August 25, 2020

 

This is the first time I am doing such a thing, but it is one way of showing why I won’t vote for Trump. I have other serious reasons but we will leave that for another time. I included a message from my nephew, my sister’s son Chuck, in which he explains, in an ordered way, exactly why he is going to vote for Trump. It is the first time I have seen such an orderly presentation. At least, if you are a Biden supporter, which I am, you know the points where you have to discuss and debate. You don’t have to hate Trump or anyone to have  a deep discussion on these points.

 

For example, regarding the second amendment. I have no intention of suggesting that we try to repeal that amendment and I think it is a misunderstanding on the part of some persons what exactly the people who would like to have more control over the ability to get guns, more especially automatic weapons. We have had so many tragic cases of people easily getting possession of these lethal weapons and using them to murder people, including children in schools, that it would seem common sense to check how it is that people can so easily get these lethal weapons and have some legislation to prevent, at least as much as possible, the ability to get hold of these weapons which they then use to kill people. I myself really don’t see the point of having a weapon that is meant for soldiers in war situations. I don’t think anyone, realistically, buys an automatic weapon to go deer hunting. Ha. There wouldn’t be much meat left. That’s it for now. It is almost 5pm on Wednesday the 26^th of August.

 

 

Fact check: First night of the Republican National Convention features more dishonesty than four nights of DNC

By Tami Luhby, Anneken Tappe, Holmes Lybrand, Daniel Dale, Tara Subramaniam and Caroline Kelly, CNN

Updated 0457 GMT (1257 HKT) August 25, 2020

Now PlayingDaniel Dale: RNC first...

Former NFL player endorses Trump: He's not a racist

 

Sen. Tim Scott: Next American century can better than the last

Nikki Haley: America is not a racist country

Florida businessman Maximo Alvarez gives emotional speech at RNC

Washington (CNN)The Republican National Convention started off with a parade of dishonesty, in stark contrast with last week's Democratic convention. While CNN also watched and fact-checked the Democrats, those four nights combined didn't have the number of misleading and false claims made on the first night of the Republicans' convention.

Here are some of the most noteworthy falsehoods from night one of the RNC.

CNN holds elected officials and candidates accountable by pointing out what's true and what's not.

Here's a look at our recent fact checks.

 

Trump's campaign promises

A video that played during the convention began with a clip of Trump saying, "I didn't back down from my promises, and I've kept every single one."

Facts First: Trump has certainly kept some of his 2016 campaign promises, but not close to all of them. To cite just three examples, he has not gotten Mexico to pay for his border wall, has not succeeded in repealing Obamacare (though he did eliminate its individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance), and has not presided over annual GDP growth of 4 percent or higher.

Fact check website PolitiFact has tracked 100 Trump promises. It has found that 49% of these 100 promises have been broken, 24% kept. There is obvious subjectivity involved in this calculation, but it's clear that Trump hasn't kept every single promise.

Government takeover of healthcare

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley attacked Democratic positions on health care.

close dialog

 

Top of Form

 

Bottom of Form

"They want a government takeover of health care," she said at the Republican National Convention on Monday.

Facts First: This is true of some Democrats, but it's not a policy Joe Biden supports. While he does advocate broadening the government's involvement in the nation's health care system, he does not back so-called "single payer" programs like Medicare for All, which were pushed by others in the primary.

While Biden has agreed to back lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60, from the current 65, as a concession to the party's progressive wing, he is not a supporter of Medicare for All, which would have essentially replaced the private health insurance system with a single, government-run plan. That idea was pushed by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Biden would also increase the federal subsidies in Obamacare so more middle-class Americans could afford to buy coverage.

His running mate, Kamala Harris, shifted her positions during her short campaign -- at times strongly backing Medicare for All. But when she eventually unveiled her health care plan, it also included a role for private insurance companies. However, she now supports Biden's proposal.

Abolishing suburbs

Patricia McCloskey, the woman who along with her husband Mark McCloskey pointed a gun at protestors from her St. Louis home in June, claimed that Democrats want to "abolish" suburbs. "They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning," she claimed.

Facts First: This is false. Democrats are not seeking to abolish suburbs or end single-family home zoning. An Obama-era housing rule meant to address racial segregation does not abolish suburbs in any way.

McCloskey seems to be repeating Trump's racially coded nonsense from July when he worked to overturn the change the Obama administration made in 2015 to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), a decades-old federal requirement aimed to eliminate discrimination and combat segregation in housing.

You can read more about the regulations and Trump's false claims here.

Some background: The McCloskeys drew national attention in late June after they were seen in a viral video brandishing guns outside their mansion at protesters walking on a private street en route to demonstrate outside the St. Louis mayor's residence.

The mayor lives on a nearby public street and the protesters were going down a street that doesn't reach the mayor's house, a St. Louis city official said. The Missouri couple was charged in July with unlawful use of a weapon, a class E felony.

Unemployment

Multiple speakers — including Rep. Vernon Jones, Rep. Jim Jordan and Mark McCloskey — touted the low unemployment rate America has witnessed under the Trump administration. Both Jordan and McCloskey credited the President for the "lowest unemployment in 50 years," while Jones said President Trump "built the most inclusive economy ever, with record low unemployment for African Americans."

Facts First: This is misleadingly outdated, as it ignores the economic destruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic. While the US unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.5% last September -- its lowest level since 1969 -- the pandemic has put a definitive end to America's strong jobs market and millions of people remain out of work.

After dropping to a 50-year low in September 2019, the unemployment rate hovered around that level for five months before Covid-19 hit and millions of jobs vanished.

The unemployment rate for Black workers, meanwhile, fell to 5.4% in August of 2019, a record low for the data, which have been collected since 1972. It was mostly driven by a drop in the jobless rate for Black women. The Black unemployment rate rose throughout the winter months.

All in all, America's jobs market was strong when the pandemic hit. The March jobs report was the weakest since 2009. Things got worse in April, when more than 20 million American jobs disappeared amid the pandemic lockdown, by far the most sudden and largest decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939.

The unemployment rate spiked to 14.7% — the highest level since monthly records began in 1948. Joblessness had not been that severe since the Great Depression: The unemployment rate peaked at 24.9% in 1933, according to historical annual estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While the pandemic affected workers across the country, minorities fared worse than White workers. In July, the overall unemployment rate fell back to 10.2% — still higher than during the worst part of the Great Recession — while the jobless rate for Black Americans was 14.6%.

China and Biden

Donald Trump Jr. referenced a report from the US intelligence community in claiming that China preferred Biden for the presidency because he would weaken the US economy, "Beijing Biden is so weak on China that the intelligence community recently assessed that the Chinese Communist Party favors Biden. They know he'll weaken us both economically and on a world stage."

Facts First: While Trump Jr. might be asserting his opinion here, his characterization of a recent assessment from the US intelligence community is misleading. The US intelligence community did not determine that China preferred Biden because he would economically or otherwise weaken the US. Rather, it outlined that China preferred that President Donald Trump lose the election because he was "unpredictable" and because of the many actions he has taken against China.

William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in a statement on Aug 7 updating the election threat landscape heading into the election noted that "China prefers that President Trump -- whom Beijing sees as unpredictable -- does not win reelection."

The statement went on to note that China has been critical of Trump's "COVID-19 response, closure of China's Houston Consulate" and "actions on Hong Kong, TikTok, the legal status of the South China Sea, and China's efforts to dominate the 5G market." Evanina's report makes no mention of China preferring Biden because he would weaken the US economy.

Middle class

In praising his father Monday night, Donald Trump Jr. pushed the idea that the middle class has benefitted from President Donald Trump's economic policies. "After eight years of Obama and Biden's slow growth, Trump's policies have been like rocket fuel to the economy and especially the middle class," he said at the Republican National Convention.

Facts First: Actually, middle class income grew in the final years of the Obama administration but has stagnated under Trump. Median household income stayed essentially flat in 2018, at $63,200, breaking a three-year streak of increases, according to the most recent Census Bureau data.

Median income ticked up only 1.8% in 2017, Trump's first year in office, and then plateaued despite a strong job market and very low unemployment, according to the latest Census data, which predates the pandemic and this year's recession.

In the last two years of former President Barack Obama's administration, median income rose more sharply -- increasing 5.2% in 2015 and 3.2% in 2016. However, the middle class has not advanced much, if at all, over the past decade. Median income in 2018 was not statistically different than in 2007 or 1999, which was the high point.

Democrats and guns

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan claimed that Democrats were trying to confiscate US citizens' guns.

"They're also trying to take away your guns," Jordan said.

Facts First: Some Democrats have supported a mandatory gun confiscation buy-back. Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, instead supports a voluntary buy-back program.

Along with banning the "manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," Biden's plan includes mandating that people who own assault weapons either sell theirs to the federal government or properly register them with the authorities.

Xenophobic accusation

Donald Trump Jr. claimed that Joe Biden had called President Donald Trump a racist and xenophobe for having imposed travel restrictions on China.

Facts First: Biden did accuse Trump of "xenophobia" in an Iowa campaign speech the same day, Jan. 31, that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced the Trump administration's travel restrictions on China -- but it was not clear if Biden was even aware of the travel restrictions at the time, and his campaign says he wasn't. Biden first took a firm position on the travel restrictions in early April, when he expressed support for them.

Biden said on Jan. 31 that "this is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fear-mongering to lead the way instead of science." But he did not specifically mention the travel restrictions in that address.

China travel ban

While the President has come under fire for his administration's response to the coronavirus, two speakers at the Republican convention Monday night praised the travel restrictions he had imposed on China.

Natalie Harp, an advisory board member for the Trump campaign, spoke about the Trump-supported Right to Try legislation and its role in her fight against bone cancer. Harp commended Trump for fighting for Americans, saying that if not for him, "In January, there would have been no China travel ban. Millions would have died."

Donald Trump Jr. said that after the coronavirus came to the US, "The President quickly took action and shut down travel from China."

Facts First: These comments are misleading on two counts: Trump imposed partial restrictions on travel from China, not a complete ban, and they were announced in January but effective February 2. There is no evidence that the travel restrictions on China saved millions of lives.

You can read a longer fact check here.

Postal workers

After weeks of increasing political furor over recent cuts at the US Postal Service, President Donald Trump on Monday said he would not support agency cuts.

"We're taking good care of our postal workers. That I can tell you," the President said on the first night of the Republican National Convention. "Believe me, we're not getting rid of any our postal workers, you know." He went on to claim, "If anyone does it's the Democrats, not the Republicans."

Facts first: This is false. Internal USPS documents obtained by CNN contradict the President's statement. Before Postmaster General Louis DeJoy suspended many changes until after the election, the USPS was planning to drastically cut work hours in at least one district. Also, Democrats have not proposed laying off postal workers.

In documents obtained by CNN, USPS managers held a "stand up talk," around July 13, telling workers they would be cutting roughly 100,000 to 124,000 work hours across the district, in all sectors — retail, delivery and processing. It was unclear how management would be implementing the changes. The USPS planned on cutting so many work hours in mail processing operations — 124,000 — the documents say it would be the equivalent of closing all processing plants in the Appalachian district for 29 days or eliminate an entire shift of workers for 86 days.

Delivery in urban areas would be reduced by 110,983 work hours. The documents equated the work hour cuts to: not delivering mail for 13 days, or stopping 43 city routes, or ending mail delivery by 25 minutes every day.

It also included clerk and retail operations, which management was going to cut by 112,475 work hours. That's the equivalent of shutting post office retail operations for 90 days, district wide, according to the documents.

The initiative to cut work hours has since stopped because DeJoy paused them after intense public scrutiny. But union officials CNN has spoken to fear the changes will be brought back after the 2020 election.

They also are concerned because past work hour cuts have led to job cuts.

In his congressional testimony, DeJoy alluded that significant changes are still coming to the USPS, they're just coming after the election now.

DeJoy operates independently of the President, but has significant ties to him as a mega-donor and the former finance chair for the Republican National Committee. In recent weeks, the President has pushed baseless accusations that sought to undermine trust in the USPS and has said he opposed funding the USPS because of mail-in voting.

Police funding

Top Congressional Republicans attacked the Democrats on police funding.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan implied Democrats want to "defund the police" and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said "The left wants to defund the police."

Facts First: While some Democrats have joined calls for a radical shift in police policy, including a reduction in police budgets, top congressional Democrats and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have not supported calls to "defund the police."

Biden's published criminal justice plan called for a $300 million investment in community policing efforts -- including the hiring of more officers.

On June 8, Biden told CBS, "No, I don't support defunding the police," Rather, he said, "I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat of Maryland, told CNN, "Defunding police departments are not the answer." House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline and Karen Bass have also spoken out about the phrase, CNN reported in June.

It's worth noting that the slogan "defund the police" means different things to different activists -- from the dissolution of police forces to partial reductions in funding.

Trump's campaign has seized on a single comment Biden made to a progressive activist in a July video chat. In that conversation, Biden repeated his opposition to defunding police. When pressed, he did say he "absolutely" agrees that some funding can be redirected to social services, mental health counseling and affordable housing, but he immediately transitioned to his previous proposal to deny federal funding to specific police departments that do not meet certain standards. Biden said in early June that decisions about funding levels should be made by local communities, since some have too many officers but some don't have enough.

Trump and coronavirus efforts

An RNC video played during the convention contrasted President Trump as a "decisive leader" on coronavirus while suggesting that Democrats and media outlets "got it wrong" by downplaying the pandemic.

Facts First: This suggestion is inaccurate. Trump continued to downplay the virus into March. Trump declared in February that the number of cases in the US would go "within a couple of days" from 15 to "close to zero," and he predicted that the virus might "disappear" through a "miracle" or something of the sort. In late February, he was still likening the virus to the flu; in March, he suggested that the virus did not require the country to take more severe measures than the flu requires.

He claimed in March that the virus was under "control" and that the media and Democrats were overhyping the situation.

Arrested pastors

During the opening remarks of the Republican National Convention, Charlie Kirk, founder of the youth-oriented conservative group Turning Point USA, claimed that "bitter, deceitful, vengeful activists...have us locking up pastors."

Facts First: This connection is not true. Pastors in the US have been arrested for disobeying state and local social distancing orders during the pandemic by holding in-person church services.

One of the first instances of a pastor being arrested in the US happened in late March when a Florida pastor held two church services that disobeyed state health emergency rules. The pastor turned himself in at the time, the Associated Press reported. CNN could not find instances of pastors being arrested because of "bitter, deceitful, vengeful activists."

#SettleForBiden

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said on Monday, "'Settle for Biden,' that's the hashtag promoted by AOC and the socialists."

Facts First: While New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has criticized Biden in the past, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was her first choice to be the party nominee, she has never professed or encouraged others to "settle" for Biden.

A review of Ocasio-Cortez's Twitter and Instagram posts dating back to the start of the primaries did not reveal any use of a hashtag "#SettleforBiden" or "#SettlingforBiden." Her only Instagram post referring to Biden during that time appeared to be from Tuesday, congratulating Biden for winning the Democratic nomination.

A review of the congressional and campaign Twitter accounts for Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley -- fellow members of The Squad, a group of progressive Democrats, along with Ocasio-Cortez -- also did not reveal any uses of such a hashtag or phrase.

While the hashtag appears to have been used dozens of times, dating back to as early as the day after Sanders dropped out of the race and Biden became the presumptive nominee, it does not appear to be common among high-profile progressive Democrats.

This story has been updated.

I received this explanation from my nephew as to why he will be voting for Trump. I have already voted for Biden, and think that he is the right man for the job, but I appreciated my nephew,, Chuck Bullock, my sister’s son), for putting together a cogent picture of what encourages him to vote for Trump. I haven’t seen something like this before, and what I have included with the fact finding above are some of the reasons why I am sticking with Biden. Have a look.

To answer all of those who would say “I can't believe you would vote for Trump." Well folks listen up! I'm not just voting for him. I'm voting for the second Amendment. I'm voting for the next supreme court justice. I'm voting for the electoral college, and the Republic we live in. I'm voting for the Police, and law and order. I'm voting for the military, and the veterans who fought for and died for this Country. I'm voting for the Flag that is always missing from the Democratic background. I'm voting for the right to speak my opinion and not be censored. I’m voting for secure borders. I’m voting for the right to praise my God without fear. I’m voting for every unborn soul the Democrats want to murder. I’m voting for freedom and the American Dream. I’m voting for good and against evil. I'm not just voting for one person, I'm voting for the future of my Country! What are you voting for?

Copy and paste, I did!!! Just because you hate Trump you shouldn’t just vote for sleepy Joe. You will throw this country in a s**t hole if you did that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 6^th, 2020

     75^th anniversary of Hiroshima, violence during demonstrations, closing down of seminary in Argentina, John Hume, explosion in Beirut, snakes, internet.  I will comment on these things now, or soon.

   Today is the 75^th anniversary of Hiroshima and there are not many left who are the living reasons why we never ever want a nuclear war. They will soon be gone and then there will be less evidence of what nuclear war means. Because of the threat North Korea holds over Japan, Abe Shinzo wants to push for Japan to nuclearize, after solemnly swearing that Japan, after experiencing what nuclear weapons can do, would never nuclearize but would try to persuade the rest of the world that it was a lose lose proposition. Someone once commented saying that those who managed to survive a nuclear war would envy those who died. You can see why when you see the aftereffects of radiation damage to bodies long after the war.

And here we are pulling out of the agreements we made to cut down on nuclear weapons, while India and Pakistan and now North Korea, have all joined the club. I smile when I think of Isreal, who is also nuclearized, doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear capability. It is alright for them to have this threat hanging over the Iranians heads but…..

Another area of concern is how the trump administration hastens to call all demonstrations (legitimate demonstrations, freedom of speech in our constitution) terrorist or anarchic, when they must know that the majority of demonstrators are ordinary people and only a few (they might even be hired by the opposition to make the democrats look bad, as promoting  troublemakers and violence or they are professional thieves who, like vultlures, come to the scene of legimitate demonstrations, and use them as a cover to smash windows, steal goods, damage cars to draw the attention of the cops and demonstrators, while they quietly sneak away with the stolen goods.). I would advise the organizers of the demonstrations to take a page out of Martin Luther King Jr.s book, and drill the demonstrators in the absolute necessity of non-violence and keeping an eye out for those who go out of line and start doing violent things. Call the police and tell them about those who are getting out of line and let the news people know that you have done this, As soon as things get violent, the people whom you want to get on your side are pushed away and no longer want to support people who are going to try to use violence to accomplish their goals. And, of course, at present, it helps the government to use the violence to de-legitimize the protest. Maybe I am naïve but they did the same in South Africa, making all blacks look like criminals, twisting legitimate demonstrations into illegitimate destructive acts.

    Recently here in South Africa, there have been many demonstrations against the fact that poor students can’t afford the ever-increasing school fees, but some of the activists get out of hand and burn school buildings or university libraries, or smash teachers cars, not realizing that they are pushing away many people who would otherwise support them trying to find ways to solve their problems.

     In the States, it seems to me, that the anger and frustration that drives so many people out into the street, even at the risk of being infected with the deadly virus, when one witnesses one killing like Floyd, after another an one mindless shooting of people in schools, malls, or anywhere with automatic weapons (war weapons), and wonders when will this mindlessness stop. To use a scriptural phrase, “ how long, o Lord, how long!”

  When it comes to shooting or in some way, killing  people, is it accidental that it is always black people. I can’t remember a case where a white person was shot, usually in the back, or murdered by a policeman, or am I just prejudiced. If there was someone, I don’t think it has been, as with our black brothers and sisters, over and over and over again.

    You all saw, I am sure, the news about that horrendous explosion in Beirut, that blew out windows as far away as 5 miles, and whose blast was felt in Malta, 150 miles away. What devastation. And who will be held responsible. The Ammonium Nitrate that is so dangerous was stored in a warehouse in the middle of an industrial area that, as is clear now if it wasn’t then, very dangerous. Who is responsible? Good question. You can be sure that no one is responsible. There will be finger pointing----you, not me.   How many changes of the guard were there during that six years. Those who went before, surely, are responsible.  Ha. Watch what is going to happen as we see the corrupt people take over to handle this situation corruptly. Or am I just being cynical.

    In Argentina, a bishop closed the diocesan seminary down because the rector together with the students defied the bishop, who said that, during this coronavirus thing, they should receive communion in the hand rather than on the tongue which was very risky under the circumstances. They defied the bishop and went ahead to receive communion on the tongue so the bishop closed the seminary down. I agree with him.  It seems that the right wing forces (almost all countries, Brazil, with Bolsonaro, a prime example, not to mention the US and backers of Trump especially, refusing to wear masks, as simple as that is, making a health issue a political issue) are growing and becoming More vocal and aggressive…..

The death of John Hume (like John Lewis) is something that you should follow up on. He fought for truth and justice in northern Ireland and was criticized from both sides for his stance, against the violence of the IRA as well as the violence to the English soldiers sent to northern Ireland to crush the uprising. He never gave up, in spite of many failures, but eventually, after many years of pushing his non-violence and negotiating with both sides, entrenched in their own cultures for years. He finally succeeded in bringing peace to northern Ireland. I wonder  what is going to happen now with Brexit not having solved the problem of borders between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

   You will laugh at this but I mentioned snakes. The other day I turned to find a big monkey sitting just outside my partially opened window staring in to see if there were any goodies he could filch. When I turned, he jumped away. My windows open onto an upstairs veranda, which is enclosed by bars that I thought were too close together for any monkeys to get in. I was obviously wrong. The other day I was sitting on the veranda (minding my own business), when a troop of monkeys thundered across the roof, and several of them peeked over the edge of the roof to see what was going on on the veranda. That reminded me of a trick that retired Bishop Bucher used, before he returned to Germany at the request of his sister who had just lost her husband, He got some plastic snakes and put them on the veranda and when the monkeys saw them they ran. Ha. I did the same and I haven’t seen any monkeys since. It happened that the lady who helps to keep the house clean also went out onto the veranda and made a hasty retreat when she saw the snakes, thinking that they were the real thing.

   As for the internet, it is on and off, on and off, and very frustrating, because we just had a very expensive new system put in and it doesn’t seem that it can provide the service we are paying for. Worse  than just that, I ordered, on line, a booster, because it seems that my room is the one that suffers the most because it is in the middle of the building with many walls blocking the signal. The other day

(to be continued…time for lunch…I will have to go to the monastery for a signal after lunch).

I am getting ready to go to supper. Our guru, Fr. Proud came over when he knew that I had received my order of boosters. He did what had to be done to make it work, and took one of the other 4 along to use at our retreat house. Ha. The advertisement said you just plug it in and it starts to work….so simple. One of Murphy’s corollaries  is, and this is good to remember when you are tempted to otherwise,   NOTHING IS EVER SIMPLE. I would not have been able to configure and whatever else he did to make it work. It is still a bit dicey because there are several electrical things that are fighting each other or competing with each other and it mixes up the signals, so he explains to me. Ha. I just have to believe it because I have no clue otherwise. I am off to supper now.  back shortly, after the news, always more about the explosion in Beirut. ( The story about the boosters is this: I saw an advertisement for a booster to be able to get through this jungle of walls, so I started to order it on line. When I go half way through filling in the form, the internet went off, so I had to start again from scratch. This happened 4 times. Guess what, the company took this at 5 orders and charged me accordingly. Of course I tried to send a message to them to cancel the other 4 but it went off into the stratosphere somewhere. I am sure that their plan is to make it as difficult as possible to get back to them once the order has been made.) So we will just try to find a use for them here in our complex.

Aug. 27^th.   As you might expect. I got happy too soon. I had hoped that the problem about internet access was solved. I should know better. Murphy never sleeps. There was and is no internet again last night and this morning. More work to be done. I can’t paste this into the blog page because there is no internet. My cell phone is OK, but I can’t use the cell phone (maybe I am too stupid) to send this missive on my blog.

 

It is now the 30^th of August, Sunday morning just  before lunch. I will leave it here for how and see how it goes in the coming weeks. We are allowed to go from phase 3 to phase 2 now, which means visiting, eating out, church services, but with proper distancing from each other and wearing a mask. We will see if Corona manages to get through our defences or if we ourselves, lower our defences. Take care. Lots of love and enjoy the last of your summer. Love and peace, Cas.