NEW YOR K | DC EDITION
00
In the News
NEWS
A Gallup poll has shown that
Americans’ distrust of mass
media has reached a record
high, with 33 percent saying
they had no confidence at all
in the media. ...A4
Pennsylvania election data
show that more than 432,000
votes were removed from Pres-
ident Donald Trump during the
November election, data scien-
tists say. ...A1
A family-owned restau-
rant in Oregon is appealing
a fine it received for remain-
ing open contrary to Gov. Kate
Brown’s executive order ban-
ning dine-in eating. ...A5
Sen. Josh Hawley has de-
clared that he “will not be in-
timidated” after he said a group
of Antifa members threatened
his family in their Washington
home. ...A1
A leaked report analyzing
organ allocation and transplant
data in a Chinese province has
cast doubt on the credibility of
China’s official organ registra-
tion system. ...A11
Lockdown measures have
been catastrophically chal-
lenging for newly recovering
drug addicts. ...A1
BUSINESS
A letter sent by a group of
senators to the director of the
U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office, requesting an inquiry
into gender inclusion in patent
law practice, is another in a
long list of attacks on Ameri-
can innovation, according to
engineer and inventor Robert
Zeidman. ...A22
Social Security checks will
go up 1.3 percent due to the
automated cost-of-living ad-
justment, according to a sum-
mary of 2021 Social Security
updates. ...A23
OPINION
Mark Bauerlein: Conserva-
tive Ethnogenesis...A14
Wesley J. Smith: Beware the
Corporatocracy...A15
Theodore Dalrymple: CO-
VID Ushers in Stimulus. The
Taxman Follows...A16
FEATURES
The 1657 Flushing Remon-
strance, “the religious Magna
Carta of the New World,” re-
vealed principled courage. ...B1
Sugar, salt, and fat make junk
food delicious but undermine
our immune systems. ...C1
Former baseball star Darryl
Strawberry on his transforma-
tive journey from trauma to
faith. ...B2
Concerned parents and re-
searchers are driving an overdue
discussion on vaccine safety.
...C2
READERS’ VIEWS
Do you feel that elected
officials in your state have
done enough to investigate
allegations of voter fraud?
Let us know at:
EpochQuestion.com
Read more on...A18
DON’T DELAY.
SUBSCRIBE TODAY.
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| W E D N E S D A Y, J A N . 6 , 2 0 21
ELECTION INTEGRITY President Donald Trump during a rally at Dalton Regional Airport in Georgia on Jan. 4, 2021.
Trump Committed to Election
Challenge Beyond January 6
Describing election as ‘rigged,’ president vows to keep fighting,
suggests more information coming out in next few weeks
BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV
P
resident Donald Trump
intends to continue
pursuing challenges to
the outcome of the 2020
election in as many as eight states
regardless of the result of the
joint session of Congress on Jan.
6, when lawmakers will vet and
count Electoral College votes.
During a Jan. 4 rally at an air-
field in Dalton, Georgia, the pres-
LOCKDOWNS
Lockdown Measures
Catastrophic for Recovering
Addicts, Mental Health
BY CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON
MINNEAPOLIS—Overseeing sober
living homes for newly recovering
drug addicts is difficult in the best
of times. But the endless shutdowns
have created conditions that are
challenging for healthy people, let
alone those who are fresh out of
rehab, vulnerable, and still reeling.
Matt Royce, 35, oversees seven
sober-living homes in Minneapo-
lis. All of his houses, each holding
between 9 and 13 people, have been
Matt Royce, sober-living supervisor, in Minneapolis on Jan. 1, 2021.
CONGRESS
Sen. Josh Hawley
Says Antifa
‘Threatened’ Wife,
Newborn Daughter
BY MIMI NGUYEN LYK
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) declared
that he “will not be intimidated”
after he said a group of Antifa mem-
bers threatened his family in their
Washington home late on Jan. 4.
“Tonight, while I was in Missouri,
Continued on A4
Accuracy The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as an independent newspaper with the goal to restore accuracy and
integrity in media. We have received numerous awards for our reporting, including from the Society of Professional
& Integrity Journalists, the Society for News Design, and the New York Press Association.
Truth & Tradition
MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
ident told a crowd of thousands of able. You lose, you lose ... but when
supporters to expect more news you win in a landslide and they steal
about the challenges to the elec- it and it’s rigged, it’s not acceptable.”
tion over the next two weeks. Trump later said he’ll be in
“You watch what happens over Georgia to campaign against Re-
the next couple of weeks. You publican Gov. Brian Kemp and
watch what’s going to come out. Secretary of State Brad Raffens-
Watch what’s going to be re- perger “in about a year and a half,”
vealed,” the president said. which suggests that the president
“That was a rigged election, but views the post-election challenge
we’re still fighting it and you’ll see as a long-term battle. Kemp and
what’s going to happen. Raffensperger, who certified for-
“You can lose and that’s accept- Continued on A3
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
“pretty full the whole time.”
No overdose deaths had occurred Then-Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) testifies
during a hearing before the House Foreign
in his homes in almost three years,
Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Wash-
but last summer he lost two people,
ington on March 20, 2007.
while another three were revived
from overdoses with opioid-blocker POLITICS
Narcan.
Depression has “skyrocketed”
since the lockdowns began, Royce
Pro-Life House
said. Recovering addicts are strug- Democrat
gling even more now due to bore-
dom, inability to see family and Reflects on How
friends, and lack of social activities.
Continued on A8 the Party Has
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
Changed
BY CARA DING
CHICAGO—One of the last pro-life
Democrats in Congress left office
with the close of 2020.
Over his eight terms, former
Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) saw
the number of pro-life Democrats
in the lower house dwindle from
about 60 to two, and now none.
Many times, he felt pressure to go
with the tide; he was told to either
quit being a Democrat or quit being
pro-life—that he couldn’t be both.
But he didn’t listen, and he believes
that choice cost him reelection.
“I don’t value my seat in the House
ANNA MONEYMAKER-POOL/GETTY IMAGES
of Representatives—as much as I
was honored to be a representative
for 16 years—more highly than I
value standing up for what’s right,”
Lipinski told The Epoch Times.
His Christian-based morals,
along with his education as a sci-
entist, led him to his pro-life stance.
“Faith and reason go together,”
Lipinski said. “The science clearly
shows us that life begins at con-
ception. I believe in following the
science when the science is clear.”
He stayed with the Democratic
Party because he felt that one of its
foundational principles is to help
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Oct. the most vulnerable.
13, 2020. Continued on A5
VOL . VOL . X V I I I | NO. 2,869 $3.
CCP INFLUENCE
‘Transfer’
of Foreign
Technologies
BY ALEX WU
Chinese authorities have funded
projects that are aimed at obtain-
ing foreign advanced technologies
through partnerships with interna-
tional research institutions, a series
of leaked government documents
recently obtained by The Epoch
Times reveals.
Public records show that China’s
Ministry of Science and Technol-
ogy is behind the efforts.
Continued on A10
HOME DELIVERY ADDRESS :
PENNSYLVANIA
Over 432,000
Votes Removed
From Trump in
Pennsylvania,
Data Scientists Say
BY ALLEN ZHONG
Pennsylvania election data show
that over 432,000 votes were re-
moved from President Donald
Trump during the November elec-
tion, data scientists say.
According to an analysis by the
Data Integrity Group, obtained ex-
clusively by The Epoch Times, votes
for Trump—from both Election Day
and mail-in ballots—were removed
from the totals in at least 15 counties.
Time-series election data show
Trump’s votes decrementing in
various counties at numerous
time points, instead of increasing
as would be expected under normal
circumstances.
The group said Election Day vote
removals happened during the vote
tabulation process in at least 15
counties, including Lehigh, Ches-
ter, Allegheny, Armstrong, Westmo-
reland, Northampton, Delaware,
Montgomery, Lackawanna, Dau-
phin, Pike, Carbon, Washington,
Erie, and Luzerne.
Continued on A4
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
POMPEO:
THE ‘TRUE
FACE’ OF
THE CCP
HAS BEEN
EXPOSED
“[The CCP has] broken promise after
promise after promise,” Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo said.
Read more on A10
A2 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

NEWS BRIEFS
IMAGES BY SHUTTERSTOCK; PHOTOS BY GETTY IMAGES; AP; INSTAGRAM; THE EPOCH TIMES

PELOSI REELECTED
Dear reader, AS HOUSE SPEAKER
IN TIGHT VOTE
O
n Jan. 6, Congress
will meet to certify
The U.S. House of Representatives
the Electoral Col- voted to reelect Rep. Nancy Pelosi
lege votes for the (D-Calif.) as the speaker to lead
2020 presidential election. the chamber’s narrowest majority
According to our tally, 75 representatives and in two decades.
13 senators have committed to challenging the The House voted 216–209 to
electoral vote count. You can find the complete hand Pelosi the gavel.
list on A3.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump an-
nounced that regardless of the outcome of the
Jan. 6 meeting in Congress, he will continue to Senate Majority Leader
fight what he described as a “rigged election.”
One Trump supporter at a rally in Dalton, Geor-
McConnell’s House Vandalized
gia, told The Epoch Times: “If they certify [Biden] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.)
tomorrow ... I don’t think [Trump will] ever con- house in Louisville, Kentucky, was found vandalized
cede. He’ll just move on.” Read the full story on A1. on Jan. 2.
In this edition, we also include an overview of “Weres [sic] my money” was scrawled on the front
door in what appeared to be white spray paint,
the different ways in which the Chinese Com-
The quote is most likely in response to McCon-
munist Party interfered with the 2020 election. nell’s opposition to a pandemic stimulus package
See pages A6 and A7. that included $2,000 checks for Americans that
While lockdowns have been imposed in dif- was backed by President Donald Trump.
ferent parts of the country in the name of public Another spray-painted message read "Mitch kills the
safety, they also have resulted in a dramatic wors- poor," according to media reports. My family & I will not be
ening of problems with drugs and mental health.
Epoch Times reporter Charlotte Cuthbertson
intimidated by leftwing
traveled to Minneapolis, where she interviewed violence.
a man who oversees seven sober-living homes.
Pelosi’s House Defaced With Graffiti,
Read the full story on A8. Fake Blood, Pig Head: Reports Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), in a tweet, after a group
of Antifa members threatened his family in their
An editorial by The Epoch Times Editorial Board The San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Washington home.
on A13 highlights the importance of the current (D-Calif.) was reportedly vandalized with messages
time period for our country and how it reveals a scrawled on the garage door and what appeared
choice that each of us is making. to be a pig’s head and blood on the driveway, ac-
cording to multiple reports and images shared on
Jasper Fakkert social media.
Editor-in-chief Photos showed spray-painted messages that
read “$2K” with a line through it, “Cancel Rent?”,
“We want everything!”, an anarchist symbol of the
letter A in a circle, and “UBI!”, an apparent reference to
universal basic income.
A spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department told
Fox News that officers responded on Jan. 1 to a report of van-
dalism at a residence purported to be Pelosi’s home.
Federal Court Rules Trump
Can Bar Uninsured Immigrants
The number of cases From Entering US
A federal appeals court in California has lifted a
and deaths of the ban on President Donald Trump’s proclamation
Delay Sought in Ex- China Virus is far that blocks immigrants from entering the United
exaggerated in the States if they lack health insurance or the means
officers’ Trial Over to pay for hospital bills.
George Floyd’s Death United States. In an opinion, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Ap-
Prosecutors in the case against peals in San Francisco said that Trump acted within
President Donald Trump, saying on his authority when, in October 2019, he signed the
the four Minneapolis officers
Twitter that the U.S. Centers Proclamation on the Suspension of Entry of Im-
charged in the death of George
for Disease Control and migrants Who Will Financially Burden the United
Floyd have requested that the
Prevention has inflated States Healthcare System.
trial be delayed by three months.
the numbers in official The ruling reverses a federal court decision to
The Star Tribune reports pros-
nationwide CCP virus block the implementation of the president’s order,
ecutors cited the COVID-19 pan- case and death
demic and the amount of time delivering a win for proponents of tighter controls
counts.
needed before enough people over immigration.
are vaccinated and health risks High Share of Health Care Workers
are sufficiently diminished. Reluctant to Get COVID-19 Vaccine:
The trial has been scheduled
for March 8, but the prosecution Reports
argued that putting off the trial A relatively high percentage of those working in health care
until June 7 “appropriately bal- settings are reluctant or refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine,
ances the need to protect public research shows.
health with the need to ensure A December survey published by the Kaiser Family Foun-
that this case is resolved expedi- dation vaccine attitude tracking project tracking the public’s
tiously.” attitudes and experiences with COVID-19 vaccinations has
Soros-Funded DA Gascon found that nearly one-third of health care workers were “vac-
Sued by His Deputy cine hesitant,” saying they probably or definitely wouldn’t get
Senate Overrides Prosecutors a COVID-19 vaccine, even if it were available for free and was
Trump’s Veto of deemed safe by scientists—a figure slightly higher than the What the president said is
Los Angeles District Attorney George share of the general population.
NDAA; 13 Members Gascon is being sued by his own staff exactly what he’s been saying
Uphold Veto prosecutors for defying state law by the last few months.
500 MILLION
unilaterally deciding to ignore sentence
The Senate voted to override enhancement rules under the Three Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), in an interview with Fox News,
President Donald Trump’s veto Strikes Law, to stop seeking the death defending comments the president made during a phone
of the National Defense Autho- penalty, and to end cash bail. call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
rization Act for 2021. The Transportation Security Administration said about
Left-wing billionaire George Soros 324 million people passed through airport security check- about issues with the state’s election results.
The upper chamber approved donated more than $2 million to Gas-
the bill without the president’s points in 2020—a drop of about half a billion passengers
con’s campaign as part of a years-long compared to in 2019, when approximately 824 million
signature on an 80–13 vote—the effort to install soft-on-crime pros-
first time a Trump veto has been people passed through.
ecutors in major population
overridden. The debate over the centers.
bill ended earlier in the day with In the case Association of
the same result. Deputy District Attorneys
Thirteen senators voted to sus- (ADDA) for Los Angeles Coun-
tain Trump’s veto. ty v. Gascon, ADDA asks the
court to force Gascon to
follow the law and restrain
him and his office “from New York Confirms First Case
forcing compliance by this
County’s Deputy District of UK COVID-19 Variant
Attorneys ... with unlawful Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced that New York
portions of recently-en- had found its first case of the UK COVID-19 variant,
acted Special Directives.” a man in his 60s who has no known travel history.
The same UK strain has been confirmed in Colo-
rado, California, and Florida.

Report: Talk Show
Host Larry King
in Hospital With
COVID-19
Former CNN talk show host Larry
King has been hospitalized with
COVID-19 for more than a week,
the news channel reported.
Citing an unidentified person
close to the family, CNN said
the 87-year-old King was being
treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles.
1%
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said
in a briefing that only about 1 percent
of California’s 40 million residents
have received a COVID-19 vaccine,
an immunization rate that he decried
as “not good enough.”
Some Moderna Vaccine Doses May
Be Cut in Half: Official
A top official heading the Trump administration’s federal vac-
cine program said that the government is considering giving
people a half-dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in order to
get more people inoculated faster.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, the federal
program to surge vaccine development and distribution, told
CBS’s “Face the Nation” that officials are in talks with Moderna
and the Food and Drug Administration about the idea.
30,000
VOTES
Georgia election data indicate that more than
30,000 votes were removed from President
Donald Trump and another 12,173 votes were
switched to Democratic presidential candidate
Joe Biden, data scientists testified during a state
Senate hearing.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
President Donald Trump, his daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump, and son Donald Trump Jr. make their way to board Air Force One before
departing from Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021.
Trump Committed
to Challenging Election Beyond
Joint Session on Jan. 6
CONTINUED FROM A1
mer Vice President Joe Biden as the win-
ner of the election in the Peach State, both
have been largely uncooperative with
Trump’s requests to audit the election.
Most recently, they objected to a signa-
ture audit in Fulton County, the state’s most
populous county, according to Trump.
The president was in Georgia to drum up
support for Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Senate
candidate David Perdue for the runoff elec-
tion set to conclude on Jan. 5. While Loeffler
and Perdue have both committed to ob-
jecting to slates of Biden electors from dis-
puted states during the joint congressional
session on Jan. 6, it’s unclear if either will
participate, since the results of the runoff
elections may not be known for days.
The importance of the joint session has
continued to grow as dozens of lawsuits by
Trump’s legal team and a handful of third
parties have been dismissed by courts in
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wiscon-
sin, Arizona, and Nevada. Only a handful
of the cases featured evidentiary hearings,
while the vast majority were dismissed on
procedural grounds.
We’re still fighting it and
you’ll see what’s going to
happen.
President Donald Trump
Trump added a layer of significance to
the events on Jan. 6 by issuing an unprec-
edented call for supporters to descend on
Washington that day for a “big” and “wild”
protest. Some of the organizers believe the
event may turn into the biggest Trump rally
in history.
More than 100 members of the U.S. House
of Representatives have committed to ob-
jecting to slates of Biden electors on Jan.
6, according to White House chief of staff
Mark Meadows. At least 74 have done so
publicly, according to a tally by The Epoch
Times. A group of 13 senators has commit-
MEGAN VARNER/GETTY IMAGES
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a visit to
Rock Springs Church to campaign for GOP Senate
candidates in Milner, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021.
ted to adding their names to the objections.
The objection plan appears to have split
the GOP, with 27 Republicans in the Senate
and at least 10 Republicans in the House
opposing the idea.
An objection to each slate of electors will
trigger two hours of debate followed by a
vote by each chamber on which slate should
be counted. Republican electors in seven
states have sent procedural electoral votes
to Congress. Democrats have the majority in
the House and enough Republican support
in the Senate to certify the Biden electors.
‘I Hope Mike Pence Comes Through for Us’
Vice President Mike Pence, in his capacity
as the president of the Senate, will lead the
joint session set to begin at 1 p.m. on Jan.
6. While the Electoral Count Act restricts
Pence’s role to the opening of the envelopes
containing the Electoral College votes, some
experts argue Pence has more options be-
cause the act could be unconstitutional.
Fellow Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert
(R-Texas) attempted to force a court to clar-
ify Pence’s role by suing the vice president.
The lawsuit was tossed, and Pence’s options
remain unclear.
“The Vice President has the power to re-
ject fraudulently chosen electors,” Trump
wrote on Twitter on Jan. 5.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for
us,” Trump said at the rally in Georgia the
night before. “If he doesn’t come through,
I won’t like him quite as much. No, Mike
is a great guy. He’s a wonderful man and
a smart man and a man that I like a lot.
But he’s going to have a lot to say about it.
You know one thing with him: you’re go-
ing to get straight shots. He’s going to call
it straight.”
Pence has spent hours huddling with
Trump, staff, and the Senate parliamentar-
ian ahead of the Jan. 6 proceedings. People
close to the vice president have stressed his
respect for institutions and said they expect
him to act in accordance with the law and
follow the Constitution.
David McIntosh, president of the con-
servative Club for Growth and a friend of
Pence, told The Associated Press: “I think
he will approach this as a constitutionalist,
basically, and say, ‘What’s my role in the
Constitution as president of the Senate?’
NATION | A3
MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
CHALLENGING
THE ELECTORAL
VOTE COUNT
Republican
Representatives and
Senators Who Have
Committed to Challenge
the Electoral Vote Count
Representatives
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)
Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)
Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.)
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.)
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.)
Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)
Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.)
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)
Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.)
Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)
Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.)
Supporters of
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
President Donald
Trump gather in Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
Freedom Plaza Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)
for a rally in
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.)
Washington on
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.)
Jan. 5, 2021.
Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)
“What he’ll do is allow anybody who is Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)
going to move to object to be heard, but then Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.)
abide by what the majority of the Senate Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)
makes the outcome.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Pence was in Georgia on Jan. 4 campaign- Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)
ing for Loeffler and Perdue. In a speech at Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kansas)
Rock Springs Church in Milner, the vice
Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kansas)
president told the crowd that “we’ll have
Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-Kansas)
our day in Congress.” The vice president
subsequently made an extensive appeal Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y..)
to faith, suggesting that he doesn’t view Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
himself as being in a position to take an Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
election-altering stand on Jan. 6. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
“Even when things don’t seem like they’re Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
going the way we expected, they’re going Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
the way He expected,” Pence said, urging Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
the audience to pray. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
‘He’s Just Such a Fighter’
Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)
Trump supporters who attended the rally
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
in Dalton, Georgia, appreciated Trump’s
relentless push to challenge the election Rep. John Carter (R-Texas)
results. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
“I think he’s just such a fighter,” Amy Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)
Hicks, a homemaker from Muscle Shoals, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.)
Alabama, told The Epoch Times. “While Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.)
most Republican candidates, if they lost Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
they wouldn’t fight for it, he’s not the typical Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)
person or politician, and he never has been Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
in his four years in office. Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)
“If they certify [Biden] tomorrow, Trump,
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
I don’t think he’ll ever concede. He’ll just
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
move on.”
Thousands of supporters walked for half Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
an hour on a pitch dark rural road from Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
the police checkpoint to the rally on the Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.)
airfield at the Dalton Municipal Airport.
The crowd broke into chants of “Four more
years,” “Fight for Trump,” and “Stop the
Senators
steal” throughout the president’s speech, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
suggesting that his supporters view the Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
election as a done deal. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
“It’s within his right to fight as long and Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
hard as he can, based on our Constitution,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
Glen Ruggiero, of Canton, Georgia, told The Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)
Epoch Times. “To just give up because you Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)
don’t want to divide a country, we’re al- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
ready divided. To give up because you want
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)
a smooth transition, they can make a tran-
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
sition anytime.
“As long as he is following what’s been Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)
provided for him within the constitution Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
from our founding fathers, I believe he Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.)
should fight to the very end.”
A4 | NATION
Sen. Hawley
Says Antifa
Threatened Wife,
Newborn Daughter
CONTINUED FROM A1
Antifa scumbags came to our
place in DC and threatened my
wife and newborn daughter,
who can’t travel. They screamed
threats, vandalized, and tried to
pound open our door. Let me be
clear: My family & I will not be in-
timidated by leftwing violence,”
he wrote on Twitter late on Jan. 4.
Hawley recently made head-
lines after he became the first
senator to publicly announce that
he would object during the Elec-
toral College certification process
on Jan. 6.
A group called ShutDownDC,
which is affiliated with the far-left
Antifa network, posted a video on
Twitter on Jan. 4 that showed a
group of people walking to the
front of Hawley’s house in the
northern suburbs of Virginia bor-
dering the District of Columbia,
and for about an hour held signs
and carried candles while shout-
ing anti-Hawley slogans through
loudspeakers.
“Surprise! We’re at Josh Haw-
ley’s house holding a vigil for de-
mocracy #SeditionCaucus #Vot-
ersDecided #J6,” the post reads.
The group later issued a state-
ment on its website confirming
that the activists went to Hawley’s
house because he took a stance
More Than 432,000Votes Removed
From Trump inPennsylvania,
Data Scientists Say
CONTINUED FROM A1
Meanwhile, absentee vote re-
movals occurred in Allegheny,
Chester, and Lehigh counties.
A total of at least 432,116
votes—213,707 Election Day votes
and 218,409 absentee votes—were
removed.
“There were vote movements
across all candidates. However,
we did not see the same type of
negative decrements to any of the
[other] candidates that we saw
with President Trump’s tallies, and
they happened repeatedly with no
explanation,” Lynda McLaughlin,
a member of the group, told The
Epoch Times.
The Pennsylvania Secretary of
State’s office didn’t immediately
respond to a request by The Epoch
Times for comment.
The Data Integrity Group is a
group of scientists, engineers,
and machine learning experts
who have been working togeth-
er to check whether there was a
manipulation of data in the 2020
Americans’ Distrust of Media Reaches New High, Gallup Says
MATTHEW VADUM
Americans’ distrust of mass media
has reached a record high, with 33
percent of those polled by Gallup
saying they had no confidence at
all in the media. At the same time,
Democrats have reported increas-
ing levels of trust in the media.
Republican confidence in the
media has plummeted while Dem-
ocratic Party supporters’ trust in
the media has risen dramatically,
the pollster reports. Democrats’
trust over the preceding four years
has been among the highest Gal-
lup has measured for any party in
the past two decades.
The partisan divide over the re-
liability of the media swelled to a
record 63 points as a mere 10 per-
cent of Republicans surveyed in
Gallup’s annual Governance poll
said they had a “great deal” or “fair
against the electoral vote process
scheduled to take place during a
joint session in Congress on Jan. 6.
In the statement, ShutDownDC
characterized Hawley’s inten-
tion to object to the Electoral
College votes—which is joined
by 12 other Republican senators
and an anticipated 140 Republi-
can House members—as a “plan
to derail Congress’ acceptance
of Joe Biden’s election win on
January 6.”
ShutDownDC activist Patrick
Young asserted in a statement
that Hawley is “trying to silence”
voices of voters, and claimed that
“bulk of the votes they would
throw out come from Black and
brown voters.” He further claims
that Hawley’s stance signifies “an
attempted coup waged by silenc-
ing the voices of people of color.”
Hawley issued a separate Twit-
ter post  in response to Shut-
DownDC’s self-described vigil.
“Now ‘vigil’ means screaming
threats through bullhorns,
vandalizing property, pound-
ing on the doors of homes, and
terrorizing innocent people and
children.”
The DC Police Department
didn’t immediately respond to
a request from The Epoch Times
seeking further details about the
incident.
general election.
The group’s lineup of data scien-
tists includes Justin Mealey and
Dave Lobue.
Mealey is a nine-year veteran of
the U.S. Navy, where he worked as
an electronic warfare technician,
cryptologic technician, and Arabic
linguist. He worked at the NSA as
a mission manager for Levant/
North Africa and later worked as
a CIA contractor at the National
Counter-Terrorism Center.
Lobue has 12 years of experi-
ence in data science and machine
learning across financial servic-
es, telecommunications, and re-
search consulting industries. He
currently specializes in artificial
intelligence applications.
Data scientists from the group
have analyzed the election data for
several states, including Arizona
and Georgia.
In their analysis of Georgia’s
election data, the group said it
found that more than 30,000 votes
had been removed from Trump’s
tally, and another 12,173 votes were
amount” of trust in the media,
compared to 73 percent of Demo-
crats who answered the same way.
The massive gap between sup-
porters of the two parties is the
largest the 86-year-old, Wash-
ington-based Gallup organiza-
tion has recorded since it started
asking respondents the question
in the 1970s.
Republicans’ trust in the media
has fallen since the then-lowest
reading on record—32 percent was
reported in 2016. The GOP’s trust
levels have fallen since the George
W. Bush and Barack Obama presi-
dencies, when on average, Repub-
licans polled 30 to 35 percent con-
fidence in the media.
“Americans’ confidence in the
media to report the news fairly,
accurately, and fully has been
persistently low for over a decade
and shows no signs of improving,
Josh Hawley, then-Republican candidate for Senate, arrives with his wife, Erin Hawley, to cast their votes on Election
Day at The Crossings Church in Columbia, Mo., on Nov. 6, 2018.
The governors in the contested
states had certified electors who
cast their electoral votes for for-
mer vice president and presiden-
tial candidate Biden, a Democrat.
But on Dec. 14, 2020, Republican
electors in those six states and
New Mexico  cast alternative
slates of Electoral College votes
for President Donald Trump, set-
ting up a “dueling electors” sce-
nario not seen in U.S. elections
for decades.
Objections during the joint
session on Jan. 6 must be made
in writing by at least one House
member and one senator to sus-
tain a challenge. If the objection
for any state meets this require-
ment, the joint session pauses and
each house withdraws to its own
chamber to debate the question
for a maximum of two hours. The
The ballot counting room inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Phila-
delphia on Nov. 6, 2020.
switched to Democrat Joe Biden.
While the group didn’t iden-
tify any state official, county of-
ficial, or related voting machine
manufacturers related to alleged
wrongdoing, it urged the state to
authorize forensic audits to uphold
election integrity, and stated that
it’s irresponsible to certify the re-
sults before the alleged errors and
anomalies are explained.
“The bottom line is the errors
were made. Data confirms these
errors and it shouldn’t matter if
they were machine or human,
as Republicans’ and Democrats’
trust moves in opposite direc-
tions,” Gallup said in a statement.
“The political polarization that
grips the country is reflected in
partisans’ views of the media,
which are now the most divergent
in Gallup’s history.”
Four in 10 U.S. adults responded
they had “a great deal” (9 percent)
or “a fair amount” (31 percent) of
trust and confidence in the me-
dia to report the news “fully, ac-
curately, and fairly,” while six in
10 said they had “not very much”
trust (27 percent) or “none at all”
(33 percent).
Gallup first asked respondents
about their trust in mass media
in 1972 and has continued to ask
the question almost every year
since 1997. Trust ranged between
68 percent and 72 percent in the
1970s, and though it had dipped
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
House and the Senate then vote
separately to accept or reject the
objection, which requires a ma-
jority vote from both chambers.
Biden has declared victory in the
November 2020 election. Trump
and other Republicans have since
been contesting election results
in battleground states—namely
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Ne-
vada—alleging that election fraud
and irregularities took place on a
large scale that swung the results
to favor Biden.
The Epoch Times isn’t calling
the presidential race at this time.
The Epoch Times has published
an investigative documentary on
election integrity in the 2020 U.S.
presidential election, outlining
the allegations of election fraud
and observed anomalies that
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
they’re still errors and deserve a
second review and thorough anal-
ysis with forensic audits to find the
answers,” the group said.
Pennsylvania’s  electors  cast
their votes for Biden and Kamala
Harris as president-elect and vice
president-elect on Dec. 14, 2020.
State-certified results show
Biden won the Keystone State
by 80,555 votes.
Edison Concedes One Vote-
Switching Error
During the vote tabulation pro-
by the late 1990s, it remained in
majority territory until 2004, after
which it slid to 44 percent. After
hitting 50 percent in 2005, it hasn’t
gone above 47 percent.
Americans’ overall trust in the
media has leveled off since last
year. The 33 percent who indicated
they don’t have any confidence re-
flects a five-point uptick and is the
highest reading on record.
“Republicans are the main
drivers behind this change: 58%
of them now express this view,
marking a 10-point increase and
the first-ever majority-level read-
ing. Although Democrats’ over-
all level of trust has not changed,
the 57% who now say they have a
fair amount of trust represents a
12-point jump from 2019, mostly
attributable to a decrease in the
percentage saying they trust the
media a great deal,” Gallup stated.
MICHAEL THOMAS/GETTY IMAGES
have been reported in the con-
tested states.
The ShutDownDC group also
said in its statement that it has
called on hotels in Washington to
“close their doors” to people who
plan to go to the nation’s capital
on Jan. 6 for a protest to call for
election integrity. ShutDownDC
claims that “many of these sup-
porters” of the president may
bring “violence and destruction.”
Trump has called on Americans
to join in the planned protest,
which is expected to be attend-
ed by hundreds of thousands of
people. Car caravans have been
forming in preparation for what
many have been saying will be a
historic protest.
Janita Kan contributed
to this report.
cess, the results, which are com-
monly known as tabulated re-
sults, are sent to the secretary of
state’s office. The data is then also
shared with the media via Edison
Research.
Errors could be made in several
steps in the election result report-
ing process.
Though it’s unclear what caused
the errors that were flagged by the
Data Integrity Group, Edison Re-
search did concede that a report-
ing error happened separately.
In a widely circulated video clip
of CNN’s live election night broad-
cast, 19,958 votes were seen being
switched from Trump to Biden in
30 seconds.
Rob Farman, executive vice
president at Edison, said that the
“switching” stemmed from a brief
reporting error from Edison Re-
search.
He told The Associated Press that
a state feed from Armstrong Coun-
ty, Pennsylvania, first showed the
correct values of 24,233 votes for
Trump and 4,275 for Biden, but
a team member had mistakenly
entered them backward—4,275
for Trump and 24,233 for Biden.
Farman said the company’s
quality control team discovered
the error and corrected it that
night.
A separate recent Gallup poll
found that more than eight in 10
Americans say the media bears
“a great deal” (47 percent) or “a
moderate amount” (36 percent)
of blame for political division in
the United States. Nearly as many
say the media could do “a great
deal” (49 percent) or “a moder-
ate amount” (34 percent) to heal
those divisions.
“Americans are largely over-
whelmed by the sheer volume
and speed of news coverage, and
74% say the spread of misinforma-
tion online is ‘a major problem,’
exceeding all other challenges
posed by the media environ-
ment,” Gallup said.
“Seven in 10 U.S. adults would
like to see major internet com-
panies find ways to exclude false
information or hateful expres-
sion online.”
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 NATION | A5

Pro-Life Democrat Lipinski Reflects on

How Party Has Changed
SARAH SILBIGER/GETTY IMAGES

CONTINUED FROM A1 nesota. About half the time, they

“As a Democrat, I stand for the
vulnerable people,” Lipinski said.
“The unborn are the most vulner-
able people. I believe that being
pro-life fits in being a Democrat.”
He was always a moderate
Democrat, he said, upholding fis-
cal responsibility and promoting
bipartisan consensus. Toward the
end of his time in office, he began
sounding the alarm about his par-
ty’s move further left, as well as
the partisan gridlock in Congress.
I have always be-
lieved in protecting
the lives of the un-
born, and I was not
going to change on
that, even though
it got more difficult
politically.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski
Following His Father’s Example
His father, William Lipinski, was
also a Democratic congressman.
In William Lipinski’s biography
on the House’s website, he was
described as a Democratic Party
loyalist, although one unafraid to
break from the party line when his
morals told him to do so.
For example, he voted for Repub-
lican President Ronald Reagan’s
plan to help in the fight against the
socialist Sandinistas in Nicaragua
in the 1980s.
“Tip O’Neill [the Democratic
Speaker of the House at the time]
came up to my father on the House
floor and talked to him about that.
Tip wasn’t happy. But my father
just believed in the fight against
communism and thought it was
the right thing to do.
“My father stood up for what he
believed in, no matter what it was,”
Lipinski said.
Lipinski, 54, was raised Catholic
in the suburbs of Chicago, in the
southwest part of the city, Con-
gressional District 3. His father
represented that district for over
20 years.
Lipinski studied engineering
at Northwestern University and
Stanford University, and earned
a Ph.D. in political science at Duke
University. Still, his move into
practicing politics was sudden and
unexpected in 2004.
His father, after winning the
Democratic primary that year,
abruptly retired and had Lipin-
ski—who was then a young pro-
fessor at the University of Tennes-
see—replace him on the ballot. It
was a controversial move.
But Lipinski easily defeated his
Republican opponent in the heav-
ily Democratic 3rd District. Soon
he departed for Washington with
Members of Students for Life of America hold baskets of baby socks representing abortions alongside abortion
rights activists from NARAL Pro-Choice America as they demonstrate outside of Rep. Dan Lipinski’s office
in Washington on March 4, 2020.
Rep. Dan Lipinski
speaks at a news
conference in
opposition to the Trans-
Pacific Partnership
trade deal, at the U.S.
Capitol in Washington
on June 10, 2015.
were joined by Rep. Henry Cuellar
of Texas.
Like Lipinski, Peterson wasn’t
reelected in 2020 and finished his
term Jan. 3.
Marie Newman, a more progres-
sive Democratic candidate who
is pro-choice, beat Lipinski in the
2020 Democratic primary.
She had financial backing from
pro-choice groups, including
Planned Parenthood and NARAL
Pro-Choice America; the latter
spent nearly $220,000 on cam-
paigns supporting Newman, the
largest amount it spent for any
candidate in this election cycle.
She was endorsed by prominent
party members, including Obama,
Joe Biden, and Chicago Mayor Lori
Lightfoot.
‘I Had Done the Right Thing’
“Putting my seat at risk” amid the
hotly contested race, Lipinski said,
he continued his anti-abortion
stance and signed an amicus brief
in January asking the Supreme
Court to uphold a Louisiana abor-
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES tion law.
role in guarding pro-life laws. He and Peterson were the only
Their power was evident when the two Democrats who signed the
Affordable Care Act (commonly brief, along with over 200 Repub-
known as Obamacare) fought its licans.
way through the House. “I have always believed in pro-
Lipinski, along with other pro- tecting the lives of the unborn, and
life Democrats, weren’t happy I was not going to change on that,
that the bill didn’t restrict feder- even though it got more difficult
ally funded abortions, and they politically,” he said.
wanted an amendment. President Lipinski lost the primary to New-
Barack Obama agreed to issue an man by a margin of 2.5 percentage
executive order to that effect. points.
Former Rep. Bart Stupak, who The night of the defeat was tough,
led the congressional pro-life Lipinski said. He said he spent
Democrats at the time, and dozens most of it praying.
of others in the coalition, switched “I prayed for strength to accept
to support Obamacare. It passed the loss and to move on, and for
the House with a close 219–212 guidance in what to do next,”
a goal to “take care of my constitu- vote. But Lipinski voted he said.
ents and do what I can do to make against it, along with “The next day, people
their everyday lives better.” some 30 other pro-life started reaching out
He didn’t expect to become Democrats. to me, thanking me,
known for his pro-life stance. He “People have asked congratulating me
didn’t expect that to overshadow me, ‘If it was good on standing for what
his other work in Congress as it enough for Stupak, I believe in. ... I knew
did, as he became an increasingly why wasn’t it good I had done the right
rare specimen in an increasingly enough for you?’” Lipin- thing.”
homogenous party. In his farewell ski told The Chicago Leaving politics be-
speech on the House floor on Dec. Tribune at the time. hind now, he plans
8, he didn’t mention being pro-life, “The [executive] order William Lipinski, to work for a human
but did dwell on the partisan grid- doesn’t trump the law.” former Democratic rights organization,
lock making Congress ineffective, He also felt Obamacare congressman and the name of which he
while highlighting legislation he’s was financially unsus- father of former Illinois declined to disclose.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski.
proud of helping enact, includ- tainable. He’s also considering
ing the  American Manufactur- The Obamacare vote writing a book based
ing Competitiveness Act, Small was a game-changer for the pro- on the commencement speech
Aircraft Revitalization Act, and life Democrats. They lost the sup- he gave at Ave Maria University, a
National Science Foundation Re- port of many pro-life groups, who private Catholic school in Florida.
authorization Act. backed Republican challengers He told the graduates: “As a
instead. When the new Congress Catholic, there is ... [an] important
Pro-Life Democrats Dwindle in convened in January 2011, the choice you must make. Are you
Congress number of pro-life Democrats was going to hold fast to your Catholic
Pro-life Democrats were already cut in half. Overall, Democrats lost beliefs, or are you going to follow
a minority within the party when more than 60 seats. the world and make a political
Lipinski arrived at the Capitol, but By 2016, only two solidly pro- party your religion? If you re-
there were still a good number of life Democrats were left: Lipinski ally want to change the world,
them, about 60. and Collin Peterson, a veteran you must choose to be Catholic,
In joining forces with pro-life congressman who represented a and carry Jesus into the public
Republicans, they played a strong large rural district in western Min- square.”

Oregon Restaurant to Appeal Fine for Staying Open During Lockdown

MATTHEW VADUM
A family-owned restaurant in Or-
egon is appealing a fine the state
levied against it after it remained
open for business contrary to
the executive order of Gov. Kate
Brown, who has banned dine-in
eating.
Casey’s Restaurant in Klamath
Falls was fined $8,900 by a state
agency, the Oregon Occupational
Safety and Health Administra-
tion, known as Oregon OSHA,
which says it received 18 com-
plaints about Casey’s. The res-
taurant claims to have lost about
$30,000 because of restrictions on
businesses in spring 2020.
Co-owners Annie Patzke, Patty
Barney, Michael Patzke, and Do-
lores Patzke wrote to OSHA stat-
ing the restaurant couldn’t afford
to downgrade its business to take-
out only.
“We cannot operate our busi-
ness under the restrictive guide-
lines of Executive Order 20-65,”
they stated in a letter.
“We believe these guidelines
are not applied equitably or in a
way that allows businesses in our
industry to survive. It seems to be
under the guise of ‘doing some-
thing’ that the state is once again
engaged in irreparably harming
certain groups while protecting
others.”
The owners say they plan to re-
main open for business despite
the current pandemic-related
restrictions. Further fines could
follow from OSHA.
OSHA has reportedly looked
into two complaints against the
restaurant. One involved allow-
ing sit-down dining while it was
forbidden in a so-called freeze,
and the second concerned an
alleged failure to enforce the
wearing of protective face masks.
OSHA wrote up a ticket for the sit-
down dining but not regarding
the masks.
After inspecting the facility
at the end of November and in-
terviewing a co-owner and sev-
eral employees, OSHA gave the
eatery a so-called red-warning
notice on Nov. 29, 2020, to cease
serving food and drinks on-site
during a two-week freeze to slow
the spread of the CCP virus that
causes the disease COVID-19,
local newspaper The Herald and
News reported.
The governor, a Democrat, has
threatened to shut businesses that
fail to comply with her pandemic-
mitigation orders. Red-warning
notices are issued under the Ore-
gon Safe Employment Act and ap-
ply until “the condition has been
made safe and healthful.” They
are given to businesses said to
be deliberately violating the gov-
ernor’s executive orders or who
decline to take required correc-
tive measures. Such businesses
are closed until the supposedly
hazardous condition is alleviated.
Many small-business owners
in the state are vowing to remain
open, claiming they have been
treated unfairly, while large busi-
nesses are allowed to continue
operating.
The owners are represented by
the Freedom Foundation. For-
merly known as the Evergreen
Freedom Foundation, the Free-
dom Foundation describes itself
as a “non-profit think and action
tank with offices in Washington,
Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
California.”
Jason Dudash, Oregon director
for the Freedom Foundation, said
in a statement that they “agree
that steps need to be taken to
take COVID seriously and pro-
tect the most vulnerable in our
communities. The Patzke family
at Casey’s has and is taking those
steps while remaining open.”
The Patzke family has owned
Casey’s Restaurant in Klamath
for 31 years, according to the Free-
dom Foundation.
The Patzkes realized they
couldn’t afford to shut down a
second time, so they said they
have stayed open.
“We still have to pay taxes while
the bureaucrats, they never miss
a paycheck and they don’t have
to worry about their jobs,” said
Mike Patzke.
“OSHA has fined us, and they’re
going to fine us even more. And
we’re going to stay open,” said An-
nie Patzke.
“We have some of our family
that we lost in World War II, and
they were fighting for freedom,
so I feel like we should fight for
freedom, also.”
Brown’s office didn’t immedi-
ately respond to a request by The
Epoch Times for comment.
A6 | NATION WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

China’s 2020
ES
AG
IM
TY
ET
E /G
DL
AE
ER
JO

Election Inte
Ho
How
ow the Chinese Communist Par
interfere
int
ter with the US presidential

F
EPOCH TIMES STAFF

or the Chinese Communist Party

(CCP), the 2020 presidential election
in the United States was always a life
and death struggle.
For the first time in decades, a U.S.
GEORGE
G EORGE FREY/GETTY IMAGES
administration had confronted the CCP’s
a
ssubversion and infiltration of the United States,
ccurtailing its expanding global influence.
The CCP made clear through its state-run
m
media that it favored a presidency under
Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden, because
D

A mail-in ballot in Provo, Utah,

oon Nov. 6, 2018.

MMail-In Ballots as a Due to pandemic-related

precautions,
precautions many states
RResultl offCCPV
CCP Virus expanded the use of mail-in
ballots. This type of voting,
STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

As a result of the CCP covering which is prone to fraud, would

up the initial outbreak, the virus become the focal point of voter
spread around the world and fraud allegations in the fallout
sparked a global pandemic. of the 2020 election.

SCREENSHOT VIA THE EPOCH TIMES

A screenshot of the Twitter a
Lijuan Zhao, where he spread
United States.

A patient suspected of having the CCP virus

A still from a video posted on Facebook by the pro-
Beijing group Chinese Progressive Association.
Voter Registration Drives
The Chinese Progressive
Association has close ties to
the Chinese Consulate in San
Francisco. Many of its former
executives, as well as other
pro-Beijing leftists, are now
involved with the “Seed the
Vote” initiative. The goal of the
group was to defeat Trump and
win more Democratic seats in
the U.S. Senate. Their activities
specifically targeted seven
swing states: Arizona, Georgia,
North Carolina, Florida,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Pennsylvania.
Hospital in Hubei Province, China, on Jan. 18, 2020.
Using the Virus to
Weaken America
The CCP covered up the
spread of the CCP virus in
Wuhan, allowing it to spread
throughout China and the rest
of the world. Trump defied
early WHO recommendations
and, on Jan. 31 last year,
banned all travel from China.
Chinese state media, as well
as U.S. media and politicians,
portrayed Trump’s move as
virus, at Jinyintan
CCP Virus Propaganda
“racist” and “xenophobic.”
Campaign
State-media Xinhua wrote on
Twitter on March 16, “Racism
In February 2020, as the CCP
virus spread around the world,
is not the right tool to cover
your own incompetence.” As
Beijing started a large-scale
propaganda campaign that
the pandemic progressed, both
Chinese state media and U.S.
sought to portray the CCP
as a global leader in fighting
media continuously attacked the pandemic. Authorities
Trump and his administration, simultaneously bought up
accusing them of being protective equipment from
incapable. Meanwhile, left- the United States and other
leaning politicians and governors countries, and halted exports o
in the United States adopted Chinese-manufactured medica
Chinese-style lockdowns of
cities, which brought local
economies to a halt.
SEAN GALLU

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

DAVID RYDER/GETTY IMAGES

Use of Social Media to

Influence Election
Facebook in September shut
down more than 180 fake
Facebook accounts, groups,
and pages, and Instagram
A chip component at a factory in Dongguan
Dongguan, Guangdong accounts, that the company
Province, China, on May 8, 2017. determined to be run in China.
These accounts had posted
A rioter in Seattle, after clashing with police, on June 8, content on the U.S. presidential
2020. election and spread Beijing’s
backdoors were used by China
Chinese Parts in US to access U.S. voting machines. talking points on a range

Voting Machines Voting machine companies

have denied that their systems
Pro-Beijing Groups One of the effects of the
riots was a weakening of the
of topics, from the South
China Sea to the Hong Kong

Voting system manufacturers

are vulnerable to hacking.
Also, any device connected to
Involved in Riots president’s authority in the
country as well as intimidation
democracy protests. The U.S.
social media giant announced
use Chinese-manufactured the internet on the same WiFi Pro-CCP group Chinese of his supporters. After the Nov. the takedown in a blog post
parts. Using Chinese parts system as voting equipment Progressive Association funds 3 election, amid challenges published on Sept. 22, saying
makes the machines vulnerable poses a hacking risk. In Georgia, the Black Futures Lab, which raised to the election results, that these accounts were in
to hacking, exemplified by Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an shares a principal organizer the threat of similar riots violation of its rule against
past examples of Chinese- inventor and IT expert, raised with the Black Lives Matter resulted in the intimidation of “coordinated inauthentic
made electronics containing concerns about devices such movement. Many of the state legislatures, lawmakers, behavior on behalf of a foreign
backdoors in either the as a “cheap Chinese smart protests and riots that swept and judges. After Sen. Josh or government entity.”
hardware or firmware. Due to a TV with WiFi” or a thermostat across U.S. cities in 2020 had Hawley (R-Mo.) announced
lack of forensic audits of voting connected to the internet that the involvement of pro-CCP that he would oppose the
systems, it remains unclear at creates vulnerabilities in the groups, such as the Freedom Electoral College vote in
this point whether any potential entire system. Road Socialist Organization Congress, Antifa members
and Liberation Road, as well as threatened his family at their
Antifa and the BLM movement. Washington home.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 NATION | A7

0
erference
rty sought to
election

he would be “smoother”
her”” to deal with than
President Donald Trump.
ump p.
Beijing interfered in
n the
th
he 2020 election in
multiple ways, and the regime was able to
do this because it has,
as, for
f decades, studied
our society and formm off government. It has
oited all weaknesses in
systematically exploited
our system.
Here we provide an n ov
overview
verview of some key
methods the CCP usedsed to influence the
election. SCREENSHOT VIA THE EPOCH TIMES

SCREENSHOT VIA THE EPOCH TIMES

S

SHUTTERSTOCK

A screenshot of an Aug. 19, 2020, article by

Chinese state-run media Global Times.
Chinese Influence Over CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

account of CCP spokesperson
ds false information about the
goods. As COVID-19 cases
increased in the United States,
the CCP actively portrayed the
United States as a disaster
zone with large numbers of
deaths, while simultaneously
covering up China’s own death
toll. Beijing’s propaganda
sought to portray the CCP as
a savior of humanity, while
casting doubt on Americans’
confidence in Trump’s
leadership. This narrative was
amplified by Chinese state
f media, as well as paid articles in
al U.S. media.
P/GETTY IMAGES
Spread of Propaganda
Chinese state-controlled
media, including those
operating in the United
States, spread the regime’s
propaganda on its behalf.
These media made it explicit
that they supported a Biden
presidency over Trump. State-
run outlet Global Times, for
example, published an article
on Aug. 19 that suggested that
Biden would be “smoother” for
the regime to deal with than
Trump. And when the U.S.
vice presidential debate was
broadcast in China on Oct. 7,
state-run media censored the
discussion of sensitive topics
related to China, in an effort
to manipulate public opinion
and push Beijing’s narrative.
Meanwhile, China Daily, in
many English-language articles,
such as one headlined “Virus
Surge Sharpens Choice for
US Voters,” sought to amplify
Biden’s platform on containing
the pandemic, while portraying
Trump’s CCP virus policies as
incompetent.
MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES
US Politicians
For decades, the CCP has
sought to subvert and control
politicians, policymakers, and
influencers in academia. One
such case came to the surface
when it was revealed that
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.)
had close ties to an alleged
Chinese spy. The CCP uses a
wide variety of incentives and
disincentives to persuade U.S.
policymakers to do its bidding,
and it ranks all U.S. governors
according to how friendly or
hostile they are to the CCP.
In Georgia, a key battleground
state, the governor has
maintained friendly ties with
Chinese dignitaries. In April last
year, Li Qiangmin, then Chinese
consul general in Houston,
was invited to an event hosted
by the governor, where Li
praised him for “proactively Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai.
pushing for cooperation with
China,” according to a press
release by China’s Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. China has
been Georgia’s largest trading
partner for the past five years.

CHUNG I HO/THE EPOCH TIMES

The Chinatown Gate in Boston

on March 24, 2020. COURTESY OF CBP

Influencing the Vote of

GREG BAKER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Chinese-Americans
Part of the focus of China’s
United Front Work Department
is on developing ties with
Chinese fraternal organizations,
which work as unofficial
representative bodies of
China Daily newspaper boxes in
overseas Chinese communities.
The CCP maintains close A fraudulent driver’s license seized by U.S. Manhattan on Feb. 27, 2020.
relations or direct control over Customs and
C dB Border
d P Protection.
i
many such groups. These
groups influence who their
Influence Over US Media
members, which in some cases
amount to tens of thousands, Fake IDs The CCP has worked for years
to increase its influence over
vote for. U.S. media organizations. Each
During the first six months of
year, Chinese state-owned
A Chinese police officer on Tiananmen Square 2020, Customs and Border
media spend millions of dollars
in Beijing on March 11, 2018. Protection agents seized nearly
to insert their propaganda into
20,000 fake driver’s licenses,
decisions the world over,” David publications such as The New
Use of Political Warfare Stilwell, assistant secretary
of state for East Asian and
most of them from China. It
is unclear how many fake IDs
York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, and The Washington
may have been sent to the
The CCP has deployed political Pacific affairs, said. The CCP Post. A recent list published
United States from China and
warfare to covertly influence accomplishes this through a by the National Pulse based
gone undetected. Fake IDs can
free societies around the world, wide array of malign activities on FARA filings shows most
be used for a wide variety of
as a top U.S. State Department that are “covert, coercive, and major U.S. media organizations
purposes, including voter fraud.
official warned less than a week corrupting.” These activities received “familiarization trips”
before the Nov. 3 election. are dubbed by the CCP as and “private dinners” from a
The regime “wants control, “United Front work” but better group that is part of the CCP’s
or at least veto power, over understood in the West as United Work Front.
public discourse and political political warfare, Stilwell said.
 A8 | NATION
Lockdown Measures Catastrophic
for Recovering Addicts, Mental Health
CONTINUED FROM A1
“A lot of these guys, they just need
the simple things in life. And when
they’re prohibited from being able
to get those things, it’s tough,”
Royce said.
“Hopefully this changes sooner
rather than later, because I can’t even
tell you how many times I was dealing
with relapses every single day of the
week ... heavily, heavily from June all
the way until about October. It was
non stop. It was definitely more than
normal, there’s no doubt about that.”
Nationally, drug overdose deaths
are at historic highs.
In lockstep with widespread shut-
down measures, overdose deaths ac-
celerated, especially between March
and May last year, according to an
emergency health advisory issued by
the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) on Dec. 17, 2020.
More than 81,230 people died
from a drug overdose between June
1, 2019, and May 31, 2020, the CDC
provisional data shows. The final
number, which is up 18 percent over
the same period the year prior, is ex-
pected to be higher.
“This represents a worsening of the
drug overdose epidemic in the Unit-
ed States and is the largest number
of drug overdoses for a 12-month pe-
riod ever recorded,” the CDC stated.
“It’s very, very sad what’s going
on,” Royce said. “I wish that I could
reach in my pocket and give every-
body a little piece of what I was able
to grasp onto and let everybody
know that ‘You’re not in this alone.
Just hold on.’”
Royce will be four years drug-free
on Feb. 20.
He started smoking pot at age 13
and dabbled in “party drugs” such
as cocaine and mushrooms until he
discovered opioids.
“I didn’t try drugs just for the fun
of it. I tried drugs because I wanted
to escape life. And even at 13 years
old, I hated life,” he said.
At 21, an appendix surgery sent
Royce into a 10-year spiral with pre-
scription opioid painkillers.
“They gave me 160 10-milligram
percocets—which is insane. I mean,
nobody in this world needs that
much for the surgery that I went
through. I can literally recall back
to only needing maybe two or three
[pills],” he said.
“It was literally within the first 20
or 30 of those pills for sure that I was
completely hooked. In  just under
two weeks, that prescription was out
and I was able to refill another 100.
“I was hooked on those things
for ... 10 straight, miserable years
of my life.”
It was fairly easy for Royce to get his
hands on more pills after the refills
ran dry, as his extended family was
supplying them. That helped keep
him out of jail and conviction-free,
which is uncommon for a decade-
long opioid addiction. It was also
one reason he avoided heroin. Eighty
percent of new heroin users begin
their addiction with painkillers.
Eventually the cost gets too high or
it’s hard to source the pills, and users
turn to heroin.
“The No. 1 reason I didn’t branch
out to heroin was because I was ter-
rified of it. I thought the only way
to do heroin was through a needle.
If I’d have known that you could’ve
snorted it, it’s sad to say, but I most
likely would have went to it,” he
said. “And if I would have known
that $100 of heroin is equivalent to
about $400 in pills, I would have
probably went to it.”
STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES
Toward the end of his addiction,
Montgomery County Royce was taking opioids and
Sheriff’s deputies and methamphetamines. He was living
emergency personnel with his girlfriend, also an addict,
respond to a suspected and their two little girls, aged 5 and
drug overdose in a gas 18 months.
station parking lot in
He said he remembers being un-
the Harrison Township
able to get up off the couch to make
of Dayton, Ohio, on
Nov. 1, 2019. a bowl of cereal for his daughters.
“I couldn’t even move. I recall my
little 1 1/2-year-old walking over to
me and rubbing my kneecap say-
ing, ‘Daddy, it’ll be OK. Daddy, it’ll be
OK,’ because I’m sitting there bawl-
ing my eyes out. Bawling my eyes out
in agony and pain, but also bawling
I can’t even tell my eyes out because I wanted to die.
you how many And then bawling my eyes out be-
cause I wanted to die in front of my
times I was little girls,” he said.
dealing with Like many opioid addicts, Royce
relapses every perceived death to be a more fa-
vorable option than going through
single day of withdrawals.
the week. “In my withdrawals, I would go
into convulsions. I would literally
Matt Royce, sober living
shake nonstop until I was able to
superviser, Minneapolis
finally get my fix,” he said.
“Each drug has its own anchor, but
the opiates, I mean, I’ve never felt
anything powerful like that before in
my life. The only out I saw was death.”
Royce’s father provided the impe-
tus he needed to change his life.
“I’ll never forget that morning. My
father knocked on the door and he
A lot of these said, ‘Either you get your [expletive]
together right now, or I’m taking
guys, they your kids and you’ll never see them
just need the again,’” Royce said. “And I believed
simple things my dad, because he’s not one to just
say [expletive] and not do it.”
in life. And That morning, Royce made his
when they’re decision and was taken to a treat-
prohibited ment center where he spent four
days detoxing and three months in
from being a residential treatment center.
able to get “I got tired of the pain, I got tired of
those things, the darkness. I got tired of hurting.
I got tired of all that selfish stuff for
it’s tough. myself. But then I got tired of bring-
ing on a darkness and a pain to my
Matt Royce, sober living
superviser, Minneapolis daughters. That’s what really, really
helped,” he said.
Royce knew he had to get sober on
the first go, because he had seen so
many people cycle through the sys-
tem, relapse after relapse.
“I see it all the time where people
think that they have another round
A person crosses a street in them, and they don’t,” he said.
during a snow storm The treatment center Royce at-
in Minneapolis on Dec. tended was a 16-bed facility.
23, 2020. “I had 15 other peers in there with
me, and six of them are dead right
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
now. And only two of them are do-
ing well. The rest are on drugs or in
jail still. That’s how powerful this
[expletive] is.”
Royce doesn’t buy into the well-
worn narrative that addicts need to
go to rehab many times before fi-
nally breaking free of drugs.
“So many people just fall victim
to the statistics ... blame the statis-
tics in order to screw up again and
into thinking that they have another
round out there,” he said.
“No, we don’t have another round
in us. And it’s a miracle if somebody
does and makes it to treatment
again. It’s a miracle.”
After successfully completing his
treatment, Royce moved to a sober
living house and was starting to see
his girls again. He got a job in a ware-
house and played basketball at the
local court. But sober living homes
can be precarious places. The house
manager relapsed and started shoot-
ing up heroin with everyone except
Royce and one other person.
Royce begged the treatment center
to step in, and they eventually did,
making him the house manager. He
cleaned up the house, and over the
next few months, he realized he was
good at counseling the other resi-
dents when they came to him.
At one-year sober, the mind-
less warehouse job gave way to a
job at the treatment center, and
Royce knew he’d found his calling.
Then days later, one more incident
cemented his drive to help other
addicts.
Royce was called home at 11 a.m.
one morning to meet with an inspec-
tor. Two of his housemates told him
that another housemate had been in
the bathroom for two hours. Royce
knocked on the door. No response.
He banged and yelled. No response.
He kicked the door down and found
the man slumped over the toilet; his
face was purple, and he was foaming
at the mouth.
“I grabbed the Narcan and I pro-
ceeded to give him three Narcan
[shots] in his thigh. And the third
Narcan, all of a sudden, I heard
him take a gasp of breath. And that,
seeing him come to, it brought this
overwhelming sense of relief, sad-
ness, and anger all at the same time,”
Royce said. The paramedics arrived,
and the man survived.
“I went into a mild panic attack
because I couldn’t believe that
there was a life that was literally in
my hands.
“I’d never seen an overdose. I’d nev-
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
Matt Royce,
sober-living
supervisor, in
Minneapolis on
Jan. 1, 2021.
er seen almost death like that before
in my life. So that was very, very fresh
to me. And that was for sure the de-
fining moment for me as far as why I
do what I do. Not only for myself and
my daughters, but for others as well.
Because other people have kids and
other people have family members
that depend on them and that want
to see them succeed.”
Helping others and dealing with
those who relapse solidifies Royce’s
resolve to never return to that life-
style. He sees his girls almost every
day and has a close relationship with
his father, as well as with the girls’
mother (who also got clean).
“I get to see firsthand how terrible
that life still is for everybody that
chooses to go back to it,” he said.
“Especially once you’re wrapped up
in these sober houses and residential
treatment and outpatient services,
the rock bottoms that guys hit are
so much faster than they’ve ever hit
before when they choose to go back
to that lifestyle, because they’ve al-
ready burnt bridges. They’ve already
lost their houses, they’ve already lost
their jobs, they’ve already lost their
cars, their kids, their best friends,
their family members.
“And I see that all the time, unfor-
tunately.”
Mental health experts have been
warning officials for months about
the effects that lockdowns have on
drug use and suicide rates.
During a May 19 Cabinet meet-
ing in the White House, Dr. Elinore
McCance-Katz implored officials to
consider the impact.
“To put all of this in perspective,
I believe it is important to point out
that, pre-pandemic, we lose 120,000
lives a year to drug overdose and
suicide. How many more lives are
we willing to sacrifice in the name
of containing the virus?” said Mc-
Cance-Katz, assistant secretary for
mental health and substance abuse
at the Substance Abuse and Men-
tal Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA). She’s also a psychiatrist
and holds a doctorate in infectious
disease epidemiology.
The number of calls to SAMHSA’s
Disaster Distress Helpline increased
1,000 percent for the month of April
2020, compared to April 2019.
“As a psychiatrist, I would argue
that a life lost to suicide is just as
important as a life lost to corona-
virus,” McCance-Katz said. “I ask
that you take into account whole
health, not just one narrow aspect
of physical health.”
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 NATION  |  A9
ALL PHOTOS BY CHUNG I HO/THE EPOCH TIMES

The main area of Moynihan Train Hall in New York on Jan. 4, 2021.

Moynihan
Train Hall
at New York’s
Pennsylvania
Station The entrance of the train station on 8th Avenue, adjacent to A man sits in Amtrak’s newly constructed ticketed waiting
the James A. Farley USPS building. room with charging ports on the chairs.
Penn Station’s $1.6 billion project has transformed
what formerly served as a mail sorting and load-
ing area in New York’s James A. Farley Post Office
Building into a 255,000-square-foot train hall,
open to the public from Jan. 1.
The new hall is named after the late New York
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom Gov. An-
drew Cuomo described at the hall’s grand opening
as a “man of true vision.” Moynihan first proposed
the idea of converting the old post office into a
train hall in the 1990s.
The project was designed to honor the building’s
original McKim, Mead, and White architecture by
exposing and restoring many of its historic features.
The interior design also includes Public Art Fund
permanent installations from artists Stan Stan
Douglas, Kehinde Wiley, and Elmgreen & Dragset,
plus a suspended 6-by-12-foot clock by Pennoyer A passenger walks out of the newly constructed Penn Station A passenger shops in a coffee shop. Multiple food and
Architects. entrance on 7th Avenue. beverage stores will open in the fall of 2021.

A passenger stands in the main hall of Moynihan Train Hall, The new East End Gateway provides direct access for passengers headed from street level to the LIRR and subway lines. Built with
which has a four-faced clock. a glass and steel canopy at the street level, it also features a 1,988-square-foot map of the New York metropolitan region.
A10 | CHINA WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES

Pompeo: The ‘True

Face’ of the CCP
Has Been Exposed
SAMUEL ALLEGRI & JAN JEKIELEK
In an interview with The Epoch
Times’ “American Thought Lead-
ers” program, Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo described the
Trump administration’s efforts to
reconnect modern America to its
founding origins based on God-
given rights, and illustrated the
administration’s foreign policy
of keeping America safe from the
worldwide threat of communism.
At the outset, host Jan Jekielek
asked Pompeo why it took so long
for the United States to sanction
the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) for gross human rights vio-
lations, especially against prac-
titioners of the meditation group
Falun Gong.
“You go back all the way to Ti-
ananmen Square. We’ve known
the nature of this regime, and
frankly,  freedom-loving  people
across the world have known the
nature of authoritarian regimes
throughout history. And yet we
ignored it,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo said the reason for the
disregard of the CCP’s grave vio-
lations was in great extent due to
the existence of a belief that if the
United States engaged in fair and
reciprocal trade and engagement,
the situation would improve.
Reality showed that the idea was
clearly “false all the way through,”
he said.
President Donald Trump under-
stood the failure of that engage-
ment policy from the beginning
and changed the U.S. stance fun-
damentally, Pompeo said, adding
that it wasn’t just the United States
that has changed its view of China,
but the whole West.
“Even when you look at Europe
and Australia and Southeast Asia,
they know too, they know that the
Chinese Communist Party is up to
no good.”
He said that while dissidents
were warning about CCP wrong-
doing, the United States was in-
volved in very serious counterter-
rorism operations and the focus
was taken off the CCP.
“We took our eye off this enor-
mous threat, and now—it’s now
upon us. It’s now inside the gates,
the Chinese Communist Party is
here in America, and the Trump
administration has begun in every
dimension to turn the ship in the
right direction, to get America to
once again do the right thing and
protect itself from this communist
threat in China.”
Pompeo was then asked why he’s
been more focused on religious
freedom than any other secretary
of state.
“It’s at the center of every civili-
zation, this idea that human be-
ings have inherent dignity because
of their humanness,” he said. “And
if you get that piece wrong, bad
things flow from that.”
Under Trump’s leadership, the
administration has focused on re-
ligious freedom, not just in China,
although specifically with the CCP,
Pompeo said.
“We’ve seen what they’re doing
to the Uyghurs in the western part
of the country. We’ve seen what
they’ve done to Tibetans. We now
see them doing the same thing to
other ethnic minorities, includ-
ing the people in Mongolia and
the north part of China. And then
Christians throughout the entire
country,” he said.
“These things that are funda-
mental affronts to human dignity
are something that is a hallmark
of authoritarian regimes, and Gen-
eral Secretary Xi Jinping is no dif-
ferent. He knows that he has to
extend ever-increasing power and
control in order to maintain his
capacity to rule. And that shuts out
the important space that religious
freedom should have for every hu-
man being in the world.”
Pompeo said the administration
has done its best to shine a light on
these violations.
“The world will keep up this
drumbeat, demanding simply that
the Chinese Communist Party
permit people to exercise their
God-given rights to practice and
not practice their faith in the way
that they so choose.”
He says he’s emphasized a clear
difference between the Chinese
Communist Party and the Chinese
people, because the people who
live there are good but are sadly
“under the jackboot of an authori-
tarian regime.”
“Chinese people who live all
Secretary of
State Mike
Pompeo at
the State
Department in
Washington on
Jan. 4, 2021.
across the world, including here
in the United States of America,
we want to honor them, and we
admire them,” Pompeo said. “And
we hope that they too will join the
call to change the nature of how
this regime behaves in its inter-
national activities.”
Trading with China fairly or hav-
ing Chinese students in the United
States isn’t a problem, he said, as
long as they don’t break rules that
would compromise U.S. security
or freedom.
Pompeo says he distrusts the
CCP.
“Every experience I’ve had, in my
six years as a member of Congress,
and now four years serving in the
Trump administration, would sug-
gest that anything but distrusting
anything that comes from the Chi-
nese Communist Party is folly.
“They’ve broken promise after
promise after promise.”

Chinese Regime Ordered ‘Transfer’ China Approves Homegrown COVID-19 Vaccine;

of Foreign Technologies, Leaked
Documents Reveal
CONTINUED FROM A1
Hebei International Talent
Exchange Association (also
known as International Tech-
nology Transfer Center) was
established in 1988 in Hebei
Province. It has more than
200 international technical
projects and more than 300
foreign experts, covering
more than 10 fields, including
artificial intelligence, infor-
mation communication, bi-
ology, medicine, and health.
Expanding Cooperation
Channels
The organization issued a
report, “Hebei Provincial
Budget Project Performance
Evaluation Form” on Nov.
17, 2020, in which it explic-
itly states that the group
aims to “introduce foreign
advanced technology ... and
realize technology transfer
[to China].”
To achieve that goal, the
document specified that the
organization would expand
cooperation channels with at
least 50 international organi-
zations; set up a minimum of
four international scientific
and technological coopera-
tion activities; maintain at
least 50 foreign technology
projects; obtain at least five
cooperation intention agree-
ments; and target 60 to 80
foreign technical experts for
recruitment.
The report laid out a 1 mil-
lion yuan (about $153,000)
budget for the association to
recruit talent from overseas
and fund the projects they
would set up in Hebei. It also
projected a profit of 10 mil-
lion yuan (about $1.53 mil-
lion) that could be achieved
by “transferring” foreign
advanced technology to Chi-
nese companies in Hebei.
The purpose of transfer-
ring foreign technology was
mentioned in another report
that was issued at the same
time, titled “Plan for the Use
of Special Subsidy Funds for
the Construction of Hebei
International Science and
Technology Cooperation
Base.” The foreign technol-
ogy would upgrade Hebei’s
technology, improve prod-
ucts, and boost interna-
tional competitiveness, the
report said.
The initiative is a lucrative
scheme and a blatant plan
to steal advanced technol-
ogy and intellectual prop-
erty from other countries to
benefit the Chinese regime,
U.S.-based China affairs
commentator Li Linyi told
The Epoch Times.
According to public re-
cords, Hebei International
Talent Exchange Association
operates under the state-run
China Association for Inter-
national Exchange of Person-
nel (CAIEP). CAIEP is directly
managed by the State Admin-
istration of Foreign Experts
Affairs, an agency under the
Chinese regime’s Ministry of
Science and Technology.
Requirements and Goals
Hebei education authorities
have also set requirements
and goals for obtaining for-
eign technologies through its
“2020 Work Plan of the Inter-
national Technology Transfer
Center of Hebei University of
Technology,” issued in 2019.
The Epoch Times obtained a
copy of this document.
Some of the instructions
include establishing an inter-
national technology transfer
center website; “vigorously
introducing” international
high-tech talents, high-
level management teams
and advanced technol-
ogy resources; “all-around”
strengthening of internation-
al cooperation and technol-
ogy transfer; and “improving
various working systems in
the international technology
transfer work.”
The Hebei University of
Engineering, for example,
has set up partnerships with
international schools to de-
velop high-end scientific
and technological projects,
as outlined in its report “He-
bei International Joint Cen-
ter Base Defense,” issued on
Nov. 21, 2020.
Under the “Cooperative
Units and Research Teams”
section of the document, the
university partnered with
Le Mans Université and
Université Paris-Saclay in
France, University College
London in England, and
Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore.
The document notes that
University College London
is the world’s top science
and technology university,
ranking among the top 10
universities in the world,
and professor P. Picart at Le
Mans Université is an au-
thoritative expert on digital
holographic display.
Sounding the Alarm
In October 2020, at the
Chinese Communist Party
(CCP)’s Fifth Plenary Ses-
sion, Party leader Xi Jinping
emphasized “independent
science and technology”
and “strengthening basic
research and focusing on
original innovation” in his
speech.
Analysts observed that Xi’s
remarks are a response to
the growing criticism from
the international commu-
nity regarding the CCP’s
theft of intellectual property
and technology from West-
ern countries, especially the
United States.
On Dec. 9, U.S. Secre-
tary of State Mike Pompeo
gave a speech at the Geor-
gia Institute of Technology
in which he called out the
CCP’s stealing of intellectual
property and technologies
from other countries.
“Much of the high-end in-
dustrial base inside of China
is based on stolen technolo-
gy, or technology purchased
from other nations. It’s not
home-grown,” he said.
Gu Qing’er contributed
to this report.
Experts Skeptical of Effectiveness
ALEX WU
The Chinese regime ap-
proved a COVID-19 vaccine
developed by state-run firm
Sinopharm on the last day
of 2020. However, interna-
tional experts are skeptical
about its efficacy and safe-
ty, as little clinical data has
been released so far.
A Chinese top expert also
has expressed reservations
about it.
On Dec. 31, 2020, China’s
State Council announced at
a press conference that Sino-
pharm’s inactivated vaccine
had been granted “condi-
tional approval” by China’s
Drug Administration. The
vaccine had an efficacy rate
of 79.34 percent, according
to state media reports.
By comparison, the Pfizer
COVID-19 vaccine has an
efficacy rate of 95 percent,
and the Moderna vaccine
94.1 percent.
Lack of Supporting Data
Sinopharm didn’t provide
any breakdown of its clini-
cal trial data, nor disclose
the size of its testing sample.
In an interview with The
Epoch Times, former U.S.
Army Research Institute vi-
rology researcher Dr. Sean
Lin said that without trans-
parent data, it’s difficult to
ascertain the Sinopharm’s
vaccine efficacy rate.
Earlier in 2020, Sinopharm
said its vaccine had entered
clinical trials. Lin said
it’s unlikely the company
would have completed its
phase III testing—which
is done on large groups of
people—so quickly.
“This data needs to be
collected after a large-scale
experiment of tens of thou-
sands of people ... since of-
ficials did not publish the
data, I have to put a few
question marks,” Lin said.
Sinopharm President Wu
Yonglin revealed at the Dec.
31 press conference that
phase III testing was con-
ducted in foreign countries.
Lin expressed concerns
over the vaccine’s efficacy
on the Chinese population,
given that the trial was con-
ducted on people in foreign
countries.
“Because of differences in
race and ethnicity, their im-
mune systems may be some-
what different from Chinese
people,” he said.
In a Dec. 30 interview with
the state-run media CCTV,
Zhong Nanshan, a top re-
spiratory expert who often
advised the government on
COVID-19 prevention mea-
sures, expressed his reser-
vations about the efficacy of
the Chinese vaccine.
“It is wrong to put all hopes
on the vaccine. After the
vaccination, no one knows
whether they will develop
antibodies or not, or wheth-
er there are symptoms or not
after being injected. As for
whether [someone injected
with the vaccine] can trans-
mit the disease to others, no
one knows either.”
Mass Vaccination Before
Approval
Even before the regime is-
sued its official approval,
Chinese authorities already
had mandated that millions
were to be injected with Chi-
nese-made vaccines.
Zeng Yixin, deputy director
of China’s National Health
Commission, told Chinese
media on Dec. 31 that “from
June until the end of Novem-
ber, [COVID-19] vaccines
had been administered to
more than 1.5 million peo-
ple, including approximately
60,000 Chinese workers who
have been sent to work in
high-risk areas abroad.”
She claimed that there
were no reports of serious
infections.
According to media re-
ports, hundreds of Chinese
workers who went overseas
to work in Serbia, Angola,
and Uganda were confirmed
to be infected with COVID-19
after being injected with Chi-
nese-made vaccines.
Lin said that when there’s
no data during the initial
stage of development, it’s
“irresponsible” for authori-
ties to inoculate millions of
people with a vaccine.
Efficacy and Safety
Concerns
Previously, The Epoch Times
obtained through a Chinese
source the results of an in-
ternal survey conducted at
the Shanghai Yangpu Dis-
trict Traditional Chinese
Medicine Hospital, where
93.4 percent of medical staff
there said they wouldn’t
want to be injected with a
COVID-19 vaccine.
Some researchers have also
pointed to the fact that the
CCP virus could mutate over
time. Xu Nanping, deputy
minister of China’s Ministry
of Science and Technology,
responded to a reporter’s
question at the Dec. 31 press
conference about the effica-
cy of vaccines in protecting
against mutated virus strains.
“Virus mutation is normal
and happens every day. ...
There is no evidence that
the mutations we observe
will have a substantial im-
pact on the effectiveness of
the vaccine.”
But Lin says the jury is still
out.
“Whether this vaccine has
any effect on this mutated
virus should be determined
by corresponding experi-
ments immediately, instead
of relying on empty words
to say that there is no prob-
lem,” he said.
China also has a history
of health scandals related
to botched vaccines.
In 2018, Chinese pharma-
ceutical company Chang-
sheng Bio-technology was
found to have shipped more
than 250,000 doses of a faulty
DTaP vaccine (a combination
vaccine for diphtheria, per-
tussis, and tetanus), affecting
more than 200,000 children.
And in 2019, a Chinese
hospital was found to have
vaccinated people against
the human papillomavirus
(HPV) without obtaining a
proper license.
Luo Yan contributed
to the report.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
Report Casts More Doubt on China’s
Official Organ Transplant System
NICOLE HAO & CATHY HE
Evidence of large-scale forced or-
gan harvesting has cast a shadow
on China’s organ transplant sys-
tem for more than a decade.
Now an internal document ana-
lyzing organ allocation and trans-
plant data in a Chinese province
has revealed systemic report-
ing anomalies by hospitals. The
anomalies cast doubt on the cred-
ibility of China’s official organ
registration system, which may
further point to state-sanctioned
organ extraction from prisoners
against their will, according to
an expert’s analysis of the report
findings.
The report, obtained from a
trusted source, had been com-
piled by the China Organ Trans-
plant Response System (COTRS),
a body set up by China’s National
Health Commission (NHC) in
2011 to register and allocate or-
gans. Under this regime, organs
registered in COTRS are matched
and allocated to patients in need.
It revealed that from Jan. 1, 2015,
to April 13, 2018, nationally, 3,130
organs had been registered in
COTRS only after the transplant
had taken place.
“This is really ridiculous,” Dr.
Torsten Trey, executive director
of medical ethics advocacy group
Doctors Against Forced Organ
Harvesting, told The Epoch Times
in an email. This large number
of transplants being entered into
COTRS only after the surgeries
indicates “systematic malprac-
tice,” he said.
The organs [were]
allocated with-
out COTRS. This
could be a strong
hint that organs
are harvested on
demand.
Torsten Trey, executive
director, Doctors Against
Forced Organ Harvesting
Since 2015, the Chinese regime
has been claiming that organs for
transplant come only from volun-
tary donors. In an ordinary organ
allocation program, potential or-
gan donors should be reported to
the allocation system (in this case,
COTRS), which then matches the
organs to suitable recipients.
“But here, the organs [were] allo-
cated without COTRS,” Trey said.
“This could be a strong hint
that organs are harvested on de-
mand.”
In 2019, an independent tribu-
nal found, after a year-long inves-
tigation, that the Chinese regime
has forcibly harvested the organs
of prisoners of conscience for the
transplant market “on a substan-
tial scale,” a practice that contin-
ues today.
The primary victims are de-
tained Falun Gong practitio-
ners, it found. Adherents of Falun
Gong, a spiritual practice, have
been persecuted by the Chinese
Communist Party for more than
two decades, with millions hav-
ing been detained in prisons, la-
bor camps, and other facilities,
according to the Falun Dafa In-
formation Center.
Trey said that because thou-
sands of organs appear to have
bypassed the allocation process,
the entire system can’t be trusted.
“If 3,000 organs are not entered,
how can we guarantee that 30,000
organs are not entered?” he said.
“Maybe they had 30,000 trans-
plants and then decided to regis-
ter 3,000 of them in COTRS.
“Once the process is breached,
anything can happen.”
Trey suggested that COTRS
might just be an “empty shell”
or a “sugar coating for Western
doctors.”
“Western doctors are being de-
ceived that COTRS is similar to
other organ allocation programs,”
he said.
Reporting Breaches
The COTRS report analyzed organ
allocation and transplant data in
the eastern Chinese province of
Zhejiang from Jan. 1, 2015, to April
13, 2018. Alongside COTRS data,
the report draws upon data from
companion NHC databases, the
China Liver Transplant Registry,
and the Chinese Scientific Regis-
try for Kidney Transplantation, as
well as information from hospi-
tals’ organ procurement offices.
The report said that, nationally,
2,036 organs were registered in
COTRS without sources specified.
Trey said that this again demon-
strated sluggish reporting “not to
the standard of Western alloca-
tion programs.”
It also found that 104 organs
were allocated to hospitals in
Zhejiang but were ultimately not
used for transplant. This figure
represented 2.6 percent of the
organs registered in COTRS in
the province during the time pe-
riod, according to data cited in
the report.
That more than 100 organs—or
even any organ—would be al-
located to a hospital and not be
used would be “100 percent im-
possible” in other regions with de-
veloped transplant systems such
as the United States and Europe,
Trey said.
In the case of an organ recipient
passing away before the transplant
surgery, then the hospital would
need to inform COTRS to suspend
the organ transfer or reallocate it,
he said, noting that it was unlikely
that more than 100 patients would
die before their transplant.
“If those organs were not used,
and not reallocated, that would
suggest a sluggish organization or
such an abundance of organs that
really, nobody would care about
them,” Trey said.
In the report, COTRS also iden-
tified several issues in the sys-
tem that indicated that hospitals
in Zhejiang may have “falsified
medical data, manipulated or-
gans’ distribution, and cheated
[the COTRS system] to get donat-
ed organs.”
It found more than 1,400 in-
stances of a donor’s or recipient’s
data being changed within one
hour before transplant, or new re-
cipients being added to the wait-
ing list just before they received
the transplant.
“This is awful,” Trey said, adding
that it demonstrates fraudulent
practice by hospitals.
“If made public to the Western
transplant community, it should
cause outcry about bad practices.”
The Epoch Times found that one
of the hospitals identified in the
Falun Gong adherents demonstrate an illegal
act of paying for human organs, during a
protest in Washington, in this file photo.
report as an authorized hospital
that performed transplant opera-
tions, Shulan Hospital, is not on
the Chinese regime’s official list
of transplant hospitals.
“If this hospital is not officially
a transplant hospital, what other
hospital is performing trans-
plants [without authorization]?”
Trey said.
COTRS found that five hospitals
that were not authorized to con-
duct organ transplants had per-
formed 43 transplant operations
during the statistical period.
This isn’t the first time China’s
official organ transplant data has
raised alarm bells.
A 2019 study published in the
scientific journal BMC Medical
Ethics found that there was “high-
ly compelling evidence” that the
Chinese regime was systemati-
cally falsifying its organ donation
data. It found that the official fig-
ures conformed almost precisely
to a mathematical formula, a qua-
dratic equation.
Rising Ambitions
Despite heightened scrutiny on
China’s organ transplant practic-
es, Beijing is gearing up to expand
the industry.
Even as the CCP virus ravaged
China in 2020, China’s organ
transplant industry conducted
business as usual, with no “obvi-
ous organ waiting time delays,”
according to a July investigation
by the U.S. nonprofit World Orga-
nization to Investigate the Perse-
cution of Falun Gong. One nurse
in the Guangxi region told the in-
vestigators that, despite fears of
CHINA | A11
JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
COVID-19 infection, they would
“do the surgery whenever there
is one,” only that they “won’t go
crazy like during the pre-pan-
demic times.”
Huang Jiefu, former Chinese
vice health minister and head of
the China National Organ Dona-
tion and Transplantation Com-
mittee, boasted at a conference
in October 2020 that China had
become the second-largest organ
transplant country in the world.
“During this COVID-19 pan-
demic, organ donation and trans-
plantation was developed in a
very smooth and high efficient
way in our country,” Huang said.
He added that China could
become the largest organ trans-
plant country within three years
if it could solve three “bottleneck
problems,” being “high cost,
shortage of transplant capability,
and lack of organs.”
The NHC changed transplant
rules in August last year to make
it easier for doctors and hospitals
to be authorized to perform organ
transplants.
In December, U.S. lawmakers
introduced bills that would sanc-
tion foreign officials involved in
forced organ harvesting.
“There is growing evidence that
the Chinese Communist Party
has and continues to harvest or-
gans from prisoners and members
of Chinese religious groups,” bill
co-sponsor Sen. Tom Cotton (R-
Ark.) said at the time.
“It’s past time to hold Beijing ac-
countable for these heinous acts.”
Eva Fu contributed to this report. 
A12 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

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TRUTH AND TRADITION

OPINION
Conservative Ethnogenesis
Mark Bauerlein
See A14
OPINION |BUSINESS | ECONOMY| PERSONAL FINANCE
The rising sun illuminates the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 19, 2019.
A Time for Choosing: A Test for Our Souls
EDITORIAL BOARD
The political crisis the
United States is now fac-
ing brings into the open a
contest for the soul of our
country. As important as
this recent election is, the
stakes transcend particular
political arrangements—they go to fun-
damental issues, about which each of us
must make a choice and take a stand.
A peculiarity of our current situation is
this: While every American is intricately
familiar with the pandemic and the effect
it has had on our lives, this is not the case
for voter fraud, despite the evidence being
overwhelming.
Some Americans are ignorant of these
facts because they have been misin-
formed by a media that willfully with-
holds information. The reason for this
might surprise you.
There has been a force quietly at work in
our country, in plain sight, that has gradu-
ally taken over ideological control of most
of our institutions, businesses, and media,
and even our culture.
This decades-long communist
subversion of our nation came
to a head in the 2020 election.
This force is Marxism and communism.
For those who have been following this
story, there is no surprise here. For those
who have never heard of this, it may sound
far-fetched and unbelievable.
It’s not that we weren’t alerted. It was the
stated goal of the Soviet Union to infiltrate
our political parties, media, and academia,
in an effort to subvert America from with-
in. This process is now almost complete.
This decades-long communist subver-
sion of our nation came to a head in the
2020 election.
While before our major political parties
didn’t differ that much on a fundamental
level, gradually one of the parties was
subverted by communist groups.
During past elections, both parties would
wave the American flag and sing the na-
tional anthem, but now one side believes
America is a fundamentally flawed nation.
Over the summer, Marxist groups such
as Black Lives Matter (BLM), which was
founded by self-proclaimed Marxists who
have hijacked genuine concerns over
racism for political purposes, and the far-
left Antifa group were behind riots and
violence. These groups have direct ties
to communist groups connected to the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Among the statues torn down in these
riots were those of Thomas Jefferson,
George Washington, Francis Scott Key, St.
Junipero Serra, and even of Jesus.
For those who escaped communism,
the assault on our nation’s heritage felt
no different from the Cultural Revolu-
tion seen during the 1960s in communist
China. Wherever communism goes, it
targets a country’s history, principles, and
beliefs in an effort to force control.
During the Cultural Revolution, the
media relentlessly attacked then-Chinese
leader Liu Shaoqi. Liu was removed and
suffered a miserable death.
The young Red Guards destroyed all the
antiquities and cultural relics they could
find. They beat anyone who had knowl-
edge of traditional culture, and they tore
down temples and destroyed statues.
The exact same communist ideology
is driving today’s BLM and Antifa move-
ments in the United States. They are trying
to destroy our traditional morality and the
traditional structure of society. Anything
that reminds people of tradition inherently
reveals, by contrast, how communism is
against society and against humanity.
Communism is not merely a bad
economic model; it is an evil system re-
sponsible for the killing of more than 100
million innocent people over the past 100
years. It has destroyed civilizations and
the good traditions and cultural heritage
of many countries. And it has incited
hatred in people everywhere it goes.
Chinese Communist Party Subversion
The CCP sees the free world—and es-
pecially the United States—as a mortal
threat to its dictatorial rule. It will do ev-
erything to defeat and destroy America.
Over the past two decades, the decline
of moral standards in our own country
has made it possible for communist
China to take advantage of our system.
It has systematically bought and black-
mailed our key elites in government, me-
dia, academia, and business. The “honey
trap” that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.)
appears to have fallen into is only the tip
of the iceberg.
Positioning ourselves on the
righteous side is more critical
than ever.
Using women and money, the CCP was
able to bring many elites under its control.
It has also bought influence over Wall
Street. The Wall Street elite—responsible
for pressuring companies to move to Chi-
na–made the most profit from this shift of
America’s manufacturing base to China.
Meanwhile, it is Wall Street money that
has supported key businesses in China,
including China’s military development.
As Chinese professor Di Dongsheng, as-
sociate dean of the School of International
Studies at the Renmin University of China
in Beijing, recently revealed, the CCP has
used its “good friends” in Wall Street to
manipulate the United States, politically
and financially, for decades.
The CCP has studied America in great
detail. It has analyzed every congressman,
senator, and governor, and even each lob-
byist, and it has figured out exactly how
our system works and how to corrupt the
key people in our country. This is why the
CCP was able to be so deeply involved in
the 2020 election while at the same time
remaining mostly invisible.
Remaking the US
This corruption and manipulation are for
the sake of reordering the United States,
and then the world, according to the CCP’s
principles.
The CCP teaches struggle, materialism,
and atheism.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
The Slow Destruction
of American Innovation
Bob Zeidman
See A22
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 A13
SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES
Struggle involves fighting to get one’s
way. The fighting may be physical or psy-
chological. In any case, law and truth are
set aside for the sake of power.
Materialism involves understanding
ourselves from the bottom up. Humanity
is described as a collection of desires such
as hunger, fear, and lust. Higher things,
such as conscience or spirituality, are not
recognized.
Atheism involves denying the existence
of God. With that denial, humanity loses
the morality and true independence that
come with belief.
The CCP has developed a regime of cen-
sorship, propaganda, and social control
that is enabling it to put in place the most
perfect tyranny known in history.
Should the CCP complete its conquest
of the United States, then the forms of
that tyranny will be introduced into the
United States, and Americans will learn
to live, feel, and think according to CCP
principles. The United States and the
world will enter a seemingly endless
night in which the light of meaning and
truth will have been snuffed out.
A Choice
That moment hasn’t come yet. All Ameri-
cans hold their destiny in their hands. And
by determining their own fate, they can
help determine the future of our country.
The fundamental basis of any nation is
its morality.
While the CCP has for decades sought
to corrupt our morality, individual
Americans can choose to reject the
blandishments of communism in favor
of traditional morality.
Americans can choose honesty instead
of fraud; personal responsibility instead of
socialism; truth and freely reported news
over propaganda and censorship; and
belief over atheism.
This is the sure path to finding safety.
As we are facing an unsettled election and
the resurgence of the CCP virus, position-
ing ourselves on the righteous side is more
critical than ever. In both Western and
Eastern ancient cultures, plagues had rea-
sons for their attack, and people with hon-
esty and a righteous mind could survive.
A14 | OPINION
Conservative
Ethnogenesis
MARK BAUERLEIN
Ethnogenesis is the pro-
cess by which numerous
individuals who share
an ethnic trait come to
understand themselves
as a distinct group, people
whose common attributes
mark them as having a separate standing
and experience.
The term is now commonly applied to
any social group with a marked com-
monality, not just an ethnic one. It’s a
process we conservatives at the present
time are called to undergo. We must face
the fact that the country we inhabit, the
institutions that steer and govern our
society, the schools that educate our chil-
dren, and many of the laws and regula-
tions we must follow bluntly oppose what
we believe and who we are.
By “conservatives” I mean social and
religious conservatives, people who sub-
scribe to traditional, conservative con-
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
Protesters rally in front of the Supreme Court
building on the day the court is to hear the case
against the conservative Christian baker Jack
Phillips who refused to make a wedding cake to a
same-sex couple, in Washington on Dec. 5, 2017.
DILBERT
PEANUTS
RED AND ROVER
GRAND AVENUE
MUTT & JEFF
ceptions of God, family, and nation. Not
libertarian conservatives; not free market
fundamentalists. The conservatives iden-
tified here accept some version of Original
Sin, which means they know that gov-
ernment can’t solve all social problems.
They regard the two-parent, heterosexual
family as the foundation for all other
institutions in modern society, and that
the “normalization” of other sexualities
is dicey progress. They love America, and
they like strong borders, and they’re tired
of narratives of national guilt.
All of this puts them at odds with the “he-
gemony” of the elite in the United States.
Hegemony is a term from leftist thought
that signifies a set of values and assump-
tion and expectations that have settled
into a dogma that guides people who run
powerful institutions. It’s the intellectual
component of social/political control.
The idea of “systemic racism” as a core
feature of American life, for instance, is
hegemonic. Joe Biden espouses it, and so
do the heads of prestigious colleges and
large corporations and entertainment/
media complexes. It’s hegemonic in that
it requires that you endorse it if you wish
to participate in those institutions. If you
doubt the reality of systemic racism, don’t
bother applying for a job there.
On the issues of race, sexuality, family,
education, civics, the arts, and govern-
ment, a liberal hegemony reigns, and con-
servatives know to keep their mouths shut
if they wish to get ahead. The hegemony is
binding and often vindictive.
Liberalism circa 2021 isn’t the classi-
cal liberalism of the Bill of Rights, John
Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” and Thoreau’s
leave-me-alone individualism. It isn’t a
celebration of the common man as in Walt
COMICS
People attend the Let the Church ROAR National Prayer Rally on the National Mall in Washington
on Dec. 12, 2020.
Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and in the
populism of William Jennings Bryan.
No, it’s 21st-century identity liberalism,
its “woke” manifestation, a psycho-polit-
ical stew of white/male/Christian/Ameri-
can guilt empowered by every human
resources office in Fortune 500 compa-
nies, the Democratic Party, professional
organizations from the worlds of medicine
and libraries, of teachers and media and
sports, and the mayors of New York City,
Portland, Chicago, Seattle. ... This liberal-
ism doesn’t defend the common man. It
mistrusts and monitors him.
The old liberalism left people alone. It
marked a bright line of privacy. It prized
conscience and wouldn’t force individu-
als to violate their beliefs so long as their
consciences didn’t target someone else’s
rights. When a gay couple walked into a
bakery in Colorado and asked the owner
to design a same-sex wedding cake for
them, the owner politely declined, his
fervent Catholicism telling him not to
endorse same-sex marriage (marriage
is a sacrament in the Catholic church). It
wasn’t that he refused to sell them a wed-
GARFIELD
GINGER MEGGS
BIG NATE
DRABBLE
FRANK AND ERNEST
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
LARRY DYE/THE EPOCH TIMES
ding cake—they could pick any cake on
the shelf and do whatever they wanted
with it. He didn’t care. All he refused to do
was put his own unique design talents to
work at creating from scratch something
he objected to for profound and long-
standing religious reasons.
You know what followed. A complaint of
discrimination was filed against the baker,
a bigoted and incompetent state human
rights commission leapt into action, and
the baker underwent a state-sponsored
persecution that has lasted for years.
An old-school liberal would be aghast by
the case. “Go get a cake at a bakery down
the road,” he would blurt. “Leave him
alone!” Not the new liberal. That baker
and his conservative views have to go—he
has to suffer. Jack Phillips won his case at
the U.S. Supreme Court, but the persecu-
tion worked. He suffered, yes, and every
conservative who heard of the case took
note: They will come after me, too, if I hold
the line, no matter whether they will win
or lose. They’ve got the power of the state
behind them, and gargantuan legal back-
ing as well.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
A few years back, a prominent attorney
told a group of conservative writers and
journalists in a closed meeting that every
major law firm in the country is willing
to provide pro bono services to victims of
discrimination as long as the victims be-
long to certain favored groups, and social/
religious conservatives aren’t one of them.
It’s not just the ACLU doing the targeting.
Who wants to fight? Who has the time
and energy? Nobody is going to help me,
most conservatives assume. The very few
conservative legal firms in the United
States stare across the battlefield at thou-
sands of liberal legal warriors. The hand-
ful of conservative colleges is laughed at
by the hundreds of liberal/leftist schools
with many, many billions of endow-
ment dollars. The scattered conservative
foundations and think tanks work in the
shadow of Ford Foundation, Brookings
Institution, Open Society Foundation,
and dozens of other leftist behemoths.
There’s The Epoch Times, and then there
are The New York Times, Washington
Post, LA Times, Time Magazine, The
New Yorker, the Atlantic. ... Even The Wall
Street Journal and Fox News have their
periodic doubts about social/religious
conservatives.
The situation is daunting and dismaying,
but it’s here now, and it’s here to stay for
the near future. Conservatives don’t like to
think of themselves as an identity group.
They don’t like identity politics. Tribalism
repels them. Grievance attitudes are for
the left, they believe, people of resentment
and ingratitude who don’t believe in any
universals. But the longer they deny the
party of which they’re a member, and the
more they resist the condition into which
illiberal liberal society has placed them,
the longer they will flounder and lose.
We’re a besieged and intimidated minor-
ity. They don’t like us; they don’t want us
around. The blather about diversity and
inclusion is just that.
Hegemony is a term from
leftist thought ... settled into
a dogma that guides people
who run powerful institutions.
It’s the intellectual component
of social/political control.
Conservatives need a new attitude. They
must learn to think of themselves in class
terms—as a social, political, economic,
and cultural formation with concrete
interests in conflict with the interests
of the rest. Liberals won’t like that, and
many conservatives won’t like that either.
Class consciousness strikes the latter as a
betrayal of conservative principles. “Once
you start using the methods of the other
side,” they warn, “you become just like the
other side.” One could really appall them
by citing in this context Malcolm X:
“The economic philosopher of Black Na-
tionalism only means that we should own,
and operate, and control the economy of
our community. You can’t open a black
store in a white community. White men
won’t even patronize you. And he’s not
wrong! He’s got sense enough to look out
for himself. It’s you who don’t have sense
enough to look out for yourself.”
The line comes from his “The Ballot
or the Bullet” speech from April 1964 in
Detroit. Conservatives should listen, and
not just because Malcolm X was a devout
social and religious conservative (a fact
conveniently overlooked by leftists and
progressives who admire him). The man
understood, too, that a disadvantaged
group doesn’t advance by ignoring its
group identity and the disadvantageous
conditions that have reinforced that
identity.
Conservatives are no longer in a culture
war, nor a religious war, however much
they insist that politics are downstream
from culture, and culture downstream
from religion. This is about the survival of
businesses, access to jobs, the ability to op-
erate in the economic arena. Progressives
who loathe Tucker Carlson don’t argue the
issues with him. No, they call for boycotts
of his advertisers. They make everything
political—commerce, entertainment, the
professions, classrooms—and they do so
by hitting at the bottom line. Conserva-
tives don’t so much fear losing the debate.
They fear for their livelihoods.
The first step is, precisely, ethnogenesis.
We are a class. We don’t want to be a class,
but we have no choice. Liberal institu-
tions treat us that way, and they manage
most everything in the spaces beyond our
houses and churches. Let’s call it “systemic
illiberalism.”
Mark Bauerlein is an emeritus professor of
English at Emory University. His work has
been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The
Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, the
TLS, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Then-Indi-
ana House
Speaker
Brian Bosma
speaks to
the legisla-
ture at the
state Capitol
in Indianap-
olis on April
2, 2015.
Beware the Corporatocracy
WESLEY J. SMITH
A Hollywood dys-
topian plotline
cliché depicts large
corporations as
despotic exploiters
controlling society
and manipulating
individuals to maximize profits.
Think “Alien.” Think “Blade Run-
ner.” Think “Robocop.”
I have always thought that this vil-
lainous corporations plotline was a
stretch. Free societies would never,
I assumed, surrender personal
liberty to the control of big busi-
ness. But recent developments have
convinced me that I was wrong.
Big business is exerting increas-
ing control over our lives and even
establishing its own quasi-public
policies. And, it turns out, this
corporate hegemony isn’t so much
about maximizing profits—as in the
movie plots—as it is enforcing woke
cultural and technocratic policy
orthodoxies.
Consider what happened in 2015,
when Indiana passed the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act. The
country’s most powerful corpora-
tions threatened to boycott the
state, claiming that the law would
sanction discrimination against the
LGBT community. Worried about
a vast loss of business opportuni-
ties, a second law was soon passed
significantly narrowing the RFRA’s
scope of protection.
The same formula was deployed
by corporate leaders in 2016,
when North Carolina passed a law
requiring people who use govern-
ment building public restrooms to
use facilities consistent with their
biological sex. “Bigotry!” screamed
our cultural overseers—many of
which happily do business with the
communist Chinese that harvest
the organs of Falun Gong political
prisoners. Soon, the state legislature
yielded to the pressure and sub-
stantially gutted the law.
The coming of COVID-19 added
much heft to the power of corpora-
tions to become policy enforcers.
First, it was private businesses
requiring that masks be worn by
all customers—whether or not the
law required it. Given the liability
potential, the protection masks
may provide for employees, and
the shell-shocked attitudes of many
shoppers, masking demands aren’t
People
stand inside
the offices
of JP Mor-
gan Chase
in New
York, in this
file photo.
a significant intrusion on personal
liberty.
But these mandates established
the principle that it’s a legitimate
function of the private sector to
enforce public health policies, and
even, “voluntary” guidelines.
Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised
that there are serious proposals to
allow the private sector to “encour-
age” vaccine compliance by requir-
ing us to carry “vaccine passports”
proving that we received the CO-
VID-19 jab before being allowed
to shop, travel, and go to concerts
or sporting events. Think about it.
Rather than engage a political brou-
haha over the government mandat-
ing vaccines, the powers that be
could just let the corporations do it.
Private-Sector Authoritarianism
But we are in a public health emer-
gency, Wesley! Yes, I know. But
private-sector authoritarianism
won’t end with the waning of the
pandemic. Already, members of
the ruling class are suggesting that
similar liberty-constraining strat-
egies be deployed as a means of
fighting the “climate crisis.”
Big business is exerting
increasing control
over our lives and even
establishing its own
quasi-public policies.
The grandees at the World Eco-
nomic Forum, for example, ex-
plained in a June column that the
pandemic’s “silver lining” was that
our compliance with COVID-19
policies demonstrated “how quickly
we can make radical changes to our
lifestyles.” When you hear words
like that, consider the source and
run for the hills!
To encourage even greater public
subservience, the WEF launched
“the Great Reset Initiative” to
revamp “all aspects of our societies
and economies, from education to
social contracts and working condi-
tions” with “every industry, from oil
and gas to tech, transformed.”
Similarly, pandemic-fighting
guru Dr. Anthony Fauci called for
rebuilding “the infrastructure of
human existence, from cities to
homes to workplaces, to water and
MICHAEL NAGLE/GETTY IMAGES
OPINION | A15
AARON P. BERNSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES
sewer systems, to recreational and
gatherings venues.” Those gargan-
tuan tasks wouldn’t be carried out
primarily by government, but, to a
great extent, pursued and enforced
by the private sector.
This emerging corporatocracy is
already flexing its muscles. YouTube
refused to post videos of scientists
with heterodox views on fighting
COVID-19 with lockdowns. Face-
book has prevented fundraising and
advertising for causes and ideas that
its woke workforce finds triggering.
Good grief, Twitter censored a
legitimate and demonstrably true
news story in the New York Post
about Hunter Biden’s Chinese busi-
ness dealings in a successful bid to
aid his father’s election chances.
Enacting Policies
Meanwhile, private companies
have begun enacting their own
quasi-public policies that have gone
well beyond the already mentioned
pressure placed on Indiana and
North Carolina.
Banks have begun blackballing
legal but controversial industries.
For example, Bank of America re-
fuses to lend money to gun manu-
facturers of “assault weapons” as
a private-sector gambit “to reduce
mass shootings.”
Last October, the financial behe-
moth JPMorgan announced that
it would pressure its customers to
align their business practices with
the goals of the Paris Climate Agree-
ment—even though official U.S.
policy at the time was to withdraw
from the accord.
One can easily envisage even
broader corporate ideological en-
forcement paradigms entering the
insurance, commercial real estate,
manufacturing, and other business
sectors.
All of this disturbingly parallels
the Chinese Communist Party’s
despotic “social credit system,”
which deploys cutting edge com-
puter technologies to spy on its
citizens. Comply with the state dik-
tats, and one’s rent can be lowered.
Receiving too many demerits by
defying communist rules can lead
to eviction, loss of a job, and the in-
ability to ride public transportation.
If we aren’t careful, the world’s
largest and most powerful corpora-
tions could establish an analogous
private-sector authoritarianism—
not to enforce loyalty to the state but
acquiescence in social and cultural
orthodoxies dictated by “experts”
and cultural “influencers.” And
there would be no way to “throw
the rascals out,” as can be done in
democratic governance, since it
would just be a matter of private
firms creating their own desired
business practices.
Here’s the bottom line (if you will):
If we are to prevent the looming
corporatocracy, we must establish
robust checks and balances that
would limit the power of big busi-
ness to ride herd over our individual
behavior. We had better act fast. The
freedom we lose could be our own.
Award-winning author Wesley J.
Smith is the chairman of the Dis-
covery Institute’s Center on Human
Exceptionalism.
A16 | OPINION
COVID Ushers in Stimulus.
The Taxman Follows.
THEODORE DALRYMPLE
A crisis is always an opportunity
and whatever happens, some-
one benefits. John Maynard
Keynes pointed out long ago
that rapid inflation always puts
the financial boot on different
feet: creditors lose and debtors gain.
This, in turn, can have profound social
and cultural consequences. Conduct that
was once deemed prudent becomes im-
prudent, and vice versa. Whole virtues can
disappear because of inflation.
When the COVID-19 crisis struck, govern-
ments that were already highly indebted
found themselves constrained to expand
their debt as rapidly as during a world war.
To be fair to them (and it doesn’t come
naturally to anyone to be fair to govern-
ments) it’s difficult to see what else they
could have done. They could hardly have
left businesses to go bankrupt en masse, or
millions unemployed without an income.
Needless to say, government largesse
wasn’t invariably well-directed: it was often
more like a blunderbuss aimed at a spar-
row. A neighbor of mine, a small but pros-
perous businessman, received thousands
when he hadn’t the slightest need of them
and without the slightest official effort to
ascertain whether he needed them or not.
Who, after all, would refuse a winning
lottery ticket such as this? It was a wonder-
ful free gift—so long, at least, as money
still held some value.
Wealth Tax
Presumably, the bill will come in one day,
probably in the not-very-distant future.
One way of meeting it that is now being
touted in Britain, and apparently is very
popular with the public, is a wealth tax:
that is to say, a tax on all the assets of the
wealthiest people, from their houses to
their pension funds to their possessions
valued at more than $4,000.
Of course, any tax is popular with the
people who won’t have to pay it and who
think the proceeds will be spent on, or
at least trickle down to, them; but given
human nature, the main attraction of the
tax is probably more that of the certainty of
inflicting pain on others than of the hope
of benefiting oneself.
To adapt the words of St. Paul slightly,
“Now abideth resentment, greed,
envy, these three; but the greatest of
these is envy.”
The tax was first proposed by an organi-
zation calling itself the Wealth Tax Com-
mission, which sounds official but actually
is an alliance of academic economists.
Their naivety—not to ascribe worse mo-
tives to them—beggars description.
They say that the tax will be “one-off,”
a special measure to meet an undoubted
economic emergency. But who would
believe that a tax supported by so much of
the population will be easy to reverse? And
why should anyone ever afterward believe
in the security of property that is held in
the country?
The income tax was introduced as an
emergency measure more than two centu-
ries ago, and, after a brief interregnum, has
come to be as ineluctable as the daybreak
or the sundown. Thus anyone able to move
assets out of the country would be well-ad-
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vised to do so. The precautionary principle
The proposal that could never be more wisely applied.
all possessions of a Unreality
value greater than The proposal that all possessions of a value
$4,000 should be greater than $4,000 should be taxed (say
at 1 percent of their market value, though
taxed could only the commission graciously concedes that
have been made it would be up to the politicians to decide
by persons with what the rate should be) could only have
been made by persons with a very firm
a very firm grasp grasp of unreality—or, alternatively, with a
of unreality—or, vocation for instituting a police state.
alternatively, with a It’s highly unlikely that people would
meekly declare the true market value of
vocation for institu- their valuables: that is, if they knew them.
ting a police state. The tax authorities would either have to ac-
cept the underestimates that people made,
or create an inspectorate with powers of
entry to people’s homes and a system of
exemplary penalties for underestimation.
The inspectorate, of course, would also
have to have some expertise in everything
from paintings to silver to furniture to
Chinese porcelain, and an Englishman’s
home would no longer be his, but the rev-
enue’s, castle.
Professional valuers, if employed to
avoid arbitrary valuations, wouldn’t work
for nothing; if the revenue paid their fees,
no money would accrue to it from their
valuations, the cost of the valuation having
eaten up the amount raised. Alternatively,
if the owner had to pay those fees, the tax
on valuables might effectively double the
rate of tax.
Even though, again very graciously,
the commission would permit the total
amount of wealth tax due to be spread
over five years without penalty, the
amount might still eat so severely into the
incomes that people who were asset rich
but income poor—a fairly common type
in these days of asset inflation and low
Like this article? Share it returns on capital—that they would feel
with your friends and family. obliged to sell some assets.
Use the camera on your They would thus be obliged to pay tax on
smart-phone to scan this code pre-forced-sale prices, and receive only a
and receive a shareble link. force-sale price when they sold: and thus
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Rows of terraced
houses and residential
properties in south
London on July 6, 2020.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
the effective rate of taxation would be con-
siderably higher than that initially levied.
It would be the merely prosperous,
whose wealth had been slowly accreted
over many years, rather than the truly rich
who would be most affected. Naturally,
the economists presenting the tax pro-
pose that everyone above a certain level
of wealth would be equally affected, that
there would be no allowances or exemp-
tions, so that there would be no loopholes
through which anyone could slither.
They make no allowances for the con-
siderable experience of the very rich in
avoiding taxes, far more effectively, in
fact, than any jurisdiction has ever been
able to prevent them from doing so. It
also assumes an effective and frictionless
administration in a country conspicuous
for its administrative incompetence, even
in the simplest matters.
Incipient Totalitarianism
But all these objections—to say nothing of
the fairly obvious injustices of the pro-
posal—are probably beside the point. The
purpose of the wealth tax is only tangen-
tially to raise money at a particularly dif-
ficult time, for I should be very surprised
indeed if members of the commission
hadn’t been in favor of a wealth tax before
the COVID-19 crisis struck.
The purpose behind it is thus social
reform, not the meeting of an economic
necessity. The crisis is an opportunity: to
advance the centralization of power and
the permanent boosting of government
powers vis-à-vis the population.
There is, however, one small potential fly
in the ointment of my argument, namely
that I haven’t fully worked out an alterna-
tive. But whatever the problem, incipient
totalitarianism isn’t the solution.
Theodore Dalrymple is a retired doctor.
He is contributing editor of the City Journal
of New York and the author of 30 books,
including “Life at the Bottom.” His latest
book is “Embargo and Other Stories.”
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Having the Election

margin in the House is now very small,
no Democrat will vote for it. And Sen.
Mitch McConnell’s Senate? Forget about

Conform to the Constitution

MICHAEL WALSH
Forget the Krakens, Do-
minion voting machines,
harvested, absentee, and
mail-in ballots, early
voting, and all the other
squid ink that’s been ex-
pelled into the atmosphere
since the highly contested presidential
election of Nov. 3, 2020.
The only thing that matters this week—
indeed, the only thing that has ever
mattered—is whether the 50 separate
state elections for president of the United
States were conducted in accordance
with the Constitution and other appli-
cable federal customs and statutes.
That’s the point that Sens. Ted Cruz,
Ron Johnson, and others are making in
their last-ditch effort to at least raise the
issue. They write: “America is a republic
whose leaders are chosen in democratic
elections. Those elections, in turn, must
comply with the Constitution and with
federal and state law.
“The election of 2020, like the election
of 2016, was hard fought and, in many
the election of U.S. senators by the legisla-
tures, and not by statewide popular vote.
This eminently sensible way of ensur-
ing that senators would be representative
of their states—and not the preening
wannabe presidents they mostly are
now—was upended by the misguided
17th Amendment of 1913, one of the
so-called progressive amendments from
that period that also gave us the income
tax, prohibition, and women’s suffrage.
Electoral law has been modified several
times, first by the 12th Amendment
of 1803, which, in the aftermath of the
disputed 1800 election between incum-
bent President John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson, essentially established the two-
party system we have today; later by the
20th Amendment of 1933, which set Jan.
20 as Inauguration Day.
In between, however, came the Elector-
al Count Act of 1887, later becoming part
of the federal code in 1948. This law fol-
lowed the highly contentious election of
1876 between Republican Rutherford B.
Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden. And
this is where Cruz’s motion comes in.
In 1876, with Reconstruction at its
The only thing that
matters is whether
the 50 separate state
elections for president
of the United States
were conducted in
accordance with
the Constitution and
other applicable
federal customs and
statutes.
it. No matter what happens in the Geor-
gia runoff elections for both Senate seats
on Jan. 5, McConnell has already made
his peace with a Biden presidency, and
squishy “moderates” such as Sens. Ben
Sasse and Mitt Romney will be sure to
put the boot in.
Still, it’s the principle of the thing—
something that’s always in short supply
in Washington and desperately needed
now. If the courts won’t discharge their
duty, then it’s up to Congress.
And for Cruz, Trump’s last rival in 2016,
it’s a way to thrill the president’s base and
position himself smartly for 2024. Because
one way or another, the White House will
still be up for grabs four years from now.
Michael Walsh is the editor of The-Pipe-
line.org and the author of “The Devil’s
Pleasure Palace” and “The Fiery Angel,”
both published by Encounter Books. His
latest book, “Last Stands,” a cultural study
of military history from the Greeks to the
Korean War, was recently published.

swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020
election, however, featured unprecedent-
ed allegations of voter fraud, violations
and lax enforcement of election law, and
other voting irregularities.”
As it happens the most-contested re-
sults happen by sheerest coincidence to
be the very swing states that everybody
knew were going to decide the elec-
tion months before it actually occurred,
chiefly among them Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and
Georgia. Under the all-purpose excuse of
the COVID-19 panic—and sometimes in
the name of “racial justice”—many states
liberalized their voting requirements,
including Wisconsin, Georgia, and, noto-
riously, Pennsylvania.
The problem is, in many cases, they did
so by court order or gubernatorial fiat—
and not, as the Constitution explicitly
states, by legislative action. Indeed, in
some states, such as Wisconsin, courts
actually struck down legislative attempts
to tighten requirements and shorten the
periods for early voting.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the epicen-
ter of the alleged fraud, the U.S. Supreme
Court quashed a Republican request to
overturn a state court order that allowed
mail-in ballots to be counted if they were
received as late as Nov. 6, 2020. The Oct. 21,
2020, vote was tied at 4–4, with new Justice
Amy Coney Barrett not yet seated.
Even after the election, the Supreme
Court under John Roberts has steadfast-
ly—and inexplicably—refused to get in-
volved, rejecting a Texas lawsuit brought
directly to it under Article III, which
gives the high court primary jurisdiction
in squabbles between and among states.
What the Constitution Says
It may come as a surprise to the vast
majority of Americans that there is no
constitutional right to vote for president.
Indeed, the founders explicitly didn’t
want that, fearing mob rule. The Constitu-
tion, Article II, Section 1, is clear: “Each
State shall appoint, in such Manner as the
Legislature thereof may direct, a Number
of Electors, equal to the whole Number
of Senators and Representatives to which
the State may be entitled in the Congress.”
The idea was to channel the votes for
the highest office in the land through the
state legislatures. This was in keeping
with another foundational notion that
has unfortunately gone by the wayside:
FREE BOOK
height, President Ulysses S. Grant
decided not to run for a third term. In
his place, the GOP nominated another
Civil War general, Hayes, who had been
governor of Ohio; his opponent was the
governor of New York state. Although
Tilden won the popular vote and—at first
The Great Gold Comeback
count—the Electoral College vote as well,
questions were raised in Florida, Loui-
Bankruptcy of the Welfare State
siana, and South Carolina about their
validity. Their combined electoral votes
would swing the election to Hayes.
There were many good reasons to be
suspicious. All three states were in the
“There is no way I could
Reconstructed South, and recently read-
mitted to the Union. There were credible ever properly express my
allegations of fraud and open violence
against black voters. In South Carolina,
more than 100 percent of eligible voters
thanks to you for the Gold
cast ballots. There was even a wrangle
over a single elector in Oregon. Comeback book and all that
In response, in January 1877, Congress
created an electoral commission to sort
things out, consisting of 10 members of
you have written within it.
Congress, evenly split between the parties,
and five members of the Supreme Court. What a real treasure!
The commission heard the evidence, and
then voted 8–7 to give the disputed votes
to Hayes, handing him the presidency by a - M.R.
185–184 vote electoral margin.
In exchange for not making a fuss, the
Democrats won the rollback of Recon-
struction, including the withdrawal of
federal troops in South Carolina and
Louisiana—something that Grant had Best-selling author James R. Cook tells you why
long opposed.
the welfare state is going broke, and the outcome
Cruz’s Proposal PD\EHUXQDZD\LQÁDWLRQ
Cruz et al. cite the work of the commis-
sion as a possible model to resolve the
current dispute.
“We should follow that precedent. To
To receive your free copy, call – 1-800-328-1860 or go to
wit, Congress should immediately ap- www.investmentrarities.com/free-book or send in the coupon below.
point an Electoral Commission, with full
investigatory and fact-finding authority, Name: ______________________________________________________
to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of
the election returns in the disputed states. Address: _____________________________________________________
Once completed, individual states would
evaluate the Commission’s findings and City: ______________________________ State: ______ Zip: _________
could convene a special legislative session
to certify a change in their vote, if needed. Home Phone:__________________ Work Phone: ___________________
“Accordingly, we intend to vote on
January 6 to reject the electors from dis- Email: ______________________________________________________
puted states as not ‘regularly given’ and
‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requi- Mail to: Investment Rarities, 7850 Metro Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55425
site), unless and until that emergency or fax to: 952-851-8732
10-day audit is completed.”
It’s highly unlikely to work, of course. 1-800-328-1860
Even though Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s
A18 | OPINION WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

Readers’ Views YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NATION

Question of the week: Next Week’s Question: Do you feel that elected officials in your state have done
enough to investigate allegations of voter fraud?
Do you agree with the measures your
Check next week’s edition to see
governor has taken during the pandemic? Send Your Answers to: EpochQuestion.com if your answer made it into print.

As a Floridan and having visited South Dakota twice
since May 2020, I am thoroughly in agreement
with how those two governors have managed the
devastating financial effects the pandemic has had
by using common sense and following the science.
Harvey Smith, Florida
Gov. Abbott, while not as egregious as other
governors, has stepped on the freedoms of all Texans
in a failed attempt to provide a façade of safety. He,
like many others, needs to be removed from power.
Colin Young, Texas
No. Too many unenforceable orders, no scientific
regard for recovery data. Just morbidly paranoid,
totalitarian lockdown mentality the Great Barrington
Declaration disproves. Governors and health
departments are not God.
Deran Eaton, Maryland

I approve of the measures our Democrat governor
has taken to keep us safe. Lockdowns were needed
earlier in the year to control the spread. I will not
enter a facility that does not require masks.
Barbara Richman, Virginia
Because of the measures that Gov. Inslee has taken,
my family has lost the ability to have contact with
people outside of our own householdm, even after we
patiently waited to resume interactions for months
(which is way longer than we were promised).
Hannah Sturtz, Washington
No! We have a 0.0003% death rate in our state. He
and his state health director are making decisions
based on information about the virus that is 10
months old. He called citizens who exposed the
fallacy of mask-wearing protection “knuckleheads.”
Patricia Taboga, Wyoming

No. We have a Democrat governor who in my opinion
hasn’t a clue as to what would be best for our state
Kansas. Lockdowns and mask mandates that are
proven to be totally useless—you may as well put up
a chain-link fence to keep out mosquitos.
Steve Enderle, Kansas
Negative! The hypocritical Gov. Newsom has failed
the small businesses in California. Many will never
recover. Shutdowns don’t work. He obviously failed
Science 101 in school. Many in the state don’t take
him seriously anymore.
Robert Johnston, California
Absolutely not. There has been a restriction of some
kind since March. The mental health and overall
well-being of people are worse now than ever.
Washington is becoming the new California.
Neil Konitshek, Washington

Absolutely not! We have the most draconian
restrictions in the country, and we still have one of
the highest case rates. What’s wrong with
that picture?
Ann Kinner, California
I live in Southern California, and I can say Not exactly. He should have quarantined high-risk
unequivocally NO. He has been absolutely horrible for people, promoted safe practices, and allowed all
what he has done to this state. businesses to stay open.
Christine Hawkins, California Anthony Hanson, Washington

Absolutely not! While Wyoming is less intrusive, no
one at any level of government has come up with a
full strategy, only knee-jerk tactical ideas they apply
to everyone.
Steven Kahne, Wyoming
Absolutely not! The blackmailing of businesses to
control individual behavior for personal or political
power is the act of a tyrant. We’ve already fought to
be free from a tyrannical government.
Amber Baker, Washington
Absolutely not. The governor has extended his reach
into areas the state constitution protects the public
from. He has singlehandedly destroyed private
business by mandating closures while the big chains
remain open and crowded.
Douglas Hollen, Pennsylvania

Gov. Abbott has largely resisted the temptation to No. Washington state’s Gov. Inslee is a sad example No, he has killed small business under this notion
“Do Something” and allowed local authorities to of a Leftist politician who neither understands nor of trying to save lives. Open our state and let the
decide. Credit where credit is due. respects the U.S. Constitution. people decide.
Christopher Cassidy, Texas Janice Fikse, Washington Stephanie Figeira, California

No. Gov. Nuisance is only interested in one thing: power!
He’s a hypocrite of the highest order. I can guarantee
Rose Schaeffer, Kentucky you that if these restrictions were lifted, the California
economy would bounce back big time, in spite of his
COVID-19 fear-mongering.
David Wolf, California
A loaded answer from a Californian: NO! Gov.
Newsom is destroying the state! Many are fighting
back! But small cities like mine can’t survive his
unreasonable mandates. He is on the verge of
a recall.
Jackie Ritchie, California

The Readers’ Turn

‘The Pianist’
This week I read a book (and later
watched the corresponding movie)
called “The Pianist.” This Holocaust
memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman
recounts the tragic sequence of events
that led to the murder of his family, the
ruin of his home, and the destruction
of nations.
Szpilman was part of a middle-class
Jewish family living in Warsaw. They
were kind-hearted, honest people—
the sort who could be your neighbors.
When the Nazis first invaded Poland,
the Szpilmans never foresaw their fate.
Like many others, they believed an
easy war would bring a swift end to any
violence.
Yet as the war dragged on, the Nazi
noose only tightened. The indignity
when all Jews were required to wear
armbands marked with the Star of
David! The shame of being ordered out
of restaurants, shops, and public parks!
And the shocking establishment of the
ghetto, whose walls confined all Jews
to a space where they could not “infect’
their fellow citizens.
We all shudder to think of this spiral
into powerlessness, which resulted in
the deaths of millions. We remember
these events and think, “How horrible!
How outrageous! But ... the Holocaust
was the product of an insane dictator,
and we live in 21st century America.
We are safe in our democracy here!”
Yet it is not so outlandish to imag-
ine. Indeed, we all have been moving
toward a somewhat similar predica-
ment. Last March, we believed our
lives would be normal by May, yet see
how our war has dragged on, with
government decrees building all the
while! We are required to wear masks
covering our faces, ordered to stay out
of shops because of capacity limits,
and confined in our homes during
lockdowns. We have lived like this for
nearly 10 months, and do we see a light
at the end of the tunnel? I certainly do
not.
Therefore, as we enter 2021, I beg my
countrymen: Remember your history,
and fight back for your freedom.
MARY VIRGINIA VIETOR
ARIZONA

The Truth is Scarce Destruction of Culture

Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
A lie told repeatedly soon starts
to be believed by those that are
gullibly naive. The biased, sensa-
tionalist media are propagating
all kinds of questionable subjects
that are intended to cause angst
in the general population.
Socialist/Democrat Party, Black
Lives Matter, Antifa, fascist pro-
fessors, mainstream media, Hol-
lywood mob, and the rest of the
left-leaning populous are lying to
stomp out liberty and freedom in
America.
We know the priority of the left
is to spread their propaganda,
which has no resemblance to
the truth. Examples of these
lies: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s
“Green New Deal” will not kill
jobs; raising taxes will not kill the
economy; socialized medicine
will not lead to rationed health
care; defunding the police will
stop crime; open borders will
solve the immigration problem;
eliminating the Senate filibuster
and “fixing” the courts will pro-
vide justice.
It isn’t spreading hatred to speak
the truth, Democrats should
heed. The left needs to reexamine
conclusions made from their revi-
sionist and very distorted version
of history. “We the People” must
beware of all these “Useful Idiots.”
We have to read between the
lines to understand. They are
hoping that you will not hear
what they are not saying. Do not
let them cause you to unjustly
worry and become distraught;
you are smarter than that.
Today with 24-hour cable news,
the internet, and newspapers,
there is an abundance of infor-
mation, but we are starving for
Wisdom.
Trust in God and all will be well.
TERRY M. CAMPBELL, ASME, BSEE, MSCS
RETIRED SENIOR SCIENTIST,
ARMY VETERAN
FLORIDA
Thank you for the articulate essay “A Perfect Storm
Seeks Destruction of the US” by Michael Walsh, in
the Dec. 30, 2020, edition. I agree the destruction of
our culture is tragic and a work in progress. It is an
effective “dumbing down” of America.
I suggest we not leave out of the discussion a
highly important causal factor: mass vaccinations.
Cognitive impairment of children ranging from
debilitating autism to ADD is devastating the intel-
lectual landscape of the country. These children
will never read the classics. No need to censor any-
thing. Highly vetted material on this topic is avail-
able on the Children’s Health Defense website.
Thank you!
EDWARD FLYNN
NEW JERSEY

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, please contact us: Email: lettertoeditor@epochtimes.com | Mail: The Epoch Times 229 W. 28th St., Fl. 7, New York, NY 10001
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
SPECIAL SERIES
How the Specter of Communism
Is Ruling Our World
Desecrating the Arts
The Epoch Times here serializes an adaptation from the Chinese of
“How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World,” a new book by
the editorial team of the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.”
1. Art: A Gift From the Divine
Over the many years of human
civilization, man has contemplat-
ed what constitutes true beauty.
People of faith know that all the
wonders of the world come from
the divine. Profound art is an at-
tempt to emulate and display the
beauty of heaven in the human
world. Inspiration comes from the
divine, and artists can become
outstanding figures in their fields
if they receive divine blessings
and wisdom.
During the Renaissance, great
artists plumbed their ingenuity
and deep faith to create works in
praise of God. Artists in the mid-
Renaissance period, including
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo,
and Raphael, grasped techniques
that far exceeded those of their
predecessors and their peers, as if
by miracle. Their masterpieces—
including paintings, statues, and
architecture—became timeless
classics.
The ancient Greek
mathematician and
philosopher Pythagoras
believed that the secret of
music was in its imitation of
the harmony of the heavenly
bodies, which itself reflects
the harmony of the universe.
For centuries, these works of art
set a noble example for humanity.
By appreciating this art, not only
can the artists of later generations
learn pure artistic technique, but
members of the public can truly
feel and see the presence of the
divine. When these works, the
techniques that created them, and
the spirit that infused the artists
are all preserved, human society
is able to maintain a connection
with the divine. Then, even as hu-
manity goes through its periods of
decadence and decline, there will
be hope for a return to tradition
and a path to salvation.
The same principles prevail in
the sphere of music. As the say-
ing (reportedly from a German
opera house) goes: “Bach gave us
God’s word. Mozart gave us God’s
laughter. Beethoven gave us God’s
fire. God gave us music that we
might pray without words.” For
his entire life, Johann Sebastian
Bach considered devotion to God
and the praise and worship of
God to be the highest principles
in the creation of his music. On all
of his important musical scores,
the letters SDG can be seen—an
abbreviation of “Soli Deo gloria,”
meaning “glory to God alone.”
The highest level an artist can
reach is to perceive heavenly
phenomena by means of divine
revelation and depict it in a tan-
gible medium. The great paintings
and statues, and the most sublime
scores in the early, baroque, and
classical canon, were all created
by religious believers and repre-
sent the pinnacle of artistic work
attained by man.
The three most important
elements in artistic creation are
representation, creation, and
communication. All artistic cre-
ations contain a theme, that is, the
message the artist seeks to com-
municate, regardless of the form
the work takes—whether it be a
poem, painting, statue, photo-
graph, novel, play, dance, or film.
The artist delivers the theme to
the hearts of the reader, listener, or
viewer. This process is the com-
munication—the transmission of
the artist’s mind to the recipient.
To achieve the goal of commu-
nication, artists must possess a
superb ability to imitate and rep-
resent, with the object of imitation
being the world of gods or of man,
or even the underworld. Artistic
creation is a process of refining the
deeper or more essential elements
of an object of representation. It
requires artists to strengthen their
own ability to communicate and
to touch people’s hearts. If the art-
ist possesses righteous faith and is
a person of high moral character,
the divine will endow him with
the inspiration to create. Such
works will be pure, benevolent,
and divine—beneficial to both the
artist and society.
On the other hand, when the
artist abandons moral standards,
negative elements hijack the
creative process, with evil forces
exerting influence and using the
artist to depict hideous creations
and grotesqueries from the un-
derworld. Works of this kind harm
their author and the wider society.
During the Renaissance, great
artists plumbed their ingenuity
and deep faith to create works
in praise of God. For centuries,
these works of art set a noble
example for humanity.
The value of the orthodox, tra-
ditional arts thus becomes clear.
Divine culture and art in the East
and the West were connections
woven between the divine and
human civilization, and were
meant to bring them into contact.
The ideas and messages transmit-
ted through this art are beauty,
benevolence, light, and hope. On
the other hand, corrupt works of
“art” are created by those under
the control of evil elements. They
drive a wedge between man and
the divine, and drag humans
closer to evil.
2. Art’s Immense
Influence on Humanity
Great works of art transmit heri-
tage, disseminate knowledge and
wisdom, and fortify character.
They hold exalted positions in the
great civilizations of the West and
the East.
The ancient Greek mathemati-
Chapter Eleven
cian and philosopher Pythagoras
believed that the secret of music
was in its imitation of the harmo-
ny of the heavenly bodies, which
itself reflects the harmony of the
universe.
The Chinese held similar views.
The “Treatises on Music and Har-
mony” discuss music’s correspon-
dence with the five elements (met-
al, wood, water, fire, and earth),
and how musical instruments
are constructed to represent and
emulate the patterns of heaven
and earth. Only in this way can
“music of the grandest style” be
composed, that which exhibits
“the same harmony that prevails
between heaven and earth.” [1]
This kind of music is able to not
only attract divine birds like the
crane and phoenix, but also serve
as an invitation to deities to grace
the occasion with their presence.
The great paintings and
statues, and the most sublime
scores in the early, baroque,
and classical canon, were all
created by religious believers
and represent the pinnacle of
artistic work attained by man.
Confucius taught that human-
ity should learn from the Western
Zhou Dynasty (1045–771 B.C.), a
kingdom whose rulers empha-
sized the importance of proper
rites, and thus brought order to
the country without the need for
harsh laws or coercion. He said:
“[The Zhou Dynasty] surveyed the
two dynasties that went before;
its ways are refined and elegant.
I follow Zhou.” [2] He admired
how the legendary Chinese rulers
governed with ritual and music:
“The Sage-Emperor Shun invented
a five-stringed musical instru-
ment, which he called qin, sang to
its tune about the gentle summer
breeze from the south, and lo and
behold, his empire ran smoothly
[under the influence of his mu-
sic].” [3] These examples illustrate
the edifying effects of pure, up-
right music.
Notes
1. “Record of Music,” in “Classic
of Rites,” trans. James Legge,
Chinese Text Project, accessed
May 8, 2020,
2. Confucius 孔子, Lun Yu 論語
[“The Analects of Confucius”]
(New York: Ballantine Books,
1999), 3.14. [In Chinese]
3. Sima Qian, “A Treatise on
Music,” in “Records of the
Grand Historian,” trans. Burton
Watson, vol. 24, 3rd ed. (New
York: Columbia University
Press, 1995).
See next edition for the next
installment.
To purchase the books, visit
EpochShop.com
OPINION | A19
Stephen Gregory, Publisher
Jasper Fakkert, Editor-in-Chief
Channaly Philipp, Life & Tradition,
Travel Editor
Chrisy Trudeau, Mind & Body Editor
Crystal Shi, Home, Food Editor
Sharon Kilarski, Arts & Culture Editor
ABOUT US
The Epoch Times is a media
organization dedicated to seek-
ing the truth through insightful
and independent journalism.
Standing outside of politi-
cal interests and the pursuit of
profit, our starting point and our
goal is to create a media for the
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sible to society.
We endeavor to educate read-
ers about today’s most impor-
tant topics, seeking to broaden
and uplift minds. We believe that
rational, balanced debate is key
for fostering a healthy democ-
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As an independent media out-
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We seek to highlight solutions
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We report respectfully, compas-
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We stand against the destruc-
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A20 | OPINION
Militant
Ignorance
Reshapes
Our Schools
and Culture
ROGER KIMBALL
Meet Heather Levine, a
teacher at Lawrence High
School in Massachusetts.
According to an article by
Meghan Cox Gurdon in The
Wall Street Journal, Levine is
in the pedagogical vanguard,
so “woke” that she recently bragged to a
colleague: “Very proud to say we got the
Odyssey removed from the curriculum
this year!”
That would be Homer’s “Odyssey,” one
of the literary bedrocks of Western cul-
ture, a staple in classrooms since before
the time of Plato.
Nor is Levine alone. She is part of a
movement, epitomized by the hashtag
#DisruptTexts, whose goal is to cancel
classic texts from Homer and Shakespeare
down to the present day and replace them
with “young adult” books that mirror the
pieties and attitudes of woke commissars
of correctitude.
Quoth another standard bearer of this
campaign extolling ignorance: “Absolving
Shakespeare of responsibility by mention-
ing that he lived at a time when hate-rid-
den sentiments prevailed, risks sending a
subliminal message that academic excel-
lence outweighs hateful rhetoric.”
Yet another soldier in this cloud of un-
knowing pointed out that many classics
were written more than 70 years ago—
imagine that!—the bad old days before
supreme enlightenment took place and
produced, well, us!
“Think of U.S. society before then,” she
wailed. “THAT is what is in those books.”
Wouldn’t that be the United States that
won the Revolutionary War, mastered a
continent, fought the Civil War and freed
the slaves, created the most dynamic
economy in the world, giving its citizens,
and much of the rest of the world, the
highest standard of living in history?
Yes, we’re talking about the country that
defeated the militarism of the Kaiser, the
tyranny of Hitler, and the totalitarianism
of Stalin. THAT country.
These new wardens of wokeness didn’t
spring forth fully formed, like the goddess
Athena from the head of Zeus (an allu-
sion their pedagogy would guarantee no
student would recognize). No, they are the
painstaking product of that long march
through the institutions of our culture
that began in the 1960s.
Matthew Arnold
When Susan Sontag, in the mid-1960s,
championed the “new sensibility” she
saw erupting across American society,
she rightly observed that its representa-
tives “have broken, whether they know it
Sometimes, We Do Need to ‘Reset’
SAM SORBO
You’ve probably heard by now
that there are a bunch of
billionaires and elites (but I
repeat myself) advocating for
a global movement called the
“Great Reset.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau poetically dreams of revamp-
ing entire economic systems, to “actually
address global challenges like extreme
poverty, inequality, and climate change.”
But how will that happen if we dismantle
the greatest system for combating inequal-
ity ever invented? Or destroy our greatest
manner of preserving our environment
(wealth)?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, between
mandating the abject destruction of small
businesses (but hypocritically exempt-
"Athena Revealing or not, with the Matthew Arnold notion of
Ithaca to Ulysses" culture, finding it historically and hu-
by Giuseppe Bottani manly obsolescent.”
(1717–1784). What exactly is the “Matthew Arnold
notion of culture” that Sontag and her
cadre of hip intellectuals rejected as out-
moded and irrelevant?
For one thing, it is culture understood as
a repository of mankind’s noblest spiritual
and intellectual aspirations: “the best,” in
You can be Arnold’s famous phrase, “that has been
thought and said in the world.”
woke and But, of course, those determined to ban
politically Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and
correct, or you their spiritual brethren are determined
also to deny our civilization precisely
can cultivate of that “best.”
disinterested- The “Matthew Arnold notion of culture”
ness. You is a hierarchical idea of culture—a vi-
sion of culture as a “sacred order” whose
cannot do majesty depends on its relevance to our
both. deepest cares and concerns.
A second feature of the “Matthew
Arnold notion of culture” is its indepen-
dence—what Arnold summed up in the
term “disinterestedness.”
Criticism achieves disinterestedness,
Arnold said, “by keeping aloof from what
is called ‘the practical view of things’; by
resolutely following the law of its own
nature, which is to be a free play of the
mind on all subjects which it touches. By
steadily refusing to lend itself to any of
those ulterior, political, practical consid-
erations about ideas.”
Understood in one way, Arnold’s ideal
of disinterestedness—with its emphasis
on “a free play of the mind on all sub-
jects”—might seem to be a prescription
for moral quietism or frivolous aestheti-
cism.
What rescues it from that fundamental
unseriousness is Arnold’s unwavering
commitment to truth and honesty.
The business of criticism, he said, is to
know and propagate the best, to “create
a current of true and fresh ideas,” and “to
do this with inflexible honesty.”
It tells us a great deal about the state of
culture that Arnold’s demanding ideal of
disinterestedness isn’t merely neglected
but actively repudiated by many influen-
tial academics and intellectuals today.
ing Hollywood’s production facilities) and
One has to demanding extreme social distancing with
permanent face coverings while defiantly
ask, what partying at posh restaurants with friends
makes them (all bare-faced and huggy-kissy), also
think they spoke excitedly about this reset.
Prince Charles, likewise, speaks of this
have all the “golden opportunity” to revamp the entire
answers? world toward what the World Economic
Forum sees as “necessary global gover-
nance,” dramatically distanced from nasty
“nationalist backlash.”
What, exactly, is the demonstrable harm
of nationalism, known in more sane circles
as healthy competition and team pride?
What’s next on their agenda—no more
sporting events?
One has to ask, what makes them think
they have all the answers? Is it pride,
hubris, stupidity, or a combination of all
three? CEO of Sompo Holdings Inc. Kengo
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
PUBLIC DOMAIN
You can be woke and politically correct,
or you can cultivate disinterestedness.
You cannot do both.
A third feature of the “Matthew Arnold
notion of culture” is its immediacy, its
emphasis not on virtual but on first-hand
experience.
“Here,” Arnold noted, “the great safe-
guard is never to let oneself become
abstract, always to retain an intimate and
lively consciousness of the truth of what
one is saying, and, the moment this fails
us, to be sure that something is wrong.”
The “Matthew Arnold notion of culture,”
then, comes armed with a sixth sense
against the seductions of the spurious, the
attractions of the ersatz.
Would-Be Totalitarians
Many elements in our educational es-
tablishment have, whether they know it
or not, embraced Sontag’s attack on the
“Matthew Arnold notion of culture” and
pushed it to absurdity.
Even Sontag, enemy of the West and
especially of America though she was,
thought it was a good idea to know some-
thing about the past.
These new would-be-totalitarians have
gone beyond all that. Theirs is a culture
where history is bunk and the only aid to
enlightenment a student needs is a mirror
to reflect the vapid marvelousness of his
empty mind.
As Gurdon noted in her WSJ column, “If
there is harm in classic literature, it comes
from not teaching it.”
Students might think they are getting off
easy by reading ephemeral trash instead
of challenging works from the classical
pantheon. In fact, they have been cheated.
“Compared with their better-educated
peers,” Gurdon sagely observes, “they
will suffer a poverty of language and cul-
tural reference. Worse, they won’t even
know it.”
Roger Kimball is the editor and publisher
of The New Criterion and publisher of
Encounter Books. His most recent book
is “Who Rules? Sovereignty, National-
ism, and the Fate of Freedom in the 21st
Century.”
Sakurada declared that capitalism, in its
current iteration, “is not truly contribut-
ing to the well-being of humanity.” He
demands we “reimagine” capitalism and
consider “social sustainability and people’s
well-being.”
How can someone with so much power
and success be so very wrong? And why
isn’t he laughed off the stage?
We confuse successful people with folks
who care about humanity, and we ought to
be careful with our misplaced trust.
We’ve been trained, in school, to have
faith in authority—just not the Bible—rely
on leaders—but only of the approved
kind—and follow orders—despite our
mother’s warnings, “If everyone was going
to jump off a bridge, would you do that,
too?”
Apparently, yes, mom, because you sent
us to public schools, where we learned
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 OPINION | A21

How Western Social and Moral Life

Has Been Radically Altered
The transition from the ‘Four Fs’ to the ‘Four Gs’
ROBERT MANDEL/PHOTOS.COM

WILLIAM GAIRDNER elitists in Sweden in the 1960s decided to

Countries that undergo a peace-
ful regime change from free and
open to closed and less free,
usually do so by accepting the
gradual substitution of one set
of values for another. They aban-
don what I call the “Four Fs” and
begin accepting the “Four Gs” as their
new belief system.
The Four Fs are freedom, family, free
enterprise, and faith, and these are the
essential cornerstones of a free society.
The Four Gs are government, groups,
grants and grabs, and godlessness. These
are the essential cornerstones of an unfree
society and part of the gradual shift of all
the Western democracies from free and
open to more socialist and closed societ-
ies.
You can tell when a country has begun
to abandon the Four Fs and has opted for
the Four Gs when, instead of more free-
dom, you get more government; instead
of a focus on the natural family you see
a focus on politically defined groups; in-
stead of the promotion of free enterprise
you get a focus on grants and tax-grabs;
instead of the social direction provided
by a moral law common for all you get
the official promotion of moral relativ-
ism and godlessness in schools and the
public square (which leaves the state free
to direct all things).
There are five contemporary forms of
radicalism that have enabled and pro-
moted this change in the foundation of
Western social and moral life from the
Four Fs to the Four Gs.
Radical Feminism
The first and perhaps most virulent of
these is radical feminism, which seeks
to overthrow the order of human biology
by promoting the fantastical idea that the
sexes are exactly the same and that any
differences in the way they choose to live
must result from brainwashing. Or that
male and female gender isn’t natural, but
“constructed” and freely chosen. But as
Harvard professor Michael Levin once
dryly suggested, “Any parent who has
raised both boys and girls and still thinks
they are born the same, has already with-
stood more evidence to the contrary than
any laboratory could possibly provide.”
The first mistake, however, is to iden-
tify feminism with women, most of whom
have never supported it. “Feminist the-
ory,” as the insightful British critic Ken-
neth Minogue put it, “is passionate and
salvationist in a way similar to Marxism,
to new religious movements, and occult
enthusiasms. Academically, it is mostly
unsophisticated. A little light generalizing
work is followed by polysyllabic decora-
tion and some spray-on indignation.”
The Abortion, Euthanasia Movement
The second radicalism is the radical abor-
tion and euthanasia movement, which
attempts to end our age-old principle of
the sanctity of life, thus to overthrow the
order of love in society.
Educational radicalism Euthanasia is really an extension of
is one of the five the abortion movement (which is better
contemporary forms thought of as “pediatric euthanasia”). The
of radicalism that have “right to choose” to kill someone inside
led to a change in the you, a living child, easily mutates into
foundation of western adult euthanasia—the right to kill some-
social and moral life
one who asserts a right to be killed. Eutha-
from the "Four Fs" to
the "Four Gs." nasia was made a legal right in Canada in
2015 and is now practiced by physicians
licensed to kill other citizens.
Only too late will we discover that the
ultimate form of equality in the socialist
state is the right to direct this latest ethic
If you want of killing to the elimination of all lives
considered not worth living.
more of
this kind of Radical Pansexualism
equality, you The third radicalism is the radical pan-
sexual movement, of which the homosex-
need more ual, pornography, polygamy, pro-incest,
government, and now the transgender movements are
and if you connected parts. This radicalism seeks to
overthrow the sexual order, especially the
want total marital order, of Western society, which
equality, you is based on four prohibitions as to the
need total number, gender, age, and blood-relation
of legal sexual partners. These prohibi-
government. tions were in line with the time-honored
belief that a marriage must be restricted
to one partner at a time and that the part-
ners must be of opposite sexes, can’t be
beneath a specified age, and may not be
close blood relatives.
This is bolstered by the radical notion that
“love” is a sufficient warrant for almost any
human behavior because we are all natu-
rally good, and so all consenting sex, with
whomsoever and however, as long as there
is no harm done to consenting individu-
als, must also be good, with no concern
for harm to the ideals of the larger society.
It’s a belief that dispenses completely with
our 2,000-year-long tradition of attempting
to teach the difference between good love
and bad love (such as narcissism/self-love,
incest love, sexual love of little children,
love of uncommitted sex, love of polygamy,
William Gairdner, love of adultery, and many more forms of
Ph.D., is an author illicit love, since normalized).
who lives near Toron-
to. His latest book is Educational Radicalism
“The French Traveler” The fourth radicalism is educational radi-
(2019). His website is calism, and here we have a continuous
WilliamGairdner.ca attempt, as the Swedes put it (when radical
force a switch from the Four Fs to the Four
Gs), “to divest the parents of their author-
ity over their own children.” Now educa-
tion radicals everywhere in the West, who
see themselves as “change agents,” seek
to overthrow the order of private family
authority.
The connection is from Plato to Rous-
seau, to the likes of John Dewey, to teach-
er-training institutions like the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education in To-
ronto and Columbia University in New
York. The strategy is to persuade the public
that teachers are trustees of the nation’s
children, not for the family but for the
state. It was Canada’s Laurier LaPierre
who in 1978, intoxicated with the vision of
a top-down, redistributive state, declared:
“The child is not a family child. He is an
institutional child. It is not the school that
is the extension of the home, but the home
that is the extension of the school.”
Soon after, former Calgary Board of Edu-
cation chairman (and education profes-
sor) Alex Proudfoot was blunter. He told a
meeting of astonished parents: “The child
is not your child. Canadian children are
the property of the state, like our oil, our
gas, and our pipelines. ... It’s the law.”
Legal Radicalism
And finally, we have legal radicalism, the
most powerful of all, emanating from law
schools, law reform commissions, and tri-
bunals and charters of every description,
all of which are intent upon circumvent-
ing the democratic process.
It is the legal fraternity that is rapidly
becoming the most powerful wing of the
political class, and the reason is that they
have figured out how to use legal rather
than political means to overthrow what
they believe is the dim-witted democratic
order of a free society.
The chief instrument used in this subtle
exercise in Canada is its 1982 Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. Formerly sovereign
and free legislators are now subordinate
to legal dictates based on the charter with
respect to most things in life that really
matter. The charter specifically promotes
and entrenches the notion of “substantive”
equality (making people equal in real life)
rather than the original “formal” equality
(ensuring equal opportunity under law for
all), and so radical egalitarian judgments
and social programs get smuggled in un-
der this mutated definition of equality by
unelected judges whom no power in the
land can remove.
This is a process that bypasses our former-
ly free legislative sovereignty and replaces
it with a new judicial sovereignty. Canada
and many other democracies now identify
whole classes of citizens to be favored over
other classes according to linguistic, gender,
religious, ethnic, or other differences, in a
blatant form of legal discrimination.
If you want more of this kind of equal-
ity, you need more government, and if
you want total equality, you need total
government

THOMAS SAMSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

People hold a banner reading "Kill capitalism" during a demonstration against a series of contro-
versial labor reforms in Paris on June 28, 2016.
to do just that, typically. This is another
reason to advocate for home education:
liberated and critical thinking.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, famous for reversing
his COVID-19 predictions and instructions
based on politics, advises us all, “Now is
the time to do what you are told to.” Com-
ing from a doctor, it would make sense if he
meant solely medical advice. But his blanket
statement reveals a bit more of his suspi-
cious personal agenda.
The leaders criticizing capitalism are of-
fering various forms of socialism to replace
it (as if there are differing forms of totali-
tarianism). American capitalism generated
the greatest advancement of humanity,
worldwide, in history, in the fastest time.
World poverty has been substantially
reduced and looks to be eliminated within
two decades. Overall, worldwide health
has also improved drastically.
Our betters desperately wish to con-
vince us that capitalism is bad. National-
ism is bad. Competition is bad. Capitalism
is like a game, really, much like Monopoly.
It’s true that at the end of the game, one
person has amassed so much wealth that
everyone else “loses.” But are they all re-
ally losers? No. If they were, they wouldn’t
have played the game. Everyone has
benefited because they enjoyed playing
the game. In fact, the end often results in
a rematch, proving that there’s value in
playing.
But George Soros and his ilk, after hav-
ing played the game of capitalism and
won, demand the rest of us quit, in order
to save the planet.
They’re Monopoly winners who refuse
all challengers. They’re the sore losers
who took their balls and went home, so
no one could play. If we just give up our
dreams of private jet-setting, multimil-
lion-dollar yachts, and personal chauf-
feurs (like they currently enjoy), the world
would be so much better.
We must vehemently disagree. Make
them exit stage left, first, and forfeit the
game—they won’t. They advocate for ev-
eryone to be the same—but exempt them-
selves. When one of them relinquishes his
death-grip on the jet, the yacht, the fancy
dinners, and abides by his own dictates,
that deserves some attention. But as long
as the people advocating for higher taxes
are not voluntarily paying higher taxes,
defy your schooling and don’t trust a word
they say.
People should want a chance, but those
pretenders want status quo. Happy with
where you are? Join them. But if you want
your children to have the freedom to
compete and succeed, like most of them
did, it’s time to reset your way of trusting
the wrong people.
The Great Reset should be in the minds
of free people everywhere.
Sam Sorbo is an actress, talk radio host-
ess, and author of “They’re Your Kids: An
Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to
Home School Advocate.”
A22 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

BUSINESS & ECONOMY 0.9%

Spending on U.S. construction projects
increased 0.9 percent in November
as strength in home building offset
weakness in other parts of the industry.
Construction spending was up 4.4 percent
through the first 11 months of 2020
INCREASE compared to the same period in 2019.
As far as equality of opportunity goes,
the U.S. patent system is already among
the best equalizers in our history.
Robert Zeidman, electrical engineer,
inventor, and entrepreneur

The Slow
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Destruction
of American
Innovation
BOB ZEIDMAN
On Dec. 11, Sens.
Mazie Hirono (D-
Hawaii), Thom
Tillis (R-N.C.),
and Chris Coons
(D-Del.) sent a let-
ter to Andrei Iancu,
director of the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office, requesting
an inquiry into whether “quali-
fied women are unnecessarily
excluded from membership in
the ‘patent bar.’” In other words,
is there a systemic, purposeful
exclusion of women from prac-
ticing patent law?
This thesis was set forth in a
recent paper titled “The Patent
Bar Gender Gap: Expanding
the Eligibility Requirements to
Foster Inclusion and Innovation
in the U.S. Patent System” by
Mary T. Hannon, a patent agent
with Marshall, Gerstein & Borun
and a juris doctorate candidate
at DePaul University College
of Law.
This “inquiry” is yet another
in a line of attacks on American
innovation and constitutional
rights that have been occurring
over the past decade. While this
one is coming from the “woke”
left, sadly the attacks are also
coming from the right under the
mistaken or misleading guise of
promoting free markets and at-
tacking monopolies.
The America Invents Act
In 2011, Big Tech was able to con-
vince many people that patents
hindered innovation, despite
more than 200 years of evidence
that the opposite was true. They
were able to convince those on
the left who obediently looked
to Big Tech for their guidance on
technology. They convinced col-
lege students who believed that
their professors who taught law,
business, and entrepreneurship
knew more about the real world
than actual inventors and entre-
preneurs who created new prod-
ucts and started new businesses.
They convinced libertarians that
intellectual property rights were
government-approved monopo-
lies that were somehow different
from government-issued deeds
to physical property, despite
modern libertarian support of
patents since its beginnings in
the early 20th century.
Most Americans don’t
think of patents as being
a basic right, but they are,
just like gun ownership
and free speech.
Big Tech lobbied Congress to
pass the America Invents Act,
which weakened U.S. patent
law. This effort was led by Rep.
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) who,
ironically, co-founded and ran
Directed Electronics, a company
that made money by asserting its
many patents against competi-
tors. Issa has just won back his
seat in the House and will no
doubt press once again for “pat-
ent reform” that will further shift
economic power from the entre-
preneur and individual inventor
to Big Tech. And Big Tech may
once again have a good friend in
the White House who will also
encourage this kind of “reform.”
The act threw up more obsta-
cles to patents than ever before.
Most of the damage was done by
the inter partes review, which
allows any person or company
to go to the patent office and
request a reexamination of a pat-
ent that the office has issued.
This is akin to a law that would
let any person inform the police
that they thought you weren’t
qualified to drive, whereupon
the police would revoke your
driver’s license and force you to
retake your driving exams. Can
you imagine how people would
take advantage of such a law?
Such a patent reexamina-
tion, while inexpensive to the
challenger, is expensive for the
inventor, who must defend his
patent a second time, and some-
times multiple times from mul-
tiple challengers, to prove that
he or she was deserving. This
strategy has worked to destroy
many patents. At inter partes re-
views, 65 percent of patents are
invalidated on reexamination
and an additional 16 percent are
partially invalidated.
Alice and Other Supreme
Court Decisions
The America Invents Act was
bad enough, but it was followed
by court decisions that further
hindered the patent system. Of
particular note was the Supreme
Court decision in Alice Corp. v.
CLS Bank Int’l in 2014. To ex-
plain the “Alice” decision, you
need to understand three key
sections of U.S. Code Title 35—
PATENTS, which defines patents
and patent eligibility: Sections
101, 102, and 103.
Suppose you’ve made a ma-
chine that you believe is innova-
tive and useful and you want to
patent it. Section 101 describes
whether your machine is some-
thing that is even eligible to be
patented. Section 102 describes
how to determine whether an al-
ready existing invention does the
same thing as your machine (i.e.,
it “anticipates” your machine),
which would render it unpatent-
able. Section 103 describes how
to decide whether a person who
understood the technology at
the time of your invention would
have been able to combine ex-
isting inventions to make your
machine (i.e., your invention was
“obvious”), which would render
it not patentable. Section 101 is a
matter of law, which means that
lawyers can decide. Sections 102
and 103, however, are matters of
fact, which means that experts
in the technology are needed to
investigate the technology and
present their facts to a judge or
jury at a trial.
The Supreme Court’s Alice
decision threw patent law into
disarray. The Supreme Court
said that whether something
was patentable under Section
101 depended on the technol-
ogy, but it was still a matter of
law, which means lawyers get
to argue about technology and
a judge gets to decide without a
scientist or engineer ever getting
involved.
In its decision, the Supreme
(Above) The U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office is
seen in Alexandria, Va.,
in this file photo.
(Right) Sen. Mazie
Hirono (D-Hawaii)
speaks during a hearing
on Capitol Hill in Wash-
ington on Oct. 15, 2020.
ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
An American woman
operates a Singer
patent sewing
machine, circa 1860.
Court stated that methods,
which have always been patent-
able, are still patentable, and
software, which is a method for a
computer to execute, is still pat-
entable, but a method executed
by a computer is not patentable
unless that method improves on
a technology. What? Even federal
circuit judges who specialize
in deciding patent cases were
confused and continue to be
confused. The result was more
uncertainty for inventors and
more freedom for infringers to
ignore patents.
Identity Politics and Patents
And now, this new study pur-
ports to show systemic sexism
that excludes women from pat-
ent law. Starting with simple sta-
tistics that there are fewer female
lawyers than male lawyers and
fewer female patent lawyers than
male patent lawyers, the conclu-
sion is that this discrepancy is
caused by bias, though no proof
of such bias is actually given.
Liberals believe that all people
are equal in every way and
therefore any inequality must
be due to bias; no other proof is
needed (read “The Kindergarden
of Eden: How the Modern Liberal
Thinks” for a great explanation
of how this explains all modern
liberal ideology).
The paper further draws the
conclusion, seemingly accepted
by Hirono, Tillis, and Coons, that
more female patent attorneys
would encourage more women
to become inventors. Seriously?
Do inventors invent because of
lawyers? Has the average person
ever met a patent attorney or
seen one in the newspaper or on
TV? This conclusion is like say-
ing that more women would lead
healthy lifestyles if they knew
there were an equal percent-
age of women doctors, or that
African Americans would be
better writers if they knew that
there were as many black editors
as white editors. You can make a
flimsy but believable argument
that more women would invent
if they had more female inventor
role models. But lawyers? Most
people don’t even trust lawyers.
The solution proposed by this
paper is to lower the require-
ments for admission into patent
law. The underlying assumption,
SHAWN THEW/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
of course, is that women can’t
meet the current strict require-
ments, which I find to be bla-
tantly sexist.
The patent office has several
options for admitting lawyers to
the patent bar, and in my opin-
ion, they aren’t strict enough.
Options include earning 24
credit hours in physics at any ac-
credited college or earning 30 to
40 credits in other scientific dis-
ciplines from accredited schools.
Hannon proposes removing “un-
due requirements” on program
accreditation and coursework.
In other words, Hannon believes
that women are generally inca-
pable of passing a small number
of accredited college courses in
basic science.
She also believes that women
with a degree in nursing should
be qualified even though nurs-
ing is not a scientific course of
study that would enable one to
examine modern patents on
recombinant DNA techniques,
monoclonal antibodies, or
chemical structures of novel
pharmaceuticals, for example.
The days when there were a sig-
nificant number of patents in the
field of nursing have long passed.
The Constitutional
Right for Patents
Most Americans don’t think of
patents as being a basic right,
but they are, just like gun owner-
ship and free speech. The legal
basis for U.S. patent law is found
in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S.
Constitution: “The Congress
shall have Power To ... promote
the Progress of Science and
useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and
Discoveries.”
The Founding Fathers knew
that patents spurred innova-
tion and gave economic power
and upward mobility to even
the poorest U.S. citizens. They
considered patents to be so
important that they passed the
Patent Act of 1790 even before
passing the Bill of Rights in 1791.
Thomas Jefferson initially op-
posed patents as being a govern-
ment-directed monopoly, but
as secretary of state, he became
the first acting head of the U.S.
patent office and observed that it
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
had “given a spring to invention
beyond his conception.”
The Great Equalizer
As far as equality of opportunity
goes, the U.S. patent system is
already among the best equaliz-
ers in our history. At times when
our society overtly practiced
discrimination based on gender
and skin color, women and Afri-
can Americans used the patent
system to commercialize their
inventions and create wealth.
In 1809, long before women
had the right to vote or even the
ability to own property, Mary
Dixon Kies obtained a hat weav-
ing patent. Kies and her patent
helped fuel the growing Ameri-
can hat industry at that time.
In 1821, when many African
Americans were slaves with few
rights whatsoever, Thomas Jen-
nings patented the dry-cleaning
method. He leveraged his patent
to grow his tailoring business
and used the profits from that
business to support the abo-
litionist movement, fund civil
rights organizations, battle racial
segregation in the courts, and
purchase his wife and children
out of slavery.
What Does the Future Hold?
Since 1790, the United States has
greatly benefited from its patent
system, which resulted in the
United States becoming the most
innovative country in the world.
That is, until recently—China
now ranks first in the number
of patent applications, and the
United States is a distant second,
according to a 2018 report by
the World Intellectual Property
Organization.
We need to keep our meritoc-
racies in place to keep America
strong in all areas, but innovation
and entrepreneurship are among
the most important because they
keep our economy strong.
Abraham Lincoln once
called the patent system
one of the three greatest
advances in human history,
surpassed only by the
discovery of America and
the printing press.
Too many people throughout
the political spectrum don’t
understand the role that the
patent system has played in
America’s economic growth
and technological leadership.
Too many politicians from both
political parties don’t under-
stand why our Founding Fathers
placed such a heavy emphasis
on intellectual property and why
that has been so important in
avoiding the economic dispari-
ties and class immobility found
in so many places throughout
the world.
Just as we must pass on other
important American values
to our children, so must we
teach them about a free-market
capitalism that requires a strong
patent system. Just as we vote for
politicians based on their sup-
port of our other constitutional
rights, we must remember that
patents and other intellectual
property also compose constitu-
tional rights.
Abraham Lincoln once called
the patent system one of the
three greatest advances in hu-
man history, surpassed only by
the discovery of America and
the printing press—because any
system that encourages people
to innovate, and reap economic
rewards for the innovation, is
better than nearly any other in-
novation in and of itself.
Bob Zeidman is the creator of
the field of software forensics
and the founder of successful
high-tech Silicon Valley firms,
including Zeidman Consult-
ing and Software Analysis and
Forensic Engineering. He is the
author of textbooks on engineer-
ing and intellectual property as
well as screenplays and novels.
His latest novel is the political
satire “Good Intentions.”
Social Security Update for 2021
TOM MARGENAU
It has been my
custom for most
of the past 23
years to write a
year-end column
that summarizes
the Social Security
changes and updates scheduled
to take place the following year.
Almost all Social Security
beneficiaries are familiar with
the most popular and publicized
upcoming change: the increase in
monthly benefit checks for 2021
due to the automated cost-of-
living adjustment, or COLA. In
fact, Social Security recipients
have probably already received
a letter from the Social Security
Administration telling them of
the expected increase.
All Social Security checks are
going up 1.3 percent in 2021. The
COLA is based on something
called the Consumer Price Index
for Urban Wage Earners and Cler-
ical Workers. This is the official
measuring stick the SSA has used
to determine COLAs for the past
46 years. If you want to learn more
about this measure, check out the
website of the folks who maintain
it: the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
You’ll find them at BLS.gov.
I always dread mentioning
COLAs in this column because
every time I do, I am flooded with
emails from readers complaining
that the increase is not enough.
(Maybe not unexpectedly, not
once in 23 years has anyone ever
written to me to say that their
COLA increase was too high!)
Yet here’s the rub: Many econo-
mists and social planners believe
Social Security COLAs are too
generous! (I’ve explained why in
past columns, but I don’t have the
space to get into that argument
today.) That’s why most discus-
sions of long-range reform for
Social Security include proposals
to reduce cost of living increases.
OK, back to the 2021 Social
Security COLA. Due to these
increases, the average monthly
retirement check will be $1,543 in
2021, a $20 increase from the 2020
level. The maximum Social Secu-
rity check for a worker turning full
retirement age next year will be
$3,148, compared with $3,011 in
2020. And please note that $3,148
is the maximum for someone
turning full retirement age in
2021. That does not mean it is the
maximum Social Security pay-
ment anyone can receive. There
are millions of Social Security
beneficiaries who get much more
than that, primarily because they
worked well past their FRA and/
or delayed starting their benefits
until age 70.
Although this is a Social Se-
curity column, I must mention
the upcoming increase in the
Medicare Part B premium, which
is deducted from Social Security
checks for most people. In 2021,
the basic Part B premium will be
$148.50, a $3.90 increase from the
2020 rate. Wealthy people will pay
more than the basic premium—as
much as $504.90 per month for
the richest Americans.
I don’t want to get into this com-
plicated issue of Medicare pre-
miums other than to make this
quick point. Even though they
are linked in the minds of most
senior citizens, Social Security
and Medicare are entirely sepa-
rate programs, administered by
entirely separate federal agencies,
and they have entirely separate
rules and regulations regard-
ing their benefit and payment
structures. For example, I already
explained how Social Security
COLAs are figured. Part B Medi-
care premium increases have
nothing to do with the consumer
price index. Instead, they must
be set at a level that covers 25
percent of the cost of running the
program. Taxpayers pick up the
remaining 75 percent. (Again,
wealthy people pay more than the
25 percent share.)
Another measuring stick called
the “national wage index” is used
to set increases to other provi-
sions of the law that affect Social
Security beneficiaries and taxpay-
ers. Specifically, this includes in-
creases in the amount of wages or
self-employment income subject
to Social Security tax; the amount
of income needed to earn a “quar-
ter of coverage”; and the Social
Security earnings penalty limits.
The Social Security taxable
earnings base will go up from
$137,700 in 2020 to $142,800 in
2021. In other words, people who
earn more than $142,800 this
year will no longer have Social
Security payroll taxes deducted
from their paychecks once they
hit that threshold. This has
always been a very controversial
provision of the law. (Bill Gates
pays the same amount of Social
Security tax as his plumber!) I
think it’s a pretty good bet that
any eventual Social Security
reform package will include an
increase in that wage base.
Most people need 40 Social
Security work credits (sometimes
BUSINESS & ECONOMY | A23
All Social
Security checks
are going up 1.3
percent in 2021.
The Social Security
Administration
building on Vine
Street in Los Angeles
on July 28, 2017.
ALEX MILLAUER/SHUTTERSTOCK
MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
Seniors shop for groceries
at a supermarket in Los
Angeles on March 19, 2020.
called “quarters of coverage”) to
be eligible for monthly benefit
checks from the system. In 2020,
people who were working earned
one credit for each $1,410 in Social
Security taxable income. But no
one earns more than four credits
per year. In other words, once you
made $5,640, your Social Security
record has been credited with the
maximum four credits or quarters
of coverage. In 2021, the one-cred-
it limit goes up to $1,470, meaning
you will have to earn $5,880 this
year before you get the maximum
four credits assigned to your So-
cial Security account.
People under their full retire-
ment age who get Social Security
retirement or survivors benefits
but who are still working are
subject to limits in the amount
of money they can earn and still
receive all their Social Security
checks. That limit was $18,240 in
2020 and will be $18,960 in 2021.
For every $2 a person earns over
those limits, $1 is withheld from
his or her monthly benefits.
There is a higher earnings
threshold in the year a person
turns full retirement age that
applies from the beginning of the
year until the month the person
reaches FRA. (The income penalty
goes away once a person reaches
that magic age.) That threshold
goes up from $48,600 in 2020 to
$50,520 this year.
A couple of other Social Secu-
rity provisions are also impacted
by inflationary increases. For
example, people getting disabil-
ity benefits who try to work can
generally continue getting those
benefits as long as they are not
working at a “substantial” level.
In 2020, the law defined substan-
tial work as any job paying $1,260
or more per month. In 2021, that
substantial earnings level in-
creases to $1,310 monthly.
Finally, the Supplemental Secu-
rity Income basic federal payment
level for one person goes up from
$783 in 2020 to $794 in 2021. SSI is
a federal welfare program admin-
istered by the SSA, but it is not a
Social Security benefit. It is paid
for out of general revenues, not
Social Security taxes.
Tom Margenau worked for 32
years in a variety of positions
for the Social Security Adminis-
tration before retiring in 2005.
He has served as the director of
SSA’s public information office,
the chief editor of more than 100
SSA publications, a deputy press
officer and spokesman, and a
speechwriter for the commissioner
of Social Security. For 12 years, he
also wrote Social Security col-
umns for local newspapers, and
recently published the book “So-
cial Security: Simple and Smart.”
If you have a Social Security
question, contact him at thomas.
margenau@comcast.net
A24 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

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TRUTH AND TRADITION

 COURTESY OF KAREN CAMPBELL
PEOPLE ADVICE FROM AN AMERICAN CLASSIC

Darryl Strawberry: His The Secrets of Dealing

Journey From Trauma to Faith With People
Strawberry doesn’t talk about the star player he used to What are some skills we might hone to restore
be, but instead speaks about who he is as a man today. the arts of dialogue and genuine conversation
in our battered country?
See B2 See B5

TRADITION|VALUES|FAMILY WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 B1

LIFE & TRADITION

LINDA KC REYNOLDS

AModern-
Day
Da Vinci
Art Thompson
works behind the
scenes, fabricating
dreams into reality
LINDA KC REYNOLDS
COURTESY OF A2ZFX

Along with more

than 3 billion spec-
tators, Art Thomp-
son’s anxiety grew
as he intensely
watched moni-
tors in a packed
control room in
New Mexico. Aus-
trian daredevil
Felix Baumgartner
was about to leap
from a capsule,
128,560 feet (24.5
miles) above the
earth’s surface. Illusionist David
On Oct. 14, 2012, Blaine tests balloons
50 seconds after built by Art Thomp-
stepping off the son and A2ZFX
capsule ledge, before his biggest live
Baumgartner performance, “David
broke the sound Blaine Ascension,” in
which he reached an
barrier, reaching
altitude of 24,900
speeds of 843.6 feet before he para-
miles per hour chuted to earth.
(Mach 1.25, or
1.25 times the
speed of sound). He broke the record for
the highest freefall, largest manned bal-
loon (at 30 million cubic feet), and highest
balloon flight that Col. Joe Kittinger set
on Aug. 16, 1960.
Thompson, 64, of Sage Cheshire and
A2ZFX is the eclectic genius behind a
large number of projects spanning an
incredibly diverse portfolio. He was re-
sponsible for the design, engineering, and
building of the Red Bull Stratos pressur-
ized capsule along with the life support
system, technical procedures, and flight-
testing. As the only company allowed
to purchase spacesuits, Sage Cheshire
modified the design with the David Clark
Company for a higher-mobility spacesuit
that is now integrated into the next gen-
eration suit for NASA.
“Someday, perhaps I’ll write a book of
all the behind-the-scenes action that took
place—it’s quite remarkable,” Thompson
Art Thompson, CEO of Sage Cheshire and president of A2ZFX, stands
said, adding that he could not have done
in front of a model capsule he built for Red Bull Stratos. On Oct. 14, it without his great mentor and friend Joe
2012, Felix Baumgartner used Thompson’s capsule as a launch pad If you can imagine it, Kittinger and life-support engineer Mike
and broke the sound barrier, reaching Mach 1.25, breaking the record Todd.
for the highest freefall, largest manned balloon, and highest balloon we can probably build it.
flight. The famous capsule was featured at the Smithsonian in 2014. Art Thompson, CEO of Sage Cheshire and president of A2ZFX Continued on B4

The Flushing Remonstrance: The Religious Magna Carta of the New World
PUBLIC DOMAIN

A governor demanded religious stretch out our hands against them. ... We of the state, personified by Gov. Peter
desire therefore in this case not to judge Stuyvesant. It was an act of resistance
persecution of the Quakers. lest we be judged, neither to condemn lest and an early declaration in favor of the
The citizens of Flushing refused. we be condemned, but rather let every freedom of peaceful worship. Moreover,
man stand or fall to his own Master. We it was not a self-serving stand for the free-
are bound by the law to do good unto all dom of those who signed it (none of them
LAWRENCE W. REED men, especially to those of the household were Quakers), but rather a defense of the
of faith.” freedom of others.
“To the Right Honorable Governor of New With those words, Edward Hart, the Think of it in these terms: In contraven-
A U.S. post- Netherland Peter Stuyvesant: town clerk of what is now the neighbor- tion of the practice of tolerance back in
age stamp “You have been pleased to send unto us hood of Flushing in Queens, New York, the mother country of the Netherlands,
commem-
orates reli-
a certain prohibition or command that began a powerful 650-word document Stuyvesant promulgated a policy of intol-
gious free- we should not receive or entertain any of known as the Flushing Remonstrance. erance in the Dutch settlements of New
dom and those people called Quakers because they It was Dec. 27, 1657. Hart wrote on behalf York. He aimed to persecute those who did
the Flush- are supposed to be, by some, seducers of of the 30 inhabitants of the village who not adhere to the Dutch Reformed Church,
ing Remon- the people. For our part we cannot con- also boldly signed their names below his.
strance. demn them in this case, neither can we This was a defiant shot across the bow Continued on B2
B2
Darryl Strawberry:
His Journey From
Trauma to Faith
ANDREW THOMAS
I
f you follow professional baseball
at all, or even if you don’t, you most
likely know who Darryl Strawberry
is.
He was a star player in the 1980s
and 1990s, playing for teams such as the
Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets,
and New York Yankees. He had 335 home
runs, 1,000 RBIs, and earned four World
Series championship rings.
Strawberry also was known for his
controversy off the field. He often found
himself in trouble with alcohol, cocaine,
and the law. However, he’ll be the first to
tell he’s more than a baseball player.
Strawberry was born March 12, 1962,
in Los Angeles. His father was an abusive
alcoholic who would often come home in
a rage.
“He came home all the time with crazi-
ness, and we had to deal with it as kids
being in fear, not knowing who was com-
ing through the door night after night,”
Strawberry said.
One evening when Strawberry was 14
years old, his father came home drunk.
His older brother Michael told him to
leave them alone, and their father drew a
shotgun and said he was going to kill the
entire family. Michael seized a butcher
knife, and Strawberry a frying pan.
Fortunately, his mother defused the
situation and convinced the brothers to
leave the house.
“Had it not been for my mother forc-
ing us out of the house, we would have
probably killed him that night. There’s no
question about it. I could just always re-
member that picture of seeing what it was
like, and most people don’t understand
that brokenness is real and it happens
behind closed doors,” Strawberry said.
Major League Trauma
Strawberry would carry this pain and
trauma into his professional baseball
career. Even though he was a successful
and popular player, he nevertheless felt
broken inside. He would try to cope with
these struggles with drugs and alcohol,
and often found himself in trouble with
the league and the law.
Unfortunately, his behavior would
often thrust him into the public eye. For
a long time, people’s only understanding
of Strawberry consisted of the salacious
stories of his latest transgression, not the
man behind the uniform.
“It was my pain that led me to my great-
ness, and my greatness would eventually
The Flushing Remonstrance: The Religious Magna Carta of the New World
A governor demanded religious persecution of the Quakers. The citizens of Flushing refused.
Continued from B1
and the nonconformist Quakers were his
prime target. In this response, the citizens
of Flushing essentially stated: “You are com-
manding us to persecute Quakers. We will
not. So take your intolerance and stick it
where the sun doesn’t shine.”
If you are inclined to stop reading because
freedom of peaceful worship is not impor-
tant to you—perhaps you are not of any faith
or you believe your faith is not threatened—
think again. Freedom in one sense is indivis-
ible; a successful attack on one of its elements
The original Flushing Remonstrance. It sustained damage from a fire at the New York State Capitol
in Albany in 1911.
lead me to my destructive behavior,”
Strawberry said.
“I was searching in women. I was
searching in drugs. I was searching in
money. I was searching in alcohol. I was
buying more homes, more cars, more
stuff to try to fill that empty void on the
inside. The thing about it is, none of it ever
fills that empty void.”
Strawberry was one of the most iconic
Major League Baseball players, but he
was in the throes of an identity crisis. He
found himself hiding behind the persona
of the celebrity athlete, but knew that one
day, baseball would end for him.
After a storied career, he struggled to
find out who he was and who he would
become when the game ended.
When Strawberry retired, he knew he
needed to turn into somebody different.
After Strawberry’s mother passed away,
he found her journal and discovered
that she had been praying for him her
whole life.
He continued to struggle with his own
faith until he met his wife Tracy, and real-
ized he had to take the uniform off and
discover who he really was as a man.
Now, Strawberry’s faith has made him
feel grateful for his past struggles. Child-
hood trauma, incarceration, drug addic-
tion, and surviving cancer are just a few
of the obstacles he’s had to overcome.
“My life has changed dramatically
because of my faith, of operating in it
and living it. Not just talking about it, but
actually living it,” Strawberry said.
Beyond Baseball
Now, Strawberry’s faith has motivated
him to preach the gospel to others across
the country 250 days a year. He’s particu-
larly focused on mentoring young people,
and showing them how anyone can slip
into despair.
“I think I’m doing something far greater
than I ever did playing baseball, hitting
home runs, and winning fans,” Straw-
berry said. “Truly being able to win souls
I think is probably the greatest gift that I
ever received.”
Strawberry doesn’t talk about the star
player he used to be, but instead, speaks
about who he is as a man today. He’s built
a strong relationship with his children
and with his wife, which he described as
his foundation.
Strawberry has published several
books, but his most recent book “Turn
Your Season Around” details how he
has overcome his past struggles with his
faith. Little did he know what 2020 would
invites assaults on the others. Allow the state
to breach one wall of freedom’s fortress and
you have invited it inside, where its agents
will work to bring down the remaining walls.
A government that can tell you what to
think and say and punish you for think-
ing and saying what it disapproves, will not
self-limit its despotism there. This is likely
what Voltaire had in mind when he reput-
edly asserted, “I disagree with what you say
but will contend to the death for your right
to say it.” The timid multitudes stand idly by
as freedom is crushed, doing nothing unless
the danger appears on their own doorstep.
NPS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
RICK DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES FOR KLOVE
Darryl Strawberry with his wife Tracy. The couple married in 2006.
hold. He wants his story to
help people heal from what-
Even though ever trauma or pain they
he was a have experienced, and
help them understand that
successful and personal transforma-
tion is possible.
popular player, Strawberry hopes
he nevertheless people take away
some biblical prin-
felt broken ciples and practical
steps to help them
inside. enter a new jour-
ney in life.
In his book, he
Darryl
wrote, “Every game Strawberry was
and every day can a star player in
be a new opportu- Major League
nity to succeed, Baseball.
develop, and
grow even in
the midst of
mistakes or
E ZR A
failure.”
O. SH
AW /A
L
L SP O
Darryl Strawberry’s latest
book “Turn Your Season
RT
Around” will be released
on Jan. 12, 2021.
The uncommonly courageous few will rise elderly Hart went to jail but never recanted.
far sooner, and it is to them that all of us who Relief from Stuyvesant’s harsh rule finally
love freedom owe a special gratitude. arrived in 1663, but not by the hand of any
Stuyvesant’s policy of persecution had government. The Dutch West India Com-
begun in 1656 with an ordinance banning pany, sponsor and investor in the Dutch
unauthorized religious meetings. Quaker colonies of North America, dispatched a
preachers were harassed, arrested, jailed, letter to Stuyvesant ordering him to stop
and fined. In Flushing itself, a Baptist pas- religious persecution. So much did Thomas
tor was imprisoned and then exiled for the Jefferson later revel in the spirit of the Flush-
“crime” of baptizing without a license from ing-inspired motto “Rebellion to Tyrants Is
the Dutch Reformed officialdom. Obedience to God,” he inserted it into his
The Flushing Remonstrance stirs my blood personal seal.
with an abiding appreciation for principled Today, the Flushing Remonstrance is
courage. How fitting for such an enlightened known as “the religious Magna Carta of the
document to appear two days after Christ- New World.” It proved to be a major influence
mas! Inspired by Jesus’s teachings, the brave on America’s Founders to enshrine freedom
souls of Flushing were likely full of hope for of worship in the Bill of Rights, more than a
the good that peace and tolerance could century after the citizens of Flushing defied
bring in the New Year. They concluded their a governor.
statement thusly: God bless America.
“The law of love, peace and liberty ... con-
demns hatred, war and bondage ... desir- Lawrence W. Reed is FEE’s president
ing to do unto all men as we desire all men emeritus, Humphreys Family senior fellow,
should do unto us. ... Therefore if any of these and Ron Manners global ambassador for
said persons come in love unto us, we cannot liberty, having served for nearly 11 years as
in conscience lay violent hands upon them, FEE’s president (2008–2019). He is the au-
but give them free egress and regress unto thor of the 2020 book “Was Jesus a Social-
our Town, and houses, as God shall persuade ist?” as well as “Real Heroes: Incredible True
our consciences.” Stories of Courage, Character, and Convic-
Stuyvesant reacted in anger. Determined tion” and “Excuse Me, Professor: Challeng-
to quash the spirit of the Remonstrance, he ing the Myths of Progressivism.” His website
dissolved Flushing’s town government and is LawrenceWReed.com 
put his own cronies in charge. He arrested
four of the signers of the Remonstrance, This article was originally published
including Edward Hart. To his credit, the on FEE.org
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
DEAR JUNE
On
nFFamily
amily
am y an
and Relationships
d Rel
Relati
lati
tion
o sh
onship
ps
Advice to
a Former
Feminist
« Some words of
encouragement
Dear June,
I’ve been a subscriber to Epoch Times
for about five months now and I’ve
really been enjoying your column.
I am a 39-year-old married woman
with two boys, ages 6 and 8. This year
has been profoundly transformational
and challenging for me. I’ve lived my
life as a strong, opinionated, career-
oriented feminist who held tightly to
the many beliefs and ideals of the lib-
eral left. Well ... I’ve undergone a huge
change in my beliefs and attitudes
toward family, feminism, masculinity,
religion, economics, and politics. It’s
been enlightening but also incred-
ibly challenging because some of my
relationships have changed.
My question for you is this: Can you
recommend any resources, provide
words of encouragement, or share
experiences of those who have under-
gone a similar transformation? I feel
like who I knew myself to be has been
shattered and I’m trying to rebuild
without completely losing myself. I’d
be curious for your perspective.
Thanks so much.
Amanda C.
« Dear Amanda,
It is no small thing to overturn one’s
lifelong beliefs! But in my experience,
when you disperse the fog of femi-
nism, the men and boys in your life
become amazing.
I never considered myself a feminist
in theory, but in practice, my lack of
understanding and appreciation for
the inherent differences between men
and women and our complementary
virtues hung like a dead weight on my
relationships, including my relation-
ship with myself. Allowing myself
to let go of always pushing myself to
be strong and on task, and allowing
myself to be gentle and adaptable has
been so freeing and nourishing, both
for myself and also for my family.
So my first resource recommenda-
tions would be the book “Fascinating
Womanhood,” written by a Christian
mother and published in the late
1960s. I’ve recommended this before
because I found it inspiring and a
good counterpoint to some of the
ideas of second-wave feminism that
were coming to popularity in the ’60s
and that are now very generally ac-
cepted ideas.
In the same vein, there is a
TED Talk titled “Meeting the En-
emy” by filmmaker Cassie Jaye (bit.
ly/37ZwSDq), who considered herself
a feminist until she decided to make
a film about the men’s rights move-
ment. What I found fascinating about
her story is that she spent a year inter-
viewing men without really being able
to hear what they were actually saying
because in her head she translated
everything through feminist rhetoric.
It was only after she had to transcribe
the interviews that she saw how
biased she had been. So her story is a
good reminder of the importance of
truly listening.
Since you have sons, and if you have
not already done so, I would recom-
mend becoming familiar with their
unique needs and forms of expres-
sion. I’ve appreciated the ideas of Kim
John Payne, Meg Meeker, and Ted
Braude, and on my list to explore is
the work of Michael G. Thompson.
B3
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Helen Andelin, the author of “Fasci-
nating Womanhood,” also wrote a
nat
helpful book about raising children
help
(she had eight).
And if you want to understand the
A
connections between feminist ideas
con
aand
nd communism, you can read chap-
ter
teer 7 of “How the Specter of Commu-
nism
nis sm Is Ruling Our World,” a series
ppublished
ub b by The Epoch Times. This
iss aavailable online (ReadEpoch.com/
SSpecter).
pe
On the lighter side, the YouTube
O
cchannel
ha The Daily Connoisseur offers
lot of inspiration for homemaking
a lo
and creating beauty in daily life.
an
Regarding the challenge of trans-
R
formation, I think it is important to ac-
form
knowledge that in order to grow, there
kno
is p pain and suffering. The hardest mo-
ments in my life have ultimately been
me
what pushed me to strive to be and do
better. I cannot think of any example
in history where someone achieved
greatness without pain and suffering,
and at some level, I think we need this
suffering to ennoble us. All this is to
say that I think the person you will
become through this process will be
stronger, clearer, and more beautiful.
I realize that words like these may
not offer much in the way of inspira-
tion or solace when one is in the midst
of hardship, so I’d also like to share
some of the soul-stirring beauty that
is available once one lets go of the
mentality of struggle that comes with
a worldview based on “-isms.”
In opposition to the struggle men-
tality is what I would call a reverence
for life. It allows you to appreciate
the strength, bravery, and stoicism of “God Speed” (1900) by Edmund Leighton.
men; to be awed by the sacrifices of PUBLIC DOMAIN
our ancestors; to be moved by great
art; and to be humbled by the com-
plexity of truth—how little we can
actually know of it and how thrilling
the discovery!
And what a joyful thing that you
will be able to share this beauty with
your boys.
One visual art piece that I’ve found
inspirational is “God Speed” by Eng-
lish painter Edmund Leighton. It
shows a knight saying a last farewell
to his lady before riding off—presum-
ably to battle. In his strength, her
beauty and delicacy, and their evident
mutual fondness I see the wonderful
harmony of balanced masculine and
feminine.
For more spiritual imagery, see the
ceilings of Versailles—where gods
and goddesses reign amidst luminous
clouds. I find these works awesomely
beautiful and inspiring.
“Innocence” by French painter
William-Adolphe Bouguereau shows
a mother holding her son and a young
lamb. The baby is supposed to be the
Christ child and the woman Mary, but
to me, it looks like a shepherdess rel-
ishing a quiet moment while her child
sleeps in her arms. There a feeling of
softness and tranquility in the picture
that I find very soothing.
And for the more mundane, “The
“The Milkmaid” (circa 1660) by Johannes Vermeer.
Milkmaid” by Dutch painter Vermeer
also captures a beautifully quiet mo-
ment as a woman goes about her task “It is the mark of an educated man acquaintances might think you are
of pouring milk. to look for precision in each class of crazy or are being brainwashed. I
things just so far as the nature of the would not be too concerned about
subject admits; it is evidently equally actively maintaining connections that
In opposition to foolish to accept probable reasoning now feel strained, but neither strain
from a mathematician and to demand connections unnecessarily. Some
the struggle mentality from a rhetorician scientific proofs. people will be open to your transfor-
“Now each man judges well the mation; some relationships may be-
is what I would call things he knows, and of these he is a come more superficial or come to an
a reverence for life. good judge. And so the man who organic close.  So in the same way that
has been educated in a subject is a many cultures give mother and infant
As a final thought, once we step good judge of that subject, and the a period of quiet time together before
beyond the limited groupthink and man who has received an all-round baby meets the world, give yourself
start thinking for ourselves, we are on education is a good judge in general. some incubation time to adjust to
very shaky ground because we can no Hence a young man is not a proper your new world.
longer trust sources and knowledge hearer of lectures on political science; And give yourself permission not to
as we used to. But I think there is an for he is inexperienced in the ac- have abundant answers but to frame
innate part of us that is able to discern tions that occur in life, but its discus- your questions well and embrace the
truth—I would describe the feeling sions start from these and are about journey to discover the answers. This
physically as a kind of warmth in the these; and, further, since he tends is actually one of the most empower-
solar plexus, sometimes accompanied to follow his passions, his study will ing things I can think of, because it
by a fullness in the heart, and a know- be vain and unprofitable, because allows you to seek ever higher and
ing that is calm. Conversely, when we the end aimed at is not knowledge deeper truths.
lie, people report a feeling of pain or but action. And it makes no differ- Sincerely,
constriction in the solar plexus. ence whether he is young in years June
And in addition to a reverence for or youthful in character; the defect
life, a reverence for truth is an impor- does not depend on time, but on his
tant guide. I will end with a passage living, and pursuing each successive Do you have a family or relationship
from Aristotle, who, much more object, as passion directs. For to such question for our advice columnist,
eloquently than I could, explains the persons, as to the incontinent, knowl- Dear June? Send it to DearJune@
importance of precision in knowl- edge brings no profit; but to those who EpochTimes.com or Attn: Dear June,
edge, the humility to acknowledge desire and act in accordance with a The Epoch Times, 229 W. 28th St.,
the limits of our knowledge, and the rational principle, knowledge about Floor 7, New York, NY 10001.
importance of maturation of intellect such matters will be of great benefit.”
(which is something that for many And in closing, please give yourself June Kellum is a married mother of two and
of us, was not accomplished by our and those around you an abundance longtime Epoch Times journalist covering
childhood schooling). of grace. I would guess some of your family, relationships, and health topics.
B4 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

“I’m coming home,” Austrian skydiver Felix

Baumgartner said just before stepping off
the Red Bull Stratos capsule on Oct. 14,
2012. Art Thompson served as technical
project director for Red Bull Stratos.

A Modern-Day
Da Vinci
Art Thompson works behind
the scenes, fabricating dreams
into reality
Continued from B1

“If you can imagine it, we can probably build

it,” he said from his humble shop in Lan-
caster, California, smack in the middle of
the Mojave Desert and Aerospace Valley.
“No project is too big or too small. We can
build big, creating an over the top project or
vehicle, or make something small like a spe-
cial award for your favorite organization.”
Posters of blockbuster films he worked on, I love
along with numerous memorabilia, adorn inspiration—
his office. Some of his projects include
building an eight-foot giant yo-yo, one-foot when we can
stomp rocket, and rocket-powered wagons
for Nitro Circus; vehicles for “Batman and
touch a child’s
Robin”; Mini Coopers and DJ party vans for mind to never
Red Bull; and one of his favorites, the Hum-
Rider (an SUV fitted with hydraulics that give up and
elevates it over traffic), which reached more continue to
than 35 million views in the first 48 hours
and hundreds of millions of total views on dream of the
YouTube.
“We have created the highest-viewed pro- possibilities
grams with the most success for our custom- no matter
ers but have never advertised to promote
who we are,” Thompson said. On the Red what has to
Bull Stratos program alone, Red Bull’s return
on investment for international exposure
be overcome.
and increased business was $3.9 billion. Art Thompson, CEO
of Sage Cheshire and
Childhood Memories president of A2ZFX
One of his earliest memories he clearly re-
calls was at the age of 2, when his father,
working as an industrial air-conditioning
technician, took him and his sister, Sunny,
to work.
“I remember playing in a backyard, and
this man picks me up, sets me in his lap,
and drives me and Sunny around his yard
on this little train. I was so fascinated by all
the little villages and models,” Thompson
said. “I later found out that that man was
Mr. Walt Disney. I think it helped spark a
fascination in me that contributed to what
I am today.”

1. Typically, children might receive tricycles that filed for bankruptcy.

1 A giant Radio Flyer
wagon was designed and
COURTESY OF SAGE CHESHIRE built for a Nitro Circus
“Life Size Toys” series,
where it was launched
off a ramp into a lake.
2.
Thompson designed
and built a 45-foot-long
paper airplane with a
wingspan of 24 feet,
here being lifted by a
helicopter for its flight
for the Pima Air & Space
Museum’s Great Paper
Airplane Project, on
2 March 21, 2012. During
the flight, it reached a
top speed of 98 miles per
hour and an altitude of
2,703 feet; it was in free
flight for almost (0.93) a
mile. The project aimed
to excite kids about
aviation and engineering,
and the design was
based on a 12-year-old
Tucson student’s design.
3.
The Hum Rider, featured
here on “The Today
Show,” can be elevated
above traffic thanks to
its advanced hydraulics.
It was built to promote
Verizon’s Hum diagnostic
3 and tracking system.
and jump ropes for entertainment. Thomp-
son was handed an armful of wood, a hand-
ful of nails, hammer, saw, paint, and plenty
of drawing paper. His parents, who were
science teachers, exposed him at an early
age to science, art, music, animals, and so
many fascinating topics.
“Unfortunately, parents today rely too
much on TV, iPhones, and video games to
educate and entertain kids. I don’t think it
does much to grow their imagination. The
younger you can engage them and teach
the fascinations of the world the better. The
earlier you pack their brain, the more they
will produce when they are older,” he said.
After running an R&D department at
Northrop Corp. as part of a team of engi-
neers to build the B-2 “Stealth” Bomber,
Thompson supported design, fabrication,
and testing for other aerospace companies
on varied projects such as UAVs (unmanned
aerial vehicles), electric helicopters, low
observable vehicles, and rocket programs.
He claims he can do things because his
company is small and there is no red tape.
“We handle everything, so we don’t have
to wait on anybody’s approval,” he said.
One customer, Gulfstream, contracted his
company Sage Cheshire to build a certain
missile avoidance component.
“It would typically take a year and a half
to produce, and we did it under three weeks
with FAA approval. That saved the company
a ton of time, money, and headaches,” he said.
Thompson recently became involved with
the acquisition of XCOR, a rocket company
“I’m not sure what we are going to do
with all the patents and technology but the
XCOR team was brilliant in many of their
designs. They were competing early on with
Elon Musk of Space-X,  Blue Origin, and
Virgin Galactic; they just didn’t have the
marketing, management, or a billionaire
behind them. I am hoping someone will
want to do something with the technology
because it will help revolutionize affordable
space systems,” he said.
Inspiring Others by Doing the
Impossible
Inspiring kids of all ages and helping his
community is a top priority. When the City
of Lancaster asked him to design and build
a memorial for Sgt. Steve Owen, an officer
who was horribly killed on duty, he didn’t
hesitate. Along with sculptor Nay Shud-
der, they built a beautiful bronze memo-
rial, honoring Owen’s memory and giving
hope to the community.
Constantly thinking of ways to support
STEAM (science, technology, engineering,
art, math) education, Thompson is the presi-
dent of the Flight Test Historical Foundation,
a nonprofit that is raising money to build a
new museum at Edwards Air Force Base.
“We want to preserve the memory of
aerospace that happened mostly here in
the Antelope Valley, and inspire the next
generation by including hands-on learning
stations,” he said.
“I love inspiration—when we can touch a
child’s mind to never give up and continue
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF ART THOMPSON UNLESS NOTED OTHERWISE
to dream of the possibilities no matter what
has to be overcome. We can create and in-
spire the world by just doing it and follow-
ing through with what many people would
think of as impossible.”
His latest project was the Ascension proj-
ect, helping David Blaine to float across the
Arizona sky, carried by 52 helium balloons
and reaching an altitude of 24,900 feet be-
fore he parachuted to earth.
“David dreamt of flying with a handful
of balloons since he was a child and was
inspired to do something beautiful for his
daughter and bring hope to a public torn by
the pandemic,” Thompson said. “We were
honored to be a part of David’s dream and
work with  friends from the Stratos project
again, like Luke Aikins who managed the
David Blaine Ascension project.”
Thompson hired Aikins on Red Bull Stratos
to test the parachute and safety systems for
Baumgartner, and Aikins went on to be the
first person to jump from 25,000 feet without
a parachute into a net on the ground.
“Don’t let people tell you something can’t
be done,” Thompson said. “With faith and
determination, more than likely, your
dreams can become reality.”
Linda KC Reynolds began her photography
career in the U.S. Air Force. After serving
six years, she worked full-time for Northrop
Grumman on the B-2 Stealth Bomber and
now freelances for various aerospace com-
panies and other venues. She is passionate
about free speech, musical production, and
sharing peoples’ stories.  
The Secrets of Dealing With People
Advice from an American classic
JEFF MINICK
In The Epoch Times article “An Amer-
ican Mindset,” Scott Mann reflects on
the broken trust and lack of connec-
tion in our country and urges us to
work toward what he calls “bridging
trust.”
He writes, “How we conduct our-
selves at an individual level, and at
a community level, will set the tone
for how we come out on the other side
of this thing, regardless of who holds
political office, regardless of who sits
in the Oval Office or Congress.”
Whatever our politics, most of us
would surely agree with Mann that
a breakdown in our ability to com-
municate with others has occurred,
a demolition reflected in bitter con-
gressional debates and in some
mainstream media outlets seemingly
intent on pitting one group of Ameri-
cans against another. This “cold civil
war,” as some commentators now call
it, is commonplace in the private sec-
tor as well, damaging friendships and
splitting apart families.
Consequently, most of us would
also agree with Mann that “in this
time of political polarization, there’s
no mindset more American than one
of bridging trust.”
His article set me to thinking: What
are some practical ways we might
find common ground with others?
What are some skills we might hone
to restore the arts of dialogue and
genuine conversation in our battered
country?
Turn Off the Gadgets
For several years now, readers,
friends, and even a few family mem-
bers have told me of bruised or bro-
ken relations with others, caused in
many cases by political disagree-
ments. Their accounts never fail to
shock me, because unless Uncle Bob
is a Stalinist or Aunt Mary a goose-
stepping fascist, from where I stand
only fanatics or fools cut off their
parents or give the cold shoulder to
a friend over political differences.
While discussing this topic with
a conservative friend, she pointed
out that social media could wreck a
friendship or cause a family mem-
ber to “unfriend” her cousin. For
all the good these electronic plat-
forms deliver—keeping us in touch
with our acquaintances, letting us
share pictures of our daughter’s baby
girl—a wrong word or a controversial
opinion posted online can whip up
a maelstrom of wrath in its wake. As
many of us know, “social media” is
often a contradiction in terms.
No—if we want to breathe some life
into Mann’s bridging philosophy, we
should aim for personal, face-to-face
encounters.
My friend agreed, but neither of us
came up with any good solutions to
her dilemma, which was how she
might maintain her friendship with
her liberal acquaintances while at
the same time defending her beliefs.
Speaking up, she feared, might frac-
ture those relationships. We kicked
around a few possible solutions, but
nothing seemed workable.
Over the next few days, I kept re-
turning to our conversation. Is this
divide now so vast that keeping
friends means keeping silent? So it
seemed.
Enter Dale Carnegie.
Honey and the Beehive
I don’t know why Carnegie’s 1936
classic “How to Win Friends and In-
fluence People” popped to mind. I’d
never read the book; the title seemed
sort of hokey and dated, and hinted
at manipulation, as if by some math-
ematical calculation we might draw
others to us. But the next day, there I
was in our public library, finding not
one but three copies of the book on
the shelves and carrying the latest
revision home with me.
Boy, was I ever wrong in my as-
sumptions.
The updated version of “How to Win
Friends and Influence People” offers
excellent advice from the very first
chapter, which is titled “If You Want
to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the
Beehive.” Here, Carnegie furnishes
bridge builders with a vital girder to
that project with these words: “Don’t
criticize, condemn, or complain.”
How well that fiat applies to our na-
tion should be apparent to even the
most casual observer. We are bar-
raged by criticism, condemnation,
and complaint, or the 3Cs as I now
call them, and some of us lead the
way in that bombardment.
Of course, in some circumstances,
those 3Cs are justified. But in regard
to the individuals around us, Carn-
egie is right on target. If we wish to
make or keep friends, we should leave
the 3Cs locked in the closet. None of
them will win hearts and minds.
First, They Have to Like You
In “Part Two: Six Ways to Make People
Like You,” Carnegie gives us some tips
we so often forget. By listening to oth-
ers, for instance, or becoming “genu-
inely interested in other people,” we
can forge stronger bonds with them,
especially “if you want to develop
real friendships” or “you want to help
others at the same time as you help
yourself.”
These propositions,
supported by excellent
examples, point us to
the heart of civility, yet
too often go missing
these days.
A friend of mine, John, has a knack
for striking up conversations with
strangers, in large part because he is
“genuinely interested” in what they
are saying or doing. Over the years,
I’ve seen him engage in prolonged
conversations with the owner of an
ice cream stand, a convenience store
clerk, and several other strangers,
drawing them out by asking ques-
tions and then truly paying attention
to their answers.
One of Carnegie’s recommenda-
tions in this section consists of a
single syllable: “Smile.”
He writes: “Your smile is a messen-
ger of good will. Your smile brightens
the lives of all who see it. To someone
who has seen a dozen people frown,
scowl, or turn their faces away, your
smile is like the sun breaking through
the clouds.”
After months of wearing masks in
public, many of us are feeling disasso-
ciated from our fellow human beings.
We miss those smiles we get when
we bump into a friend in the grocery
store or from that pleasant checkout
clerk in the pharmacy.
But we can still smile with our eyes
and with our voices. I deliberately
tried this tactic in our local grocery
store, talking to a woman waiting in
the checkout line and then with the
clerk, and both times received some
laughter in return.
B5
Agreeing to Disagree
“Part III: How to Win People to Your
Way of Thinking” is perhaps the most
pertinent section of Carnegie’s book
to our discussion here. Several of his
ideas strike me as especially valuable
for healing our wounded culture: “Try
honestly to see things from the other
person’s point of view,” “Let the other
person do a great deal of the talking,”
and “If you’re wrong, admit it quickly
and emphatically.”
My favorite piece of advice was
“Show respect for the other person’s
opinions. Never say, ‘You’re wrong.’”
To illustrate what we might otherwise
say, Carnegie cites the example of El-
bert Hubbard, a writer whose “sting-
ing sentences often aroused fiercer
resentment.” Yet when a critic or
angry reader wrote protesting some
piece he’d written, Carnegie tells us
Hubbard often replied in this way:
“Come to think it over, I don’t entire-
ly agree with it myself. Not everything
I wrote yesterday appeals to me today.
I am glad to learn what you think on
the subject. The next time you are in
the neighborhood you must visit us
and we’ll get this subject threshed
out for all time. So here is a handclasp
over the miles, and I am,
Yours Sincerely.”
Now that, my friends, is bridge
building.
Becoming Bridge Builders
In “You Can’t Win an Argument,”
Carnegie concludes with these ad-
monitions:
“Welcome the disagreement.”
“Distrust your first instinct.”
“Control your temper.”
“Listen first.”
“Look for areas of agreement.”
“Be honest.”
“Promise to think over your oppo-
nent’s ideas and study them care-
fully.”
“Thank your opponents sincerely
for their interest.”
“Postpone action to give both sides
time to think through the problem.”
These propositions, supported by
excellent examples, point us to the
heart of civility, yet too often go miss-
ing these days. How many of us, for
example, honestly practice these rec-
ommendations?
It may be impossible to discuss,
much less argue, politics with true
ideologues, those who aren’t inter-
ested in truth, who live locked up in
a prison cell of their own making. But
it is possible to build a friendship in
spite of a chasm of political differ-
ences. To offer but one example, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia
were at the opposite ends of the politi-
cal spectrum, but these two Supreme
Court justices were also the best of
friends, no doubt in part because they
practiced what Carnegie preached.
My 1981 edition of “How to Win
Friends and Influence People” re-
ports 30 million copies sold.
Maybe it’s time we purchased and
read a few million more.
Jeff Minick has four children and a
growing platoon of grandchildren.
For 20 years, he taught history,
literature, and Latin to seminars
of homeschooling students in
Asheville, N.C. He is the author of
two novels, “Amanda Bell” and
“Dust On Their Wings,” and two
works of nonfiction, “Learning As I
Go” and “Movies Make The Man.”
Today, he lives and writes in Front
Royal, Va. See JeffMinick.com to
follow his blog.
BELUSHI/SHUTTERSTOCK
Taking genuine
interest in
others is key
to forging
stronger
bonds.
B6 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF LESLEE OWENS

has always appreciated beautiful sunrises

because of that experience. His stepdad
told my dad that he would never amount
to anything, and boy was he wrong! He
left home and joined the Navy early. He is
a hard-working, proud, and determined
man. He went on to earn a college degree
and was one of the top principals in the
Los Angeles Unified School District. He
also taught at the college level.
My mom has such a loving heart and an
extraordinary love relationship with God.
It was her love that helped free my dad to
be the loving father he is and to appreciate
family like he does. Every holiday, we gath-
er as a family. My dad always included his
mom and stepfather over every Christmas
Eve, for family dinners and holidays, and
my dad continued to visit our grandfather
daily in his assisted living facility after work
in spite of his cruelty to him.
We are a family of five, but we would al-
ways gather for holidays with our cous-
ins, my mom’s parents, and her sister and
brother. Our family grew as the kids mar-
ried and had children and families of their
own, but we always gathered. We always
made time for family celebrations and fam-
ily support as we lost family members be-
fore their time. Over the years, family has
always remained important. We have our
(Above) The author's mother and father, Joan and Robert Owens. (Top right) The author's family at Christmastime. (Bottom right) arguments and our different perceptions
Robert Owens with his grandson Robby, the last of his grandchildren to get married, and Summer. about life, but our parents always instilled
in us the importance of forgiveness and
learning to get along. It’s difficult to gather,
DEAR NEXT GENERATION: especially when people in our family have
little kids, but it’s a priority in our family.

It’s All About Family Our extended family all live in California
and within 50 miles of each other, except
for my cousin and his wife who live in Tex-
as, but they take the time to fly in every
Christmas to be with family.
« Advice from our readers could do or be anything our hearts desired. My dad knew what he was doing when he
to our young people We never lacked anything as a family. In said he’d pay for college if we stayed close. I
fact, it was my dad whom the family went to His stepdad continue to appreciate more and more the

O
ur family is so blessed to still
have our parents so involved
in our families’ lives! They are
both vibrant, active, and still
the rocks of our family.
My dad is 93 and my mom is 89. I re-
member my dad telling his three girls—
Kathleen, myself, and Lori—that he would
pay for our college education as long as
we maintained a B average and we stayed
local. I thought that was an odd request at
the time, but having a college education
paid for was ideal.
My father, Robert Owens, was a school
principal and my mom, Joan Owens, was
an appreciated homemaker, the backbone
of our family. She was the best seamstress,
entertainer, and cook! She’d sketch clothes
that she would see and come home and
make them. I felt we were the best-dressed
girls around. All our friends loved my mom,
she had so much love to give. Our dad is a
man of wisdom ... he would always sit us
down and have those father-daughter talks,
always encouraging us and telling us we
if they needed to borrow money. We weren’t
wealthy, but we were loved. My parents are
both competitive, and all three of us girls
love to play. We grew up playing football in
the streets, having walnut and water fights
with our neighbors. During the summers,
we went on great family trips, and when
my dad worked, we would go to my aunt
and uncle’s house in Woodland Hills to
swim and play with my cousins. It was a
wonderful childhood.
One thing my parents stressed over and
over again was the importance of family.
My dad had a miserable home life. His
stepfather did not like him. He grew up
as a Chatsworth boy in California ... (the
Chatsworth Boys were a group of friends
who hung out together, picked crops,
played in the hills of Chatsworth, Louisi-
ana). His stepfather made him go out and
do his chores before school. Often, it would
be freezing outside, and my dad’s stepfather
said he could not come back in the house.
My dad would sit in the corner of the house
where the sun would be peeking over the
horizon and warm himself by the sun. He
told my importance of family. People with mass
amounts of wealth and status at the end
dad that he of life seem to place more value on those
family relationships than any other!
would never Thanks, Dad and Mom, for instilling this
amount to in your family. Love, love, love conquers all!
anything, —Leslee Owens
and boy was
he wrong! What advice would you like to
give to the younger generations?
We call on all of our readers to share the
timeless values that define right and
wrong, and pass the torch, if you will,
through your wisdom and hard-earned
experience. We feel that the passing down
of this wisdom has diminished over time,
and that only with a strong moral founda-
tion can future generations thrive.
Send your advice, along with your full name,
state, and contact information to Next-
Generation@epochtimes.com or mail it to:
Next Generation, The Epoch Times, 229
W. 28th St., Floor 7, New York, NY 10001

How a New Pair of Shoes Made a Boy’s Day

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MEGHAN HENDRIX

LOUISE BEVAN heartfelt gesture, Tanner, according to

When a senior from Lund High School
in Ely, Nevada, heard that someone had
taken his eighth-grade buddy’s shoes and
put them in the toilet, he responded with a
heartfelt gesture by buying him a new pair
of basketball shoes.
Tanner’s mother, Meghan Hendrix, told
The Epoch Times via social media that she
felt “heartbroken and helpless” upon learn-
ing that her son’s shoes had been dumped
in the toilet.
“I was also very sad because we live in a
very small community and we know all the
kids in the school, which meant we knew
whoever had done this,” she said.
Luckily for the 14-year-old, who is in
eighth grade and plays on the junior high
school’s basketball team, he had a cham-
pion in the form of his buddy Skyler, who
plays the sport for the high school team.
Skyler had come across his friend sitting
alone in the school canteen and joined him
to eat lunch. “We were talking about his
shoes and he said, ‘It’s OK, they might be
joking,’” Skyler said via his mother, Amy
Janet Carter. “This is the kind of person
Tanner is.”
“I felt bad for Tanner because he did not
deserve that,” Skyler said. “He is always
smiling and happy, no matter what.”
However, the school bell rang before the
senior could ask Tanner for his shoe size.
Determined, Skyler asked a teacher’s aide
instead. He texted his mom to share the
upsetting incident and sought her approval
for buying a new pair of shoes.
“I was wondering if I could buy him new
shoes?” Skyler texted.
“Yes of course!” his mom responded.
(Left) Tanner Hendrix
shows his new shoes.
(Right) Basketball enthu-
siasts Tanner Hendrix (L)
and Skyler Carter.
“Why don’t you find him and put your arm
around him. Having you support him will
mean a lot.”
Skyler put his plan into action. A week
later, he showed up on Tanner’s doorstep
with a brand-new pair of Nikes in hand.
Meghan, touched by the senior’s gesture,
shared doorbell cam footage on Facebook.
“This act of kindness has me in complete
awe,” she wrote.
Skyler admitted he had no idea how much
his gesture would mean to Tanner’s fam-
ily. The shoes are a little big for Tanner, he
said, but the eighth-grader doesn’t want
them exchanged; he insists they are his
“basketball shoes for high school.”
“I saw Tanner at school and he called out,
‘Thanks for the shoes, bro!’” Skyler recalled
to The Epoch Times. “This made me feel
happy. I could hear him telling other kids
about the shoes.”
On being on the receiving end of the
Meghan, was “a little starstruck” that a high
school player would buy him basketball
shoes.
“I had been very emotional trying to come
to terms with what had happened, and Sky-
ler’s act of kindness softened my heart,” she
added. “It was a very positive spin to what
started out as a very negative experience.”
Life hasn’t been easy for Tanner—he has
endured multiple surgeries since birth, and
sometimes needs extra help with things
that come easily to most people—but he
“has more heart than any person I’ve ever
met,” Meghan said.
I had been very
emotional trying to
come to terms with
what had happened, and
Skyler’s act of kindness
softened my heart.
Meghan Hendrix, Tanner’s mom
“Today if you were to ask Tanner if he
has ever been bullied, he would tell you he
never has,” Meghan said. “He’s always the
first to offer help and to cheer everyone on,
he will be the loudest one clapping when
someone on the opposing team makes a
basket. ... Everyone needs a Tanner!”
Skyler’s take-home message for others
is pure and simple: “When you think of
something nice to do for somebody,” he
said, “you should just do it.”
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021   B7
ALL PHOTOS BY SHUTTERSTOCK

(Above) Himeji Castle, in west Japan, is the finest surviving example of early 17th-century Japanese castle architecture. (Below) A shachihoko, a mythical Japanese creature.

LARGER THAN LIFE: ART THAT INSPIRES US THROUGH THE AGES castle had been thoroughly thought out to
maximize military defenses. Sometimes

Himeji Castle: Japan’s a path narrows or even turns back on it-

self, all to confuse intruders and for the
castle defenders to easily spot danger. Like-

Finest Surviving Early

wise, the meandering paths meant that
the castle archers could easily shoot their
enemy from the many small windows.
The Japanese believe in living in harmony

17th-Century Castle with the natural world, and touches of na-

Since 1333, a fort has stood on a hill sum-
mit in Himeji, in west Japan, where Himeji
Castle now stands. The current castle was
built between 1601 and 1609, and all previ-
ous structures were demolished.
The early 17th-century castle is the finest
surviving example of its kind. Primarily
built of wood, the castle is also known as
Shirasagi-jo (White Heron Castle) due to
the white plaster that covers the castle’s
earthen walls. Inside, a series of sliding
panels (fusuma) and folding screens (byo-
bu) divide the interior space into rooms.
The castle grounds graciously stretch
across 41 square miles and contain 82 for-
tified buildings around a Tenshu-gun, or
keep, a last refuge at the heart of the castle.
The Tenshu-gun is further fortified by a
series of gates, moats, ramparts, and high
stone walls.
A maze of meandering paths and walk-
ways lead up to the castle through meticu-
lously manicured parks and gardens, for
public and private use. Each route to the
ture are expressed throughout the castle
architecture. For example, some of the roof
tiles feature butterflies on family crests.
And a creature called a shachihoko, with
the head of a tiger and the body of a carp,
appears on the corner edges of the roof
gables, giving the castle roofs the distinct
Japanese silhouette.
But the creature is not just for show. Ac-
cording to Japanese folklore, a shachihoko
summons rain and is often found on build-
ings to protect them against fire. A similar
creature, called a chiwen, can be found
on traditional Chinese architecture dat-
ing as far back as the Han Dynasty (202
B.C.–A.D. 220).

1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

1. A detail showing Himeji Castle’s elegant yet functional wooden architecture. 2. Numerous small windows help the military spy encroaching enemies. 3. Family crests of the ruling families feature on
the roof tiles of Himeji Castle. 4. A corridor inside Himeji Castle. 5. Japan’s national costume, the kimono, is on display in Himeji Castle. 6. Japanese armor inside Himeji Castle.

(Left) Two shachihoko, mythical Japanese creatures with the head of a tiger and the body of a carp, protect Himeji Castle from fire. (Right) Meandering paths and walkways on the Himeji estate are part
of the castle’s elaborate defense system.
B8 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

From Tortured
Chinese Prisoner
to International
Art Leader
The story of Zhang Kunlun

MASHA SAVITZ of art and curates the world’s most toured

P
rofessor Zhang Kunlun is one
of China’s most accomplished
sculptors. As the recipient of
many awards, Zhang was once
the director of the Sculpture In-
stitute of the Shandong Art Institute, as
well as director of its Sculpture Research
Institute. He also created some of China’s
largest monuments.
group-art exhibition, “The Art of Zhen Shan
Ren.” The exhibition, which he launched
in 2004, has since toured more than 50
countries with over 1,000 shows worldwide,
from New York City to Paris, from Toronto
to Milan. The intention of the exhibition
is to expose one of the most tragic human
rights violations of our times—the perse-
cution of Falun Gong in China—while af-
firming the power of beauty in art.

Sculpture is an art of
regrets. One always wants
to do things perfectly. This
Buddha statue has taken
“Buddha,” 2002, by Zhang Kunlun.
me a very long time. With
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF KACEY COX FROM “SACRED ART” UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED
An Inspiration
Sculptor and New Masters Academy instructor
Johanna Schwaiger, said by phone, that she
had the privilege of working alongside Zhang
during a short apprenticeship with him in 2003
at his workshop in upstate New York.
“The encounter with professor Zhang
Kunlun was a big milestone in my journey
as an artist. I was amazed by his mastery
and the stoic patience he had going about
his work. But the biggest impression he left

previous statues, I made

them quickly. This one is
different.
Zhang Kunlun, artist

Yet at the peak of his career, the renowned

artist became a victim of the persecution of
Falun Gong in China. The recognition and
respect he received from Chinese officials
ended abruptly when he stood up for his
freedom of belief. Zhang was detained in
China four times, beaten, and tortured for
practicing the peaceful meditation prac-
tice. Just like that, the once renowned artist
was treated like a criminal.
After imprisonment and severe torture,
Zhang Kunlun now lives in the United Zhang Kunlun’s self-depiction, 2002, of a
Zhang Kunlun in an interview for the film “Sacred Art.” States where he creates magnificent works common torture method he endured in China.

REACHING WITHIN: WHAT TRADITIONAL ART OFFERS THE HEART

Heavenly Ascension: ‘The Assumption of the Virgin’

ERIC BESS
Around 1475, Italian Renaissance artist
Francesco Botticini created a large paint-
ing titled “The Assumption of the Virgin.”
The theme of the Virgin Mary ascending to
heaven was common in Renaissance art.
In the lower third of the painting, we see
the 12 apostles of Jesus. They stand next
to an open casket on a hill that overlooks
Florence, Italy. The casket contains not a
body, but instead lilies—the flowers often
associated with Mary’s purity.
Dressed in red and kneeling in devotion
to the left of the apostles is the poet and
apothecary Matteo Palmieri. He is the
patron who commissioned the painting
for his funerary chapel. Kneeling to the
right of the apostles is his wife, Niccolosa.
During the Renaissance, patrons often had
their likenesses depicted in divine scenes
to show their own devotion and piety.
Above the earthly scene, Botticini has
depicted the heavens opening up, where,
at the top, sits Jesus. He holds a book that
has the Greek symbols for “Alpha” and
“Omega.” Mary kneels at his feet to receive
his blessing.
In the heavens, Botticini also includes
the three orders of angels proposed by the
Christian theologian and Neoplatonic phi-
losopher Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
of the late fifth or early sixth century.
The 9 Levels and 3 Orders of Angels
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite wrote the
treatise “On the Heavenly Hierarchy.” He
suggests that every good thing comes down
from God. While we humans struggle to
know God directly, we can be led to know
God indirectly through the appropriate
symbols that make his mysteries intelli-
gible to us.
These symbols can be shared with us by
way of angels. There are three orders of an-
gels with three levels in each. The angels
pass down those good things from God,
with each group of angels below interpret-
ing the message of the group above. One
purpose of the hierarchy is to have humans
assimilate, as much as possible, with God.
The first order of angels, that is, the highest
order, contains the following types of angels:
Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. The sec-
ond order contains Authorities, Lordships,
and Powers. And the third order, which is the
order closest to humans, contains Angels,
Archangels, and Principalities.
Let’s return to Botticini’s painting to see
how he depicted these angels. He divided
them into three registers that correspond
to the three orders. Let’s start at the bottom
register and ascend.
In the bottom register, he depicts Angels,
Archangels, and Principalities. Principali-
ties, shown with blue robes and black and red
wings, are leaders of divine example. In white
robes and with pink wings, Archangels are
also leaders of the divine but communicate
divine messages from above to the Angels.
Angels, depicted in pink robes and hav-
ing orange and black wings, are the ones
shown closest to the earth and are at the
very bottom of the hierarchy. They are con-
sidered the heavenly beings who deliver
God’s messages to the world.
The Lordships, Powers, and Authorities
are  in the middle register. Depicted in
white robes and with pink wings edged in
black, the Lordships possess freedom in
God, a freedom bound in goodness that
is without subservience to anything that
is not God. are the highest order and closest to God. with blue wings. They possess knowledge,
Powers have blue robes and blue wings Seraphim are depicted as babies’ heads with wisdom, and the ability to contemplate the
edged in red; they are courageous and un- red wings. They constantly move around vision of God. Thrones are depicted as leg-
flinching for God. In black robes and with God and, in their attempt to assimilate with less infants with blue wings. They are firm in
red wings edged in blue, Authorities give God, elevate those things subordinate to God and are receptive to all that God gives.
direction and provide order according to them. They, without interruption, dance
divine law. around and sing praises to God. Heavenly Ascension
The Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones Cherubim are depicted as babies’ heads What might this image mean for us today?
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
A 3/4-life-size statue of a Bodhisattva,
2008, by Zhang Kunlun. Artificial stone and
granite.
on me was his selflessness and lightheart-
ed nature even after all he has been going
through in detention in China.
“His spirit was not broken, quite the op-
posite. His mission is very clear, and his
art is never about himself but honoring
truth and beauty with the best he can do.
He worked on several projects through-
out the day, every one with a level of high
mastery, but to one sculpture he gave extra
attention—an over life-size sculpture of
Buddha.”
Zhang Kunlun’s Story
Toronto-based filmmaker Kacey Cox has
spent the last seven years following the ex-
hibition in its journey across the world for
his soon-to-be-released documentary “Sa-
cred Art.”
Cox documented a detailed and intimate
The “Zhen Shan Ren International Exhibition” opening in Florence, Italy, at the Aria Art Gallery in 2015.
What type of wisdom might we extract
from this work of art?
The angels at the bottom are the ones
who communicate God’s message to the
world. They wear clothes and are depicted
as human beings, but with wings. They are
devoted to God, but their relationship to the
world keeps them from a higher rank. Is it
the case that the nature of our relationship
to the world can distract us from ascending
to heaven?
The angels at the top are shown as having
a baby’s head with wings. They have no
bodies and spend all of their time contem-
plating the vision of God and dancing and
singing the praises of God.
Does the fact that these angels have a
baby’s head suggest the lack of influence
the world has over them? Can we ascend
in heaven if we suspend the desires of our
bodies and spend more time singing the
praises of and contemplating the vision of
the divine?
Maybe the lilies in the casket are not
only symbolic of Mary’s purity but also in-
dicative of the purity that results from the
death of bodily desire, a death that results
in heavenly ascension.
Either way, several things stand out to
me about the orders of angels. One thing
is that all three ranks are necessary. Each
rank and each angel fulfills a duty, and the
ones above give willingly to the ones below.
This is a hierarchy based on loving, con-
templating, and sharing understandings
of the divine.
Secondly, differences are maintained
even in heaven. There isn’t one type of an-
gel doing one type of thing, but there are
multiple angels, each with different char-
acteristics and different interpretations of
divine wisdom.
Maybe this is one way that we often fail
to accomplish divine will on earth. In
heaven, it seems that different beings with
different defining qualities and different
understandings of the divine share their
understandings to gain a deeper connec-
tion with the divine.
On earth, we often use our understand-
ings of the divine as our own personal
possessions to club others over the head
interview with Zhang about his experience
in Chinese detention and his mission in
art, which he has graciously shared with
New Masters Academy’s online magazine
Canvas.
“I was the director of the Sculpture De-
partment at Shandong College of Arts,”
Zhang said. “In 1985, I built a 15-meter
(about 50 feet) high statue at Xinglong
Mine. In ’86, I built a 30-meter (about 100
feet) high statue of the Tang Dynasty. It was
the tallest statue in China at that time. I
was at the peak of my career, yet I was not
fulfilled. No matter how much money you
have and how famous you are … these last
for just a few decades. I was lacking mean-
ing in my life.”
In 1989 during his quest to find meaning
in life and art, Zhang moved to Montreal,
where he taught at the prestigious McGill
University.
It wasn’t until 1996 when he moved back
to China to take care of his mother-in-law
and learned about the meditation practice
Falun Gong that he felt he’d become a new
person.
“When I returned to China, upon getting
off the plane, I saw that Falun Gong was
spreading very rapidly. On almost every
lawn and every square, people were peace-
fully practicing the Falun Gong meditation
exercises … It was wonderful.”
In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party
began a smear campaign against Falun
Gong. Millions of people lost their jobs;
many were imprisoned, tortured, and even
killed. Zhang goes on to explain:
“The CCP utilized all state-owned depart-
ments, newspapers, radio, and TV stations,
even mobilizing the military and state po-
lice. The entire country was in terror. It was
a large-scale manhunt.
“At that time, I wanted to make a 75-meter
(Above) “The Assumption of
the Virgin,” circa 1475–1476
by Francesco Botticini. Tempera
on wood; 90 inches by 148.5
inches. National Gallery of Art,
London.
(Left top) Seraphim, Cherubim,
and Thrones in a detail of “The
Assumption of the Virgin,” circa
1475–1476, by Francesco
Botticini.
(Left bottom) Principalities,
Archangels, and Angels in a
detail of “The Assumption of
the Virgin,” circa 1475–1476,
by Francesco Botticini.
B9
(about 250 feet) high Buddha statue. But “At the time, we had gathered 15 artists
since I practiced Falun Gong, I was black- together who all shared the same mission.
listed and in danger at [every] moment. I When we began, we weren’t sure what to
too became a victim and got detained.” do. Because I have experience in painting,
Zhang decided to write a letter to the Chi- in many cases, I made the composition,
nese government, explaining his belief that and others painted.
Falun Gong is beneficial to society. In July “The first exhibition was in 2004, at the
2000, Zhang was taken into police custody. capitol in Washington, D.C. My aim was
In a detention center, he was tortured with to have governments around the world
electric shock batons. awaken to this issue and call for justice.
“You could smell the burning skin,” he re- During the exhibition, some members of
calls. His legs and arms were badly burned, Congress came to see it. They were almost
and his left leg was left so badly injured that in tears. They said that more people should
he had difficulty walking for three months. see these paintings. That inspired us. So
“Their goal was to keep us from having later we started exhibiting them around
even one minute to be able to think inde- the world.”
pendently,” Zhang says. Besides creating and showing artwork
“I was monitored 24 hours a day by a depicting the persecution and its victims,
group of [guards]. After endless brainwash- Zhang continues to sculpt the Buddha.
ing, deception, coercion, and psychologi- Johanna Schwaiger recalled, “I remem-
cal attacks, I almost collapsed. Such men- ber being in awe seeing the over life-size
tal torture was even worse than physical sculpture masterfully crafted in his work-
torture. They transferred me to Wancun space. The large representation of Buddha
Forced Labor Camp. I prepared myself was an otherworldly being, radiating pure
to possibly die there, because Wancun is compassion that made my eyes tear up.”
notorious for persecuting practitioners to
death. I didn’t think I could survive.
“To my surprise, they used an entirely
different approach. A deputy commissar
said, ‘We have an art teacher here. Can you His spirit was not broken,
teach some painting?’ I said, ‘I am not inter-
ested.’ Then, he coerced me to sit there. He
quite the opposite. His
brought brushes, ink, and paper over and mission is very clear, and
told me to paint. I made two strokes with
the brush. He recorded it. They broadcasted his art is never about
this to the public, deceiving everyone. This himself but honoring
hurt me the most. The mental devastation
still continues today.” truth and beauty with
The coerced video demonstration was
then taken by communist officials to falsely the best he can do.
claim that he had renounced Falun Gong Johanna Schwaiger, sculptor
and had started working with the authori-
ties. This propaganda was shown to Ca-
nadian officials who had pressured the Austrian Holocaust survivor, neurolo-
Chinese government to release Zhang. gist, and author Victor Frankl wrote that
With the help of Amnesty International “what is to give light must endure burning.”
and the Canadian government, Zhang was Zhang’s ordeals and devotion have forged
released early from detention on Jan. 10, an artist whose light serves as a beacon of
2001, and returned home to Canada. There, faith, endurance, justice, and beauty for
his determination to defend freedom of us all.
belief in China became stronger than ever.
“[Today,] a large number of Falun Gong To view the documentary “Sacred Art,”
practitioners are in prisons. I have to speak visit SacredArtFilm.com
on their behalf to stop the persecution. I
couldn’t just care about my own well-be- Masha Savitz is a journalist, author
ing. But how should I do this? Art is my of “Fish Eyes for Pearls,” painter, and
profession. I can only do it through art. filmmaker who wrote and directed the
“I was thinking, should I start an art ex- groundbreaking documentary “Red
hibition? I couldn’t get practitioners from Reign.”
China [to contribute art] because they
were being persecuted, so I only looked This article, slightly edited, is reprinted
for artists who were overseas. I made phone with permission from Canvas: The Online
calls and sent emails. I started searching Magazine for Artists by New Masters
for them everywhere. Academy.
PD-US
with when they think differently than we
do. We assume our own understanding is
absolutely correct, and we push away and There are three orders of
condemn people who think differently.
angels with three levels
Are we open to the type of growth that
requires us to share, not force, divine un- in each. The angels pass
derstandings so that we too may ascend?
down those good things
Art has an incredible ability to point to from God, with each
what can’t be seen so that we may ask
group of angels below
“What does this mean for me and for
everyone who sees it?” “How has it influ-
enced the past and how might it influence
interpreting the message
the future?” “What does it suggest about of the group above.
the human experience?” These are some
of the questions I explore in my series
“Reaching Within: What Traditional Art
Offers the Heart.”
Eric Bess is a practicing representational
artist and is a doctoral candidate at the
Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual
Arts (IDSVA).
B10 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

EVGENY ATAMANENKO/SHUTTERSTOCK

5 Ways to
Redeem the
School Year
BARBARA DANZA

S
o, 2020 was rough. This school year,
so far, hasn’t been stellar for many.
With a fresh, new year, however,
let’s take on a fresh, new outlook.
There are a number of ways par-
ents can redeem the school year before it’s
done. It just takes a basic shift in mindset
and a little bit of effort.
First the mindset shift. Are you ready?
Here it is: Instead of seeing school as the
primary place where your child is edu-
cated, see school as a supplement to the
education that happens at home. Whether
you have realized it or not, it has always
been that way. If you embrace it and make
home a more educational place, you set
you and your children up for an epic year.
Just as the Good Witch says to Dorothy
in “The Wizard of Oz,” “You don’t need to
be helped any longer. You’ve always had
the power.”
Next up: the effort. Here are five simple
ways to make home a place of learning and
the school year one of progress and success.
Decorate With Learning in Mind
Yes, decorate.
Your home environment plays a larger
role in your child’s education than you may
be aware. The objects you fill your home
with, the media messages you invite in,
the spaces, the light, the smells, and the
coziness all contribute to the environment
in which your children do much of their
playing, exploring, and learning.
If your home is very cluttered, it’s likely
difficult to find the freedom to explore.
Likewise, if temptations of passive enter-
tainment such as video games, television,
YouTube, and so on, are always beckoning
to your children, time they may have been
creating or learning is being usurped.
On the contrary, if you’ve got maps on
the wall, clear tabletops to create things
on, books galore to explore, craft supplies
in abundance, and toys that call for imagi-
nation and ingenuity, your home environ-
ment is set up as an invitation to play and
explore and learn.
Rather than let video
games or other passive
entertainment beckon
to your children, you can
transform your home into
a place for exploration by
setting out crafts, books,
maps, and toys that call
for imagination.
EVGENY ATAMANENKO/SHUTTERSTOCK
Encourage kids to follow
their interests.
When you consider changes to your
space, think from the perspective of de-
signing your child’s learning environment
and see what new ideas come to mind.
Get Excited About Books
Fill your home with copious books and
read them.
Allow for quiet reading time in your home
and encourage reading independently and
together. Talk about books. Take care of
your books. Appreciate your books.
Strong readers become strong learners.
Until your children are very strong readers,
read aloud to them as much as you possi-
bly can. Ignore “reading levels” and don’t
compare their abilities to their peers. Your
job is to impart a love of reading and show
them what a joy a good book is. Literacy
will naturally follow.
Dive Into Curiosity
Whether it is your intention or not, those
little sponges of yours are learning all the
time. Involve your kids in whatever you
are doing, whether it be as mundane as
laundry or as exciting as visiting a space
museum. See the learning opportunity in
your family’s activities and capitalize on
them as much as you can.
Encourage endless questions even if it
makes things take longer. Encourage self-
sufficiency by giving kids the freedom to
make their own lunch, fi x a broken fau-
cet, change a lightbulb, or map the way
to the park.
Learning happens 24/7, not just within
the confines of a school day.
Encourage Making and Doing
Before your kids come home from school
one day, set out paints, paintbrushes, and
paper and see what happens to their af-
ternoon. Encourage your kids to use their
hands and make things.
Any new skill they are curious about, fol-
low their interest. Lessons, video tutorials,
and good old-fashioned trial and error are
all great ways to learn to make and do.
Allow for quiet
reading time in your
home and encourage
reading independently
and together.
Let Them Be Free
The truth is your children are probably
more likely to realize their potential within
a robust and free learning environment at
home than within the confines of a typical
school system.
Shift your thinking to view school as a
supplement to their true education that
happens at home. Give them as much free-
dom and support as possible to explore,
and watch them soar.

HOMESCHOOLING

From Public School Teacher to Homeschooling Mom

A conversation with homeschool expert Erin Weidemann
BARBARA DANZA
More and more it seems, there are stories
of school teachers choosing the home-
schooling route when it comes to
teaching their own children. I spoke
to one such mom, Erin Weidemann,
who made that decision and now
helps other parents succeed in
homeschooling. Her advice may be
just the push you’ve been looking for
to take that big leap yourself.
THE EPOCH TIMES: Please tell us about
your journey from school teacher to
homeschooling mom.
ERIN WEIDEMANN: I taught full time in
the classroom for almost 10 years before
quitting my job and homeschooling my
daughter (currently in first grade). Pro-
fessionally, I taught children at every age
and stage (K-11th grade), from language
arts to leadership to foreign language.
When I became a homeschool teacher,
I really had to learn to let go of the tradi-
tional school model (schedule, routine,
structure) and embrace the freedom
that comes with customizing a school at
home situation that works best for every
member of our family and sets each of us
up for success.
THE EPOCH TIMES: What advantages have
you found in the homeschooling ap-
proach?
MS. WEIDEMANN: There are myriad ad-
vantages to spending more time men-
Y OF E R IN W EIDE M
RTE S A NN
COU
toring your children and nurturing the
voices they will use to interact with the
world. I’ve enjoyed strategic implemen-
tation of character development and
confidence-boosting activities while
keeping core classes a high priority.
I am able to craft learning experi-
ences that engage her in the ways
she learns best and we’ve become
more connected and collaborative
throughout this season. Our home-
school situation is highly adaptive,
flexible, and reflective of our family
culture and values.
THE EPOCH TIMES: What advice would
you give parents who are struggling with
Erin Weidemann taught full their school’s online learning options
time for 10 years in the class- and are thinking about homeschooling?
room before homeschooling MS. WEIDEMANN: Work with your chil-
her daughter. dren to set up routines, expectations,
and strategies for how learning will
happen in your home. You do not have
to model your days after a traditional
public or private school schedule. Invite
your children into a dialogue about what
Our homeschool school at home looks like for them and
decide together how it will look. Make
situation is highly a plan and reevaluate the plan often in
adaptive, flexible, case adjustments or changes need to be
made. This is how you will create buy-in
and reflective of and enthusiasm for children who aren’t
used to schooling at home and honor
our family culture them for the unique contributions they
and values. can make.
Erin Weidemann THE EPOCH TIMES: What habits or strate-
gies, if any, have you brought into home-
schooling from your experience as a
teacher?
MS. WEIDEMANN: I’ve brought my passion
for certain subjects into my homeschool
classroom, but I’ve also become aware
of my lack of enthusiasm for subjects for
which I’m not particularly passionate. I’ve
learned to adjust my approach to every
subject by encouraging my child—and my-
self—to 1. be and stay curious and 2. to find
the fun in every lesson or unit of study.
THE EPOCH TIMES: How can parents mea-
sure or simply recognize whether their
homeschooling efforts are working for
their children?
MS. WEIDEMANN: Set yourself up for
success by gaining an understanding of
what should be covered at your child’s
grade level for each of the subjects. What
should my child know and be able to do
by the end of the year and work back-
ward from there, building lessons that
will achieve those goals?
THE EPOCH TIMES: Do you have any other
advice you’d like to give current or poten-
tial homeschooling parents?
MS. WEIDEMANN: You do not have to be
an expert or have all the answers to teach
your children. No one knows your kids
like you do, so lean into the fact that your
unique gifts, talents, personality, and
experiences have positioned you to de-
velop your children in every facet of life,
including their academics.
 FOR KIDS ONLY
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

This
Week in
History
WHAT DID
WASHINGTON
An engraved
JACK scene depicting
the wedding of
FROST
MARRIES
George Washington
to his wife Martha in
SAY TO
Winter
New Kent County, Va.,
on Jan. 6, 1759.
FROSTY THE
SNOWMAN?
by Walter de la Mare

Clouded with snow “HAVE AN ICE DAY!”

The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast SAVITSKAYA IRYNA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,
Day’s journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light

KEAN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.
Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.

O
In seed time learn,
n Jan. 6, 1759, George Washington married a young
in harvest teach, widow named Martha Dandridge Custis. Her first
husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had died two years
in winter enjoy. prior, leaving her with two young children.
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757–1827), POET The wedding took place at her home (which was
interestingly called the “White House”).
ALL PHOTOS BY SHUTTERSTOCK KOLTSOV/SHUTTERSTOCK

By Aidan Danza, age 14

ALL PHOTOS BY SHUTTERSTOCK

BEAVERS (PART I)

B
A beaver dam is a large
obstruction made to stop the
flow of water in a river. Water
gradually backs up behind the
eavers are dam, so much so that eventually
large aquatic rodents the water behind the dam floods
the surrounding and makes the
that live in the forested water directly adjacent to the
rivers, marshes, and dam very deep. This is essential
streams of Canada for the beaver. Beavers must
and the United States. have an area of deep water near
their lodge, or house, so they
They are quite unique among can swim easily and dive deeply
mammals in that they build to escape predators. What’s
enormous residences and dams, more, they locate
effectively re-engineering
their environment
and making it
their own.
the entrance to their lodge
underwater. If the entrance is
too close to the surface, it will
freeze over and lock the beavers
in. Therefore, the water near the
dam must be deep, in order to
facilitate a deep lodge. As water
backs up behind the dam, it also
floods the surrounding areas
with shallow water, allowing
the beaver to access them and
harvest whatever wood might
be in there to eat or to build with.
Not all beavers build dams—
those that live in deep ponds
and lakes don’t need to.
Beaver dams vary greatly with
location. You may be picturing
the quintessential beaver dam
built with sticks and branches,
but there are other types. In
areas with almost no trees,
some beavers will build with
stones, grasses, or even the
bottom sediment. However,
when beavers have access to
many trees, they usually cut
them down, drag them into the
water, and place them where
they want their dam to be. After
these large foundations are laid,
the beavers lay all sorts of small
stuff on top of the dam, such as
twigs, stones, mud, grass, and
all other things that the beaver
finds. Most beaver dams are
around six feet high, though
they vary in size. Over many
years of the beavers’ residence
in a place, the beavers will add
to their first dam and create
a network of dams, creating
canals down which the beavers
can travel to harvest food and
more building materials.

2 3 4 5
Down
1 ‘White Christmas’ wish (8)

AMAZING
3 A snowman has three (8)
6 7 4 It may cause a whiteout (10)

ESCAPES!
8 5 Another word for icy frost (4)
START
6 Icy surface of a snowbank (5)

9 11 Feature of tundra landscapes (7)

12 Just a light coating of snow (7)
13 Hills caused by ice in the tundra (5)
10 11 12
15 Alaskan white house? (5)

13 14 15
USE THE FOUR NUMBERS IN THE CORNERS, AND THE OPERANDS
(+, - AND X) to build an equation to get the solution in the middle. There may be
more than one “unique” solution but, there may also be “equivalent” solutions. 16
For example: 6 + (7 X 3) +1 = 28 and 1+ (7 X 3) + 6 = 28
17
Easy puzzle 1 Medium puzzle 1 Hard puzzle 1
18

3 9 3 16 26 30
25 62 44 O R D S G
S N O W Y W

Across
O N C O R N
G
L A K E I
S N O W F
2 5 1 14 7 28 G L IT
I L E
C
L
L
PS
U
H A
1 Winter hazard (5) 10 Another “Brrr!” inducer (8)

+ − × ÷ + − × ÷ + − × ÷
B L I Z Z A R D
T L U L 2 Jack ____ (5) 14 Ice from the sky (4)
S N O W B A N K Q L
U B S A 7 Common cold occurrence in the 16 “The Nutcracker” dancer (9)
Solution For Easy 1 Solution for Medium 1 Solution for Hard 1
L U R R Y
C
W W E
S N O W S T O R M
F
W
Northeast (9) 17 “Chunky” snow (4)
(9 + 5) × 2 − 3
(5 + 3) × 2 + 9 (16 × 3 + 14) × 1 (28 − 26) × 7 + 30
N
F R O S T
N
S
I
R
O
N
8 It can be blinding (6) 18 What’s in this puzzle! (5,5)
L E E T S
9 Blizzard by-product (8)
B12 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

UPDATED

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 THODONAL88/SHUTTERSTOCK
VACCINES
The Push to Explore
Vaccine Risk
Concerned parents and researchers are driving an
overdue discussion on vaccine safety.
See C2
WELL-BEING | DIET | FITNESS
MIND & BODY
Processed foods,
junk foods, and soft
drinks are key culprits
in the rise of chronic
diseases, and therefore
have a key role to play in
COVID-19 deaths.
Junk Food Companies Worsen
COVID-19 Susceptibility
Sugar, salt, and fat make junk food delicious
but undermine our immune systems
JOSEPH MERCOLA
U
nderlying health conditions like obe-
sity, heart disease, and diabetes have
emerged as key factors in fatalities
due to COVID-19. In one study, more than
99 percent of COVID-19 fatalities occurred
among people who had underlying medical
conditions.
Among the fatalities, 76.1 percent had high
blood pressure, 35.5 percent had diabetes,
and 33 percent had heart disease. What’s
more, another study revealed that among
18- to 49-year-olds hospitalized due to COV-
ID-19, obesity was the most prevalent under-
lying condition, just ahead of hypertension.
Chronic conditions like Type 2 diabetes, heart
HALFPOINT/SHUTTERSTOCK
EXERCISE
COVID-19 Made 2020 ‘Year of
the E-Bike’
E-bikes can offer an attractive exercise option—
especially for seniors and commuters.
See C4
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 C1
DULIN/GETTY IMAGES HAMID TAJIK/UNSPLASH
The 2
Levels of
Happiness
To find true
happiness, first
we have to know
what it is
CONAN MILNER
Happiness seems like a simple idea
until you consider that this single
word covers concepts as diverse as
quiet contentment and ecstatic joy.
How we define happiness will de-
cide how we seek it, and not all hap-
piness is created equal. In fact, some
forms of happiness aren’t even good
for us. Some paths to happiness lead
us to deep satisfaction, but others
leave us with a fleeting feeling that
is followed by a hunger for more.
The day-to-day level
is called hedonic
happiness and the big
picture level is called
eudaimonic happiness.
For our ancestors, guidance for a
happy life came from stories and
sages that taught the right way to
live. Now, modern science has also
made a serious study of happiness,
and it begins with an understand-
ing of how we determine our sense
of well-being.
A Happiness Heuristic
One very common way that psy-
chologists believe we assess our
reality is through something called
the peak-end rule.
According to this theory, we judge
any given experience by how we felt
at its most intense point and how we
felt at its end. We don’t tend to care
about the total sum of our feelings
during the course of the experience,
or how they may average out.
Instead, we just focus on the high-
lights: the best parts, the worst parts,
and the last parts. The moments that
disease, and obesity have a lot in common, made the strongest impression dur-
including the fact that they’re often caused ing our experience tell us whether
Investigative by poor diet. it was good or bad, and how good
reporter Processed foods, junk foods, and soft drinks or bad it was.
are key culprits in the rise of these and other Nobel laureate Dr. Daniel Kahne-
Michael Moss chronic diseases, and therefore have a key man, a researcher and psychology
role to play in COVID-19 deaths. Yet, even in professor at Princeton University,
revealed that the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, multi- helped coin the peak-end rule in
food execs national food and beverage corporations are 1999 through studies demonstrat-
interfering with public policy and influencing ing evidence for it.
avoid junk the development of dietary guidelines. But that’s just part of the story.
In order to protect public health, this
food for the conflicted influence must be curbed, ac- Hidden Happiness
sake of their cording to a report published by the cam- In a later observational study that
paign group Corporate Accountability. Kahneman and his team conducted,
own health.
Continued on C4 Continued on C6
C2 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

CHINESE WISDOM FOR SEASONAL LIVING

In the beginning God created the heavens and the
Christians have
a diet, one given
to them by y God
earth. He also gave to mankind a simple diet. He
then showed the human race the way to live and
the ppath of salvation through Jesus Christ. Jesus’
The Coldest Time
example and teachings lead us into a simpler life,
examp
a life th
that is better for us in numerous ways. of Year Is Here, and
book explains why the first diet ever given to
This bo
mankind is the best possible diet for us. It describes
manki
the ma
many health dangers of our current ways of eat-
Spring Isn’t Far Away
and why they must be changed. It describes
ing an
how di
diseases come about and how they are healed Solar Terms:
by the foods that have the powers that heal, the
foods tthat are tailored to our biological makeup. ‘Minor Cold’ (Jan. 6–19, 2021) Avoid too
explores the supernatural design and spiritual
It expl much indoor
significance of this diet. It provides the incentives
signific
and encouragement needed to change not only
MOREEN LIAO heating, as
our diets, but the very way that we live. So A solar term is a period of about two weeks the warm
strong are the effects that foods have on and is based on the sun’s position in the zodi-
our lives. ac. Solar terms form the traditional Chinese
temperatures
calendar system. The calendar follows the an- confuse our
God knows us far better than we know cient Chinese belief that living in accordance
ourselves. He knows what we need and with nature will enable one to live a harmo- bodies and
280 pages what is best for us. When we abide by His Word, we nious life. This article series explores each of exacerbate the
allow ourselves
o to live as He intended for us to live. the year’s 24 solar terms, offering guidance
Available on Amazon.com on how to best navigate the season. yin energy.
Solar Terms: ‘Minor Cold’

2021 Dates: Jan. 6–19

You merrily celebrated the holiday season,

Analysis of national and only to learn that you now must endure
the coldest two weeks of the year. In the
world problems must include Chinese calendar system, this solar term
is known as
a spiritual perspective in Minor
Cold,
order to arrive at a balanced
understanding of root causes

SA
UL
ICH
and their respective solutions.

EL EN
A /S H U T T E R S T O C
K

One Truth One Law Staying inside in the warm

can disconnect your body
from the natural cycle of the
OneTruthOneLaw.com
OneTruthOneLaw com season at the expense of better
adaptation to the climate.
1Truth1Law.com

The Push to Explore

Vaccine Risk
Concerned parents and researchers are driving
a forbidden discussion of vaccine safety
CONAN MILNER very safe, when you look at risk-benefit
ratio of a disease versus the very, very,
Your health is a deeply personal affair. very small risk of any adverse event that
Your habits, health care access, and you would have with a vaccine,” Fauci
family history all play a significant role. said. “However, the motivation to get
However, one place where health vaccinated is crystal clear and sharp
care is generally uniform is vaccines. when you look around you and you see
For now, we have a choice as to wheth- people getting serious disease.”
er to take the new COVID-19 vaccine. However, determining the num-
Meanwhile, all states have a list of vac- bers necessary for a true risk-benefit
cinations for several diseases that are analysis isn’t so clear. According to a
mandatory once children enter pub- study funded by the U.S. Department
lic school. Although most states allow of Health and Human Services, fewer
parents to waive this requirement for than 1 percent of vaccine injuries are
religious or medical reasons, opting out reported. The Vaccine Adverse Event
is strongly discouraged. Reporting System (VAERS) is tasked
To some health experts, vacci- with tracking problems with vac-
nation is the most important cines in the United States. In
advance in public health— 2012, the Institute of Medi-
right up there with in- Concerned cine (IOM) found VAERS
door plumbing, and parents, doctors, to be unreliable.
modern surgical tech- and advocacy groups IOM has also found
niques. Vaccinations have called for that the research look-
are promoted as a type research that directly ing at vaccinations and
of preventative measure compares vaccinated adverse events doesn’t
designed to protect the to unvaccinated show adequate evidence
population from a variety children. to either accept or reject
of devastating illnesses. a causal relationship. The
Yet, despite the benefits that problem, says an IOM report, is
vaccines promise, this common pro- that “studies designed to examine the
cedure has become controversial. long-term effects of the cumulative
The core issue is safety. Informational number of vaccines or other aspects of
inserts that accompany vaccines warn the immunization schedule have not
of a long list of possible health risks, been conducted.”
including death. However, health of- These are exactly the studies required
ficials say such scenarios are rare and to evaluate the true safety of the current
insignificant compared to the massive vaccine schedule.
public benefits provided by vaccination It’s this missing science that makes
programs. parents worry about what impact a
In a 2010 interview with PBS’s “Front- growing number of vaccines has on
line,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the their children and their developing
National Institute of Allergy and Infec- immune systems. Compared to just a
tious Diseases who has become a fa- generation or two ago, when children
miliar expert in regard to the COVID-19 received immunizations for six or seven
pandemic, stated that the risk of vac- diseases, children today receive nearly
cines is “almost non-measurable.” 70 shots to guard against 18 diseases.
“[Vaccines are] highly effective and Regulators try to quell concerns by
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 C3
EBERHARD GROSSGASTEIGER/UNSPLASH

and falls on Jan. 6 to 19.
But all isn’t lost. While many loathe
this cold, traditional Chinese medicine
sees these days as a great opportunity for
healing. By taking advantage of the ex-
treme temperatures and embracing the
weather, you can push out chronic illness
symptoms and prepare for greater well-
being in the spring.
Attune Your Lifestyle
While the earth’s female yin elements are
at their peak now, the male yang elements
are the weakest. By leveraging either of
these energies with some simple lifestyle
changes, you can shift your body’s inner
state of health.
Discomfort in our bodies that results from
coldness (too much yin), such as coughing,
itchy skin, or sleeplessness, will be at its
worst during this time, so this is the best
time to treat those symptoms according to
Chinese wisdom.
Avoid too much indoor heating, as the
warm temperatures confuse our bod-
ies and exacerbate the yin energy. We ac-
tually need exposure to the cold to contract
our muscles and skin. This closes our pores,
allowing us to retain our body heat and its
yang energy.
If the indoor environment is too warm,
we are telling our bodies that it isn’t yet
winter and that there is no need to save
yang energy. Then, when spring comes,
our bodies haven’t stored enough yang en-
ergy for the necessary renewing cycle, and
we are likely to feel tired and low-energy.
This can also lead to premature aging, or
a higher risk of getting sick in the spring.
The coldest time of the year is also the best
time to treat symptoms that typically arise
during the heat of summer—when yang is
at the extreme—such as excess sweating,
difficulty concentrating, and fatigue.
Since yang energy is weak during this
time, we can easily bring in cold from out-
side to cool our bodies with little effort.
Try setting the thermostat to 68 degrees
Fahrenheit and opening the windows
every morning and evening to let in the
outside air. While enduring the cold tem-
peratures, keep your feet, stomach, neck,
and back warm. With proper exercise and
meditation, we can strengthen our bodies
and become more resilient to the cold.
Hold your palms open and form a hollow
center, as if holding a pin pong ball in the
middle of the palm; using your right palm to
do the cupping motion firmly on your outer
and inner right leg; and using your left palm
to do the same to the left leg. This is to acti-
vate and help the energy channels. Those
with stress or fatigue problems may find this
exercise may help relieve the symptoms.
After yin reaches the extreme, it starts
falling, and yang starts to rise. Birds are
also sensitive to these changes. Wild geese
start to head north, magpies start to build
new nests, and male and female pheasants
happily sing together in response to the
awakening of the yang energy.
The earliest blooms of the year also start
from this solar term. After a long hiberna-
tion, Chinese plum trees, camellias, and
daffodils show their blossoms. On silver or
gray landscapes, flowers bring refreshing
color and joy to the world.
With proper exercise
and meditation, we can
strengthen our bodies
and become more
resilient to the cold.
Seasonal Eating
Avoid eating greasy or heavy foods to keep
warm. While it may please the taste buds,
it thickens blood vessels, causing the heart
to work harder. A better choice is warm
vegetable soup, made with root vegetables,
beans, and lean meats. It’s also a good idea
to avoid cold or iced drinks and food.
Almonds, black sesame seeds, dates, lamb,
oats, red beans, taro, walnuts, and yams are
all good foods to eat during this time.
Cinnamon, cumin, garlic, hibiscus tea,
and rose tea are good for improving blood
and energy circulation.
Epoch Times contributor Moreen Liao
is a descendant of four generations of
traditional Chinese medicine doctors. She
is also a certified aromatherapist, the for-
mer dean of the New Directions Institute
of Natural Therapies in Sydney, and the
founder of Ausganica, a certified organic
cosmetic brand. Visit Ausganica.com Getting out in the cold will help you adapt to the season and balance out your body.

ALL PHOTOS BY SHUTTERSTOCK

assuring the public that vaccines are
rigorously tested. But the peculiar regu-
latory regime for these products invites
suspicion. Unlike most other manufac-
turers, those that produce vaccines are
protected from liability if their product is
found to cause harm. In other words, they
can’t be sued for not testing their products
enough to find common side effects. This
protection is granted through the National
Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of
1986, which instructs parents who seek
compensation to try their case in a special
vaccine court.
The number of vaccines each child re-
ceives has expanded considerably since
the NCVIA was passed. But only a small
percentage of cases brought to this special
court has seen a payout. Since manufac-
turers aren’t liable, NCVIA rules make the
feds foot the bill. By one analysis, the U.S.
government has paid out more than $4 bil-
lion in injury compensation for vaccines
over the past 34 years the NCVIA has been
in place.
Comparative Study
As the schedule of mandatory vaccinations
has grown, concerned parents, doctors,
and advocacy groups have called for re-
search that directly compares vaccinated
to unvaccinated children. In 2013, the IOM
joined the chorus when it issued a report
instructing the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) to perform this comparative study
using patient information it already has
from the Vaccine Safety Datalink.
The lack of studies
designed to examine the
long-term effects of the
vaccine schedule wor-
ries many parents.
Systemic issues
with vaccine safety
research has created
a lack of public trust
that isn’t going away.
But for the past seven years, CDC has
yet to consider this data. A Freedom of In-
formation Act request filed in June 2020
revealed that CDC had no such compara-
tive study in its possession, nor had it con-
ducted one. That means the CDC doesn’t
have the most basic form of research to
confirm the long-term safety and efficacy
of the only medical treatment that is all but
forced upon children.
A recent peer-reviewed study published
in the journal SAGE Open Medicine exam-
ines details that vaccine authorities like
the CDC have so far ignored. Researchers
looked at data of health outcomes of both
vaccinated and unvaccinated children
from three large pediatric practices in the
United States. The subjects were born be-
tween November 2005 and June 2015, and
were compared during the first year of life
for later incidence of developmental delays,
asthma, ear infections, and gastrointesti-
nal disorders.
The study concluded that unvaccinated
children were healthier than their vacci-
nated peers. The strongest relationships
observed for vaccination status were for
asthma (4.5 times more likely), develop-
mental delays (twice as likely), and ear in-
fections (twice as likely). No association
was found for gastrointestinal disorders
in the primary analysis, but a significant
relationship was detected as vaccine doses
accumulated.
“The results definitely indicate better
health outcomes in children who did not
receive vaccines within their first year of
life,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Brian
Hooker, in a press release. “Such findings
merit additional large-scale study of vac-
cinated and unvaccinated children in order
to provide optimal health as well as protec-
tion against infectious diseases.”
This isn’t the first comparative study of
its kind. Robert F. Kennedy of Children’s
Health Defense says this recent research
makes for more than 65 vaccinated/unvac-
cinated studies on his site.
“All of them show dramatically better
health in unvaccinated children,” Ken-
nedy writes. “We have found no studies
that show superior health outcomes in vac-
cinated children.”
The studies point to an alarming trend,
but, by design, they merely show corre-
lation, not causation. Furthermore, re-
searchers from the most recent study note
limitations with their data. For example,
although their sample size was significant,
the population it pulled from may not ac-
curately reflect the general population.
“Also, due to different coding practices
among the three caseloads studied, we
were unable to differentiate between the
types of vaccinations given. This limited
the analysis to counting the number of
vaccinations received by one year of age,”
researchers wrote, adding that “further
study is necessary to understand the full
spectrum of health effects associated with
childhood vaccination.”
All states have a list
of vaccinations for
several diseases that are
mandatory once children
enter public school.
Identifying Risk
Vaccine campaigns of the past (particularly
polio) are noted for their strong public sup-
port. But even the most dedicated vaccine
advocates admit that public confidence is
falling. Immunization experts at the World
Health Organization’s summit on vaccines
in December 2019 highlighted the lack of
“good science” and the inability of vaccine
clinical trials to provide meaningful infor-
mation about safety and risk.
However, there remain some investiga-
tions that regulators have long been unwill-
ing to explore. In a 2008 interview with CBS
News, Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head
of National Institutes of Health, explained
that regulators have been too quick to dis-
miss concerns without actually studying
the population.
“The reason they don’t want to look at
those susceptibility groups is that if they
found them, no matter how big or small
they were, that would scare the public
away,” Healy said.
Healy, who died in 2011, remained a
strong proponent of vaccines. She believed
the public would too, especially if safer
methods could be identified.
“If we identified a susceptibility group,
identified a risk factor for vaccines, or if
we found out that they should be spread
out over a longer period of time, I do not
think the public would lose faith in vac-
cines,” Healy said. “I think the public would
respect that.”
C4
Junk Food Companies Worsen
COVID-19 Susceptibility
Sugar, salt, and
fat make junk
food delicious but
undermine our
immune systems
Continued from C1
Meanwhile, health experts are calling out
ultra-processed foods as key players in CO-
VID-19 deaths and calling on public health
guidelines to warn the public of their risks.
Junk Food Giants Stymying Public
Nutrition Policies
According to Corporate Accountability’s
report, more than half of those appointed to
the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Com-
mittee (DGAC) have ties to the International
Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), a not-for-profit
organization established by a Coca-Cola
executive 40 years ago.
DGAC is supposed to be an independent
committee, which reviews scientific evi-
dence and provides a report to help develop
the next set of dietary guidelines for Ameri-
cans (2020 to 2025). However, its extensive
ties to ILSI all but ensures the committee
is influenced by the makers of unhealthy
foods. Even the DGAC chairs and vice chairs
of the Pregnancy and Lactation Subcom-
mittee are affiliated with ILSI.
ILSI has been exposed as a shill for the
junk food industry, and internal documents
have revealed ILSI embedded itself in public
health panels across Europe and the United
Nations in an effort to promote its own in-
dustry-focused agenda to raise profits at the
expense of public health worldwide.
The Corporate Accountability report ex-
amined ILSI’s “revolving doors and conflicts
of interest” with critical government policy
processes, including not only formulating
the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA)
but also updating national food composition
databases. It explains:
“The report also chronicles the front
group’s deep connections with industry,
its ties to research it has helped produce, and
to individuals, it has relationships with. The
picture it paints makes a compelling case
for Big Food to abandon ILSI and similar
front groups in the interest not only of public
health but also a less deceitful relationship
with its investors.”
DGA is essentially the go-to source for
nutrition advice in the United States, di-
recting what more than 30 million U.S.
schoolchildren eat at school and driving
the nutritional advice given to new mothers,
seniors, veterans, and other beneficiaries of
nutritional education and meals offered by
the federal government.
“But the DGA’s mandate is even broader,”
Corporate Accountability noted in their re-
port. “It aims to promote health, prevent
chronic disease, and help all U.S. residents
How COVID-19 Made 2020 the Year of the E-Bike
When even walking
seems strenuous, an
e-bike can offer an
attractive exercise
option
ASHLEY COOPER, ANGIE PAGE
& JESSICA E BOURNE
Walking and cycling gained a higher profile
than ever in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
Governments around the world encouraged
individuals to go on foot or take their bikes
where possible instead of using crowded
public transport and invest in widescale
cycling infrastructure to help them do so.
In the United Kingdom, the link between
obesity and poorer COVID-19 outcomes and
the country’s new strategy related to the dis-
order led to doctors prescribing cycling to
improve patients’ health.
While manufacturers and retailers re-
ported a rise in bicycle sales and cycling in
general during the pandemic, there remain
reach and maintain a healthy weight.” Yet,
Health experts warn by partnering with junk food corporations,
that ultra-processed it ends up doing the opposite:
foods bring risks. “Seventy-five percent of the individuals
involved in formulating the U.S. govern-
ment’s official dietary guidelines have food
industry ties. Fifty-five percent have ties to
ILSI, which was founded by a former Coca-
Cola executive and is funded by Coca-Cola,
Food PepsiCo, McDonald’s, General Mills, Car-
scientists gill, Monsanto, the National Dairy Council,
the International Tree Nut Council, and a
formulate host of other global purveyors of junk food
products with and drink.”
just the right Junk Food Corporations Control
Academia, Nutrition Guidelines
combination The Corporate Accountability report pres-
of sugar, ents several key findings that highlight
ILSI’s concerning ties with industry, and
fat, and salt how its research, government interference,
to override and other activities are negatively affecting
public health policy.
your brain’s For instance, ILSI’s journal, Nutrition
Reviews, does not always disclose ILSI af-
inclination to filiations and conflicts of interest. Further,
say ‘enough.’ nearly 40 percent of ILSI North America’s
publications from 2013 to 2017 received
support or funding from ILSI but did not
disclose it. Of the approximately 60 percent
of publications that did contain a disclosure
statement, “no conflict of interest” was still
sometimes declared.
Also, ILSI claims that it doesn’t lobby, but
it gave direct guidance to the Argentine gov-
ernment regarding updates to its National
Food Composition Database.
ILSI India even produced a study in part-
nership with government research institu-
tions that disparaged and misrepresented
many people who may not feel fit enough to
cycle very far (or at all), or have a long com-
mute, or live in hilly places.
For these people, bicycles that provide elec-
trical assistance, known as electric bikes or
e-bikes, have proved an attractive option be-
cause they make cycling easier. As a result,
sales of e-bikes also boomed in 2020, with
manufacturers struggling to keep up with
the demand.
Electric bikes
open new The Advantages of E-Bikes
avenues Requiring less effort to ride, e-bikes allow the
for physical user to carry more cargo than conventional
activity. cycles, and are often used for utilitarian pur-
CHERKAS/
SHUTTERSTOCK
poses, such as shopping or commuting, as
well as for recreation. E-bike owners have
been found to cycle more frequently and for
longer distances than conventional cyclists.
In Europe, e-bikes represent one of the
fastest-growing segments of the transport
market, with sales in Germany in 2018 ac-
counting for 23.5 percent of all bikes sold,
while more than half of the adult bikes sold
in the Netherlands in 2018 were electric.
That was before the pandemic sent num-
bers through the roof. Now, industry groups
say sales of e-bikes in Europe could double in
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
FAMVELD/SHUTTERSTOCK
the health effects of traditional foods instead
of focusing on the adverse health effects of
soda and processed foods.
Further, ILSI North America’s board of
trustees violates Principle 1 of its conflict
of interest policy, as more than 50 percent
of its board holds an affiliation with the pri-
vate sector.
Finally, there is the fact that rather than
dismantling ILSI Mexico after it violated the
group’s code of ethics under a Coca-Cola
executive’s leadership, it was absorbed by
ILSI Mesoamerica in 2019, which is also un-
der the leadership of a Coca-Cola executive.
Case Study of ISLI’s Journal
One example given of lack of disclosures in
Nutrition Reviews was a 2017 review titled
“What is the Appropriate Upper Limit for
Added Sugars Consumption?”
The researchers looked into the “signifi-
cant restrictions on upper limits of sugars
consumption” put forth by scientific organi-
zations like the World Health Organization
and American Heart Association, conclud-
ing that their findings “should inject a note
of caution into restrictive guidelines” and
noting that “the scientific basis for restrictive
guidelines is far from settled.”
One of the review’s co-authors, however,
failed to disclose an important conflict of
interest. James Rippe was affiliated with
ILSI Mexico, leading a forum titled “Current
Evidence on Sweeteners and Health,” which
received $10 million in funding from the
U.S. Corn Refiners Association to establish
that sugar consumption had no impact on
heart health.
Another glaring example was published in
the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study
“The Scientific Basis of Guideline Recom-
the next five years. In the United States, elec-
tric bike sales jumped 84 percent in March,
92 percent in April, and then 137 may in May,
according to market research firm The NPD
Group.
A Replacement for Cars
Car travel is an essential part of everyday
life for many people, but has a major impact
on the environment through air pollution,
particularly from congested traffic. As half
of all car journeys in the United Kingdom
are between 1 and 5 miles in length, sub-
stituting many of them with e-cycling is an
achievable aim.
To explore the influence of e-cycling on
travel, we conducted a scoping review of pre-
vious research. In 42 studies examining the
impact of e-bike use on other travel modes,
the proportion of car journeys substituted
after people bought e-bikes ranged from 20
percent to as high as 86 percent. Adoption of
e-cycling can therefore contribute at some
level to reducing congestion, greenhouse
gas emissions, and air pollution.
Who Benefits From E-Bikes?
We have also researched the health benefits
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
mendations on Sugar Intake” was funded by
ILSI and concluded: “Guidelines on dietary
sugar do not meet criteria for trustworthy
recommendations and are based on low-
quality evidence. Public health officials
(when promulgating these recommenda-
tions) and their public audience (when con-
sidering dietary behavior) should be aware
of these limitations.”
Although the journal did reveal that ILSI
was the primary funding source for the
study, according to Corporate Account-
ability, “its findings were so self-serving,
it prompted criticism from candy-maker
Mars (then an ILSI member)” and one of the
co-authors “did not disclose her financial
ties with Big Food and Beverage, including
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé.”
Report: Governments, Academics
Should Part Ways With ILSI
ILSI has been a key tool for the junk food in-
dustry’s global expansion, giving the indus-
try an in with policymakers and prestigious
universities under the guise of scientific ad-
vancement.
While funding scientific research designed
to support its own agenda, ILSI regularly fails
to disclose conflicts of interest. “This lack of
transparency has allowed industry’s ILSI a
social license to produce and promote junk
science the world over,” the report notes.
Meanwhile, while claiming to be a non-lob-
bying organization, they play a role in policy-
making processes regarding nutrition in the
U.S., India, Argentina, Mexico, and Taiwan.
Now that ILSI is being exposed, even junk
food giants themselves, namely Mars and
Nestlé, have cut ties with the organization.
Corporate Accountability is calling on other
corporations to do the same, and demands
academic institutions sever all ties with ILSI,
including ILSI Research Foundation and IL-
SI’s journal, Nutrition Reviews.
For governments, the report recommends
prohibiting those with ties to ILSI from par-
ticipating on the DGAC and that any agencies
such as the USDA, U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, US. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration publicly report any
direct interactions with ILSI.
As it stands, however, junk food giants are
thoroughly intertwined with public health
recommendations pertaining to food and
nutrition—to the detriment of public health.
“Even in times of crisis, such as today’s
COVID-19 pandemic, ILSI’s backers feel no
scruples lobbying for the bottom line,” Cor-
porate Accountability stated.
“In India, despite potential consequences to
the health and well-being of workers and the
community, corporations including Coca-
of e-bikes in a 2018 systematic review of stud-
ies. In 17 studies involving a range of groups,
we found that e-cycling provided physical
activity of at least moderate intensity, which
was lower than the intensity elicited during
conventional cycling, but higher than that
during walking. E-cycling can therefore con-
tribute to meeting physical activity recom-
mendations and increasing physical fitness.
Most people who aren’t regularly active
could benefit from e-cycling. However, for
those with health conditions such as obe-
sity or Type 2 diabetes, who may particularly
benefit from physical activity but often find it
difficult, e-cycling may be an important way
to become more regularly active.
Our research shows that rates of active
commuting in these groups is low—just 5.5
percent for those with Type 2 diabetes. In
response to this statistic, we conducted
the first feasibility study to explore whether
e-cycling was acceptable to, and could po-
tentially improve the health of, people with
this condition.
We recruited 20 people with Type 2 diabe-
tes to use an e-bike for 20 weeks. We found
that participants enjoyed using the e-bikes,
cycling on average 21 kilometers (13 miles)
per week. Participants’ heart rate during e-bi-
cycle journeys was 74.7 percent of maximum,
compared with 64.3 percent of maximum
when walking, a level sufficient to generate
improvements in fitness. This is comparable
Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé, have submitted
Processed food letters to the government requesting food
giants are major and beverage manufacturing be exempt
funders of food from the lockdown, and be considered an
research. ‘essential service.’
“Not providing immune-suppressing
sugar-sweetened beverages during this time
may also prove the more essential service
these corporations can provide in this time
While and beyond.”
funding How Americans Got Hooked on
Processed Foods
scientific According to investigative reporter Michael
research Moss, much of the responsibility for Ameri-
cans’ increased consumption of junk food
designed lies with the processed food industry. In ad-
dition to targeting kids who are “especially
to support hardwired for sweet taste,” sugar, salt, and
its own unhealthy fats are the top three substances
making processed foods so addictive.
agenda, ILSI Moss’s four-year investigation culminated
regularly fails in the book “Salt Sugar Fat,” which details
how food scientists formulate products
to disclose with just the right combination of sugar,
fat, and salt to pique your taste buds just
conflicts of enough, without overwhelming them,
interest. thereby overriding your brain’s inclina-
tion to say “enough.” He uses the example
of potato chips, which combine salt and
fat for instantaneous pleasure, along with
the sugar in the starch of the potato itself,
as the perfect addictive food.
Beyond the addictive potential of the
foods is marketing, which further entic-
es Americans to buy and consume more
processed foods. This includes things like
positioning junk foods at eye level on gro-
cery store displays. In an interview with
U.S. News & World Report, Moss
revealed that food execs
avoid junk food for the
sake of their own health:
“One, on a personal
level, many food com-
pany executives don’t
eat their own products
for health reasons. And
two, the companies
themselves are more
hooked on salt, sugar,
and fat than we are be-
cause they’re miracle in-
gredients that enable them to preserve and
Our most popular keep the products low cost along with being
foods are also the utterly tasty. The depth of the industry’s own
most dangerous. dependence was really surprising to me.”
VALENTYN VOLKOV/
SHUTTERSTOCK
Junk Food Causing Increased
COVID-19 Deaths
London-based cardiologist Dr. Aseem Mal-
hotra is among those warning that poor
diet can increase your risk of dying from
HALFPOINT/SHUTTERSTOCK
to the changes seen when healthy inactive
individuals take up conventional cycling.
The pandemic
The Future of E-Bikes
has driven There is now increasing interest in the po-
a change tential of e-bikes for other people who are
recommended more physical activity but
in physical find this hard to achieve, such as those re-
activity. covering from cancer. We can see a future
in which doctors could prescribe e-cycling
to patients, with a provision to buy bikes at
reduced cost or spreading out the payments.
Although it has been a difficult year, there
may be a small silver lining to the pandemic.
With fewer of us commuting, and less motor-
C5
COVID-19. He tweeted, “The government
and public health England are ignorant and
grossly negligent for not telling the public
they need to change their diet now.”
He told BBC that ultra-processed foods
make up more than half the calories con-
sumed by the British, and that those who
suffer from obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and high
blood pressure—all of which are linked to
poor diet—have a tenfold higher risk of mor-
tality from COVID-19.
On the brighter side, he also states that
eating nutritious foods for even one month
could help you lose weight, put Type 2 diabe-
tes into remission, and improve your health
considerably, so you’ll have a much better
chance of survival should you contract CO-
VID-19. Malhotra also told the food industry
to “stop mass-marketing and selling ultra
processed food.”
Dr. Robert Lustig, emeritus professor of
pediatrics in the division of endocrinology
at the University of California–San Francisco,
further stated:
“I’ve heard COVID-19 referred to a beast
because it doesn’t distinguish. In point of
fact, it doesn’t distinguish who it infects. But
it does distinguish who it kills. Other than
the elderly, it’s those who are Black, obese,
and/or have pre-existing conditions. What
distinguished these three demographics?
“Ultra-processed food. Because ultra-pro-
cessed food sets you up for inflammation,
which COVID-19 is happy to exploit. Just
another way processed food kills. Time to
rethink your menu.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder of Mercola.
com. An osteopathic physician, best-selling
author, and recipient of multiple awards in
the field of natural health, his primary vision
is to change the modern health paradigm by
providing people with a valuable resource to
help them take control of their health. This
article was originally published on Mercola.com
ized travel overall, the pandemic has driven
a change in physical activity behavior and
raised awareness of traffic congestion and
air pollution.
With many of us exploring or re-discov-
ering ways to be active outdoors and cut
down on motorized transport, the future is
bright for e-cycling. With the development of
smaller and more efficient batteries, e-bikes
will become lighter and have a longer range
of travel, and will become a common sight
on our streets.
Providers of e-bikes often refer to the e-
bike smile—the look of joy on people’s faces
when they try one for the first time. Try to
remember how it felt when a parent held the
back of your bike saddle and whizzed you
along—the feeling is very similar.
If you haven’t yet tried an e-bike, we would
encourage you to do so. They are great fun,
will make becoming healthy a lot easier, and
you may have a reason to look back on some-
thing positive from 2020.
Ashley Cooper is a professor of physical
activity and public health at the University
of Bristol in the UK, Angie Page is a profes-
sor of physical activity and public health
at the University of Bristol, and Jessica
E Bourne is a doctoral candidate at the
school for policy studies at the University of
Bristol. This article was first published on
The Conversation.
C6
The 2 Levels
of Happiness
To find true
happiness,
first we have
to know
what it is
Continued from C1
a group of 800 women was asked about their
happiness with daily activities as well as a
specific aspect of happiness: their satisfac-
tion with life.
Time spent with their children was re-
ported among the least enjoyable activi-
ties. But a contradiction emerged. When
Kahneman analyzed the data he found
that, despite the frustration associated with
raising kids, mothers reported a higher
level of life satisfaction than women
without children.
Why didn’t the peak-end rule The hedonic
hold up? According to Dr. Talya feels good in
Miron-Shatz, a psychologist the moment;
who worked alongside Kahn- the eudaimonic
eman, there are limits to this bestows
rule. One is that the end only has fulfillment.
an effect on experiences that have a
distinct end. The other is that the rule
only applies to a single level of happiness.
“Satisfaction with life is a higher concept
than happiness that is experienced on a
day-to-day level,” Miron-Shatz said. “When
it comes to evaluating life satisfaction, you
think of the big picture: your career, home,
marriage, family, etc. It’s more of a check-
the-boxes activity.”
Life on 2 Levels
In labeling these two tiers of happiness,
psychologists draw inspiration from an-
cient Greece. The day-to-day level is called
hedonic happiness and the big picture level
is called eudaimonic happiness.
Hedonic happiness (derived from the
Greek word “hedone,” meaning “pleasure”)
refers to the feelings we get from creature
comforts. It’s the thrill that comes with
buying new shoes or eating a decadent
dessert. Hedonic is whatever feels good
in the moment.
Eudaimonic happiness, on the other
hand, fulfills our need for meaning and
purpose. Aristotle was the first to describe
the virtuous pursuits of Eudaimonia—a
word that translates to being in line with
good divine beings. Later philosophers pro-
moted this idea as the ultimate goal of life.
There are several paths to Eudaimonia,
and there’s also nothing wrong with en-
joying some hedonic moments (provided
they’re not immoral or excessive). Both lev-
els can give us joy, but a key point is that we
can never replace one level with another.
“If I look to hot chocolate for happiness, it’s
not going to give me the gratification I need
on a eudaimonic level,” Miron-Shatz said.
But that doesn’t stop us from trying.
LIKS DIGITAL/UNSPLASH
Parents may sacri- In fact, we live in a world in which we’re
fice hedonic happiness constantly encouraged toward such futil-
in raising children, but ity. Advertising woos us to buy, not just a
they also gain meaning- product, but a sense of transcendence and
ful life satisfaction. self-empowerment that no trinket could
possibly deliver.
Hedonic Treadmill
In terms of the amount and intensity of
hedonic experiences at our disposal, life
has never been better. We have easy access
to a variety of pleasures that were unat-
tainable to even the greatest kings of the
past. So why aren’t we the happiest culture
in history? Modern malaise, anxiety, and
depression aren’t just linked to a lack of eu-
daimonia. It’s also because we have worn
out the hedonic.
Psychologists call it the hedonic tread-
mill. It describes the pleasure you initially
get from a thing or activity that wanes with
time. Eventually, we adapt, so that once-
reliable happy trigger no longer gives us a
thrill. As if on a treadmill, you’re running
after a feeling you’ll never reach. Heroin
addicts refer to this dynamic as chasing
the dragon. But whether it’s drugs, sweet
treats, or some other compulsive thing
When we rely on for our sense of well-being, the
researchers principle is the same.
And it doesn’t just apply to vices. Say you
analyzed all get a better paying job, a bigger house, or
a fancier car. These upgrades make you
the peaks happy for a while, but then, it becomes the
people had new normal. You no longer get a gratifying
feeling from them because our perception
in common, is geared toward grasping changes. Re-
member—we recall the peak moments—
religious so the positives that once punctuated our
activity, lives eventually become the things we take
for granted.
prayer, and
hobbies Transcendent Pursuits
Yet there are peaks we can seek that have
came out shown to be reliably sustainable in the
pleasure we get from them. In a study
on top. of her own design, Miron-Shatz asked a
cohort of women from Ohio to report the
remarkably high points of their day. When
her team analyzed all the peaks people
had in common, religious activity, prayer,
and hobbies came out on top.
“I think it’s because these things tran-
scend you. They take you beyond the ev-
eryday,” she said. “Another thing they have
in common is that they’re voluntary.”
Hedonic pursuits offer Having a sense of freedom ranks high
diminishing feelings of in happiness research. Perhaps that’s
happiness and can eas- why something so confining—commut-
ily become habit form- ing—ranks so low. In one of Kahneman’s
ing and self destructive. studies, the daily back-and-forth to work
was an activity that people reported hat-
ing most.
Nagging Negativity
Another thing that researchers have found
when figuring out the happiness equa-
tion is that bad experiences have an even
greater bearing on how we assess our ex-
perience than the good. A 2001 article in
the Review of General Psychology, titled
“Bad is Stronger than Good,” by psychol-
ogy professors from Case Western Reserve
University, explores this pattern.
“This is not to say that bad will always
triumph over good, spelling doom and
misery for the human race. Rather, good
may prevail over bad by the superior force
of numbers: Many good events can over-
come the psychological effects of a single
bad one. When equal measures of good
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
NDAB CREATIVITY/SHUTTERSTOCK
and bad are present, however, the psycho-
logical effects of bad ones outweigh those
of the good ones,” they wrote.
Some psychologists explain this phe-
nomenon as a survival mechanism. It’s
nice to feel good, but our feelings are more
influenced by the bad moments, so that
we pay attention, and avoid this pain in
the future.
This phenomenon could also be linked
to a disposition toward negative think-
ing rather than positive. That disposition
may be stronger in times of high anxiety,
depression, and conflict.
Whatever the reason, there are things
we can do to tip the happiness equation
in our favor.
Turning Toward Happiness
A big one is gratitude. Miron-Shatz, who
now heads Buddy&Soul, an online plat-
form for personal development, says learn-
ing to count your blessings can really help
with seeing a brighter day. So even when
you’re hit with something bad, seeing all
the good in your life can soothe the sting.
But don’t just turn to gratitude when times
are tough. With practice, we can learn to
perpetually empower our perception.
“With a gratitude journal, we condition
ourselves to look for things that we’re
grateful for, rather than looking for things
we’re going to complain about,” she said.
Another way that research has shown we
can lessen the burdens that lead to unhap-
piness is financial security.
This may at first seem to contradict the
old saying that money can’t buy happi-
ness. But consider that this trope is really
about the unfulfilling nature of hedonic
purchases. The real power of wealth is that
it can help you avoid the stress and hard
times that can grind down your mood.
It’s nice to buy yourself a little something
when you’re feeling low. But if you have less
money, you need to limit luxuries and im-
pulse buys in favor of more practical pur-
suits. Being able to pay your bills without
going deeper into debt will leave you hap-
pier in the long run, or at least less unhappy.
A third powerful tool for making a hap-
pier life is learning how to better interpret
events as they unfold. For example, if you
feel your day is ruined simply because a
restaurant got your order wrong, examine
how you came to this conclusion. It’s likely
that the mixup was an honest mistake and
not the personal attack that you may at
first perceive.
It can also help to put negative events into
a wider context. For example, something
that seems terrible now, like a challenging
project at work, may become a source of
pride in the future. Or an embarrassing
incident may seem trivial if we consider
how we will think of it in a year’s time.
This tool isn’t about changing reality,
merely reframing it, and considering your
problem from another angle.
“Ask yourself, ‘Could I be looking at it
any differently?’ It’s going to help if you
do,” Miron-Shatz said. “You don’t have
to sugarcoat it, but how you perceive the
events around you—and if you can brush
it off—can make a big difference.”
Finally and above all, don’t neglect eudai-
monia. Our pursuit for meaning, belong-
ing, and doing the right thing may not pro-
vide the quick fix and cheap thrills of our
hedonic pursuits, but it’s the higher-level
fulfillment that really makes our spirit soar.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 C7

Set Sustainable Wellness Goals for the New Year

YUGANOV KONSTANTIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

Find a focus and

set reasonable
goals so next year
can be a new set of The first step to setting
wellness goals that will last
challenges a lifetime is to think about
SACIA ASHE the overarching focus you
With the new year on the horizon, many
want the year to have.
people are rushing to try to shed the
holiday fluff. Unfortunately, these well-
intentioned behavior changes tend not
to last long.
On average, 80 percent of New Year’s
resolutions fail by the second week of
February. Is this because of a lack of
willpower? Do old habits die hard?
The more likely cause for a failed
New Year’s resolution stems from the
moment your pen hits paper to write
down your goals. If you set unrealistic
health goals, they aren’t likely able to be
achieved through building sustainable
habits. The key to finally maintaining
your healthy new habits is to create a
realistic plan of action that will propel
you forward. Imagine: next year, you
won’t be writing the same goals you
wrote today, because you’ve actually health, an example of an aligned goal decide on why you want to do this. After Your
achieved them! would be to aim to eat at least three you have a plan, all you need to do is intention
The first step to setting wellness goals Create a plan different colors of plants at every meal. commit to following through. word for the
that will last a lifetime is to think about If your focus of the year is presence, a You don’t have to be a statistic. You year should
the overarching focus you want the year that will goal you could set would be to medi- can be in the 20 percent of people who encompass
to have. This will keep your goals con- tate for 20 minutes every day. Each goal actually achieve their New Year’s well- the feeling
allow you to you want
cise and pinpointed to becoming a new you choose will feed into the feeling ness goals. Imagine approaching next
the year to
person by 2022. Choose an intention crush your you want this year to have. What are year knowing that you did everything be centered
word, such as “presence,” “joy,” or “vi- the things that will make you feel dif- in your power to achieve your goals.
brant.” This word should encompass the 2021 goals. ferent? If you want to feel more joyful, Imagine that the goals you set now ac-
around.

feeling you want the year to be centered trying to take up running when you hate tually stick for the rest of your life! By
around. If you have different aspects it might not be the best choice. setting realistic, actionable wellness
of health you want to tackle this year, Finally, it’s time to create a plan that goals that mean something to you, you
choosing an all-encompassing word will will allow you to crush your 2021 goals. will achieve them.
keep you on track. A goal without a plan is just a dream.
Next, choose 3 to 5 goals that align Write out the action steps that you need Sacia Ashe is a dancer, health food
with the focus of your upcoming year. to get your goal done. If you have the lover, and blogger who has a passion
Aim to keep these goals realistic enough goal of eating three different colored for wellness and living a healthy life-
to accomplish with enough dedication. plants at each meal, what do you need to style. Through sharing recipes, glimpses
When you look at your goals, you should do to succeed? You would need to have into her own life, and wellness tips and
feel a bit nervous and excited, but con- a variety of vegetables in the fridge, set products, she strives to help others find
fident that you can tackle them. aside time to make your meal, choose a life that aligns with their values and
If your focus of the year is vibrant meal options if you’re eating out, and health vision.

1. We can drop the story and just experi- Gratitude: Similar to finding awe in ev-
ence the moment, exactly as it is; and erything, can we be grateful for what’s

How to 2. We can create a more powerful story.

Let’s take each of those in turn.

here in this moment? For ourselves
and others? This is not just appreciat-
ing what is there, but feeling grateful

Improve Experiencing the Moment As Is

that you have it.

Right now, take a look around—you are Compassion: When you notice suffer-

Any
surrounded by air, light, sound, objects, ing in others or yourself, you can gener-
life. This is the moment, just as it is. ate a wish for that suffering to come to
Now, you’ll immediately begin to an end, for the person to find peace

Moment
interpret all of that and create a and even happiness. Send this
narrative about it: It’s messy, We create a compassion outward to oth-
that person is irritating, you story to reaffirm ers. This generates a loving
Changing your story can haven’t done certain things, our correctness feeling in the heart that
and so forth. though it also adds something wonder-
change everything you
But what would it be like creates our ful to the experience of this
experience
to just drop that story and struggle and moment.
see the moment just as it is, suffering.
without interpretation? We are all interconnected: This
See it with a beginner’s mind. With is an appreciation that we are not
PRESSMASTER/SHUTTERSTOCK the eyes of a child seeing a cloud or tast- isolated, but instead, we are all support-
ing orange for the first time. As if it were ing each other. Everything we have is
LEO BABAUTA a completely new experience. supported by many others. Everything
KRISTIAN D. HANSEN/SHUTTERSTOCK

You can practice this by going for a we do affects others and can be a posi-

T
he title of this article is a bit mislead- walk. On the walk, see if you can expe- tive influence on others. Appreciating
ing because every moment is al- rience it afresh, without a narrative or this interconnection keeps us from
ready perfect (as good as it is going evaluations. Just see the moment. Just taking it for granted and inspires us to
to get) and doesn’t need to be improved. experience the world directly, without positively influence other people.
But our experience of the moment can a layer of interpretation. Bring curiosity You might have other stories that help
be fraught with difficulty, and we have to all of it. you—stories of empowerment, of love,
the power to create a new experience in The effect of this is to drop the story of generosity. After dropping old stories
each moment. that creates struggle and suffering. It and experiencing the moment directly,
The problems we face often stem gives a directness to your experience. try these stories on and see how they
from our narrative about the moment: affect your experience.
We’re constantly interpreting things in a Create a New, Powerful Story With this kind of practice, you can
certain way so that we don’t even notice It’s hard to go through h life
e with no create a beautiful
beautif experience of
that we have this interpretation or nar- story—but there are onesnes we
we can any mmoment.
moment
rative. bring into our experience
nce that
t hat
th
For example. If someone hasn’t returned are helpful, even powerful.
erfull. Leoo Babauta
Babau is the author
my text message, I might interpret it as Once we’ve dropped our old o of ssix books,
book the writer
meaning that they’re upset with me in story, and just experienced
ence edd off Zen Ha
Habits, a blog
some way, and feel hurt. When someone life directly, here are some
somme e with
w over 2 million
asks me a question, I can interpret that interpretations thatt I’v I’ve
ve e subscribers,
ubscribe and the
su
u
as a criticism and get bothered by it. Or found to be powerful: creator
reeator of several online
cr
when I haven’t done all the things on my programs
program to help you
p
task list, I can interpret that as another Wonder and awe: We can master your habits.
sign that I’m doing things wrong, and feel see everything around d us Visit Ze
ZenHabits.net
Just experience discouraged and guilty about that. as a miracle—wondrous ous
In any moment, we have a narrative and awe-inspiring. This We can see
the world directly, about that moment. A story, an interpre- is an appreciation for the everything around
without a layer of tation, an evaluation. And that story will incredible nature of life.
ife. us as a miracle—
determine our experience. It’s a practice of loving
ing wondrous and
interpretation. Here’s the powerful thing we can practice: what is. awe-inspiring.
FIZKES/SHUTTERSTOCK
C8 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

ALL IMAGES S BY SHUTTERSTOCK

alone in its loss of time during lockdown.

Studies conducted in France, Italy, and Ar-
gentina also show widespread distortion to
the passage of time during periods of strict
COVID-19 restrictions.
Unlike in the UK, lockdowns in France
and Italy passed more slowly than normal
for most people, rather than being split
40/40, as in my April study. As in the UK,
however, boredom was an important pre-
dictor of time slowing down in Italy and in
France. In France, time also passed more
slowly with increasing sadness.

More than 80 percent of

people reported that time
felt like it was passing
differently.
Emotions and time
Why does being older, bored, stressed, and
socially dissatisfied make time pass more
slowly? This question is difficult to answer.
Unlike other senses, we don’t have an
obvious organ for time. Instead, time is
experienced as part of other sensory in-
puts, such as sight and hearing, and that’s
made it difficult to identify precisely how
the brain processes it.
One possibility is that when we are bored
and socially dissatisfied, we have lots of
spare cognitive capacity, of which we use
some, to increase our monitoring of time.
This increased monitoring then results
in time passing more slowly than nor-
Researchers found people’s sense of time was affected by age, social life satisfaction, stress, and level of busyness. mal, simply because we are more aware
of time. Another possibility is that the emo-
tional consequence of lockdown alters the
way the brain processes time.

A Year of Blursdays In particular, the negative emotions as-

sociated with isolation, boredom, sadness,
and stress may have contributed to a slow-
ing of time. However, inconsistent effects
of depression and anxiety across studies
How COVID-19 distorted our sense of time in 2020 suggest that the effect of emotion on time
is complex.
So what of 2021? Will time regain its reg-
RUTH OGDEN spread distortion time during lockdown, ular rhythm? That’s difficult to say. Nor-

D
oes it feel like 2020 went on for-
ever? Did lockdown drag, and
can you even remember how you
spent your time when you weren’t
living under coronavirus restrictions?
You aren’t alone. For many, 2020 has
been the year in which the constancy of
time was lost to the upheaval of COVID-19.
Objectively, time passes at a constant,
linear rate. Subjectively, however, time
waxes and wanes with our activities and
emotions. Sometimes, it flies by, while
other times, it drags so slowly that it al-
most stands still.
That’s supported by research I
conducted in April, which ex-
plored how the early months
of the pandemic had af-
fected people’s experiences
of the passage of time. Of
particular interest was how
quickly time felt like it was
passing during the lockdown,
in comparison to “normal” (that
long-ago time before lockdown).
I surveyed 604 people about how quickly
time felt it was passing that day and that
week in comparison to before the lock-
down. Participants also answered ques-
tions about their mood, family life, and
how busy they were to give context on the
factors, which made time more likely to
speed up or slow down for different people.
Tempus Fugit?
My results showed that there was wide-
with more than 80 percent of people report- mality may be many months away. But
Objectively, ing that time felt like it was passing differ- by keeping busy, minimizing stress, and
time passes ently. But lockdown didn’t distort time in engaging in as much face-to-face or online
the same way for everyone. Instead, time social interaction as we can, we can help
at a constant, sped up during lockdown for 40 percent the journey back to normality pass more
linear rate. of people and slowed for the remaining quickly than normal.
40 percent.
Subjectively, Why was that? My analysis suggests that Ruth Ogden is a senior lecturer in
however, time the perceived speed of time during the day psychology at Liverpool John Moores
was affected by a person’s age, how satisfied University in the UK. This article was
waxes and they were with their level of social interac- originally published on The Conversation.
tion, how stressed they were, and how busy
wanes with they were. In general, the days passed more
our activities quickly for younger people who were so-
cially satisfied, busy, and experiencing low
and emotions. levels of stress. Conversely, the day passed
more slowly for older people, particularly
those over the age of 60, who were socially
dissatisfied, stressed, and lacking tasks to
occupy them.
Similar patterns were observed for the
subjective speed of the week. A fast week
was associated with being younger and
more socially satisfied, whereas a slow
week was associated with being older and
less socially satisfied.
A second unpublished study I conducted
during the November lockdown revealed
that, of the 851 people surveyed, more than
75 percent experienced distortion to time
and 55 percent reported that the start of the
first lockdown felt longer than eight months
ago. A slower second lockdown was associ-
ated with shielding, dissatisfaction with
social interaction, and greater depression
and boredom. The upheaval of the pandemic has uprooted
The United Kingdom, where I am, isn’t our sense of time.

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 ARTAZUM/SHUTTERSTOCK
HERE’S HOW
Find Musty and Mildew
Odors in Your Home
Constant moisture and dampness are typically the most
common causes of musty odors and mildew. Moisture
comes from both indoor and outdoor sources.
See D3
HOME IMPROVEMENT|FOOD|MONEY
BEFORE
AFTER
A living room in Greenwich, Conn., before and after decluttering and organizing by House to Home Organizing.
How to Organize Your
Home for a Brighter 2021
SKYE SHERMAN
A
s we look ahead to (hopefully)
greener pastures, one thing is
more evident than ever before:
Our home environments
matter, and in fact they play a
major role in the general productivity and
satisfaction levels of our everyday lives.
What’s more, they prescribe or at least
reflect the state of our minds and well-be-
ing: If chaos and clutter are our constant
companions, their byproducts stress and
anxiety promise to arrive uninvited, too.
If it took 2020’s barrage of upheavals to
reveal the lack of organization and order
in your home, you’re not alone. Accord-
ing to a survey of 2,000 homeowners by
online interior design company Modsy,
the pandemic made 60 percent of respon-
dents realize their homes were disorga-
nized, and 77 percent were so stressed
by their at-home surroundings that they
HOME
undertook DIY redesign projects.
There’s no better time than the dawn of
a new year to make positive changes, so
let the arrival of 2021 spur you to get orga-
nized and create a space you love to live
in. We rounded up advice—both mindset
shifts and concrete tips—from top profes-
sional designers and organizers to show
you the way.
Decluttering Is Key
Laura Sandberg, self-proclaimed “space-
solving expert” and founder of Let Laura,
insists that decluttering is the first step to
creating an organized home. “You need to
know all the different items and quan-
tities of what you have before you can
create a proper home for them,” she says.
“Being able to view your items in totality
makes it much easier to go through and
edit them.”
Continued on D2
FORTYFORKS/SHUTTERSTOCK
HOME COOKING
How to Make Yogurt at Home
It’s part science, part magic, but mostly patience—and
much easier than you might think.
See D7
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 D1
COURTESY OF HOUSE TO HOME ORGANIZING
EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE
Simple Ways to
Curb Impulsive
Buying
MARY HUNT
Having just come through holiday spend-
ing extravaganza 2020, otherwise known
as Christmas in America, I’m getting dizzy
from early reports of how many billions of
dollars we spent—and I can’t help but think
about what an impulsive shopper I am. It’s
that momentary thrill of the impulse pur-
chase, the destroyer of budgets. It’s in my
DNA. It’s who I am, and trust me when I
tell you that I fight it every day of my life.
Over the years, I’ve employed a bevy of
counterattacks to deal with my impulsive
nature. But honestly, stiletto pumps have
never made the list.
Shop in Heels
According to Brigham Young University
researchers, balancing activities such as
wearing high heels could lead to wiser pur-
chasing decisions.
COURTESY OF HOUSE TO HOME ORGANIZING How on earth could pinching your toes
help you pinch pennies? The study con-
cludes that being slightly off-balance while
making spending decisions—whether that
is walking on high heels in the supermarket
or shopping online while tipping back on
your chair and balancing on two legs—
helps us to make more balanced choices.
I haven’t tested this theory; I don’t have
to. If I were sentenced to only buy things
while walking in stiletto pumps, I wouldn’t
buy anything. That’s just how difficult it is
for me to walk in super-high heels. Appar-
ently, that’s the point.
Bring Cash Only
This is my favorite impulse-killer. Forcing
myself to carry only cash—no plastic at
all—keeps me on that proverbial straight
and narrow. Yes, it is a pain in the neck in
this digital age to plan ahead in this way.
But it’s hard work that pays off big.
Cash makes me count; it makes me fo-
cus. Knowing I have only cash in my wallet
keeps my mind in high gear, ahead of that
“coma spending” condition that so easily
kicks in when paying with plastic.
Try it: Leave the plastic at home. Stop by
the ATM to get the amount of money you
can afford to spend before you head for the
grocery store, mall, gas station, or coffee
shop—any of the daily destinations that
are calling for you to spend.
Show Up Full
I’m talking a full stomach. Never shop hun-
gry. You can’t think straight in that condi-
tion; you’ll make silly choices, especially if
you’re shopping for groceries. Even if this
means heading straight for the bakery
department and grabbing a cookie, do it.
That will stave off hunger long enough for
you to keep your wits about you and your
impulsive nature in control.
Continued on D3
ALL IMAGES BY SHUTTERSTOCK
If it took
2020’s barrage
of upheavals to
reveal the lack
of organization
and order in
your home,
you’re not
alone.
Be careful who you bring along on shopping
excursions. It may be best to shop alone to rein
in spending.
SHUTTERSTOCK
D2
How to Organize Your Home
for a Brighter 2021
Continued from D1
Korinne Kubena Belock, founder of Ur-
ban Simplicity, a luxury home organizing
company based in New York City and Palm
Beach, Florida, also recommends starting
with a major act of decluttering to make
space for new energy in 2021.
“When you’re going through the edit-
ing process, the decision to keep or toss
an item isn’t always as hard as it seems,”
she says. “For 75 percent of things you’re
considering, it’s likely you can make a
quick decision. But then there is that 25
percent—those items you, for some reason,
find yourself holding onto a bit too tightly.”
As you come across such items, Belock
advises asking yourself these five questions:
1. Why am I holding onto this? “Always
start here. Understanding what an item
means to you, whether it was a gift or
represents your childhood or whatever,
helps you understand the function, if any,
it serves in your life at this point.”
2. When was the last time you used or
wore the item? “As a standard rule, if you
haven’t used or worn an item in over a year,
get rid of it.”
3. Does the item no longer fit your per-
sonal style or home décor? “Times change
and so does your taste. What you liked
several years ago, however attached you
are to the item, might not fit into your life
anymore.”
4. Is there some other way to capture the
memory associated with the item? “As silly
as it sounds, would a photo of the item be as
satisfying to you as holding onto the item?”
5. Would someone else use it and ab-
solutely love it? “I guarantee the answer
is yes. Imagine the happiness someone
would feel at your local thrift store if they
were able to use the item you donated. Giv-
ing back feels good, so give it a try.”
As you go, be patient with yourself—get-
Baskets and bins are versatile, making them essential in a home with young children.
ting frustrated and giving up will only keep
you in your uncomfortable situation longer.
“Most people fail to recognize how much
stuff they actually have,” Sandberg says. “I
like to remind clients that they didn’t get
into this overnight and they aren’t going
to get out of it that fast, either. Organizing
is a skill that most people need to learn
and then cultivate for it to be part of their
routine.”
She also advises that the post-holiday
cleanup is the best time of year to recon-
sider your hoard of holiday decor. “You
know exactly what you just used and what
you didn’t,” she says. “Keep this guideline
in mind throughout the year and review
your items at each change of season.”
It’s also a great time to declutter your kids’
collection of toys after their potential in-
flux of gifts over the holidays, Sandberg
says. Helping them go through and pick
toys to donate to other kids teaches both
organizational skills and generous empa-
thy toward others.
Check Items Off Your To-Do List
Decluttering doesn’t only cover tangible
items: Your to-do list and running mental
tally of household chores to get to “some-
day” might need decluttering, too, says
Sandberg. There’s a connection between
mental and physical clutter.
“We all have things hanging around our
homes that we keep meaning to do, wheth-
er it’s dropping off donations, organizing
your closet, or hanging up that new beau-
tiful family photo on your wall,” she says.
“Start getting some of these things done.
Your mind and your space will feel clearer
and calmer, and you will feel so produc-
tive and relieved. People don’t realize these
things take up precious real estate in your
home and your head, so acknowledge what
you want to do and what your priorities are,
then outsource the rest.”
Trick Your Mind
Mindset matters more than you might
think when it comes to organizing your
home. If you don’t find ways to make the
COURTESY OF MODSY
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
COURTESY OF MODSY
If you don’t
find ways to
make the task
enjoyable and
rewarding,
you may
lose the
motivation to
finish what
you started.
Using trays is one way to
gather objects that you
still want to have on view.
COURTESY OF URBAN SIMPLICITY
task enjoyable and rewarding, you may lose
the motivation to finish what you started.
“My No. 1 tip is to start with bite-sized
projects,” says Esther Konz, personal orga-
nizer and blogger at Uncluttered Simplic-
ity. “They give you quick wins, which then
inspires you to tackle those bigger projects
you’ve been putting off. Tackle the junk
drawer, fold and put away the laundry,
make the bed, clear your bathroom coun-
ter, address a clutter hotspot or do a five-
minute trash collection—a few practical
examples that will only take five minutes.”
“I suggest setting the smartphone timer,”
adds Ben Soreff, professional organizer and
founder of House to Home Organizing. Set
a time limit for a task and keep it within that
frame; most tasks take as much time as you
allot for them, so set reasonable goals and
stick to them.
Do Double-Duty
With Furniture Storage
Now that you’ve rid your home of anything
unnecessary, take stock of what you do
need to keep. Where are you going to put
it? If your cabinets and closets are still too
full for comfort, you may just need better
storage solutions.
A well-ordered bathroom cabinet.
Modsy recommends turning to multipur- REBECCA RYAN/SERVING UP SOCIAL
pose furniture, especially versatile pieces
such as storage furniture and murphy beds.
Utilize storage in strategic ways by rethink-
ing where you place storage pieces in your
home, and moving furniture to wherever
you have the biggest need.
For example, Modsy shares that entry-
ways are an often overlooked yet highly
trafficked area, so moving a piece of stor-
age furniture—such as a credenza or extra
dresser—into your home entry area can
capture the detritus we all shed upon re-
turning home, becoming a sort of “drop
zone” to protect the rest of your home from
scattered, out-of-place belongings.
And when it comes to storage and organi-
zation solutions, it’s important to organize
before you buy, according to Sandberg.
“People love to buy product solutions be-
fore doing the physical and emotional work
of organizing,” she says. “If you declutter
first and understand the types and quanti-
ties of items you need to store, it will be so
much easier and more efficient to purchase Laura Sandberg tackles some planning work.
or repurpose optimal solutions.” And make COURTESY OF URBAN SIMPLICITY
sure to measure before purchasing, to skip
the hassle of returns.
Reconfigure Your Kitchen Junk Drawer
Don’t neglect the clutter behind closed
drawers: that dreaded junk drawer may
not be adding to the visual clutter of your
home, but awareness of its presence could
be dragging you down mentally.
“Turn the kitchen junk drawer into the
utility drawer,” says Soreff. “There is no
other way around the challenge than to
take everything out and sort it for review.
After you have kept a reasonable amount
of office, tools, and tech supplies, get some
drawer dividers or organizers to keep items
grouped. This will also serve to place a limit
on items—for instance, if the battery bin is
full, you don’t need to buy more.”
Reorganizing your home won’t just make
you feel better—it may save you money, too.
Skye Sherman is a freelance travel writer
based in West Palm Beach, Fla. She covers If you haven’t worn an item in over a year, it’s
news, transit, and international destina- time to get rid of it, advises Korinne Kubena
tions for a variety of outlets. Belock.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 D3

HERE’S HOW

Find Musty and

Mildew Odors
in Your Home
JAMES DULLEY
Dear James: There always seems to be a
musty/mildew odor in my house, which
is quite old. Could the odor come from the
part over the crawl space? What can I do to
improve the air quality? —Mike Y.
Dear Mike: Constant moisture and
dampness are typically the most common
causes of musty odors and mildew. If your
house is damp, the nasty odor may be the
least of your problems. Mold spore from the
mildew can cause allergic reactions, and
some types can be toxic. It can be inviting
to termites and ants, and it could also dam-
age the supporting lumber for your house.
Moisture in a house comes from both in-
door and outdoor sources. It can be gener-
ated internally from bathing, cooking, or
even a humidifier set at an unreasonably
high level. It can also come from outdoors
through a leaky foundation, slab, or roof.
High indoor humidity levels are most com-
mon in newer, efficient, airtight houses.
Since you mentioned your house is old,
the source of the dampness is probably
from outside. When a house is built over
several different types of foundations, as
yours is, it likely consists of several addi-
tions built at different times. There often
can be leaks where the various additions
were attached to one another.
Just to be certain the dampness problem
is not caused from internal factors, check
for any water leaks around the toilets. A
common leak is where the tank mounts to
the bowl. If the toilet feels loose on the floor,
the wax ring at the base may be deformed
and leaking. Both of these items are easy
to repair yourself.
Also, try being more diligent about run-
ning kitchen and bathroom vent fans when
those rooms are being used. Run them a
little longer than you feel necessary for a
while to determine if this helps relieve the
moldy odor.
If the odor is still there, the moisture
source is from outdoors. A crawl space
floor, especially a dirt floor without proper
drainage, is a common source. The con-
crete floor and slab can allow moisture to
pass through them. Even though concrete
feels hard, it is a porous material.
Make sure the crawl space floor is cov-
ered with plastic film to block moisture
from coming up from the ground. A 0.006-
inch thick plain polyethylene film is inex-
pensive and commonly used for this ap-
plication. Run the film up the crawl space
walls, and staple it to the band joist.
A better film to use is made from cross-
laminated polyethylene. Several layers of
film are bonded together to make it much
stronger and more airtight. Plain polyeth-
ylene can have some tiny pinholes in it.
Expect to pay about three to four times
more for the cross-laminated material, but
it probably is a wise investment.
Tape a one-foot square piece of plastic
film over the concrete basement and slab
floors. Seal it well, all around its perimeter.
After one day, remove the film. If mois-
ture is coming up from the basement or
the slab, you will see it on the underside
of the film.
If you can remove any carpeting from the
concrete basement or slab floors, put a layer
of plastic film down under the carpeting.
Another option is to apply a liquid sealer
over the floor. Water-based ones are the eas-
iest to apply. Several sources for it are: Euclid
Chemical, (800) 321-7628, EuclidChemical.
com; and L&M Construction Chemicals,
(586) 771-6500, LMsuperstore.com.
Send your questions to Here’s How, 6906
Royalgreen Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45244, or
visit Dulley.com. To find out more about
James Dulley and read features by other Constant moisture and dampness are
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, typically the most common causes of
visit the Creators Syndicate website at Cre-
ators.com. Copyright 2020 Creators.com musty odors and mildew.

CLARA MURCIA/SHUTTERSTOCK

EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE

Simple Ways to Curb

to achieve. Vague, unspecified ideas will
Only You only cause you to feel overwhelmed, and
this will likely lead to you giving up. Also,
Impulsive Buying
Continued from D1
Use a Time Rule
This is one of my most successful
impulse-killers. I rely on it often.
Sometimes it’s my “one-hour rule”
or “24-hour rule,” but it could as eas-
ily be a “30-day rule.” The idea is the
same. When I think about or see
something I want, the rule requires
that I wait a certain amount of time
before making the purchase. The lon-
ger I can go, the better.
I’m best when I fly solo. I can keep
my concentration intact; I don’t feel
compelled to explain my frugal ac-
tions; and I lose that feeling that I
need to impress anyone. I can just
get in and out of there quickly—on
my schedule.
Shop Online
One of the things I love about shop-
ping online is that it’s much easier to
ignore unrelated items. I go to Ama-
zon, put what I need in my cart, and
check out.

Can Make It make your goals measurable. If you want

to lose weight, don’t simply write down
“lose weight” as a goal. How much weight
Be careful who
If I am in a store, I’m much more
likely to happen upon an outfit or
shoes I suddenly really want. I’m so

Happen do you want to lose? How many pounds

DAVE RAMSEY
Dear Dave,
I’ve got so many things I want to address
and change about my life, both personal-
ly and professionally, in the coming year.
Do you have any advice or practices for
helping people be successful and achieve
their goals?
—Tim
Dear Tim,
Goals are dreams, but you can’t stop with
just dreaming. Examining your goals
inside and out, and by thoughtfully con-
structing small, achievable steps toward
them is the key to creating change in your
life. Remember, too, that it’s your respon-
sibility—not someone else’s—to fix things
in your life. If you’re waiting for someone
or something else to make things better,
you’re going to be disappointed.
When it comes to setting and achieving
goals, be specific about what you want
would you have to lose per week in order
to see the desired result in a specified
amount of time?
This one may sound silly, but are the
goals you have in mind your goals? If a
spouse or friend sets goals for you, you’re
probably not going to succeed. Creating a
goal, and taking ownership of it, will give
you more incentive to meet your goal.
Setting a time frame will help you de-
velop more realistic goals, too. And last,
always put your goals in writing. Write
them down, and review them often. This
will provide you with added motivation
to make your goals a reality.
Successful people examine and reas-
sess their lives on a regular basis. When
they realize changes need to be made,
they start living intentionally, in writing,
on paper, and on purpose!
—Dave
Dave Ramsey is CEO of Ramsey Solutions,
host of The Dave Ramsey Show, and
a best-selling author, including “The
Total Money Makeover.” Follow Dave at
DaveRamsey.com
you bring along on
shopping excursions.
It may be best to
shop alone to rein in
spending.
If, once the required time has
passed, I still want to make the pur-
chase, then I can move forward. Usu-
ally, I don’t want to—and isn’t it funny
how that works?
Be Careful With Shopping
Companions
Shopping with the wrong people—or
any people at all, for some of us—can
be deadly. If you bring the kids along
to the grocery store, for example, you
easily become distracted. Kids can be
so persuasive. If I have an impulse-
happy shopping friend along for the
ride, it’s so easy to let her persuade
me to let down my guard and just go
for it because “it’s so you” or “it’s on
SALE!” You know.
easily swayed by extraneous things!
What’s the solution? Except for
groceries and pharmacy items, I
rarely shop in physical stores. That
means I probably don’t need to worry
about making an impulse purchase
of a pair of stiletto pumps to wear
shopping to keep me from making
impulse purchases.
That would be wrong on so many
levels!
Mary Hunt is the founder of Every-
dayCheapskate.com, a frugal living
blog and the author of the book
“DebtProof Living.” Mary invites you
to visit her at her website, where this
column is archived complete with
links and resources for all recom-
mended products and services.
Mary invites questions and com-
ments at EverydayCheapskate.com/
contact, “Ask Mary.” Tips can be
submitted at Tips.EverydayCheap-
skate.com. This column will answer
questions of general interest, but
letters cannot be answered individu-
ally. Copyright 2020 Creators.com
D4 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF 10. Bloodsuckers
CHESS CHALLENGE DAILY BRIDGE CLUB
11. Cut’s partner Harlow the Halo
BY MICHAEL GIBBS
12. Solvent BY FRANK STEWART, TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY
Black to move, two Knights in front
13. Colorful fish of your opponent’s King should be a ©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
14. Class attender, pre- blueprint for a win!
sumably “Somebody said luck is like the stock
market,” Unlucky Louie growled to me. “If
15. “Act your ___!” you wait a while, it’ll go down. That doesn’t
20. Common Market: apply to Harlow.”
Abbr. Louie meant the player we call Harlow
the Halo. He not only takes his good luck for
26. It ends at the bottom granted, he wants it buttered up like toast.
of the leg In a team match, Louie and Harlow both
27. Kind of coil played at seven diamonds. West led the
queen of hearts. Harlow took the ace, drew
28. Poe-tic birds trumps and led a spade to dummy’s queen.
29. Altona’s river Accepting the winning finesse as his due, he
claimed 13 tricks.
30. Last word of “Ameri-
ca, the Beautiful” WORK SPACE BETTER PLAY
31. In a bad way Louie’s play was better. He ruffed a heart
at Trick Two and took the A-K of trumps.
32. Lamb Chop, Hush If trumps had split 4-1, Louie would have
Puppy and Charlie Horse drawn trumps and finessed in spades. But
when East-West followed, Louie ruffed a
37. Low-fat meat heart, led a club to dummy and ruffed a
38. Male turkeys heart. He went to the ace of spades, drew
40. Can. neighbor the missing trump and took the rest with
good clubs.
43. Spectacles “I deserved to gain,” Louie sighed, “but
45. Brio 4NUMBERS CONSTRUCTED BY C. CHANG
AT 4NUMS.COM
not against the Halo and his luck.”
Hang in there, Louie. Harlow’s luck is
47. “Father of the H Use the four numbers in the corners, and bound to run out.
Bomb” the operands (+, - X, and ÷) to build an
49. Employ equation to get the solution in the middle. DAILY QUESTION
There may be more than one “unique” so- You hold: k K 10 7 j Q J 10 8
50. A braggart has a big lution but, there may also be “equivalent” i6 5 3 h7 6 4. Your partner opens one
one solutions. For example: 6 + (7 X 3) +1 = 28 diamond, you respond one heart and he
and 1+ (7 X 3) + 6 = 28 bids two clubs. What do you say?
51. Dittography, e.g. ANSWER: Since your hand was
Across 42. Medicinal plants 83. Bellum prefix 52. Missiles of a sort barely worth a response, and partner’s
1. Food fish from the 55. Last Greek conso- two clubs — a non-jump new suit by
44. Grimace 84. Vigor opener — is not forcing, to pass is
ocean 46. Couch 85. Beatific nant tempting. But your obligation is to reach
8. Counseling, e.g. 48. Baby elephant, at the 86. Russia, before 1991 56. “... and on and on” on your longest combined trump holding.
12. Atlas stat Flintstones’ house a list Bid two diamonds. Partner should have
87. Misrepresent longer diamonds.
16. Saclike part of the ear 51. Central ideas 88. Campers 59. Pipit North dealer
17. Like some salts 53. Unaccompanied 61. Astronomers’ discov- N-S vulnerable
18. Jack London’s “White 54. Skiing locale eries
___” 57. Chatter Down NORTH
1. Legal attire? 64. Back basket or pan- kA Q 3
19. Drinker’s issues 58. Accountant’s word jA 7 4 2
2. Sicilian volcano nier iK J 10
21. Foreign money 60. Aware of 66. Snookums hQ 10 3
22. “I Ching” philosophy 62. Craving 3. “With the bow,” to a Hard 1 - 1 Solution
violinist 68. Advisor to Arthur WEST EAST
23. Lip 63. Fuddy-duddy 70. “Come live with me kK 10 7 kJ 9 8 5 4
24. It’s the law 65. “Absolutely”, cer- 4. “About the Author” jQ J 10 8 jK 9 6 3
and be my love” has four i6 5 3 i4 2
25. A Beatle bride emoniously blurb h7 6 4 h9 8
26. Like chicken scratch 67. Ipecac, for one 5. Any small, one-seeded of them
71. Western tribesman SOUTH
30. Contract accepter 69. Counterpart fruit k6 2
72. Bedewed j5
33. “Formerly” 73. Photo ___ 6. Coaster iA Q 9 8 7
34. A speck of Oceania 74. In the style of 7. Suit material 76. Dentist’s request hA K J 5 2
35. Some pipes 75. ___ de force 8. “Hokey religions and 77. Computer worker North East South West
36. A.A.R.P. member: 76. Chestnut coat ancient weapons are no 78. Cold war side 1 NT Pass 3i Pass
3 NT Pass 4h Pass
Abbr. 79. Little piggies match for a good blaster 79. Ancient cross 4j Pass 5h Pass
39. Ford Explorer, e.g. 80. French national at your side, kid” speaker 81. Plant 7i All Pass
41. Part of WWW anthem 9. “Stalag 17” event 82. Tiny toiler Easy 1 - 1 Solution Opening lead —jQ

WORDSEARCH CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF SUPER KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

Help with Today’s Crossword Puzzle? Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers 1-9
so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete.

ACHENE INDUCTION SEA BASS

AFLOAT INSEAM SERGE
ALOES LEECHES SETTEE
ATOLL MERLIN SIGNEE
DEARIE MOIST SLEDDER
DOSSER PASTE SLOPE
EMETIC PRUDE TELLER
ENROLLEE RAINBOW TROUT TENTERS
ESCAPE RAVENS THEMES
IAMBS SAINTED TITLARK
INCOHERENCES SCENES UTRICLE

SOLUTIONS
CROSSWORD SUPER KAKURO 4NUMBERS

HARD 1

EASY 1

CHESS CHALLENGE

3. Kh1 Nf2#
Nf2#)
2. gxf3 Rg6+ if (Kh1
1. Nf3+
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 D5

SUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN SUPERSUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN

Fill in the boxes using numbers between 1 and 9 so that each column, each Fill in the boxes using numbers from 0 to 9 and letters from A to F so that each column, each row, and
row, and each 3x3 square contain all nine numbers only once. each 4x4 square contain all ten numbers and six letters only once.
Hard

FEEDBACK@EPOCHTIMES.COM
Easy
WE HAVE MADE SOME CHANGES TO
OUR PUZZLE PAGE IN RESPONSE TO
PUZZLER’S FEEDBACK. LET US KNOW
WHAT YOU THINK!
FEEDBACK@EPOCHTIMES.COM

CRYPTIC QUOTE
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
13

EPOCH DOKU CONSTRUCTED

BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

WORK SPACE

KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF JUMBLE BY DAVID L. HOYT
& JEFF KNUREK

Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits Unscramble these Jumbles,
in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete. one letter to each square,
Get the free JUST JUMBLE app • Follow us on Twitter @PlayJumble

to form four ordinary words.

Easy
SUREE
EPOCH ESCAPE MAZE
CLOBK

CTAANV

ACOLAN
Now arrange the circled letters
©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.

HIS

WORK SPACE

SOLUTIONS
SUPERSUDOKU SUDOKU: EASY JUMBLE EASY KAKURO
HIS BALANCE
been stolen and — LOST
ing all of his savings had
He got woozy after learn-
Answers:

CANOLA
VACANT
BLOCK
REUSE
SUDOKU: HARD EPOCH DOKU
Jumbles:

CRYPTIC QUOTE
none.
for all nations is made for
A constitution that is made

Contact the Puzzle Master @: Feedback@EpochTimes.com

D6 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

4 PM PRODUCTION/SHUTTERSTOCK

my opinion. Accept it. And don’t make the

mistake of dumping the idea of making a
New Year’s resolution. Just don’t depend
on willpower.
Instead, depend on these four steps to
make your New Year’s resolution stick:

Step No. 1
Pick only one resolution. You are more
likely to succeed with only one. Accept it?
Analyze everything you’ve thought about
changing and pick the one thing that’s most
important to you.

Step No. 2
Take baby steps. Make the steps tiny, even
ridiculously so. A good tiny behavior is
quick and easy to do. Think: Walk for three
minutes; do two pushups; floss one tooth.
Any of those actions may sound useless, but
this is the way to get started. Your brain will
thank you by suggesting in due time that
you increase that to a four-minute walk or
that you floss two teeth.

Step No. 3
Become accountable. Write down what
You are more likely you want to change. That makes you more
EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE to succeed if you pick likely to succeed with your new habit. Tell
just one resolution others. Social support is beneficial. So is

How to Successfully Stick to work on. accountability.

Step No. 4

to Your New Year’s Resolution
MARY HUNT
More than half of Americans, reportedly,
make New Year’s resolutions. And 88 per-
cent of those resolutions end in failure, ac-
cording to a study by British psychologist
Richard Wiseman.
There is a reason for this fail rate, and
once we understand it, we’ll be able to
keep our resolutions long enough to make
them stick.
The bottom line is that our brains cannot
handle New Year’s resolutions when we rely
too much on willpower.
The human brain is divided up into sec-
tions—each one handling different aspects
of brain function. The prefrontal cortex
(the part located at the front, behind your
forehead) is assigned the tasks of staying
focused, handling short-term memory,
solving abstract tasks, and using willpower.
Here’s the problem: Part of your brain
cannot handle all of those things at the
same time. It requires a huge amount of
focus and willpower to change a learned
behavior overnight, which is what a New
Year’s resolution demands.
Bad habits are hard to break—and they’re
impossible to break if we try to break them
all at once. The focus and willpower re-
quired are just too much for the human
brain. It simply cannot deliver.
The human prefrontal cortex is like a
muscle. It has to be trained. If you joined a
local gym, you would never dream of start-
ing out lifting a 300-pound barbell on your
first session. You’d start with a 2-pound
weight for a two-minute session, working
up slowly to heavier weights and longer
periods of endurance.
Trying to keep a New Year’s resolution
to quit smoking or lose a bunch of weight
based solely on willpower is expecting your
prefrontal cortex to pick up the equiva-
lent of a 300-pound barbell on the first at-
tempt—and to keep doing it for hours on
end. It’s just not possible.
Typically, New Year’s resolutions go
something like this: I am going to lose 20
pounds; I’m going to get out of debt, stop
smoking, get organized, give up sugar, or
run two miles a day. Does anything there
sound at all familiar? Those are abstract
goals that your brain cannot handle? They
are too vague.
Here’s the secret for how to make your
New Year’s resolution stick: Make the reso-
lution a habit first. And break it down to a
tiny habit to start.
Strong willpower isn’t a character trait, in
Give yourself positive feedback. Or, seek
that from your accountability group. Re-
ward yourself with things that make you
feel great. Positive feedback will increase
your success rate and strengthen your
desire to keep going by taking on another
baby step—and another, and another, all
the way to permanent and glorious change!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Mary Hunt is the founder of
EverydayCheapskate.com, a frugal living
blog and the author of the book “DebtProof
Living.” Mary invites you to visit her at her
website, where this column is archived
complete with links and resources for all
recommended products and services.
Mary invites questions and comments
at EverydayCheapskate.com/contact,
“Ask Mary.” Tips can be submitted at
Tips.EverydayCheapskate.com. This
column will answer questions of general
interest, but letters cannot be answered
individually. Copyright 2020 Creators.com

A GREENER VIEW be donated to a food pantry. It is illegal to

harm the birds or the eggs under current

Goose Population Can Be Controlled laws, but conservation officials could do

JEFF RUGG
Question: We live in a lovely subdivision
in which the homes back up to a pond. It’s
really pretty, until the geese arrive. They
spend a lot of time in my yard (and all of my
neighbors’ yards) and leave lots of presents.
I mulch my grass—clippings, droppings,
and all. Is that good or bad for my lawn?
Can I use their droppings as fertilizer in
my vegetable garden? How do I keep their
mess off my property?
Answer: I understand your frustration with
the geese. I would compost the combined
grass clippings and droppings before using
them in the garden.
On the other hand, there are plenty of
other reasons to kick the geese off your
property. They can do a lot of damage to
shoreline vegetation, causing erosion and
degrading the water quality of the pond.
The root of your problem is a conservation
success story.
There are about a dozen subspecies of
the Canada goose. About 50 years ago, it
was thought that the biggest variety was
extinct. Then some were found, and efforts
were made to captively raise more of them.
They were successful, and the birds were
released into many locations so that if a
natural disaster or disease were to arrive
in one area, the geese would still survive
in other areas.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t discovered un-
til later that these geese learn to migrate,
rather than having an innate urge and abil-
ity. Once they have migrated, they can do
it again with uncanny precision, but there
wasn’t anyone teaching these released
geese where to go.
Wearing a down coat, they are able to
survive the cold winter weather, and they
stay as far north as the winter weather
doesn’t freeze the water in rivers. In recent
decades, many urban retention ponds have
been built, and many more lawns have
been planted, providing the geese with
excellent conditions in urban areas that
have few predators and very little hunting.
All that would be necessary to reduce the
growth of the goose population would be
to remove the eggs from the nest and re-
place them with artificial ones. The female
wouldn’t lay more eggs, and the eggs could
the egg removal. It would obviously be an
uphill battle at first, but the geese have
caused ecosystem damage in areas where
they don’t belong.
When the geese arrive at your location,
don’t feed them corn or other foods, and
don’t let anyone else around your lake feed
them. In the winter, if it is possible, let your
lake freeze over for a couple of weeks at
a time. If you must run an aerator for the
fish or for aesthetics, the open water will
attract the geese.
Plant tall shrubs, perennials, and grasses
along the lake shore so they can’t get out of
the water to eat the lawns without going
through the tall plants, where they don’t
like going because predators may be in
there. The longer the walk in the tall plants,
and the denser the material, the less they
will go through it. Put up temporary fenc-
ing to make them fly in and out of the yard
rather than walking.
Geese don’t like dogs roaming in the yard,
but be advised that even though dog ser-
vices are used to chase away geese on golf
courses, the dogs can’t actually touch the
geese because of federal laws.
A product called ScareCrow, made by
Contech, uses a garden hose spray head
and a motion detector to spray water at
anything that moves in its range. It works
day and night to safely repel any animal by
using sudden noise, motion, and a small
amount of water.
There is an acid extracted from grapes
called methyl anthranilate that can be
sprayed on grass to make it taste bad. It is
expensive, washes off with rain and snow,
and is removed by mowing the grass, so
use it only in areas where nothing else
will work.
Another conservation success story that
is related to the geese is the spread of coy-
otes. In some areas, they are reducing the
goose population by eating the eggs and,
sometimes, the geese. Unfortunately, they
might cause their own problems, so pre-
When the geese arrive at your venting the geese from sticking around
might be the best way to go.
location, don’t feed them corn
Email questions to Jeff Rugg at info@
or other foods, and don’t let greenerview.com. To find out more about
anyone else around your lake Jeff Rugg and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists,
feed them. visit the Creators Syndicate website at
Creators.com. Copyright 2020 Jeff Rugg.
Distributed by Creators Syndicate.
 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021
How to Make
Yogurt at Home
Part science, part magic,
but mostly patience
KEVIN REVOLINSKI
I
am a yogurt convert. While teaching
English for a year in Turkey, I learned
just how central it is to that, er, culture.
At school, part of my free lunch
(there is such a thing) was a yogurt drink,
ayran. You can buy it there anywhere. or
just make it yourself: stir a bit of water into
plain yogurt, add a couple of pinches of
salt, and drink it like a glass of milk. As a
fruit-in-my-yogurt American, the idea of
plain yogurt sounded absurd to me, but
I grew to love it and even now make it at
home from time to time.
RESUL MUSLU/SHUTTERSTOCK
Ayran, a traditional Turkish yogurt drink.
Kitchen Magic
My writings about Turkey and yogurt got
me an invite to Gastro Istanbul, an expo
for Turkish cuisine where I sat on a “yo-
gurt panel,” playing the foil to food-science
guru Harold McGee. We sampled 11 dif-
ferent kinds of yogurt: made from sheep’s,
goat’s, or buffalo milk; smoked; something
aged and moldy; and even dry yogurt, a
powdered version one made to survive
through winter—just add water.
While I told amusing yogurt anecdotes,
McGee explained the science behind
making yogurt: scalding milk to alter
its proteins, to create a smooth and not
lumpy final product, and adding two
primary bacteria, Lactobacillus bulgari-
cus  and  Streptococcus thermophilus.
These two microbes ferment the lactose
sugar in milk, converting it to sour lactic
acid and thus preserving it for a bit longer
than fresh milk would normally last, be-
fore going dangerously bad.
Outside the lab or test kitchen, however,
folk recipes didn’t frame it so technically.
One such recipe included “spring rain off
of pine cones.”
What the heck is that? While it seemed
amusingly folksy, there was truth there:
the microbes—what we call the “starter,”
when we have them contained and iden-
tified at the store—were out there in na-
ture, whether it be the gut of an animal
or a special flower’s petals. Generations of
villagers scattered across the lands from
Greece to India didn’t obtain microbiology
degrees or attend fermentation classes.
They learned from a forebear who perhaps
recommended some rainwater to get the
“magic” in there to start.
I asked McGee why yogurt doesn’t be-
come something else based on whatever
other things floated in on the breeze. He
explained that while an open vessel may
introduce more than just the desired bacte-
ria, the ones that actually make the yogurt
act quickly and create an acidic environ-
ment, which discourages the competition.
Ironically, despite all my time in Turkey,
I never learned to make yogurt until I re-
turned to the States. I took a job in a small
town in rural Illinois, where, as it hap-
pened, a Turkish immigrant had settled
to raise his family and open a restaurant.
Mr. Gocmen became my mentor.
Scald milk, let it cool until you can hold
your pinky knuckle in it for five seconds
without flinching, throw in the starter (ei-
ther a spoonful of other yogurt or an ac-
tual pre-packaged starter), cover, and keep
warm—I wrapped my winter coat around
the pot. Like magic, yogurt happened.
How to Make Yogurt, Step by Step
Ingredients and Equipment
A gallon of milk makes a gallon of yogurt.
While whole milk will lead to richer yo-
gurt, even skim will produce it. There are
fat-free yogurts in the store, after all. Raw
or pasteurized both work. You can buy
starters or simply use any brand of plain,
unsweetened yogurt with active cultures
from the store. (Not vanilla, although some
For thicker, Greek-
styleyogurt, pour your
finished yogurt into
a cheesecloth-lined
strainer and let the
whey drip out.
KARIPHOTO/SHUTTERSTOCK All you need for homemade yogurt is milk, a pot, and a spoonful of plain, unsweetened yogurt.
may find that flavor plain!)
You can use a standard pot on the
stovetop, a crock pot, or even an Instant
Pot. Dedicated yogurt makers are nice,
offering temperature control for consistent
production. If some seem too large, con-
sider the handy EuroCuisine YM80 yogurt
maker, which allows you to make several
separate small jars at once.
Heat It Up
Heat the milk up to at least 180 degrees F,
but don’t boil it; a thermometer would be
good here, but for those cooking by feel,
the milk should be simmering, with tiny
Generations bubbles coming to the surface, but shy of
a rolling boil. (Note: raw milk—not legally
of villagers sold in most places—will be pasteurized
if heated at 162 degrees F for at least 15
didn’t obtain seconds, so this process will do that.) The
microbiology heat alters proteins in the milk so that your
yogurt doesn’t end up full of lumps. Be sure
degrees to stir to avoid burning on the bottom of
or attend the pot.
fermentation Cool It Down
Then let it cool down to 105 degrees (or
classes. They use Mr. Gocmen’s method with your pin-
learned from kie finger). When the milk has sufficiently
cooled, stir in a bit of yogurt—a quarter
a forebear cup for a gallon of milk, or 2 tablespoons
for half of that—or store-bought yogurt
who perhaps starter according to the package instruc-
recommended tions. Tip: add your yogurt starter to a cup-
ful of the warm milk and stir it in there
some rainwater before mixing it into the rest of the milk.
to get the
Wait
‘magic’ in there As long as you maintain a temperature
between about 90 and 115 degrees, the
to start. rest of this process is merely waiting. The
trick is stabilizing that heat.
Vessels insulated with your winter jacket
might not hold the temperature overnight.
I learned that the hard way, but I was able
to warm it back up gently for the save and
still ended up with decent yogurt. (The mi-
crobes are like me: Too cold in the house?
Stay in bed. Too hot to work? Stay in bed.)
As I later learned with my sourdough start-
er, the oven light in a closed oven is a great
modest and stable heat source.
D7
LILIYA KANDRASHEVICH/SHUTTERSTOCK
As I later learned with
my sourdough starter,
the oven light in a closed
oven is a great modest and
stable heat source.
How long does it take? If you also went
through the stay-at-home-related sour-
dough craze, you know that answers may
vary here. Yogurt is, in my humble opin-
ion, nowhere near as touchy as sourdough
starter and dough. Keep the temperature
in that target range and sooner or later yo-
gurt happens, typically in 6 to 12 hours, but
maybe even a few hours longer if you’re on
the cooler end of the range.
Success!
The yogurt is ready when... well, when it
looks like yogurt! It has that thickened con-
sistency, holds a shape on your spoon, and
holds together when you jiggle the pot. At
this point, you can refrigerate it, or leave it
at room temperature a couple hours to sour
up a bit more before moving it to the fridge.
Still hoping for something more “Greek-
style” and Chobani-like? Pour your fin-
ished yogurt into a cheesecloth laid into
a strainer and let the whey drip out until
you find your favored consistency. This is
“acid whey” (as opposed to “sweet whey”
from cheese production) and can be re-
purposed for a variety of recipes, such as
bread and waffles, or even lacto-fermented
foods, such as sauerkraut.
Yogurt makes a good sour cream substi-
tute in baking recipes, on potatoes, in tacos,
etc. If you still prefer it sweet, you can add
your own fresh (or syrupy, canned) fruits.
Kevin Revolinski is an avid traveler
and the author of 15 books, including
“The Yogurt Man Cometh: Tales of an
American Teacher in Turkey,” and several
outdoor and brewery guidebooks. He is
based in Madison, Wis., and his website
is TheMadTraveler.com
KIIAN OKSANA/SHUTTERSTOCK
Enjoy your yogurt
however you
like—plain, sweet,
or savory.
D8 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

LYNDA BALSLEV FOR TASTEFOOD

Escape the LEMONGRASS CHICKEN CURRY

SOUP WITH RICE NOODLES

Winter PREP & COOKING TIME

Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

With a Spicy SERVES 4

8 ounces rice vermicelli noodles
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Noodle Soup 1 pound chicken thighs, cut into chunky bite-size

pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

From Laos 1 large shallot, finely chopped, about 1/4 cup

LYNDA BALSLEV
Are you feeling the winter doldrums? Janu-
ary can be a blue time, post-holidays, when
the dust settles and winter stretches ahead.
It’s tempting to daydream about far-flung es-
capes to steamy destinations, away from the
cold, snow, and darkness. Reality, of course,
keeps us home for many practical reasons.
So, as the saying goes, instead of cursing the
dark, it’s time to light a candle—or in this case,
the stove. If we can’t travel away, then we can
bring the taste of travel home to our kitchen.
This is a perfect bowl for a winter day.
Khao poon is a traditional Lao soup with
red curry and rice noodles, fragrant with
lemongrass and coconut. It’s light, spicy,
and aromatic, finished with a shower of
fresh herbs, bean sprouts, and chiles to cre-
ate a meal in a bowl. Chicken is frequently
added, but it’s wonderfully flexible with
proteins, including pork and fish, as well
as tofu for a vegetarian option.
And if that’s not enough to lift your spirits,
khao poon is a traditional celebratory soup
served at Lao weddings and other festive
events. So dig into your bowl and vicari-
ously join the party.
Once all of the ingredients are assembled,
this soup comes together in 30 minutes.
Lynda Balslev is a cookbook author, food
and travel writer, and recipe developer
based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where
she lives with her Danish husband, two
children, a cat, and a dog. Lynda studied
cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine
in Paris and worked as a personal chef,
culinary instructor, and food writer in
Switzerland and Denmark. Copyright
2020 Lynda Balslev. Distributed by Andrew
McMeel Syndication.
If we can’t travel away, then
we can bring the taste of
travel home to our kitchen.
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
3 tablespoons prepared Thai red curry paste, or
more to taste
1 teaspoon ground coriander
6 cups chicken broth, divided
1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3-to-4-inch pieces,
lightly smashed
1 (15-ounce) can light coconut milk
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, plus wedges for
serving
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons Asian hot sauce, such as Sriracha
2 cups bean sprouts
1 cup packed cilantro leaves and tender stems
1 red jalapeño or hot chile pepper, sliced
(optional)
Cook the noodles according to the package instructions.
Drain and rinse under cold water and set aside.
While the noodles are cooking, heat the oil in a soup
pot. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add
to the pot without overcrowding. Cook until colored on
all sides, then transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon
(the chicken will continue to cook later in the soup).
Pour off all but 1 tablespoon oil from the pot. Add the
shallot and sauté until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add
the garlic and ginger and sauté until fragrant, about
30 seconds, then stir in the curry paste and coriander
Khao poon is a and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute more. Whisk
traditional Lao in the chicken stock and lemongrass. Taste the stock,
soup with red curry
and rice noodles,
and if you prefer a spicier soup, whisk in 1 to 2 more
tablespoons of the curry paste.
fragrant with
lemongrass and
Return the chicken to the pot and simmer for 10
coconut.
minutes. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, sugar, fish
sauce, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil and simmer until
the soup is heated through.
Divide the rice noodles between serving bowls. Ladle
the soup over the noodles. Garnish with the bean
sprouts, cilantro, and red chiles. Serve with lime
wedges and additional hot sauce.

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