RIOTS & LOOTING
Tonight Minneapolis is fraught with rioting mobs.  This is supposedly to protest the overt action of a Minneapolis police office that caused the death of a black man in police custody. They overturn cars and set them on fire. They crash businesses and set them on fire. They throw things at police trying to control the situation.  They loot.  This is only one of several similar riots the past several years.
I'm of the opinion these riots have little to do with protesting misbehavior of the police.  It's all about creating a cover for looting.

COVID-19 VIRUS - PERSPECTIVE

For a little perspective at this time, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts.  It ends four years later on your 18th birthday.  Over 22 million people are killed.  Later the same year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet.  It lasts until you are 20.  Fifty million people die from it in those two years. An unknown disease ran rampant through the 1920’s and for the next two decades until you’re age 53. It caused millions to die, and thousands more to be crippled for life, including President Roosevelt.  Many survived with little or no physical after effect.  It was discovered to be the polio virus in 1953.  A vaccine was developed in 1962. It was eradicated by 1968.  When you're 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%.  That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. When you're 41, the United States is fully pulled into WW II.  Over 4,000 are killed in a single day during the Normandy invasion.  Between your 39th and 45th birthdays, 75 million people perish in the war.  The Holocaust kills six million.  At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.  At 64 the Vietnam War begins.  It doesn’t end for many years.  Four million people die in that conflict.  Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War.   Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended.  Great leaders prevented that from happening.  As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900.  How did they survive all of that including several flu epidemics along then way causing unknown numbers of deaths.

Kids in 1985 thought their 85 year old grandparents didn’t understood how hard school was.  Yet, those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.  What their grandparents didn’t have was a 24/7 news media cycle fanning the flames, a plethora of experts jockeying for their 15 minutes of TV fame, and politicians speaking with the authority of God.

Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this.  In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted.  With the American spirit and perseverance this too shall pass. 

My father was born in 1901.  He died at age 104.  He lived through all the above, including the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killing over 3,000 in a single day. Never once was the entire country shut down. 

So buck up, folks.  Deal with it.

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

Hydroxychloroquine has two characteristics that preclude its official sanction for use against the COVID virus.  First, it’s in ample supply.  It has been around for over fifty years as a treatment for lupus and malaria. Thousands of people have taken it with little or no side effects.  Thus it’s in amply supply.  Second, it’s cheap. It costs pennies per pill.  There are no big $bucks to be made from its use. Thus, the big pharmaceutical companies and their allies in the scientific community rail against it in spite of numerous instances where it has been successfully used to treat the COVID virus.

It has nothing to do with medical necessity.  It’s all about power that translates into money. 

MY TAKE ON CHINA

From Wikipedia:  U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and mainland China after years of diplomatic isolation.  

It all started with Nixon’s trip to open relations and trade with China. Nixon was known as “Tricky Dick”. Before his well publicized  departure I wrote him a letter which he probably never saw.  I urged him to live up to his name “Tricky Dick” dealing with China.

Every Administration since until Trump has viewed China as deserving of our help and assistance to bring them into the world of friendly nations.  They were granted numerous concessions and assistance to become members of world organizations like UN, WTO, W.H.O., etc.  Many of our citizens of large corporations, politics, and academia saw this as tremendous opportunities to enrich themselves. (Think Apple, Biden, Harvard, etc.).  

China now has so many hot irons so deep into all aspects of our economy, government and academia that it will be extremely difficult, if at all possible, to extract them.  We’ve squandered three years of Trump’s efforts to deal with China. Our national attention has been collusion, collusion, Russia,  Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, impeachment, impeachment, and now COVID-19.  If China is ever brought into the circle of friendly nations (like Germany, Japan, Italy) it will be by Divine Interaction. 

MESSAGE TO ANTHONY FAUCI

Sit down and shut up.  You’ve had more than your moment of national attention and fame.  You’ve done more than Attila the Hun ever did to put fear in the hearts of mankind. Your computer model projections and predictions about the number of deaths from this COVID virus have missed the mark by a country mile.  You say you don’t make economic predictions, yet  based on your predictions millions of people are now unemployed and dependent on the largess of government for subsistence.  You are an egg-head crystal-ball gazer that with the assistance of the Democrats and national news media hoodwinked Trump and the nation with a shroud of fear to unnecessarily take drastic measures with real economic consequences. Your computer models are garbage in and garbage out.  Tell  me the results you want and I’ll write you a computer model that will prove your case.  We, the people, are becoming more and more to disbelieve anything you say.  So, GO AWAY and STAY AWAY  in your ivory tower up in the clouds. 

A CHILDHOOD MEMORY - A KITTEN & BABY SQUIRREL

Yesterday I mowed the yard.  As I came to the barn door to put up the tractor a mama cat ran around the outside.  A kitten ran through the crack between the door and doorway frame under the bottom of the door into the concrete notch guide for the door. (It’s a big door 10 x 16 ft.)  I opened it okay, but when I started to close it I heard two shrieks.  I knew it was the kitten.  Sure enough, it was squeezed between the bottom of the door frame and the concert floor with the notch.  It was dead. I could not close the door all the way because the body of the kitten was wedged in the narrow space (about 1/4 inch) between the bottom of the door and the concrete floor.  It was enough I could not slide the door all the way to close it.  Took me  about 15 minutes to get it worked free from under the door so it would slide closed.  Poor kitten.  I had no way to know it was hiding in the space between the frame of the barn and frame of the door.

Not my cats.  They belong to a neighbor across the road and down about 200 yards.  They have at least a dozen or more.  But the cats are over here much of the time. I don’t have a dog.  They come here to use the barn to have their kittens.  I don’t much mind because they keep rodents, snakes, etc. away from the barn. 

Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid 4 or 5 years old.  My grandpa came to visit.  He brought a baby squirrel as a gift for me.  I fed it raisins.  I ran between the kitchen and the front room to fetch raisins for it.  About the third or fourth trip I ran into the kitchen the squirrel followed me.  We had a swinging door into the kitchen.  As I ran through the door into the kitchen he followed me.  The door swung back catching him between the floor and bottom of the door squeezing the life out of him.  I was distraught.  I cried and cried.  The next day mother helped me bury him in a match box in the backyard. 

COVID-19 DEATH STATISTICS

We get all kinds of statistics about COVID-19.  The number of deaths is the most often quoted.  The experts say most of the deaths are among those with an under lying health condition like cancer, hypertension, heart problems, diabetes, asthma, emphysema, etc.  It would be interesting to know how the death rates for these under lying conditions compare with the rates before COVID-19 and after COVID-19.

There’s cause to ponder if many of the COVID-19 deaths really were more likely from the under lying condition than from the COVID-19 virus itself?

Just asking. 

FEAR & LIBERTY

I was born in the 1920's, grew up in the 1930's, served in the military in the 1940's. I've been around for a while and have seen a lot of things, but NEVER have I seen anything like this. Scare tactics.

We had polio for years. Didn't know what it was. Lots of people were affected. Some died, some were crippled for life, some recovered with little or no after effects. President Roosevelt had it in 1922 after he was an adult. He was crippled for life. Polio was identified in 1953. Had a vaccine by 1962. It was eliminated by 1968. We never shut down the country and hid locked in our homes. 

We need to be very cautious not to let fear rob us of our God given rights as enumerated by the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. Ben Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”