'Tain't true

 There are some articles or features I won't skip reading in the daily newspaper, and besides the Jumble ("That Scrambled Word Game") I can't go on without reading "Ask Amy," the advice to the lovelorn and loveworn and confused among us.

The other day the young mother of a 4-year-old boy who suffers from the peanut allergy wrote to say that her parents were babysitting the lad as she and her husband went out of town. The getaway had barely gotten underway when she got a call advising her to return at once; her son was in the emergency room.

It turns out that her father had given the boy a cracker with peanut butter on it. Did he forget that any peanut product is toxic/potentially fatal to the young man? No. He didn't forget, but he "doesn't believe" in the allergy.

I don't know when it became acceptable in this country to substitute one's beliefs (or disbeliefs) for cold hard scientific fact. But you see it all the time. Certain people who live in our Sunny Southland, to this day, will tell you that our Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. Oh no, Colonel Beauregard La Fontaine will tell you, it was a matter of states' rights and how the nasty old gummint up there in Wash'n'ton DEEE C has no right to pass laws and run the nation.

High culture for some.

The feeling is, they are only there to write checks for when the south suffers damage from hurricanes and tornadoes. And even then, don't you dare call it socialism when people pool their money to help those in need, no sirreee Bob.

That Mrs Haley, running for the nomination, is soon going to need a cervical collar if she keeps spinning her head around to catch whatever breeze she thinks might carry her to 1600 Pennsylvania Av. She hates to say it, but the Civil War was about slavery - you know, where people actually get to own people. That was part of the heritage she is so proud of.

You can't have peanut butter if you are allergic to peanut butter.  You can't ignore history, whether it's from the 1860s, or November 3, 2020.

What happened, happened. No amount of prevarication will ever change facts.