Month: May 2020

How I meditate on a Sunday morning . . .

Good for the soul . . ..

Sunday sermons, weekday observations

I copy the Scripture to a word processing page, edit and comment on it as I read, boldfacing some parts or italicizing, bracket and boldface comments, pause now and then to collect my responses, put them down, read it all and re-read as I go, pausing to reflect when the spirit moves me, trusting it’s the Holy Spirit in this case.

To sum up: Copy passage. Read it. Comment in brackets along the way, boldfacing and/or italicizing where suitable. Concentrate. on it. Store aspects in memory for rest of day and waking night. Next day, repeat process.

Later, having stored this in your memory and gaining a hold on its key points, come back to them during the day and waking night and hold them close to you. Enlist strong feelings but do not force the process.

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Question not asked by major media: Did Lockdowns Work?

Is this discussed much in Chi Trib, Sun-Times, etc.? Op-eds?

We are going to be arguing about the COVID-19 lockdowns for a long time. It’s the kind of topic that gives academics and pundits alike lots of variables to play with.

They can reach whatever conclusion they want — and they’re bound to take advantage of the situation, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary . . . media coverage.

Indeed. More here at Did the Lockdowns Work?

Medical examiner: No evidence George Floyd died of strangulation

Rockford IL-area TV station:

MINNESOTA, Minn. (WTVO) — The Hennepin County Medical Examiner says a preliminary autopsy found no evidence that George Floyd died of strangulation and traumatic asphyxia after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than 8 minutes.

There was something else.

. . . underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease.

His heart gave out.

“The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death,” the medical examiner reported.

The cops?

According to criminal complaint against Chauvin, who was charged with third degree murder and manslaughter on Friday, police were called to a grocery store after Floyd allegedly gave them a counterfeit $20 bill.

Then?

Officers Thomas Lane and J.A. Kueng arrived . . . and found three people in a car, including Floyd and [a] woman, both of whom were known to police, according to the complaint.

Floyd was ordered out of the car and was handcuffed, [but] “actively resisted being handcuffed,” according to body cam footage obtained by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

As officers were taking Floyd to their squad car, he stiffened up and fell to the ground, complaining that he was claustrophobic.

Then?

Officers Chauvin and Tou Thoa arrived in a separate squad car and attempted to get Floyd into the car, according to the complaint. While standing outside the car, Floyd began saying that he could not breathe.

Chauvin forced Floyd to the ground and placed his knee on his head, the complaint continues. The other officers stayed in their positions as Floyd pleaded “I can’t breathe,” and “Mama,” and “Please.”

According to the complaint, Lane asked “should we roll him on his side?” and Chauvin answered, “No, staying put where we got him.” Officer Lane said, “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” to which Chauvin responded, “That’s why we have him on his stomach.”

When Floyd stopped moving and became unresponsive, Kueng checked for a pulse and said he couldn’t find one.

Two minutes later, Chauvin removed his knee from Floyd’s neck and the ambulance arrived.

Floyd was pronounced dead later at Hennepin County Medical Center.

All four officer[s] were fired the next day, after video of the incident taken by a bystander, came to light.

Chauvin was arrested on Friday. The other three officers are currently under investigation.

Minneapolis County District Attorney Mike Freeman said the investigation is ongoing involving the other three officers, saying, “We felt it appropriate to focus on the most dangerous perpetrator.”

The arrest comes after three days of protests, which escalated in violence as demonstrators torched a police precinct that had been abandoned by officers.

This story was updated. An earlier version suggested that the medical examiner said strangulation was the cause of George Floyd’s death.

via Medical examiner: No evidence George Floyd died of strangulation

Mayor Lightfoot Says ‘F You’ To Trump For Tweet Encouraging Gunfire At George Floyd Protests — and makes hash of her police chief

Behold mayor as natural demagogue. Looks into her heart and speaks. Dangerous.

If not demagogue, fishwife. Got into the gutter with Trump over the Minneapolis riot, ChiTrib’s John Kass wrote.

She accused her hand-picked police chief of an “epic fail” in not keeping Memorial Day weekend killings within bounds, telling him personally, then the rest of us publicly in a news conference. Earlier in the same accusation-filled morning, Brown had blamed cabin fever stemming from stay-at-home orders.

Next day, a key alderman, an ex-CPD officer, blew off steam for Brown’s having put fewer cops on the street, following Lightfoot’s calling for less police overtime to save money. Brown admitted he had done that.

But in the afternoon, Lightford contradicted him: “In fact, there were more officers on the street this weekend” than in prior years, she proclaimed. So her man concedes the problem, she shoots him down again. Embarrassing him and lying through her teeth in the process.

We are to believe her? Or her appointee who had already taken blame for the “fail” and is her only source in the matter?

Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman called it her “brutal characterization” of Brown’s strategy, said it “marks the first time she has called out her hand-picked superintendent since [he] was hired.”

That was not quite three months ago. And she’s scolding him already. Quite a boss.

Pritzker Wilts Hours Before United States Supreme Court Review, Double-Talks About-Face on Churches – Wirepoints

Caught with hand in cookie jar of political goodies, Gov. P. thrashes about and, God save us, fibs.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Thursday abandoned all restrictions in his emergency pandemic order related to religious services. The Illinois Department of Public health released replacement, voluntary guidelines.

The retreat came hours before the State of Illinois was due to file its response with the United States Supreme Court to an appeal by two Illinois churches for emergency relief from his stay-at-home order.

That appeal would have been handled by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan who, according to a report by FOX News, could have either handled the case themselves or referred it to the full court. But now the state has told the Court that the churches’ request is moot because the mandatory rules have been dropped. The full text of the state’s response does nevertheless include the state’s argument on the merits of its defense.

So, he admits nothing. Moreover:

Pritzker’s announcement that he had reversed positions was uncandid, to say the least.

In his prepared remarks at his daily press conference Thursday he said only that IDHP was posting the new voluntary guidance, but never said his mandatory restrictions were being cancelled.

He then ducked and equivocated [like the cookie monster] when asked specifically, burying the fact that he was abandoning mandatory restrictions. [Such a clod] When finally asked directly whether the new guidelines would be enforced, he said, “As you know, I have never encouraged any police enforcement or any other kind of breaking up of gatherings.”

But that’s not true.

The fibbery went to new heights.

While Pritzker has gone back and forth on whether enforcement of his order would be left to local officials, his most recent action was to threaten local police and enforcement officials who don’t enforce it. Chicago has been enforcing the order, sending police to break up church services, making parking for churchgoers impossible and fining churches. It was “like the Soviet-style KGB” said one pastor about how police tried to break up his service.

Lawyer in the case with something to say about this:

Pritzker can spin it as he wants, but here’s how counsel for some of the churches, Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, correctly put it:

This is a total and complete victory for people of faith. The Illinois’ governor and his administration abused the COVID-19 pandemic to stomp on the religious liberty of the people of Illinois. By issuing guidelines only and not the previously announced mandatory restrictions, he has handed a complete victory to the churches in Illinois.

Quite something. Yesterday’s Sun-Times called it “an against-the-odds bid,” Chicago Trib had nothing that an on-line search could uncover. Move on, nothing here, it seems, as of Friday early afternoon . . .

In praise of homeschooling

For home-schoolers and wannabe’s, a long read and maybe much appreciated.

In mid-March, Kansas became the first state to close its schools for the remainder of the academic year. The following week, my own state of Virginia became the second. Since then, 46 other states and Washington, D.C. have followed suit, and the rest, whatever their hopes, remain closed as of early May.

Even if the public health situation improves in the next few weeks, as some optimists hope, school is out. Graduation requirements are waived, final exams are cancelled and our state department of education has encouraged schools to drop grading altogether. Virtual instruction has commenced, but participation in it is largely voluntary and sporadic. [Emphases
added]

But taken as a whole, what does this situation say for the present system(s)? For the future, that is.

What will it do for the very idea of educational credentials? Diplomas go blah? Won’t mean a thing if ain’t got that swing . . .

Chicago Police Bang On Church Doors To Stop Services, Film Everyone Who Arrived

This caught my eye in this story of at best clumsy regulation-(I won’t say law’) enforcing at this church with worshipers behind locked doors, in part to keep the ‘hood’s marauders barging in:

After the incident, Lewis [the pastor] wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney John Lausch to complain about what happened and ask for assistance, saying Lightfoot “is defiant of the U.S. Constitution and our freedom to worship” and “has a history of defying the law.”

“She is one of few former US Prosecutors in the US to be censured by the 7th Circuit Judge Rovner and the entire 7th Circuit Court of Appeals for defying their order,” he noted.

Say wha’? Our mayor defied an order? We should hear more about this aspect of her law-related history.