You think your child does not mind wearing a dirty face diaper?

Check out the response when kids in Nevada are informed the mask mandate is ending.

As a father of five children, I can tell you it is of course wonderful to see their joyous reaction. Few things in life are more precious than the excitement of young children.

But we should never forget — NEVER — the cruel and inhumane politicians, health leaders and teachers unions who forced our kids to wear these unnecessary filthy rags for nearly two years. In the meantime, liberate your children — take off the face coverings immediately. Your children will thank you.

(Originally published on Public Square Magazine).

Let’s not dance around this. Something creepy and dangerous is happening on our college campuses—and which has now been effectively exported to workplaces and social media everywhere. 

New York University professor Jonathan Haidt often speaks of 2014 as a turning point where he saw students move from protest and frustration about unpopular views (which had been normative and common) to beginning to claim that being exposed to these views was “psychologically damaging”—and that such speech ought to be equated with “violence.”  

That prompted Jon to join Greg Lukianoff in writing “The Coddling of the American Mind,” and to start Heterodox Academy, which has gathered thousands of professors, administrators, and students grappling with the increasingly illiberal atmosphere on campus.

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Suddenly, in the last few weeks, the media has started to report the truth on the pandemic. You know, the things that I have been reporting for almost two years now? That kind of truth.

Let’s look at several examples.

The New York Times, which has been claiming for nearly two years that all people must be forced to wear masks — and double masks! — suddenly pivoted and printed the following: “The Mask Debate — More Democratic Governors Are Saying That Masks Can Come Off In Schools.” The reporter recounted an experience of trying to talk to a friend, both masked, and not being able to hear each other. 

It was not a big deal, but it reminded me that masks have both benefits and costs… If you scroll through social media, you will find no shortage of people proclaiming that mask wearing is easy FOR THEM. I don’t doubt it. But it is not so easy for many other people, including young children, people with learning disabilities and people who are hard of hearing….The benefits of universal masking in schools remain unclear. Studies — in Florida and in England, for example — tend to find little effect on caseloads. One study that did find an effect has been largely debunked….Other experts believe that the universal mask mandates are almost worthless. Among the reasons: Medical masks are designed for adults, not children, Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota epidemiologist, notes. Even masks designed for children slip off their faces. Children take off their masks to eat. Add in Omicron’s intense contagiousness, and the benefits of the current mandates may be tiny.

I wrote something very similar in the summer of 2020, and my posts were marked as “misinformation” by Facebook! Meanwhile, several fellow bloggers on M* accused me of not being Christ-like, and you should see the hate-filled emails and comments I have gotten since 2020 for writing things that, in retrospect, appear actually quite logical and reasonable. More than a dozen people wrote me personal messages hoping I would die during the pandemic because I wrote things like the above, but apparently now it is no longer verboten.

How about questioning the lockdowns? Well, it turns out that a meta-analysis by professors associated with John Hopkins shows that the lockdowns are doing much more harm than good, and this story has, miraculously, made it into the mainstream media. A key paragraph from the study:

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

Huh. That sounds almost exactly like a post I wrote in November 2020 that many Christ-like Latter-day Saint readers responded to by hoping I would die from COVID! And of course such a study would have been blocked entirely by social media just a few months ago, but now you can read the study and decide for yourself. Something definitely is going on.

I conclude with a hilarious pivot by CNN TV doctor and former Planned Parenthood president Leanna Wen. In a segment on all the mask mandate terminations announced this week, Wen was asked if she agreed with the moves:

I do. There was and is a time and place for pandemic restrictions, but when they were put in, it was always with the understanding that they would be removed as soon as we can. And in this case, circumstances have changed. Case counts are declining. Also the science has changed! We know that vaccines protect very well against Omicron, which is the dominant variant. Everyone five and older has widespread access to vaccines. And we also know about ‘one-way-masking,’ the idea that, even if other people around you aren’t wearing masks, if you wear a high-quality mask, that also protects you, the wearer, too. In this case, I’m not saying — no one is saying — that no one should wear masks, but rather that the responsibility should shift from a government mandate, imposed from the state or district of a school, rather it should shift to an individual responsibility by the family, who can still decide that their child can wear a mask if needed.

“One-way-masking.” That is absolutely hysterical! That is exactly what people opposed to mandates have been saying for two years, ie, if you want to wear a mask, go for it and be “protected” but allow other people to make their own choices. Individual choice — the thing that Wen and her ilk have been opposing for almost two years — is suddenly in vogue!

The CNN host asked about dropping mask mandates at a time when there are still high case numbers in New Jersey. And Wen said:

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I want to refer readers to this excellent post in Meridian regarding Noah.

Most of us, I would guess, have been puzzled by these verses in Genesis 9 in the Old Testament:

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Questions considered:

• Was Noah drunk or in a vision in Genesis 9?
• Was Noah in the tent of Yahweh at the time?
• What is the significance of the wine in the story?
• What does it mean that Noah was “uncovered?”
• What about the garment?
• What was it that Ham was condemned for seeing?
• What was the significance of Noah’s “nakedness?”

Read the post over on Meridian. This post alone may be an excellent example of why studying the Old Testament is so important. There are so many potential layers of meaning.