Lift Up Your Hearts!

The inauguration of President Trump could hardly have been as impressive as the coronation of King Charles III, but it was still very moving. As with the coronation, I watched all of the ceremony, and parts of the other events. One thing I particularly enjoyed: the bands and the singers were great. The only disappointment with the music was the commentators who talked over the piccolo solo in The Stars and Stripes Forever. :(

One highlight for me: speaking of one pipe band's achievements, the commentator mentioned that they had played in Switzerland; I am 99.9% sure that they must have been at the Basel Tattoo. I've never attended the Tattoo itself, but I've thrilled to its parade.

Another: I confess to playing "air cymbals" when one of the bands at the inauguration featured The Liberty Bell March, which I play every Independence Day with the Greater Geneva Grande Award Marching Band. There were many great bands at the inauguration—the military band and chorus were especially impressive.

The GGGAMB should have been there, but we have a strict policy of doing only one performance per year, and Geneva asked first.

How much harm could President Biden do in the few hours before President Trump's inauguration?  Plenty, as it turns out.

I will not sully this day with the words I wanted to say when I heard about President Biden's most recent presidential pardons, especially that of Anthony Fauci. If any government official needs to be brought to justice—and even more, to have his deeds exposed during the "discovery" part of a trial—it is Dr. Fauci. My heart burns at the bare-faced injustice of this presidential action. It's a good reminder that ordinary people face corruption and injustice daily—from families, schools, employers, businesses, and government at every level—only with less visibility.

But we are not limited to human systems.

It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them. (Deuteronomy 32:35)

Fauci's day will come. Not even Josef Mengele could escape forever.

I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a luxuriant native tree, but he soon passed away and was no more. (Psalm 37:35)

In the meantime,

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. (Psalm 37:7-8)

Do not fret, refrain from anger—but a well-crafted civil suit against Dr. Fauci may not be out of order.

The Kindle version of The Real Anthony Fauci is currently available from Amazon absolutely free of charge. That's $0.00. Here's the review I wrote in 2022, and a follow-up.  It's not an easy book to read carefully, but at that price you could get a lot out of it by just skimming. Highly recommended.

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. (The link has nothing to do with the topic here; I include it for those who aren't old enough to remember that series of commercials.)

There are many things I appreciate about Rick Scott, our senator, but sometimes he plunges steadfastly in the wrong direction, and this morning he sent me an e-mail bragging about one of those wrong-headed moves. I had to respond.

Dear Senator Scott:

I appreciate your efforts to end the semi-annual changing of our clocks, but you are going in the wrong direction by trying to impose Daylight Saving Time on us.

Why are you, as a Floridian and one who represents our great state, so against Standard Time (sun time)? Daylight Saving Time doesn't "save" daylight at all, as you know, but only moves our clocks out of sync with the sun. While the necessity of time zones makes it impossible to keep our clocks totally in accord with nature, Daylight Saving Time takes us deliberately, artificially, and unnecessarily further out of step. This is a bad idea.

Especially in the southern latitudes, there's no good reason to steal sunshine from the morning hours and bestow it on the evening, when most people are inside staring at screens and couldn't care less what the sun is doing.

I would heartily support efforts to move permanently to Standard Time, but would far prefer resetting the clocks twice a year to having to live perpetually with DST. (What's the fun part of changing the clocks in the fall? Getting back the hour we lost in the spring. Stay on DST and that hour is gone forever.)

Please reconsider your priorities in this. Thank you.

Linda Wightman

Now I guess I need to follow up by writing to a few more politicians. Writing is my passion; writing to politicians is not. But I'm haunted by the lesson my mother taught me, which she learned early in my life:

After weeks of hearing complaints from the parents of my fellow classmates about some nonsense that was going on in our school, and feeling the same way herself, my mother spoke up to the school authorities. She was immediately dismissed with a curt, "You are the only one who opposes this; no one else has expressed any concerns."

From then on, she determined not to stay silent, but to be a voice for those who could or would not speak for themselves.

[I wrote this post back in early September of this year. L'il Writer Guy often works in spurts: As I've said before, some time periods have more than their share of interesting material to write about, so I write more than I want to post immediately. I like to squirrel the excess away for occasions when life and/or other priorities leave me, not without many things to say, but without the resources I need to craft them into blog posts.

The negative side is that I often find myself thinking that I've already posted something that's still waiting in the pipeline, as happened with this one. I was working on a thank-you note for some books I received for Christmas, and wanted to reference this post. That was when I realized that I couldn't reference what I hadn't actually posted. So here it is, none the worse for being almost four months old.

And lest you think I've forgotten the current season: I hope you are all having a Merry Christmas—which for us Episcopalians is only on its third day, so I still have a a few days in which to make an actual Christmas post.]

For decades, Christianity Today was one of the few magazines we subscribed to. I appreciated its orthodoxy, its intellectual approach, and its willingness to tackle difficult topics. The magazine's downfall was gradual (as most downfalls are) but undeniable, and we eventually dropped it. Later, I dove back into their online version for a while, but was appalled at how much further its content had fallen. 

Megan Basham's book, Shepherds for Sale, ended up on my Amazon wish list at some point, though I no longer remember who recommended it. Maybe I ought to raise its priority, because it was recently brought back to my attention, and piqued my interest further:

Tucker Carlson interviewed Basham, and it's a 25-minute show well worth watching. Now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand (or our busy lives). Among other things, it makes perfect sense of what happened to our once-favorite Christian magazine.

This post began with a simple meme that made me laugh.  Then I thought about it.

(I didn't make this up. I took it from Elon Musk on X, and who knows where he got it?)

The problem did not start with Joe Biden. It didn't start with Donald Trump. It didn't start with George Bush or Barack Obama. I don't know how far back the corruption goes. I don't even know what it is. The Deep State? The Administrative State? Bret Weinstein calls it Goliath. Others call it the Blob. A Christian might recognize it as Satan. It's not a person, though a large number of highly influential people are deeply involved; it's not a committee; it's not even an organization you can put your finger on, though plenty of committees and organizations are in it up to their necks. It's a force, and it has been driving our country at least since the Lyndon Johnson era, and probably before that.

The person who holds the office of president certainly matters—consider what has happened in just the last three and a half years—but not as much as one might think. There's something that has been driving our country steadily in the wrong direction for decades. It is unelected, responsible to no one, and doesn't care if it corrupts Republicans or Democrats as long as they do what they're supposed to do. Some people are more amenable to control than others, but no one is clean. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but the evidence is convincing. I've been observing our culture for more than half a century, and this hypothesis is a curve that best fits the data points. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

We face a formidable foe. I don't know who they are, but I know they've been running the country behind the scenes for the past three years—it sure couldn't have been President Biden. Based on what has happened on her watch, which she has not repudiated, I'm 100% convinced that even if Kamala Harris is not complicit, she would, as president, continue to be led along the same disastrous path.

I don't know if Donald Trump has much of a chance; he tried in his first administration, with some success but some notable failure, too, especially in the COVID-19 debacle. I think he has become smarter and wiser from his experience. There's a lot about the man I don't like, but at least he, J. D. Vance, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and many other brave souls recognize what we are up against and are determined to fight against it. Yes, I do recognize that the people I just named, who are so enthusiastically working with President Trump, came from the Democratic Party. That's a good part of where I find encouragement: people of all parties are beginning to understand the situation and take action.

With two doctors in the family, and plenty of friends in the medical world, I have it on good authority that neurosurgeons, as a group, are a particularly nasty set of people. In general, I'm told, they are brash, egotistical, and opinionated to the point of extreme rudeness. Not the kind of people I would like for neighbors. Or friends. But if that's true, I strongly suspect that those personality traits are exactly what is needed for the kind of work they are called upon to do. If you're going to operate on people's brains, you need to believe you are the best for the job, and demand the best from everyone in the operating theater. You need supreme confidence in your opinions, your skills, your decisions, your equipment, and your coworkers. How else would you dare to touch a human brain? Would you want someone operating on your brain to be indecisive? To make his cuts without being certain that he is doing the right thing?

Jordan Peterson has wrestled with trying to figure out Donald Trump—he's a psychologist; that's what they do—and has suggested that the traits that turn people off may be exactly what he needs to succeed in his David versus Goliath mission. They had better be, because for now, he leads the greatest earthly hope we have.

Florida's state surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, just went up another notch in my book. He is now recommending that Florida's cities that add fluoride to their water supply reconsider that practice.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against fluoride as an aid to dental health. And once upon a time I was pleased to have fluoridated water, considering it to be a sign of a progressive city. I now believe I was wrong. (I have been wrong on occasion. Once upon a time I even thought it was a good idea to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a decision which I now regret.)

Maybe there was a point in time when it was a good idea to mass-medicate the population, but looking back, I don't think so. In any case, there are now so many other ways to obtain fluoride for dental purposes that it seems ridiculous to impose it on all the city's water customers. I'm not against fluoride, per se, but I am 100% against government-mandated ingestion of fluoride. Let those who want it avail themselves of the many options available, but let our water be pure and safe! Here's hoping we can convince our city to follow the surgeon general's recommendation.

In this I do envy our Swiss family, whose city water comes out of the tap as it comes out of the ground: no fluoride, no chlorine, just great-tasting, pure water.

UPDATE: I wrote to our mayor and our city commissioners, and received a response from the city manager, with whom I have already clashed on the issue of recycling. It was not encouraging. He hastens to reassure me that "you will be happy to know that the levels in our water [are] far lower than the level of fluoride in the study that concerned the Surgeon General," and "we are guided by the science." Well, no, that does not make me particularly happy. Any level of added fluoride is at best outdated, as fluoride for dental purposes is readily available in many forms for those who want it. Medicating the population, en masse and often against their will, is not an acceptable function of government.

Plus, the phrase "we are guided by the science" automatically raises red flags, as all too often it translates to, "we are guided by the pronouncements of whatever authorities we choose to follow," with little regard for how the process of science actually works. This is the same city manager who, when I asked where the materials that the city collects for recycling actually end up, showed no interest in what happens to it once the city passes it on to another agency.

I guess there's more work to be done. I hate politics, but the least I can do is speak up, so they can't insist that they must be right because no one is objecting.

I certainly should have known better.

For several years I worked in a research lab at a major university medical center. True, I only did the computer work (I have exactly one published paper to my name from those days), but even back in the 1970's it was obvious that the peer-reviewed papers/government grant system was, if not totally broken, at least rigged.

Moreover, I spent much of my life learning that "the system" was not to be trusted in many fields. I think it began when my mother, following the customs and recommendations of both society and the medical experts, fed her newborn infants a mixture of diluted evaporated milk and Karo corn syrup, instead of breastfeeding.

But it didn't really hit me until I had children of my own, and observed again and again that the best course of action seemed to be to do exactly the opposite of what the experts recommended and society accepted without question. From birth and childrearing practices to educational decisions to nutritional and medical choices, life taught me that "going with the flow" was often a very bad plan.

So why, why, why did I willingly, even eagerly, accept the COVID shots? Two reasons.

One, working in medical research had provided opportunities to perhaps make a difference in the world, and one of these was being a test subject for the development of the Haemophilus Influenza B vaccine. Porter and I have been blood donors for decades. Our DNA is part of a medical research database. In other words, we've always tried to be good citizens on the medical front.

I like to think that was a good thing. But it predisposed me to being willing to try the COVID shot for the good of the world. Plus, the pressure was great back then that COVID-19 was deadly for the elderly, and our children were worried about their parents.

Still, I feel really stupid for trusting the medical establishment that this was "safe and effective and the only way to keep from killing grandmothers." I knew better. I knew, and even proclaimed at the time, that when the government and medical authorities make such broad statements they are lying. They must be, if only because nothing—especially nothing so novel—can be known to be safe without long-term trials.

By far the biggest factor, however, in our decision to get the shots was blackmail. We have family living overseas, and the only way we could visit them was to submit to the jab. Grandchildren change so fast, even in the course of a year. Even stateside family was largely cut off. We missed a big family reunion, and a nephew's wedding, and barely made the wedding of another nephew. Florida relaxed its restrictions relatively early on, but several long-planned events could not have happened without our vaccination cards, thanks to the restrictions imposed by other states. It was much worse for other people; at least we didn't miss any funerals, or lose our jobs.

Knowing what I know now, would I have willingly closed the door that the magic compliance card opened? I certainly hope so, but I can't honestly say I'd have made the sacrifice.

Nonetheless, I feel stupid, betrayed, and very, very angry.

We're all probably going to die when a more dangerous pandemic hits, because the trust is gone. At least the boy who cried wolf only got himself killed.

Consider this: The election of President Trump may be all that stands between us and nuclear war.

Does that sound crazy to you?

Okay, here's something crazier: President Biden just authorized the Ukraine to attack deep into Russian territory using American missiles.

This, like encouraging the Ukraine to join NATO, crosses another "red line" for Russia. From the BBC article linked above:

In September President Putin warned that if this were allowed to happen, Moscow would view it as the "direct participation" of Nato countries in the Ukraine war.

"This would mean that Nato countries… are fighting with Russia," he continued.

The following month, the Kremlin leader announced imminent changes to the Russian nuclear doctrine, the document setting out the preconditions under which Moscow might decide to use a nuclear weapon.

This was widely interpreted as another less-than-subtle hint to America and Europe not to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles.

This is 'way beyond "poking the bear."

It almost makes me believe those who say there are many in our government (with both D's and R's after their names) who want us to go to war with Russia. Who want us to go to war with Iran. Who are actively pushing us into these wars.

That is no garden-variety crazy. That is pathologically insane.

I've said from the beginning of the 2022 escalation of America's involvement in the fight between Russia and the Ukraine that we seem intent on leaving President Putin no way to save face, to back off without being utterly defeated, which strikes me as stupid on any number of fronts. Who in his right mind could possibly want to set off World War III? Seriously. Why do we continue to push Russia into an ever and ever tighter corner? Desperate people—and desperate countries—do desperate things. This is no situation of "we think maybe Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." We know Russia has them, and we should not be leaving nuclear, chemical, and/or biological warfare as their only options.

Even if we could keep a confrontation to conventional warfare, do you think the American military is adequately prepared for such a fight, likely on several fronts? I have no such confidence. Certainly the American public is not ready. Military standards, recruitment, and satisfaction in the ranks are all suffering. If FEMA couldn't find enough generators to help out Appalachia after Hurricane Helene because we gave them to the Ukraine, what about all our military equipment that went that direction? Sure, we can rebuild with newer and better equipment, but That. Takes. Time. Time we may not have. And money we certainly do not have.

Do you really want to bring back conscription? Maybe if you haven't lived through the Vietnam Era you can't understand the devastation that the draft brought to individuals, families, communities, and the entire country. If you think we are broken and divided and hurting now....

"Bodily autonomy" has proved to be a powerful rallying cry on both sides of the aisle, with Democrats using it primarily to mean the right to have an abortion, and Republicans using it primarily to mean the right to not have a COVID shot. Everyone agrees that the government's authority over our bodies and those of our minor children should be extremely limited. Everyone except those who favor conscription, that is. 

Even that doesn't matter if the nukes start flying.

I'm praying that President Putin will remember that in a couple of months we'll have a new president, and be restrained in his response. New administrations can often be an excuse, welcomed on both sides, to break impasses—as when the hostages held by Iran for more than a year were finally released as soon as Ronald Reagan took office.

I suppose it's possible that this apparently unhinged action on the part of President Biden is actually a move calcuated to put incoming President Trump in a better negotiating position with the Russians. If so, I'd still call it more crazy than clever. But I'll be praying that it works.

Let's honor our veterans—those who stand "between their loved home and the war's desolation"—by making our military into an occupation that attracts the best and the brightest, offers opportunities for education and advancement and a good future for those who need a hand up, provides well for their families, prioritizes their physical and mental health when they return home, and above all has the policies and direction to be a place where our service men and women can serve with honor and integrity.

That's the least we can do, and the alternative is a military draft. I lived through times of conscription, and don't ever want to see those horrors again.

I feel as if I could sleep for a week.  And not write another word for a month.  Neither is going to happen.

I won't deny that I'm relieved by many of the election results so far. Perhaps the most unexpected was the fate of Florida's most controversial proposed state constitutional amendments, one having to do with marijuana and the other with abortion. From all that I heard, they seemed certain to pass. But apparently enough voters, even if they agreed with the overall sentiments of the amendments, realized that both were over-reaching and dangerous. I'm not going to argue either point here; I'm just very pleasantly surprised. Florida's constitution is far too easy to amend, and I'm glad we escaped this. The same issues are likely to come up again as legislation, which is where they should be addressed.

As for the presidential race, I'm cautiously optimistic. And especially grateful for the Amish, who got 'way out of their comfort zones and voted, and for the people of western North Carolina, who quite literally went through hell and high water to exercise their rightful franchise.

Most of all, it is time to remember, as we should after every presidential election, that approximately half of our fellow-countrymen—our neighbors, co-workers, friends, and families—are genuinely saddened, frightened, and maybe deeply depressed by the results. This is not some football game; it is our country, our world, and our future. Celebrating a well-earned victory is appropriate; exulting in the streets, or otherwise gloating—anywhere other than among similarly-minded friends—is unkind. Whatever one may believe the essential battle for the health of America may be, it can only be won in human hearts; kindness and sympathy for those who are feeling disenfranchised might be a great place to begin.

I love the Amish people. It was an Amish Supreme Court decision (Wisconsin v. Yoder) that became the backbone of home education today. Our family has deep personal ties to a court case that brought the Amish of Western Pennsylvania into downtown Pittsburgh to show their support in a situation that threatened their own way of life. The Amish are a very private people who just want to be left alone to live their traditional lives, but they will rise up and make themselves heard when their very existence is at stake. Several of our grandchildren were born in Amish Country. I'm not Amish, and I don't even know personally any Amish people, but I admire them greatly.

The following video is from Nick Johnson, about whom I know nothing else; it showed up as one of those YouTube suggestions after I watched something else. I found it delightful on many levels, from the scenery, to the simple, innocent, and very shrewd wisdom of the Amish people, to their solid values, to their delightful accents. (Did you know that their language is still understandable by modern-day speakers of Swiss German?) There's also an interview with Amos Miller, who is at the forefront of the fight for food freedom in Pennsylvania; we have some of his great meat in our freezer even now.

If you've ever met an Amish buggy on the road, you'll know how surprising this image is.

Traditionally, the Amish do not participate in civic matters. They do not vote. But this year, they see an opportunity to speak up for their way of life, the very existence of their farming and small business based culture, which is being crushed by heavy-handed governmental regulations that favor large corporations. They are voting this year, and in large numbers. For a look into a beautiful part of American culture that we rarely see, enjoy this 30-minute video.

Amos Miller is excited about the team that is gathering around Donald Trump.

They know the importance of farmers, they know the importance of food freedom, and I'm hoping that Trump will get that same perspective so we the farmers can do our duty that we've liked to do for many years. Farmers are going out of business like flies. We have lost probably 50% of our farmers within the last 20 years. We like to be farmers, we love to be farmers, but the rules and regulations that have been forced upon us for the last 30 years are terrible. We can't make a living, the food system is monopolized, the corporations want to run the government—so we're looking for someone to push government back, so we can be the true farmers that we love to be. Our culture loves to be farmers. The work ethic is still here; that can be lost in a very short period of time if we can't be farmers.

Yogi Berra was right. And so was whoever said "It's not over till the gravitationally-challenged, socially-important, assigned-female-at-birth person sings." Or you can look back a few millennia to Aesop and his chickens.

As long as there have been elections, people have been trying to anticipate the results.

I find polls moderately interesting, even the disturbing but legal election betting markets, but I try to be neither elated nor depressed by them. I'm going to refer you to my Poll Results post from early August. Better yet, I'll reprint it below. Complacency is a dangerous enemy. So is believing that the ends justify the means.

Here's a question I'd like to ask of political pollsters:

What is the ideal position for a political candidate in the polls, at various times before an election?

Clearly, to be leading in the polls on Election Day (or whatever passes for Election Day in these days of early voting and mail-in ballots) is a good thing. But what about earlier? To be doing well at any point feels great, and can boost support due to the "to him who has, more will be given" effect. People like to be on the winning team, and tend to flee people they feel can't win.

I think there's more to it than that. The following excerpt is from Robert A. Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy; it has haunted me since I first read it in elementary school.

Weemsby stood up and looked happy. "In my own person, I vote one share. By proxies delivered to me and now with the Secretary I vote—" Thorby did not listen; he was looking for his hat.

"The tally being complete, I declare—" the Secretary began.

"No!"

Leda was on her feet. "I'm here myself. This is my first meeting and I'm going to vote!"

Her stepfather said hastily, "That's all right, Leda—mustn't interrupt." He turned to the Secretary. "It doesn't affect the result."

"But it does! I cast one thousand eight hundred and eighty votes for Thor, Rudbek of Rudbek!"

Weemsby stared. "Leda Weemsby!"

She retorted crisply, "My legal name is Leda Rudbek."

Bruder was shouting, "Illegal! The vote has been recorded. It's too—"

"Oh, nonsense!" shouted Leda. "I'm here and I'm voting. Anyhow, I cancelled that proxy—I registered it in the post office in this very building and saw it delivered and signed for at the 'principal offices of this corporation'—that's the right phrase, isn't it, Judge?—ten minutes before the meeting was called to order. If you don't believe me, send down for it. But what of it?—I'm here. Touch me." Then she turned and smiled at Thorby.

Thorby tried to smile back, and whispered savagely to Garsch, "Why did you keep this a secret?"

"And let 'Honest John' find out that he had to beg, borrow, or buy some more votes? He might have won. She kept him happy, just as I told her to."

A really commanding lead can discourage competitors from pouring money and effort into a losing cause. But somewhere in between that kind of lead and the bottom of the heap there's a point—I'm going to call it the Garsch Point—where a lead is dangerous. Two terrible things can come into play:

• A candidate's own supporters can become complacent, let down their guard, and like the overconfident hare, risk losing to the lagging but persistent tortoise.
• A zealous opponent, who would rather win honestly, may be tempted to resort to nefarious means of helping himself to victory. After all, when you're fighting infidels, it's okay to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill, right? Well, no, it's not. But the temptation can be great if you think the contest is critical and you might get away with it.

Beware the Garsch Point. It's okay to be happy to be leading in the polls, but it ought to be less a time for celebrating than a time for doubling down on honest and honorable effort. And maybe for not letting your enemy know your full strength.