Prescott, Arizona

We're planning a trip to Prescott.

Elizabeth Warren’s minimum wage scam

Looking at the excellent stats in this article, I see I might have been making close to minimum when I worked in high school and saved enough to pay for my first year in college. But it was a gift, not a wage. I wasn't worth it. Someone had to take a chance. And I could get a 25 cent tip for a 10 cent cup of coffee in those days.

"The minimum wage prevents some of the least skilled, least educated, and least experienced workers from participating in the labor market because it discourages employers from taking a chance by hiring them. In other words, workers compete for jobs on the basis of education, skill, experience, and price. Of these factors, the only one on which the lesser-educated, lesser-skilled, and lesser-experienced worker can compete is price."

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-minimum-wage-shouldnt-be-family-wage?

I had many advantages as a low wage teen that others less fortunate might not have. My employers knew my parents; they knew my sisters;  they had known me since I was a toddler; they knew what our family values were, that I had been taught by my parents to be responsible, on time, and how to treat adults; they knew I was an A student (honor roll was published in the town paper) and could probably be trusted at the cash register (they didn't know how bad I was at math); they knew I could walk to work in snow or rain; they knew my school schedule including social events because their son was the same age; they felt a sense of responsibility to the community, their customer case. And I knew there were 10 other teens who wanted that job.

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/your-first-job-real-costs-minimum-wage

Economic freedom

The U.S. economy is roaring like no other time in recent memory. The job market is hot, unemployment is down to record lows, and small business optimism is soaring. Wages are rising for the first time in two decades, with an overall unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, matching the lowest rate in 50 years. 

https://www.heritage.org/international-economies/commentary/under-trump-us-economic-freedom-rises-significantly

So why are the Democrats so mad? Why are all the 2020 candidates pushing socialism? Well, in my opinion, they hate Trump more than they love the American people.

Smollett, Harris and Lynch, inc.

Sounds like a law firm, but it’s only a conspiracy. Before this hoax, I’d never heard of Jussie Smollett or Empire. Have no idea what it is about.

Jussie Smollett appeared in a documentary "America Divided" as host of a segment on lynching. Kamala Harris sponsored a bill on lynching (this came up in early 20th century sponsored by Republicans when people really were being lynched, but Democrats voted it down). She used it as sort of strange publicity for her campaign, and then was right out of the box to accuse the country and Trump supporters when the Smollett hoax included a noose. It’s sort of odd because she has no ties at all to the “black experience.”  Her parents were both immigrants.

Smollett earlier campaigned for Harris. Maybe he was campaigning for her bill--and her? Collusion? I wondered, but of course, I checked it out first before putting fingers to keyboard. I found out someone had already published this idea on Feb. 18 and it had been tweeted by Tariq Nasheed, a black film producer, on the 17th. Nasheed posted photos of them campaigning together, and even Smollett with the Obamas.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/was_kamala_harris_part_of_the_jussie_smollett_hoax.html?

“Up until now, it appeared that politicians such as Harris (and Booker) couldn't have known much about the phony plot and probably just glommed onto the controversy for political advantage the way a lot of politicians do. But Nasheed has pictures of them campaigning together, and even more important, notes that Harris and Booker brought out an anti-lynching bill just coincidentally timed ahead of the attack, as if to ensure passage as the momentum built from public outrage (until the attack was exposed as phony). With Smollett a black and gay supposed victim and everyone slathing sympathy on him, who could refuse to vote for the anti-lynching bill, which just happens to have had some gay language inserted at the last minute? Trump lynchers were simply everywhere, according to the narrative, even in zero degree Chicago cold weather, lurking and looking for someone black and gay to assault and of course it was a national problem just waiting for Harris to pass a law as the person who "fixes problems" which is how she is repeatedly identified herself to voters.”

Poetry and music—how the schools and churches fail us

Although this is a challenge for Catholic schools and churches, it applies to all worship leaders and educators: poetry and music. Even when I was in school 60 years ago, my mother complained that we didn't have enough poetry in our curriculum.

"First, get rid of the lousy poetry and lousy music. Stupidity is always a vice, says Maritain. Nobody says, “It doesn’t matter what movies my child watches, so long as he watches movies,” or, “It doesn’t matter what my husband drinks, so long as he drinks.” Get rid of it. Nobody but the church performers enjoys it anyway. Replace it with real hymns. Don’t think you can get those from the big presses, OCP and GIA and such, because they have mangled the texts and dragged them through the mud. Sing the poems, as they were composed.

Second, return to poetry. The time is short, and the reward immense. Fifty lines of Tennyson can be committed to memory; five hundred pages of Dickens, not so fast. Have every student in your schools learn, say, twenty poems by heart. And their elders, too, might join in – have a Poetry Night in your parish, with the stipulation that every poem be written in meter.

We are suffering from cultural dementia, muddied and dulled by the strokes of the modern. It is time, little by little, for recovery."

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/02/23/recovering-from-cultural-dementia/?

Not being Catholic, or even musical, I didn't know what OCP and GIA were, so I looked it up. The comments from the musical directors are hilarious.

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/8615/what-is-your-favorite-gia-or-ocp-hymnal-/p1

Let’s dump the hate crime category

I'd like to see the whole category of "hate crime" removed from the books. Assault, robbery, murder, mayhem and property crime ought to cover it. What if it's two guys fighting over a girl or a motor cycle and their ethnicities are different--someone's going to determine their mind set and decide it's race and not love?

The video of a white liberal attacking a white conservative on a college campus that's in the news today probably doesn't qualify because both are white males. With intersectionality and trans this and that, it's gotten ridiculous. And it appears to be OK to attack anyone wearing a MAGA hat, even a kid. What if a 1/2 black lesbian who wears a MAGA hat while campaigning for Trump attacks a privileged white Hispanic male who is transitioning so he can be on the girls' track team?

Even the stats about hate crimes being on the increase is questionable (aka fake) since many more law enforcement agencies are reporting who didn't in the past. Plus, of those reported, 50% of the offenders were white and over 25% were black, which are not the demographic make up of the country, and it's not reported when the MSM start giving us that preachy, holier than thou sermon they pass off as news these days.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2017

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2017-hate-crime-statistics

The Democrats and socialism

When I see AOC's bright red lips I think about fossil fuel products used in lip stick and cosmetics. I think you can buy lipstick without petroleum products, but don't know if you can get that slick, wet, ready for sex look. Also chewing gum, perfume, contact lenses, guitar strings, deodorants and toothpaste. She might want to rethink that green deal if she wants to keep the female vote.  I don’t like people making fun of her eyes, however,  She might have Graves’ Disease.  I wonder if she’s had her thyroid checked.

Kamala Harris, daughter of 2 immigrants—one Jamaican the other Indian--both well educated and upper middle class, claims other American blacks can't succeed because of slavery. They'll need reparations. She's above all that, having received her leg up in politics from her married boyfriend, Willie Brown.

All the socialists running for president in the U.S. are asking for money from capitalist billionaires. Bernie had $6 million in a few hours. What's up? They'll never have to pay those confiscatory taxes the socialists want--that's what lawyers and accountants are for--and they want more regulations which will affect their competition--i.e. the socialists in the Democrat party will help kill off or slow down their competition. These are the same guys who regularly visited Barack Obama who did zip nada for the poor. Helping socialists is just the cost of doing business for the big boys.

Chocolate pudding

I stopped using sugar from the bowl or canister about 2 years ago and changed to local honey. We haven't given up sugar, because we still eat restaurant and store purchased desserts. But today I made chocolate pudding from scratch using honey. It was quite good. Just milk, cornstarch, dark chocolate (cocoa, 100% cacao natural unsweetened), a little sprinkle of salt, honey, vanilla, and I added some butter which wasn't in the recipe. It was very good, more chocolate tasting than the box or store bought.

Boxed dry chocolate pudding mix (both Jello and Godiva) contains: sugar, modified cornstarch, cocoa processed with alkali, sodium phosphate and tetrasodium pyrophosphate (for thickening) contains less than 2% of natural and artificial flavor, salt, artificial color mono- and diglycerides (prevents foaming), red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1.

Sodium phosphate is a salt, but it is also what is used when preparing for a colonoscopy. Tetrasodium pyrophosphate is used as a buffering agent, an emulsifier, it’s more salt, and is used in toothpaste and cat food but can promote algae growth in water. Yuk. I won't even analyze the dyes, but I can assure you, that by using 100% cacao ( which has to have a lot of processing to make it useable) the dark color was richer than the box mix.

Is Booker buying votes?

"Sen. Cory Booker (D.-N.J.) is proposing a plan—the American Opportunity Accounts Act—that he calculates will provide $46,215 to every 18-year-old in the lowest income bracket by giving them annual subsidies in a federally managed savings account."

This ought to qualify Booker as a Presidential candidate buying votes.

If they are truly low income, and qualify for federal and state benefits, like SNAP, EITC, Section 8, Medicaid, TANF, negative income tax, home energy assistance, school lunch, breakfast and snack, going all the way back to Head Start, SSI, child care, grants and loans for college or trade school, plus about 100 other transfers, $46,000 would probably be a reduction.

Trump drives people mad

"For those whom Trump has driven mad, there is nothing he does that can be understood or appreciated. While we sane people glory in the sunshine of a president who works hard for Americans, who supercharges our economy, who strengthens our borders, who may have sparked peace on the Korean peninsula, who recognizes Iran as a place of terrible evil, and who generally seeks to extend true freedom at home and abroad, those in the grips of Trump Derangement Syndrome are forever mired in a dark, smelly stable, eating dirt." (Bookworm Room, one of the best conservative blogs you'll read)

 http://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/02/19/lgbt-crowd-driven-mad-by-trump-supports-irans-anti-gay-laws/

Time travel in church, “This is my Father’s world.”

The sermon theme this past Sunday was “Drinking Tea,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense, except the idea was to relax from our busy distracted life and take in the beauty and complexity of God’s creation with a cup of tea, or good music, or the smell of frying bacon (yes, Joe actually fried up some bacon during the service). One of the hymns we sang Sunday was, “This is my Father’s world,” and I was immediately transported back in time to the junior choir at the little Lutheran church my family attended (but never joined) 1946-1951 in Forreston, Illinois. Our neighbor in Forreston, Helen Vietmeier invited us to attend  (she died in 2010 and I last saw her at my mother’s funeral in 2000). The church welcomed us warmly and we children participated in everything, although we remained members at our home church in Mt. Morris.

This popular hymn by Maltbie D. Babcock was written in 1901, the year of his death, and wasn’t published as a hymn until later. But it’s probably in most Protestant  hymnals, and by the 1940’s even little kids could understand and gustily belt it out, particularly the “This is my Father’s world” line which is repeated 6 times. Franklin Sheppard adapted Babcock’s poem of 16 verses, to 3 verses of 4 lines each in 1915. So that’s only about 30 years for that hymn to become so popular even little kids could sing it and remember it years later.

Our pastor when I was belting out songs in the junior choir was Rev. Dr. T. B. Hersch (1871-1959) who was older than my grandparents, and was born and raised in Polo, Illinois. He retired to Polo after leaving the Forreston church in 1953 (as seen in the Freeport paper which you can find on the Internet).  I don’t remember him as an inspiring preacher in his black robe and white hair—but then, how much does a 7 year old remember?  Actually, a lot when his wife Alice got ahold of the children during Sunday School or VBS.  She was a dynamo, and you just kept your eyes glued on her and didn’t even whisper when she did those felt board Bible stories, moving Jesus and the sheep around the fields and mountains.  She died in 1970 at Pinecrest in Mt Morris. My mother volunteered there—wondered if she visited her?

If you kill

Duck and cover

There's never been a better, safer or more opportune time in America to be gay, minority or female. But by always screaming racism or homophobia, the left can cover for their real Marxist crimes and their own phobias and fears.

Race of victims and offenders in interracial violent crimes certainly gives lie to the "hate crimes" narrative that media and celebrities promote. Between 2012 and 2015, blacks committed more than 85% of interracial violent victimizations between blacks and whites.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rhovo1215.pdf

So why does the Left continue to promote the Smollett, the Covington Catholic, the Kavanaugh hate narratives when there is no truth, no evidence and they end up with egg on their faces? And it didn't start with Trump Derangement Syndrome--it was rampant in the Obama years, but existed on the campuses before that--even into the 80s and 90s. So they can't use that excuse. The reason is they have no economic plan, no tax plan, no trade plan, no education plan, no national security plan, and nothing good, positive, uplifting, life giving, or patriotic to offer the voters. Just hate, division, anger, mistrust and victimhood. It's never been different for those who follow Marx. No workers or peasants to riot and demand change? No problem. Just bring on the snowflakes and millennials led by near octogenarians.

On pundits, panderers and presidents, guest blogger Michael Smith

"All the pundits and Sunday show hosts are going the "Can you name just one time another president issued a national emergency order like Trump's order?" route.

It is a dishonest question.

Might as well ask, "How many presidents have issued a "Declaration of a National Emergency and Invocation of Emergency Authority Relating to the Regulation of the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels" (Clinton)?

The right question is this, "Is the issuance of a national emergency for the border crisis in accordance with established law and procedure?"

The answer to that question is "yes".

The next question should be, "Have any other presidents moved funds from one department to the other without the authorization of Congress to fund a pet program?"

The answer to that question is also "yes" - Obama did it to fund the provision of Obamacare that compensated insurance companies for losses associated with the law.

I don't like this type of governance - but to try to claim that Trump's declaration is wrong just because it was Trump issuing it is simply wrong. No president needs any act, agreement, permission or definition from Congress or anybody else to issue such an order under this particular law.”

++++++++++

"If the media can't see through hoaxes and misinformation like what BuzzFeed published, that Nathan Phillips perpetrated on the Covington Catholic kids or what Jussie Smollett just did, how likely is it they could spot some Russians trying to interfere with an election?

The freaking Russians and Chinese have the US media right where they want them. If either of these countries were running operations to disrupt the US and sow political discord, just exactly what would they be doing different to what the US media is doing?"

The Jussie Smollett publicity hate crime

I've been watching the Jussie Smollett stories on ABC and Fox and the back tracking by liberals, and also the "yes, but it's a racist society anyway" no matter what happened in Chicago, Trump dog whistles, etc. and therefore it's his fault. However, when whites are attacked by blacks it doesn't get much publicity, but the federal statistics show the RATE is much higher than whites attacking blacks. Is it even called racism or hate crimes when whites are attacked? Where ever this leads, I think it has worked as a publicity ploy, because I'd never heard of him before, and all the TV channels (I assume, although I've only seen 2) are now talking about him, and providing interviews.

St. John’s Bible

And I found in that same 2001 letter with the description of the African travel book the following information:

“On Feb. 21, I attended a lecture at the Faculty Club about the St John's Bible, the first manuscript Bible in about 500 years.  The art work is really magnificent.  A monastery in MN has commissioned it, and the calligrapher lives in England.  Father Hollas had a video showing the artist at work--was absolutely fascinating, and slides of the sketches and mock-ups of several scenes, like the nativity (he calls them the infancy narratives) and the raising of Lazarus.  I was surprised that the new RSV was selected as the version.  I asked one of the librarians about it, knowing he is Catholic, and he claimed complete ignorance of any version.  "Oh, we Catholics don't read the Bible, we just rattle our beads," I think he said.  The December issue of Smithsonian has a cover story on this Bible.  It is projected to take 6 years--and of course you can sponsor a page, but the costs weren't as bad as some I've seen for getting your name on a brick of a building.  I think $1,000 was the price of an un-illuminated page.  $250,000 if you want to sponsor one of the Gospels.”

Well, this sounded interesting! Even 18 years later.  I vaguely remember the event, so I looked it up, and it has a blog and a web page.  I’ll for sure want to find that December 2000 Smithsonian (checked—it’s available for $36.)

Information on the calligrapher, Donald Jackson, scribe to the Queen of England.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTS5m59DPoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULb9xZuj1bE

The Heritage Edition.
https://blog.saintjohnsbible.org/posts/2019/02/mount-saint-mary-college-heritage-edition/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90togEvOruo  Rev. Eric Hollas, O.S.B., Senior Associate for Arts & Cultural Affairs at Saint John's University. http://stmu.it/15cYKtP  Was apparently the person who gave the presentation that night in February 2001 at the Faculty Club.

White Africans and Black by Caroline Singer and Cyrus Le Roy Baldridge, on my bookshelves

According to a letter I found, I bought this book in 2001 from the wonderful used book store (now closed) Acorn in Grandview because of the beautiful pencil and charcoal drawings. There are no whites in the book so I was a little puzzled by the title—the authors say it’s because all Africa was controlled by whites. Originally written in 1929 and published by The Methodist Book Deport , Cape Coast, Gold Coast,  it is extremely respectful of the beauty and culture of black Africa, but the authors comment on the presence of the Europeans and their culture throughout the book as they travel in Africa for 14 months.  There is an inscription in mine from the original owners: January 1945, Marilyn Phyllis Birch, A memento of our field of foreign service. Daddy and Mother (beautiful script).

One of the first things the authors mention is that photographs do not do justice to the shading and tone of African skin--but their drawings certainly do. The people are all beautifully drawn--very well muscled, graceful, and beautiful. They comment on relations between men and women, slavery (which had been outlawed, but still was obvious), funeral customs, polygamy, religion, the culture of the "Creole" West Indians who had returned to Africa but weren't really African, food, bathing, language, work attitudes.

The illustrator is Cyrus Baldridge, and  his wife, Caroline Singer is the writer. Her writing style is unusual. She uses almost no active verbs, lots of descriptive clauses, and sometimes word repetition, and so her writing develops sort of a calming rhythm. I would love to see something else they've written--and they did a lot of traveling,

“Quiet is the bedroom which adjoins our own, occupied by a swaggering hawk-nosed Kissi, his childlike wife and half a dozen retainers who, though slavery is by law abolished, differ racially from their employer and obey him, without servility, but still as people owned obey.  That the young man is Moslem is evidence not by robes and sandals alone—for many pagans assume this dress without derangement of their inner life—but by his pretty one’s abasement, which has a subtly meretricious quality.  She is demure.  But I think she is so designedly, not unselfconsciously as pagan women are.  It is often stated by the governing whites—despite the missionary’s protest—that any pagan, Moslemized, has made an upward step.  This child, littered with European jewelry of dubious gold, is set apart from other women here by a mincing self-consciousness, equalled only by the preciousness of half-Europeanized women of the larger coast settlements, unduly inflated by newly acquired monogamy, Charleston sandals, and coverings for their upper parts.  A favorite toy, chosen for her charms and not her usefulness, the girl, as if in fearful anticipation of the day those charms may pass, undetected from behind her husband’s back, plunges long glances into the eyes of passing men, searching for reaffirmation of their potency.”

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/cyrus-leroy-baldridge-illustrator-explorer-activist/

If I were collecting books instead of giving them away, this is an illustrator/author I would try to locate.

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/media/documents/baldridge-C.pdf

A WWI illustration from “ I Was There With the Yanks In France (1920), a book of sketches by the artist Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, who had served as a war correspondent in occupied Belgium and France before America even joined the war. Baldridge later joined the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and became the chief illustrator for the new Stars and Stripes military newspaper.”  https://library.wustl.edu/wwi-archives-dan-bartletts-books/

The President’s emergency powers

We’re still living under emergency powers put in place by previous presidents.  According to Democrats, only President Trump can't call a national emergency when we are being invaded by thousands every year, a large number who are members of gangs, who are trafficking women and children, who are using children to pose as "family" groups, who are bringing in drugs.

What if they were Russians arriving in San Francisco or New York demanding refugee status for admittance? By the thousands. The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. Big ships of them because Putin wanted to empty his jails and prison camps.  Every year. Demanding the social safety net originally set up for our poor and unemployed. Wanting all the labels and directions printed in А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я, and press 2 for Russian? Demanding special sanctuary cities so they can avoid police and prey on Russians who came as legal immigrants and refugees in the 1990s?

What if instead of hundreds crossing our northern border with Canada annually there were thousands and thousands flooding into Minnesota and Washington, working the good tech jobs, or even as baristas, taking over slots in the colleges intended by minority affirmative action for people born here?

Ilhan Omar has shown us one doesn’t have to be born in the U.S. to be in Congress and have an ugly, biased, bigoted Twitter account and try to destroy our ally Israel.

The Dred Scott case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OML9AVR10PQ

Democrats (7) on the Supreme Court decided Dred Scott wasn't a citizen worthy of rights--just as now Democrat led states are deciding that third trimester unborn babies are not citizens worthy of rights and protection. When their ugly legislation passed, they cheered and lit up buildings. To their credit, those 7 judges didn't say Scott wasn't human—just unfit and inferior—sort of what they say about full term babies.

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/landmark_dred.html

Unspeakable evil