This was some week. Along with anthems of ‘cheers’ and ‘boos’, our snollygoster-in-chief, our unprincipled scalawag-par-excellence, the master of the teleprompter, held forth.

We were privileged to learn that what is up is actually down, what is a positive is really a negative, what is more is less, what is white is black, what is wide open is totally secure, what is good is bad.

Our first President, President George Washington, gave the nation a series of over 20 insights in his farewell address – here are eight I think should be on any list. These days, we best pay heed:

1) “Be vigilant, people will seek to use the government for selfish ends.”
2) “Control bureaucracies; make sure they all work together.”
3) “Avoid political parties; they will cause divisive factions and unscrupulous men will use them to undermine the government.”
4) “Be suspicious of administrators; they may serve themselves rather than the people.”
5) “Preserve existing checks and balances and add more where power needs to be checked.”
6) “Religion and morality are essential to create the virtue necessary to preserve the union.”
7) “Avoid debt; and immediately discharge any debt created by war.”
8) “Be guided by principles, not interests.”

Fun Time – with young Viliami last Sunday. I know I described the afternoon concert Vili and I attended so no more on that, just a few photos from the event. But, let me just say that George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue reset into a Jazz piece warranted a standing ovation!

Deutsch or Dutch? Every so often I’ve been asked whether I can speak of understand ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’. No, I cannot. The Pennsylvanian ‘Dutch’ is really a German variant of ‘Deutsch’ spoken mostly by their Amish population.

Anyway, since I am sitting around even more trying to gain the upper hand on a cold, I dug around a bit more into the languages. Dutch is connected to Middle English. While German is connected to a series of Germanic peoples and languages found along the northern edge of the European continent – as can be seen in the Roman ‘Germania”.

Both England and ‘de Nederlanden’ (Netherlands or ‘low-lands’) were major sea faring nations during the 1500 1600’s and with trade and skirmishes there was quite a bit of cross cultural and language movement with Middle English (the Dutch eventually substituting the letter ‘d’ for the English ‘th’ sound.

I thought it’d be of interest to view this set of words (you should sound them out – at speaking speed for extra fun), same meaning in each of the three languages. The left is English, the middle balloon is German, and the right-hand balloon is Dutch.

The BIG Game – will come and go tomorrow. Our home team would have been playing in that game had, during the final seasonal game, the one which determined who would play, our opposition not received a never seen before, critical, FIFTH down. As must be realized there now reins a lack of interest at this end.

However, there was an incident that occurred during a previous game with the Buffalo Bills. Our opposition had a player who collapsed on the field in full cardiac arrest. His heart had stopped and for almost 10-minutes, on the field, CPR was performed.

He was sped to our University of Cincinnati Trauma Center (a Level III and the same one Adrianne rushed me to with my eye issue). With the care he received, there, his comeback was almost miraculous.

In appreciation the medical team was honored in Phoenix where the recovered Buffalo Bills Safety, Damar Hamlin, paid tribute to those who had a hand in giving him a second chance at life. At not quite 25 years of age he gave this very eloquent statement:

”My entire life, I felt like God was using me to give others hope and now with a new set of circumstances, I can say he’s doing what he’s always done,” …. “I have a long journey ahead, a journey full of unknowns and a journey full of milestones, but it’s a lot easier to face your fears when you know your purpose.”

for clarity’s sake – “We are calling this an ‘object’ because that is the best description we have right now” (i.e. an ‘object’ is an object which is an object an so forth); John Kirby of the National Security Council during a briefing at the White House. OK!

February 11, 2020 – mere months after the first case in Wuhan, China, and approximately three weeks after the first U.S. case was reported, the World Health Organization officially named the illness that would go on to cause a pandemic “coronavirus disease 2019,” shortened to the acronym COVID-19.

I would arguably declare it the most poorly dealt with viral outbreak in memory. The lockdown of healthy people, forced treatment of the unaffected (kids), compulsorily housing of elderly in facilities, the absolute blocking of the use of early intervention medications, and arbitrary application of those deemed ‘essential’ versus ‘unessential’ was unconscionable. I firmly believe that history will prove me correct.

Ciao. Stay strong; work hard to maintain friendships, keeping healthy is a priority, keep those affected by the disaster in Syria and Turkey and especially the rescue teams providing aid there in mind. Say safe.

Keep on storming the castle. Pray for Peace.

Dirk