Stay Tuned for the New Truth

Author's note: Today's column is unabashedly Catholic. For readers who are not Catholic themselves, I hope you will read on anyway, for it presents a critical and longstanding controversy in the Church. Thank you and God bless. ✸

Pope Leo declared recently that "no one possesses the whole truth." *

This proclamation was startling, if not shocking, to many Catholics and Christians. The great attraction--or objection--to the Catholic Church has long been that it embraces a strict adherence to theological truths. These truths themselves are based on the Bible; on Christ's teachings; and on the venerable Church Fathers, Doctors, and Councils who have discerned weighty matters over the centuries. The doctrines are established. 

Catholic beliefs do not change with the times but are universal (the actual meaning of the word catholic) and permanent. If you read your Bible and your Catholic Catechism, you will be in good stead for knowing what is true. You discover these truths, as opposed to creating them, and they arm you for life's struggles and great questions. Or do they?

The new "synodal approach" promoted by the late Pope Francis and now by Pope Leo presents the matter differently. Both pontiffs have taken the stand that it is time to make the Church friendlier, more understanding, more--if you will--human. They maintain that many people are outside of the Church because they feel judged and unaccepted. 

But hold on a moment. Everyone in every pew of every Catholic church harbors sins and imperfections. With enough humility, they accept this, measure themselves against the Church's teachings, and pursue repentance and improvement. 

They do this because Truth does exist, and for 2,000 years Christians have understood that. They have understood that God's commandments, and the Church's admonitions, are for our own greatest good. God knew very well the beings He created, and what would make them thrive and what would destroy them. And he did not keep this knowledge a secret. As Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." **

The last thing we need in this corrupted era is theology by committee, or what is now called synodality. We do not need to tweak the Truth or toss out the Truth. We need to embrace the wisdom, orderliness, and especially the divine source of the Truth. 

Back in the early 1900s, Pope Saint Pius X exposed the dangers of the Modernists, that is, Catholics of the time who sought to reform Church teaching into something that resembled atheistic humanism. Religion, they felt, was a more personal thing than our formal religion allowed, and they minimized the presence of the Almighty and his clear instructions for man. Pope Pius picked apart their faulty ideas in his famous encyclical On the Doctrine of the Modernists.*** We see this modernism again in today's new theology, where "love" is stressed to the exclusion of basic obedience to God's commands.

In Pope Pius X's blessing when issuing his encyclical, he said:

We beseech for you with Our whole heart the abundance of heavenly light, so that in the midst of this great danger to souls from . . . error upon every hand, you may see clearly what ought to be done, and labor to do it with all your strength and courage. May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you in His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid.*** (Emphasis added)

I urge you to pray for the Holy Catholic Church that Jesus himself established. Pray that the Church's leaders will remember that, as Pope Benedict XVI wrote, we certainly must love one another; but we must love in truth, not dismissing truth to accommodate someone's proclivities or temptations, but proclaiming it clearly and without flinching, and with love.****

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* "No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together." And "Being a synodal Church means recognizing that truth is not possessed, but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with Love.— Pope Leo XIV's sermon, October 26, 2025.

 **New Testament, John 14:15.

***Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius X: On the Doctrine of the Modernists, 1907. 

****Caritas in Veritate, (Charity in Truth), 2009, third encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI.

 

Why Christmas Cards Still Matter

Christmas 2025 is less than a week away and we have received three--yes, three--Christmas cards. Each year I tape these greetings to a prominent door or wall, making a pretty display. But three cards doesn't make much of an impact. 

Not long ago we would receive about 20 cards from family and friends at this festive season. Then the numbers started to drop. The trips to our mailbox became increasingly anxious, fearing that this would be another day without a card, as the 25th of December got closer and closer. 

I myself delight in sitting down to address envelopes to folks who matter to us in states all over the country as well as close to home. A short message, a stamp, and off it goes to remind these friends that we remember them and are grateful for them.

Many people now seem to think that posting a Merry Christmas message on their Facebook page is as good as handwriting their best wishes to people they know. Maybe they'll just send out a text with a photo. Or they feel it's okay to simply tell people, "Yeah, I didn't do cards this year; nobody really does anymore. And have you seen the price of stamps?" 

Yes, I paid 78 cents for each stamp I stuck on an envelope, and that's too much. But once a year it's worth it. I cannot tape your text message to my wall, nor your Instagram post. Taking the time to send cards says "You matter to me." And each time I pass by the collection of pretty Christmas scenes on my wall it reminds me that some people out there are thinking of me and want good things for me in the new year.

Loneliness in our country is at an all-time high. Somehow, although we can "communicate" with one another faster and more cheaply than ever, we feel disconnected and alone. This is why we need Christmas cards. They pay tribute to the greatest event on the calendar, that birth in Bethlehem from which date we count the very years. And these pretty cards remind folks that we have not forgotten them; that they are important enough for us to buy a box of cards and a sheet of stamps; even important enough for us to skip a couple of nights of TV to write a few words that will remind them of that.

Merry Christmas to you all, and best wishes for the New Year.

 

"I'll take Death, and make it a double"

Just the other day my husband and I passed a Liquid Death truck for the first time. I did a triple-take and snapped a picture, all the while exclaiming to my husband (don't worry, he was doing the driving), "What was THAT? Who would name a beverage Death? Not very assuring for the consumer." 

So of course I looked up this bold product when I got home only to find that it is a wildly successful new beverage (hence the huge delivery truck we passed). Maybe these drinks are downright delicious, but I won't be ordering one. 

 I myself have grown tired--not to mention somewhat alarmed--at the growing popularity of death and damage in fashion and personal "style." Since when did a handshake with the Grim Reaper become something to celebrate ahead of time? Are we supposed to be growing more casual about dying as about so many other things?

 Don't get me wrong--it's all right to joke about death as we humans do about most serious things ("Two guys walk into a funeral parlor ..."). Humor helps us process and prepare for scary aspects of life.

But in general we're supposed to avoid death. That motivates us to keep living, to keep getting necessary things done in society and for our families, to enjoy more beautiful experiences that this life offers, and to grow in wisdom before we have to leave Earth. In other words, while we are alive we are meant to embrace life.

Death is monumental. We pass from one way of living into a totally different one, one most of us cannot picture clearly enough to feel completely comfortable with that mysterious crossing over. And we traditionally have little to no control over when death comes for us.

However, for those who deeply doubt the existence of an afterlife, death becomes terrifying, and no one likes to live terrified. I suppose the antidote for those who see nothing after death is to feign an embrace of it, almost to the point of mockery, and try to control its parameters. Some modern ways to do this involve:
--Decorating your clothing and even skin with skulls ("See! Death does not scare me!").
--Holding your own faux funeral, maybe on your birthday, as a sort of dress rehearsal, where you control everything from your gown to the refreshments and even get to hear the eulogies about yourself (read more about this in the New York Post article)
--Starting a beverage company that adopts death as a branding strategy

Once upon a time, skull and bone images meant something very concrete. A pirate ship of the late 1700s flew the skull-and-crossbones flag to announce that they were willing to kill you for a mere barrel of hard tack. The flag also shouted that they, the pirate crew, had no fear of death or judgment, so you could never tell what awful and reckless things they might just do. To wit, they deliberately inflicted pain on themselves with body piercings and tattoos. But today we apparently are expected to ignore the darkness of such symbols and treat them as mere emojis.

But death demands respect. It is bigger than you and more deeply meaningful than we can properly put into words. Consider saving your black wardrobe for important occasions and times of mourning, when people you love are suddenly gone--not for your every-single-day-of-the-week outfits. Take death seriously and give it the respect and distance it deserves until its time comes around, as it naturally will. 

In short, it comes down to preparing rather than posturing. That is no small task, and you have my best wishes.

 

Drag Queen Shows: The New Blackface

[First of all, let me mention that we are back home in northeast Florida. Let it suffice to say that Arizona did not work out for us. Who knew that an elevation of 5,000 feet can wreak havoc with us high-blood-pressure people? Or that they often let forest fires burn in the Arizona mountains, blanketing little towns with particulate that can revive a person's asthma after 40 years of dormancy? Ah, the things you don't know until you actually move all your kit and caboodle to some exotic place.]

Okay--Naples, Florida. Just the other day the city won a case brought against them by the never-resting ACLU on behalf of the group Naples Pride. As part of "Pride Month," these people wanted to entertain their town with a drag queen show outside in a public park. The City of Naples said no; as in past years, you'll have to do that show indoors and restrict it to adults. Now this makes some sense, especially given the overt sexuality displayed in a modern drag queen routine. 

But I see another towering problem with such performances. For what is a drag performance but an outlandish mockery of women? A person who is a man pretends to be something he certainly is not (a woman) with the help of heavy makeup, wigs, and harlot-style clothing; he then "entertains" the audience with an absurd impersonation of something approximating a female that is at best laughable but in fact disturbing and offensive.

Compare this to the now universally banned blackface routine. In a blackface show, a white person pretends to be of a race he is not (that is, black) by smearing his face and all visible skin with heavy black makeup, outlining his grinning mouth in bold white paint and donning a curly wig. He then struts or dances about the stage in grotesque imitation of some type of black person that simply does not exist--just as the bizarre rendering of a woman portrayed in drag queen shows is a complete mockery of real women.

I hear no one expressing outrage at these degrading caricatures of women. It is about time we did. I have written about this before but people don't seem to be catching on. Women are very special and complex creations. We come loaded with a challenging biology that demands extra attention each month and also makes us the bearers and caretakers of children to keep this race going. We are by nature teachers and nurses and the ones who keep track of birthdays and dreams and unspoken needs. These great and arduous tasks deserve honor and respect rather than the derision of a carnival side show. 

For a man--who labors under none of a woman's constraints and responsibilities--to play exaggerated dress-up and pretend to be a woman in the most sex-saturated and nonsensical way possible is a deep insult to all women. Permitting such shows makes women again the butt of the joke and denies them the respect that they richly deserve. It is time to shut down such public mockery, just as we did long ago with blackface. Who's with me?

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Photo by unknown photographer, source not available. 

   

7 States Later . . .

Spring desert poppies in Arizona

Last February we said goodbye to our home in St. Augustine, Florida, and drove across lots of states until we reached the snowy forests of central Arizona. I am still trying to adjust to this new home--which explains the nearly eight-month absence from this blog.

Old as I am, it became clear soon after the moving van dropped off our stuff and left that my flexibility for so much change ain't what it used to be.  Everything is different in this town we chose: 

• Elevation (we went from 36 feet above sea level to 5000 feet [and there are consequences to that])
• Summer, spring, winter, and a fall
  
• An appalling lack of bagel shops
• Most major retailers don't seem to know about this place
  
• Limited medical services
• Five trash collection companies you have to somehow pick among and hire one
  
• Jaw-dropping panoramas along any highway
• Friendly people
• Lots and lots of dogs
• Granite-based soil you can't push yard decorations into without power tools
• Troops of elk that roam the town and help themselves to your roses and pear trees
  

When we left St. Augustine we lost our right to brag about living in America's oldest city. I knew I was going to miss that. But now we live in a town that hosts the country's longest-running rodeo, which of course we went to see last week. Few shows can match the spectacle of women racing their agile steeds around barrels in the dark brown dirt or young men hanging on desperately while thrashing broncos try to throw them to the ground.

We are beginning to learn the politics of the place and the layout of the local Walmart, but we have a long way to go. All of you who have moved a long, long way to a very different home know what I mean. 

More later from the Grand Canyon State.

 

In Praise of Dracula

I speak not of the creature, but of the book. If you have not yet read the original tale by Bram Stoker, first presented to the world in 1897, then you can be sure you do not know the story at all. I thought I did, having enjoyed Bela Lugosi's famous portrayal of the fiend, as well as Frank Langella's mesmerizing interpretation of the bloodthirsty count. 

But none of this Hollywood mishmash presents Stoker's actual tale of knee-buckling terror, courage, and faith. It's an important story for our time, as evil seems to loom larger than ever today over what we were used to calling normal life. Daily we hear of dark goings-on at a scale we can hardly grasp, frightening machinations hidden in the shadows, unholy deals struck behind a screen of deceit. 

Halfway through Dracula, Dr. Seward records in his diary a conversation with Dr. Van Helsing, the one man who understands fully what they are up against with the vampire:

"Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?" [I asked]. He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. "Would I were!" he said. "Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this." 

Have we not felt the same at discoveries we make while reading the morning's news (and I am not referring to stories found in the mainstream misinformation media)?

While Dracula is a masterful tale of terror, it is much more. It is a story of heroic bravery in the face of incomprehensible darkness, of men joining forces to defend their women from ruin, of the triumph of this solidarity, armed with the sword of Christian faith, against terrible odds. Sound relevant?

Stoker tells his story in a collection of diary entries, letters, and other writings all penned by the various characters as their adventure unfolds. This intricate account of their contest, the struggle for the very souls of their loved ones, offers as many lessons today as it did more than a century ago.

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Pictured: The Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker, 2003. Quote, page 209.

Who's Bombing Whom in Ukraine?

Apartment building in Mariupol, ca. 2019.

We should certainly have learned during the last two-plus years of Covid drama and deception that things are not always what our unified press would have us think. 

Now we are asked to believe the reverberating story of unmitigated Russian aggression against an innocent and helpless Ukraine. Little to no background information appears in the mainstream media about the history of this conflict, about Ukraine's war against the separatists in the eastern part of their country who want to rejoin Russia (or at least get to speak their language and live a normal life), or President Zelensky's tactics since gaining office in a landslide three years ago.

Meanwhile, Zelensky issues impassioned pleas to the West for more arms and ever-tougher sanctions against their attacker.

Into this vacuum, the ever insightful and straight-talking Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has released his take on the conflict. It's long, fascinating, and fully footnoted. You can read it here. You'll be glad you did. 

Allow me to provide a few highlights from the essay. First, Vigano provides a link to Zelensky's campaign spot when running for President of Ukraine. It shows his machine-gun (literally) approach to anyone in his government who was allied with a "corrupt" Russia. The fact that Zelensky was an actor and comedian cannot soften the horror of this ad: Campaign spot.

Apparently, his campaign strategy worked. In 2019 Zelensky won the presidency and promptly got to work. The Archbishop's essay tells us:

He [Zelensky] liquidated the ministers of the old guard, first of all the powerful Minister of the Interior, [Arsen] Avakov. He rudely retired the president of the Constitutional Court who was acting as a check on his laws. He closed seven opposition TV channels. He arrested and accused of treason Viktor Medvedcuk, a pro-Russian sympathizer but above all the leader of the Platform of Opposition – For Life party, the second party of the Ukrainian Parliament after his Servant of the People party. He is also placing on trial for treason former President Poroshenko, who was suspicious of everyone except for those who got along with the Russians or their friends. The mayor of Kiev, the popular former world boxing champion Vitaly Klitchko, has already been subjected to several searches and seizures. In short, Zelenskyy seems to want to make a clean sweep of anyone who is not aligned with his politics (here).

Zelensky is a member of the mighty World Economic Forum (crafters of The Great Reset) and has admitted that one of his heroes is Justin Trudeau of Canada. (If you followed Mr.Trudeau's approach to "caring" for his population during the last two years, this will tell you a lot.) And last year, "on February 4, 2021, the Ukrainian president shut down seven television stations, including ZIK, Newsone and 112 Ukraine, all guilty of not supporting his government." They were accused of being "under malign Russian influence."

Vigano also discusses the Nazi organizations in Ukraine. Any country can be home to such extreme groups, but in Ukraine they are recognized by the government and tasked with assisting in military operations. This includes employing the brutal Azov Battalion, an extreme nationalist group that the U.S. Senate suspended our help in training, until the CIA overruled that decision and brought them to our own shores to learn to become even more effective at crushing their opposition.

The press has been reporting here in the U.S. that the Russians have been bombing Ukrainian cities mercilessly since February. Maybe that's true. But what are we to make of footage shot by French journalist Anne-Laure Bonnell back in 2017 in the Donbass region of Ukraine showing the grim remnants of residences bombed by the Ukrainian government, of families huddled underground, of grieving parents of murdered children? They are indistinguishable from today's images of blackened apartment buildings that the Russians are supposed to have incinerated. Watch the 2017 video here (in French).

 And in a recent report from the ground, Ms. Bonnell attests pointedly that the destruction she was witnessing in Donbass was at the hand of the Ukrainian army rather than the Russian army. Watch here (in French).

So this war is very complex, and as in many wars, looks can be deceiving. Someone once said that in war, the first casualty is always the truth. May God help and comfort all the innocent people caught in the middle of this one, and bring the truth forward.

 

The Accidentally-on-Purpose Broken Supply Chain

Sec. of Transportation Pete Buttigieg*

This morning a couple of news stories pulled together for me what might underlie our growing supply shortages. One story described the chaos in a California port city, where shipping containers, now being unloaded from ships on a 24-hour schedule thanks to the resourceful Biden Administration's plan. They were then being parked on residential streets after being emptied since the trucking company had no more room on its lot for the empty containers.

The article from Breitbart quoted Pete Buttigieg, who's just getting back to work after a long paternity leave. Two things our Secretary of Transportation said raised crimson flags for me, as he tried to explain why things were such a gosh-darn tangle right now:

"There are so many pieces to the supply chain, and most of them are in private hands." Pause. The only word missing from that sentence is unfortunately, but it is implied. Would shipping and delivery work a lot better if the government ran it? Maybe Pete and his colleagues are angling to solve our supply chain woes by the sure remedy of sovietizing the complex business of getting product to market. 

He continued: "The Administration can act as an honest broker, and that's what we're doing . . . . There are $17 billion in port improvements in the President's infrastructure bill, and they're urgently needed."

Bingo. So pass that (grotesquely inflated) infrastructure bill if you want to see this supply situation get any better! is what he's saying. I see Pete has this nailed down.

Then I looked at a Fox News story that gave us man-on-the-street reactions, from a Costco parking lot, to half-empty grocery shelves and distinctly higher prices that these shoppers were seeing. One was a man who ran a grocery store himself. Unable to get product delivered to his store (he felt the supplies are going primarily to the very large retailers), he was buying cartfuls of groceries in an effort to stock his own store's shelves, while having to raise his prices 10 to 20 percent.

If the small merchant was not run out of business by a prolonged Covid lockdown, he now struggles with an embarrassingly small inventory and sharply higher prices for his customers; not to mention being understaffed due to the mad labor shortage. This is not a prescription for success in the retail world.

So if any of us suspected that the lockdowns unfairly targeted small businesses (I do), the current supply chain fiasco is dealing them another mighty blow. Debacles at this level are almost never accidental--to wit, the Afghanistan withdrawal. 

Of course, none of these things are really a problem if we just, as the Administration advises us, lower our expectations. But how low do we have to go, Joe? I'm sure he is going to show us.

Update 10-21-2021: We must spread the credit where due for today's shipping troubles. The World Bank and IHS Markit, in their ranking for efficiency of more than 300 ports around the globe, put the L.A. and Long Beach ports near the bottom. Also, California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) has been credited with throwing that state's trucking operations into tumult since 2020. Port operations, of course, rely heavily on the truckers who take the products away, making room for more unloading.   

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*Photo credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

 

 

 

Please Wear a Mask in the Living Room

Legendary Okefenokee Swamp

My husband and I just came back from a brief getaway to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. I've always wanted to see that legendary wetland. We had reservations for the night at a charming bed and breakfast nearby but were surprised, when we arrived, to be greeted by the proprietor in a mask. His wife soon joined us, also in a mask. Oh yeah, I remembered, we're not in Florida any more.

Our hosts seemed a little nervous as they welcomed us to their B&B, and at the end of a brief tour of the home, the husband mentioned that when we use the common areas, that is, the living room (the only room in the inn with a television, by the way), we will need to wear a mask. "Oh," I laughed, "we'll be in our room. Once you read the scientific reports on masks, you won't want to wear one again." He chuckled in a puzzled way but asked no questions. 

We carried in our slight luggage wondering how intelligent, competent people at this point can still think that wearing cloth masks makes any difference in the battle against the virus. We ran into this delusion again when we visited the main visitors center at the swamp, which is run primarily by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife folks. Feds, that is. Here again we had to don the useless face gear to explore their exhibits, look around the little gift shop, and book a boat tour of the swamp.

We enjoyed getting to know the blackwater swamp, though, and the small neighboring town of Folkston. (Supper in the local fried chicken diner gave us a good meal and a comfortable feeling of life in a smaller place, where everyone who walked in greeted people they knew and entered into animated conversations about shared interests and enterprises.) 

By Georgia's famous Folkston Funnel tracks

Then there were the long freight trains that sang to us in our bed, not too loudly, as they rolled through the dark town. 

We headed home to the Sunshine State the next day and were again grateful for living here, where rules and regulations involve more common sense than in most of the country, especially when it comes to the virus.

There's no doubt that many people everywhere are still afraid of the virus and will follow disproven protocols "just to be safe," as they tell me. When will all of this pretending finally end, and people be able to look reality in the eye and say what's true about the virus and what measures work and which absolutely do not? We continue to wait, taking some comfort in such things as the magnificent and timeless Okefenokee Swamp and the dutiful trains that continue to run through Folkston, Georgia, taking things where they need to go.

Shhh! The FBI Report Came Out

While the Taliban's dizzying advance upon Kabul dominated the news last weekend, the FBI quietly released the results of their investigation into the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. They were largely hunting for evidence that this had been a planned, coordinated attack on the Capital by far-right groups, with the goal of overturning the 2020 election results or otherwise taking control of the U.S. Government. 

 What did they discover? The FBI "at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated" and found "no evidence that [President Trump] or people directly around him were involved."

To quote the Reuters report:

"Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases," said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. "Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages."

So much for the loud cries of Insurrection! and Domestic Terrorism! that have been flung by authorities, politicians, and rank and file liberals at all those who were peacefully present near the Capitol on that date or anyone who questioned the validity of the highly questionable election results that put Joe Biden in office. 

This report will be a blow to Democrats, for whom characterizing that event as an unprecedented act of terrorism by Trump supporters was key to painting their opposition as a dangerous force that must be put down by any means necessary. After the event, this alleged crisis justified erecting fencing and posting a large military force outside the Capitol building to protect it from the imaginary mob to come, as well as deplatforming and censoring conservative voices on the Internet--including former President Trump himself--that mentioned election fraud or any number of topics that got stamped as "misinformation." After all, this was war. The nation was at stake! 

William Moloney, writing for The Hill, provided an insightful analysis of the impact of the FBI report. He raises a question about the many Americans arrested in connection with January 6, still waiting for a trial. Why is that? Is the prosecution uncomfortable with what would come out at a trial, such as evidence of culpability but not on the part of defendants?

If such evidence does indeed emerge and make clear the events of that day, in contrast to the broadcast narrative, I wonder how much news coverage it will get. Probably no more than the FBI report got, a mere whisper beneath the booming cannons of the latest calamity.

Covid: Prevent It or Treat It?

Update 8/27/2021: A study just released in Israel demonstrates the huge advantage people have who have recovered from Covid versus those who have been vaccinated, in terms of resisting new infection. This is another argument for putting energy into properly treating Covid patients rather than trying to inoculate everyone. Study details are here. 

New waves of fear are sweeping the country over the rising number of positive Covid tests. (Note that I did not say "cases" since that word has in the past always meant actual sick people and still should.)

These rising numbers have propelled a variety of governors, medical professionals, and our own family members to urge us to, for heaven's sake, get the shot. Putting the vaccine into the arms of every citizen is our only hope! they cry.

But is it? An article today in the Epoch Times reveals that in Israel more than half of current Covid hospital patients were fully vaccinated. Indeed, Israel has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world (around 78 percent), but is suffering mightily in this latest wave.

And here in Florida, the data graphs from our own Department of Health seem to give the lie to the "more vaccinating, less Covid" mantra (see those graphs here and go to "Weekly Florida Covid-19 Data").

It is also instructive to look at Florida's Covid mortality numbers. These show a roughly 6-month pattern in the virus fatality spikes. For the current spike, many will point to the arrival of the Delta variant for explanation. I wonder.*

 But let's suppose the Delta variant is driving more infection, which in turn is sending more people to the hospitals and even to their deaths. It's an established fact that viruses mutate. How many variants of Covid-19 will we be faced with? How can we possibly keep up with the vaccine development needed for the variants to come? 

On the other hand, we could focus on treatment. Instead of trying to inject a controversial serum into everyone's arm, even those who are unwilling, we could use known therapies to treat patients with Covid. Most of these proven approaches have been forcefully repressed (hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin) to the point that doctors do not dare prescribe them for fear of losing their jobs. Aggressive vitamin mixtures have also seen good results. However, since these do not appear in the CDC's official protocol for treating in-hospital Covid patients, they are not being used. This defies all medical sense and even simple logic, but we have seen such unexplainable behavior a lot during the course of this pandemic.

My advice: Know what your choices are should you fall ill with this virus, and stand your ground. Here is a revealing account of one woman's effort to get her husband effective treatment for what a hospital labeled "Covid pneumonia," and how she succeeded--to the hospital staff's great surprise.

And there are resources and more information at: America's Frontline Doctors. 

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*Note: Florida is making available monoclonal antibody treatments for people at high risk who have contracted Covid or been exposed to it. More info here.

Report from Italy

At a sandwich shop recently, I approached a customer in a well-fitting athletic outfit. I had overheard him mention that he was from Italy. I wanted to know a little about whether Italy was really open to travelers now since my son wants to go there in September to see a specialist for some back problems.

The man--we'll call him Paolo--was in his 40s, I'd say, a strapping fellow with a winning smile and an eagerness to talk about his home country. Yes, he said, your son could go there for medical care, but he will need to take PCR tests. And there are some curfews.

 

He then shared with us details on the situation in Italy. He himself had just moved his business (he is a biologist) from Italy to Florida. He declared that the whole virus panic was "bulls---" and was done to advance the agenda of socialism. He agreed that it had nothing to do with science and pointed to the deliberate suppression of known medicines that could have treated coronavirus patients.

 

Paolo said the situation in Italy is much worse than we know. People, especially journalists and lawyers whom he knows, are scared. They are afraid that what they write, or whom they choose to defend in court, will land them in jail. They are afraid that if they wait much longer their passports may be taken from them and they will not be able to leave Italy. So, many are making the move to the U.S., especially to Florida, now. (This description immediately reminded us of the terrible decisions good people in Germany had to make in the 1930s.)

 

He said that he believes the government is heading toward declaring another lockdown this summer on any pretext and believes it is all engineered to bring about socialism across Europe. I said we had similar problems here in the U.S. with the current Administration, but he replied, looking at me solemnly, "In Italy it is much worse. All of Europe is almost lost." He mentioned Spain in particular, and how there is still a strong fascist vein that runs through the country. He said that policemen there had struck women, even older ones, whom they found not wearing masks, and bystanders applauded. 

 

We thanked him for the conversation, welcomed him to America, and after a handshake, left him on the bench outside the shop to continue studying his Florida driver's manual.

 

I had not heard this level of detail even in alternative news sources, and I walked to the car more shaken than ever. 

Should I Get the Shot?

Many of my acquaintances have told me how relieved they are to have gotten their Covid shots. A look of rejoicing comes over their faces. I tell them that I hope that goes very well for them. Why say more? The deed is done. 

Indeed, the so-called vaccines (not true vaccines but something that in fact functions very differently) may prove to be benign. These shots do not claim to render people immune to the corona virus, one of the many differences between them and traditional vaccines, but maybe they will make people no worse off than the control group--all those who chose not to take them.

Today I came upon the best collection of reasons I have yet seen for hesitating to take the Covid shot. This young writer spells out all 18, stating in a simple way the many facts that give many great pause regarding this procedure. Like the up-front pardon for any liability that the pharmaceutical companies got who are supplying the shot, and the spectacular failure of previous efforts to develop a corona virus vaccine. You won't find this discussion on the news or on Big Tech's social media platforms because they don't allow it. 

If you're considering the "vaccine," however, this article will make profitable reading. Then you decide. We should all get to decide for ourselves. The article.

Whose Insurrection Is It?

Three days ago my next door neighbor intercepted me in my driveway as I returned from a walk. She presented my house key to me, which she was returning. This trusted neighbor had kept it at her house for several years in case I needed her to water my indoor plants while I was away, or if I realized the stove was left on, that sort of thing. I was puzzled. She pointed to my small, legacy Trump sign beside my front door and declared that every time she sees it she sees "insurrection!" and "white supremacy!" 

I was, of course, almost dumbstruck, but managed to ask a few questions like did she think I was an insurrectionist or a white supremacist, and what evidence was there that Trump is. No, she did not think I was those things, but I supported one, and then she quoted the usual assortment of inaccurate quotes from the man. 

So, I then asked, "Even though I have always been a good neighbor to you, and polite and friendly, you can't have anything to do with me now and you are giving me back my key?" That's right, was the reply.

Two days later I finished watching a very long movie about the French Revolution. It got me thinking about insurrections, and what usually follows them, as was the case in France--years of armed upheaval, corruption, and abuse of power.

Wait a minute, I said to myself. If you engineer widespread fraud sufficient to tip an election in your favor, then during your first month in the seat of power you ignore the elected legislative body and issue 32 executive orders (leaving all previous Presidents in the dust), refuse to answer questions from the press, and maintain fencing with barbed wire and National Guardsmen around the nation's Capitol building, this looks a lot more like an insurrection--or if you will, a revolution--than the intrusion into the Capitol by an assortment of unarmed people on January 6.

In the years following 1789, when the French officially kicked off their revolution with the brutal storming of the Bastille, life did not go well in their country. The guillotine was kept very busy lopping off the heads of anyone who did not fully embrace even the most extreme measures of the revolution's leadership. 

We are far too civilized for that sort of thing here and now, of course, but it did call to mind the massive amount of deplatforming and censoring of opinion (and often fact) that we have seen lately when those opinions run contrary to narratives approved by the ruling party. Online censorship has become the guillotine of today. 

For those who don't operate a Big Tech company, shunning (including giving back your neighbor's house key and refusing to talk to your parents) has emerged as the favored weapon, and a powerful one it is.

But hold on. Why are they so angry? Didn't they "win" the election and come out with an effective majority in Congress? Aren't they transported by all the great things their leaders can get done now? Why should they still be so upset with their opponents? Unless they suspect that maybe they actually did not win . . .

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For those interested in seeing the detailed evidence collected on what went awry in the 2020 election, see the very interesting Navarro Report.

Goodbye to the "Big Voice on the Right": Rush Limbaugh, 1951-2021

Rush Limbaugh broadcasts from the EIB studio
shortly before his death on February 17, 2021.

Republicans and "thrill-seekers everywhere" (as Rush liked to call his listeners) mourn today the death of Rush Limbaugh, a giant of conservative analysis and an expert in communicating that analysis to his audience for more than 30 years. Ever since he was diagnosed with lung cancer just over a year ago, we suspected the day would come when we would turn on the radio at noon and learn that the last time we had heard his confident voice opining on the day's news was indeed the last time we would hear it. Today was that day.

We pause to honor the memory and enormous impact of Rush on the country he loved so much. Godspeed, Rush.

Masks: Why Not?

An alert reader of my last post (Mask Required to Enter, 1/27/2021) took issue with my puzzlement and, yes, objection to donning a face mask to enter my favorite bagel bistro the other day. Management had suddenly reverted to a mask requirement for all patrons with no explanation given. 

The reader seemed to not understand why I resisted wearing the cotton face covering that fogs my glasses, decreases my oxygen intake, and makes it harder to make myself heard and understood. I failed to mention that I have had the virus recently and cannot give it to anyone. I also failed to quote the numerous scientific studies and statements that found that cloth masks fail miserably at protecting their wearers from breathing in Covid-19 airborne droplets, which are very small indeed at less than 5 microns (with a micron, even on his tiptoes, measuring only one-thousandth of a millimeter). In fact, experts say that masks often lead to a false sense of protection that interferes with the user taking truly effective precautions against contracting the virus, namely, frequent hand washing and standing at least six feet from people.

The New England Journal of Medicine  in May 2020 summed up the situation this way:

We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic. [Emphasis added]

The authors admitted that the greater role of the mask might be as a "talisman," reminding others that a contagious disease was afoot. But I think we all know that by now.

Speaking of The Science, Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency room physician with America's Frontline Doctors, delivered an intriguing address on January 14 of this year titled The Truth About the COVID-19 Vaccine (and a few other things virus-related). This is thought-provoking stuff that will be of special value to those who are considering taking the experimental vaccine. 

To your health!

Mask Required to Enter

I was really looking forward to a fresh bagel and coffee around lunchtime today as my husband and I headed for our favorite bagel bistro, the one we pop into twice a week. We pulled open the door as we chattered together and got in line, socially distanced. The cashier up front started saying something to us. She pointed to the door. It took us a minute to understand that she was telling us we now needed a mask to enter their establishment. See sign on door.

 Why? we asked. What changed? We had been coming in for months without a mask, as had a number of other customers, after the local government dropped the mask requirement. Has there been some huge, deadly COVID spike we didn't know about? Was there a new mask edict from the authorities?

Turns out nothing had changed--or so we were told. It's just a small restaurant, so we need to be careful, the staff said. At home I checked the latest stats on the Florida Department of Health web site. Nope, no spike. And the virus has gotten less deadly: If you contract the virus, the chance of dying from it back in October was 2%, while now it is 1.5%. 

So what's going on? Maybe some frightened customer gave the bagel makers holy hell for endangering the public's lives by not mandating masks in their business. He might even have threatened to sue if he came down with the virus after enjoying his spinach-tomato bagel. (We have encountered such zealots. Shortly before Christmas, in a grocery store checkout line, a grizzled man in a Santa hat told us we were going to burn in hell for not wearing masks, even though we explained that we'd had the virus and could not give it to anyone.) 

Maybe someone in the bagel shop tested positive in the four days since we'd been there, and management figured this called for "masking up." Or is it just the Biden-Fauci effect, in which masks--even double masks--are being encouraged and even demanded even in the most non-threatening settings?

I only know that I did not get my bagel or coffee. My husband turned on his heel and I followed him out. The day had just gotten a lot darker.

Times That Show Just Who We Are

A Stop the Steal rally in December 2020 in St. Augustine, Florida.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
    Thomas Paine, 1776

Still true in today's crisis, 244 years later.

 

Hold On Tight

It's clear now that the wild 2020 election will buck and stomp around the corral until it is finally mastered and true vote counts come out. Litigation rolling out in several states, charging election fraud of all kinds, may--God willing--lead to much-needed reform in some state election offices and more. Meanwhile, pray like crazy and hold on tight!

Extra credit: Read Archbishop Vigano's post-election letter to American Catholics and kindred spirits. The text is as unflinching as it is inspiring.

 

Seeking MAN-na in the Desert

Robert Horton with guest in 1959 Wagon Train episode.

I've asked myself why I love westerns so much--Wagon Train, Rawhide, Bonanza, Wanted Dead or Alive, and so forth. I didn't used to. But now I arrange my day to ensure that I can sit down in front of the television at 4 p.m to watch another adventure in the life of that wagon train forever headed west.

These are solid stories that present a serious dilemma that the players must resolve within the hour. In them, deciding the wrong way will have serious repercussions. And if the wagon train crew drag their feet and do nothing, that will end badly, too. The situations call for tough decisions without second-guessing and shillyshallying.  In short, it provides the perfect showcase for truly manly behavior.

This would not be remarkable if we weren't suffering today from a dearth of manliness. Too many men in skinny jeans who know what brow waxing involves. And yes, we can argue that decades of radical feminism have driven men into this androgynous state. Indeed, a study in 2013 caused a stir when it found that women on the Pill felt attracted to less masculine-looking men than did women who were not on it.* Given the massive use of that contraceptive in the U.S. since the early 1960s, this may explain what we're seeing.

But it's high time for real men--there are still some left--to lead the way back. Many women are starved for men who dress like men, walk like men, listen and laugh and display confidence. Men who are willing to take responsibility for their decisions and get on with it. Men who are not afraid to support a wife and children and understand the value of having a family.

A frequent theme in Wagon Train episodes is drought. The train finds itself halfway across a wasteland with another several days still needed to put it behind them, and they've heard there is no water anywhere around. That's how I feel these days about real men. We are decades into this drought of masculinity, and no one knows how far we still need to go to emerge from it.

In the meantime, I advise watching as many westerns as you can. Sit your children down to watch them. Boys need to see what good manliness looks like, and so do our girls. It doesn't matter that we are no longer engaged in the struggle to cross the wilderness and settle the West Coast. These lessons in wisdom vs folly, bravery vs selfishness, patience vs impulsiveness can all be transferred to life in the 21st century. 

Let's get on with being real men and real women. Hitch up that team, strap on your water barrels, and "Wagons, Ho!"

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*More about the study in this Huffington Post article.