Anthony Fauci says Marjorie Taylor Greene drove death threats against him | Anthony Fauci | The Guardian

After Anthony Fauci appeared at a contentious US House hearing on Monday, the former top public health official who led the nation’s response to Covid-19 singled out the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Fox News as drivers of the “credible death threats” that he described to lawmakers.

“Whether it’s … news media – you know Fox News does it a lot – or it’s somebody in the Congress who gets up and makes a public statement that … the deaths of X number of people [were] because of policies or some crazy idea that I created, immediately, it’s like clockwork: the death threats go way up,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN.

The ex-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases then alluded to how Georgia’s conspiracy theorist Republican congresswoman assailed him during his testimony on Monday, telling the CNN host Kaitlan Collins: “When you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene in today’s hearing, those are the kinds of things that drive up the death threats because there are a segment of the population out there that believe that kind of nonsense.”

Source: Anthony Fauci says Marjorie Taylor Greene drove death threats against him | Anthony Fauci | The Guardian

Hiltzik: House Republicans attack Fauci, but fail to land a punch – Los Angeles Times

Here’s what we know about Dr. Anthony S. Fauci: As a staff member at the National Institutes of Health for 54 years and director of its National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, Fauci was a key figure in the development of therapies for HIV and ensuring that funding was available for the search for a cure.

Under his leadership, NIAID invested billions of dollars in research that resulted in the development of mRNA technology, which in turn resulted in the development of COVID-19 vaccines in record time, saving millions of lives.

Under Fauci, NIAID also sponsored research into treatments for pandemic flu and the Ebola and Zika viruses. When COVID struck, he was tapped as a top advisor to then-President Trump — one of seven presidents he has advised during his career, from Reagan through Biden…

…The subcommittee Republicans tried hard to contradict the notion that the lab leak hypothesis is a “conspiracy theory.” Fauci played along, up to a point. He acknowledged that speculation about a lab leak is not in itself a conspiracy theory, but that doesn’t go for the elaborations that many of its adherents have made of it.

“What is a conspiracy theory is the kind of distortions of that particular subject, like, it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak,” he said. “That’s a conspiracy.” He was referring to a ludicrous accusation published in September, with great fanfare but no factual support whatsoever, by none other than Wenstrup

Source: Hiltzik: House Republicans attack Fauci, but fail to land a punch – Los Angeles Times

Slowed Down But Not Run Down | From Behind the Pen

Image Credit: Jiří Mikoláš

There are teachable moments throughout our phases and stages of life, but there are also learnable moments that penetrate each chapter we go through. I realize there are things I am not able to do now as effectively as I once did through my formative years, but there are things I can do now that would have been impossible to do during those formative years.

We are familiar with the quote, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey”  by Ralph Waldo Emerson that makes us realize every single thing we endured and celebrated to get to where we are now. We are at a different level of awareness and acceptance, and even if we cry about missed opportunities, we can’t wallow in the mud of failure.

So, what will the next chapter in our lives bring? I haven’t the faintest idea what my next chapter will look like but it will be steeped in lessons learned and an opening for more lessons to be learned. We will cross those mountains somehow if only we will try. Perhaps we will not get there as swiftly but the more we focus on a different approach and pace, we will rise with a renewed sense of purpose and position.

From The Prince of Egypt Score 1998 – Boyz II Men 

Source: Slowed Down But Not Run Down | From Behind the Pen

The Dublin Martyr’s | Ed Mooney Photography

…Back around 2000 Bray local Conall McCabe was commissioned by Cardinal Desmond Connell to sculpt a permanent memorial to two Irish Martyrs, Francis Taylor and his grandmother-in-law Margaret Ball. It’s said that Conall’s parents Una and Dermot were used as models for the sculptures as there is little known about the martyr’s physical appearance. Unveiled in 2001to applause from the clergy this bronze memorial, tells the story of two Irish people who died for their beliefs.

We shall start with Margaret Ball the earlier of the two. Margaret was originally born in Skryne in Co. Meath in 1515. (Why is everything I do & see have connections?) Her father had moved from England during the reign of Henry VIII due to the religious reforms of the time and set up a farm. By 15 she had married a Bartholomew Ball of Balrothery, whom operated the bridge over the river Dodder. They had 10 kids of which only five survived till adulthood. Then in 1553 her husband was elected Mayor of Dublin, which in effect made Margaret a Mayoress. All good so far, right? They say you Can choose your friends but not your family. Never such a truer statement in this case.

One of her sons became protestant in an effort to do better for himself and climb the ladder so to speak. The story goes that he came home to find Archbishop Dermot O’ Hurley, celebrating Mass with the family. So the horrible little bollox had his own mother arrested and jailed in Dublin castle. Back then jail was no picnic, its said that she could have secured her freedom by taking the ‘Oath of Supremacy’, but she refused and died at the age of 69, crippled with arthritis after spending three years in a damp dungeon…

Source: The Dublin Martyr’s | Ed Mooney Photography