Summer pandemic doldrums

Fighting the pandemic pounds and the dusty road work in the neighborhood, they still cant keep me down off my firm conviction and belief in hope, opportunity and joy,

While the tyranny of the minority claims the headlines, the silence of the majority works to good effect to slowly turn back the tide of insanity, in a world where progressive tyrants accuse the liberty-seeking majority of the people to be tyrants themselves, or perhaps foolish "trumpsters'. It's a world where the opinion of bureaucrats takes precedence over the science of, well, scientists, and those who understand and follow the scientific method, including the meaning of testing hypotheses, of not conflating correlation with causation, of not overinterpreting means without consideration of standard errors, and of a gross unwillingness to recognize their own confirmation biases and role i creating all the very 'racist' elements that they now seem to detest. When you're an 'anti-racist,' everyone who questions your logic or claims is automatically a racist and their resistance is automatically in need of being cancelled.

But there remain good people, stalwarts of freedom, and unafraid of standing up even if it means standing out, standing against the progressive grain. Some of the very best of these people are those who progressives would assume to side with the progressive fallacies, namely black Americans from all walks of life who deny the narrative promoted by BLM, the Democrats, and government bureaucrat/tyrants. For excellent proof of this observation, start here, with the '1776 Unites' program, with this overreaching narrative. And on their own, often alone, thought leaders such as Thomas Sowell, Jason Riley and Candice Owens epitomize the promise of the American Dream for all people as America moves forward together, rather than moving backwards, divided.

Yes, at times I get too far down the rabbit hole. I have too much video screen time in my life. I need to read more. While I do watch or attend Mass almost daily -- maybe 9 out of ten days -- there are times when I need to think harder, dig deeper, and reach an understanding beyond the recitation of prayers and the facile analysis of the readings. A bit of quiet reflection and change of gears from the extrinsic world can be a welcome, daily relief, but if it becomes too ritualized, too structured, too routine or too regular, it loses some of its power to heal and to inform.

I want to believe that higher education can find a way to correct itself, to return to its core values and mission, and to restore the joy and importance of learning, rather than pride itself as a recently converted, woke institution, unwilling to recognize that they are making themselves part of the problem rather than part of the solution. The Free Speech movement of my college generation has become the anti-free speech of the governing generation, ironically, the same people,e who pursued free speech fifty years are firmly against it today. It's similar to how Joe Biden, a self-proclaimed practicing Catholic, can reverse himself on gay marriage, abortion and religious freedom, while also turning his back on the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as well as some of our allies, stumbling and bumbling his way through incomprehensible sentences and thoughts while positioned on the world stage.

While I wait for asphalt on the streets and my StreetStrider rides on those same streets, I continue to content myself with non walks, including a pre-dawn saunter this morning.