What Did We Expect?

What did we expect? We bemoan the decline of our society. The demise of the soul of our culture, we call it the culture wars. But there’s no war, only a full on retreat, in the face of an onslaught from the morally bankrupt, and Godless masses. I say masses but in actuality its a minority, at least it was, but that won’t last. As we continue to retreat from the woke crowd and as our society continues to give ground to the offended, and victimized, we throw away the values and morals that formed us, and gave us any reason to exist as moral and just in the first place. I’ve watched as major corporations with woke agendas have butchered the literary works of some of the most respected and revered authors, I’ve sat and listened as YouTube pundits pointed out all the bad acting and nonsensical plot points in almost all of the recent cinematography, and rightly so in most instances. But the one thing most of them miss is where it all started and why it has gotten so bad. One of my favorite sayings and one this blog is fond of pointing out is “those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it”. I submit that we not only have forgotten history, but are actively trying to erase it, along with science and rational thinking. The genesis of this can be uncovered fairly easily for those willing to admit to it. God… or more precisely the lack thereof. What did we expect? Without God there are no morals, without morals there is no moral purpose, without a moral purpose there is no just society, with no just society there is naught but anarchy, and with anarchy comes authoritarianism, and dictatorship. A society where might makes right and carnal pleasures akin to the beasts of the field reign supreme. The scripture is rife with instances wherein man has taken this road, Sodom and Gomorrah being only one of the many. Sadly I can remember not long ago that I firmly believed that America could never be like that… I was wrong. We are on the brink of that kind of madness and the only solution is God. Not church, God…. There is a major difference. The church threw God out long ago. We told him to take a back seat or better yet just step out of the car, we got it from here. So our churches have become facades, having a form of religion, but denying the power thereof. We go to church on Sunday, and maybe on Wednesday and let the pastor tell us what to think, and how to pray. Fact is I doubt many churchgoers actually pray at all, except for at meal times, and how sincere is that? I’m no saint, I fell into that category for decades, I played church all the while telling myself how spiritual I was, I could easily go there again. Its too easy to let someone else do the work. Rather dig into the word of God yourself discover God for yourself! Not some self help book or guided study no,… read God’s word! Absorb it, even if you think you don’t understand it, still read it, then read it some more. God’s word will never return void. There are countless books, by countless authors all clamoring for your attention, there is only one book written by your creator, by God, the one who spoke the universe into existence. Why are we so certain that God, who created us, fashioned us in our mother’s womb is unable to speak to us through the very book that he wrote?

R/ 1776Conservatist

Global Abdication

                What does the WHO/UN/WEF’s unholy union have in common with Alexander the Great?  Two words… World Domination.  We are witnessing the death of freedom and the rise of a global dystopian government.  This is literally 1984 writ large on a global scale.  This week the World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos, and The World Health Organization in Geneva, coincidence?  I think not, within the last few weeks those of us paying attention saw the United Nations joining forces with the World Economic Forum to push their 2030 agenda… You know the one with the catchy phrase “you will own nothing and be happy” yea those guys. In Davos they’re dreaming up new and trendier methods to control the populace, while in Geneva the WHO is considering the best ways to force member nations into compliance.  All the while the UN… You know the Blue helmeted “peace keeping” forces, are standing by in the wings.  None of this stuff is hidden anymore, they are openly discussing putting microchips in pills, in Davos, while they talk about changing the WHO’s constitution to allow them to intervene globally in case of a “medical emergency” rather than a pandemic in Geneva.  Meaning that it won’t matter who we put into office as they will be nothing more than figure heads with no control because we’ve ceded our sovereignty to the global elites.  I’m a vet and fought for this country, not even realizing that even as I served, our country was being undermined by the soft tyranny, the erosion of our values, and the gradual offshoring of our sovereignty, all in the name of keeping us safe, or the “it’s for the children” phrase we hear ad nauseum.  We swallowed the lies, we ingested the poison and unfortunately it is bearing monstrous fruit, the likes of which has only been speculated about in books and articles like 1984.  What can be done?  Definitely vote, especially in your local counties as they are going to likely be your last and in many cases your only earthly defense.  Prepare yourself and your families, stock up on essentials, learn to grow your own food, learn to fish and hunt.  Get to know your neighbors and have a plan.  Much like in the cold war era when we were prepping to feed our families and defend our homes from a would-be foreign invader, now that invader may well be wearing a blue helmet, or God forbid even have a United States patch on his or her arm.   I am unequivocally not condoning violence in any form, I personally believe that is something that will have to be decided on a state or county level, as anyone advocating for or conducting forceful resistance would simply be put down or jailed and give the control freaks another “nutjob” to vilify thereby scaring the masses into further compliance.  Above all pray and seek God within your own circles of influence.  In the long run God is our only true hope, no guns, or militias, or even churches will be our salvation.  Churches will turn on their parishioners, and pastors will feed their flocks to the lions, all in the name of safety, compliance, and money.  The body of Christ will be a remnant, not of the compliant cowed masses of church goers, obediently reciting the tired and closely monitored rhetoric allowed by our global masters.  But a remnant of believers earnestly delving into their Bibles, seeking in earnest and utter conviction God’s will and his salvation.  Recent upheavals in my own life have given me the gift of understanding that God is and was and is all their ever will be.  He is the only thing left to hold on to, governments will fail you and attempt to enslave you, that is their very nature.  Corporations will attempt to control you to maximize their profits.  Churches will bow to government control thanks to tax breaks, and a misguided attempt to mold people into their own images rather than God’s image and the God given freedom that our once proud and noble country was founded upon.  God however will never fail you, he’s not interested in enslaving you, and your money is nothing to him.  He only asks that you trust him, that you believe in him and give him the reigns of your life.  Now you may say that seems little different than what the Government is after, and to an extent you’d be right, I have two points that deserve consideration, however.  One: that God truly does have your best interests at heart, and he already knows what you’re going to do anyway.  And Two: God is the only one who actually has the right to ask for, even demand our loyalty and obedience.  He did create us after all, then when we deserved nothing but destruction from him, he sent his only son to live a mortal life, to suffer the same sufferings we do and more.  He then sends him to the cross to give us hope of eternal salvation in heaven and an unshakable rock to stand on in this life.  And in the coming days and years that rock will be all we have to stand on, we will have to trust God in all aspects of our lives.  It won’t be just a catchy platitude but a stark and unrelenting reality.  Is it scary?  Yea very, but I have seen God work miracles, and give us just what we need, when we needed it.  Often it wasn’t a lot, nothing too over the top like pillars of fire and such, rather it’s been little things.  A child’s turn for better health when the doctors had written him off, an eagle landing on a fence post only a stones throw away.   An assurance from my son that he’s reading God’s word every day, even though I can’t be there with him.  An old friend calling seemingly from out of the blue, just to tell us they are praying for us.  It’s the little things that get us through each and every day.  It’s the consistent hope and knowledge that no matter how hard it gets God has a purpose and already knows the final chapters.  He not only read the books of our lives, rather he wrote them and knows what he has in store for us.  Sometimes that can mean pain, sometimes joy, but in all God is.

The Conservatist

Faith and Politics

Byzantine art Istanbul (public domain no attribution)

A pastor recently asked his congregation why we as Christians should concern ourselves with politics. His remark was specific as to why we as Christians know who is running for Governor in Virginia? He indicated that the knowledge of who was running for Governor in Virginia shouldn’t have any bearing on our lives. In the literal sense he is correct as we are in Colorado and not in Virginia and if that’s all he is saying then yes I can see his point to some degree. However this reminds me of a conversation I had with my little brother several years ago. This was while I was still in the military and Bush was president at the time if I recall. Elections were coming up and he didn’t see any necessity in really looking into or caring about politics since we as Christians don’t consider this world as our home anyway. While I agree with him that this world is not our home, I also have differing views as to our responsibilities while we are here, and I discussed those views with him. Specifically that our savior commissioned us to go into all the world and make disciples of all creatures. In keeping with that mandate we as citizens of this great nation that God gave us, and that was founded on Judaeo-Christian values have a moral and spiritual duty to preserve the nation that has allowed us to spread God’s word, and to preserve the freedoms that we so flippantly enjoy in regards to our faith.

When it comes to politics, it is very true that no politics in and of themselves will save us or our country. But to disregard politics and consider them of no value or beneath us, is to ignore the primary vehicle by which our rights to practice our faith freely will be curtailed and eventually eliminated. Yes we need to pray for the salvation of our politicians and for God’s guiding hand on our Nations leaders, but just as importantly we must be willing to step out of our comfort zones and stand up politically for those rights that are being destroyed while we arrogantly ignore them as somehow beneath our notice. Else one day we look down to realize that those freedoms that were so desperately fought for, whose existence was paid for with the blood of thousands of patriots lay broken and shattered at our feet, and looking up from those broken remains we look straight into the barrel of the pistol of repression and dictatorship that our freedoms had so recently protected us from. I have no doubt that in that day God can still protect us and bring many to his name, however to squander the freedom to share our faith now and to defend our ability to do so is irresponsible at best and shortsighted and arrogant at worst. How would we have even known the freedoms we hold dear had our forefathers not made the difficult decision to leave all they had known, trusting in God to bring them to a new world. Or had they not laid out our constitution that set onto paper those God given rights contained therein.

We have no certainty of when Christ will return nor of when or how long the end times will be. We in our arrogance have placed restrictions on God detailing what will and must happen and when, however God himself said that it would be as a thief in the night. We can speculate ad-nauseum on the signs and portents that indicate Christ’s return but there is no absolute certainty nor will there be. One thousand years after Christ the fall of Byzantium seemed to herald the end, and in 1943 the world went to war a second time and Hitler was a shoe-in for an antichrist figure, but it wasn’t the end.

It would be a travesty to give up on our country now and consign the future generations of our nation to bondage and slavery to overblown government control. All this just because we couldn’t be bothered to look beyond the walls of our churches, our homes, or our workplaces into the gathering cesspools that our schools have become, and the building storm clouds of a government gone drunk on its own power. It is as heinous if not more so than the blind eye the German people turned towards the plight of the Jewish people. And just as in the days of Noah we are asleep and content to remain so, not only politically but spiritually. In all reality I agree with the pastor’s sermon since it is a call to reach out and bring in the harvest while we still can, I only contend that let us not throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak. Let us continue to fight for our freedoms so that future generations can continue to spread God’s word for however long God deems necessary, as that time frame is not ours to decide, but his.

Are we seeing it again?

Reichstag fire 1933 (Picture public domain in U.S)

The Weimar Republic, the most forward thinking and progressive Republic in the early 1900s, created the most heinous, and monstrous regime in recent history. But if that small country, which is smaller than the current state of New Mexico, was responsible for the horrors of World War II, how much worse would the fall of our country into the same totalitarian hell be? But you say that our country is nothing like the Weimar Republic, and we don’t have some totalitarian regime waiting in the wings to take over. Or do we? In 1931 the Novelist Fredrich Frans von Unruh wrote that to have a totalitarian regime come to power. They would use “Dictatorship, Abolition of the Parliament, crushing of all intellectual liberties, inflation, terror, civil war.” He also stated that Hitler’s rise to power would be greeted by millions of determined opponents.” In that respect he was wrong as the parliament already with a Nazi majority folded without a whimper. Today will he be wrong? Will we as a nation fold to those who would radically remake our country into a utopian hell, where freedom to think and speak for oneself and ones family is outlawed. A country who denies its citizens the basic freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Don’t imagine that it can’t happen. The Reichstag fire of 1933 gave Hitler the impetus to enact the emergency powers clause in the Republic’s constitution which allowed him to start rounding up ” dissidents” and closing down the rights of the people to free speech. Now much as then the impetus is driven by some great disaster, namely the coronavirus. Only this is much more insidious because thanks to the administrations narrative there is a more direct visceral fear factor involved and a fearful society is a malleable one. We aren’t having our speech and our ability to interact forcefully taken from us yet. No we have willingly given the government that level of control. Last year we hunkered down in our homes scared of living, we listened as governors and leaders told us that it was for our own good, for our safety. Only small handfuls here and there resisted, and they were more often than not shamed into compliance, or just simply forced to comply by threatening their livelihoods or being arrested and tossed into jails that were letting real criminals go, because “coronavirus”… We now see our government leaders destroying the livelihoods of millions of Americans, either by direct fiat… “get the shot or lose your job”… or by coercing the businesses that employ them. Make no mistake this isn’t just a private business saying “if you want to work here then you’ve got to be vaccinated” No look behind the curtain, and you’ll see the federal government with a gun to there heads. These businesses stand to lose thousands, more likely millions and not to any market fluctuation, but a direct and open threat by the very organizations who are supposed to be working for “We the people.” Just the other day I see an article on Merrick Garland and what appears to be for all intents and purposes a direct threat to the American citizenry’s ability to influence their local school boards. Now let me be clear I’m in no way condoning threats of violence, but after having seen numerous instances where parents were ushered out of a school board meeting, simply because the board didn’t like what they had to say, I have very little confidence that a broad brush won’t be used to paint any and all opposing views as racist and therefore terrorist. Our greatest strength is still in our numbers, but those numbers will be meaningless if we continue to abdicate our rights and liberties. If we as a nation do not stand and say no to these illegal mandates, if we don’t stand and say no we will not comply to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights then we won’t have any rights to stand on. Let me be once more quite clear on what I am and am not advocating. I am not advocating violence in any form. Rather I advocate getting more involved with your local government. Go to the school board meetings, the city council meetings, county commissioners meetings. Find out who these people we’ve “elected” are and what they stand for and if necessary vote them out or get recall petitions filed. If we stand idly by and doze while they burn our freedoms to the ground, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. As history marches on and we continue to repeat the mistakes of the past, as one dictatorial regime rewrites the history or expunges it completely, and inevitably falls to same fires of destruction that claimed its predecessor. It is only “We the people” who can influence this course but first we must wake up and see what is happening under our noses.

R.L. Malcolm

1776conservatist.com

Declaration of Medical Autonomy

This is my religious exemption request that I’m sending to the would be tyrants, feel free to use it.

Vaccination Exemption Request

Declaration of Medical Autonomy

09/30/2021

To Whom It May Concern:

                I am a Christian first and foremost, I am an American citizen, and I am a federal employee.  I do not ask for an exemption as I will refuse this vaccine regardless.  I require this exemption as I believe sincerely that the federal government has no right to blackmail its citizens into participating in a state sponsored religious movement.  My objections and denunciations are as follows. 

  1. Rosenberger v. Rector & the Univ. or Va., 515 U.S. 819, 825 (U.S. 1995) “Religious Activity is defined as any activity that primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or and ultimate reality.”
  2. Title 42. The Public Health and Welfare; Chapter 21. Civil Rights; Equal Employment Opportunities: “Religion includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief,” 
  3. The Establishment clause of the Bill of Rights states “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. “ 

My contention is this, that the government has indeed violated its own laws in demanding this vaccine, and making it a requirement for continued public service.  I have served this country for eighteen years and while a member of the armed forces I was willing to lay my life down to protect the people and the ideals of this great nation.  I am still willing to defend her.  The oath I took then and the oath I took when accepting the position of a Transportation Screening Officer were to “uphold and defend the constitution”, not the government, a party, or an administration.  The current crop of coronavirus “vaccines” were developed under emergency authorization.  They have been in use for less than a year as of this writing.  Therefore, any attestations that the “vaccines” are safe and effective are limited to the information obtained since they were introduced earlier this year.  There is by no means any current long term studies into the efficacy or safety of said “vaccines”.  As in these “vaccines” have not been available for even one year therefore it is inconceivable that there is legitimate long term human testing via this current crop of “vaccinations”.  In other words, the belief that these vaccines are safe and effective is just that a belief in an ultimate reality.  I.E… it is a faith not a fact.   

        This current Administration and millions of its adherents believe sincerely in the efficacy of these “vaccines” despite no long term evidence supporting these beliefs. In the United States v. Ballard, (1944) it was established that the sincerity of a person’s beliefs was essential in determining what constitutes a religion. Upon reviewing what I know and what I’ve seen I sincerely believe that this push to get vaccinated while threatening the livelihood of millions of Americans is nothing more than an attempt by this administration to foist a state run and state sponsored religion upon its citizens, which is contrary to the sincerely held beliefs of millions of American citizens myself included.  If there are still doubts as to the sincerity held by this administration and my belief that they are forcing a religious activity upon me and my fellow federal employees, one only need consider what a federally funded member of the executive branch of government stated recently to her congregation and constituents.  New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently addressed the congregation at her church with these blasphemous and telling statements.

“I’ve prayed a lot to god during this time and you know what?  god did answer our prayers, he made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers, he made them come up with a vaccine, that is from god to us.  And we must say thank you god, thank you.  And I wear my vaccinated necklace all the time to say I’m vaccinated.  All of you, yes I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there that aren’t listening to god, and what god wants, you know this, you know who they are.  I need you to be my apostles, I need you to go out and talk about it, and say we owe this to each other, we love each other.  Jesus taught us to love one another, and how do you show that love, but to care about each other enough to say please get vaccinated because I love you. “

…………..

        In conclusion society has preached to us for years on the “separation of church and state”.  Now this administration and its adherents are trying to use that same “God” that was banned from our schools, from our institutes of higher learning, and from our houses of legislation to force a twisted version of him and his teachings down our throats.  To the point of threatening our jobs and our livelihoods unless we partake in this unholy sacrament, this statement of faith, no less a religious act than being baptized or taking communion.  Lump on top of that the fact that these “vaccines were all developed utilizing the cell lines of aborted unborn babies and you have the perfect satanic ritual forced upon a fear stricken and malleable society.  Astoreth and Baal required sacrifices of this nature and the fact that the language has been sanitized and seeded with medical terminology and the delivery has been sifted through “medical science”, makes it no less abhorrent to God.  The one true God… the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses.  The God who sent his son to pay the price for our sins.  The God who proclaimed that “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee” Jeremiah 1:5. And “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” Exodus 20:3.  And finally “Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”.   That last bit exhorts me to use my own intellect to discern between right and wrong.  And when a government or administration attempts to coerce me to commit an act that violates my commitment to God, to commit an act that is an abomination to the Supreme Crafter that created my very soul and essence I will… no I must not comply!  If I must lose my job then so be it… for I will not sully my soul to practice a satanic ritual just to appease a corrupt and venal administration. 

Roy L. Malcolm TSO/CEZ

Vaccine… Religion?

This is by way of a food for though exercise. I will attempt to make the case that the vaccine mandates fall under the purview of “religious activity” as defined in Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 825 (U.S. 1995) “Religious Activity is defined as any activity that primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.” ref: https://definitions.uslegal.com/r/religious-activity/ and in 42 USCS § 2000e [Title 42. The Public Health and Welfare; Chapter 21. Civil Rights; Equal Employment Opportunities] “religion includes “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief,” ref: https://definitions.uslegal.com/r/religion/.

  1. The current crop of coronavirus “vaccines” were developed under emergency authorization. They have been in use for less than a year as of this writing. Therefore any attestations that the “vaccines” are safe and effective are limited to the information obtained since they were introduced earlier this year. There is by no means any current long term studies into the efficacy or safety of said “vaccines”. As in these “vaccines” have not been available for even one year therefore it is inconceivable that there is long term human testing via this current crop of “vaccinations”.
  2. The Websters dictionary prior to this pandemic defined vaccines as “any preparation used to render an organism immune to some disease, by inducing or increasing the natural immunity mechanisms. Prior to 1995, such preparations usually contained killed organisms of the type for which immunity was desired, and sometimes used live organisms having attenuated virulence. Since that date, preparations containing only specific antigenic portions of the pathogenic organism have also been used. Some of these are prepared by genetic engineering techniques.”ref: https://webster-dictionary.org/definition/vaccine. In the 2021 edition the new definitions were promulgated to include MRNA vaccines, however this definition and the vaccines themselves are extremely new to the equation.
  3. The United States Government and millions of adherents believe sincerely in the efficacy of these vaccines despite no long term evidence supporting these beliefs. In United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 64 S. Ct. 882, 88 L. Ed. 1148 (1944) it was established that the sincerity of a persons beliefs was essential in determining what constitutes a religion. Therefore these beliefs in an ultimate reality of long term vaccine efficacy are just that beliefs albeit sincerely held ones. Ergo they are religious in nature.
  4. The Establishment clause in the Bill of Rights states “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion”. It is time that this statement be used as it was meant. To reign in a tyrannical government from inflicting on its citizenry a state religion.
  5. These mandates are not laws, however the fact that they are binding in as much as they threaten the individual’s livelihood and impinge on the citizenry’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are in fact laws albeit wholly unconstitutional. Webster’s defines law as “a binding custom or practice of a community : a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority” ref: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laws

In conclusion the government has no right to impinge upon the civil liberties of its citizens and mandate, or decree, or create a law that forces its citizens to adopt a form of religion whether it involves a deity or not.

Gettysburg Address

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggles here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they long who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to THE GREAT TASK BEFORE US – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN- THAT THIS NATION, UNDER GOD, SHALL HAVE A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM – and that GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE shall not perish from the earth. ” (Abraham Lincoln Nov 19, 1863 part of the Gettysburg Address)

We have tried to take history from our schools, we have taken God from so many walks of life…but God has never left he is there more and more seeing who will hold his name….our generations to come deserve to know so they don’t relive the mistakes of the past…our honored dead and veterans deserve our great nation that God has given us to be upheld to the standards that they have paid the ultimate price for as Lincoln said “Under God”… and put God back where he belongs in every walk of our lives… God is the reason we have been blessed…and our fore fathers knew it…

My wife wrote this in response to an excerpt she read from the Gettysburg Address that she found fitting for our current times.

Why Here? Why Now?

Even before the advent of the printing press, we humans have been documenting our lives and the occurrences within them both large and small. From the hieroglyphics and the papyrus scrolls of ancient civilizations, to the digital tweets and posts of the modern era. We would be hard pressed to claim that we don’t have enough information to make informed decisions, quite the opposite. We are instead inundated with data and much of it conflicting, uncorroborated, and ill informed. Sifting through the “soup” as it were is a daunting task at best. The task I’ve set before myself is to create a site that can highlight the times and places in history that correlate closely with what we see today. History’s penchant for repeating itself in other words. Hopefully we can then discern the mistakes that were made and in turn avoid making those same mistakes in the future. If I were to stop there then this blog would be purely academic, however I realize that for any real change to occur we as a people and nation must be willing to stand for what we believe. In that vein I will also be incorporating articles pertaining to what we can do as average law abiding citizens to influence the direction of history and hopefully deter any unavoidable catastrophes clearly spelled out for us by our forefathers, and or ancestors.

So why do this? What is the impetus that is launching this site and changing the trajectory of my life? Simply put I found it frustrating that I could seemingly do nothing to stop or slow the deterioration of our country and our principles. I vote, but somehow we still manage to get politicians that are more interested in padding their pocketbooks and keeping the status quo than any true representatives of we the people. I see big money being thrown around and anymore it seems that whoever has the largest pile of cash will likely win any election. It can be quite frustrating especially after recent events like our inglorious retreat from Afghanistan, or the recent proclamations handed down from our president. I am a husband, a father, Navy veteran, farmer, and currently employed by the federal government. That employment may soon end as the recent regulation dictated by our president will eliminate my ability to continue to serve after eighteen years of service. Ergo… along with trying to get my dry-land farm to actually produce something, I’ve started this blog and my wife and I may start another one on a somewhat lighter tone in the near future.