Two speeches, a defining moment in history

Peggy Noonan, whom I gave up on when she went all soft and gooey and swooned over Obama in 2008: 

"It is startling when two speeches within 24 hours, neither much heralded in advance—the second wouldn’t even have been given without the first—leave you knowing you have witnessed a seminal moment in the history of an administration, but it happened this week. The president’s Tuesday speech in Atlanta, on voting rights, was a disaster for him. By the end of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s answering speech on Wednesday you knew some new break point had occurred, that President Biden might have thought he was just crooning to part of his base but the repercussions were greater than that; he was breaking in some new way with others—and didn’t know it. It is poor political practice when you fail to guess the effects of your actions. He meant to mollify an important constituency but instead he filled his opponents with honest indignation and, I suspect, encouraged in that fractured group some new unity.

The speech itself was AGGRESSIVE, INTEMPERATE, not only OFFENSIVE but meant to OFFEND. It seemed prepared by people who think there is only the Democratic Party in America, that’s it, everyone else is an outsider who can be disparaged. It was a mistake on so many levels. Presidents more than others in politics have to maintain an even strain, as astronauts used to say. If a president is rhetorically manipulative and divisive on a voting-rights bill it undercuts what he’s trying to establish the next day on Covid and the economy. The over-the-top language of the speech made him seem more emotional, less competent. The portentousness—“In our lives and . . . the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before them from everything that followed. They stop time”—made him appear incapable of understanding how the majority of Americans understand our own nation’s history and the vast array of its challenges. (Wall Street Journal pay wall, but you get the idea Biden’s Georgia Speech Is a Break Point - WSJ )

In my opinion, I don't think Biden is able to think or comment like this.  His speech writers are all steeped and stewed in Critical Race Theory, which means they know nothing about American history.

The Wedding at Cana, John 2:1-11

 

A happy accident. Sometimes that's an unplanned baby who becomes mom's caregiver in her old age; sometimes it's a splash of color on an almost finished painting that becomes an award winner; and sometimes it's something you read right after you read or saw something related that brings it all together.

Our lesson for Sunday is John 2:1-11, Jesus' first miracle at the wedding at Cana. It can be read literally or as theology or as an allegory or a prophecy, but John says Jesus revealed his glory (see Exodus 19:11). Why Cana? Why is Mary in charge of a wedding? Why 6 jars? What is the significance of the first of seven signs. On and on. There are entire sermons and articles on the details. But here's what happened to me.

I use a little journal (5 x 7) "Magnificat" in my morning devotions, and besides several hymns and Bible selections for morning and evening, and the story of a saint, each issue has two articles on Christian art, the cover art and another one which may be connected to other content. It's like taking an art appreciation class. I wait a bit and savor it after a week or two, so I didn't read the essays for January until today. In all the years I've been using this journal, I may have only recognized a few, probably if they were on the little Sunday School bulletins children in the 40s and 50s received. The cover art for January was a small (about 8 x 6) altar piece painted by Juan de Flandes, the official painter of Queen Isabella who with her husband Ferdinand unified Spain and financed Columbus' voyages to the New World. She had commissioned 47 of these paintings illustrating the life of Christ, but only 25 of them are still extant.

 
So, what is the cover story art? The wedding at Cana, and we see Jesus and Mary and the wedding couple (whose names John didn't include, nor do we know what their relationship was to Jesus). Their image in the painting is the likeness of Ferdinand and Isabella's son Prince John of Aragon and his bride Margaret of Austria, who married in 1497. They were 19 and 17 when they married and deeply in love, but sadly John died only 6 months after the wedding. So, he is also memorialized in a painting that lauds the sacredness of marriage.

"The moral of this small, private devotional painting is clear: at the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Christian spouses are invited by Jesus to fill-to the brim--their life of human love that, through the sacrament of Marriage, the love that unites them may be raised to the level of divine love." (Pierre-Marie Dumont on the cover art)

Hollywood's New Rules, they are so woke

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/hollywoods-new-rules?

"Hollywood had always pushed boundaries—from the 1947 “Gentleman’s Agreement,” which confronted antisemitism, to “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), which tackled interracial marriage, to “All in the Family” (1971-1979), which grappled with race and women’s liberation. The original run of “Will and Grace” (1998-2006), did more to advance the cause of gay marriage than anything else pre-Obergefell.

And then there were the villains: The vast majority—from the Terminator to Hannibal Lecter to Gordon Gekko—were uber-white: an Austrian (robot), a Lithuanian, a WASPy, pinstriped capitalist. (For the insider’s list, see this from The Hollywood Reporter.) . . .

Then came George Floyd, and, in the summer of 2020, everything that had been happening in slow motion started to happen much faster."

The new rules (no white men allowed as actors, directors, screen writers--their agents are dropping them) definitely are being applied to TV advertising.

James Comey and media scandal

 

James Comey and Our Poisoned Politics

Five years ago, the FBI boss was busy selling the bogus Steele dossier.

This week marks the fifth anniversary of perhaps the greatest media scandal of our age. Outlets like CNN and BuzzFeed flogged a bogus dossier of salacious claims funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, even while admitting they didn’t know whether the dossier’s allegations against Donald Trump were true or false. It wasn’t necessarily that reporters had mistaken fake news for the real stuff—they simply didn’t care or acknowledge that they had an obligation to vet anti-Trump claims before disseminating them. The pathetic media excuse for running with the story was that important people in the government were talking about it. And no one wanted to talk about it more than the FBI’s then-director, James Comey. He kept talking about it even after his department had failed to corroborate it, and even though the CIA viewed it as mere “Internet rumor.” On this day five years ago, Mr. Comey emailed Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. As the dossier story was raging in the press, Mr. Comey mounted an unsuccessful effort to stop Mr. Clapper from publicly acknowledging that U.S. intelligence agencies had not deemed the dossier reliable and were not relying upon its claims, which had been compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. According to the Obama-appointed Justice Department inspector general who reported on the government abuses in this case in 2019, Mr. Comey’s Jan. 11, 2017 email to Mr. Clapper included the following: I just had a chance to review the proposed talking points on this for today. Perhaps it is a nit, but I worry that it may not be best to say “The IC has not made any judgment that the information in the document is reliable.” I say that because we HAVE concluded that the source [Steele] is reliable and has a track record with us of reporting reliable information; we have some visibility into his source network, some of which we have determined to be sub-sources in a position to report on such things; and much of what he reports in the current document is consistent with and corroborative of other reporting... In the long history of Beltway bureaucratic maneuvering, has a government memo ever included so much inaccuracy in so few words? Mr. Steele had already been fired by the FBI as a confidential source, and his story was falling apart. The day after the Comey email, the FBI received a U.S. intelligence report warning of a particular inaccuracy in the dossier and assessing that the material was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.” Read the article (paywall) https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-comey-and-our-poisoned-politics-11641944998?

Mike Gallagher's experience with tests for Covid

Mike Gallagher keeps the test kits on hand. Sends them to friends and family who can't get them. He and a friend from out of town had planned a night out--dinner in a restaurant and then the theater, and he asked the friend to first take a Covid test. Both he and the friend were vaxxed and boosted, and both had had Covid after their vaccinations. The friend agreed and the test came up positive. He couldn't believe it, so Mike gave him another one. Positive again. So, they cancelled their plans. 01-12-22 The Mike Gallagher Show Hour #1 | Salem Podcast Network Listen at minute 19.

Lockdown side effects

I wonder if anyone has investigated how the lockdowns have warped our perception of our own importance.

Yesterday I ironed queen size sheets and felt like I'd won the bull riding event in a rodeo.

Today I rearranged a closet to accommodate the Christmas decorations boxes and patted myself on the back for helping with the moon launch.

Comments on masks and Covid

 From an e-mail, name withheld.

"A little more on the masks. When you look at the size of the virus and the size of mask holes and what they filter, it behaves like mosquitos flying through a mesh wire fence at the baseball diamond (this analogy came from a friend that until recently was in charge of Covid at Walter Reed and assistant Medical Director). You might catch larger droplets. Only the medical grade masks like FPP2 and FPP2 and N95 mask offer some protection because the fibers are charged to attract the virus. I was riding the German bullet train last week and the public bus and they demand that you wear these medical grade masks because it does not seem to be a big secret anymore that all other masks are not very effective if effective at all. 

On my flight over to Germany, I sat next to an interesting Belgian logistics guy who heads up the now Belgian owned for eBay Logistics Unit.

He shared with me that he was the black sheep in the family because everyone else in the family were high powered doctors, like neurosurgeons etc.

So, I asked him about their take on the masks and the vaccines. His responses were rather interesting.

He asked me, if I ever heard of COVID spreading in an airplane and infecting the passengers. He said it is the perfect environment for tracking every person, where they sit, where they are from etc. And by the way, you constantly take your mask of for every drink, meal, cookie etc. I could not recall ever hearing about such a case and neither could he. The point here, which my German doctor friends also stated, is that only people with a large viral load infect other people through the air. And with all the testing and screening for the flights, it is not likely to happen, plus the high rate of air exchange on planes seems to prevent transmission. 

The second interesting comment was on the vaccine. None of his family members would voluntarily take any of the RNA messenger vaccines only the J+J vector vaccine or one of the traditional vaccines – I believe the so nick named ‘Texas’ vaccine is a traditional vaccine, but the US government rejected it because it was too cheap at $1.50 per dose and easy to transport – likely did not allow the bureaucrats to build empires. 

Peter

Memorializing January 6 is a big fail

As Democrats memorialize January 6 with false claims that Democracy was threatened, we remember

• An invasion at the southern border
• Inflation at a 40-year high and rising
• A COVID response that’s both ineffective and arguably unconstitutional
• An unparalleled supply-chain crisis
• A disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that left hundreds of Americans behind, 13 U.S. service members dead,
• U.S. drone strike that killed 10 civilians, including seven children
• The loss of trust from our allies
• The loss of fear from our adversaries

(List by Dorstewitz at Newsmax but you can probably think of more)

The peculiar stupidity of modern progressives

"Trump had one of the most successful first terms of a president in the postwar period––a judgement the validity of which it took “Joe Biden,” the simulacrum of a president, less than a year of failures and disasters to confirm. Inflation, supply-chain bottle-necks, unfilled jobs, hysterical covid protocols, drunken-sailor spending, exploding violent crime, a dishonorable abandonment of Afghanistan, geopolitical adventurism by our rivals and enemies, loss of our energy independence, runaway gasoline prices, and schools blatantly indoctrinating students with transgender and literally racist propaganda––all are the wages of the Trumpophobia epidemic."

How progressives are ruining our country. Critical Race Theory. Climate Change.  Experts. The Year of Living Stupidly | Frontpagemag

No supply chain problems for fentanyl

 Biden has no problem with supply chain for fentanyl.  In fact, his open border policy encourages it.

"The emergence of fentanyl began nearly a decade ago. U.S. Customs and Border Protection , the federal agency responsible for safeguarding the country’s borders, initially reported seizing fentanyl in 2013, when just 2 pounds were found. In that time, suppliers have surged enormous amounts into the country. While federal agencies are making record-high seizures, exorbitant amounts are making it past them, as evidenced by the rise in fentanyl-caused overdose deaths.

The 11,200 pounds of fentanyl seized by CBP at international mail inspection facilities, sea, land, and air ports of entry, and by smugglers trying to sneak it across between the ports of entry was double last year's fentanyl seizures. That same year, 5,400 pounds of heroin were seized, according to CBP data for fiscal year 2021, which ran from Oct. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30."

From 2 pounds in 2013 to 11,200 in 2021.  Eight years. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that 2 milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose in most people. That works out to 227,000 deaths per pound of fentanyl. Or over a billion people.

How Much Does Fentanyl Cost On The Street? - Addiction Resource

FACT CHECK: ‘Just 118 Pounds Of Fentanyl Could Kill More Than 26 Million People’ | Check Your Fact

Two interviews on therapeutics and the Omicron variant

Dr. Peter McCullough is an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist, a full professor of medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine in Dallas, USA. He also has a master's degree in public health and is known for being one of the top five most-published medical researchers in the United States and is the editor of two medical journals. Based on his credentials and published articles, I'd call him much better than Tony Fauci for advice.   He has been deplatformed and silenced on the internet by Big Tech for "misinformation."  Reuters Thompson, one of the fact checkers for Facebook, has financial ties with Pfizer, but I don't know about others. When one of my posts gets censored, I sometimes look at their alternate article and it's an opinion piece, just like mine, but I doubt the fact checker was a medical librarian.

PART 1: Dr. Peter McCullough—The Inexplicable Suppression of Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and Other COVID-19 Treatments (theepochtimes.com)

PART 2: Dr. Peter McCullough on Omicron Realities and VAERS Reports on Vaccine Injuries and Deaths (theepochtimes.com)

This all makes sense to me and I didn't find it difficult to understand, however, I didn't know that Operation Warp Speed was on three levels, but only the vaccine component got the "juice." The therapeutic trials seemed to wither on the vine due to lack of the right controls in the trials. That's disappointing because therapeutics could have saved thousands of lives and relieved the hospitals of all the overcrowding. He also mentions simple nose rinses like Povidone-Iodine that can stop the virus in the nose before it gets to the lungs.  This is used in Bangladesh, and they've had better outcomes than we have.

Youngkin to challenge Biden's mandates

Virginia's Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares today [January 7] announced their intent to challenge the unconstitutional vaccine mandate imposed by President Biden’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused heartbreaking health, societal, and economic loss and suffering throughout the Commonwealth and the United States. Our children have experienced severe learning loss and developmental challenges that will last decades, strained and stressed hospital systems are suffering from an historic staffing crisis, and a crippled supply chain has driven up Virginians’ cost of living.

“Instead of supporting state and local governments’ efforts to protect the lives and livelihoods of their citizens, the Biden administration has resorted to unlawful vaccine mandates that force hardworking Virginians to walk away from their paychecks. President Biden's CMS mandate ignores the hospital systems' long-established policies designed to keep staff and patients safe and threatens the tenure of essential medical personnel at a time when staffing shortages threaten the health and safety of Virginians. 

“While we believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19, we strongly believe that the Federal government cannot impose its will and restrict the freedoms of Americans and that Virginia is at its best when her people are allowed to make the best decisions for their families or businesses.

“After the January 15th inauguration, the Commonwealth of Virginia will quickly move to protect Virginians’ freedoms and challenge President Biden’s unlawful CMS, OSHA, and Head Start vaccine mandates. Removing some of the staffing barriers to our hospitals, will provide much needed relief for our overworked medical professionals."

Biden's Build Back Broke Bill

Here's what's in the bill. Rep. Jim Banks (R-SC), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), detailed many of the most radical aspects of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill. 

1. Perpetuates labor shortage: Continues welfare benefits without work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents at a time where there are 10.1 million job openings—more openings than there are people looking for work.
2. Commissions a climate police: Democrats stuffed $8 billion into the bill to commission a cabal of federally funded climate police called the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime (pages 8, 21, and 926).
3. Pushes Green New Deal in our public schools: Requires funding for school construction be used largely on enrollment diversity and Green New Deal agenda items (page 55).
4. Pushes Green New Deal in our universities: Democrats include a $10 billion “environmental justice” higher education slush fund to indoctrinate college students and advance Green New Deal policies (page 1,935).
5. Forces faith-based child care providers out: The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures (page 280).
6. Hurts small and in-home daycares: Requires pre-K staff to have a college degree. (page 303)
7. Includes new incentives for illegal immigration: Illegal immigrants will be eligible to take advantage of Democrats’ new ‘free’ college entitlement (page 92) as well be eligible for additional student aid (page 147) and the enhanced child tax credit (page 1,946).
8. Includes legislative hull for Biden’s vaccine mandate: Increases OSHA penalties on businesses that fail to implement the mandate up to $700,000 per violation and includes $2.6 billion in funding for the Department of Labor to increase enforcement of these penalties (page 168).
9. Gives unions near-total control: The bill includes insane prohibitions that would bind employers’ hands in union disputes and dangerously tilt the balance of power, subjecting employers to penalties that exempt union bosses and officials… among other things this bill would prevent employers from permanently replacing striking workers (page 175). It coerces businesses to meet union boss demands by increasing Fair Labor Standards Act penalties by an astronomical 900% (page 168).
10. Makes unions bigger and more powerful: The bill would subsidize union dues that would only serve to strengthen the influence of union bosses and not American workers (page 2323).
11. Pushes Democrats’ wasteful and confusing school lunch agenda: $643 million for, among other things, “procuring…culturally appropriate foods” (page 333).
12. Furthers radical abortion agenda: Does not include the Hyde amendment and would mandate taxpayers pay for abortions (page 198) & (page 336).
13. Drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills: Issues a punitive methane tax (page 367) and includes a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs (page 368).
14. Includes dangerous & deadly green energy mandate: Effectively forces Americans to get 40% of their energy from wind, solar and other unreliable forms of energy within 8 years (page 392). Reliance on these energy sources has proven deadly.
15. Includes kickbacks for the Left’s green energy special interest network: $5 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” (page 377) and another $100 billion in green energy special interest subsidies, loans and other carve outs.
16. Gives wealthy Americans tax credits: $222 billion in “green energy” tax credits will be given to those who can afford expensive electric vehicles and other “green” innovative products (page 1832).
17. Furthers Democrats’ social justice agenda: Includes “equity” initiatives throughout the bill and, in one instance, Democrats inserted “equity” language into a title which should have been focusing on the maintenance of the United States’ cyber security efforts (page 897).
18. Grants amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants: House Democrats have included in their reconciliation bill a plan to grant amnesty to around 8 million illegal immigrants at a cost of around $100 billion over ten years that would largely be spent on welfare and other entitlements (page 901). Trillions more would be spent long term on their Social Security and Medicare.
19. Opens border even wider: The bill would waive many grounds for immigration inadmissibility, including infection or lack of vaccination status during a Pandemic, failure to attend removal proceedings in previous immigration cases, and the previous renouncement of American citizenship. DHS may also waive previous convictions for human trafficking, narcotics violations, and illegal voting (page 903).
20. Increases visa limit: At least 226,000 family-preference visas would be administered each year (page 905).
21. Grants fast-tracked green cards for those seeking middle-class careers in America: Language included in the bill exempts certain aliens from the annual green card statutory limits and has been described as a “hidden pipeline for U.S. employers to flood more cheap foreign graduates into millions of middle-class careers needed by American graduates” (page 910).
22. Includes pork for Nancy Pelosi: $200 million is earmarked for the Presidio Trust in Speaker Pelosi’s congressional district (page 933).
23. Increases energy dependence on OPEC, Russia and China: The bill prohibits several mineral and energy withdrawals (page 979). It overturns provisions included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that authorized energy production in the Arctic that will result in 130,000 Americans losing their jobs and $440 billion in lost federal revenue (page 983) and the mineral withdrawals it prohibits would, ironically, include minerals necessary for renewable energy sources (pages 934, 940, 943).
24. Exacerbates the chip shortage: The bill would mandate the conversion of the entire federal vehicle fleet from internal combustion engines to electric engines at a time when there is a global microchip shortage and crippled supply chains (page 1,043).
25. Democrats’ feckless China bill is included: Concepts from the insanely weak Endless Frontier Act included, including $11 billion in research funding that will likely result in American intellectual property going to China (page 1079 – 1081).
26. Chases green energy pipe dreams: $264 million to the EPA to conduct research with left-wing environmental justice groups on how to transition away from fossil fuels (page 1063).
27. Fixes “racist” roads and bridges: Adds a nearly $4 billion slush fund that would help left-wing grassroots organizations that, among other things, want to tear down and rebuild or otherwise alter infrastructure deemed “racist” (page 1183).
28. Punishes red states for failing to adopt Green New Deal provisions: Mandates “consequences” for conservative states that don’t meet the radical Left’s “green” climate standards while at the same time adding nearly $4 billion for “Community Climate Incentive Grants” for cooperating states (page 1179).
29. Includes new massive, bankrupting entitlement: The new paid leave entitlement would mandate workers get 12 weeks of paid leave and would cost $500 billion over ten years according to the CBO (page 1245). It would apply to those making up to half a million dollars a year (page 1254).
30. Advances a totalitarian and paternalistic view of the federal government: Includes grants for organizations to treat individuals suffering from “loneliness” and “social isolation.”
31. Further detaches individuals from employment and more reliant on government handouts: The bill spends $835 billion on welfare through manipulating the tax code [not including the expansions of Obamacare subsidies] (page 1943).
32. Tax benefits for the top 1%: The bill will possibly lift the SALT deduction cap meaning many of the top 1% wealthiest Americans would pay less in taxes.
33. Tax credit for wealthy donors who give to woke universities: The bill creates a new tax credit program that gives tax credits worth 40% of cash contribution that are made to university research programs (page 2094).
34. Expands worst parts of Obamacare: Obamacare’s job-killing employer mandate will become more severe by adjusting the definition of “affordable coverage” to mean coverage that costs no more than 8.5 percent of income rather than current law’s 9.5 percent of income (page 2041).
35. Increases taxes on Americans at every income level: $2 trillion in tax hikes will fall on those making under $400,000 per year, contrary to what the White House says. Individuals at all income levels will be affected (Ways and Means GOP).
36. Lowers wages for working families: The corporate tax rate will increase by 5.5%, meaning American companies will face one of the highest tax burdens in the world. According to analysis, two-thirds of this tax hike will fall on lower- and middle-income taxpayers (page 2110).
37. Penalizes marriage: The bill would permanently double the EITC’s marriage penalty on childless worker benefits (page 2036).
38. Imposes crushing taxes on small business: Guts the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act small business deductions that reduced pass-through entity taxes to keep them comparable to taxes imposed on corporations (page 2235) as well as hammer small businesses that file as individual tax earners with the 39.6% rate (page 2221) and Obamacare’s 3.8% tax on net investment income.
39. Crushes family businesses and farms: The bill would impose a 25% capital gains rate (page 2226) and makes alterations to the Death Tax including cutting the Death Tax exemption in half (page 2240).
40. Violates Americans’ financial privacy: $80 billion slush fund to hire an 87,000-IRS-agent army to carry out the Biden administration’s plan to review every account above a $600 balance or with more than $600 of transactions in a year. (page 2283).
41. Increases out of pocket costs for those who rely on prescription drugs: The bill repeals the Trump-era Rebate Rule which passes through rebates directly to consumers at the point of sale (page 2465).
42. Imports policies from countries with socialized medicine: The bill includes healthcare policies imported from systems in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom—all countries that have government-run healthcare systems (page 2349).

From Breitbart article, Oct. 13, 2021

Balance by Carol Svec

I recently "graduated" from my balance physical therapy, and then saw this book, so I've put it on hold from the library.

"Balance: A Dizzying Journey Through the Science of Our Most Delicate Sense."
by Carol Svec

Some low-frequency sounds—such as noise from storms or truck engines—can make you feel dizzy and nauseated. An index finger’s light touch can stop people from losing balance. You are more prone to trip when you think someone is watching you. A breakthrough in improving balance as we age might just come through the study of the Achilles tendon. A person gets “falling down drunk” due to a tiny structure in the inner ear that floats when it becomes soaked in alcohol. These and other surprising and useful nuggets of information can be found in this lively, 360-degree exploration of our body’s most intricate, overlooked sense—balance. Readers follow award-winning science and health writer Carol Svec through various facilities as she talks with leading scientists doing state-of-the-art balance research. Svec translates their most fascinating findings for the layperson in a way that is highly entertaining and broadly accessible. She showcases the coolest gadgets used by researchers as she grills an egg in a virtual kitchen, has her senses fooled by a mannequin named Hans in a Tumbling Room, survives “the Vominator” without losing her lunch, and experiences drunken dizziness inside a police muster room. Along the way she cites case studies of people whose lives are affected by balance dysfunction; explains how balance research is being applied today to help those who are ill, elderly, disabled, or simply prone to motion sickness; and provides a glimpse at what ingenious, potentially life-changing advances may be coming down the road.

Whether you have a balance disorder or care about someone who does, are an athlete or performer whose livelihood depends on balance, or just love accessible, page-turning popular science, you’ll be enlightened and entertained by this appreciation of our complex super-sense.

Insurrection Day

Democrats in full hysteria gear

 

Not an insurrection, but a distraction

Not an insurrection. Hardly even a riot by 2020 Antifa standards. But a January Distraction. That's a good term. But the media are desperate to get back the high ratings from pounding on Trump, so I hope no one is watching or listening to the news today. They are making this all about Trump, even with all the government spies embedded with the J6 folks storming the capitol. One guy, Ray Epps has just disappeared but is walking/riding around in Arizona, not arrested. Except maybe for last night's Tucker monologue. Do watch that. He ridiculed the left for comparing that dust up with WWII's Pearl Harbor or the Civil War battles. What a bunch of wimps. Even Ted Cruz--a terrible disappointment. The most articulate Republican we have and he goes all horrified and terrified. https://youtu.be/KT5HsnOBGKE Congress has PTSD and hurt feelings, but they're strong enough to try to use this to win in 2022.

"The investigative reporting team at Revolver revealed in an Oct. 25 report that Epps appears to have “led the ‘breach team’ that committed the very first illegal acts” on Jan. 6. “What’s more, Epps and his ‘breach team’ did all their dirty work with 10 minutes still remaining in President Trump’s National Mall speech, and with the vast majority of Trump supporters still 30 minutes away from the Capitol.”

Revolver also discovered that the FBI had “stealthily removed” Epps from its Capitol Violence Most Wanted List on July 1." Who is Ray Epps, Part II: Citizens who confronted alleged informant get FBI visits

Dr. Marty Makary on failed universities' Covid policies

"Universities are supposed to be bastions of critical thinking, reason and logic. But the Covid policies they have adopted—policies that have derailed two years of students’ education and threaten to upend the upcoming spring semester—have exposed them as nonsensical, anti-scientific and often downright cruel.

 
Some of America’s most prestigious universities are leading the charge."

Including but limited to Georgetown, Princeton, Cornell, Amherst, Brown, Emory, Tulane, Wake Forest, Johns Hopkins. . .

"According to the CDC, the risk of a fully vaccinated adult ending up in the hospital for Covid was 1 in 26,000 for the week ending in November 27. Who was that one person? Not a college student. One analysis of breakthrough infections by age found that the average age of a vaccinated person being hospitalized is 72 years, and the average age of a vaccinated person dying of Covid is 80."

Common Sense with Bari Weiss, Jan. 4, 2022 Dr. Marty Makary, Johns Hopkins, writes for WSJ, WaPo

Johns Hopkins professor SLAMS Ivy League universities for 'anti-scientific and cruel' COVID policies | Daily Mail Online

Joe Rogan interviews Robert Malone--a must read

 Dr. Robert Malone on Joe Rogan's Podcast (rumble.com)

Ready for some heavy-duty listening from a virologist with nearly 100 peer-reviewed articles which have been cited thousands of times?  Twitter has blocked him--always a good sign something must be right in what he is saying.  Big Tech seems allergic to the truth, or even a hint of truth.

COVID-19: Famotidine, Histamine, Mast Cells, and Mechanisms - PubMed (nih.gov)

Cationic liposome-mediated RNA transfection - PubMed (nih.gov)

More Than Just Heartburn: Does Famotidine Effectively Treat Patients with COVID-19? - PubMed (nih.gov)

Zika Fetal Neuropathogenesis: Etiology of a Viral Syndrome - PubMed (nih.gov)

General 2 — Robert W Malone MD (rwmalonemd.com)

WHAT DO COVID, HIV AND MANY COMMON COLDS HAVE IN COMMON? — Robert W Malone MD (rwmalonemd.com)

Bioethics of Experimental COVID Vaccine Deployment under EUA: It’s time we stop and look at what’s going down. (trialsitenews.com)

The Unity Project (unityprojectonline.com)

Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial | The BMJ

January 6, 2021 compared to May 31, 2020

It's interesting to read the MSM accounts of Trump going to a protected area during the first outbreaks of riots after George Floyd's death in May 2020. They said he "fled," or "went into hiding." They mocked him. That's not how they treat January 6 and the hysteria of the Pelosi gang calling the rioters insurrectionists when the capitol guards actually let them in. After Floyd's death, rioters in many Democrat-controlled cities were breaking into federal buildings, burning down businesses, and the mayors were helping them. Yet we're supposed to believe the J6 crowd, which hasn't been charged after a year, only held in terrible conditions, were more dangerous to our government and democracy than thousands of rioters all over the nation? 

Munching on crunchy carrots

I have a mouth full of fillings (I have all my permanent teeth). Many of them older than my dentist. But I love to munch on raw carrots. I don't want one of those "crunch" sounds to be a broken filling. So today I tried microwaving some carrot sticks about 10 seconds. Softens a little but leaves the crispness I like. Also, carrots are a nutritional powerhouse, and some studies show those properties are more available if cooked. Not sure 10 seconds is "cooking" but can't hurt. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf072304b?

I don't like the flavor or texture of "baby carrots" which are really just old tough carrots chopped and reshaped. I clean and slice the fullsize carrot. Much better flavor. I think the slimy fluid on them changes the flavor.

The Truth About Baby Carrots | Food Network Healthy Eats: Recipes, Ideas, and Food News | Food Network

J.D. Vance and Donald Trump

Because J.D. Vance didn't support Donald Trump in 2016 (neither did I, Glenn Beck and Donald Prager) his opponents are using old comments to hurt him in his run for Senate in 2022. This recent ad for his candidacy answers that.

"J.D. Vance: “I ultimately pulled the trigger and encouraged a lot of my friends to pull the lever for Donald Trump in 2020…I was really happy with the policy and so, that’s what caused me to become a Trump supporter” (Sebastian Gorka, “Reinvigorating America’s Heartland: J.D. Vance Talks With Sebastian Gorka,” American Greatness, 3/10/21)

J.D. Vance is a bona fide conservative-populist fighter, and like President Trump, is willing to take on Big Tech, woke corporations, the open borders lobby, Communist China, and the rest of the radical left-wingers trying to undermine our American families, destroy small businesses, erase our history, and transform our country for the worse.

As a boy, J.D. experienced many of the hardships that are all too common in our rural communities - he will always be a voice for the people overlooked or looked down upon by the corrupt political elites in Columbus and Washington.

As a Marine and Iraq veteran, J.D. has served our country on the front lines, and as an entrepreneur he’s building businesses and bringing jobs back to our region.

J.D. cares passionately about securing the American Dream, our religious liberty, our constitutional rights, and our way of life for future generations."

Why have we turned over our first amendment rights to Big Tech?

"Dr. Robert Malone, a key contributor to mRNA vaccine technology and an outspoken critic of COVID-19 mandates and rules, was suspended by Twitter. Writing on his Substack page, Malone, who had massed more than 500,000 followers, confirmed that his account was "permanently suspended from Twitter" and said, "We all knew it would happen eventually." "Over a half million followers gone in a blink of an eye. That means I must have been on the mark, so to speak," he wrote on Dec. 29. "Over the target. It also means we lost a critical component in our fight to stop these vaccines being mandated for children and to stop the corruption in our governments, as well as the medical-industrial complex and pharmaceutical industries.” (Epoch Times)

"Twitter has permanently suspended Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account for repeatedly violating the platform’s rules on COVID-19 misinformation, as noted in a report by CNN. Since the ban only affects Greene’s personal Twitter account, @mtgreenee, she can still access and tweet from her governmental account, @RepMTG." (The Verge)

Marjorie Taylor Greene permanently suspended from Twitter after fifth strike | Washington Examiner

"Last week [July 2020], opinion editor Bari Weiss resigned from The New York Times, alleging that the newspaper has fostered a culture in which anyone who so much as tolerates dissenting viewpoints is subjected to professional and social ostracization.

“Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor,” wrote Weiss in her scathing resignation letter. “As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions." (Daily Wire)

"On Sunday, Twitter took down the tweet in which [Scott] Atlas said: “Masks work? NO.” The company said the post violated its policy on Covid-19 misinformation that prohibits “sharing false or misleading content which could lead to harm”.

In a stream of posts, Atlas falsely claimed that several US states and other countries had taken up widespread use of masks without evidence of any positive effect. He also incorrectly said that there were “many harms” to the practice.

Twitter’s move to block Atlas’s public comments is the latest controversy to hit since he joined the White House as a pandemic adviser in August [2020]." (The Guardian)

NEW: Joe Rogan Joins GETTR | Newsbusters

GETTR - The Marketplace of Ideas

 

Who has given us more misinformation than Dr. Fauci?

New findings about bureaucracy

Exciting new findings are shedding a light on the nature and structure of bureaucracy:

Dead Horse Theory

Dakota Native American tribal wisdom, passed on from generation to generation, says: “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and get a different horse.”
However, in educative, corporate and governmental projects more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that the dead horse can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as “living impaired”.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding, and /or training to increase the dead horses’ performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads and therefore, contributed substantially more to the bottomline of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
AND of COURSE….
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position!

Happy New Year, why is the ceiling leaking?

 Finding a leak on New Year's Day is never good.  Finding any repairman 30 years ago was expensive on a holiday, and today in 2022, it's probably impossible to get anyone but an answering service. So, when my husband called up from his man cave and said the bathroom ceiling had a leak, I thought I knew the source.  The kitchen sink has a spray alternate inside the faucet.  I suspect that's not a good design.  Lately I'd noticed that the pull-out spray feature had a funny leak--it was spraying where it shouldn't.  And I'd notice some water gathering about the base of the faucet that shouldn't be there.  So, we began dragging everything out from under the sink. I began loading a bag with bottles of useless stuff or things damaged by water.   We found standing water.  "Quick.  Get me some old towels.  They are in the thingy next to the washer." I barked.   He rushed downstairs but didn't return.  When I went to investigate, he was in the bathroom with a towel and bucket.  My bad.  He didn't know what a thingy was.  So, I grabbed about four old towels and went back to the kitchen to mop up the water. I showed him my leaky spray and told him I was going to call Rod's Pretty Good Handyman service tomorrow.  Meanwhile, he figured out if we placed the pull-out feature in the sink and left it there, the water wouldn't run down the fixture into the cabinet.  Meanwhile, he got ahold of Rod, and he's coming tomorrow afternoon.

Is Fauci really Dr. Evil?

I believe Fauci has led two presidents into great error, particularly Biden, but when the Wuhan virus was fresh in January 2020, he also misled Trump who was really naïve about the depth of the swamp. Fauci had retained his position after his awful record for HIV, so was really swampy. Fauci has so much power now, historians assuming the USA survives, will marvel that this Rasputin was able to lead so many to their deaths with just a fragile mask mandate and never ending flip flopping. Although Biden and many governors (even Ohio’s) call for mandates which have ruined the economy and caused many deaths, in this Covid thing he’s really the puppet of Fauci. Saying he had a solution as a candidate was probably just the usual Democrat Biden lying—he’d done it all his career so it’s not just senility like some believe.

I was researching masks as soon as they were recommended/demanded and causing fights in retail stores and airplanes, and I know there was no peer-reviewed research on this--no masks, cloth, bandana, N95 or those pink, blue, or black things spun from polystyrene, polycarbonate, polyethylene, or polyester can protect from SARS-2 and they only filter dust and large particles. 90-100 million a month are produced—mainly in China (big surprise?) Masks were originally intended to protect the health care workers, and I suspect that hasn’t changed—that’s why I wear them in crowds—to protect me. Plus, I suspect we’re breathing in particles from masks made of fossil fuel products and our lungs won’t be happy later on (the classes of the 1950s won’t live to see it).

“It is difficult to keep up with the ever-mutating scientific consensus on masks. In the early days of the pandemic, White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci told the public not to bother with them before abruptly adopting a wear-a-mask-any-mask stance. After vaccines became widely available last winter and spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the vaccinated no longer needed to wear them, and then reversed course after determining that the delta variant was much more contagious than the original strain. And the CDC's support for mask mandates in schools rests upon a study that has now been substantially debunked.

Enter Leana Wen, a medical analyst for CNN and former president of Planned Parenthood. Wen is one of cable news' most vigorous supporters of coercive COVID-19 measures: She previously suggested that the government should prohibit unvaccinated people from traveling (and, perhaps, from leaving their homes at all). During a CNN appearance on Monday, Wen made the provocative statement that the commonly used cloth masks are essentially useless at preventing the spread of the omicron variant.

"Don't wear a cloth mask," she said. "Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There's no place for them in light of omicron."

Huh? As Townhall's Spencer Brown points out, Wen's view of the science contradicts the guidance from the White House and the CDC, which holds that cloth masks are good enough. In fact, the CDC has specifically instructed people not to wear N95 masks.

Wen is a supporter of mandates, so perhaps she thinks the higher quality masks should be required in some settings. Yet if she's right, it means the masks that the overwhelming majority of people are wearing in order to comply with mandates—in public schools, on public transportation, in many workplaces, gyms, and even social settings—aren't doing any good. They represent another element of pandemic hygiene theater: a public health requirement that makes people feel safer without offering them much actual protection.”

CNN's Leana Wen: 'Cloth Masks Are Little More Than Facial Decorations' (reason.com)

Yes, it’s all about feeling safe. It’s the Democrat party go to—feelings instead of facts. That’s why on the news in 2020 we heard about deaths instead of cases and now we’re hearing only cases and not deaths. They are afraid someone knows math and might figure infection rate.

Covid--Omicron and some sanity

Nellie Bowles at Common Sense by Bari Weiss (the reporter who very publicly resigned from NY Times because Twitter had become the editor and started her own on-line column so she could tell the truth) writes on December 31, 2021:

"Hello and a very happy New Year! Here in California it’s been pouring rain for more than a week, which undermines all of my justifications for the taxes. It is the slow week between Christmas and New Years, but Omicron has meant a good bit of news.

→ Omicron shuts down the world: Almost everyone I know either has Omicron—or else they are stuck somewhere random because everyone else has Omicron. The numbers bear that out: On Wednesday, according to the CDC, 486,428 positive Covid cases were reported. It’s the highest number of reported cases in the U.S. at any point in this pandemic.

People are waiting in lines for many, many hours for Covid tests. Thousands of flights were cancelled. (Some of the passengers who did make it onto planes didn’t exactly seem grateful for the privilege.)

But amidst all the chaos, a bit of sanity, strangely, is prevailing. The CDC cut the quarantine time in half, from ten days to five, so society can keep functioning.

And mainstream liberal commenters are coming around to a new conclusion: “As we recognize that COVID-19 is not a deadly or even severe disease for the vast majority of responsible Americans, we can stop agonizing over ‘cases’ and focus on those who are hospitalized or at risk of dying,” writes the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin. We’re even getting Good News reports from Twitter-popular doctors. Are they a year late to these realizations? Yes. Do they deserve to be mocked for the delay? Probably. Will I celebrate their seeing the light anyway? Absolutely.

The White House is also pivoting hard on its messaging. “There is no federal solution. This gets solved at a state level,” President Biden said on Monday, prior to a gathering of governors. Just a little over a year ago, Biden was telling Trump that the death toll was somehow his fault or related to his coarse rhetoric: “It is what it is because you are who you are,” Biden had said.

→ Great news they won’t tell you on cable: The number of Covid deaths each week is dropping. A lot. On Wednesday, there were some 2,100 deaths reported. Compare that to more than 3,600 on this day in 2020. The point is: everyone is getting Covid, but thanks to the vax it seems markedly less dangerous. Which is perhaps why…

→ Even Covid religious totems are falling: Dr. Leana Wen, one of the regular public health voices on CNN and a former president of Planned Parenthood, went on the nightly news this week and said something entirely true: “Cloth masks are not appropriate for this pandemic. It’s not appropriate for Omicron. It was not appropriate for Delta, Alpha, or any of the previous variants either because we’re dealing with something that’s airborne.”

If you are vaccinated, healthy, and happy, you are probably already living life like someone sitting in a New York City restaurant (i.e., unmasked but vaguely waving one around as you walk).

If you just love the feel of fabric across your cheeks, by all means. If you really care about not getting COVID, wear an N95 for as long as you’d like. But it’s long past time to take life back from the hypochondriacs.

→Die-hards are not going to give up without a fight (masked, six feet away). Take Nicole Wallace, Host of Deadline: White House on MSNBC: “I’m a Fauci groupie. I’m a thrice-vaccinated mask adherent. I buy KN95 masks by the, you know, caseload. They’re in every pocket. I wear them everywhere except when I sit down.”

One area where the excesses are still unchecked is in schools. Colleges around the country are imposing draconian rules (making students truly miserable). And unions around the country are laying groundwork for more remote learning. In Chicago, the union is polling teachers on “a district-wide pause” and going back to remote."

Look for Bari  Weiss columns--I get the free one, but there's more on subscription.

He never became an old man

Blogs are strange creatures (writings, essays, memories).  There are methods to check up on the people "following" my blog, and from them, to look at the other blogs they are reading. Birds of a feather, apparently. You only do this if it's a slow day like New Year's Eve afternoon and the food is all prepared for dinner with friends, one of whom has dropped out due to quarantining for Covid.  So that's how I happened to read the final post of a blogger whose main fascination was the nitty gritty of writing--hyphens, semi-colons, commas, and citations.  He was a copy editor for the Washington Post and wrote things like this in his job, and then wrote about it in his blog. He didn't necessarily like the changes he had to use.

"mic
Not mike, in a change from long-standing Post style, as the short form for microphone. Try to avoid inflected verb forms, but use apostrophes and write mic’ed and mic’ing if they must be used." 

The last entry in his blog in 2017 was written by someone else--he had died of the cancer he'd been writing about for less than a year--Intrahepatic cholangio carcinoma, stage 4 (cancer of the bile ducts). On August 2, 2016 he wrote:

"And isn't it lucky to have some warning, at a relatively young age and with my mind intact? Not all causes of death work that way -- I could have been run over by a car. This way, I have time, maybe a little and maybe more than that, to take it all in. To savor the little things. I get weepy now when I see trees and cardinals and cardinals in the trees. Am I really missing all that much if I never get to be a doddering old man?

Speaking of smug boasts, have I mentioned that I can swing neither of my cats without hitting a world-class cancer center? I chose one of the very best: Johns Hopkins is less than an hour away, with a satellite even closer to home at Sibley Memorial Hospital (SMH, as in "shaking my head"). I've since learned that "my team of specialists" is a phrase that doesn't sound nearly as good as you think it's going to, but still, I have a team of specialists. And that team has a plan. I've started chemotherapy. Soon, there will be radiation, in the form of teeny-weeny little beads sent directly into the diseased area.

In other words, as lucky as I am to be escaping doddering-old-man status, maybe I'll be really lucky. Maybe I'll end up a doddering old man."

Bill died on March 27, 2017. Yes, he really did want to end up a doddering old man. He had the same hopes and trust Phil did in his "team" and I'm sure they said the same encouraging words, all the while knowing how grim the future looked. Phil was close enough to the east side Zangmeister center near St. Ann's he could drive himself (although it was very unsafe), in fact he did until they cut him loose and assigned him to hospice. He was so shocked he kept trying to call "chemo-doc" as he called her (difficult foreign name). He never got through.

Cleaning my silverplate to set a pretty table

 How to Clean Silver-Plated Items Without Chemicals (thespruce.com)

I scooped up all my daily silverplate and put them in the 9 x 12 baking dish which had the cleaning mix--aluminum foil, boiling water, baking soda and salt.  After a few minutes I dunked them all in sudsy water and rinsed.  The water was still hot, so I set some of my copper bottom Reviere Ware in it.  Some cleaned up immediately, others didn't budge or give up their dusky, dark appearance.

For our New Year's Eve dinner tonight with a couple from our church after the jazz concert/worship service at our church we're having soup and salad followed with cookies and ice cream. Today is our neighbor's birthday so we'd also invited her.  She just let us know that she and the other "funeral ladies" (serve desserts after funerals) were all invited to another woman's home for cookies and tea for the holiday.  Then a few days later, one of them let everyone know she had Covid (very mild), so now our neighbor is quarantining herself and won't be able to come.

Fitness memories

I went to Lifetime Fitness this morning. Rather sparse, and only 3 women. Not the usual older crowd I see later. Also, many people may be taking a holiday--from work and from effort. This memory from two years ago came up on Facebook. I may have included it in 2019 on my blog, but it's a good one for a repeat.

"You meet nice people at the gym. He looked sullen, tough and gruff, but I greeted him, he smiled and we began to talk (riding nowhere on our stationary bikes). I found out he was a plumber, then that he wasn't the type that comes to your home, he helps keep the James serving cancer patients. That's shorthand for Brain and Spine Tumor Center at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. That led to my former position in the Veterinary Medicine Library. That led to his story about his rescue, a black lab, that formerly was kept in a cage as a breeder, and she couldn't walk when they got her. His little cockapoo taught her to walk and play, and now he has the most wonderful dog. But the cockapoo is still the boss! It's easy to ride 6 miles with an interesting companion."

Masks, mandates and media

"All religions have their representatives. There are cardinals, bishops, imams and rabbi’s etc. They are perhaps the leading voices, but they aren’t the only representatives. There are envoys, missionaries, TV evangelists, religious correspondents and so on.

The State is no different. We have politicians and governmental advisers, as the leading voices, but there are also NGO spokespersons, union officials, the academic & scientific orthodoxy, lords and ladies, multinational CEO’s, central bankers, business leaders and more. Of these, the most powerful, in terms of their ability to shape public opinion are the mainstream media (MSM.)"

This article is from June 2020, when mask mandates, without a shred of science, were just being imposed. And with each mandate we've experienced more loss of freedom and the masks certainly haven't kept us safe. Even those with the 3 shots are getting Covid.

Face Masks Have Put Us In A State – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org)

It's warm for December, but January is coming

Our weather is quite mild right now, 58 degrees predicted for New Years Eve,  but the weather reporter on the local channel just reminded us January is coming. That's usually our snowiest month, and he recalled January 1978 (before he was born) when the total snowfall was 34.4 inches and the blizzard we had.  I just checked the predictions for January, and I don't see any daytime temp below 32 degrees.

Ice Melt vs. Rock Salt — Which Is Better for Your Business? Earth Development (earthdevelopmentinc.com)

Pandemic data, end of 2021

After claiming during the campaign, that the virus spread was Trump's failure, and saying he wouldn't trust the vaccine (Harris said it too), the Biden numbers for 2021 (at the same time of year and with the vaccine, and all the therapeutics and research) were higher than 2020. 

“The Spanish Flu” in 1918 infected roughly 500 million people—one-third of the world’s population—and caused 50 million deaths worldwide when the population was much smaller. The Asian flu (H2N2) of 1957-58 which I survived (with no lockdown) killed up to 4 million when the population was 2.9 billion instead of the 7.7 billion of today.

In the last 24 hours Ohio has reported 19,774 cases, 484 hospitalizations, and zero deaths.

The spirit of revolt--100 years ago

 JAMA (which is the journal of the American Medical Association) has an interesting feature called "JAMA Revisited," reprinting articles from the past.  In the October 12, 2021 issue it reprinted an article titled "The Spirit of Revolt" from October 8, 1921, 100 years ago.

"Psychologists today are more concerned with the changing spirit of mankind than with any other psychologic problem.  The literature on the spirit of revolt, of restlessness, of lawlessness and of radicalism is daily becoming greater.  The subject is engaging the attention of our greatest minds.  Thus James M. Beck, Solicitor-General of the United States, devoted the presidential address before the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, held recently at Cincinnati, to this subject. There is throughout the world today, he pointed out, a revolt against the spirit of authority.  Pending criminal indictments in federal courts have increased from 10,000 in 1912 to more than 70,000 in 1921.  The losses from burglaries repaid by casualty companies have grown in amount from $886,000 in 1914 to over $10,000,000 in 1920. [purchasing power of about $138,974,000 today]"   

After quoting some murder statistics from New York City and Chicago, Mr. Beck goes on to report the problem is worldwide.  He attributes it to the rise of individualism which began in the 18th century and which had steadily grown with the advance of democratic institutions, and also the growth of technology saying that man had become the tender of machines rather than a constructive thinker.  "The increase in potential of human power has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the potential of human character."

The article goes on to say that despite the current (following WWI) peace commissions and conferences,  "Radicals are advocating methods of government that are the expressions of primitive emotional and mental processes. . .  Prejudices, fixed ideas, suspiciousness, sentimentality and outbursts of passion are making more difficult the task of establishing law and order. . . The craze for speed dominates everything, speed in transportation, speed in thinking, speed in living and, as revealed in the war, speed in killing. . . mob spirit governs and the urge is uncontrolled." 

Well, that certainly sounds familiar, sort of like the evening news.  Much of the collapse and the coarsening of the general populace that the writer of the JAMA article describes can certainly be blamed on the "Great War" (estimates of 22 million deaths) which had killed so many in Europe and more civilians than military, and the worldwide pandemic of 1918. However, in the U.S. we had the most socialistic president, Woodrow Wilson, until Barack Obama claimed the honor in 2008. The eighteenth century was a period of "enlightenment" and the degrading of a Christian society and disrespect for Biblical authority. Then the nineteenth century gave the world Marx and Nietzsche.  Yes, we were well on the way to the Antifa and BLM riots of 2020, and the acceptance of them has been building for 100 years.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, a new Doctor of the Church

Bishop Robert Barron

WOF 306: The Genius of St. Irenaeus | The Word on Fire Show

Pope Francis just announced he’s planning to declare a new Doctor of the Church, St. Irenaeus of Lyon. Who was he? What were his key ideas? Why does he still matter? That's what Brandon Vogt and I discuss in today's episode. Topics include:

- What’s a Doctor of the Church, and why should Irenaeus be declared one?

- How did Bishop first become acquainted with Irenaeus?

- What was Irenaeus’ approach to battling Gnosticism?

- Irenaeus taught that God has no need of anything outside of himself. What does this mean, and why is it good news?

- How to understand Irenaeus’s pithy line, “The glory of God is man fully alive”?

- Irenaeus’ theology of recapitulation

- How Irenaeus remains a great spiritual and theological bridge between Eastern and Western Christians

- Why Irenaeus is still relevant today

A listener asks, how should I respond to the idea that nothing really exists because we can’t prove that it exists?

Thyroid nodules in the elderly

 My doctor referred me for a scan after my fall checkup because she found something on my thyroid with palpation. Then when I had my auto accident on November 26 the scan of my head found a good size nodule and the scan in December found two.  So now I have a consult in January.  Here's what I found when I checked out thyroid nodules in the elderly.

"Thyroid nodules are more frequent in elderly patients, with a linear increase with age in both the presence of nodules and the absolute number of nodules per patient (6). Approximately 50% of individuals aged 65 years have thyroid nodules detected by ultrasonography (7). A cross-sectional survey of asymptomatic adults in Germany using ultrasonography to detect thyroid nodules demonstrated an even higher prevalence of 80% in women and 74% in men over 60 years old (4). In a prospective study of 6,391 patients referred for thyroid nodules at a large academic center, Kwong et al. showed a linear increase in the number of thyroid nodules per patient with age, rising from an average of 1.55 nodules ≥1 cm in patients age 20–29 years old to a mean of 2.21 nodules ≥1 cm in patients ≥70 years old, demonstrating a 1.6% annual increased risk for multinodularity (6).

Another potential contributor to this rising prevalence of thyroid nodules is the increased use of high-frequency ultrasound, CT, and MR imaging in routine clinical care, leading to the detection of asymptomatic, or incidental, thyroid nodules (4,5,7,8). Lastly, changes in population demographics over time, specifically increased rates of obesity, may contribute. Data from several ethnically diverse cohorts has identified parameters independently associated with the development of thyroid nodules, including obesity, female sex, radiation exposure, iodine deficiency, and smoking. These should be noted when evaluating elderly patients for potential thyroid nodules (9).

Once identified, thyroid nodules should be evaluated to determine appropriate management. The differential diagnosis of thyroid nodularity includes benign and malignant solitary nodules, multinodular goiter, autonomous functioning nodules, cysts, and inflammation or thyroiditis (10). Nodules causing thyroid dysfunction, compressive symptoms, or harboring malignancy require attention."

Thyroid Nodules and Cancer in the Elderly - Endotext - NCBI Bookshelf (nih.gov)

If it weren't for doctors' visits I'd have no social life.