FROM the Religion News Service on July 7, 2020 comes this report:  Thousands of churches and other religious organizations received forgivable loans of up to $10 million to make up for pandemic losses, according to limited government data released this week by the U.S. Treasury. The vast majority of religious organizations listed in the data received between $150,000 and $300,000 as part of the federal Paycheck Protection Program intended to help small businesses maintain payroll and other approved expenses during the pandemic. The data did not list businesses and organizations that received less than $150,000. At least two dozen religious organizations received the highest tier of funds, between $5 million and $10 million. Among them were two megachurches — Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and Life.Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. Several Protestant denominations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), also received between $5 and $10 million, as did a dozen Roman Catholic entities, mostly dioceses, and at least two Jewish organizations, the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. The data released did not specify the exact amount each entity received. Instead, it broke down the data into five broad ranges or tiers: $150,000 to $300,000; $350,000 to $1 million; $1 million to $2 million; $2 million to $5 million; and $5 million to $10 million. A total of 661,218 small businesses and nonprofit organizations were…

L.R. writes:

Third world jails like in my country Panama are far more dirty than in America; each tiny cell is fully packed with several inmates and many times with members of rival gangs. Food most of the time is very bad; bathrooms are never in sanitary condition; guards are corrupt and collaborate with powerful, high-ranking gangs members, etc. For many years the media in Panama has been criticizing the bad conditions in jails and how the inmates live, but that has never changed.

Anyway, it makes sense, given these conditions, that these jails would be overwhelmed by the virus, right?

Well, I was taken by surprise last week when the media reported just two deaths and two people hospitalized so far.

Meanwhile, in the outside general population that is not trapped in those deplorable jails and have freedom to go outside to buy the necessary things in stores, the death toll and hospitalizations are much worse! Deaths are 1,000  and hospitalizations are 900+ so far!

It doesn’t make sense!

So there are two possible explanations of this strange virus statistic: (more…)

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ALAN writes:

Carondelet Park is a large park in south St. Louis. It has two lakes, many hills, and winding paths for walking or bicycling. For me, it is also a park of many memories. I go there often to visit some of the higher animals (as Twain might have worded it): Ducks, geese, cranes, bluebirds, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, butterflies, rabbits, squirrels, and woodchucks.  It is a temporary refuge from the preposterous idiocies of the lower animals in the city around it.  A bench in a quiet setting in the park is an excellent place to sit, think, and remember.

I am always alone when I go to the park, except for the ghosts who accompany me everywhere. One morning the melody and words of Duke Ellington’s 1934 “Solitude” occurred to me unexpectedly as I sat on a bench overlooking one of the lakes. That was fitting but odd, because I had not listened to the song since the mid-1980s when it was played on some St. Louis radio station featuring Big Band music.

In years long past, passenger trains came through the park. Many school picnics and band concerts were held there. A hundred years ago, boys liked to go fishing and swimming in one of the park’s lakes, until they were run off by “Big Bad Bill”, the park-keeper.

St. Louis newspaperman Jim Fox recalled how he and his wife and friends pulled their children in coaster wagons to the park in the 1950s, where they rode down the hills. (more…)

TOM was born into a large Italian, working-class family in Norristown, Pennsylvania in the 1950s. His mother used to have her hair done once a week on Fridays, escaping from housework and her six sons. The hair salon was a place of relaxation and renewal. She returned home redolent of hair spray and didn’t wash her hair herself before the next Friday.

I wonder now if his mother’s happiness after those visits inspired Tom to become a hairdresser himself, much to the dismay of his father, who was in construction. Tom went ahead because it was something he loved to do. He opened a salon with his wife, also a hairdresser, a little over 30 years ago, and I have been going there since not longer after it opened.

Tom is gregarious, likable, devoted to his clients and to his family, well known on the local baseball field and at church. His salon business has thrived over the years, which is not surprising because he is really good at hair. Many people in town have sat in his chair. It’s a middle class clientele, including children, women, and men, with plenty of old ladies, some like his mother who get into a weekly routine.

Today was the first day I saw Tom since February. His business was shut down for 14 weeks. On the day after Gov. Tom Wolf announced the state was closing “non-essential” businesses, the local police, as if to underscore the dictatorial nature of the decree and as if Tom, a middle class business owner, was a potential criminal, called him at home to make sure he was not opening.

When his wife phoned me yesterday to remind me of my appointment, she left a message, “Don’t forget to wear a mask!” she said.

Blasted! I thought about it and called back. I really can’t wear a mask, I said apologetically, and would have to cancel my appointment. I didn’t feel like causing any waves (no pun intended). His wife said, “Oh no, don’t worry about it. That’s fine. Come on in.”

So I went without a mask. “You’re going to look a lot better after this,” Tom said. It’s true, I badly needed a tune-up.

Tom, who was wearing a mask himself, sprayed the plastic robe with a bleach mixture. He only has one of his customers in the shop at a time, as ordered by the government, and so is working at 50 percent capacity. Tom is a very mainstream kind of guy, so I expected to avoid the outrageousness of what had happened to him and other small businesses. I was eager to catch up on his personal life though; we always spend the whole time gabbing. (more…)