Random thoughts on a Wednesday night

•  I've never heard Dr. Smith speak before. She's sharp as a tack. I think she's a bit too soft of JPII but for anyone who still is walking around with rose colored glasses about our bishops she's an excellent dose of reality. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Taylor Marshall has dropped out of the presidential race...of course. 
  
  
  
• I dislike the phrase human trafficking because it's a polite euphemism for pimping and sex slavery; things that should be should not be sugar coated.  Some people comfort themselves with the idea that this only happens in the big city or in poor areas. These snobs are deluding themselves.  A few years ago I read about a young man in his 20s  who took his teen aged girlfriend  to a motel room and would not let her leave. He and his friend placed an online ad and sold her to the degenerates who answered the ad and met them at the motel. This atrocity went on  for weeks. Eventually, the police were notified by someone and she was rescued. Her family thought she was a runaway.  This happened in a cute, historic tiny Virginia town that tourists visit.
  
  
  
  
  
• Covid sent a lot of people over the edge. Rocky and I went to Chesapeake Beach last week and I was fascinated by how many people were dressed like they were in their bedrooms. It was a whole lot of pajamas and lounge wear. I'm not talking about young people either. The worst dressed people with unkempt hair who looked like they had just come out of their dens were in their 40s and 50s. It's like a lot of people just don't have the will or energy to even groom themselves.
  
  In my area violent crime has exploded. People seem to have shorter fuses in general and something odd is happening with the homeless population. Psychotic episodes are becoming more frequent and going to the gas stations has become unnerving. There are so many wild eyed men standing in the parking lots glaring at people or demanding money. Rocky used to get gas before he went to work in the mornings. Now he goes in the afternoon when there are more customers at the station.