A friend of mine is remodeling a bathroom for somebody in Zanesville, Ohio.  He found some newspapers under the floor from 1992.  He posted this picture on Facebook, of the daily newspaper column listing the local hospital admissions and discharges.  Complete with the patients’ home addresses, so you could go visit or bring them flowers or food or something. Keep in mind: that was 29 years ago.

And then ten years ago, if you walked up to the front desk to ask if your friend was in the hospital, they would tell you that they were not allowed to release that information.  And now, if a wife goes to visit her dying husband, they won’t let her in the door because of COVID.  And so, he dies alone.  It seems like a minor point, how we handle our sick friends and neighbors.  But our society is changing, rapidly.  As the modern tribal left takes over, our society becomes more fragmented and hostile, and less community-oriented.  Less human.  This is hard to watch.

I would write a full post about it, to explore the idea in more depth.  But it’s too depressing.  I miss America.

You know the line that every child has been told: You may go out and play if you eat all your vegetables. 

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf has declared that everyone must continue masking up until 70 percent of the population aged 18 and older get vaccinated.  I believe the figure now stands at about 50 percent. We’ll see whether it flatlines.

The true history of WW2 begins in 1941, when the Nazis attacked the blameless and unsuspecting nation of the USSR – the English translation is FBNS, or “Flawed but Noble Socialists.”

Historian and Ricochetian Flagg Taylor has just started a marvelous new podcast, “Enduring Interest.” His subject on each episode: A book of permanent value that has become overlooked or forgotten. In this first episode, Flagg talks with fellow historian Jacob Howland about Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We,” the 1920 novel that was suppressed in Russia then smuggled to the West, in where it was published in 1924.

Gerry Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney …   Jeff Flake, John Kasich … Liz Cheney … the gOp has never lacked for someone willing to take the milquetoast, mushy middle lane that has too often led the party. A complete bunch of losers with ego and vanity that has no limit. Their desire to be well thought of, by all, ‘trumps’ every other emotion and purpose for them.

So Liz Cheney is merely the most recent of a long line of extremely vain losers. Get back in line girlfriend, you aren’t so special. And your memory is rotten. Do you not remember what your ‘good friends across the aisle’ did to your father?!

. . . The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, “Reign over us.” But the olive tree said to them, “Shall I leave my abundance, by which gods and men are honored, and go hold sway over the trees?” And the trees said to the fig tree, “You come and reign over us.” But the fig tree said to them, “Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go hold sway over the trees?” And the trees said to the vine, “You come and reign over us.” But the vine said to them, “Shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees?” Then all the trees said to the bramble, “You come and reign over us.” And the bramble said to the trees, “If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”

–Jotham, son of Gideon, protesting the murder of his brothers and the crowning of his brother Abimelech as king in Judges 9, ESV

Our fire department usually has two fundraising events each year, a dance and dinner on the second Saturday in May and a Fish Fry on the last weekend in October.  Due to COVID limits, we canceled both last year.  The arrival of two coincidentally timely grants kept us from having to curtail any of our normal purchasing.  We decided last month to go ahead and hold our event (2020 was the first time in 43 years that we hadn’t had our annual dance).  As we suspected, people were so ready for live music and food that our crowd was huge.  We served every bit of food, the dance floor was packed and attendees were extra generous in bidding on our auction items.

That’s several hundred pounds of beef brisket.  Our dance hall was built in the 1920s and was deeded to the fire department 40 years ago.  The girls are granddaughters of older department members and carry auction items around for the crowd to review before bidding.  Note how it’s safe to let the little ones crawl around the dance floor.  We serve an area of 43 square miles with about 3300 residents.  Literally, two people walked up to the line with masks on and then removed them.