Free at Last. Free at Last.

Freedom!

“Villainy wears many masks; none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.”

Washington Irving.

I had a work meeting yesterday. When I arrived at the site, before walking in, I checked my email.

A work email: Masks are no longer required.

Freedom! At long last.

After we’ve found study after study saying they weren’t effective anyway.

After we’ve read that the numbers of cases and deaths was inflated.

Here on day 659 of 15 days to slow the spread…no more masks.

Truth is, I’ve not been wearing one for some time, except where it was absolutely required.

It’s time to move on. It’s time to put these last two horrible years behind us.

Every generation has their challenge. I don’t think we came out of this better people like those who lived through the two World Wars.

We’re not even better people than we were in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks.

But, we could be.

Like I’ve been writing this week, we’re all a little cranky, we’re all a little moody.

There’s not much good news out there.

The Write Side Shop

Everything is expensive.

We may be on the brink of World War III.

So, I’ll take the little victory of taking off the mask. I may even stop carrying one with me.

I know, radical, right?

It was nice to be back in a meeting and just be miserable because the meeting ran on too long and not because you can’t breathe.

Let’s be clear. If you feel you still need to wear a mask, by all means, go right ahead.

I won’t judge you. But I will no longer wear a mask if  there is any way I can avoid it.

That’s called freedom.

And it smells wonderful.


 

THINGS YOU SHOULD READ

Cruz Pulls Out White Board To Show SCOTUS Nominee Her Record On Sentencing Child Porn Offenders
The Daily Wire
“Ted Cruz pulls out his white board to illustrate how in child pornography cases, Ketanji Brown Jackson gave the defendants an average 47.2% less sentence than what the prosecutors recommended,” digital strategist Greg Price captioned a clip of the intense exchange on social media. Read More.

Top Adviser Turns Against Putin, Leaves Russia: REPORT
Daily Caller
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s environmental representative Anatoly Chubais left Russia and stepped down from his position, according to reports Wednesday. Read More.

BORN ON THIS DAY

1820 – Fanny Crosby, American poet and composer (d. 1915)
1930 – Steve McQueen, American actor and producer (d. 1980)
1944 – R. Lee Ermey, American sergeant and actor (d. 2018)
1951 – Tommy Hilfiger, American fashion designer, founded the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation

WHAT I’M READING


 

BENEDICTION

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

 

A Slight Pause

Home

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Revelation 21:4

I need to stop to breathe.

No, I’m not stepping away from the blog. I’m not giving up the 100 Day Project. I’m not stopping the Lent posts.

I just need a little space to breathe.

We’ve had this conversation before. We expected 2021 to be better than 2020. We expected 2022 to be better than 2021.

Instead we find ourselves paraphrasing Steve Martin in The Jerk, “You mean I’m gonna stay this color?”

If you don’t get it. Go watch the movie.

Just be prepared. It’s incredibly funny. It is not politically correct.

I’m not sure if it could be made today. And that’s just a little sad.

I saw The Jerk for the first time on spring break in Florida. I started to talk about time four of us drove from Kentucky to a friend’s house in Sanford for spring break my junior year. But it was the next year in Ft. Lauderdale with a different set of friends.

It doesn’t really matter. Other than to note that it was ages ago.

Why am I telling you all of this?

The Write Side Shop (click the image)

If you’ve been following along, I’m a little moody this week. I’m working on it.

I think maybe we’re all a little moody. A little news weary.

Weary of wars and rumors of wars. Nations rising against nation.

I’ve heard that somewhere before.

I’ll be working on it during another spring break in a couple of weeks. This time the wife and I are going to North Carolina, not Florida. But it’s beach. And it’s away.

Yes, long time readers will note that we usually go to the beach in August. We have our reasons for going early this year. Stay tuned.

I’m also a little moody today because, had he lived, this would have been my father’s 93rd birthday.

We lost him in 1978 when he was just 49. He’s been gone almost as long as he’d been alive, and more than twice the number of years I had with him.

No matter how many more years I have on earth, it will always have been too soon.

Marvin V. Fletcher, Sr.
March 23, 1929 – August 1, 1978

I sometimes wonder how things might have been different had he lived longer. I was able to afford to finish college because of survivor benefits. That might have changed.

But there’s no need to speculate. Things happened as they did and there’s no going back to change them. We have to accept them and move on.

The summer after he passed was my junior year. I was the editor of the college yearbook. In what must have been a continuation of the mood, I wrote something like “Memories of the past fill our minds like the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle…”

We worked that in to a theme that said that Christ completes the puzzle. And He does.

Not brilliant writing, but it worked for a yearbook.

And so, here with the pause, with the more recent memories of 2020, 2021, and the ones we are currently making, we can know that the picture is not complete.

We can’t see how it all fits together.

But it does. And it will.

My faith tells me that one day this will all make sense. There’s an old song that says “it will be worth it all.”

On the crappy days, it’s hard to remember that.

That’s why we pause to breathe.


THINGS YOU SHOULD READ

CDC Says It Accidentally Inflated Children’s COVID Death Numbers In ‘Coding Logic Error’
Daily Caller
The CDC said the number was revised March 15 due to a “coding logic error,” according to a footnote on the agency’s COVID Data Tracker. Pediatric death counts were not the only ones to be lowered — total deaths were reduced by roughly 70,000. Read More.

Clarifying Oil Information…
Don Dears at Power for USA
Reports by the media need to distinguish between crude oil production and total oil production which includes liquids. Read More.

Babylon Bee editor: We refuse to bow to Twitter’s censorship of a joke
New York Post
A world where you can state a simple biological fact and face censorship, the loss of revenue and your livelihood, and excommunication from the public square for stating truth, no matter how satirical tongue-in-cheek your tone is, is a scary one indeed. Read More.

‘So, You Don’t Know’: ABC Reporter Lays Trap For Josh Hawley, He Snares Her Instead
Daily Wire
“So, you don’t know. You’re just here to do a ‘gotcha.’ When you know the facts, come back to me,” he said. “Good luck!” Read More.

Stormy Daniels Loses Appeal, Ordered To Pay Donald Trump Almost $300,000
The Conservative Brief
A notorious left-leaning federal appeals court ordered Daniels to pay Trump almost $300,000 in attorneys’ fees after the court rejected her bid to overturn a lower court’s decision. Read More.

BORN ON THIS DAY

1904 – Joan Crawford, American film actress (d. 1977)

WHAT I’M READING


 

BENEDICTION

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26