A Democrat’s definition of “greed,” is a female owned business that has brought joy to northern Illinois

The other day I told you about Beth George who has had a small resort within the White Pines State park in northern Illinois for 30 years. She was going bankrupt because of her Governor's orders. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/story/beth-george-white-pines-resort/ Apparently her going out of business sale was interrupted by the park police so she couldn't even return the down payments of the brides who had planned to use her venue!

But the most ridiculous thing is today I received an e-mail from a Democrat who commented on her "greed" for having a restaurant, gift shop, cabins, theater and wedding venue. SMH. Only a Democrat could call the joy and pleasure people have received from her small seasonal business and the payroll for her 45 employees, GREED.

The great divide

Why is the divide over opening or not opening falling along party lines, conservative vs. liberal, red state vs. blue?

First of all, it's Trump. Whatever he advises, the left and the Trump haters will fight. They oppose anything that looks like recovery because he will look good.

It's also class. Many more white color and government workers have kept their jobs but they really don't employ people. The risk takers and entrepreneurs tend to be Republicans--they actually employ people and are small businessmen. They are the ones who have borrowed from their parents or taken a 2nd mortgage to start up a business. Also farmers and blue/pink color workers are more suspicious of government control of their lives and livelihood.

Third. The news is out how the Obama administration tried to undermine/destroy the incoming Trump administration. That's political terrorism and the best way to keep that mum is to keep the focus on something else. Pump up the fear.

Fourth. Academics, upper management and entertainers do not mind waiting it out--they have resources, they know how to get around the rules, they've got treadmills in their remodeled basement and can sneak that Hispanic housekeeper and Asian immigrant hair stylist in the back door (because they certainly don't live in their neighborhood). They just love those TV commercials with the cute kids putting puzzles together with dad in his jammies with sappy music and ridiculous slogans--they may even own the marketing company being paid to make them!

Fifth. Not all Republicans are pro-life, but they haven't carved the initials of death into their political platform for 3 decades, for several generations of voters. In short, their moral compass is different. They are happier, more positive, more likely to be people who live their faith, more likely to be married and have families, and respect life at all ages including the unborn and the very elderly. They know without reading an academic paper or the Wall Street Journal that the longer the economy is closed the more people will die of a multitude of problems than Covid19 would ever touch.

A good word for today

1 Peter 5:6-11 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

A little pill is more important than the worst scandal in our history

Leftist/progressive/ Democrat reporters are more concerned that our President is taking a safe, FDA approved medication for Covid19 than they are that our last president was head of a coup to bring down our current president. The Clinton campaign paid for a fictional report that was used to spy on her political opponent, Donald J. Trump and his campaign. Perhaps hundreds of Obama officials were involved and they worked hand in hand with the media and launched an investigation that named Trump and his security advisor Michael Flynn as targets in an attempt to block disclosure of the investigation from the elected President. The impeachment failed and the Department of Justice is now looking at indictments against those deep state operatives in the failed coup attempt.

And now to divert your attention, you'll see House Democrats launch another investigation into how he handled a "novel" SARS epidemic, because their other coup attempt didn't work.

The equal opportunity crook

I can see why white liberals have become so defensive.

1) Their president who was supposed to absolve them and the country of all past sins of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination and bloated ineffective social programs designed and run by their own party failed. He set out to make race relations worse, didn't improve conditions for minorities except in politics--becoming his own Tammany Hall for blacks, didn’t end the war he had opposed, and he dealt a death blow to a health system already struggling, creating massive mergers wiping out small practitioners.

2) An outsider of both parties was able to bring in a brief golden age of freedom and opportunity for those shut out for decades--a man so crude and buffoon-like he actually conducted business on social media and fired people he had appointed. A man who could stare down the Europeans and Asians and demand respect from their frat club United Nations and European Union.

And now the final blow.

3) The man who made white liberals swoon with suave good looks, stellar "character" and fluid speeches has been found to be a crook of the magnitude we've never seen before in our history.

He’ll be called stupid either way

The Fox News panel tonight seemed puzzled that President Trump would bring up that he's been taking Hydroxychloroquine, Z-pack and Zinc for a week or so, but not mention the progress in a vaccine that sounds promising. It just upsets people. After all this time, they don't know he baits the reporters to get more publicity? Besides, they've already called him stupid and naïve about getting a vaccine quickly so why not use the other story that they disbelieve and call stupid. It really makes no difference.

It’s being tested on health care workers as a preventive method. It’s not a cure.  If it doesn’t work, it’s no different than the bazillion vitamin supplements that have never been tested—at least this one has been on the market for 70 years.

Graduation Day

The Crew Cuts were a Canadian boys group popular when I was a teen.  Today I was trying to get the cd player in my clock radio to work, and pulled their disc from a Lakeside appearance a few years back. It worked after some button experimenting. Graduation Day wasn't their hit (it was Four Freshmen), but it came on. It was a 50s do-wap collection. Made me sort of sad for all the graduates who didn't get their big day.

With Mom in the dining room at 4 S. Hannah.  She was 45 and I was 17.

Dr. John Ioannidis

https://youtu.be/T-saAuXaPok

Many more have been infected by the virus than originally thought which actually lowers drastically the death rate figures. We have data now (April 30) that shows we need rational steps, not panic. The frail and elderly still need to be careful--but that was always the case with flu and pneumonia. Suicides go up with unemployment; so does domestic violence. Heart attacks and other health problems have increased There are tradeoffs for the drastic measures we have taken.

It makes you wonder what is motivating the governors of Illinois, Michigan and California and a few others. Politics? Money? Power?

From the beginning, Dr. Ioannidis has been urging caution, saying we don’t have enough data on this virus.  Now there is much more, and still the governors are making bad decisions.  Now, it is no longer ignorance but something more serious.

Not 1984, but 2020

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.”

― George Orwell, 1984

The Flynn unmasking

The names of private U.S. citizens caught on tape by U.S. intelligence are supposed to be “masked” so their privacy is protected. So why did 39 Obama officials ask for Flynn's unmasking? Some of the unmasking requests began BEFORE the conversation with the Russian ambassador. What did he know about Obama that had to be stopped cold? Flynn had served as Obama’s Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from July 2012 to August 2014 when he was “forced out.”

Debra Heine (PJ Media) back in 2018 explained:

"Obama already despised Flynn. But his hate likely turned to fear when his former DIA decided to throw his support behind Donald J. Trump, another boat-rocker who had a real chance of winning. Obama made a point after the 2016 election of advising Trump not to hire Flynn. But Trump didn’t listen.

Next thing Flynn knew, government spies were listening in on his innocuous phone conversations with Kislyak, his name was unmasked by someone in the Obama administration, and the contents of the call were leaked to the Washington Post (which remains the only serious crime to have emerged in the Russia investigation)."

What do you think of Obama’s character now?

Story from the Wall St. Journal--other major sources are mum and shaking in their boots as the growing illegal behavior of Obama's gang is revealed. And my question about Flynn has always been why shouldn't an incoming Trump official talk to a Russian ambassador or any ambassador? Obama had been ridiculing Russia's power--what had happened in the 4 years since he'd down graded them in public on TV?

"When news stories appeared in early 2017 about Michael Flynn’s conversation with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., these columns wondered how Mr. Flynn’s call was so widely known. The names of private U.S. citizens caught on tape by U.S. intelligence are supposed to be “masked” so their privacy is protected. 

Well, now we know. GOP Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson on Wednesday released a declassified list of Obama Administration officials who in their waning days in power “unmasked” the conversations of Mr. Flynn, who was set to become President Trump’s National Security Adviser. It seems everyone but the night janitor wanted to know who Mr. Flynn was talking to. 

A stunning THIRTY NINE separate officials snooped on Mr. Flynn’s conversations with foreign actors, lodging nearly 50 unmasking demands between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 12, 2017. Our sources say the nearly dozen redacted names on the list are likely intelligence types—who might have a legitimate interest in knowing who their foreign targets were speaking to in the U.S. But most of the rest are partisan officials who had no business SPYING on their successors. 

The list includes then White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, then Vice President Joe Biden, and then Secretary of Treasury Jacob Lew. Ambassador to the U.N. and Obama confidante Samantha Power made no fewer than SEVEN requests, though she told Congress she had no recollection of unmasking Mr. Flynn. 

Mr. Flynn was unmasked by at least four U.S. ambassadors, six Treasury officials, and people connected to the Energy and Justice departments and NATO, among others. Then FBI Director James Comey, then CIA Director John Brennan and then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also made the list. This means they had access to the transcripts of any phone conversations Mr. Flynn had with foreign sources as he prepared to take power. 

The media cordon sanitaire that protects Democrats will say this is no big deal because unmasking is routine and legal. But if the masking rule means nothing in practice, why pretend it exists?" . . .

Maybe because pretending to have character (something they say Trump doesn't have) is all the Democrats know about character?

. . . "The dates of the unmaskings raise further questions. The FBI’s interest in Mr. Flynn was supposedly triggered by conversations starting Dec. 29, 2016. Yet Mr. Flynn was first unmasked a month earlier—shortly after Mr. Trump named him security adviser."

This was definitely "get Flynn" and crush him. What was the Obama parade of lackeys and toadies so afraid of?

Doing church during the shutdown

After listening to 2 great sermons by Lutheran pastor Gemechis Buba, we went down to the river (Griggs Reservoir), enjoyed a brunch of McDonald's sausage biscuits and coffee, listened to the choir of birds, geese and passing cars, observed all the joggers, walkers, families and boaters, and came home. Everyone was parking with "social distancing," with 2 empty parking places between each car.

https://vimeo.com/113330866?fbclid=IwAR1Q9Uz3BUA9Id5zUR4hxuGNdJ9H6f3Oz4ee-EXYvbP87PZ7xAQ-RfI3C8g  5 years ago on end times

https://www.facebook.com/DrGemechis/videos/261108571918907/  Mother's day sermon

Enjoying coffee and a walk at Griggs

Lots of boats in the water

Why did the chicken cross the road—an internet story with no attribution

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

DONALD TRUMP: I've been told by many sources, good sources - they're very good sources - that the chicken crossed the road. All the Fake News wants to do is write nasty things about the road, but it's a really good road. It's a beautiful road. Everyone knows how beautiful it is.

JOE BIDEN: Why did the chicken do the...thing in the...you know the rest.

SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he's a maverick!

BARACK OBAMA: Let me be perfectly clear, if the chickens like their eggs they can keep their eggs. No chicken will be required to cross the road to surrender her eggs. Period.

AOC: Chickens should not be forced to lay eggs! This is because of corporate greed! Eggs should be able to lay themselves.

HILLARY CLINTON: What difference at this point does it make why the chicken crossed the road.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or against us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white?

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he is acting by not taking on his current problems before adding any new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross the road so badly. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way the chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish it's lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

-------------------------------------------

I’ve seen several versions; many have left out Trump and Biden but John McCain is in it.

Covid19 vs Pneumonia

Between Feb. 1 and May 9, 2020

60,299 people have died of Covid19

and

81,318 have died of pneumonia

National Center for Health Statistics, CDC

Storage by Mary Oliver, a poem

A good friend knew I was sorting and pitching things (some back to retirement) while moving back into my office after Phil's death, and she gave me this poem. I know many of you need this, so I'm passing it along.

"When I moved from one house to another there were many things I had no room for. What does one do? I rented a storage space. And filled it. Years passed. Occasionally I went there and looked in, but nothing happened, not a single twinge of the heart. As I grew older the things I cared about grew fewer, but were more important. So one day I undid the lock and called the trash man. He took everything. I felt like the little donkey when his burden is finally lifted. Things! Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful fire! More room in your heart for love, for the trees! For the birds who own nothing-the reason they can fly."

I know there are several layers of meaning--like holding on to other trash such as regrets, anger, irritations, failures, etc.--but for now I'll just keep it at boxes of paper and photographs and old letters.

Hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir

Hydroxychloroquine has been politicized. Why? Trump recommended it as a possible effective treatment for Covid19. Those infected with TDS went crazy. Likewise, Remdesivir isn't having the same battle. Why? Hydroxychloroquine has been on the market for decades, for other diseases. Remdesivir hasn't been approved for anything but has had some good early data. Some people say "follow the money." Hydroxychloroquine is cheap and available. Remdesivir is expensive, not approved safe yet, no generics. Democrats, you know those guys who hate capitalism and mega-rich people, seem to be backing the one that will cost us a lot of money--Remdesivir.

Doctors who had been using Hydroxychloroquine are being told not to. Hmmm. Interview by Sharyl Attkisson with Dr. William O'Neill investigating both drugs. He has used Hydroxychloroquine on many and found it effective and believes the politicization has been harmful. He's looked at Remdesivir studies--it doesn't reduce mortality, but may decrease days in hospital. So a reduction in mortality vs. a reduction of days in the hospital? There are 6 studies on going for Hydroxychloroquine. There may be other drugs on the horizon. It may turn out it's a cocktail of drugs, not one drug. Hold your powder, folks. The media are not our friends in this search. It sometimes takes 10-15 years to fully understand a new disease.

https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/05/hydroxychloroquine-politicizing-medicine-podcast/

The censored voice of Aaron Ginn

Social media giants like YouTube, Google, Facebook and Twitter have attempted to silence or "correct fake news" about the virus and pandemic. Today's Wall St. Journal points out that some of those canaries in the coal mine were correct and the censors were just wrong. What if in 10 theories, 9 are half-baked, but 1 is just perfect. We know the media, both main stream and social, will attempt to destroy all 10. But isn't that what theories are for?

"Aaron Ginn’s story is a cautionary tale that even well-intended censorship can overreach, suppressing the search for truth. Mr. Ginn, 32, is the Silicon Valley technologist who posted an essay on March 20 titled “Evidence over hysteria—COVID-19” on the Medium website. Citing academic research and government data, Mr. Ginn argued that public-health experts were focusing too much on “flattening the curve . . . while ignoring the economic shock to our system” of shuttering businesses and schools and ordering Americans to stay home.

“When 13% of Americans believe they are currently infected with COVID-19 (mathematically impossible),” he wrote, “full-on panic is blocking our ability to think clearly and determine how to deploy our resources to stop this virus.” The message was well-timed—the day he posted it, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered “nonessential” New York businesses to close.

Mr. Ginn’s essay drew 2.6 million page views in 24 hours—and a barrage of liberal criticism. Carl T. Bergstrom, a University of Washington biologist, called it “Shakespeare run through google translate into Japanese, then translated back to English by someone who’d never heard of Shakespeare.” Then Medium took it down, saying it violated rules under a “risk analysis framework we use for ‘Controversial, Suspect and Extreme content.’ ”

But Ginn had been in Wuhan before most of us had ever heard of it. He also had some internal warnings about censorship--his grandparents had fled Communist China 50 years ago, he knew the Chinese language and (gasp) he had been a Christian missionary. Not only did he believe in the free expression of ideas (something Democrats have lost), but he knew the Chinese data was not to be trusted.

Now millions of us have taken our heads out of the sand (or other dark places) and are seeing the wisdom in his warnings--although it may be too late for the businesses that have been destroyed all in the race to ruin the Trump economy.

"Some belittle him [Ginn] as an “armchair epidemiologist.” He retorts that “facts and data are independent of your credentials..” Knowledge of the virus is evolving, and “we should always take in new evidence and judge it, and figure out what’s the sort of best policy prescription. A lot of things that we originally thought we were right on were wrong.” Take the “6-foot rule” for maintaining personal social distancing, which Mr. Ginn says isn’t supported by scientific evidence. The World Health Organization recommends 1 meter (3 feet, 3 inches), while Germany and Australia suggest 1.5 meters (just under 5 feet). Sweden recommends that people use “good judgment.” "

“I want this to be an open dialogue,” Mr. Ginn says. “But we shouldn’t have public-health people making economic policy. We need to have the policy makers who people vote for make those determinations.” After all, “we’re a democracy—we’re not China.”

Who knew?

So when you see those red circles on the floor of the grocery store, just remember there is no scientific evidence for that. Not even by the so called "scientists" we're suppose to revere. Could be 3', or 5' or any distance you choose.

Lakeside will be different this year

We own a summer home in a Chautauqua community linked to the Methodists, Lakeside, Ohio, which depends on the owners and visitors to keep it afloat for 3 months of its business season. Owners, of course, pay year around. There are constant appeals for money in any year, usually to rebuild, restore, restart something in the arts, religion, education and recreation areas. Now, it will be just to stay alive. $2.1 million deficit.

"Lakeside is taking this expected loss of revenue very seriously. We reacted swiftly to implement immediate cost reductions. Reductions in staffing and cuts in operating expenses and programming costs for this summer total $1.6 million. We were able to cut another $200,000 from project spending to bring the cost reductions to $1.8 million, but we are still left with a $2.1 million projected deficit ($3.9 million reduction in revenue partially offset by $1.8 million in cost cutting).

"How do we intend to cover the $2.1 million deficit? Lakeside received a $650,000 forgivable loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, part of the Federal government’s stimulus package. Lakeside already had bank lines of credit of $1.1 million that are typically used to manage variations in cash flow. We will use those. Lakeside is supplementing that by acquiring an additional $500,000 bank line of credit. We have enough debt capacity to cover the remaining deficit, although it comes at a future cost of paying back that debt. " (Lakeside newsletter)

We'll be there, and it will be different. Our family has been Lakesiders since 1974, owners since 1988. Many of our family and friends have visited or stayed with us over the years. We will have Phil's service there this summer.

 

Give me liberty

Stop the insanity

At the beginning (the end of January when the President was called a racist for sounding the alarm about a mysterious virus originating in China), most of us went along with the need to be prudent, which soon moved to the need to avoid our usual places we congregated, then closing the schools, then seeing our businesses close for a few weeks (they originally said until Easter), then the churches, then the orders to wear masks/don't wear masks; then we began to see the light. This wasn't going to stop unless we objected. The cure was becoming worse than the disease.

Then we noticed the push back about opening up was coming from the same people who gave us 3 years 24/7 of investigating and impeaching our president. Yet the statistics and models were all over the place, and many of the experts disagreed. Some never considered removing from the numbers mix the same people who were also at risk for influenza and pneumonia or the people who already had serious health challenges. And if they did, they were ridiculed or blocked. The president's enemies howled even louder if he speculated or commented or disagreed. We have a health system already endangered and weakened by the previous administration's demands to buy a bad product or go to jail. Now we're being told we have to save it by collapsing every other segment of the economy?

Stop the insanity.