So when is somebody going to take Newsom to court?

You Californians need to sue this guy. In Florida they hardly wear masks anymore.

And daily death rates in Florida compared with California?
Well over three times higher currently - Consequence?

Are Florida, and California really comparable? Florida is known jokingly as a retirement home, as for California can the State Government count?

When they ignore the science it’s about power not health. See this re wind instruments: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/orchestras-music-coronavirus

Arthur,
Public gatherings, such as a church service have already been heavily curtailed with a lot of nonsensical rules and regulations. Singing of any kind, i.e. hymns or Psalms, or chanting have been banned altogether for months. Our organist plays a prelude and a postlude but no hymns. The one crack in the purely political bandwagon is that the State of CA did not originally restrict instrumental music. For 6 months now, a trio or quartet of horns (French horns and me on bass trombone as a faux bass horn); a flute player; and an Native American flute virtuoso in our midst @ Holy Trinity Episcopal Church tradeoff weekly playing some of the joints and Eucharist.

This new Newsom edict disembowels virtually everything i love and do.

In the 11th hour of my lifetime, the hours are clicking by one at a time in a slow, inexorable, poco a poco accelerando e diminuendo a niente.

I simply hope there is something left before i am not.

Yesterday, I received this timely devotional by Alistair Begg from a friend, John Luther, a wonderful composer/keyboardist/countertenor/choir director, and devoted Christian:

Songs from God

God, my Maker, who gives songs in the night.

Job 35:10

Any man can sing during the day. When the cup is full, man draws
inspiration from it. When money is in plentiful supply, any man can
praise the God who provides an abundant harvest or sends home a loaded
ship. It is easy enough for a tuneful harp to whisper music when the
winds blow; the difficulty is for music to carry when no wind is
stirring. It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight;
but it takes a skillful singer whose song springs forth when there is
not a ray of light to read by. No man can make a song in the night by
himself; he may attempt it, but he will find that a song in the night
must be divinely inspired.

Let everything go well, then I can weave songs, fashioning them from
the flowers that grow upon my path; but put me in a desert, where no
green thing grows, and with what shall I frame a hymn of praise to
God? How shall a mortal man make a crown for the Lord without jewels?
Let this voice be clear and this body full of health, and I can sing
God's praise: Silence my tongue, put me on a bed of suffering, and how
will I then chant God's high praises, unless He Himself provides the
song? No, it is not in man's power to sing when everything is against
him, unless an altar-coal shall touch his lip.

It was a divine song from Habakkuk that filled the night when he sang,
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock
be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I
will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my
salvation.”1 So, since our Maker gives “songs in the night,” let us
wait upon Him for the music. Chief musician, let us not remain
songless because we face affliction, but tune our lips to the melody
of thanksgiving.

1) Habakkuk 3:17-18

Sweden still exists.

jefe, take heart, we need to pray for one another to withstand these trying times. These Scripture passages sting me because my mother who used to sing to the Lord so often and so beautifully has become silent and "lies in a bed of suffering" not from covid, but from old age.

It's fine to be frustrated at the virus. It has mostly made irrelevant this entire year of my "education", where I will get far less than my tuition's worth of instruction, and stunted my professional and spiritual development. I would go so far as to say that one could reasonably be frustrated by the haphazard way in which public health measures have been enacted and the confusing, often contradictory messages of some health officials. I know I have been.

However, we must distance ourselves from those feelings when it is time to appraise the measures which are preventing a total breakdown of the healthcare system. Tossing out what is scientifically proven to work by calling into question the very scientific method is exactly the kind of backwards anti-scientific thinking that anti-Catholics love to claim is endemic. We shouldn't let those charges become validated.

So far this year in Texas the virus has killed 17,582 people compared with the 198,000 likely to die over a full year of other causes. A pandemic like the 14c Black Death would have killed maybe 15,000,000, so it's not as bad as that by three orders of magnitude, but it is still approaching 10% of deaths which could have been delayed.
And we still have no idea about the long term impact on health. My 50 year old niece caught it in March, and is still suffering seriously debilitating inflamation of the lungs.
@Lars - but I don't have a dedicated personal medical team. OTOH at 82 I have a 10% chance of dying in any year, it's only doubled that, and I ought to be prepared.

To multiply the deaths in the U.S. by five isn't "a little off". To point out such a major error in numbers isn't petty either because there is a huge difference between the numbers.

That video with Fr. Altier is an abuse of his role as a priest. He starts out by talking about his duty to preach -- but what he is preaching is not the Gospel of Christ. He preaches a theory about the origin of the coronavirus, a topic on which he has no particular authority or competence to speak. He should cut it out and leave the topic to lay people.

Public gatherings, such as a church service have already been heavily curtailed with a lot of nonsensical rules and regulations.

My favorite was NYC's relatively recent proclamation that permitted different numbers of people for funerals and weddings. Either XX number of people is safe or it isn't... changing the number based on the [religious] function [in the same sanctuary] is purely asinine.

It's pointless arguing about this, all I can say is if you're scared stay at home, no one has any right to tell me how I should live my life. This mammy government nonsense disgusts me to say the least.

To the contrary, we have an obligation to each other in a time like this -- especially to those who cannot, for whatever reason, stay at home. (As a teacher in a school that is open in-person and who needs the money from that work, that includes me.) The rising case numbers indicate that we, as a society, aren't doing what needs to be done. It is the government's obligation to step in then.

That doesn't mean the government has perfect judgment; obviously, it doesn't and we can and should speak up when we think they overstep. But as long as stuff like this happens, the government's going to look at religious gatherings askance.

even caught up with our uncouth and boorish 'president'

Show me on the dolly where it hurts, pal.

We are in this situation because we are a post-Christian culture. If you die and that's it, death must be prevented at all costs. And that's what we're seeing, even from our bishops.

Discussing this may or may not be therapeutic. But the bishops won't act to preserve freedom of worship, and most governors don't care.

All I’m saying is, for a faith that originated with a guy who touched lepers, all this socialist distancing seems a little foreign.

We are in this situation because we are a post-Christian culture. If you die and that's it, death must be prevented at all costs.

Exactly correct.

Ken

Thank you. Well put.

VioletThread - Not my church! We are an independent autonomous monastic tiny chapel. We foresaw problems with bishops long ago and decided that no bishop would have reign over us except Christ. We are a collection of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox living in community. Besides, all true Christians must be obedient to GOD alone above all! History and the Bible teaches that no one, cleric, pope, bishop, priest, deacon or in fact any human is perfect except Jesus.

There are eight of us, one retired bishop, a retired priest and six retired brothers. We only do Prime at 6am, Morning Prayer at 10am, Evensong and Benediction at 4:00pm on Sundays and Compline at 8pm. All chanted. If a member wants communion, he goes to the church of his choice. We rehearse daily too. We feed the hungry, cloth those that are in want, visit the sick and if in need, provide limited shelter.

We are all over 60 years of age. We do sacred calligraphy, stain glass, make icons, carve wood crosses, crucifixes and statues, make incense, gardening and bee keeping / honey harvesting and most of all - we study and practice sacred classical music (chant and polyphony). We are too busy to close or be cloistered. hahaha

Beside, a lesson can be learned from a congregation in France who are on youtube. Their bishop closed their church and even bricked up the doors. They took matters in their own hands for they believed that closing their church was immoral and evil. Whether right or wrong, this is our beliefs. In my opinion, any bishop that is more concerned with the body than the soul is suspect.

The Covid-19 virus has been enormously over exaggerated in relation to other Covid viruses. It is primarily dangerous to adults with compromised immunities and illnesses. Less than a tenth of one percent of children worldwide are negatively affected. Other flus and flu viruses have harmed and killed vastly more than Covid-19. And regarding masks, if they are so effective then why haven't people been wearing them since the 1920s and 30s during flu seasons? If masks and distancing helps you feel better about all this, well wear them and do the distance. But isn't it better to keep in mind what our parents and grandparents religiously told us to do - clean, clean, clean. Have we not learned our lessons from history and plagues? I do not mean to diminish the matter but hopefully help us to see that Covid -19 has been used to control and manipulate. Those that are sick should be hospitalized and or at home. Isn't that reasonable? The healthy should not be quarantined neither the economy of the world destroyed. "The healthy have no need of a physician" - Jesus.

Let's be reasonable, thoughtful and rational with a good amount of common sense. Just because there is much sickness in a hospital, you don't use a flame thrower to burn the hospital down to kill all the sickness within. Take vitamin D3, zinc, your daily vitamins, and C, plenty of water and good healthy foods. Brush your teeth 4times a day and gargle with a mouthwash and warm salt water. Finally, perhaps all this is GOD's way of slowing us down, taking better care of ourselves and families and focus on HIM.

I apologize for my long windedness but I just felt the need to get all this off my mind. Please forgive me.