Character

“The crown and glory of life is Character. It is the noblest possession of the individual, constituting a rank in itself and an estate in the general good-will. Character dignifies every station, and exalts every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and secures all honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tells, for it is the result of proven honor, rectitude, and consistency – qualities which, perhaps, more than any other, command the general confidence and respect of one’s fellow citizens.

Character is human nature in its best form. It is moral order embodied in the individual. People of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well-governed state, they are its best motive power – for it is moral qualities in the main which rule the world. Even in war, Napoleon said, the moral is to the physical as ten to one.”

-Major A.R. Calhoun

Govt bans 59 Chinese apps including TikTok as border tensions simmer in Ladakh

The government of India has recently banned TikTok since it’s a Chinese app. Here though, where I’m at in the United States, it’s still available for the time being, and I don’t think most, if at all any, people I know that use the app know it’s from China. And because of this, when places were locked down a few months ago because of COVID-19, I found it odd that many of the people that said or were upset how the coronavirus originated in China or theorized it was a Chinese bioweapon were the same people also using the app to relax and keep expressing themselves! And recently, some American users of TikTok became prideful because they believe they trolled the president, by saying they were going to show up to his Tulsa rally through the app when they didn’t even plan to. But with this app being from China, I wonder if that country can use it to more easily promote certain causes such as these and I wonder if they’re playing with the divisions in the United States, attempting to divide and conquer the country, since through TikTok they possibly can manipulate people to rise up and according to Bolton’s book, Trump asked China for help to get reelected, even though his political attack ads say he’s tough on China. I wish I knew for sure.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/centre-announces-ban-chinese-apps-privacy-issues-1695265-2020-06-29

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/21/trump-tulsa-rally-scheme-k-pop-fans-tiktok-users

Will Anybody Trust the 2020 Election Results?

More than half of Americans say they would be suspicious of the 2020 election results. I would too if Trump wins, which would probably echo the 2016 election with accusations of interference from someplace else. Many Trump supporters think they’re rebuilding America by voting for Trump, but I think the opposite, he’s in my opinion and pun intended, a trump card to help the United States become divided and collapse even further. I think a lot of powerful people and countries recognize this, so they are willing to work to make it happen. And if he doesn’t win, even though I hope things will be better under Biden, I’m afraid there will still be some repercussions because of this, by people likely to not trust the results, and a quote by David Frum, who said, “If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/election-2020-trust-voters-doubt/612100/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-warns-that-president-trump-is-going-to-try-to-steal-this-election/2020/06/11/a48f88cc-ab98-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/politics/bolton-book-trump/index.html

https://theweek.com/articles/922030/election-day-nightmare-scenarios

Old Age

“OLD age depends largely upon our attitude toward the whole of life. Old age is not a joke, nor a bore, nor a trial, nor a calamity, though it may be any one of these, as all of life may be. What needs to be stressed is that old age has no content in itself apart from the whole of life. Little can come to old age that was not in and throughout life.

Age, like happiness, is neither to be sought nor evaded. It is a by-product of life rather than life’s end. Not the aim nor goal of life, but the way of life must it be.

In the matter of revering old age, it sometimes is well to ask whether old age is to be respected as a virtue in itself — whether length of days should be regarded as a merit apart from what has gone before. One is sometimes moved to believe that if the aged are unhappy, it is because age brings with it not only opportunity for quiet meditation and serene retrospect, but the necessity of thinking about the great issues of life.”

-Stephen Samuel Wise