JOE BIDEN’S career would have ended in 1987 in any political system that valued integrity.

In September of that year, he lied — boldly and repeatedly — about his academic credentials.

In his statement today, Mr. Biden, who attended the Syracuse College of Law and graduated 76th in a class of 85, acknowledged: ”I did not graduate in the top half of my class at law school and my recollection of this was inaccurate.”

As for receiving three degrees, Mr. Biden said: ”I graduated from the University of Delaware with a double major in history and political science. My reference to degrees at the Claremont event was intended to refer to these majors – I said ‘three’ and should have said ‘two.’ ” Mr. Biden received a single B.A. in history and political science. (more…)

TRUMP in Phoenix, Arizona yesterday: "Dr. Fauci's a very nice man ... He loves being on television and we let him do it. Sometimes he says things that are a little bit off and they get built up unfortunately. But he's a nice guy. I like him. But he's called a lot of bad calls ... I don't hold that against him if I did I wouldn't have him. I think he's a nice guy." [bold added] When asked if he would fire Fauci, "I don't want to. I don't wanna hurt him." Trump, the Swamp Maintenance Man.  

ALAN writes:

My old friend Serendipity came to visit me one day recently. I was looking for old newspaper articles when I came across something entirely different from what I was looking for, but of equal interest.  It was an article about a six-year-old girl whose guardian brought her to the office of a nerve specialist in St. Louis “to find out what was the matter with her.” This was in 1908.

Turned out nothing was the matter with her.

What the matter was this: Too much, too soon.  

“She is simply suffering from nervous exhaustion,” the doctor said to a reporter.

“Life to that child is nothing but a continuous stereopticon view. Fancy living in front of a moving-picture machine all the year round! I wager that your nerves would go to pieces, and that’s just what is happening to this baby. She has been around the world once and she is never in one place more than two months at a time and frequently not more than two weeks.  Can you imagine how harassing that would be to you?

“Well, a child’s nerves are a thousand times more sensitive than a grown person’s. (more…)

MY HUSBAND had lunch with an old friend yesterday. They sat on a park bench next to a river and ate greasy sandwiches. My husband's friend had a daughter who was in her early thirties. He was very fond of her. She died a year and a half ago under tragic circumstances. He mentioned, matter-of-factly, to my husband as they were chatting on the bench on a beautiful fall day that every morning he wakes up with tears rolling down his cheeks. Every morning, he cries again. Sometimes one person's sadness is so powerful -- and understandably so -- that it seems to engulf the world in flames. We who are relatively happy --- we live on this burning globe.  

I'D RATHER bake biscuits than be a Supreme Court judge.  

“IT’s a beautiful tradition of getting family together,” [Anthony Fauci] told Yahoo News on Thursday during a live Q&A. “I think we need to realize things might be different this year, particularly if you want to have people who are going to be flying in from a place that has a lot of infection – you’re going to an airport that might be crowded, you’re on a plane, and then to come in -- unless you absolutely know you’re not infected -- there are many people who are not going to want to take that risk.” "Fauci said his own children, three daughters who live in different states, have decided against coming to see him this year." [Source] That's sad. Perhaps they know. I, on the other hand, strongly support Fauci receiving visitors. In jail.  

ST. TERESA of Ávila, Spain was a sixteenth-century mystic whose writings are filled not just with highly challenging concepts but with wise practical advice. She founded cloistered convents where extreme poverty and discipline were the rule and counseled her sisters for the sake of their spiritual advancement and to maintain community life in harmony and peace.

St. Teresa emphatically warned against indulging health fears and the aches and pains of life. She said this was one of the most important messages she had to convey to those women under her instruction.

Her advice: Don’t talk about it (unless you are seriously ill, and even then patience was paramount). Keep your headaches and fatigue, muscle pains and sore throats, nausea and indigestion to your self.

“For this body of ours has one fault: the more you indulge it, the more things it discovers to be essential to it.”

Needless to say, this inspiring woman who was herself sick for years, once so seriously that a grave was dug for her well before her death, and who is the patron saint of headache sufferers, would be disappointed by the world we live in. (more…)

THE NEW YORK TIMES has run more than 20,000 stories on (or referring to) George Floyd. Not a single one on Chase Meola. The New York Times is an ongoing hate crime.  

  NO WONDER the most fervent feminists have been Jewish. There's nothing even remotely comparable to this in Christianity.  

RESIDENTS of a Colorado nursing home gathered outside last Thursday to protest ongoing lockdown of their facility. The Greeley Tribune reports: “Enough is enough. Set us free,” Fairacres Manor resident Josie Sanchez said through a microphone Thursday afternoon while parked in her wheelchair on 16th Street across from North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley. Sanchez, 76 years old, was one of organizers of the protest. She was joined by approximately 19 of her fellow Fairacres residents as they sat in their wheelchairs on the sidewalk in front of the medical-center parking garage for two hours while the 16th Street traffic passed by with some drivers honking their horns. The residents held signs and some waved to the motorists. One of the signs read: “We want families back.” The theme of the signs was the same and they were all directed at state officials: let us hug our families. One woman held a sign saying, "I'd rather die of Covid than loneliness." What governments have done to the elderly in the last six months is a crime against humanity. Removing the restrictions is not enough. Criminal trials and long prison sentences are in order.

FROM CNBC: Billionaire wealth jumped by more than a quarter during the height of the coronavirus crisis, according to new research, with a rally in stock markets helping the wealth of the world’s richest surpass the $10 trillion mark for the first time. The “Riding the storm” study, published on Wednesday by Swiss bank UBS and accounting firm PwC, found that global billionaire wealth climbed to $10.2 trillion between April and July this year, up from $8 trillion at the start of April. That reflected an increase in wealth of 27.5% and exceeded the previous peak of $8.9 trillion recorded at the end of 2017. The number of billionaires worldwide also reached a new high of 2,189, compared to the previous record of 2,158 in 2017.  

'EVERY best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Every emanation of splendor overflowing from the divine goodness upon man, reacts in him as a principle of spiritual simplification and of heavenly union; and by its own power leads him back towards the sovereign unity and godlike simplicity of the Father. For all things come from God, and return to God. "By the very fact that things exist, inanimate objects partake of God, who by the sublimity of His Essence, is the being of all that is...." --- St. Dionysius

IF I were a photographer, I would take a photograph of one of the apples I bought yesterday. Since I can't take a decent picture, I will try a snapshot in words. I went to a roadside stand far from the supermarket. Instead of pristine apples from 200 hundred miles away in plastic bags, they were all jumbled together, entirely naked in bins, separated by variety and pestered by a few bees. They were 39 cents a pound. A Jonagold, this apple has tiny brown varicose veins or scribbles along the top, a small black spot where a worm or fungus had a meal, and skin that is pinkish red and dusky yellow. It is not shiny or shellacked. The hostile action of the wind and rain seem visible on its dulled skin. The spot suggests hardship too. This apple has been through some stuff. Did you know that an apple has a soul? The apple's musky golden-ness is all the proof you need. It is like no other apple you've seen and like every apple you've seen. Plato would say it's an expression of the ideal apple. An apple has a soul, but not an immortal soul. Artists have spent much time and effort painting bowls or piles of fruit on tables not because they were hungry or in the advertising business for apple growers but because they were trying to capture the evanescent soul of fruit. When I looked…