Wednesday, June 30, 2021

A year ago at Lakeside

A photo of our nation in a lockdown that had never been tested or proven effective, ordered by governors and low level public health officers drunk on power, wearing masks that had never been tested for this virus, while refusing to allow discussion and censoring science by the very companies who were making money hand over fist by keeping us out of libraries, churches, and schools.

 

Things are much better this year; I see only a few masks.  Usually Democrats.




Americans are becoming serfs in their own country.

Bill Gates is the biggest "farmer" in the country--owns millions of acres of farmland rented to other farmers. Controls the seeds.

Four food processing corporations own 80% of our processing ability, the "food chain."
Four financial institutions are buying up all the affordable housing and eventually we'll only be able to rent.
 
Big Tech and Big Pharma silence free speech and research about the global pandemic, putting our lives in danger.
 
A major, left of center podcast (Darkhorse) has been shut down for daring to suggest Ivermectin can be a tool, not a cure, not a vaccine, just like other safe medications.
 
Big Tech colluded with Democrats to shut down the only president of either party, to bring new ideas and a fresh look at the power of our intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI) that are spying on Americans and particularly conservative organizations and non-profits. He called out our "allies" to pay their fair share, and protected our Bill of Rights and Border. How scary was that for the moles in government!

Democrats in Congress are encouraging crime in black communities through defund police efforts, slogans and street riots,, assisted by a flow of illegals to take their futures, as well as encouraging death to their next generation through abortion.
 
Academe has become completely a left wing think tank for Marxists in the government, and the gatekeeper for who teaches and who gets in, after convincing generations they couldn't succeed without a college degree.


https://youtu.be/PQTbpJl2-Ho  The meat mafia, Glenn Beck













Tuesday, June 29, 2021

The definition of food insecurity. It isn't hunger.

USAFacts is doing a feature on "food insecurity." That term was invented because there is not enough actual hunger in the U.S. to measure by population and put in a graph. However, I read far enough to get to the "food desert" definition. Notice: "easy and ample access." 
"What is a food desert? The Department of Agriculture defines them as an area where low-income people do not have easy and ample access to food retailers. This limits people’s access to affordable, nutritious food."
Here's what happens. When a chain store with jobs and fresh fruits and vegetables plans to expand in a poor neighborhood, they are run out of town by organized protests from the Left and tied up for years in the courts battling city codes. It's like when AOC got an Amazon distribution center run out of her district. And what company would ever invest in Portland or Minneapolis after the anti-police, pro-crime riots of the last year?



"Over the past decade, federal and local governments in the United States have spent hundreds of millions of dollars encouraging grocery stores to open in food deserts. The federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative has leveraged over $1 billion in financing for grocers in under-served areas. . . We studied the grocery purchases of about 10,000 households in those neighborhoods. While it’s true that these households buy less healthy groceries than people in wealthier neighborhoods, they do not start buying healthier groceries after a new supermarket opened. Instead, we find that people shop at the new supermarket, but they buy the same kinds of groceries they had been buying before."


Monday, June 28, 2021

Sit back and enjoy what's great about America--at least 15 years ago

Having grown up in Mumbai, India--Dinesh D'Souza is able to identify aspects of America that are invisible to people who have always lived here. As a "person of color," he is competent to address such questions as what it is like to be a nonwhite person in America, what this country owes its minority citizens, and whether immigrants can expect to be granted full membership in this society. This article is 15 years old. Today's virulent race theory and hate-America first isn't new. Obama wasn't even president when this was written, although he built on it. It was developing in the 1980s and 1990s in its own homeland, the U.S. academic system, where I worked.

Sunday, June 27, 2021

Trump came to Wellington, Ohio. I'd never heard of it.

I was a huge fan of Ted Cruz--still am. Probably the finest speaker in the Senate. I never thought I'd think of Trump as a fluent, articulate speaker--but then the Democrats put Joe Biden in the White House. The leftist whisperer--green new deal, ya'll come and invade our country, steal more from the middle class with inflation and raising taxes, enrich the oligarchs, stop the Christians, and encourage class/race hate. All with that deer in the headlights look, fumbling his index cards because he can't see the teleprompter. Yes, Trump has never sounded so good, so sane, so practical.

Saturday, June 26, 2021

Ethics probe stopped by Biden

This week a mumbling, whispering confused Joe Biden referred to the Tuskegee Airmen as the men the federal government experimented on for decades--completely rewriting history. The media just smile. Good old Joe. Well, the government did actually experiment on black men right into the 1970s, and it is still protecting experiments with humans--and Biden is pushing child abuse by shutting down the investigation. This research was stopped by President Trump, but it's baaaaack. The ghouls of the Biden administration have given the “best and brightest” government researchers and agencies "license to use the skin, brains, liver, and eyeballs of aborted children for taxpayer-funded research."

 But Biden doesn't tweet, thank goodness.


There have been many government commissions and ethics panels. List of former entities found in the Georgetown archives. https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/past_commissions/?  some of which include fetal and stem cell. Good intentions, no results. Looking through them in the index section, I see that most authors are "unknown," and the comments and summaries are gobbledegook of academics and bureaucrats, particularly this 1975 report on Research on the Fetus, Research on the Fetus (georgetown.edu)

Where major corporations are investing, guest blogger Michael Smith

"If you are paying attention, you do not need an army of analysts or a divining rod to find water here.

Meat prices at the grocery store are going up - and yet the price on the hoof is not. As a matter of fact, many cattle producers are caught in a squeeze and losing money on a per head basis. I saw a report a few weeks ago that noted the retail businesses have a profit margin of about $30 per head of cattle while the meat processor’s margin is around $1000 per head. The rancher’s margin? Between $10 a head and loss of $30, depending on the timing of the sale.

How does that work? The answer is that it does not.
 
The meat processing industry is controlled by four companies, Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef, that process 80% of all slaughtered animals and because access to processing is so limited, you either sell to them or one of their agents or you do not sell at all. Why would the meat processors be putting so much pressure on the producers of protein on the hoof?

Well, at present, three of the four major processors have gone woke, adopting the ESG methods of corporate control. Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance data refers to metrics related to intangible assets within the enterprise, roughly equivalent to China’s Social Credit System (that ranks citizens and punishes them with throttled internet speeds and flight bans if the Communist Party deems them untrustworthy).

And a good ESG score means you must believe in anthropogenic climate change. The “climate scientists” at the UN have determined that livestock production, especially raising cattle, generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent than transportation. In 2006, senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said, “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

Cow farts are killing us.

Why would meat processors be destroying their own businesses?

They really are not. They will still process cattle, but the meat will be far more expensive, a luxury for most – but where these companies are putting their investments is telling – fake meat. Each of these companies are pouring millions into research and development of plant-based protein meat substitutes.
Plant-based? Is it any wonder why Bill Gates is the largest private owner of farm land in the United States?

Several large investment firms are buying up single family homes. BlackRock, the largest asset management firm on the planet with over $9 trillion in assets, and other money institutions buying up single-family homes as quickly as they can at rates higher than the average homebuyer is willing to pay. Of course, taking homes off the market by overpaying for them, drives overall home prices up.
Why? Well first, these investment firms can borrow money at historically low rates, even lower than any individual home buyer, but the goal is more insidious - BlackRock and others are causing a shift from home ownership to renting (BlackRock is also the third largest institutional shareholder in the "engineered meat" producer, Beyond Meat).
 
Renting degrades the economy for lower and middle class folks while limiting their upward financial mobility by robbing them of the equity increases home ownership typically brings. This is not just BlackRock, Bloomberg just published an article claiming that “America should become a nation of renters”, further stating “The very features that made houses an affordable and stable investment are coming to an end.”

This idea, coupled with BlackRock’s actions, simply points to a commoditization of the housing market and a consolidation into corporate control of the foundational asset of the American family, their own home. It represents the loss of individual control of another asset class and a created dependence on corporations for the most basic of needs, shelter.

Now, add to that the control over media and the fact the Internet Overlords and Social Media Commissars have become agents of the federal government and the Democrat Party, and you have a pretty good idea of where the corporations and the big investors think we are going.

Biden's government continues its radical eco-agenda. Aside from being implicated tree spiking in the Pacific Northwest, an ecoterrorist act, and support for government enforced population control, Biden's horrific nominee to run the Bureau of Land Management, Tracy Stone-Manning, is notoriously anti-cattle grazing rights on federal lands. In her graduate thesis, Stone-Manning wrote:

"The origin of our abuses is us. If there were fewer of us, we would have less impact. We must consume less, and more importantly, we must breed fewer consuming humans."

The thesis also goes on to claim that cattle grazing on public lands is "destroying the West."
While not busying himself with mumbling incoherently, creepily whispering to reporters and lying about the Constitution, Dementia Joe is shutting down pipeline construction and cutting off oil leases on public lands.

What could go wrong?

Pick any dystopian novel or movie production – Blade Runner, Alien, Fahrenheit 451, Soylent Green, even The Fifth Element – all feature a future managed and controlled by marriages between corporations and governments and people dependent upon that unholy marriage for housing and sustenance.
 
This is a future being created today in the boardrooms and halls of government - and a one that is entirely avoidable.

They say science fiction will become science fact.

Let us hope not.

Remember – Soylent Green is people."

*     *    *

Glenn Beck has also done extensive research on the problem,  https://youtu.be/PQTbpJl2-Ho  seeing it as an extension of the Obama fundamental transformation.  The great reset.




Friday, June 25, 2021

BLM nominee wants to limit your family size

"Tracy Stone-Manning, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), once wrote that Americans “breed” too much, called American children “environmental hazards,” and stated that U.S. citizens should stop “at one or two kids” for the sake of the environment." (Catholic vote, via The Loop)

Our birth rate is below replacement, so we've got a nominee who wants even more reasons to import low income immigrants to do the bidding of rich, government and hi-tech plutocrats?

A comment on this story by Bill M.: "I have 6 kids. Had my wife and I stopped at 2, the world would have missed out on an environmental biologist, a food quality manager, a nurse practitioner and a biomedical engineer. All have impacted the world positively! I guess the first 2, an epidemiologist and a chemical engineer would have be OK." 

Usually these "save the planet" folks are all for aborting black and brown babies.

Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show--in Rush's time slot


I had my first opportunity to listen to https://clayandbuck.com/ show the last 2 days. On 610 am in Columbus they are in the Rush Limbaugh time slot--noon to 3 p.m. I'd never heard of Clay, but have followed Buck off and on since he was a regular on the Glenn Beck show years ago. Good topics--not news of course, but clearly stated to be their opinion. At CNN and MSNBC you get opinion shows, "hate America shows," "excuse the Bidens all their crimes shows" which are called news. Bad idea.

But I am a tad concerned about Buck's speech in this format. I don't know if he's speaking faster than usual because there are 2 of them and it's conversation, or if he's got a loose tooth. His formerly very precise and careful speech is sounding squishy. It's the sibilant sounds--anything with an S sound, see, say, first, or with some letter c words like, place, which seems to be an orphan without its own sound. Some consonant blends also sound slurpy to my ear.

Maybe it's my imagination, but I think when two speakers are very close in sound (they both are very deep), they are difficult to distinguish in radio format. Red Eye Radio, which is a talk show for truckers in Texas, with Eric Harley and Gary McNamara, has the same format, and I can't tell the two of them apart.

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

The voter ID bill could actually hurt--we have a history

Senate Republicans blocked an election overhaul bill favored by Democrats. The party-line vote was 50-50, ten votes shy of the 60 votes needed to break the filibuster and advance the legislation, which would ban voter ID requirements and enable ballot harvesting. (The Loop)
All voters, but particularly blacks, should be very cautious about any government program intended to protect their vote or push ahead their community.
 
How did those free-ways through your neighborhoods in the 1950s work out for you and your businesses?
 
Did knocking down old buildings in your neighborhoods and building high rise slums really benefit your communities' safety, spirit, and health?
 
What did school integration do for your students when black teachers were moved to white districts so white kids could be exposed to successful adult blacks?
 
And how about all the wealth transfer programs that keep you on Medicaid and in Section 8 housing because you would lose benefits if you tried to advance?
 
What about all the federal and state aid that have pushed dads out of the home--are your young men stronger or have they just joined gangs?
 
And have you really benefitted from all these full of fluff and fat administrative departments for D.I.E. (diversity, inclusion, equity) so universities and companies can brag about their POC percentages (all clustered in HR).
 
Do programs, policies and award shows for millionaire blacks that focus on race really help you reach your goals in the middle quintile?
Racism hurt us all in the past, and the neo-racism that focuses on color rather than character and skill (white fragility books, reeducation camps, CRT, BLM, the squad, etc. all funded by whites) won't be any better. By weakening the country through more socialism, it could be worse.

Monday, June 21, 2021

Biden and the Bishops

President Biden said he doesn't think the U.S. bishops will deny Holy Communion to him or other pro-abortion Catholic politicians. And for once, I agree with Biden--not that he's doing to the right thing by violating both church law and the dignity of the most powerless and poor, but that the Bishops will cave to the demands of the world. We'll have to let Jesus sort this out on Judgement Day.

Saturday, June 19, 2021

A poem about Lakeside

We'll be putting our Lakeside house on the market soon (turn key) so I'm removing personal items. Came across this poem about our Lake Erie written on a dinner napkin (probably the Patio) by a guest, which my husband matted and framed. Duke taught a poetry class at the Rhein Center, and he and Bob went to high school together.

The lake swells and drops
In rolling rhythm
As the morning sun announces
The beginning of a new day.

Reflections of sunrise
Glisten in the water
As my eyes divert to keep
The brightness at bay.

Only the artist can capture
This spectacle of light and water
On a morning like this in a
Place as inviting as Lakeside.

Duke Thomas Low 7-13-07

Friday, June 18, 2021

Bad stuff in Fulton County, Georgia and in Michigan and Arizona

 MAJOR SCANDAL BREWING: 'Just the News' Investigation Finds More than 100 Batches of Absentee Ballots in Fulton County Could Be Missing (thegatewaypundit.com)

https://americasvoice.news/video/panRMiFEBJjrmeL

Georgia investigator's notes reveal 'massive' election integrity problems in Atlanta | Just The News

Georgia audit documents expose significant election failures in state’s largest county. Records suggest more than 100 batches of absentee ballots in Fulton County could be missing. | Just The News


Hundreds of people concerned about the integrity of the Nov. 2020 election gathered outside the Michigan Capitol Thursday to protest and deliver roughly 7,000 affidavits claiming fraud and demanding a forensic audit.

Mike Huckabee said in his newsletter of June 18, "Let’s go to Maricopa County, Arizona, where the forensic examination phase of that audit is going on, with the end of this month being the target for completion. CNN reported that ballots are being trucked to a lab in Montana for analysis and showed aerial video of the remote, private land it allegedly was on. “Is this the secure, private laboratory?” CNN’s Gary Tuchman asked. “Is Arizona voting data inside that cabin? We just don’t know –- but it could be.”

According to Ken Bennett, spokesman for the audit, the voting system data is being reviewed by subcontractor CyFIR. He says he doesn’t know where this lab is, which is causing CNN to report it as a big secret and to imply that the data might be non-secure and compromised in some way. They say CyFIR CEO Ben Cotton has taken data from Arizona to Montana. But Bennett speaks more precisely, saying Cotton has a COPY of the data created by Dominion from the hard drives and servers that Maricopa County used in the election. “The original data was left completely intact,” Bennett says. https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/arizona-audit-data-taken-secret-lab-rural-montana-analysis

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Great Reset: Housing Shortage EXPOSED (2021)

 Last year we sold our son's house in Canal Winchester, Ohio.  We noticed then the demand for housing, and I became aware of the large real estate groups (to whom we didn't sell, at least I don't think we did).  Then later I became aware of the vast amounts of wealth that was made during and because of the pandemic.  Is private property coming to and end?

https://youtu.be/-CESSiPk6qs  Video on real estate values, super wealth, "reset," and global economy by "Man in America."

It's a hard life at Lakeside Chautauqua



Some days at Lakeside are not so lazy, but I'll still fit in time for a nap.
7 am: Walk along the lakefront.
8 am: Bob meets the Guys Club at the Patio for breakfast.
9 am: Preacher's hour Rev. Thom Shafer, Steele Memorial
8:30-noon: Farmer's Market at Old Schoolhouse
10:30: Taste of Lakeside, Blue Bird Cafe at Walnut Plaza
1-2 pm: Women's Club opening, Green Gables
Noon-3 p.m. Taste of Lakeside, B n B tour
5 ish: Supper with the Kullbergs at the Patio Restaurant
7:30: Vespers with Rev. Shafer
It's a tough life, but someone has to do it.

Monday, June 14, 2021

Another ZOOM group

 I participated in yet another ZOOM group at 4 p.m.  This is a writer's group, and if you're accustomed to ZOOM meetings, I think it works well.  The "facilitator" is Martha (Marti) who lives just a few doors south of me at Lakeside and is a published novelist.  She's been teaching at Lakeside's Rhein Center for many years, and last year because of the pandemic her group developed on line. I took her class many years ago and really enjoyed it.  This year, I was invited to join this group, although I haven't done much creative writing for many years.  Blogging and posting on Facebook are not usually creative--I just let off steam. I think there were 9 of us including Marti, 5 of whom I already knew. They are speaking/writing from Michigan, Toledo, Columbus, Florida and of course, Lakeside. 

Marti suggested a topic--writing a letter to someone, alive or dead--if we already weren't working on some thing.  Two of the women are working on novels, so they proceeded with that. I wrote a letter to our son, Phil, who died in April 2020 about music, his big love.  Then we all shared our writings after 30 minutes and commented on each others efforts.  That's something I need to really work on.  Being positive and supportive is what makes any writing group work.  The whole point is to keep writing, not perfection.  It's so easy for me to spot the flaws or the gap.  I'll work on being more supportive.

Saturday, June 12, 2021

Criminals have stolen Covid19 assistance money--$400 Billion

According to WSJ referring to an Axios report, criminals have absconded with large amounts of the Covid money. Shock and awe!

"Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a service that tries to prevent this kind of fraud, tells Axios that America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims. As much as 50% of all unemployment monies might have been stolen, he says.

Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimates that at least 70% of the money stolen by impostors ultimately left the country, much of it ending up in the hands of criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere."

Friday, June 11, 2021

Black households under Trump



How did black Americans fare under that mean, racist, Republican tweeting president?

"Black median household income in 2019 increased 7.9%, the largest on record and, per American Enterprise Institute economist Mark Perry, “almost nine times the average annual increase of 0.90% over the last half-century.”
 
Moreover, in 2019, 29.4% of black households had income of $75,000 or more, compared with 28.7% of black households that had income of $25,000 or less. This was the first time, ever, that the percentage of high-income black households exceeded the percentage of low-income black households."

You can see why the academics and leftist politicians are frantically trying to convince the nation through CRT in the schools, their lap dog woke corporations and the planned rioting of BLM that there is no hope for black America unless whites are demeaned and destroyed. They must make black Americans perpetual victims, hopeless and helpless without the protection of a "benign" Democrat controlled government. Yet who is it who gave them the KKK, Jim Crow, and fatherless homes from the War on Poverty? The Democrats in government.

You won't convince your Democrat friends with emotion or yelling. Try some facts. Money isn't everything, but since they want to portray blacks as po' folk trapped in the ghetto, let's check it out. 

Tuesday, June 08, 2021

A book friend goes home, Jean Ives

I knew Jean only casually before I retired from Ohio State, but got to know her better after 2000 when we were both in the same book club. She was always prepared and added a lot to our knowledge. I think she was the one who brought Maisie Dobbs to our book club, and my husband read the first in the mystery series and he's read them all since then. Maisie became a regular fixture for our summer porch reading.

Ives, Jean Ellen, 1934 - 2021

Confident of her destination, Jean Ives went to her heavenly home on March 31, 2021. Preceding her in death were her parents Burt and Mary Seldon, and sister Ann Williams. Her surviving family include her husband, David; her children, Eric Ives and Laura (Lino) Lino; along with granddaughters, Luciana and Isabella Lino and Kaylee and Jessa Ives; and great-granddaughter, Keilana Lewis. Jean was a founding member and actively involved in Bethel Presbyterian Church as an elder and teacher in the Bethel Series bible course, among many other activities. Jean attended Bethel College and the University of Minnesota, and earned her MS at Kent State U. Always open to new challenges, she also earned Para-legal certification from Capital University Law School, and the CPCU Insurance designation. She served as librarian for the Griffith Insurance Library for 15 years and worked in the main OSU library for the remainder of her career. Jean was an avid reader, particularly of mystery novels, and also enjoyed symphony and jazz concerts and travel. A Celebration of Jean's life will be on June 12 at Bethel Presbyterian Church, 1735 Bethel Rd, at 11 am, with visitation the previous hour. Memorial gifts in Jean's name may be made to Bethel Presbyterian Church.

Our new washer has arrived

 Our new washing machine, an Amana, was delivered this morning. The 40 year old Kenmore was great--best I've ever had--but sprung a leak our first week here, and who has a part? Now we'll have to hire a plumber (who weighs less than 120 lbs), because the hook up is spliced and diced and the drain pipe opening is near the ceiling. A second home has all the appliances that fail in the other home, but only about 1/5 of the living time. In the last two years I've replaced the oven, the dryer and the washer. The new owner will enjoy them.

Health equity?

Demands for "health equity" for racial and ethnic groups is a push for more government control. The CDC reported in 2014 that the 5 top causes of death were diseases primarily of personal behavior, 1) diseases of the heart, 2) cancer, 3) chronic lower respiratory diseases, 4) cerebrovascular diseases (stroke), and 5) unintentional injuries. These are most often a result of obesity, smoking, drinking, drugs, lack of exercise and other risky behavior. HIV rates are still very high among young black men who have sex with men, and CDC says risk factors are poverty, high rates of unemployment, and cultural stigmas. Doesn't mention risky sex. I'm no doctor or researcher, but any poor, unemployed man who doesn't have sex with men will not be at risk for HIV.  The costs of unintentional injuries are huge--motor vehicle, drugs, suicide,  work, falls. The burden on employers and society in general runs in the billions of dollars annually. . . $1,097.9 billion 

JAMA editor not woke enough?

I have no horse in this race--but JAMA is a journal I read often and is frequently quoted in the media.
"Mike Davis, founder and president of Unsilenced Majority, today released the following statement regarding the firing of Dr. Howard Bauchner, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). 
“You would think that in the middle of a pandemic, the Journal of the American Medical Association would be focused more on its medical reporting and less on woke nonsense, but you’d be wrong. The firing of its top editor speaks to the priorities that have infected so many of our institutions: feelings, not facts; tone, not substance. Unfortunately, while our leaders in government, science, media and technology dedicate their attention to assuaging the woke mob, the advantages we have as a country are deteriorating. Scientists’ only concern should be science. Journalists’ only concern should be journalism. Educators’ only concern should be education. THE MORE WE GIVE INTO THE NOTION THAT IT'S ACCEPTABLE AND EVEN EXPECTED TO CANCEL THOSE WHO DEVIATE FROM WOKE ORTHODOXY, THE MORE WE'RE SETTING OURSELVES UP FOR DIVISION AND FAILURE. JAMA should rescind its unfair and ridiculous politically-motivated firing of its top editor immediately.”
The editorial policies have been pretty liberal for years, but with "structural racism," we're dealing with a religious cult and one of the underlings insulted the most high goddess and denied her awesomeness and truthiness in a podcast. Dr. Bauchner groveled and apologized (my interpretation of reading about it in our unbiased news like CNN and NYT), but that goddess has no mercy in this religion.

Monday, June 07, 2021

The entrepreneur

Met a young entrepreneur today in Lakeside. He's opened a shop of "vintage" sports wear. Used t-shirts, jeans and athletic logo clothes from the 80s and 90s. Although I have clothes older than he, it was great to see the ambition. He "sources" his own stuff by going to yard sales and resale shops. If Jeff Bezos goes into space, this guy has his feet planted firmly on the ground.

Sunday, June 06, 2021

Returning to normal

Here at Lakeside, Ohio, things look pretty close to normal. Hand shaking and hugs. Very few masks. Several programs inside Hoover Auditorium due to bad weather (but that's a start). Restaurants with normal seating. The dock is closed but that's because of a 2 day storm with 9' waves that possibly damaged it and threw benches and light poles into Lake Erie.

  
It was beautiful but strange last night.  Gorgeous sunset and no one on the dock which has been declared unsafe because of the storm a week ago.  I've never seen this before.


Transgender athletes

The Gallup poll asked Americans: “Do you think transgender athletes should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity (or) should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender?”⠀

A massive majority (62%-34%) of American adults said transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on teams that match their biological sex (“birth gender”).

Saturday, June 05, 2021

How is deplatforming different than any other discrimination?

Our internet was out this morning so I was watching via antenna a Detroit station which featured a story about a local civil rights legend. There was film of her (now deceased) retelling her story of being denied service at a recreation park (or something public) because of her skin color. It reminded me of Big Tech denying President Trump service any Democrat, anarchist or Palestinian terrorist can have because he exposes the swamp and collusion with oligarchs which threatens them.
Wall Street Journal: "Facebook Inc. said it is suspending Donald Trump’s accounts for two years, formalizing a long-term penalty for the former U.S. president after its independent Oversight Board said the company was wrong to keep the ban open-ended. 
Facebook said it would revisit the suspension two years from the date of its initial move to suspend him on Jan. 7, the day after the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Assuming he is then reinstated, Mr. Trump will face a “strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions” if he commits further violations, including permanent removal of his pages and accounts, the company said. 
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously expressed a desire to run an open platform enabling free speech. So much for that. This latest decision to attempt to edit U.S. political speech means many more editing decisions await. The Journal reporters note:
In responding to the board’s criticism, Facebook also opens the door for more, as the company will now be required to make more subjective decisions on whether posts from political figures violate its rules surrounding misinformation, hate speech and other issues that are hotly debated. Those judgment calls are likely to escalate partisan complaints around whether the company is being fair in how it applies the rules.
Will Facebook now ban Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists who dismissed the idea of a laboratory origin for Covid-19 in 2020?"

Friday, June 04, 2021

Checking through old exercise blogs

 I used to be in an exercise blogging group, Exercising through the Church Year (40days40miles.blogspot.com).  I never met any of the women, and by 2015 there were only 2 of us still writing, and then only once or twice a year, so it sort of died a natural death.  Since I didn't establish the blog, I only contributed, I can't delete it!  But today I was browsing through some of things I'd written about exercise and weight loss or exercise and osteoporosis, and I clicked on one of the other women in the group, Michelle Francl-Donnay.  Found out that although she never said much in our group, she is a writer--a science writer in chemistry. Tracked her down and see she also writes for the Vatican.  Here's an interview  Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe: Molecules, Particles and People - ideaXme (radioideaxme.com)  She's had an interesting life.

Science Writing | Michelle Francl-Donnay (michellefrancldonnay.com)

Speaking of exercise, I did pretty good today.  I did 6 miles at the wellness center here in Lakeside, and 2 additional miles walking.  It's partly cloudy, but has warmed up some.  Some days I've walked to the wellness center (which would make sense), but today I drove since the sky looked iffy. 



The struggle--never ending

  

In summer we spend a lot of time reading books on our porch, 
then a short walk to the kitchen for a snack.

 

Thursday, June 03, 2021

University of Virginia embarrasses itself

Infecting more minds of mush, The University of Virginia School of Law said Wednesday that Robert Mueller will participate in a class on his infamous investigation, which examined alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, Russia, Russia. He probably won't reveal why, when they knew by the beginning of the investigation, that the whole FISA warrant was fake and illegal. Now if he were going to explain himself for that travesty, it might be a class worth attending. Otherwise, all it will be is an outline of how to drag in people on process crimes, and destroy the people's trust in the system. I don't know why a law school would demean itself by doing this, except he graduated there in 1973.

Wednesday, June 02, 2021

Biden in Tulsa

I see Biden was beating the racism drum again, promising more federal assistance to black businesses to close the wealth gap. This time he was in Tulsa, a terrible tragedy's 100 year anniversary, but in deaths and dollars hasn't matched the Year of Floyd. Biden's become rich in the business of politics for 45 years, he's contributed to so many of the inequities and "help" of the past, like trying to defeat black candidates, killing black babies in the womb, marginalizing and weakening the black community with years of "help" with promised federal money that bought nothing but votes. Even the current V.P. hand picked for color and sex called him a racist and sexist during the primaries. But, hey, it's worked before, why not use the same strategy to fool Democrats again?

Tuesday, June 01, 2021

How will police be replaced with social workers?

Perhaps you've wondered how Leftists are going to reimagine policing by sending in social workers? How will gun violence, breaking and entering, domestic violence (often the source of calls to police) and child abuse be handled? Your problem, like mine, may be we're thinking of the traditional social worker we knew years ago. Tsk, tsk. Now it's "radical social workers" who will be saving the homeless, the ex-con, and those others oppressed by white people. Notice, although whites are the majority of those in social dysfunction like crime, homelessness, and family distress, they are also blamed by the researchers and experts (who are also mostly white) for the "system." 

This is a review article called "The opposition." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6145824/ It cites the latest trendy academic sources to lead the unrest, division and violence. Learn the ever evolving language. The key word is "transformative." Transformative potential, transformative consciousness, transformative action. The author cites his own unpublished work and leans heavily on CRT. This article is 4 years old and predates the years of Obama and Trump, but you can see the ground work was prepared decades before for the year of Floyd. This "perfect storm" wasn't an accident. These ideas always spring from academe, not the grass roots or neighborhood.

The Marxist roots of critical race theory

"Critical race theory (CRT) was officially organized in 1989, at the first annual Workshop on Critical Race Theory, though its intellectual origins go back much farther, to the 1960s and ’70s. Its immediate precursor was the critical legal studies (CLS) movement, [which is] an offshoot of Marxist-oriented critical theory. "(Britannica)

"Critical theory (CT) is the Marxist-inspired movement (1920s) in social and political philosophy originally associated with the work of the Frankfurt School (also influential for National Socialism, aka the Nazis). Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed.
 
Believing that science, like other forms of knowledge, has been used as an instrument of oppression, they caution against a blind faith in scientific progress, arguing that scientific knowledge must not be pursued as an end in itself without reference to the goal of human emancipation. Since the 1970s, critical theory has been immensely influential in the study of history, law, literature, and the social sciences." (Britannica)

The Germans involved in the Frankfort School left Germany and found positions of power in America's most prestigious universities in the 1930s-1940s from which many of the current problems stem.