Easter Questions

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With Easter Sunday upon us, the government mandated stay-at-home fatwa in effect has prompted me to juxtapose two New Testament admonitions. I do this with the caveat that I am certainly guilty of not following the first for quite some time now. And of course, I think the second is utter foolishness; at least the parts I have highlighted.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25 

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Romans 13:1-4

Clearly the obsequious submission of the general population to the irrational fear-mongering of the ruling class has in effect of destroyed the livelihood of a great many people. Not the least of these are the myriad of small-business owners who have courageously built their enterprises through hard work and risk taking, only to have them destroyed by the capriciousness of a clueless or nefarious ruling class. It seems that we the sheeple have been so thoroughly programmed to abandon reason at the slightest whiff of risk, that we all but stampeded to our safe-spaces, stopping only to make sure we had ample supplies of double-ply to help us weather the pandemic.

As someone who was weaned on the eschatology espoused most popularly by Hal Lindsey in his “Late Great Planet Earth” I cannot help but notice the eerie similarity to the end times scenario painted therein. However, this worldwide mad rush into totalitarianism is something I did not anticipate and would not have believed could happen. In retrospect though, how else can a New World Order be brought about except by the suspension of critical thinking of the hoi polloi? And what better mechanism to suspend the critical thinking of the masses than to induce widespread fear? And how better to prepare a population for mass control through fear then to feed them a steady diet of pandemic porn in the form of entertainment? It's almost as if we have been programmed or hypnotized and when the special word is spoken, we respond like Pavlovs dog. We bite into an onion and believe it's an apple.

So what should Christians do now? Hunker down, and giddily wait for the rapture? The prospect of being somehow snatched up off the earth before the SHTF strikes me as a dubious proposition at best. Assemble "virtually"? It seems to me like that is following the letter of the first admonition quoted above while missing the spirit of it, but who am I to say? I rarely go to Church anyway; and why should I? To sing songs about putting sloppy wet kisses on Jesus' cheek? I attended services last week for one reason. To resist the soft tyranny that is soon to morph into hard tyranny. To stand with one body of believers that has yet refused to kowtow.

In the early days of the Church believers met in secret, in catacombs whose locations were pointed to by the fish, ἰχθύς, the acronym for ιησου χριστου θεον υιον σωτερο, Jesus Christ Gods Son, Savior. Persecuted to the point of death, they nevertheless chose to defy the ruling class and did not forsake the assembling together, but rather joined each other beneath the ground; seeds being planted for a future harvest. And here we find ourselves two millennia later, the spiritual progeny of martyrs, dismissing Hebrews 10 in favor of Romans 13 because our corrupt rulers have said we must.

We need revival. I need revival.

Costco in the New World Order

Mother nature roared last night, spitting hail and blustering mightily, clearing the three bitches of the last of the dead wood entangled in their expansive limbs. I refer of course to the three large and perpetually messy Silver Maples that grow on my property. They are dirty old gals most of the year, shedding dried limbs and branches all winter, dropping masses of buds early in spring, followed by swarms of helicopters that seek out even the smallest gap or crevice from which they germinate, sprout and clog gutters. But finally they put on their party dress; sprout their leaves and shade us gloriously for the next 6 months, until they are once again able throw off their now tired gowns and settle into winter slumber, leaving me to perform the final gathering in of the brown and wilted remnants.

What does this have to do with Costco? Not much, except to say that the drop in temperature and increase in wind conspired to keep me from taking a bike ride over lunch. Instead I decided to make a Costco run in the hope that I could avert any COVID induced delays.

It was a different Costco.

I recently criticized Costco for moving their carts from one side of the entrance to the other, thereby inducing a virtual demolition derby scenario. You remember the figure 8 track where the racers have to cross in the middle. Well, that's no longer the case. The nursery section has been erected in between the entrance and exit resulting in veritable wall of potted rose bushes, a thorny barrier, separating the empty carts moving in from the full carts moving out. A maze constructed out of stacks of wooden palettes strategically placed provides a queuing area from which we the sheeple patiently observe the proscribed social distancing while waiting for our turn to enter. Homeland Security would be proud. An attendant serves out the carts as we finally make it to the staging area just outside the entrance. And then your moment finally arrives. The input door attendant gives you an almost imperceptible nod that signals...

You can come in now. It's your turn.

It may not have even been a nod, but rather a simple tightening of the face muscles. Nevertheless, recognizing the gesture, I gratefully steered my cart across the threshold while presenting my credential where wide empty lanes greeted me. Mask wearing shoppers warily pushed their carts here and there but gone were the nitwits who inevitably find the narrowest choke point in which park their cart while they venture off in search of some or the other commodity. That was a pleasant surprise although, unfortunately, many of the items that would have normally been stocked in abundance were missing. The effective sovietization of Amerika was especially noticeable in the produce refrigerator; where once stood a cornacupicx island surrounded by walls of fresh produce there was now a wide open expanse of cement, the walls lined by a severely diminished selection. Still, only one or two of the items on my list were unattainable, but I compensated by purchasing several items that weren't planned for. I am grateful for the abundance we still enjoy.

I completed my circuit [one always shops Costco in a circuit] and took by place at the nearest yellow tape line on the floor of the check-out, eschewing the self-check, preferring to let Priscilla do the heavy lifting, safely ensconced as she was behind her plexiglas shield. She is truly one of the heroes of COVID.

All in all not an altogether unpleasant experience. Less items, more room to move. Longer wait to get in, shorter wait to check out. And fortunately, my forward looking wife had already stocked up on the toilet paper.

Costco, as always, has risen to the challenge

Riding my bike

Riding my bike is a great time to let the mind wander where it will go, and today it drifted back to simpler times, when the most important issues of the day were exemplified by hoards a silly women in pink pussy hats and full body vagina costumes storming the capitol in protest of a patriarchy that dares to question inherent sanctity of committing infanticide in utero.

Those were the days, were they not? The great debate was how many genders there really are. A recent search on COVID by gender returned several sites that break it down. Oddly enough it only had two genders, male and female. [Gender was the heading on the sites, not my nomenclature.] Apparently, to the COVID, Roberta with a penis is indistinguishable from Robert. Who would have guessed?

And poor Joe Biden. This social distancing will most certainly circumscribe recreational groping. The sacrifices we make for safety.

I saw a woman jogging down a virtually deserted bike path wearing a face mask. I can certainly understand that. After all the "confirmed" cases in Warren County OH now stand at 45. One never knows where number 46 will strike. We can't be to careful.

There were a couple of high school kids in the park who were definitely violating the social distancing fatwa. Reckless. Hormones most likely.

Lunch is over. Back to work.

Sunday at Solid Rock (1)

I attended church services at the Solid Rock Church in Lebanon this morning. I don't generally attend Sunday service anymore, but this morning I decided to go to Solid Rock out of a show of solidarity with their decision to keep the doors open. I had never been to that church and probably never would have gone, but for said decision. I am not sure what my expectations were but at some level it was what I had pictured and on another level it definitely was not.

I entered what struck me as a stereotypical TV church; with wide seating, balcony and a large stage area. The giant curved LED screen displaying a gorgeous beach scene behind the stage was a nice touch. I felt warmer just watching the waves. The large boom for the video camera gave it the feel of a major production. So far it was kind of what I expected, given the giant figure of Christ towering over I-75 from the Church courtyard. Still, the current icon is somewhat less ostentatious than the previous one, which met with an untimely demise at the hands of the weather.

The congregation was more mixed than I had expected. A large percentage was of African descent and there was definitely a flavor of what one would expect in a black Church; at least if your idea of a predominantly black church was formed primarily through the media.

I took a seat in the balcony, center-stage, careful to maintain the prescribed social-distance between myself and those nearest. That was nice because I generally hate the meet and greet that most contemporary Churches feel is a vital part of the Sunday worship. This way we get to skip it because "the Governor asked us to". Works for me.

The band cranked into the first tune and I thought "Oh, that must be why they call it solid rock". It was loud, but well done metal style worship music, with a variety of signers; a male lead with five or six female backups. The male lead had a pretty good voice, but before I saw him I assumed he was black based in his voice and singing style. Is that racist? When I finally caught sight of him I was surprised to see a middle-age white dude belting it out. While the singers were front and center on the stage, the band wasn't. The electric guitar guy was a rather large middle-age white guy sitting off in a corner on what appeared to be seats for a choir. He did not move from that position the entire service. He displayed that absence of unnecessary movement that you would find in a professional studio musician. The bassist and keyboard were also way off to the side. Only the drummer was center stage, and up on a pedestal making a nice backdrop for the backup singers.

The second tune, about what's in our power or something, was led by another male singer, this time black, who was wearing a long robe. You know, the kind you would expect to see a black man wearing in a black church that was portrayed in a movie. Another really good voice.

A couple more songs followed, each incrementally more mellow the the previous, bringing the congregation into that receptive mood of introspection, when another black gentleman, who I mistook as the pastor, stepped up and invited the congregation to "worship through giving, amen". He was one of those quintessentially stereotypical preacher types that punctuate each phrase they utter with an "amen". At that point I thought "Wow! I am going to hear a sermon by one of those guys". That didn't turn out to be the case though.

Bringing things close to home

According to https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/health/covid-19 the City of Cincinnati now has 79 confirmed cases of the Coronavirus. 

From macrotrends.net the current population of Cincinnati in 2020 is 1,746,000. So for our “pandemic” we have a “known” infection rate of 79/1746000, which turns out to be a whopping .0000452 or .00452% of the general population. 

Let’s be generous though and say that the infection rate is 2 orders of magnitude greater that the number of “confirmed” cases. That would make it 7900 actual infections and an overall infection rate of .452%. Interestingly enough, the health department site does not list any deaths yet attributed to covid-19.

So, we have shutdown the city, put everyone in lockdown and furloughed the workforce because of the threat that is affecting maybe around .5% of the population. And has not killed anyone.

I appreciate the opportunity to lounge around as much as the next guy, but the cynical side of me says we are being played. I am open to being corrected on my arithmetic and my conclusions.

Friday night COVID musing

I just looked up NYC covid cases on www1.nyc.gov. It says there have been 56289 confirmed cases with 1867 deaths. It does not specify if the deaths were with or by to COVID.

I then looked up NYC population at macrotrends.net. For 2020 it puts the number at 18,804,000. So applying some basic arithmetic, 52289/18,804,000 I arrive at .00278. That’s .278% of the population that’s been infected. Now of the reported infections we can calculate the fatality rate, assuming all fatalities are by COVID. That is1867/56289 = .0332, or a 3.3% fatality rate. 

However, if only the sick/symptomatic are tested then we must assume that many more are infected and asymptomatic. Lets say the infection rate is an order of magnitude greater. Then we have 2.78% infected and a fatality rate of .33%.

I keep seeing headlines of gloom and doom about NYC covid, but the numbers just don’t add up. What am I missing? This is looking more and more like bullshit to me. We are all sitting home like good sheep while our economy tanks and the worst case numbers in the country are trivial. It’s late. I’m tired. What have I missed?