Democrats in full hysteria gear
Thursday, January 06, 2022
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
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
Wednesday, January 05, 2022
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. . .
Common Sense with Bari Weiss, Jan. 4, 2022 Dr. Marty Makary, Johns Hopkins, writes for WSJ, WaPo
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
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)
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)
The Unity Project (unityprojectonline.com)
Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial | The BMJ
Tuesday, January 04, 2022
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
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
Monday, January 03, 2022
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 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."
"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."
Sunday, January 02, 2022
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
"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)
"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)
“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)
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 findings about bureaucracy
Exciting new findings are shedding a light on the nature and structure of bureaucracy:
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!
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!
Saturday, January 01, 2022
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).
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.
“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.CNN's Leana Wen: 'Cloth Masks Are Little More Than Facial Decorations' (reason.com)
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.”
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.
"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.
Friday, December 31, 2021
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.
"micNot 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?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.
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."
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."
Thursday, December 30, 2021
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
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?
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?
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