Two Trips To This, that, ‘tuther

Notes scribbled on the back of a non-burnt 1970 draft card . . .

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YES, TIDBITS TWO weeks in a row. A good friend reminded me that sputtering on forever on single topics can get old. Sometimes it’s just enjoyable to hop around a bit. Thanks, KP! I appreciate the heads up!

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DID YOU hear that Rep. Jim Jordan from Ohio got pummeled on social media (where else?) for having the audacity to say . . . get this . . . “Only Americans should vote in American elections.” What is wrong with us?

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ALONG THOSE lines, I may have mentioned in the past that my great-grandparents on my Mom’s side came from Ireland. They came from County Wicklow and County Kilkenny and are buried in Rensselaer. Just for grins and giggles, I decided to check to see what it would take for me to live in Ireland. The requirements are extremely restrictive. So I checked a few other countries. Ditto. Nowhere I checked said I couldn’t move there, just that I had to meet specific requirements to do so. What’s wrong with that? Seems pretty smart – and fair – to me.

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SPEAKING OF social media, have you heard the uproar over the Super Bowl ads about Jesus? The campaign “He Gets Us” basically shares how Jesus gets everyone. However, the woke crowd is coming out of the woodwork, insinuating that there is some dark force behind the campaign. It’s astounding that we live in a world where people believe there are more than two sexes and that there is something negative about Jesus.

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WHILE WE are on the subject, I was listening to Pastor Allen Jackson (www.allenjackson.com) talk about the concept of male and female. He made two pretty compelling points. First, he grew up the son of a veterinarian and was around animals a lot. Pretty sure only male and females lived in the barn, he said. He went on to suggest that if you are buying a puppy and the answer you get when you ask if it’s a boy or girl is that it’s confusing, buy that puppy somewhere else.

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EVER WONDER how we got to a place where so many of the basic beliefs held by so many turned upside down? And, that if you say anything about it, you are the one who’s wrong? We seem to have lost the ability to agree to disagree on a civil basis. Look, I get the fact that just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it right. Our history is full of that. But we’re not talking about things that hurt others. Why are people so quick to be mean and attack?

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LAST WEEK, I mentioned that columnist and long-time friend John Marlowe is fighting prostate cancer. The amount of people who have said something since then is, well, not surprising. John has always been one of our most popular reads – not to mention that he has won first place in the entire state for column writing. Being named the best columnist in the state is kind of like winning the IHSAA state basketball tournament. John’s won enough times that if this were basketball, he’d be a Hall of Famer! And if there’s a Hall of Fame for nice guys, he’d be front and center.

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A QUICK thank you to the Kiwanians. They invited this old vagabond journalist to speak with them about the Israel trip. Thanks kindly and I’m looking forward to it. If your community group would like to hear and see about the trip, let me know. You can reach me at [email protected]. The feedback from those who have sat through it so far is that it really isn’t as bad as Uncle Bob’s vacation slide show.

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AND FINALLY, we briefly mentioned the Chinese balloon last week. Since then, a few more have been spotted (and shot down – good on you President Biden and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau). Are they all from China? What’s the purpose? Are they a threat? At this point, there are more questions than answers. Still, it’s a little concerning when one U.S. official says that there’s no increase in flights, just that we are doing better on our surveillance. Really? We have missed slow-moving objects the size of cars and buses in the past?

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OK, SORRY, one more note. It just dawned on me that I wrote a sentence I never thought I’d write: Good on you President Biden and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. Hey, got to call it like I see it, right?

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at [email protected].