One of the things that people say lately is that we don't really have very many who actually die from Corona.  They say that none of the hospitals are correctly reporting deaths.  I am amazed at this one.  Try to get a group of ten people to agree on any issue.  You can't.  So who do people think is in charge of getting thousands upon thousands of hospitals to agree to cheat for some reason and report deaths wrong.  Who wants intelligent people to believe in this kind of conspiracy.  And why?  I don't get it.

If a person has a heart attack, diabetes, stroke, etc. in the hospital--but came into the hospital for were tested and had corona--then that's what they came in with.  Corona.  All of the rest of it is called underlying conditions.  They didn't come into the hospital to have a heart attack, or kidney failure or pneumonia, they came in and were tested and had corona were hospitalized and prematurely died due to underlying conditions.  You can't say a death is from corona if they didn't have it. That would be illegal and take a mega-conspiracy.

But some are saying that they didn't die of Corona.  I say they would still be alive if they hadn't got corona.  But it has become a political hot button.

Even as a scientist, if I agreed that 10%, 20% or even 50% weren't corona--there are so many deaths from corona that we still have a pandemic.  I don't get what is driving this kind of denial.  Why deny something that is killing people.  I see that yesterday we took the biggest hit economically in the history of the country.  Greater than the depression.  It's time we got in this fight together and follow the CDC guidelines.

Do I think that's going to happen.  No.  Better if we follow Jesus.  "Do unto others as you would that they do unto you."  Stop spreading this virus.

Propaganda.  Right now it rages across the country.  I am amazed at the things people will believe if their political party endorses it.  It's like blind obedience.  They fear that someone in their party will "dis" them if they express a different opinion--even when common sense demands it.

It has been amusing to watch people change their opinions  when their party changes their opinion.  Like the child's game of follow the leader.

A great number of people are getting their information and making opinions from Facebook.  That is pretty scary.  When someone posts something, it is forwarded dozens of times, and becomes "the truth" because "everyone" is saying it's true.  So few people read anymore.  And when they do, they only read things that they already believe and never challenge themselves.

One of the most interesting things happening is the distrust of science. Rather than trying to check data against other data, they attack the scientist.  Implying that he can't possibly be right, "Because WE don't like him."  Pack mentality.

I get a kick out of watching both CNN and Fox news when something new happens in the government.  They report the part they want to report.  And sometimes they both mislead the public. It's hard to believe that they both were at the same event--due to both of thier discrepancies and omissions of facts. 

Some people only watch one source and condemn the other.  That seems incredibly stupid to me. It's like the blind leading the blind.  You never hear anything your party is doing that could be wrong if you do that.  Neither party wants to shoot themselves in the foot.   Where is Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow when we need them??  What happened to reporting the news?

    

My grandson Ben Jacks called with a story that could only have been arranged by God himself.  Ben sells large undeveloped properties to deer hunters.  He works up in Kansas--not the most populated area in the US.

An older man met Ben at a property that was for sale, and the man had a Marine Corps sticker on his vehicle.  When the man got out of his vehicle, Ben said, "Semper Fi, Devil Dog."  Ben said the man stopped, looked at Ben and said, "Your last name is Jacks--are you a Marine?"

"No, sir, but my dad and granddad are." (You never say you "were" a Marine.  Once a Marine, you always are a Marine.)

"Is one of them named Ken?" The man asked.

"Both of them are, sir."

"Was one of them a fighter pilot?"

"My grandfather, sir."

"I know him.  He was highly respected in the Corps.  Everyone I knew spoke of him as the greatest fighter pilot in the Marines.  I didn't get to work directly with him as he taught cadets to fly, but I got to watch him.  He was something.  You have a name to be proud of.  Wear it with honor."

Ben said he later learned that the man was a retired Marine four star general.  What is the chance of those two meeting up in a deserted area of Kansas.  It meant the world to Ben to meet someone who admired Ben's grandfather.  

Back in the day, early 1940's, no self respecting woman would buy chicken at a grocery store.  Farms were being sold, people were moving to town, and farm women had always raised their own chickens--then killed and dressed the chickens themselves. 

Every town had a chicken market.  My grandmother would take me with her and we would go to the market--which was a store on Adair street in Pryor.  It was crammed with squalking chickens in cages or running around loose.

Any time a cage was opened, a wise chicken would flee the coop and start running.  There were brown, red, speckled and white birds.  Birds of every color.  The noise they made could be heard clear out on the street.

And the smell--I can't describe the smell.  You can only imagine. 

Gran knew what she wanted.  Not an old hen.  Not a skinny hen.  She wanted a fat young bird--and paid close attention to choosing the one she wanted.  Once she picked it out, the grocer would kill it, dress it, wrap it in butcher paper and put it in a bag.

Then we would go home, cut it up (with a wish bone) and fry it immediately.  Always for lunch--which all the Okies I know call "Dinner."  At night it's called "Supper."  Hence the Okie saying, "Winner, winner, chicken dinner."

Of course chicken house stores didn't last.  Everyone downtown complained about the smell.  And finally women had to buy chicken from grocery stores.  But the chickens they sold had to have the head still on to show it was fresh.  When I went to France, I found it interesting that they still do that there.

One of my tomato bushes decided to get with it and do its job.  Finally!!  It is a tiny yellow tomato that is a little bigger than a grape.  And sweet.

I had planted it in the flower bed instead of the raised garden bed.  The ones in the garden are contrary--and not living up to their potential.

Every member of my class came on Sunday.  And we had two visitors.  I think they all decided they couldn't stand to isolate anymore.  They sat six feet apart just to be safe--everyone is over seventy years old.

Seventy used to be old.  Not anymore.  These gals are smart.  Quick.  And very wise.  The shame is, nobody who is young wants the wisdom that they have.  Used to be that youngsters listened to their elders.  Not any more.

It seems strange to me.  I always wanted to hear what my grandmother had to say.  I loved to hear about her life and the challenges she faced.

She taught me to milk a cow.  She taught me to catch a chicken and wring its neck, boil and pull the feathers, cut it up and fry it.

Her cut up chickens had a wishbone.  You can't get that at the grocery store unless you buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself--which I am a grandmother-taught expert at doing--cutting up a chicken.

But I don't ever want to do what it takes to get the feathers off again.  Ugh.  She cleaned and saved the feathers and made feather-beds.  And when I got married, she gave me two feather pillows she had made.  I loved my grandmother.  Sleeping on a feather bed is heaven.

The year Ken left for Viet Nam, we bought a house for the first time.  He wanted us to be settled in Oklahoma because, as he put it, "I don't want to be worried about what's going to happen to my family if I don't make it back."

Pat was in the forth grade, Becky in the second, and Scott was almost four years old.  I was on my own in the parenting department.  And in every other department as well.  Which was no big deal as far as being alone...he was gone so much in the Marines anyway that I had a lot of experience at managing.

But I had never been responsible for a house that was mine.  In the military, if you are lucky enough to get base housing, they take care of the problems.  If you have to rent off base, the landlord does...or doesn't--which is many times the case when you rent.

I learned about termites, broken windows, garage door opener repairs...and the list goes on and on.  All in addition to being the cook, cleaner, washer woman, and all those normal jobs as well. And full time parenting with all that entails.

But the thing that almost drove me nuts was the flower beds.  Weeds!  So I made a housekeeping rule for me and the children.  Every time anyone came inside the house, they had to pull 5 weeds.  No more, no less.  Give me your five weeds, and you can come inside.

It sounds like child labor--which is was--but how hard is it to pull 5 weeds.  Eventually they realized that pulling the little weeds was a snap and left the big ones for me to pull. I've kept pulling five weeds myself my entire life.  Five.  No more.  But the problem now is that when I bend over to pull my five weeds, sometimes I just keep going!  I've had to wash a lot of mud off my hands lately.

Squig has become jealous of the phone.  When I talk to someone, he sits at my feet whimpering.  Or barking like he want's to go out--but when I get up and open the door, he just sits there.

He thinks he is #1 in the house.  Actually, he is.  My life pretty much revolves around him.

I had to go get a CT scan with contrast this morning.  The worst part is the stuff you have to drink.  Ugh.  And of course the needle because they have to get two or three nurses in to give it a go before one of them can get it right; all of them have to stick me a bunch of times.   My veins look like I'm a druggie.  Nothing but scar tissue.

But aren't we all thankful for the hospital staff.

Baptists and Catholics used to run the hospitals at cost.  They are privatized now, and hospitals are costly--through the roof.  Making money.

Doctors used to make decisions about what to do.  Now they have to find out what the insurance companies will authorize.  And then get it approved.  

Medicine is no longer rational.

If a doctor makes a decision without approval in an emergency, he may get sued for his expertise.  By the time he gets approval to do what they he needs to do, sometimes it's too late.  It didn't used to be this way.

I am ready for the world to return to sanity.  This is the most turbulent time I have ever experienced.  WWII came close, but the difference was that during those years, everyone was on the same page.   We had a common enemy.

We were fighting an enemy outside the United States.  Now, we are fighting each other.  I have never, ever experienced such animosity between Americans--between ourselves.   People are dropping long time friends due to their disagreements about masks.  Masks!!!  It's not Pearl Harbor.  It's not over a person's race.  It's over a mask.  Unbelievable.

Right now, I am afraid to express an opinion for fear I will start an argument.  I remember growing up and everyone would be eating Sunday dinner at my family's  house  and there would be a discussion going on where everyone talked about both sides of an issue.  They weren't "taking sides."

Another big difference between then and now is social media.  If you get on facebook, you will see misinformation repeated over and over again as truth.  Once someone says something, everyone hops on and it is repeated over and over--it must be the truth!  Then people start repeating it.

There are fact-check reporting sites, but nobody goes to them.  People just check what their "group" is saying.

This is insane.  The biggest argument when I was growing up was between the drys and the wets, and between football teams.

One of my dear friends told me yesterday--in light of all of the hull-a-ba-loo that is going on--that the most frightening words in the world were the words:  "I'm from the government; I'm here to help."

The recent threat from the federal government to withhold funds for schools if they didn't open, reminded me of an incident back in the 60's.

Pryor was involved in a state vote as to whether the state should accept funds from the government for our schools.  My mom got a picket sign and protested along with one other teacher.  Everyone else thought that federal funds would raise teacher's salaries and the schools would have more money.  Duh.

Of course, it didn't.  The only thing Oklahoma got out of the deal was rules and mandates from the federal government on how Oklahoma schools had to run things from then on.  Local school boards lost most of their power and local citizens got no say in the changes the feds made about their schools.

Two years after the vote, almost everyone in my mom's school told her they were sorry they didn't support her.  That they had made a terrible mistake.  She was highly respected both before and after the vote.  She was just a little smarter than the average bear.  

Will Rogers had the same view of the feds as my mom did.  The states know better what their state needs.  Ken did too.  His philosophy on how to vote was to make sure you didn't have a president and congress from the same party.  It was the only way to assure that they wouldn't get anything done.  Because every time they do something it makes things worse.  He said it tongue in cheek, but I wonder if it isn't really true!!!

We are in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of 1Corinthians.  Paul is chewing them out.  He reminds them that he was the first person to share the story of Christ with them and compares himself to the first layer of bricks on top  of a building in which Christ is the foundation.

He is upset that they are quibbling about who the greatest man is who has come through their town to share Jesus.  Paul?  Apollos?  Peter?  He bluntly tells them that as long as the truth is shared it makes no difference.   Stop arguing.  Keep learning and growing. 

They are spending time on the wrong thing.  Get out there and share Christ.  They (and we) are saved to serve, not argue over stupid stuff.

I was in a church one time that the biggest thing on the business meeting agenda was a "fight" over what color the new carpet in the auditorium was going to be.  That's the truth.  Christians can be remarkably stupid--that's what Paul is telling the Corinthians.

We need to be teaching children six days a week in our church.  School.  Jesus said, "Suffer (Let) the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God."  Churches leave their buildings empty 6 days a week. Churches get off track with what their number one focus should be.

We--you and I--should be church members who direct the focus and keep things moving in the right direction.  The only way to change the world is through the next generation coming on.  They need to know there is a God that can direct their path and lives.  Bible School once a year isn't enough.

My water bill was almost $200.00 for last month.  I about had a heart attact!  It was the sprinkler system.  I need to learn how to adjust it.  It's one of those fancy new ones that have a million choices.  Too hard to figure out.

I need "on, off," for 9 zones.  No more.  The more choices, the more confused I get.  But the number $200 for water got my attention.

And the air conditioner quit working right.  My guy said it was leaking freon.  $300.00 got my attention as well and that was just for the freon.

Summer is always expensive, but when I got the electric bill from the air conditioner running full speed for a week before the air guy got here, I decided maybe I needed to replace something?

Utilities were sky high this month.

I guess with everyone staying home from work, there are other people in the same shape I am.

Amazing how numbers give us a jolt.  Especially when it is in the pocket book.  And yesterday was the day the window cleaners came.  (Once a year)  That guy got stung by a nest of wasps on my bedroom window.  Another bill that comes once a year.

They all came at once.  I'm eating beans and cornbread for the rest of the month.  And fried okra.  My okra is producing!  One good thing in the middle of small disasters.

Everybody out there in the political world is "counting things" concerning Corona Virus trying to make a point of some kind.  I'm glad people are doing math.  I remember once I was teaching a class of Basic math to a class full of adults and one of them said, "I'll never use this."  If he was going to be a carpenter,  I guess he wasn't going to measure anything.

They are counting tests, numbers of positive tests, etc. etc...trying to make sense of it in some political way.  I don't get it.

The only thing you need to count is how many beds in the hospital are full of Corona patients compared to the week before, month before, day before.  Are the beds filling up??

I heard one reporter say they are counting people twice who have it and that's why the numbers are going up.  I heard another say that the numbers are going up because we are testing more people. (That one amazes me.)

Where were all these people when the Basic math class taught percentages.  I guess we math teachers failed?  I don't care which party you support and don't understand why this has become politicized.  

It doesn't matter if you give one hundred tests, or a billion.  The only thing that matters is the percentage or rate.  Is it going up, or down.

And now the masks are being politicized.  I don't get any of it.  There is no reason to wear one to save yourself.  It is for others.  If you have it and are asymptomatic, you are spreading it and don't know it.  Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you?

My daughter Becky is having an estate sale today.  I was over there yesterday and have never in my life seen such a collection.  Dolls.  400-500 dolls.  So many they didn't price most of them.  Just put up a sign that said $5.00.

I'm not allowed to buy anything ahead of time.  Just look.  Which is fun and lets me get out of the house. I can't go where a crowd is there anymore.  (Corona.)
I just find it interesting to see what people hoard. 

Some lady collected dolls.  Unbelievable.  That's what they will say about me someday.  My pink Waterford depression glass.  I used to look for it in junk, antique stores, and it was like finding Easter eggs.  If you want dolls for almost nothing--go to the sale.  Swan Estate Sales on line will give you the address.

I don't know what causes people to collect something.  I was at a garage sale once and this man had collected Coka-cola stuff.  He had an upstairs with three bedrooms and every wall of the bedrooms was custom made shelving niches for Coke items.  Thousands of doo-dads and bottles.  Every bottle ever made--some of them still full.

I got interested in Depression glass because I was born at the end of the depression and the glass was on the shelves of stores free.  Buy some oats, you get a glass.  Buy some tea and you get a cup free.  Everyone had the stuff.  I grew up eating and drinking out of depression glass.  Then it got broken, trashed, etc. because it was worthless.  If something is free, it has no value.

Until all of us kids grew up, and wanted what we remembered.  We started buying memories and the price went through the ceiling.  Now nobody wants it because it isn't part of their memory.  They want Tupperware.  Go figure.

I have found that people who don't want to learn something--won't.  They are set, fixed in concrete.  Facts don't matter because they already know the truth.  Reasoning is out the window.

I am a 1, 2, 3...kind of thinker.  I like to figure things out.  Probably why I am a mathematician.  I like puzzles.  I can't get dressed in the morning until I have done my sudoku, cryptogram and crossword puzzles. 

But today, I am going in to the doctor and get a regular checkup and should have gotten dressed first.  I went outside in my nightgown trying to get ahead in my sequence and get the paper first...and of course this man comes walking down the street out of nowhere.

"Yes," I said.  "I'm still in my nightgown.  Would you please not look."  He was a nice guy; he put his hands over his face and kept on walking.  Not that there is much to see when you are my age in a granny gown.  I could probably wear it to the grocery store.

I probably should put the "getting dressed" ahead of getting the paper in the sequence from now on.  1--get dressed, 2--get the paper, 3--do the puzzles.

When my grandson Brady comes over, we put puzzles together.  He likes them as much as I do.

My favorite is Ken-ken.  I don't know why they don't have one of those every day.  I've worked my way through the 6x6 fairly easily.  The 7x7 are harder. I can't do many of the higher ones yet.  Give me some time!!  I'll get there. 

I taught the lesson Sunday on Paul's three descriptions of the human situation.  No where else in his writings does he break it down this wan. He them categorized us this way:

1.  The Natural man.  (Homo Sapiens) 1 Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God...they are foolishness to him..."  This is the condition of all humans before they know God.  People make fun of your simple faith in God, your trust of his plans for you (and them) because they don't have a method to receive Spiritual information.  It's like a disconnection in their hard wiring in their brain.  They can't understand anything you say about God. Homo Sapiens has no God spirit within.

2.  The Spiritual man. 1 Cor. 3:15 "But the one that is spiritual judges all things...we have the mind of Christ." He speaks about the mind of Christ in Philippians also: "Let this mind be in you that was also in Jesus Christ...) This is the person who has surrendered himself to God and allowed Christ to take up residence inside.  This person loves God, listens to God and obeys him as well.

3.  The Carnal man.  1 Cor.3:1  "I couldn't speak to you as spiritual, but as Carnal...I have had to feed you with milk like babies...not meat...because you can't digest anything but milk." (my paraphrase)  This is the Christian who doesn't grow, who continues in his old ways and doesn't become discerning in the things of God.  Always on the fence, stepping over, then back again...

We all recognize the carnal Christian.  They rededicate, and rededicate and repent and go right back to their old ways.  Saved "as by fire." Never growing, never reaching the Spiritual life God planned for them. Never reaching their potential in God.  Missing the plan that God had for them to give them peace.

People are irrational.  I am amazed at how few people know how to have a discussion.  Using thought processes.  If you go on facebook and scroll through what people are saying, people rant.  Use bad language.  Call each other names.  Denigrate  individuals.  Are generally rude.

I don't get it.  If you want to influence people on the opposite side of some issue, those tactics are counterproductive.  I think I must be missing something because those tactics seem to be prevalent.  And hostile.  There is an old say ing:  '"You catch more flies with honey than a flyswatter."  It's true.
  I went to lunch yesterday with friends.  Conversation was convivial.  Pleasant.  Just a lovely, pleasant couple of hours.  This morning Ann and I are going garage saleing.(saling?)  That is always fun.  I need more of those kinds of experiences.  I think America is weary of conflict.  I know I am.

It would be wonderful if things would go back to normal, but I think we have at least six more months of this until we have a vaccine.

Poor teachers.  The government wants them to go back to work.  Obviously the people that want that to happen have never been in a classroom.  I have twelve close members of my family who were, or now are, teachers.  The government would be hard pressed to convince any of them it is wise to go back to work in these conditions.  But my youngest son, and his wife are going to go back to school to teach because that is their job--that is how they make a living. Their two young sons will go back as well.   I can't protect them.   

In a room with thirty kids, and thirty more, and thirty more etc. rotating all day long there is no way someone isn't going to get very sick and take it home.  

Today I'm on point with my get up in the morning routine.  I am so in a rut that if I don't do my fourteen steps--including Squig's routine--I forget something important--like step fifteen--to blog.  (Like I did yesterday)

I was reminded of Ken telling about why pilots sometimes would land wheels up (if it wasn't for the tower).  You have sequences that you follow.  And if something distracts you..like a bird, or your elbow itches... it is possible to think you completed a step for landing--but you didn't.

Only once in twenty years did he do that.  Probably ten thousand landings at least. But it only takes once.  He was coming in and the tower told him to lower his wheels.  He told them that he had.  "No sir, lower your wheels." 

 He had completed a sequence for landing, something happened in the middle of it and when he returned to the sequence, he had skipped the wheels.  He said it is an eye opener.  

Especially landing in fog when the tower can't see you and you can't see the runway until you are almost on it.  Not a good time for a belly landing--although he had done that before when he got his wheels shot off.

I never had any desire to fly an airplane.  Still don't.  I don't even like to fly IN one.  I never in all those years saw Ken fly.  Why confirm something you really don't want to know.

He left for work every morning.  He came home every night.  The coming home part was what was important.

Messed up.  Went for routine blood work at 8AM and broke my routine morning pattern.

Forgot to post.

This movement and protest that is going on has upset the entire country.  I am sincerely trying to figure out exactly what the protesters want the government to do.  Or me to do.  Or me to change.  I have no animosity, I understand frustration when things don't seem fair.  I just don't know what the path to a solution is because I haven't heard a clear objective that can be implemented.  You can't implement love.  You can't make people get an education so they can get a better job.  Education in America is free.  It lets you rise economically.

You can't cure racism--so that can't be an objective.  You can inform people, shame people, direct people toward a goal, but the actions of single individuals are not controllable.  In business, in schools, in governments, in the military, or the police.  You can punish bad behavior, but you can't force good behavior. 

So I am not at all clear how to stop a protest of the sort that is going on.  How would you achieve a goal that has not been articulated clearly.  Black lives matter is a slogan, or a statement.  I don't know anyone that doesn't agree.  But it's not enactable.  A protest without a clear enactable goal gets nowhere and causes chaos.  Sometimes producing an opposite effect of the goal. 

Defund the police?  That is not a workable solution.  I think there will be better training that comes from all of this, and perhaps a division of tasks in the departments, but as long as people destroy, loot, burn down property, shoot people, threaten people, assault people, rape and kill people, we need police.

I have had an ongoing discussion with a person as to what their solution to the problem would be.  All I have received from them is rhetoric and emotion:  "It's wrong," etc.  "Did you know this happened," or "Did you know that happened," No path was suggested to change anything that you could write in a petition and get on a ballot.  Just lots and lots of inflammatory words achieving nothing.

People like to argue.  They seem to like conflict.  They like to yell and scream and make a lot of noise.  They especially like to do that in a group. (Oklahoma and Texas as an example.  Rioters as another. ) They like to take sides and support something.  Or be against something.   

We also all like people who agree with us.  That's how groups are formed.  Someone comes up with a cause and people rally round.  And then groups break up into sub groups.  Even churches.  Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, Holiness, Lutherans...over some point of conflict.

This Sunday, we looked at a passage by Paul in Corinthians where the local congregation had run out of things to argue about and were dividing over who they followed as a leader.  One group chose Peter, another Apollos, another Paul.  We don't do much better today.

We need to remember the main thing and stick to it.  Christ crucified for our sin and risen from the dead to give us eternal life.

And where the country is concerned, all of us are Americans.  Period.  We are not sub-groups.   

 Sometimes you don't know how to appreciate something until you lose it.  Just going to the grocery store or the beauty shop is now a big deal. 

I just want some peace and quiet.  I don't want much--I want to go to the Olive Garden or the Red Lobster and have a meal with a friend.  I want to go back to church and listen to people sing together.  Those are the things I miss. 

If your party has become your religion, you probably won't like what the Bible has to say about government.  Sometimes is difficult.

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those (both Obama and Trump, Clinton and Bush, etc. etc.) that exist have been instituted by God.  Pay all of them their dues; taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due." Romans 13:1,7

God uses kings and dictators, presidents of opposing parties for some big picture that you and I aren't privy to.  He used the most horrible of countries and their leaders to defeat, punish, and bring Israel into line--over and over.

It doesn't mean we are to stick our heads in the sand.  Paul told Timothy, "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for...kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life..." Timothy 2:1-4  "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself...pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding." Romans 14:7,19

Sometimes we forget that peace is the objective.  And defending the peace is the role of government.   "Pray for the peace..and security within your towers." Psalms 122:6-8  We must be prayerful people. 

Government can't sustain everything people want.  We must care for the broken, wounded, and disabled and infirm.  We must guard our towers and make them secure.  We must pray for peace and be prepared for war. 

I have been watching a lot of news while I am stuck in my house.  Switching from one station to another, listening to the propaganda on both sides.  When I was growing up, the stations gave the news.  Now they don't.  They talk, and talk, and talk.  Saying what they want you to believe--whether it is true or not.

It's amazing how the same event that actually occurs in the world can be presented and totally skewed two different ways.  I always watch the actual event, then later watch how it is reported.  Sometimes you can't recognize it.

I've been surprised at how many people have made politics their new religion.  They are true believers. Believers in their particular brand.  Believers that God is on their side regardless of what they do that is ungodly.  Both sides.

I've lived too long.  Seen too many political disasters.  Too many party failures on both sides.  Heard too many unfulfilled promises.  Too many outright lies to the people to put my faith in politics as a solution for sickness, poverty, homelessness, disease...which never seems to get much better--in my lifetime. 

I am reminded of what Michael Douglas, the actor, said in the movie "Wall Street."  He said, "Greed is Good." And expounded on the holy, wonderful, noble characteristic of human greed.  Greed seems to be rampant.  Sad.

It's easy to forget that God is in control of His world.  Until something like a pandemic comes along to shake us up and remind us we aren't in control.  

God can solve our problems when he wants to.  Our job is to share Christ.  That's it. He doesn't have a plan B for the world. We are his messengers. When we divide up sides and fight, we forget what we are supposed to be doing.

I drove to Jones to eat catfish today.  Such a treat.  Restored my faith in mankind.  I can't help but wonder where they get their fish.

Years ago, my dad and I would go to the Langley dam when they closed the gates and we picked up catfish in the pools under the dam--once the water was stopped.  Didn't need a line, hook or bait.  Just picked the catfish up.

They are slick, wiggly, and hard to hold onto without a line and a hook.

But catfish raised wild like that have a muddy bottom taste.  They aren't sweet like the fish that the restaurant in Jones, Oklahoma serves.  Where did it come from?  I hear they have controlled catfish farms?

My mom cooked beef, pork and chicken.  We never ate much of anything else.  She came from farm people.

I never ate Mexican until after I got married.  Oh! My!!!  And Italian.  And although I learned how to cook Italian dishes, I couldn't conquer Mexican recipes.  I couldn't seem to get the spices right.

I don't like roast beef.  A rare rib roast is okay, but not much of anything else that is beef.  Hamburger if you disguise it in a Mexican or Italian dish.  Or a plain hamburger.  

But nothing, nowhere, no time beats sea food.  Lobster, shrimp, crab, clams, Ahi, and.....catfish for us who are landlocked here in Oklahoma.

I have curls.  I dreaded the day the perm was on (yesterday) for three weeks--it's now over.  I now have hair that I can manage and do something with.  I've never had long hair.  Maybe I'll just grow it out and do what old women do.  Pull it up in a bun.  That's what both my grandmothers did. 

Today, I have nothing to do.  And as Ken always said, "I have nothing to do today, and am going to go to bed with it half done."

That was after 21 years in the USMC, two wars--Korea and Viet Nam--38 years teaching at a college.  I think he probably needed a few days of doing nothing.

Today the heat will be 110+ degrees.  Hottest day of the year--with August yet on the horizon.  Thank God for air-conditioning.  

In the forties and early fifties, we didn't have that.  We had water fans.  You put them in the window, filled the pan with water, or hooked a hose up to them and turned them on.

I remember pulling my bed up under the window (that had the fan) and just laying there in the heat of the day--trying to stay cool.

I don't like extremes.  Seventy-two degrees is my happy place.  I've lived in Pensacola, Florida...the coast of Virgina, the coast of South Carolina and the coast of California--four times.  (I've moved 27 times)  Those places are okay, but in Oklahoma, when you get 72 degrees, you know how to appreciate it.

The weather everywhere else is boring after awhile.  Oklahoma never has boring weather.  We have everything but glaciers.