Catching COVID-19: True Crime Stories (Rounding *Up* the Usual Suspects)
ROGUES GALLERY: UNTOUCHABLE RALPH BLACK FACE NORTHAM
"You have a right to remain silent" is a Miranda Warning Right with which most are familiar, but, at least former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and his legal counsel, have decided that that also includes a right to attempt to evade the Alexandria Sheriff, as well as the U.S. Marshals, in evasion of a summons, which is usually a felonious violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1512, punishable by fine and/or up to 20 years in prison, and a predicate offense under the federal racketeering statute, but, perhaps the pediatrician at the Children's Hospital for the King's Daughters is a king, and need not worry about the law, being above it.
But, for one former childhood protege of a legendary civil rights and criminal defense attorney, chasing the former Virginia Governor has just been a nostalgic reminder to him of days coordinating on drug stings as a legal specialist in the Ranger Regiment, and chasing spies and terrorists in strategic counterintelligence. And, with the recent appointment of a judge to preside over a case to convene a grand jury investigation into the death of a prominent religious leader in Chesterfield, Virginia at the beginning of the pandemic, it looks like Black Face, the Untouchable, will finally have his day in court, faced with the problem of explaining exactly why he had decided to avoid court if he was innocent.
And that is just one of several cases now moving forward for one litigation hobbyist who spent his pandemic in courtrooms trying to catch a novel coronavirus.
6
views
Oscars' Night: I'd Like to Thank the Academy
WHY ISN'T JIMMY KIMMEL TELLING JOKES?
He admits that he has lost his Republican base of fans, and has become unabashedly political, as a comic late night show talk show host, but even though Jimmy Kimmel will talk freely about his opinions on universal healthcare, vaccines and opposition to at least one former President, one thing that Jimmy is keeping tight-lipped on, at least since April, is being named as the lead defendant in a racketeering suit.
The Academy Awards has steadily lost viewership, falling from being the first choice of over 42% of Americans in 1970, over a half century ago, to just around 10 million American viewers, just a little above the population of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and some have suggested that the recent string of controversies, ranging from naming the wrong winners for best picture to the well-orchestrated open hand slap by the winner of Best Actor Awardee, Will Smith, on the host emcee, Chris Rock.
It has long been the stage for political statements, like the refusal of Marlon Brando to accept his award for the Godfather, and, from the artistic community, even during the last awards ceremony there had been concerns that the artistic achievements were being overshadowed by concerns for viewer ratings and commercialism. But why, during a time of a divided nation, and a contentious partisan politics, the Academy of Motion Pictures chose to Jimmy Kimmel, who had even made jokes about Republicans dying in Florida from COVID-19, and not long after the U.S. District Court in Richmond had given the green light for the U.S. Marshals to serve process upon the late-night show talk show host is not something that either they nor Kimmel are willing to discuss at the present, electing a dubious right to remain silent.
Isn't there someone else who could host the 95th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony in March?
Tell Kimmel what you think at: (818) 460-7477.
Tell the Academy of Motion Pictures at: (310) 247-3000.
Or, you have a right to remain silent.
9
views
Name of the Roes: Scooby Dooby Doo Coronavirus
CORONAVIRUS ORIGINS: BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
When Ralph Northam, Joe Biden, Rochelle Walensky and other government officials try to avoid the jurisdiction of the court to avoid making sworn arguments in court, it is not a sign that they have a strong argument to refute claims against the government response to the current public health crisis, and when a FOIA goes all the way to the Supreme Court on any issue, much less a simple yes or no question regarding whether certain standard metrics are classified, it is a strong indication that the origins of a coronavirus may not be natural.
But this video, after having a judge nominated to preside over the first pandemic incident homicide case in history, seeking to compel a grand jury investigation, is about those early clues that, even if not necessarily informed by the science, a quarter of Americans had a good reason to claim that the novel coronavirus had found origins in a laboratory, just based upon the science, which, apparently, microbiologists, virologists, epidemiologists and many in the public health profession did not notice or chose not to notice, but which should have been obvious.
2
views
Cost/Benefit Analysis (Due: The Math)
LIMITATIONS ON COVID-19 DATA DERIVED FROM VETERANS
One study first published in February 2022, in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine had noted that "Veterans who were non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaskan natives, younger, living in rural areas, male, and unmarried; had U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health insurance only; had fewer chronic conditions; did not receive the seasonal influenza vaccine; and were not living in community living centers or nursing homes were less likely to get vaccinated." Or, off grid, not likely to have volunteered for the free "vaccine".
One study had reviewed, from among a total population of 25,000 veterans in Ann Arbor, between December 2020 and April 2021, only a total of 20 veterans who even got infected by COVID-19, only ten of whom were hospitalized and fully vaccinated, breakthrough infections even before the outbreak in Provincetown in July 2021, and finding one fully vaccinated veteran dying, in a sample that included a total of nine White veterans, and one Negro, but according to other medical reports, again, from amongst veterans upon whom the government has extensive data, while surviving hospitalization, they were at severely high risk of later dying, within a year, from cardiac failure, which would probably not be listed as COVID-19 or a result of being vaccinated, although a recent FOIA request has been submitted to CDC to determine if that has even been examined.
Limitations in clinical studies is just as important, or even more important than the fears that were created amongst the general public, regarding the number of infections that may not have been reported because persons were not tested. And, CDC even admits that its VAERS was a limited attempt to collect data on adverse events, which was entirely provided on a volunteer basis by amateurs, perhaps in grief and trauma, who were required to locate the website, print out the card, and then send the card to CDC to input into the database, necessarily making the adverse data on the "vaccines" very limited, almost in willful blindness.
During efficacy and safety testing for the emergency use authorization, pregnant women, persons with allergies, and other factors known to usually present problems in clinical trials were excluded from participation in the trials, to obtain a more favorable report, loading the dice for a favorable outcome.
The general public was never made aware that there is a big difference between efficacy and effectiveness, and an effectiveness test requires knowledge of infectious dose for COVID-19, which, even today, remains unknown, undermining the approval of the Pfizer product by the FDA in August 2021 in and of itself.
Even Superintendent and Columbia trained Dr. Francisco Duran, with a doctorate in education, was wholly unaware, when he sponsored a three-day event to vaccinate at least a thousand employees in the Arlington Public Schools, that the safety test under the emergency use authorization basically amounts to the probability that the product will not kill you immediately, and there is no need to wince, because that has actually been tested, but for the FDA approval test, the standard is a little higher, and if you are one of the over 80% of persons who volunteered for the vaccine, you are essentially participants in the clinical trial to determine if these products will kill others, like the dummies that test cars in the collision test. And, educated and informed, it must be assumed that you knew this.
23
views
Work of an Evangelist: Faith of Our Fathers
ANGELS UNAWARE
His letter to the Vatican was delayed for 18 days by Federal Expres, s. The Vatican response was delivered via diplomatic pouch to the Vatican Consulate in DC, and placed in the U.S. Mail, and arrived already opened.
He's been the subject of stolen valor blogs, and has achieved international notoriety, and, at least in science, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Despite being the grandson of a franchise martyr, and having a shared a spiritual mentor with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, he is a "not a serious option" "fringe independent candidate" "who has floated around the periphery of Northern Virginia politics for almost a decade", a resident of the most Democrat-Majority congressional district in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
During pandemic, he has had a half dozen cases docketed for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court, without even a mention in a morning note in the press, but is known from coast to coast in discrete circles, including chic coffee houses in Seattle, where he is known by the Progressive Voters Guide as being "against the government response to the current public health crisis", is known by jurists in the Fifth Circuit as a "litigation hobbyist", prompting the ire of the U.S. Attorney General for his divine interventions on "hot button issues" across the nation, and according to the President he "ain't really Black" and possesses "passion".
And now the son of a preacher man is running for State Delegate in Virginia's 49th District, after having brought numerous cases against the COVID-19 response, identifying the causative agent as a biological agent that had been developed with the full knowledge of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and has tied even late-night talk show host, and 95th Academy Awards Emcee Jimmy Kimmel to the planning and execution of the pandemic, alleged to have been a zoonotic evolution.
11
views
Bearing Necessities
"MY RECRUITER LIED TO ME.
There is an old army adage popular amongst soldiers to never volunteer for anything, a lesson learned after the realization at some point in basic training that your recruiter lied about something to you. And after months of news reports about "science deniers", crying in deathbed confessions, "I should have taken the vaccine", came the CBS News interview, a podcast, taped from the apartment of The Takeout, Major Garrett, after he had tested positive in a breakthrough infection, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most trusted voice in the pandemic, according to Aljazeera, had granted him an interview to console him with that bedside manner, beginning with "So, you were infected, which has proven something that I think we've all known, but I think you're the personification of this."
"This is a highly transmissible virus, and it is very likely that if you were not vaccinated and double boosted, that you would've had a much more severe outcome than you have right now. And you and I are very unlikely would be speaking to each other right now," said Dr. Fauci.
The President and the Vice President also had praised their personal decisions to be administered the COVID-19 countermeasure that had been developed with no knowledge of infectious dose, which is required to determine the proper correlates of protection, as Dr. Fauci had actually somewhat explained on August 23, 2021 at the White House briefing, while the FDA was rushing ahead, months before schedule to grant approval of the products, which over 95% of t over the age of 65 have taken, accepting, unwittingly, a 16 to 33% risk of a serious adverse event including death to avoid becoming a fatality to a disease with an overall case fatality rate in America of less than two percent, about the probability that, if in an automobile accident, you would become a fatality.
Dr. Ralph Northam, with the country doc voice, used the death of a child to promote child vaccines, and told Virginians that they had to think about how they wanted their obituary would read, and then, seven months after his own infection, talked to Elisha Sauer at the Virginia Pilot, and complained about his loss of smell and taste, while telling even younger people that they did not want to take the risk to end up like him, and needed to accept the free and safe vaccine. Is that morally worse than a public health official filling a balloon with hot water to simulate a human hand to comfort an elderly person dying from COVID-19, a disease that had a validated less than five percent secondary attack rate that they could not transmit to anyone, if they tried?
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are the five classic stages of grief, and there's an old saying in marketing that if it sounds too good to be true--forget about it.
At least the President didn't lie
21
views
Free Lunch: Cooked in the Squat
THREE POINT EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT PLAN
Three decades ago, the prevailing thought, even after the experience of the Spanish Flu of 1918, was that, because of superior education, pandemics would be most lethal to developing nations, but, today, America leads the world in overall fatalities to a novel coronavirus, and account for 43% of the daily deaths that today exceed 6.5 million, exceeding the Holocaust in half the time. Yet, progressives have pointed to disparities in America and blamed poverty as the cause, which does not correlate with the world picture. It is at most a hypothesis that fails the empirical tests.
As one of only 13% of African American males with at least a baccalaureate, of the 50% who can say they went "to" college, and as a graduate of the most competitive private college in Virginia, I was one of the fortunate to whom pandemic came to every man, each according to his several abilities, while early on, by August 2020, it had become apparent at CDC, with some evolutionary pressure through litigation I commenced in July 2020, that, in a respiratory tract infection pandemic, there was still a need to retain a cartoonist to graphically illustrate the locations of the entrances to the upper respiratory tract (nose and mouth) to at least wear the nonmedical grade facial coverings properly, not even getting to the fact that they had been definitively determined to be wholly ineffective by NIOSH over a decade ago, using the same diagnostic equipment that is used to rate the N95, a finding revalidated by a hasty review of 172 more current, nonpeer reviewed observational tests, commissioned by the WHO, which concluded that 12 to 16 layer surgical cotton masks would probably not be effective against the novel coronavirus.
Yet, indicative of the achievement gap, had NIOSH required my approval a decade ago to fund a test to establish that one-ply cotton was not impervious to microbial penetration, I would have rejected that request, which, in litigation, has been now my best friend and strongest evidence.
Even the WHO, after a review of 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases in China in February 2020 had concluded what the CDC has only recently endorsed: fully educating the general public saves lives and unnecessary costs in pandemics.
Arlington Public Schools and other public schools have practically abandoned education, as evidenced by closed schools during the pandemic, declining proficiency scores dating before the pandemic and exasperated thereafter and directing an inappropriate focus on values training and critical race theory, while ignoring the fundamentals that are on the achievement tests: math and reading.
So, running in the 45th District of Virginia against Delegate Alphonso Lopez, I am proposing a three point get well plan on education:
1) Build that wall of separation between church and state to remove public schools from values training, which the Founders had established as in the domain and province of the separate religious sects and civic associations, and we are commencing litigation soon against Arlington Public Schools to enjoin their resistance to the modifications of the transgender student policy.
2) Internet and broadband access for rural and impoverished communities is only a part of a solution if you do not have access to an internet capable device, and VA8 enjoys the leverage as one of the largest beneficiaries of defense spending and defense contracts, while periodically, often driven by career enhancement objectives to obtain a good OER, DoD regularly discards older generation computer equipment to replace with the new, resources that can be provided, even if slightly used, to rural and other marginalized communities even at substantially reduced cost for equipment that otherwise would simply be discarded as trash.
3) Providing parents choice through vouchers, home schooling and public charter schools, the first and last of which are practically nonexistent in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
With the highest per student expenditure in the state, Arlington Public Schools is clear empirical evidence that simply tossing more money in a sink hole is not the solution. Nor, for teachers with a calling, is more competitive salaries the way to attract better teachers, as the numbers of persons who decide to be all that they can has demonstrated since the founding of the republic. I left a lucrative job in the financial industry to enlist in the army, making about $12,000, but, in a tradeoff, I got to do things I could never do making more money.
Does it work? I graduated from a college no child in Arlington can dream to get in. What do you have to lose?
28
views
Nein Tutu: A Gambler Makes His Luck
LOOK FOR THE UNION LIABLE?
The Arlington Public School Workers Union had just lost their bid to represent the workers of the world united, and then received the double boom from the elected Arlington Democrats on the Arlington Public School Board that they event staff were considered seasonal, part time workers, and, in thanks for their support during the pandemic, they would be losing their health benefits, causing a stream of almost two dozen to appear at the last Arlington Public School Board meeting, held on October 27, 2022.
For those who never watched On the Waterfront, the workers union represents the organized power of the people, a proletariat, and on September 22, 2022, exactly six years to the day after Defense Secretary General Lloyd Austin, III, had provided a statement to CBS News during a scandal in intelligence at CENTCOM, where he had served as commander, the union voice of the Arlington Public School employees were fighting, at least a half dozen strong at the meeting to retain their position as the voice of the working class in the public schools, while the Superintendent and Chairman stood up to provide a sermon about the modification in transgender policy being against their community values, and had vowed, unwaveringly, to defend and protect the LGBTQI community and their perceived right to personal pronouns, participation in athletics and use of restroom facilities, comparing it to the Civil Rights Movement.
However, on September 22, 2016, General Austin, then the history making first African American to ever command CENTCOM, had told CBS, "We can’t make good policy unless we have good, accurate, clear-eyed, hard-headed intelligence.” And, on September 22, 2022, six years to the day after that scandal, the Arlington Public School Board Superintendent, who holds a Doctor of Education from Columbia, had focused his priorities on galvanizing community support to comment at the online town hall regarding the transgender student policy modifications proposed by the Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, while apparently not even the organizational forces of the union were aware of the publishing of a peer reviewed report in the Vaccines Journal regarding the serious adverse events associated with the COVID-19 countermeasures products that had been released under an emergency use authorization declaration, and prepared with no official knowledge of the infectious dose they were designed to defeat, making them at most efficacious, distinct from effective, and requiring a large sample size phase three clinical trial to test them for effectiveness, a bitter lesson learned in Provincetown in July 2021, one month before the FDA approval and one month after Pride Month, finding over a thousand gay men, fully vaccinated, infected in breakthrough infections, and beginning the discussions about booster shots. If, at first you don't succeed?
Political advertising is just that: advertising. And, according to the advertising, you need to vote like democracy depends upon it, but your vaccines, promoted by your elected represented have at least a 16% associated risk of serious adverse events, and over 33% for the one-shot regimen. And you are of majority age, eligible to vote like an adult.
36
views
Election Day Director's Cut
KIMMEL CASE MOVES FORWARD, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE JOKES?
The first pandemic incident homicide case in history has been certified to the Virginia State Supreme Court to nominate a judge for a grand jury request, the town of Ithaca court has acknowledged receipt of an accusatory document to consider wrongful conduct during an outbreak of infections on the campus of Cornell University, a police complaint has been filed in Provincetown regarding the breakthrough infections outbreak in July 2021, and now even Jimmy Kimmel, who had not told one joke while a complaint languished since April 2022 at the federal district court in Richmond has finally moved forward for the United States Marshal to serve the complaint on all defendants, and four cases regarding the pandemic and the government response thereto are pending for the new term at the U.S. Supreme Court, without even one mention in the press.
And, now, on appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals for DC another action, regarding an intriguing job offer to a former biological warfare planner in a job in an expired mission for which the "applicant" had never applied in 2015, awaits disposition, and you still believe there was a zoonotic evolution, and are probably fully vaccinated and boosted and are convinced of the impervious qualities of one-ply cotton against microbial penetration.
Everyone has a right to their opinion, right?
5
views
Election Day: Your Bodies; Your Choice
IF A MAN WIN AN ELECTION AND LOSE HIS SOUL
On March 23, 2021, the White House acknowledged receipt of a FOIA request, seeking any and all documents pertaining to whether the infectious dose and/or secondary attack rate, standard epidemiological measures, for COVID-19 were classified information, which would not be classified in itself, and had until April 20, 2021 to issue a response, which they elected not to do, exercising a dubious right to remain silent, in violation of the FOIA, entitling the requestor to immediate injunctive relief, having been deemed to have exhausted all administrative remedies.
Under Executive Order 12,958, these metrics could only be classified if the government owned and/or controlled the causative biological agent for COVID-19, which has been attributed to the fatalities of over a million Americans, leading the world, and over 6.5 million fatalities worldwide, exceeding the death toll in the Holocaust, in half the time.
Under Associates for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., decided by the Supreme Court in 2013, if the government owned and/or controlled the causative biological agent for COVID-19, it would have to have been cultivated or manipulated in a laboratory, a claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci has consistently denied.
On May 26, 2021, the President tasked the Intelligence Community to redouble efforts to determine the origins of the novel coronavirus, which, after receipt of the FOIA request, both the President and the Intelligence Community knew or should have known may have been the property of the government.
On July 7, 2021, an action was commenced in the Federal District Court in Richmond, seeking the injunctive relief to which the requestor was entitled after the White House refused to respond to the FOIA, but the court dismissed the case, prompting an appeal to the Fourth Circuit and application for prejudgment relief on the shadow docket for the Supreme Court.
With the White House asserting a presumptive claim of executive privilege and waiving a right to respond, on March 7, 2022, in Webb v Fauci, Record No. 21-6868 (U.S.), the claim of executive privilege, reserved for classified information, was transformed to a Glomar Statement regarding these metrics: the government can neither confirm nor deny.
On June 28, 2022, the matter was brought on final appeal to the Supreme Court in Webb v. Fauci, Record No. 8242, which still remains pending, going into the new court term.
8
views
Little White Lies (Big Lies Matter)
THE EYE OF THE TIGER
According to the first Roman Catholic President, during a similar period of worldwide civil unrest, with freedom front movements springing up all around the world, "in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside", while the Bible suggests that those who stir trouble in their own house, inherit the wind, the title to a play and movie that has become a popular cause, after one John T. Scopes, a sports coach and part time science teacher responded to an advertisement by the ACLU, offering money to bring a case against teaching Creationism in public schools.
And, with just a week remaining in a critical midterm election the antifascists are calling for clamping down on political violence, a call about which they had been silent for over four years when it had been directed against the opposition, a modus operandi that even a recent NBER report is apparently shared by a novel coronavirus, whose origins officially remain unknown, but for which, according to a decision by the Supreme Court in March 2022, the government can neither confirm nor deny that it owns the novel coronavirus responsible for more fatalities worldwide than the Holocaust, and in half the time, a question on litigation hobbyist is poised to ask Dr. Fauci in direct examination during upcoming depositions.
Fortune, it is often said, favors the bold in battle, and according to John Kennedy, the Mandarin character for crisis is actually a marriage of two characters: danger and opportunity, two sides of the same coin.
39
views
Provincetown Pair of Dice or Paradox Lost (Man (D) Lights MI Naught)
DEATH BY LA MAMBA
,
It is actually a rather popular joke amongst Brits, and maybe a few Anglophiles in the Colonies, across the pond, as they say, about two members of the aristocracy, stiff upper lip types, who had fashioned themselves as adventurers and explorers, and who had jetted off on vacay to explore some exotic rain forest, whereupon they had stumbled upon a gathering of indigenous people who immediately reacted with consternation, accusing these foreigners of trespassing on some sacred tribal rite. There is a clean, closer to Disney type, at most rated PG version of the joke, and there is a Benny Hill version, but, the bottom line is that it is clear that the daredevils, who had only before imagined themselves in death defying expeditions had a close encounter with the real thing and experienced a bit of evolutionary pressure before even getting to the point of being able to answer those great existential questions.
I have, in pandemic, let's assume like most everyone, had the most delightful time in correspondence with personalities like Kristian G. Andersen, the zoonotic evolution stud, Linsey C. Marr, the rock star environmentalist from V Tech, and even fringe folks like snake venom in the water, Dr. Ardis, and the lead author from Boston University who decided to find a better mouse trap with a cultivated coronavirus, but especially after reading not the MMWR report that was published in time for my opportunity to finally gain a hearing on my petition for injunction against the unrestricted observation of Pride Month in 2021, just before the world woke up surprised and astonished to discover that over a thousand gay men had suffered breakthrough infections in an alleged super spreader event, the exact adverse outcome my litigation had attempted to avert, while folks called me a science denier and homophobe, the after action review by Dr. Katherine Siddle, who had not only participated with 23 scientists in the original report, one of three persons who had disclosed they had been the recipients of CDC grant funding, reminded me of the Benny Hill version of the Death by La Mamba Joke.
And, if you are perfectly filled with pride about the idea that one dude, obviously not from Massachusetts, or an Islander, going off to the gay capital paradise of the world, in the month after the celebration of Pride Month, which escaped without a similar event, finding an intimate connection sufficient to transfer a biological agent with which even with the omicron variant you have a better chance of winning a coin toss than catching from your cohabitating roommate, lover or spouse, in the optimal conditions for transmitting infection, over a month with over a thousand other folks looking for love in all of the sanctioned places, at selected and identified party venues, we all have our different tastes, but I still giggle when I see Joe Pesci in the toga in JFK. To each his own.
However, can you explain exactly how all of these persons, at only select venues, managed to make a love connection over the course of only a month, with only one guy, obviously from out of state and not an Islander, and not also infect anybody at any restaurant, gas station, convenience store, or any place else, fduring the Independence Day month in which the President had told every American we could enjoy, if everyone did their part, in an explosive coronavirus experience that failed to spread anywhere in Massachusetts or any other state?
Can you, as a follow up, explain how the American Patient Zero was able to fail to infect 68 trace contacts, a fete a member of a choir in Skagit County--a no man's land where you don't go unless you live there--could not do, nor apparently with anyone else he encountered on the way to the church choir rehearsal, but yet find, again with this virus in lower power form that today you have a better chance of winning a coin toss than getting infected from your boo, spread his unique contagion, like rifling marks identifying a firearm, or fingerprints identifying a unique person, all around the state in just a few days after his return to the Puget Sound area, especially if the easy answer that would reconcile these anomalies was a deployment of the same batch at multiple locations, and even if this virus isn't stupid, that would appear to be the easiest way to make this occur.
But maybe there are actually coronavirus that can conquer the world, without reading science reports, and find the best way to efficiently attack your respiratory tract, but are waiting for the coronavirus government to tell them what to do so they don't have to work so hard.
68
views
They Call MI the Hurry Kaine
IF A HURRICANE DECIDED TO DOUBLE BACK AND HIT DISNEYWORLD WOULD A CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENTIST NOTICE?
Politically, the folks who support transgender policy, abortion and vaccines mandates, are the same people trying to save the planet from global climate change, because the Democrats and Progressives are the masters, they say, of the science.
Did you know, as a person of science, that just like hurricanes, pandemics are cyclical events and have recurred every two decades since the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918?
Going beyond two years after the pandemic declaration, did you know that just like hurricanes, pandemics roll in a like a lion and go out like a lamb, and actually tend to continue on their destructive path for only two years, for some "scientific reason", which, voting for the science, we must assume that you already know.
4
views
Confirm or Deny (Coronavirus: (D) Classified
HOW IN TARNATION DID I GET MYSELF INTO THIS?
In Jesuit high school, if you are not Roman Catholic, as a freshman, you are required to take "Personal Development" instead of religion, a lawful segregation, and nobody ever complained about being segregated, or even tried to get enrolled in the class with the Roman Catholics, which would have been interesting just to see the outcome, from an empirical perspective, as a scientist. In sophomore, wise fool, literally, year, before you get a toehold on Roman Catholic religion, at least we had the first half of the year in more Personal Development, before getting a course on God and Film, imagining God as a movie director, and, perhaps like some folks in pandemic, considering the deeper meaning in films, and ignoring plot holes.
However, in sophomore PD2, we were introduced to journaling, and were required, each week, to submit our reflections, which was something, perhaps, like going to confession, or maybe even, if you think about it, collection with an illusory sense of agency, and a little undue influence, because you just volunteered to tell some teacher your deepest feelings, which could later be used against you, never thinking: I have a right to remain silent, but personally my experience in high school didn't turn me into a Not Afraid to Burn in Hell Don Beyer, proud his four kids had rejected God, Church and religion. I'm waiting for him to claim he got molested or something, because he's definitely got a lot of angst, and, even as a married man, keeps protesting his sexual freedoms not being permitted to be expressed, which may explain why his wife, he actually said, kept waking up screaming, "Donald Trump!" Congressman, too much information.
However, in reflection, we went full throttle Michael Jackson, to take a look at the man in the mirror, a great segue to junior year honors English, with classical literature and the form in medias res, with the central question being, given that here I am, how did I get here? Everything begins somewhere, Doc.
How did I get a half dozen cases docketed at the Supreme Court? In my best 2018 VA8GOP nominee Thomas Oh voice, but without the free PMP certification, the no money down home approved by VA, with the flip to a $635k property, a brand new construction, with sufficient additional money to pay the fee to enter the closed convention, unopposed, but for some reason too high an amount to have been approved by VA without somebody with connections in Congress, maybe an incumbent who wants an easy win, to grease the wheels, I never planned to go to court in a pandemic, but a pandemic got in the way.
If I was my adversary in what was then still a D+15 congressional district, where an Independent, at most, would capture only five percent, I would have just let me run, and been done, but I'm not a scientist in the congressional district with the most government scientists.
But, when you go to court, you need a legal cause of action, and a pandemic happened to get in the way; so, like at least one Republican running for U.S. Senate in the primary, against Dan Gade, I decided to request a pandemic exception to qualify for the ballot, and, again, the easiest thing would be to just let me "express myself", like we do for kids with personal pronouns and gender, to show respect, right?
But in court you don't wanna be the guy who just screams "Due Process", like former GWU Law School Dean, and former W&L Law professor of Admin Law, Blake Morant told us to do in his class, in his first job after leaving the Army, at completion of his military service obligation. You need to develop the argument, and he had taught us all about Chevron U.S.A. v. N.R.D.C., a big EPA case about government experts and regulatory deference; so, I just did what the teacher said to do, and expected that everything would be okey doke, until I suffered a breakthrough infection, so to speak, and found myself on appeal, again, and again.
That should be, to a reasonable person, a clue that something you are doing isn't quite right; however, with regard to pandemic, like the "DACA case" rule said, judicial review of government action is limited to what had occurred at the time, regardless of whether Tony Fauci's crystal ball says, the court only looks at what had happened at the time, eschewing speculation, at least before "evolving science".
Long story short, for two years, just like back in my old Ranger Days (I'm Ranger Dysphoric, they say), going down to JOTC Panama, spending two weeks in a triple canopy rain forest with no tent, fresh air, and looking at a sloth that never moved more than an inch, I've been looking at the beginning of your pandemic, while everyone else has been running from spikes and surges and new mutant variant strains, and, if looking at what I noticed about the beginning of your pandemic, you can honestly argue that a novel coronavirus did not originate in a laboratory, I'd honestly love to hear your argument, because, so far, Dr. Northam, Dr. Oliver, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Walensky, and Dr. Woodhouse decided to run away from court like I was a dreaded coronavirus.
72
views
Operations Breif
(U) OUR MAN IN CABANA (OMIC)
Reporting live from FOB Freedom, this is the last American in Arlington, Virginia, standing in resistance to a socialist/communist regime, battling in the courts in actions discussed as far away as Seattle coffee shops, writing for the Progressive Voters Guide, and known even to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland as a "litigation hobbyist" on "hot-button issues" all across the nation, but in Arlington only known as a "fringe independent" who has "floated around the periphery of Northern Virginia politics for almost a decade."
Currently poised to drop a summary judgment in a matter recently filed against the U.S. Attorney General to enjoin the Department of Justice (DoJ) from unlawfully using 18 U.S.C. Section 241, "the Mississippi Burning Law", as described as late as January 2019 by DoJ, or conspiracy to violate civil rights, a provision that carries a felony conviction and imprisonment up to ten years, against prolife activists, but a charge that requires "color of law", or government participation in the conspiracy.
This latest legal battle falls on the heels of back-to-back victories at the progressive Fourth Circuit on applications to proceed in forma pauperis, and a petition for rehearing on an attempt to quash the first filed and longest surviving litigations against the lockdowns and vaccine mandates at the U.S. Supreme Court, an inspector general complaint to convene an Article 32 Inquiry against Capt. Brett Elliott Crozier for violation of the Espionage Act, a certification to the Virginia Supreme Court on the first pandemic incident homicide case and the first civilian action testing the accusatory documents provision in the New York State judiciary on allegations of terrorism, an enactment established after the terror attacks on 9/11.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Major Mike Webb: the best money cannot buy. Buy. Buy.
6
views
See You: In the Showers, Hero
OKAY GUYS, HIT THE SHOWERS
In household contact studies, and, to date, during two years of pandemic, even though there have not been as many written as even scientists believe there should have been, there is always mission information, left for the reader to imagine: single, multifamily or apartment dwelling, and the answer is more like than not apartment dwelling. However, in two years of pandemic, not even one trace contact study has ever found a secondary attack rate approaching the threshold of 60% to validate as a bona fide highly contagious disease, and to an epidemiologist that should be important, unless they can't say, for whatever reason.
There is another consistent finding in household contacts studies, terms of art familiar to epidemiologists, but not even once, to date, explained or expounded upon if only for the edification of someone who might require an introductory course on epidemiology, and this is actually odd because clinical reports will often go deep into depth to provide definitions and background for those just tuning in, even repeating exactly how many human coronaviruses there are, which a virologist, microbiologist or epidemiologist should know, but they never say anything about the fact that viruses and their virioli are the most abundant biological particles in the world, or that before a pandemic pathogen of novelty there were only a total of 219 harmful in any way to mankind.
And now the schools that closed during the pandemic, apparently causing a lot of mental and emotional problems, including suicides, are now very concerned about personal pronouns and tell everyone we need to do this to prevent kids from committing suicide, something about which they did not express concern during two years of pandemic, while apparently they all knew that the risk of infection even in college settings, was very remote for this age cohort not like to be infected and far less likely to die.
And, if you can read this, thank a teacher, but if you can understand it, thank God.
2
views
Command at SEE: Guilty or KNOT Guilty?
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THE ESPIONAGE ACT?
The provision of the Espionage Act pertaining to "classified information", 18 USC Section 798, pertains to what we might call COMINT and SIGINT, and not just anything with a SECRET or TOP SECRET cover sheet, which may or may not refer to nuclear weapons, but that was not discussed, at all, in the fervor arising about 15 boxes of classified from Mar-a-Lago, and, when discussing law, the elements of proof are actually the only pertinent matters to discuss, which is why, in a criminal prosecution, you may be acquitted as "not guilty", which is not the same as "innocent."
However, under 18 USC Section 798(d) and (e), this pertains expressly to defense information, in a person's lawful possession, which is delivered, or attempted to be delivered, to a foreign nation, directly or indirectly, by a willful, or negligent action, in which the person should have known would have accrued to the advantage of a foreign nation.
So, if you were a commander of a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier, at least 70,000 who signed a petition to demand the reinstatement of Capt. Brett Elliott Crozier, agree they, too, would have gone Sting and the Police, sending out an SOS to the world, because your men and women might suffer mild pneumonia, at most, or 80% of those infected, according to the report upon which he had relied, and a report that projected that, at most, 26% of a crew of "about 5,000" crew would "suffer", which is not exactly "lives are at stake" type of crisis, and concerning that a commander has no idea how many men and women are on his vessel.
But the big question is if Capt. Crozier, freaking out over 56 infections on March 29, 2020, to the extent of suspending social distancing because he believed everyone had been infected, and continuing would be "inhumane", why would he need to abandon ship, dock an aircraft carrier for 10 weeks, and cede dominance of the Sino Pacific the People's Liberation Navy that had just launched a new aircraft carrier, which immediately exploited the breach, pressuring Taiwan, while the forward deployed strategic bomber force on Guam was drawn back stateside. And you would have done that, too, with your vaccinated, boosted and masked self?
Well, the courageous Capt. Crozier suddenly decided not to pursue his dreams for a star, and retired.
825
views
One of D's Things Is Naught Like the Other 2
PERHAPS THERE IS A "COMPETENT WITNESS" IN CHESTERFIELD WHO THIS BIOLOGY LESSON CAN HELP
Hey, Y'all!
One thing lieutenants do a lot in strat ci is "Death by Powerpoint", and, I took a little break from a new case arising under the transgender policy where the Fourth Circuit essentially exonerated the two priests in the Anneliese Michel Exorcism case in 1978, holding that where a person is diagnosed with a serious mental health condition, and has some personal belief on how best to resolve the medical problems, then we can deep six the DSM-V, and do what we want. I need to see if there is an online certification program to become an exorcist, right? Taking Grimms Fairy Tales to a whole new level.
But, embracing diagnostic dysphoria, I decided to do a little slide presentation regarding what a highly contagious disease looks like, because, if we know what right looks like, in theory, unless we summarily dismiss objections like the Fourth Circuit did in Grimm v. Gloucester County Public Schools, with Sesame Street Simplicity, or magna cum facilitate, for the Latin scholars in Chesterfield, we can discern distinguishing characteristics that are not present, at least in the open source presentation of a biological agent that the government can neither confirm nor denies it owns, are not present in a biological agent that The Atlantic informed us recently kills about as many people every week as died on 9/11, and, at the time, that was a lot.
So, lights, cameras, and "pronouns", as we cut to the Creation Science video. And, may the Force be with you. A little police humor.
Lott had to find a soul worth saving, Diogenes an honest man, and I guess the cross I bear is finding somebody who understands basic biology in a pandemic.
Believe it or not, I even asked a Washington & Lee University biochemistry professor, and I fear he may have caught that long covid. So, on my honor, as a Washington & Lee Gentleman, I pledge that I have received no aid in the course of this examination.
God's Advocate in Pandemic
6
views
What's the Procedure? (UN-Russian Roulette)
STATE VERSUS PRIVATE COLLEGE: EQUITABLE OUTCOMES IN POLITICS
"SM [service member] possesses a perfect recall of timeline events." It is one memorized sentence from a military record in my personnel file, which reads like a debriefing, at least to me, and it does state that I, a retired military intelligence officer I have as a characteristic a worthy of record capability for recollection.
In 1988, with a bachelors at a private Virginia college, which accepts only 19% of applicants, described as "most selective", graduating with only a 2.3 cumulative grade point average, or "Gentlemen's Cs", I opted out from seeking interviews with super regional banks like First Union, Wachovia and NCNB, and leveraged family connections to acquire a job with a money center Manhattan commercial bank, for a starting salary in the fast track management program at Bankers Trust, which had been, at the time, in the vanguard or repealing the Glass Steagull Act, which had prohibited banks from participating in securities, and began adult post college life with a starting salary far higher than a job, as a public policy major, with a super regional banking firm, at $27,500, and, for comparison, $100 dollars in 1988 is the equivalent of $250.36. But do not look for my name on the Black History Timeline, because I ain't really Black, and the President can confirm the fact. Today, graduates from Washington & Lee University can expect to earn a starting median salary of $59,700.
And, with early voting beginning as students commence matriculation at various undergraduate conferring degrees across the Commonwealth of Virginia, perhaps there is an aspiring Justin Wilson, who had studied political science at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), in Richmond, which accepts 93% of those who apply, which is described by U.S. News & World Report as "selective", and where graduates can expect to earn median starting salary of $48,200, and, as they say, we get that for which we pay, in comparison between the private, most selective college, and the state college that is only selective.
Or perhaps, there is an aspiring Levar Stoney, a former double major in public administration and politics, described in an article published by his alma mater as "Being the Change", a college football player, like a regular Hershell Walker, an activist in the College Democrats, and the first Negro ever elected as student government president at James Madison University (JMU), over a decade after the first Negro, Willard Dumas, a direct descendant of Alexander Dumas, the author of popular fiction books like The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, was elected to the same position, at a private college, due south on I-81, Washington & Lee University. And, at JMU, a less selective college than VCU, graduates can expect to receive a median starting salary of $54,600, almost as much as students attending the private college "just down the road." You look like an intelligent person. If you had to make a choice on where to apply for college, and, perhaps, were concerned about costs, to which selective state school would you apply, especially if you wanted to become a mayor of a city in Virginia as Justin and Levar did?
Possessed with a perfect recall of timeline events, I have prepared a short video on everything that you would have learned in a 12 week semester at Washington & Lee University in Politics 101, at least back in the 1980s, which was a part of the very competitive Commerce School, often described as the "C School" because that was what you might expect your GPA to be if you decided to select your major there, and in politics you had to get passed Professor Delos "Easy D" Hughes. And for a contemporary application, I have extrapolated those lesson in relation to current events, specifically the recent decision by U.N. investigators to pursue war crimes in the Ukraine.
As a not a serious option fringe independent candidate for congress in progressive Northern Virginia, where, of report, I have been on the periphery of Northern Virginia politics for over a decade, compared to the Negro Democrat activist, Cynthia Cheatham, the Washington & Lee University DC Alumni Chapter President, described by the University Administration as a "Force of Nature", I invite any alumnus from a selective college who had majored or is majoring in politics, to compare what you learned in Politics 101 compared to what we learned in the same introductory course, and then tell me that all colleges are equal.
Or feel free to play Russian Roulette, with your college selection, applying the metaphor chosen by the Commander of the USAR, for deciding not to be administered the vaccines, the perspective of a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.
146
views
Solve: A Regina (What? Are You a Vulcan Idiot?)
IN PANDEMIC, NOBODY READ THE DAMN REPORT; SO WHY WOULD ANYONE READ THE DAMN CASE?
Anyone familiar with mental health, besides those who dispense meds on social media, are aware that a critical finding is "lack of awareness", and, in Grimm v. Gloucester County Public Schools, the Fourth Circuit not only made a clinical finding, under the DSM-V, but concluded that that afflicted child should not only be permitted free choices on her sex and the manner in which she would dress to conform with her dissonant image of reality, but also would require adult administrators and faculty to submit to her will. Does that sound reasonable?
On a presumption of infection, rooted in a wide misunderstanding of what, clinically, asymptomatic spread actually entails--coughing and sneezing--school administrators, including a lot of science teachers wholly unaware that viruses and their viriols are the most abundant biological particles in the world, but had only, by the pandemic, produced only 219 harmful varieties to mankind, and only seven coronaviruses, despite over three thousand harmful to birds, and over three thousand harmful to birds, but no snakes, despite a validated ophidian codon usage bias for the novel coronavirus, known as early as February 2020, schools in Virginia closed before the Governor gave the order. But in law there is a thing called "due diligence", which is as much a duty, if not more, than voting, for a reasonable person.
And, the latest article regarding the Virginia Governor and the revised guidance on transgender students? "That's just crazy." Of course the person is not a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist.
9
views
Unclassified Compartmented Information (UCI): Unlawful Order: Round *Up* the Usual Suspects
microbiologist or a virologist or an epidemiologist, good luck with that. But the truly amazing thing, for a trained and experienced all source intelligence analyst at least, was the "messages in a bottle" that were hidden in open view in the open-source environment, just waiting for someone to come along and notice. Truly "eyes only", for special eyes, or those who "specialize" in once in a lifetime pandemics. And another window opened upon the release of the Fauci emails, connecting the primary actors, or principals, to the science beyond a few scattered names listed as authors and coauthors of science reports.
The first alert was that it was a "pandemic" before the declaration on March 11, 2020, and moving way to fast in the news, ahead of the data, kind of like in Capricorn One, when the fella in Mission Control had believed their was something wrong with his console because the radio signals from the space capsule appeared to be coming from a location too close.
Fifteen cases of pneumonia in the 42nd largest city in the world is not a panic button issue, nor is 41, which was all there were in reported cases in China on January 14, 2020, but already WHO had alerted the world in social media, put out an emergency planning packet and had begun sharing the sequences worldwide as if a pandemic was inevitable, the train already having left the station. By January 10, 2020, the virus had been "imported" to Thailand and the first death had been reported, but, while the alarm bells ringing in retrospect seem normal or as expected, recall that in mid January 2020 this was an emerging new virus, called "novel" for that reason that would begin a once in a lifetime pandemic, for which, today, ovder 6.5 million worldwide had died.
So, as they say in stage illusion, prepare to be astounded and amazed.
3
views
Unclassified Compartmented Information (UCI): The "Oswald Shooter" Coronavirus
WHEN THE PRESIDENT QUOTES LINCOLN, YOU KNOW THE COUNTRY IS IN TROUBLE
Abe Lincoln famously said, to a divided nation, during a civil war testing whether a government of the people, by the people and for the people would perish from the earth, that it did not matter if God was on our side, but whether we were on God's side, and in the decade before a pandemic crisis, those who identified as being affiliated with any religious faith had declined by 12 points, while after two years of pandemic, they had lost six percent to the nones, and at least anecdotally coincident to this event we find many predicting an end to democracy. Just saying.
The President said that, although it was different for everyone, everyone lost something in pandemic, be it a family member, a business, an opportunity to go on vacation, time with friends, time in school, time in fellowship and worship, and even faith that government could do the big things that really matter, a government of the people, by the people and for the people, which indicates that maybe the people share some responsibility in what happens. And the President had said that we know what we have to do to defeat this virus: tell the truth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson makes a lot of money telling people how smart he is, and he had questioned how a powerful and loving God might permit such suffering. So, since he was a science expert, I had posed the question to him, as a loving and powerful person, regarding the peculiarities of this novel coronavirus, and he has yet to respond; so, may he finally found a science question he could not answer, even if he totally understands the God question, and believes in UFOs, who have yet to send us an email, and for which not even science has any evidence, relying on beliefs, assumptions and "faith."
But I suggest, humbly, that this novel coronavirus is not exactly rocket science.
2
views
Fully "Alert"? Aim High!
UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU--ONLY IF YOU'RE VACCINATED--AND SOMEBODY HAS TO REPLACE THE FOLKS WE SEPARATE
When it comes down to brass tacks, push and shove, most people are pretty selfish, and, they may cry crocodile tears about a story they heard on the news, or maybe even post an emoticon on Facebook, but it is not until that tragedy comes to knock on your door does it become real, and, so, let's walk through the situation with soldiers being separated from the military means to you, especially if you are all proud with a sign in your window about standing with the Ukraine. Uncle Sam needs fully vaccinated soldiers, and you already saved us some time on getting you packed off to go to stand side by side with your hombres in the Ukraine. Thanks, for doing this.
But there is another problem with this scenario. The military didn't kick out Muslims when they wanted accommodation, even after Cassius Clay had told the court he wouldn't fight unless jihad had been declared. The military didn't kick out Sikhs and Rastapharians because they wanted the freedom to wear their own headgear and grow a beard. But let a Christian refuse to take a COVID-19 countermeasures product, for which the infectious dose remains unknown, and to prevent a biological agent that has killed less soldiers than suicides, accidents or drug related deaths on Fort Bragg alone, and he has to hit the road, Jack?
Missing the first plane striking the tower was an amateur mistake, but Momma used to say, fool me once, shame on you, and fool me twice, shame on me.
16
views
Unclassified Compartmented Information (UCI): Biological Warfare for Dummies
Hello, Chief!
Permit me to introduce myself. I am a recipient of a letter from the Congregation of Saints at the Vatican, and I ain't even Roman Catholic.
According to the Article III Courts in the Fifth Circuit, I am a "litigation hobbyist", and I've been called everything except a child of God in courtrooms; so, that's actually quite a compliment. I'm the great grandson of an Ellis Island immigrant who escaped the Holocaust, the grandson of a franchise martyr, and godson of the first Negro House Majority Whip, but according to the President I ain't really Black.
However, if you ask anyone in VA8, i'm a not a serious option fringe independent whose been on the periphery of Northern Virginia politics for almost a decade, and the Progressive Voters Guide in Seattle says I'm against the government response to the current public health crisis, but I can't find even one press account to verify that is actually true, and may sue for libel.
However, the Office of the Commonwealth Attorney may be familiar with my latest activities in retirement, and when most Americans were watching Renee Russo, Dustin Hoffmann, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Donald Sutherland and Morgan Freeman on the silver screen in Outbreak, I was actually helping to develop that real world capability for the U.S. Army, so if a Patrick Dempsey set off a zoonotic event pandemic, we wouldn't have to drop napalm on Cedar Creek. But apparently, for purposes of the controlling statute to get a grand jury regarding the death of a former police officer, Bishop Gerald Glenn, my credentials as a former biological warfare planner are not deemed to be qualified as a "competent witness".
So, I am introducing myself to you to let you know that I attended night school, a very special night school.
Daddy was a preacher and the New Jersey State National Guard Chaplain, and could cite chapter and verse if he had a mind to on occasion, but I spent half my time being groomed to succeed him in a calling to the ministry and the other half in courtrooms just a cussing and doing the zealous advocacy crap attorneys do for their clients as a protégé to a legendary civil rights and criminal defense attorney; and I never won an argument quoting Jesus, but the ever diplomatic Rev. King, a friend of my father, and with whom I had shared a spiritual mentor, had one great line in his last address: "I'm gonna tell you what my imagination tells me", before ranting on about everything he had read somewhere like a right to protest for that which is right.
I have a favorite case, Luteran v. U.S., 93 F.2d 395 (8th Cir. 1937), a conspiracy case about a Republican who had stolen 150 votes to raise his vote count, and in a race he lost by a landslide anyway. The court wrote:
"This court has recognized for practical reasons that where proof of a conspiracy has been established a relatively slight amount of evidence connecting the defendant therewith is sufficient to sustain a verdict. McDonald v. United States, 89 F.2d 128 (C.C.A. 8); Galatas v. United States, 80 F.2d 15 (C.C.A. 8). Participation in the formation of the conspiracy is not essential to culpability if after it was formed the defendant aided or abetted it with an understanding of its purpose. McDonald v. United States, supra; Laska v. United States, 82 F.2d 672 (C.C.A. 10); Burkhardt v. United States, 13 F.2d 841 (C.C.A. 6). The evidence must disclose something further than participation in the offense which is the object of the conspiracy at some stage of its execution, for there must be proof of an unlawful agreement either express or implied. Dickerson v. United States, 18 F.2d 887 (C.C.A. 8); Linde v. United States, 13 F.2d 59 (C.C.A. 8); Burkhardt v. United States, supra. But where the defendant aided the conspirators knowing in a general way their purpose to break the law the jury may infer that he entered into an express or implied agreement with them. Galatas v. United States, supra; McDonald v. United States, supra."
Slight evidence? Aiding and abetting? Unlawful agreement, expressed or implied? Imagine that.
In Luteran, "Appellants invoke[d] the rule that mere acquiescence or silence or failure of an officer to perform a duty does not make one a participant in a conspiracy unless he acts or fails to act with knowledge of the purpose of the conspiracy ‘and with the view of protecting and aiding it.‘ Burkhardt v. United States, 13 F.2d 841, 842 (C.C.A. 6)."
If we have a duty to speak, in other words, under the law, we must, and you, I believe, have a right to remain silent.
Major Mike Webb
God's Advocate in Pandemic
You can’t save the world if you are NEVER born!
181
views
21 Years: Old Enough to Drink and Drive
911 BLACK JACK
A poem says of attaining majority age that when I was one and twenty, I heard a wise man say, about a lesson not learned as an adult for at least another year. An old proverb says that when I was a child I spake as a child. And another poem speaks of when you shall be a man, my son. And, generally, when it comes to the law and being entitled to full enjoyment of all of the privileges and rights of a citizen, the age to attain is 21, a thought as the tragedy of 9/11 attains majority age, old enough to vote, drink and drive, but a friend who is a responsible adult will never let another friend drink and drive, even if he or she lets you vote at the polls.
When I was a child, as embarrassing as it may be, I thought as a child, and can still remember seeing the Pygmalion tale, My Fair Lady, and when I heard the phrase, "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain", I heard "plane", and just figured that a trip to Barcelona or Madrid would require a raincoat. But, at some point I encountered homonyms and recognized my error, but was free to continue thinking like a child. Change is inevitable, but growth is optional.
I can remember being in kindergarten around Christmas and having a visit from Santa Claus to our classroom, and recall vividly the reindeer prancing on cue when Santa said they were up on the roof, somehow not making the connection that if Rudolph was on the roof, he wouldn't be likely to be banging so hard it sounded like stomping feet on the second floor. And, I remember returning to that classroom in the eighth grade as one of Santa's helpers, while others went up to the classroom to begin prancing on cue. And, since the kindergarten classroom was across the street in another building, I had had no opportunity or reason to have returned, and was astonished not so much as how small the kindergartners were, but was surprised at how much the entire room had shrunk. And, I was free to believe, informed by the situation, that magic had shrunken the chairs, the table and the room, and in stage illusion this dissonance actually has a name that has been defined in neuroscience for those illusions where a change is so gradual and unnoticed that you have to pause and compare the present state to the one that preceded to notice the "delta", or change.
Well, today, we pass that majority age anniversary of the December 7, 1941 for many grandparents, and the November 22, 1963 for many older adults, the day we look back and remember where we were and what we were doing when it occurred, and, hopefully, by the age of 21 we can look at events as responsible adults.
15
views