Where we are today

The Covid studies showed in the early months of 2020 that those over 70, obese, or with other conditions were at risk, and younger people weren't. Not enough money in that, so after a vaccine originally limited to the vulnerable in early 2021, the rest of the country was railroaded into lockdowns and vaccines. Except the low-income workers. (Even though most poor people in USA are white, we're already getting the "systemic racism" of Covid lockdown studies). They got the privilege of being the cashiers and delivery people and the restaurant employees who got to feed and clothe the wealthier classes who stayed home and worked at their computers. Even the churches bowed to the pressure of being less essential than Kroger cashiers. Masks and lockdowns have since been proven ineffective in stopping the spread. Voting rules were set aside without the people's approval further creating divisions among citizens, friends and families. Vaccines have been only partially protective--a few months. Yet many of the mandates still are in effect; the vaccines still have emergency use approval supposedly because nothing else is available (which is forbidden to even mention). Biden slapped mandates on schools, corporations and government agencies with the help of Big Pharma and Big Tech after initially creating doubt in the vaccine because Warp Speed was a Trump policy, destroying careers and the economy as he moved on to the biggest drug of all--naked, raw power. FDR even with the Great Depression and WWII didn't have the power Biden does. To keep the power, the federal government then subcontracted censorship to "non-profit" misinformation agencies, so now we are swimming in lies and censorship caused by the very people who should be protecting us.

The J-6 set up to destroy Trump

The J-6 clown show lied to the nation about Jacob Chansley, Ray Epps, and Brian Sicknick and we've all seen the evidence now. The whole point was to destroy Donald Trump, not to find out what happened the day that Pelosi failed to protect the Capitol. Looks like there needs to be another investigation.

Now that Republicans (barely) control the House we're finally getting the truth about masks, lockdowns, and infections, what went on inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the disastrous pull out of August 2021 when Biden ran away from Afghanistan, killing Americans, Afghanis and letting Putin know he could attack Ukraine. Worst president in my lifetime.

The tapes of what else happened on January 6

 Tucker Carlson is drawing a lot of fire from both the GOP entrenched leaders, the Democrats who wanted to lynch Trump, and the Leftist Media, not to mention the hateful women on the View.  Why?  He showed more detail of the January 6 riots.  People armed with American flags walking around with police who didn't seem alarmed.  

The link between periodontal disease and arthritis

 They are now connecting the dots.  It was known there was a connection, but which came first?

"For many years, there had been suggestions that the oral bacteria causing periodontal disease might contribute to rheumatoid arthritis. For instance, past studies have found that periodontal disease occurs even more often in people with rheumatoid arthritis. People with both conditions also tend to have more severe arthritic symptoms that can be more stubbornly resistant to treatment.

What’s been missing is the precise underlying mechanisms to confirm the connection. To help connect the dots, a research team, which included Dana Orange, Rockefeller University, New York, NY, and William Robinson, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, decided to look closer."

Connecting the Dots: Oral Infection to Rheumatoid Arthritis – NIH Director's Blog

I had gum surgery for periodontal disease about 45 years ago.  I think I also had surgery for a frenectomy at the same time (removal of labial frenulum between front teeth).  Very painful.  Don't let them tell you it's no big deal. Anyway, until recently I've had no pain in my fingers.  Some in left hand now--don't know if it's arthritis or just old age.

Makes me want to leave the computer an floss.  

I've got a cold

So, on Sunday morning I realized I had a scratchy throat, my usual sign of a cold coming on, and I stayed home from church and took a nap. (I've since watched Joe's sermon on the Parable of the Sower at our on-line site).  My son-in-law brought me some Zicam rapidmelts, an OTC homeopathic cold remedy. Instead of a 3 day lead up to stuffy head and coughing and sneezing, I had only one day. My colds are usually 2.5 to 3 weeks--let's see how this turns out. What's been your experience?

My last cold was probably July 2022 at Lakeside, a first since the Covid lockdown, which did protect many from colds and flu according to the articles I read, but then they returned with a vengeance. That one was at least 2-3 weeks before I felt comfortable being in public and not wearing a mask. Both times, to be on the safe side, I did the Covid test and it was negative.

Adults get approximately two to three colds per year, and young children who go to elementary school or kindergarten have an average of around five to eight colds per year. When my children were in elementary school our family would have about 10 colds per year (one year we were in a study which is how I remember). Bob had fewer colds than the rest of us--being out of the house more probably protected him, because we were a little cesspool of germs on Abington Road.

We had been to a wonderful concert Saturday evening, so I did call my friend Lynn I'd been chatting with closely and suggested a heads up for whatever she takes to stay healthy.  She's had so many health problems with cancer and heart the last 4 years, I didn't want her to be unsafe, since I assume I was infectious before I had any symptoms.

Dr. Zhivago redux

Flipping through the channels today I came across the Dr. Zhivago movie, 1965. It's 3 hours, but 30 minutes of scenes of Russia's Civil War, WWI, Bolsheviks and Communist regime I was reminded of the current battles in Ukraine killing thousands more Russians just as in the early decades of 20th century. It was too much. Some of the script reminded me of the lies of today's Leftists. Hollow and deadly. Anyway, it was so depressing while they were losing their home and being destroyed by the Communists, I switched to HGTV for "reality."

Once upon a time there were two presidents

President Donald Trump froze travel from China as too risky when a city with a SARS lab showed an unusual uptick in deaths. Nancy Pelosi and other leftists called him a racist.

President Barack Obama froze funding (both federal and private) of gain of function research in the U.S. as too risky. But someone at NIH found a way to fund it in China.

So which President is the racist with the most damage to the Chinese people as a result of his executive action?

Doing Diligence to Assess the Risks and Benefits of Life Sciences Gain-of-Function Research | whitehouse.gov (archives.gov)

Biden ‘Believes’ Gain-Of-Function Research Is Necessary To Stop Future Pandemics, Kirby Says | The Daily Caller

CPAC now meets all over the world.

https://youtu.be/8Oim0ZzKhnI Nigel Farage speaks at CPAC about how because of Covid we English speaking countries gave unlimited power to governments, giving up freedoms it took centuries to develop. Don't let it happen again, he says.

Ukrainians and Russians side by side in UAE

A new restaurant in Dubai offers Ukrainian expats a taste of home : NPR

Fashion isn't as important as a taste of home.

"She's dining at Yoy with Iryna Klevetenko, from Kyiv. Both women have been living in the United Arab Emirates for several years. They're enjoying borsch on Yoy's outdoor terrace overlooking a dancing fountain and the landmark Atlantis resort hotel.

Klevetenko says the bling and luxury of Dubai feel surreal as she grapples with horrors of news from the war in her country. The war changed her priorities.

"Before, you were, like, I want Dolce and Gabbana bag," she said. "Now it's like, who cares about Dolce and Gabbana bag. We just want war to finish, that's it.""

Speaking of inflation

Tonight, I was sorting through old bills--really old--like over 60 year old invoices and cancelled checks. Fuel oil, lumber, paint, furniture, taxes, insurance. Then I came across a cancelled check for a restaurant dated Sept. 11, 1961, our first anniversary. I remember it well. I was 8.5 months pregnant and could barely sit close enough to the table to eat. I was wearing my one nice outfit, a light brown 2 piece with a white fluffy blouse. But the check was for $7.00. I thought that couldn't be right, so I ran it through an inflation calculator (Federal Reserve). $7.00 in 1961 came to $70.04 in 2023, for 900.4% inflation. To double check I used a U.S. CPI inflation calculator, but it wouldn't do March 2023, so I had to use December 2022, which was $69.25.  Close enough.

My new log book for exercise

 My Strength and My Shield: A Realtree™ Journal by Ellie Claire | Goodreads

This is a cute little journal in a camo style with inspirational messages inside. My old exercise journal has no design or flair and I think I bought it in Spain at a "dollar store" run by foreigners.  The Spanish just call them "the China store," instead of Dollar Tree.  That one is dated September 5, 2018, with about 6,500 miles ending with about 15,500.  I think my first one was around January 1, 2015. My new one is made by Ellie Claire Gift and paper Expressions c2016. I bought it at Marc's for maybe a dollar or $1.49, but you can find it at Thrift store sites on the internet for about $5.00.

At first when checking this journal I found a page for Ella Claire, who had a blog, recipes, poems, etc.  Not the same person.  There is also a St. Ella Claire and she's not it either.  

Why the lab leak theory is being reported now

Why now? Why is the lab leak story issued by Dept. of Energy making headlines? Why the leftist lapdog media who rushed to support Biden at any cost especially the truth doing the duck and cover? The same liberal media which constantly spread lies about conspiracy theories, blaming Trump, and cancelled his supporters.

The 3 Ds. Desperate, Desperation, and Desperados.

1. The Biden administration is desperate to continue the war on Trump and his supporters. They accused him of xenophobia when he closed air traffic from China in January 2020. They called him a racist when he called it the China virus and said he believed it was a lab leak in April 2020. Nancy Pelosi continued to welcome Chinese tourists through the Spring of 2020 and vilified Trump supporters accusing them of "hate crimes." Democrats impeached him for a phone conversation with Zelenskyy which was monitored but which also implicated the Biden family in criminal behavior (Read the transcript--you'll be shocked how the media misled you)! Now they need to deflect as Biden has been proven wrong, wrong, wrong.

2. There is desperation to make Americans forget that it was Trump who launched warp speed, getting a vaccine into the arms of the American public before he left office. They want you to forget that Biden, Harris and others said they wouldn't trust the vaccine because Trump supported it. They want you to forget the vaccine should have been used for the elderly and compromised, and not children and young adults. They began the gaslighting and fear campaign which later was flipped to become a hallmark of their increasingly fascist regime. Trump also began the 2 week pause in our normal routines that went to 2 years under Biden, and Trump began flooding the economy with Covid money which was supposed to compensate the people for loss of income. It was overkill and Biden used that bad plan to swamp us with inflation and more spending. All the while he continued to vilify Trump and his supporters as he continued Trump's plan.

3. The desperados in the Biden administration are looking for two avenues of escape from this mess. a) Build distrust (more) of China as it now looks like it might assist Russia in the war against Ukraine, which has become Biden's war by proxy, and b) find a way to dump Joe Biden and Kamala Harris before the 2024 election by making his choices and leadership look uninformed and misguided. (No need to make Harris look bad--she may be the worst government official ever--not even Democrats wanted her in 2020.)

Desperate is from the Latin word desperatus meaning without hope (spero), or despairing. And that describes the whole crew in Democratistan who have been condemning all patriots who disagree to the "misinformation jail."

Lenten goals--cleaning instead of fasting

My Lenten goals are getting a slow start. This week it was tackle the cupboards and bookshelves of the kitchen. I'm on the first shelf of cookbooks in the kitchen--next will be the "junk drawer."  I'm already stuck at the computer. I'm looking at a recipe take away from the Home & Garden Show, Feb. 25-Mar 5, 2006. As I recall I picked it up because we went to a demo for a chocolate peanut butter torte with bananas in honor of Elvis' birthday at Gourmet Galaxy Cafe which was sponsored by Whole Foods, Columbus Dispatch, Home Source Interiors, etc. Before I put this in the stay or go pile, I'll just mention 2 recipes easy enough for 80-somethings to learn (each 2 pages features a Columbus chef or personality with their favorites. 

1)  Manny Malhotra of the Columbus Blue Jackets (hockey) offered, "Asparagus a la Manny" which requires 1 bunch of asparagus, salt and pepper and olive oil and aluminum foil.  2) The COO of Donatos (pizza chain based in Columbus) and daughter of the founder reported that she had worked in all areas from take-out window, making night deposits, spreading sauces and cheese to dotting pepperoni slices to the edge, but there was no recipe.

When I went back and checked my blog, I see I had written about this cookbook in 2006. https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2006/03/2228-chocolate-peanut-butter-cream.html.

By the time I got to shelf 3 I was browsing Vols. 3-5 of "A Taste of Columbus" by Beth Chilcoat. Vol. 5 was 2000, and she began the series when her children were small, and by this one she had grandchildren. I had inherited these from my daughter who had given them originally to her mother-in-law, Marilyn.  All are done in calligraphy with lovely drawings of Columbus' historical scenes. Chilcoat's husband (also co-author) died in 2006 of ALS, and she later wrote about widowhood and grief. Cap City Diner Meatloaf by Jimmy Mohammed has 28 ingredients (mostly herbs and spices) in vol. 5.

DEI ODI SDPTA OSU

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion's Strategic Diversity Planning, Training, and Assessment Unit at Ohio State University is offering a fine selection for minds of mush at a stomach turning and very expensive buffet. After 9 months student/staff/faculty gets a certificate in a new mind set, the entry key to the various corporations trying to meet DIE standards.

DEI Foundations

Social Identity 101

Microaggressions 101

Microinterventions (follows Microaggressions)

Microaggressions and Me

Navigating Difficult DEI Conversations

Practice Makes Progress: Microinterventions

Reflect and Reset

Covid 19 and anti-Asian Racism

"In addition to the above workshops aimed at DEI educational experiences, the Office of Strategic Diversity Planning, Training, and Assessment also offers Inclusive Excellence Workshops providing guidance on planning and assessment. We also maintain a list of additional DEI education resources and trainings available from other units at Ohio State."

Dr. Robert Califf, FDA and misinformation

"I strongly believe that misinformation is a leading cause of preventable death in America now." Robert Califf, FDA

I believe that too, but I believe it is the result of government misinformation and not the victims' fault.

I strongly believe that misinformation, fear, and confusing messaging begins and ends with the government. Masks don't help; masks do help; masks are mandatory; or maybe not, just kidding. Not enough ventilators; President Trump's fault; ventilators found; ventilators turned out by millions; not enough people need ventilators; President Trump's fault. The virus can live 3 days on surface; wrong, lives 15 days; wrong again, I'll get back to you on that. Pets can't get covid 19; pets can get covid 19. We need temporary hospitals and hospital ships; tent hospitals standing empty; President Trump's fault--he should have known better. Remember Biden and Harris told Americans in 2020 not to trust the vaccine because Trump had advocated for it and it was his "win". 

The lockdown of people who weren't in danger (power hungry bureaucrats at the local level), and totalitarian ideology are the primary reason for the deaths; and the vaccination itself has caused great harm to younger people. Airline pilots have been fired, athletes are refusing it, doctors aren't allowed to prescribe safe and trusted medications, and just about everyone I know who's had Covid has also had the shot and boosters. Remember what we were told in Jan-Feb 2021? Protection and efficacy--off the charts! Then we discovered protection dissipated after a few months, but even that truth was squelched and ridiculed as a conspiracy theory, then later revised to "it will be less severe but can't protect us from infection.

I said in summer 2020 (see links below) there was no peer reviewed literature on masks offering either protection for the user or the exposed, and I kept checking for months. Zip, nada, zero. Yet children have probably lost 2 years of education, especially low income who didn't have parents to fill in the gaps. Churches were closed as being "non-essential." Now Cochrane Reviews has just come out with the same information as a retired medical librarian found 2.5 years ago. No evidence that masks or distancing stopped the spread. Handwashing possibly, but even that's inconclusive.

CDC, FDA and especially Fauci became the new Lysenkoism (caused millions of deaths in the USSR in early 20th century), where only they knew the science and not the many researchers/scientists who disagreed. One had to believe the science of the day, and if not obeyed tenured, published professors were under threat of having their careers destroyed by Big Tech fact-checkers.

By far the majority of deaths from Covid were the elderly, pre-existing conditions and obesity, yet I never saw jazzy ads about weight loss from athletes and movie stars, only the necessity of getting the shot. Instead, sick people (non-covid) couldn't get in to see their doctors. I don't know Califf or his record for research or teaching, but I do know of the work and talent of many of those he's calling snake oil salesmen. Like Bret Weinstein, certainly no Trump supporter and not a Republican or Conservative by any stretch, yet the leftist media refer to him as "right wing." This is government CYA as the non-Covid deaths continue to increase. It makes no difference if one is a tenured faculty in biology, a billionaire who was on board at the beginning, or a researcher who helped develop the mRNA technology, they will be silenced by smears, threats to their income and reputation, or firing.

The strategy that the government is using is to fund their own "misinformation" campaigns with our tax dollars to silence any news agency, blog, website or platform that disagrees with the party line, and that is not only Covid, but the GreenNew Deal, CRT, the border, or billions for Ukraine. If they are successful in silencing all who disagree with them on Covid, they will silence/censor on everything else, too.
1) Hamilton 68 Saga Illustrates Scope Of America’s Institutional Rot (thefederalist.com)

2) State Department Funded Foreign Think Tank Working To Censor Americans | The Daily Caller

3) Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news (washingtonexaminer.com)

4) Matt Taibbi: "Twitter Files" Reveal The Structure Of The Relationship Between Social Media Companies And FBI Requests For Censorship | Video | RealClearPolitics


Collecting My Thoughts: Finding research on medical masks for the public

Collecting My Thoughts: To mask or not to mask

Collecting My Thoughts: The battle of the masks.

Collecting My Thoughts: Evidence for cloth masks? Not much

Collecting My Thoughts: No published trial on the effects of masks in Covid-19 transmission

Ukraine, Russia and Namibia

While Joe continues spending $113 Billion and hot air on Ukraine's battle with Russia, his wife is touring Africa. Africa is also in a terrible mess with ethnic and regional battles in Sudan and Ethiopia and Eritrea, although she's not in that area. The U.S. has been dropping money bombs all over Africa for years, but can't seem to back a winner. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/jill-biden-arrives-namibia-africa-tour-2023-02-22/ She supposed to talk about rights of women--but she represents a party that can't even define woman. She'll address Democratic values--that must mean her party, because her husband thinks little about our values that established the country. She'll also visit Kenya which is battling a drought--wow, don't let the Democrats advise on that--or on fertilizer.

Cochrane Reviews--still no evidence for masks stopping the spread

In the first year of the pandemic Cochrane Library which identifies, appraises and synthesizes all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria, looked at all the then known evidence for stopping the spread of Covid.

"Cochrane has responded to the crisis by gathering its community, working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other stakeholders, in developing and publishing several systematic reviews on the effectiveness of behavioural public health measures for reducing COVID‐19 infection.[1] These measures include masks, handwashing, physical distancing, quarantine, contact tracing, screening, and travel restrictions. Because COVID‐19 is still so new, however, these reviews have largely summarized effects on transmission of other viruses in non‐pandemic conditions. Policy makers must act on incomplete evidence in responding to COVID‐19 | Cochrane Library (November 20, 2020)

The results were inconclusive for masks, handwashing, physical distancing, quarantine, contact tracing, screening, and travel restrictions. That didn't stop policy makers from what they do best--making policy. OK, that's what Cochrane found 2.5 years ago, but the policy makers went right ahead, especially the teachers unions which appeared to be advising the CDC.

Now, Cochrance has again published its results of more current studies (although in my opinion there are too few since some researchers were "cancelled" or were prevented from studying or publishing their results if it went against policies already put in place using no evidence). Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses? | Cochrane (January 30, 2023)

"We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed. Hand hygiene programmes may help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses."

I recall writing about the mask literature in summer of 2020 at my blog and Facebook. I checked every few weeks in the medical databases for evidence that masking could stop the spread of Covid-19. I never found it, and the virus continued to spread despite masks, distancing, isolation, and vaccine/boosters. I got a lot of push back from people who knew nothing except what they'd heard from the media.

I continue to believe that masks and hand washing can reduce the spread of colds and flu by blocking the air borne molecules which transport the virus, but Covid, no. Too small to block.

Wisdom from the Bible

"Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who will no longer take advice." Ecclesiastes 4:13

That Democrats continue to support Joe Biden despite his demeaning, stereotypical racist beliefs and comments tells me that all their whining about systemic racism, defund the police and microaggressions, is just that, whining. It's simply a way to impose their own brand of power and oppression. Imagine the outrage if a Republican president called a black governor, "boy."

“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore, I tell ya,” Biden said during remarks on the economy Wednesday to an audience of IBEW union workers in Lanham, Maryland.

“He’s the real deal, and the boy looked like he could still play. He got some guns on him,” Biden added, eliciting cheers from the crowd.

California dreaming

Why are eggs so expensive in California? Over regulation for animal rights drives out egg farms.

Why are there so many homeless people in California? Over regulation of housing to meet green goals so only the rich live in neighborhoods that meet those requirements.

Why are there so many fires in California? Over regulation of forests to protect the environment. 

Why is gasoline so costly in California? Higher gas taxes to feed a hungry bureaucracy.

California's economy is larger than Germany's. Why are there so many poor people? Democrats.

No wonder men are happier by Unknown

Men are just happier people.! What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another service station to find a loo that isn’t too icky. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress: five thousand dollars. Tux rental: a hundred dollars. People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them. New shoes don’t cut, blister or mangle your feet. One mood, all the time! Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You expect and get extra credit for the slightest act of domestic work. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.
One wallet and one pair of shoes – one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can ”do” your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a moustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 24 minutes.

No wonder men are happier.