Early December 2020

December 7, 2020. A week in to December and no snow, still walking daily in shorts, averaging about four miles a day. Purchased neon bright sweatshirt from Menard's, making early evening walks in the dark more palatable, less risky.

I need to do a closer, final review and possible repair of the elliptical in the basement. I prefer to put off its use until the weather outside is unbearable, but it will be necessary at some point. I am hoping for no more than three months of winter, a winter that has not really started here yet, even as Gaby found the temperature to be bitter cold last month.

Having considerable problems with iCloud and the apparent loss of time files, including drafts of posts. I had drafted one about the banal evil of Obamacare, withe the Obama lies (If you like your plan/doctor, you can keep it/her. Each family will save $2500 a year. It's a fine, not a new tax.), Jonathan Gruber admissions ('We had to lie because Americans are too stupid to understand this is for their own good and if we told the truth, they'd reject the bill.), and Pelosi's disingenuous, "You have to pass the bill so you can see what's in it." Gruber called his deceptions and claims "in artful," and the New York Times absolved Obama's repeated lies, saying he 'misspoke.' Of course, making the same claim more than thirty times pretty much eliminates 'misspeaking' as an explanation, or as a defense. Pelosi's admission only confirmed the deception.

Instead, healthcare costs for a family of four doubled under Obama, from $14,000 a year to $28,000. The Supreme Court converted the fine claim to a tax, making the bill both a lie and constitutional. Pelosi, like Gruber, knew that if the public knew what basin the bill, they'd abhor it.

And all this for nothing close to universal healthcare, while forcing people to buy policies they don't want and to insure procedures that they will never use, and causing wage stagnation as employees cost employers $14,000 more each for healthcare -- not having to pay those costs would have provided some serious wage increases, given median family income of about $55,000. Plus additional tax revenue to the federal govermen, both income and social insurance taxes.

And now Biden wants to expand the plan, increasing costs and eliminating choice, trying to force acceptance of single-payer government medical care, when universal vouchers would be a much better solution and would finally provide universal healthcare coverage. The same could be said for education: Vouchers for every citizen child from ages 4 through 18. No more state schools, just true education of the entire public, with complete parental choice.

Study in Nature shows no asymptomatic transmission of Covid. Lockdowns and masks are futile and unnecessary. I still feel confident that the eventual reflection on this year will be that elderly mortality did not increase, and that deaths attributed to Covid were exaggerated by ignoring the effective impact of numerous co-morbidities (including ages over 80, chronic lung and heart conditions, obesity and diabetes), all for political reasons.

The aggregate impact of Covid on my thinking has been a better appreciation of life along with the recognition of inevitable death. Living a 'good' life is essential -- sound mind, body and soul. I am responsible for maintaining my health, for taking care of my dependents, and for being generous to the less fortunate. My pandemic mantra -- pray, provide and protect -- remains intact, effective, and accurate.

Thank goodness for Fr Carl's Holy Spirit livestreaming Masses (and the chance to attend in-person, without tickets or reservation four days a week), for the cogent, daily online Mass from St. Thomas in West Springfield, and for Kristens Crosses online rosary.