September 2022 – Really Right

The Catholic Church and Abortion

Bloggers note: The point of this blog isn’t to debate Prop 1 in CA (abortion) but to point out the shifting “stance” of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion that I have witnessed firsthand.

It should be a surprise to none of our readers, I am a Knight of Columbus (men’s group sanctioned by the Catholic Church) so I have a front row seat to the goings on and beliefs coming from leadership. One thing that upset me was slightly after the confirmation of Amy Comey Barret to the Supreme Court, I witnessed a sea change in tone at my church and in the media. Let me lay it out.

The media no longer made this a GOP vs Democrat issue, it became organized religion aka the Catholic Church vs everyone else. I use the term “Catholic Church” because most view the Pope as the world’s strongest leader when it comes to organized religion. He is definitely the most recognizable. Notice how the judges were being grouped by “Catholic vs the others”? Barrett was criticized as being Catholic, and heavily religious. This has begun a narrative that in my opinion led to the church changing its tone toward abortion.

I was also in receipt of 2 emails from supreme one telling me as a leader to tell my fellow Knights how to vote. Odd. If you are in a Catholic men’s group, you should know what you are joining, oh well. Followed by a separate email in essence saying you are a Catholic gentleman, vote this way. Yikes! Talk about bad messaging.

I am involved in a welcoming ceremony for the Knights here in California. One of the lines I always listened for is “Regarding abortion, we do not recognize it, and cry out it is a mortal sin!” “This goes for support of all politicians legalizing it as well.” Interestingly enough the ceremony was changed last year, and those lines are gone. Furthermore, abortion is no longer even mentioned. Gone. When I asked, I was told this is how it is, and not following exactly means you are expelled from the order. Pretty harsh!

In addition, it used to be if you were a Knight, you could not be a “Mason” as the Free Masons support abortion access, this was dropped as well. Something, something, membership dropping, something, something.

Then I came church a week or so ago, and the following left me speechless. During the homily or sermon depending on your viewpoint, our head priest wanted to address the congregation about Prop 1. I figured he would address it, likely saying the Bishop says this… etc. Nope he pawned it off to his deacon, a deacon in our church is not a priest but ordained kind of like minister in some ways. Our deacon punted, he basically said the bishop’s remarks are in the bulletin (basically a program) and they moved on. After Mass I looked in the vestibule (gathering area outside the main church) and the anti-abortion pamphlets were gone. Just to re-cap Father passed the baton, deacon punted, and the congregation was likely confused.

To make matters worse, I was told the Spanish Mass got a different variety of homily, there’s was more fire and brimstone about abortion being bad. This leads to one obvious conclusion, it’s about butts in the seats and money on the collection plate (donation plate).

Also leads to another question.

Is the Catholic Church picking and choosing who gets their message based on the crowd? I say yes. Why would you avoid the issue at the Masses with white/more affluent/progressive types, yet go all in at the Spanish Mass occupied by more traditional types? I believe it’s just a matter of which audience they want to hear the message. The earlier Masses are sparsely filled and tend to be far more democratic in their viewpoints, so tell them check out the program. The more traditional crowd? Hit them with the red meat and let them chew on it.

There has been a massive sea change in this country and make no mistake, its Catholics Vs Everyone on CA’s ballot in November. I expect 70% to vote in favor of making abortion legal permanently. I cannot hide my disappointment in the church or the Knights for turning their back on these issues. Just like the GOP does out here, when they start winning on an issue they immediately run for cover, scared and afraid.

Oh, and like William’s church, my church plays the same music, “They will know we are Christians by our love” and we play “all are welcome in this place” I guess all are welcome. Who cares about beliefs…like you know, the Bible says. Ouch.

Jake

Editor’s Note: The first email never even said how to vote or came out against Prop 1, it had this milquetoast admonition. “As you may be aware, the California Bishops have made a recommendation on Proposition 1 …” Two days later, a more substantive email was sent. The resources contained in it are actually very good. The Bible warns us “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8 On this issue, the Church definitely falls under that condemnation.

Esophageal Cancer Update September 2022

I haven’t written about my wife’s struggle with cancer lately. I wanted to provide an update for at least two reasons, first, it’s been over a year since her diagnosis and secondly, she just spent a week in the hospital because of cancer related reasons.

At the end of August, the wife and I went to our house in Idaho. Our mission was to frame interior walls and get rough electrical and plumbing figured out. I did get both bathrooms framed as well as some other walls, but it took way more time than I thought. I found that the house framing was not ready for insulation and covering the walls. Nailing edges were not installed anywhere and that took lots of additional cutting and attaching.

The air compressor that we bought at Home Depot was broken when it came out of the box. As a result, we had to return it and buy a new one. I decided to try a different brand. Word to the wise—skip the Dewalt 6-gallon compressor. Getting supplies was a slow process, especially, when mama decided on a major design change in the midst of the build.

Partway thru the week, my wife got sick. Typically, she throws-up about once a week but this time was different. She usually is her happy-go-lucky self by morning but not this time. She had a fever and continued to barf up everything, including water. The next night she woke me up because she was shaking the bed. She complained of being cold and couldn’t stop trembling. I gave her my half of the blankets on the bed. I offered to take her to the Emergency Room two blocks away, but she refused. Her shaking lasted for about 45 minutes before subsiding.

She spent the next day in bed. It was clear that as it related to construction, I was on my own. The following day I strongly suggested that we skip the remainder of our vacation and go home. It was only one day early but she agreed. I drove the thousand miles from our place in Idaho to California in one day. I don’t think I did more than two potty stops on the whole trip. My wife was miserable and did most of the trip with ice packs on her head.

That night we showered and went to bed hoping tomorrow would be better. Sadly, that was not to be. The next day was Labor Day. By that evening, I finally got my wife to let me take her to the hospital.

She had three major issues, she was dehydrated, vomiting, and had a horrible headache. Just so you know, it seems nobody wants to go to the Emergency Room on a three-day weekend. We were seen almost immediately. OK, technically she was seen, I was exiled because I didn’t have a Covid vaccine card. Newsom has never released his grip on the medical community.

After sitting outside for a while, I read the Covid rules. It said that if I did a home test that I could go see her. I verified this with security, and they said my understanding was correct. Trying to find a Covid test at nine o’clock at night on a holiday is really a booger. I had to go four places to find one. Believe it or not, I ended up at Safeway in Elk Grove. They were the only place that I could find them. Shortly after 11 PM, I had two in hand and headed to the hospital.

Oh, just as I was walking out the door of Safeway, the ER doctor offered me a Covid test so I could be with my wife.

My wife spent a horrible week in the hospital. The IV solution took care of the dehydration. The docs thought she had “aspiration pneumonia” and put her on antibiotics. She has shadows in her lungs, and signs of an infection. Everyone assumed it was because her vomiting had been inhaled. The lab tests showed she did have an infection, but the white cell count didn’t improve as a result of her treatment. In fact, her blood chemistry was an indescribable mess. All sorts of seemingly unrelated things were low. Towards the end of her stay, the doctors decided the only logical thing was that these symptoms were the result of her immunotherapy.

Let me explain. Immunotherapy is supposed to encourage your body to fight-off infections. Since it is administered one per month, it must be stored in your body and released slowly over time. This means it’s probably related to your liver. When you get sick, your body can release a large quantity of the stuff into your system and overload your body’s systems. This appears to be what happened.

My wife has been out of the hospital for about a week now. She is weak and lacking energy. She has improved a bit but seems to be stuck in a lower gear, if that makes any sense. I have to help her walk long distances and her stamina is definitely gone. She is taking multiple naps each day and has a very limited reserve of energy. Also, her food intake is minimal, some days just a few hundred calories. She has lost about 80 pounds since being diagnosed with cancer and her weight is continuing to decrease.

Many follow-up visits to various doctors have been planned and each visit seems to have lab work associated with it. My wife hopes to resume immunotherapy in October, but I think the doctors will consider ending the treatments. Perhaps lowering the dosage and going back to twice monthly sessions will be considered, but the problem with the twice monthly idea is that the FDA approval of this drug may not allow this as an option. I know a certain number of people cannot complete the course of immunotherapy treatment but none of the literature that I can find says why. Perhaps this is what my wife is going thru now.

I do know that none of the tests run in the hospital found any cancer in her body and they did look. This recent hospitalization makes me wonder if the cure for the cancer is almost as bad as the disease. On good days you say, “No,” on bad days … well, you hope there aren’t many until things improve.

Johnnie Does Sky River Casino

Avoid. That’s the one and only word. Your humble correspondent has not and will not visit after hearing and seeing several trusted sources review our new shiny casino.

Sky River is a brand-new casino that opened in the same town as this blog’s world headquarters. We have always been skeptical as this is a small town, and do we really need another casino here? In a short driving distance, we have, Jackson Rancheria, Cache Creek, Thunder Valley, Red Hawk and a couple of card rooms downtown. All of them are far more exciting than our new casino. Sky River Casino is very small, and no frills at all. For now, it’s just a gambling floor and food. I guess long term they have plans for a hotel, we shall see.

As for the casino part, I have had 4 customers/friends attend the casino multiple times since it opened, of course they aren’t degenerate gamblers, they just like to play a bit. None enjoyed it at all. Some even won money and still would not go back. They said it was smoky as heck, so bad they had to go outside to get fresh air multiple times over the course of 30 minutes. This is a bad look for a casino who said they have state of the art filtering systems in place.

The slot and table play got decent marks, but it was very crowded, this is a good thing for the casino. But again, the smoke…. yikes.

The food was a major let down. Full disclosure they do have a standalone steak house coming soon, which would be a good addition to this town in my opinion, but the food otherwise consists of just a food court. Pretty lame. You order from your phone and sit and the workers bring it out to you. Prices were just ok. Food was high school cafeteria quality. Avoid.

In summary, this place is average, but it fits this town perfectly. If you think about it, we have lots of chain restaurants here, nothing special. Our casino fits that. We have people who are always hunting for a deal, this place fits that. We are a no-frills town… this place fits that.

Recently, I went out to eat and happened to be seated near an elected official from this area. I overheard her telling a colleague we have a Walmart quality casino, for our Walmart quality town. (We have 4 Wally Worlds in and around Elk Grove.) If you are looking to blow some cash, this place will allow you to do that, but bear in mind, it has no sports book, no quality food options, and no hotel. Also, no golf course or amphitheater. Suit yourself, but I am not going to partake. Like usual, this town would rather be adequate or average than have anything nice.

Johnnie Does

Editor’s Note: I checked Yelp just to see if Johnnie was being too hard on the place. Here’s what I found.

After trying to go here and eat more than Ice Cream, it was disappointing. Most of the Marketplace Food Court is surpassed by your local Shopping Mall Food Court in Selection, Quality and Service.
Yelp Reviewer Wanugee N. 09/17/22

Beautiful inside except the cleanliness. A casino of this size should have at least 5 people on the floor all the time just picking up and cleaning everything. It’s dirty.
Yelp Reviewer Marianna B. 08/21/22

There was no non-smoking area. I brought a mask but it didn’t help. There were also no hand sanitizer stations around. There are germs on every machine!
There was a long line to get into the food court area. It took awhile to get in and once I saw the prices I immediately went out… Too bad there is no buffet, whenever I go to a casino I expect a buffet.
Main question, did I have fun? My answer is not really. I did get some exercise though from getting lost in this casino and then getting lost again in the parking lot. I guess I at least got to experience this but I don’t think I’ll come back.
Yelp Reviewer Scott F. 09/03/22

What is Causing the Fentanyl Deaths? It’s not what you think

Fentanyl is affecting hundreds of thousands a year, in all our communities. How and why is this happening?

Well really its simple, we are a country of addicts.

We do not want to believe or hear this but allow me to lay out my reasoning. In this country we are a nation of addicts, be it; alcohol, drugs, prescription drugs, phones, TV, porn, you name it, chances are you know someone who is one. Once you get hooked, you eventually need a bigger euphoria. So, you get into something more hardcore or take a larger dose.

I spoke to a friend in law enforcement and his comments were similar to mine. He took the stance of his industry that legalizing weed was a horrific idea, due to its status as a gateway drug. You start with weed, then your body needs more, so you smoke it more times a day. Then you have a larger desire, so you move on to cocaine, heroin you name the next drug in line. Furthermore, that doesn’t become a big enough hit, so you move on again. Eventually all roads lead to the fentanyl dealer. You take him up on it, if it doesn’t kill you, you come back for more. Or it kills you and you leave a family/loved ones behind.

The overwhelming belief from my friend in L.E. and his colleagues, where the bud is so much stronger than it used to be back in the hippie days, people are getting hooked quicker. We made a colossal mistake, but we do not wish to admit it.

Don’t believe me? You do not have to. All I ask is for you to picture yourself at your office or around your friends. How many of them drink energy drinks/Starbucks/Dunkin? How many drink numerous servings of them a day? How many vape? Smoke? Do edibles etc.? We are a large nation of addicts, many of the caffeine crowd make numerous trips to the “legal crack den” coffee shop as I call it. They are addicted and will need a bigger buzz at some point. So, you switch, move up etc. and eventually you end up dead.

A second hypothesis of mine is depression/mental health issues

We locked down for 18 months, maybe longer depending on your state of residence. We told folks at some of the lowest parts of the socio-economic ladder they were not essential. As a result, they stayed at home since well they weren’t needed. (2 weeks to slow the spread anyone?) This did horrific things to people’s mental health. When people are down, they search out a fix. The pandemic did wonders for your local dealer, and I’m not talking about the one working on a car lot. When you feel alone, depressed, and told you are not essential…. well, is anyone surprised we have a drug problem?

Isn’t it the cartels/border where the problem is?

Yes. But we have shown zero to attempt to do anything about the problem in the country under President Depends. An open border policy leads to drugs flowing in. Americans have lots of $$$ and we are willing to pay for vices to get a fix. We won’t close the border, soft on crime policies will have the offender out of jail before dinner time, and they will be back out dealing again.

Should we better educate our youth?

Doubtful it would work. Just like the cable watching older folks, the younger ones get their info and life advice from Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. Oh, I almost forgot TikTok–brought to you directly by the Chinese Communist Party who is likely responsible for these shipments of fentanyl going to Mexico to be sent to USA.

Be aware. These are killing folks in big numbers. It used to just be in Appalachia, then it moved to lower socio-economic areas, and now it’s in every big city. It’s bad enough now a local High School in my area had a booth set up to give out Narcan (lifesaving medical) to students to carry on their person in case of overdose. This will not get better America, but hey, grab that joint and light it up, trust me it’s just a little pot, nothing to worry about.

Chief

Editor’s Note: Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is a potent opioid used as a pain medication. Together with other drugs, fentanyl is used for anesthesia. It is also used illicitly as a recreational drug, sometimes mixed with heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines or methamphetamine.

Newsom: Don’t Charge Your Electric Car…..Please!

If you live in California you are used to hearing stupid, moronic, dumb, depressing things. It reached a new low this past week. The same week Governor Newsom and his merry band of idiots announced new gas powered car sales will cease in a decade, he also reminded us due to a heat wave not to plug your current electric car in. Yeah folks, we are banning new gas powered cars, in favor of more enviro-friendly electric ones, but please do not charge it while we grapple with an energy crisis.

It gets even better last evening around 6pm. I got an SOS text message from the State of California telling me to essentially cease and desist all electrical usage between 4-10pm due to the grid being overloaded. So yeah, I come home to a hot house and cannot use appliances due to conservation. It was 86 degrees in my house when I arrived home but that’s ok. I am sure the Hollywood types did their share to conserve as well. NOT!

You see, here in the People’s Republic of California, we have gone so green even Cheech and Chong are starting to worry! By conservative estimates, CA can only produce enough electricity to power about 2/3s of its needs, so we “buy” the excess power from Arizona or another neighboring utility. Who cares how that utility procures its electricity, all that matters is we don’t pollute here in CA.

We have mandated the closure of Diablo Canyon Nuclear plant…..then we reversed it! I guess Gavin must have farted himself awake and realized retiring more power plants isn’t smart when you cannot produce enough to keep up with demand. We have a law that all new houses must have solar panels on them, yet every summer we have threats of rolling blackouts. We have all kinds of solar farms and windmills, but we are reliant on our neighbors for electricity?

In CA we have a saying, at least those of us with an IQ slightly north of room temperature, it’s not how you think, it’s how you feel. That phrase is an embodiment of what is left here in this place. We have gone so damn insane on environmental issues that we have become our own worst enemy. We are now quite literally telling people not to charge their car (aka what you use to get to your job in CA) in favor of sitting in a hot house, because global warming. We have closed down nuclear plants, gas fired plants, in favor of far less reliable solar and wind farms. Word to the wise, solar doesn’t do a whole lot of good once the sun goes down, also you need a very un-environmentally friendly battery, and solar components as well. Don’t believe us? Do a simple Google search for disposal of lithium-ion batteries and solar panels!

It’s pretty pathetic that in the technology capital of the world, we have to rely on Arizona for our electricity. Even more sad is when Arizona doesn’t have any excess to sell us, they turn the lights off for us.

But this is all part of the plan here in California. The goal is to remove all gas powered everything from here. They are starting with gas generators and lawn equipment. Don’t believe me? The lawn equipment goes in 2024, the generators 2028. Do not hold your breath that the CA GOP will do anything about it, they likely have no clue this is happening. I haven’t looked into it much but how will the landscapers cut Elk Grove Park if they need to use electric mowers? Me thinks there will be exceptions doled out for all cities/municipalities. The point is a carbon free CA. The issue is that no one is using their brains to think about those who will be left out. A Tesla is not cheap. A cursory search of tesla.com for used Tesla’s within 200 miles showed the cheapest 2019 Tesla at roughly 46k. That is double what I paid for my 2019 4 door Tacoma by the way. Some localities have started banning new gas station construction, in this blog’s town I have seen numerous gas stations either starting construction or pulling permits as if to “beat the clock” on a ban being forthcoming. So they will make it even harder to find gas for your gas powered car. The price doesn’t get cheaper when supply is harder to find folks.

Make no bones about it, they are discussing banning natural gas as well. New home construction currently does not feature a fire place, not even wood burning ones. Some cities like Berkeley have either already banned or are considering banning all natural gas inside your house/business. Think no stove/oven/heater. You would be using electricity, yeah as in that thing we cannot keep on right now. Imagine going out to dinner in the wintertime, its colder than hell and your favorite steak house is using an electric cook top. You get no sear, and the heater won’t be able to keep up because it’s electric and takes a while to get going, then it stays hot for a while to shut off. My parent’s most recent house had an electric stove, they converted it to gas. Now instead of being able to throttle up and down the natural gas burners in the kitchen, they must stay on all day regardless of foot traffic since it takes a while to heat up and cool down. Even better, in the summer it may not work at all, we have these rolling blackouts we are famous for.

Can’t afford a Tesla? You can take one of our natural gas burning busses, at least until they ban those as well, they cannot be far behind. Try using mass transit in this town, actually don’t you’ll save the bruises on your brain.

All is well here in California, just remember since the 100-degree days last until Friday please do not plug in your electric car! We need to conserve energy. I’m sure your manager at work will understand!

Johnnie Does