and said, "Hey that's Bill Maher, the late night political commentator."  "You mean the one who got fired and then rehired?" "No, but it's Bill Maher with long curly hair,"

So I looked it up and sure enough, it's "Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble" Episode aired Feb 19, 1989.

Is it affordability or the economy?

Steven Moore said on Fox News the U.S. has 4% of the world's population and 1/2 of the wealth. So, I looked that up (separate sites) and it's true. It's called capitalism, ambition, hard work, entrepreneurship, and wealth accumulation through family networks (i.e. marriage). Other sites quibble. I looked back 20 years in my blog (Dec. 2005) and the Democrats were saying the same ugly things about the George W. Bush economy, only then we called it BDS. Democrats prefer Communism so 99% of us can be poor at the same time and they can acclaim a victory for equity and inclusion.

"The United States 2025 population is estimated at 347,275,807 people at mid-year, equivalent to 4.22% of the total world population." Worldometers.info

 
Aljazeera wants to quibble with Moore using a figure of "adults" but I'll take Moore's word for it. His books explore the impact of taxes, energy, and worker freedom on economic outcomes. The U.S. is the land people are dying to flee to for opportunity. Maybe people are sneaking into China or North Korea and the media just don't report it?

Why is there a Bye Week?

I hear a lot about bye/buy/by week in football chatter. So today I asked the coach at our breakfast table. And he explained it, but I wanted to know the origin, not the meaning. I've seen it spelled three ways.

This is what Why Do We Say Teams Get a 'Bye'? | Merriam-Webster site says:
"In sports, bye refers to a team automatically advancing to the next round of tournament play without competing and bye week refers to a scheduled off week for a given team. The term is not related to goodbye but is instead believed to be an alteration of by, as in the team is "standing by" to play later, or "bypassed" while other teams play. One early sport to feature a bye is coursing; the b-y-e spelling is likely influenced by an existing term from cricket in which a wicket-keeper misses a ball."

By vs. Bye: What's the Difference?: Grammarly says:
"The term bye is commonly used in informal conversations as a short way to say goodbye. Additionally, it has a specific application in sports, referring to a situation where a player or team advances to the next round of a competition without having to play."

So "advancing without playing" (which still doesn't make sense to me) seems to be the meaning of "bye" in tournaments, and it's not just football.

Where I live, I hear more sports talk in a week than I used to hear in a year,

Phillip Markwood, architect, 1937-2025

I see that local architect Phil Markwood died December 20. He was well known for his churches in the Columbus area and was a Christian. I seem to remember that he may have been the architect for a past remodeling of UALC. Bob knew him through AIA. I liked this testimony in his obituary,

"During the firm’s 47 years existence, Phil was always designing a faith-related project. He described his passion for church design as follows: “I gravitate towards church work for two reasons. I am a believer, so I get a chance to work for ‘The Big Client’ while working for His servants and I get to create spaces that touch the spirit. We’re all spiritual beings and churches are places that prepare you for your own experience with God.” He said he found that what he was doing was bigger than the project, the people and himself and that the main authority is God. He always felt like he was working for Him.

Those who knew Phil recognized him as a man of humility, patience, kindness, and selflessness. He was a deep thinker, a wise counselor, and a committed man of faith. He connected with people through compassionate listening, always more interested in learning about others than talking about himself. He led a purposeful life evidenced by a deep devotion to wife and family, commitment to his relationship with Jesus and studying His word with close friends for years, and application of his God-given abilities to create enduring spaces to enjoy life and worship. And if he was at a gathering where a prayer was required, he was inevitably asked to speak, as he was also informally known as Pastor Phil to many." 

Phillip Markwood Obituary - Columbus, OH