New Year’s message from our nephew Bob

In the cold of a January night here in central Indiana, I hope each of you, my friends are spending time with someone you love, like, or respect. I hope you are engaged in great conversation, or just looking into the eyes of someone you deeply care about. If you're alone, pick up the phone and make the call you've been putting off to someone you once cared deeply for and just let the conversation flow wherever it goes. Consider how blessed we each are, that someone, somewhere on Earth loves us, thinks about us, and would be forever sad to lose you. Each one of you is important, created by God himself, and is loved. I just told you. Now it's your turn to let someone else hear this good news. It might be the most important words they hear today. Make that your gift, and may each of you receive those kinds of gifts for the rest of your lives. Hoping each of you has an amazingly blessed 2018.

Dancing Kevin’s diet and work out

Although I rarely watch a Blue Jackets game, I knew who Dancing Kevin was, even if I didn’t know his name.  He’d take off his shirt and show his bill board size belly.  But last year he told himself he had to change, and he’s been working out and supervised by Jack Skaggs at the gym, Lifetime Fitness, where I go. (I haven’t actually seen him.)  The promo I read yesterday said was down to 196 pounds from 360 in 9 months.  This article about him is from the This Week News, and points out the health and addiction problems he had.

http://www.thisweeknews.com/news/20170220/cbj-fan-through-thick-and-thin-dancing-kevin-recounts-journey-to-health-happiness

The toughest part of a diet is keeping it off.

What happened to Mayberry in 8 seasons?

“. . . The problem lies in the fact that the Mayberry that we see in the first few seasons is systematically undermined so that by the seventh and eighth seasons it has ceased to exist in all but the dereliction of its name, the iconic image of idyllic and idealized small-town America having been desecrated and destroyed by the iconoclasm of sixties’ ideological hedonism. What is presented over the eight years and more than 200 episodes is the demise of Mayberry and all that it represents. What we witness and experience is its decay and disintegration, and ultimately its death.

This was brought home to me after I watched several episodes from the first season, in which I basked in the almost prelapsarian warmth of the benign sun that shines forth on the idealized simplicity of the small and beautiful world in which Sheriff Andy Taylor lives, and then, immediately afterwards, I watched an episode from the seventh season in which the ideal had been swept away by sixties “progressive” preachiness.

In this later episode the simple but sagacious Sheriff of earlier seasons has become an emasculated shadow of his former self, passively embracing the feminist modernism of the female protagonist as she undermines traditional values at Mayberry’s high school, encouraging her students to usher in the forthcoming summer of “love,” which would lead to the loveless loneliness of postmodernist alienation. And thus the timeless moral verities that had formed the solid foundation of Mayberry had succumbed to the quicksand quagmire of relativism, sinking without trace into the desert of the urbanized wasteland. And all with Sheriff Andy’s approval.

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/01/decline-fall-andy-griffith-show-joseph-pearce.html

Democrats are at it again

I remember how the media chided President Bush for being a dim bulb, stupid, etc., but don't recall members of Congress going after him--at least not in speeches demanding removal from office. The Obama lapdog media shut up about that when comparing Bush's extensive reading list to Obama's i-pod selection--hip hop, etc. Trump uses Twitter the way FDR used the radio--to reach and encourage his supporters. It keeps him constantly trolling the press and his fans love it. What the media/politicians called outrageous, like the twitter comment about Obama spying on him, have been proven to be true. Democrats are deeply upset that President Trump is rolling back their eight years of "progress" toward complete socialism.  The Russia, Russia, Russia hysteria has failed miserably, so now they are going after crazy and not smart--but that's what they are. His 80+ accomplishments in 2017 are just chimeras in their exploding, failing minds. Like the ad I see on TV about the guy with dementia seeing things that aren't there.

The old system is in trouble

As I mentioned in a earlier blog, I’m using Kelly Monroe Kullberg’s book Faith and Culture devotional for morning meditations. This paragraph sort of jumped right out at me.

"In 1572 a new star appeared in the skies over Europe that remained visible for a year and a half, even in the daytime, hovering above the moon. Because the Greek system viewed the heavens as changeless, some of the learned professors refused to acknowledge the new star, calling it an optical illusion. But for everyone else it was clear evidence the old system was in trouble." Charles Thaxton, "Modern science, a child of Christianity" in Faith and Culture Devotional. (Zondervan, 2008)

This paragraph in today's readings reminded me of current events on the political, cultural, economic and international scene. Clear evidence that the old system was in trouble.

Reading, working out and socializing at Lifetime Fitness

I know from reading Facebook that some of my friends  like and participate in on-line reading groups. I just don't get it. I often don’t like the books we read in our group, but I like the people. I see them face to face. (And sometimes am surprised when I find I actually do like a book I wouldn’t choose.)  Book Club may be the social event of the week for me. That and going to the grocery store. Or maybe the gym. Like this coming Monday. The book, "The worst hard time" is really a snore. I'm waiting to hear something good about it. Maybe it would mean more if I didn’t remember what my mother told me about the Great Depression.

According to Business First apparently Life Time Fitness has made it a corporate policy not to show MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC and CNN at its 127 clubs in 27 states. Apparently they don't want political discussions or outbreaks of uncivility on the premises. There's a screen on each treadmill, but I haven't figured out how to turn it on, besides I need to finish my book, “The worst hard time.”

Today  was a trifecta. I'll went to the gym, propped this boring book on the treadmill ledge, and then when exercise was over went next door to Marc's to shop.

To meet nice people, wear an interesting shirt. I wore my Black Swamp Bird Observatory long sleeve T to Lifetime Fitness today and met a lovely lady in the locker room who is a bird watcher and she's been bird watching in that area. She's planning a trip to Ecuador to watch more birds. Now that's a serious hobby!  Then I went to Marc's and ran into Diane from our church and got a big hug. She just got back from Florida.

Music for Reading

Although I could find this by going to YouTube, I'm placing it here for easy access. The numbers following the description are times on the recording, so if I want to find Clair de Lune, for example, I can go to 40:23 by moving the timer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7UzQB8gtI

01 Chopin - Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E-Flat Major

02 Schubert - Serenade "Leise Flehen Meine Lieder" 4:40

03 Chopin - Piano Prelude No. 15 "Raindrop" 9:12

04 Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op. 13 (II: Adagio) 14:47

05 Chopin - Waltz Op. 69 No. 1 in A Flat major 19:57 06 Bach - Violin concerto in E Major (II: Adagio) 24:47

07 Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 31:46

08 Chopin - Prelude, Op. 28 No. 17 in A major 37:25

09 Debussy - Clair de Lune 40:23

10 Schubert - Moment Musical Op. 94 D.780 N. 1 in C Major 42:56

11 Liszt - Liebesträume (Love Dream) in A-Flat Major 45:58

12 Chopin - Prelude, Op. 28 No. 6 in B minor 50:26

13 Bach - Solo Cello Suite No 6: Prelude 52:32

14 Chopin - Nocturne Op. 15 No. 2 57:09

15 Bach - Suite for Orchestra No. 3 "Air on the G String" 1:00:32

16 Chopin - Nocturne, Op. 27 No. 2 in D Flat major 1:05:01

17 Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (II: Andante) 1:09:36

18 Chopin - Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1 in B Flat minor 1:14:39

19 Beethoven - Fur Elise 1:20:04

20 Schumann - Kinderszenen Op. 15 (I: Von fremden Laendern und Menschen) 1:22:42

21 Beethoven - "Moonlight" Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 (I: Adagio sostenuto) 1:24:38

Cornerstone of the Democrat Party platform

Planned Parenthood says its affiliates did 321,384 abortions in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2016, according to its newly released 2016-2017 annual report.

In the same report, Planned Parenthood says its affiliates received $543.7 million in payments from our federal government in the year that ended on June 30, 2017. CNS News Jan. 3, 2018

Black women are 6% of the population and have 35% of the abortions. Margaret Sanger started Planned Parenthood and began "The Negro Project."

18 questions for the FBI from Rep. Jim Jordan

Here is a full list of Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s 18 questions for the FBI. See reader’s comments at link below. You’ll learn a lot just reading the questions.  But FBI is stonewalling.

1) Did the FBI pay Christopher Steele, author of the dossier?

2) Was the dossier the basis for securing FISA warrants to spy on Americans? And why won’t the FBI show Congress the FISA application?

3) When did the FBI get the complete dossier and who gave it to them?

4) Did the FBI validate and corroborate the dossier?

5) Did Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, or Bruce Orr work on the FISA application?

6) Why and how often did DOJ lawyer Bruce Orr meet with dossier author Christopher Steele during the 2016 campaign?

7) Why did DOJ lawyer Bruce Orr meet with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson after the election? To get their story straight after their candidate Clinton lost? Or to double down and plan how they were going to go after President-elect Trump?

8) When and how did the FBI learn that DOJ lawyer Bruce Orr’s wife, Nellie Orr, worked for Fusion GPS? And what exactly was Nellie Orr’s role in putting together the dossier?

9) Why did the FBI release text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page? Normally, ongoing investigation is reason not to make such information public.

10) And why did FBI release only 375/10,000+ texts? Were they the best? Worst? Or part of a broader strategy to focus attention away from something else? And when can Americans see the other 96% of texts?

11) Why did Lisa Page leave Mueller probe two weeks before Peter Strzok? This was two weeks before FBI and Special Counsel even knew about the texts.

12) Why did the intelligence community wait two months after the election to brief President-elect Trump on the dossier (January 6, 2017)? Why was James Comey selected to do the briefing?

13) Was the briefing done to “legitimize” the dossier? And who leaked the fact that the briefing was about the dossier?

14) The New York Times reported last week that George Popadopoulos’ loose lips were a catalyst for launching the Russia investigation. Was President-elect Trump briefed on this?

15) Why did Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya before and after her meeting with Donald Trump Jr.?

16) Why was FBI General Counsel Jim Baker reassigned two weeks ago? Was he the source for the first story on the dossier by David Corn on October 31, 2016? Or was it someone else at the FBI?

17) Why won’t the FBI give Congress the documents it’s requesting?

18) And why would @SenSchumer, leader of the Democrat party, publicly warn President-elect Trump on Jan. 3, 2017 that when you mess with the “intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you?”

http://dailysignal.com/2018/01/03/conservative-lawmaker-demands-answers-18-questions-russia-fbi/?

Churchill or Trump?

Which of the following things WERE SAID about Trump, and which ones were REFERENCES  to Churchill?

He’s a belligerent bully who would use the military against union strikers.

He’s an outdated throwback to a type of paranoid conservativism that places confrontation over diplomacy.

He’s a racist, an imperialist and a Muslim hater.

He’s a lying self-aggrandizer who claimed to be the lone voice speaking up for making his country strong again when that wasn’t true.

He thought Hitler and Mussolini had their good points.

He’s a war criminal who didn’t care if bombs he ordered to be dropped killed civilians.

He’s a hothead who wants to launch an unprovoked nuclear strike on his enemies.

He was blasted by a major newspaper for “startling the world” with his “outrageous propositions.”

He’s mentally unfit for office, but refuses to step down.

He doesn’t care if brown people starve.

He was described by one prominent politician from another country as being worse than Hitler, Mao or Stalin.

Trick question—all were said about Churchill.  Mike Huckabee newsletter, January 3, 2018

Message for progressive woke white women from Michael Smith

Michael Smith, an oppressive, heteronormative, patriarchal male who lives in Utah has a message for "woke" white women.

"Dear Super-Woke Supercilious Progressive White Yentas, Here's Your New Year's Resolution(s):

1. Stop Treating Racial Minorities As Your Pets. 

Stop inducing them to do stupid pet tricks so you can use them to advance your progressive agenda. Progressives do more to dehumanize racial minorities than any other group. You aren't a member of a racial pet rescue group.

2. Stop Your Oppressive Helicopter Progressive Parenting Of POC's (People of Color).

You aren't their mommies and daddies. Minorities can speak for themselves, they don't need your smug asses stepping in to speak for them. Adopting a black orphan baby from the Sudan may be trendy - but it doesn't imbue you with a right to tell every other black person how to live, nor does it insulate you from criticism when you do. Every time you "woke" morons speak for a minority, you are minimizing them - treating them like a child who isn't old enough, smart enough or mature enough to speak for themselves. Stop it with your condescending patriarchy/matriarchy. Just. Stop.

3. Don't Make Every Situation The Combined Equivalent of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, The Great Flood And Whole Foods Running Out Of Organic, Free Range, Non-GMO, Locally Sourced Kale.

Stop treating every comment or action as if it was the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Stop seeing everything - and I mean everything - through the lens of race. News flash, not everything is about race. Sometimes people (of color OR pallor) are just assholes - but that doesn't make all people of color or pallor assholes. I don't expect praise for common decency any more than I expect a nuclear holocaust if I use the wrong pronoun. Get. Over. Your. Self.

Respectfully submitted (without the permission of my wife)."

Morning meditations

For my meditation time in the morning I’ve been re-reading Kelly Kullberg’s A faith and culture devotional; daily readings in art, science and life. (Zondervan, 2008)  Not sure when I first read it, but it must have been around the time it was published, about 10 years ago because I think I bought my copy from her husband, David.  We both used to go to Panera’s at 5 points (he still does that but I’ve given up that expensive habit). It’s one of the best “dailies” I’ve ever read, with each day’s reading a challenge with new information.  Today’s reading (they are not dated) is by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. “Sodom: What archaeology tells us.”  Dr. Kaiser is president emeritus of Gordon-Conwell and executive editor of The Archaeological Study Bible (Zondervan, 2005).  I have a copy of that outstanding Bible, a gift Christmas 2005 from our son.

Dr. Kaiser doesn’t discuss the faith meaning of the story of Sodom in Genesis, but rather the possible location.  “. . .biblical faith contrary to other world religions, insists on the close association of faith and history.” Christians stake everything on the historical reality of the resurrection, Paul asserted in 1 Corinthians 15.

Do you really want to be on the “right side” of history?

Robert P. George writes: "The next time a supporter of the latest fashionable belief, whatever it is, taunts you with the claim "history is on our side," you might consider who made those words famous. It was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1956: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" He was confidently predicting the ultimate triumph of communism. "I do not mean we will bury you with a shovel," he later explained, "but that your own working class will bury you."

Things didn't quite turn out that way. *Their* working class, beginning with the union-based Solidarity movement in Poland, buried European communism. It was a double victory, defeating not only communism, but the Hegelian view of history that it presupposes and is based upon.
The truth is that what we call "history" is filled with contingencies. Triumphs and defeats are not written in the stars. Progress is not inevitable. Nor is decline.

The future will be determined by, among other things, the deliberations, judgments, and free choices and actions of human beings, including ourselves. And we can't judge a view or movement to be right or wrong depending on whether it succeeds or fails, or seems likely to. Anyone who proposes to decide whether something is right or wrong based on a prediction of whether it is likely to be popular or unpopular, widely accepted or rejected as time goes on, simply has no idea what it means for something to be right or wrong.

Sometimes when people lose faith in God, they deify history, treating it as the equivalent of a divine judge--a quasi-personal force that gets the final say as to what is good and bad, just and unjust. "You had better get in line," they say, "with [here fill in the name of the thing that is supposed to be inevitable] or you will find yourself on the wrong side of history!" But that's a silly threat. History is an impersonal sequence of events. It is not morally normative and it has no more power to judge than does a stone outcropping or a carved and painted totem pole. To believe otherwise, as do Hegelians of both the right and left (including those who've never heard of Hegel), is to succumb to idolatry and superstition.

The idea of a "judgment of history" is contemporary secularism's vain, hopeless, and, in the end, pathetic attempt to fashion a substitute for the judgment of God.

We need to bear in mind that what matters is whether a view is sound or unsound from the moral point of view, not whether people in the future are likely to hold or reject it. What is worth worrying about is whether a view one holds or is considering is right or wrong, consistent or inconsistent with the true requirements of justice and the integral good of human beings as creatures fashioned in the image and likeness of God and, as such, bearers of profound, inherent, and equal dignity--not whether it is on the allegedly "right side of history." " Oct. 31, FB post.

George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University

A busy New Year's day

I started the day out right--I cleaned my coffee maker with vinegar and water.  So many germs can grow in your automatic coffee pot, you should clean it often. The smell is strong enough to open your sinuses!

Follow these steps to a quick coffee maker cleaning:

1. Empty your coffee maker, rinse the carafe and ensure that the filter basket is properly set and empty. Remove the permanent coffee filter as well as the water filter, if applicable.
2. Fill the water reservoir with a solution of equal parts of water and regular white household vinegar.
3. Run it through a drip cycle.
4. When the cycle is finished, turn off your coffeemaker but allow the water/vinegar to sit in the carafe for a few minutes, to remove any scale deposits, then discard the solution.
5. You should run clear water (no vinegar) through your coffee maker at least twice, allowing your brewer to cool down between cycles. This will remove any lingering vinegar residue.

1. This is a good time to thoroughly wipe the exterior of your coffee maker and clean the removable filter basket, permanent filter and carafe with hot soapy water. A change of water filter is also a good idea if your brewer has one.
2. https://www.thespruce.com/clean-coffee-maker-with-vinegar-1907384?

Then I signed up for a class at Coursera, an online education site from colleges and universities all over the world.  I picked "Understanding clinical research: behind the statistics."  I worked in the Veterinary Medicine Library for 14 years and although I still love reading the medical literature, my eyes glaze over when it comes to statistics. There are several levels of classes, and I chose this one also because it is free unless you want credit.  I don't plan on needing a credit course, so free is good.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/clinical-research/home/welcome

I've printed off the "keynotes" which go along with the videos and text--85 pages.  I also signed in to my "peer" group, which aren't really my peers--medical students, pharmaceutical reps, doctors, etc. But they are from all over the world--one poor guy is from Syria and living in Ukraine!  And I'm off!

And I spent some time looking at old Fulton J. Sheen videos.  His may be the best explanation of Communism and prophecy of the future ever. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen did this program in 1955. He was a hater of Communism, but lover of the Russian people. He reads from Dostoevsky who in 1871 predicted what was to come for his country, and possibly ours. He died in 1979, and since he was from central Illinois, his pronunciation sounds fine to me. "Warshington."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE9FNwG5myA

Happy New Year 2018

Have to learn to write a new date.

 Pete and Peg are my in-laws once removed, brother and sister-in-law of our son-in-law

I don't plan to do this, but thought it was funny.  Everyone is dieting.

Saying good-bye.

We lost our little "grandpuppy" Abbie, a fawn and white colored Chihuahua, on Thursday. She was 12 and died suddenly with no warning.  She was always the center of attention at family gatherings or with anyone visiting--she seemed to think they came just to see her. Our whole family is so sad. She usually came to our house when her people were traveling or vacationing.  Most recently she spent part of July with us. She would sit on our laps with her eyes glued to the window waiting, waiting.

HRT, good or bad for menopausal women?

I do wish the medical community could come to some agreement on the benefits and dangers of HRT. Thirty years ago it was being pushed as the miracle preventative for osteoporosis, heart disease and dementia for menopausal women; then it became the kiss of death almost over night; then the waffling began after women lived in fear they'd taken the poison pill. Still arguing. But if it is this difficult to figure out how women, nature and hormones work (over fifty years of research), why in the world do some researchers and academics push the silly and dangerous transgendered woman nonsense. Is it just more money for Big Pharma or more big government grants for the medical schools?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/obgyn/hrt

"For women aged younger than 60 years or who are within 10 years of menopause onset and have no contraindications, the benefit-risk ratio is most favorable for treatment of bothersome VMS and for those at elevated risk for bone loss or fracture. For women who initiate HT more than 10 or 20 years from menopause onset or are aged 60 years or older, the benefit-risk ratio appears less favorable because of the greater absolute risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, venous thromboembolism, and dementia. Longer durations of therapy should be for documented indications such as persistent VMS or bone loss, with shared decision making and periodic reevaluation. For bothersome GSM symptoms not relieved with over-the-counter therapies and without indications for use of systemic HT, low-dose vaginal estrogen therapy or other therapies are recommended." North American Menopause Society statement, 2017

http://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/Abstract/2017/07000/The_2017_hormone_therapy_position_statement_of_The.5.aspx

What the new tax plan does for many income levels

This is an interesting article even if you skim--fast food workers will get a better reduction than librarians. I'm waiting for my liberal friends and relatives to refuse their reduction in taxes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-senate-take-home-pay-changes-every-income-level-2017-12

Fast Food Cook
Average salary: $20,570; Current tax: $1,059; Tax under the Republican plan: $857; Percent tax cut: 19.1%

Paralegals
Average salary: $53,180; Current tax: $5,753; Tax under the Republican plan: $4,999 Percent tax cut: 13.1%

Zoologist
Average salary: $64,890; Current tax: $8,156; Tax under the Republican plan: $7,575; Percent tax cut: 7.1%

Mathematicians
Average salary: $105,600; Current tax: $16,296; Tax under the Republican plan: $15,105; Percent tax cut: 7.3%

CEOs
Average salary: $194,350; Current tax: $35,541; Tax under the Republican plan: $35,457; Percent tax cut: 0.2%
and so forth. . .

Calculate your BMI and physical activity

I tried three different BMI calculators, and got three different answers (all within normal). But I like this one best because it took my sex and age into consideration and eliminated Asian Americans from the race category (they are smaller than European Americans). Also the site added some advice. https://www.smartbmicalculator.com/?ru=2 So if you're going to do the usual New Year's resolution, try this one.

I was surprised when reading this article on physical activity and its relationship to the deadliest killers, to see that 54% of American adults actually do get the recommended 150 minutes a week (about five 30 minute workouts).  There are at least six fitness/gyms within 2-3 miles of my residence, so someone in suburbia is working out.  I am registered at two of them, but I'm not very regular, except on my exercycle in my office. I prefer walking outside, but a slight hill bothers my bursitis.

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=gyms&find_loc=Upper+Arlington%2C+OH

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5327681/

"Adults who met the PA guidelines were significantly more likely not to report high cholesterol, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arthritis, asthma, depression, or overweight. Furthermore, adults meeting the PA guidelines were significantly more likely to report having health insurance, consuming fruits daily, consuming vegetables daily, and not being a current cigarette smoker."

The hypocrisy of academe

Victor Davis Hanson is unhappy with academe-- faculty who make fortunes and careers lecturing about inequality and diversity so they can not feel guilty when buying million dollar homes and fancy cars. It's a mechanism. Paul Krugman earns $225,000 in retirement for studying inequality and not teaching a course. The Ohio State president makes $3.5 million, but entry level faculty salaries have only gone up about 1% over the past 15 years. But they rail about corporations and the poor in society. All the race and class and gender jargon is just that--it means nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsYwekCjkvI&t=40s