Category Archives: Golden Rule

I referred a few days ago to the golden rule of spotting scam emails. If it begins Dear Customer or similar, be wary. As a rule, genuine emails will contain your name. A reader tells me he has received a long email from EasyJet, described as personal, explaining and apologising for the highly sophisticated computer hack which compromised the personal data of nine million passengers. It begins: Dear Customer.

Lockdown-reading corner. I've just finished H E Bates's novel, Love for Lydia. Not many laughs in that. The image of poor Lydia wasting away is a useful reminder that while a pandemic may be something new, well within living memory British people lived in mortal dread of tuberculosis, with thousands packed off, coughing blood, to isolation hospitals. If it didn't kill you, TB could weaken you for life.

Once virtually eliminated, TB still affects about 5,000 Brits a year. Like coronavirus, TB preys on males, the elderly and the poor living in sub-standard housing. We can only hope that in focusing so many resources on Covid-19, the NHS doesn't take its eye off this older and deadly contagion.

I have watched dozens of juries at work, served on a jury, been the foreman of a jury. Those experiences have not made me a great fan of trial by jury. In normal times the judgment of Twelve good men and true is probably the best solution a democracy will accept, but these are not normal times and a backlog of 40,000 criminal cases has built up.

So here's a plan. Until the backlog is cleared, instead of trying to make courtrooms safe and socially-spaced for the jury, why not scrap juries for a while and have trial by judges sitting alone? I can foresee some resistance from defence lawyers who specialise in persuading gullible juries that hardened criminals are as pure as the driven snow. As a rule, juries do not recognise the faces of defendants and can be easily swayed. But a judge may well remember the bloke in the dock as the rapist he jailed for life ten years ago and I dare say that may influence his views. This may result in more convictions. Oh dear, how sad, what a shame.

I don't want to spread alarm but the ground is parched and there's no rain forecast for at least the next week. Remember all that water, millions of tons of the stuff, that fell on us six months ago? I hope they've put it somewhere safe.

Meanwhile, buried under the avalanche of coronavirus reports, scientists may have found the answer to a puzzle that has bewildered us ever since humans first encountered otters. Why do they (the otters, not the humans) juggle pebbles on their tummies? Having studied these creatures at length, researchers at the University of Exeter have concluded that otters juggle pebbles when they are hungry. We can all sleep soundly tonight.

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Peter Rhodes on otters, trials without juries and the lurking menace of TB - shropshirestar.com

Bora-Hansgrohe's Emanuel Buchmann thought he had smashed the record for the fastest-ever Everesting attempt - only to be told his attempt was invalid due to a technicality in the rules.

Buchmann, who rode to fourth at last year's Tour de France, took on the task of climbing 8,848m - the elevation of Mount Everest - in one continuous ride as a drive to raise money for German children's charity Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk.

The previous record for the fastest Everesting attempt had recently been set by young American mountain biker Keegan Swenson who had completed the challenge in a time of 7 hours, 40 minutes.

WorldTour rider Buchmann then smashed Swenson's time by a full 14 minutes, setting a new impressive benchmark of 7 hours, 28 minutes.

However, the 27-year-old's incredible efforts have since been declared invalid after he breached two of the challenge's golden rules.

First, as per the guidelines set out by challenge creators Hells 500, any Everesting attempt has to take place entirely on the same ascent.

Buchmann breached this by completing his first ascent on the Ochsengarten climb, just out of Oetz in Austria, before descending its north side to then complete eight repetitions of the Heimelerberg climb to tick off the necessary elevation.

Secondly, it also turns out that Buchmann's time was invalid as the Hells 500 team take the Strava elapsed time as opposed to moving time. With this considered, Buchmann actually completed the task in a time of 7 hours, 53 minutes: 13 minutes slower than Swenson.

Therefore, with both rule breaches, Buchmann's efforts were struck from the record.

A shame considering the exceptional effort put out from the Grand Tour contender whose seven and a half hours in the saddle contributed to a total of 162km covered at an average speed of 21.7kmh.

What's more, Buchmann's choice of hill was also not for the faint of heart with the Heimelerberg averaging 11% for a full 9.41km, stats that see it come out harder than the likes of the Passo Giau. And to ensure he could get close to the record, Buchmann pushed a uniform 300 to 310w average on all eight ascents of the climb.

While Buchmann's not officially the record holder, he will likely be proud of the 17,000 raised for charity and ticking off a challenge that he ranks, in terms of difficulty, alongside the Tour de France.

'That was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I didn't think it would hurt so much towards the end,' explained Buchmann after completing the challenge.

'At the beginning, I found a good rhythm and then decided to push hard. After 7000m of climbing completed, I started feeling my muscles. I am not used to this amount of workload and it started to hurt a lot. The last 1000m have been cruel. But there were also some fans out there and their support pushed me toward the finish.'

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Emanuel Buchmann sets new Everesting record - only for it to be ruled invalid - Cyclist

How to Choose Glass that Prevents Birds from Colliding with Buildings

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Did you know that World Migratory Bird Day is celebrated in the second week of May?

Every year around this date, festivals, educational events, exhibitions, and excursions are organized to celebrate and raise awareness about the conservation of migratory birds. These species have seen their habitats transformed during the last few decades in part because of human action: designers and real estate agents have built and nurtured an urban imaginary dominated by glass structures as a symbol of power and progress. Before proceeding with the conquest of the sky, it is worth considering somematerials that are more friendly to the species with which we cohabitate.

The problem is very simple: birds cannot see glass as a solid object, but only recognize what is reflected in it. Whether it is a tree or a piece of the sky, they do not identify the obstacle as a danger and as a result collide with it, with the risk of dying. Academics estimate that, in the United States alone, between 100 million and one billion birds die yearly, while in Canada, the number is around 25 million. Although specific data is difficult to obtain, it is clear that the migration period is the most dangerous for the birds, as they find themselves in front of tall buildings in unknown territories.

From mid-rise buildings to skyscrapers, the structures we create can become a death trap for hundreds of bird species around the world. Since 1970, more than three billion birds have disappeared in the north of the American continent, due, among other things, to the transformation and urbanization of their habitats (the most affected territories being forests and coastal areas). Although parks, forests, and gardens may be spaces committed to species conservation at the urban level, these deaths are often preventable through simple design decisions and choosing the right products.

Glassbeing the main problem, it is possible to find variants in the market that make it easier for birds to identify a glazed surface, including options that make it visible to them without distorting what humans see.

Transparent Alternatives

One of the options is to add a coating to the glass that reflects ultraviolet light, which will be practically invisible to humans but always visible to birds. The technology is incorporated into the laminated glass in a sheet, almost imperceptible to the human eye in dry conditions.

Some specialists also consider photovoltaic glass a bird-friendly option. This type of glass contains cells that accumulate energy to generate electricity, which is incorporated onto the glass in a photovoltaic sheet by means of electronic printing. Different levels of transparency can be obtained, including fully transparent options that are compatible with films that reflect ultraviolet light. However, it is important to consider that bird nests and other interferences can negatively impact the glass' ability to generate energy.

Translucent Alternatives

There are numerous techniques for incorporating visible patterns into glass. One such solution is ceramic printing. Depending on the supplier, you can choose colors, regulate the opacity of the ink, and opt for decorative patterns. Advances in technology for screen printing on glass (silk-screening) allow for varied decoration styles superior to traditional engraving techniques (etched glass). Today, ceramic printing on glass offers both the possibility of silk-screening a design using a template (the oldest form of glass printing still in use) or doing it by digital printing, which is more flexible than silk-screening. The choice between the two methods is usually based on considerations such as location, quantity, image, sustainability, and function, though they may also be used as complementary techniques.

If the designer and client are open to glass that is not fully transparent, there are two additional options: dichroic glass and translucent glass. Dichroic glass is multi-colored, produced by stacking and alternating layers of glass along with micro-layers of quartz glass and metal oxides to achieve theappearance of changing colors by transmitting and reflecting light, like a kaleidoscope. Translucent glass can either be channel or fritted glass, and is porous and opaque, produced by subjecting the glass to thermal melting. In some cases, it can have a load-bearing capacity and be designed in curved or textured forms.

Whichever option you choose, the design of the pattern to be incorporated into the glass is of paramount importance. A study by Dip-Tech, endorsed by the American Bird Conservancy, has shown that patterns with randomly arranged triangles are more effective than homogeneous colored dots or stripes. The golden rule is to follow a "2x4" inch spacing: the marks are to be added on the plane with a spacing of two inches horizontally and four inches vertically. Birds tend to avoid gaps of these dimensions, so a stricter "2x2" rule will ensure the inclusion of smaller species.

Cities that have incorporated this concern into their regulations have defined a range of solutions. In the case of San Francisco, 90% of glazed buildings over 18 metres adhere to these regulations. According to Dip-Tech, and contrary to what one might think, the collision zone is not the highest area of the building, but rather the floors thebirds hitwhen they fly down to rest. Although there are still not enough regulations and the vast majority are in North America, there are also certifications in countries without these regulations that recognize this type of initiative and help suppliers certify their products.

There are other lower priority factors such as lighting and window design that can contribute to the solution for this problem. The window frame can be an ally in making the faade more identifiable, while artificial light disorients the birds and causes them to collide with objects. Adding temporary solutions such as curtains, plants, or accessories are also an option. However, solutions that are sustainable over time must be incorporated from the beginning of the design process.

Although most of the information and institutions in charge of this problem are in North America, birds connect the world through migration. Concern about this phenomenon is not only a problem of respect for the environment, but also reflects that the increase of biodiversity is necessary for our own survival: birds are pollinating agents, distribute seeds, and control insect pests. Now is as good a time as ever to question the conventional use of materials and to pay attention to their negative consequences. If you are designing a glazed project, consider these solutions before October, the date of the second annual migration.

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How to Choose Glass that Prevents Birds from Colliding with Buildings - ArchDaily

by Ernie McCray

Ive been getting a few memes on my Facebook feed kind of around the theme that God doesnt give you more than you can handle.

Such a sentiment makes me shudder as people right now, who are way overburdened with a situation brought on by a deadly virus, are dying left and right all around us and all around the world.

Im not religious but I was raised in a home with people who were religious to the bone, two of the truest Christians Ive ever known: my mother, a soulful gospel piano playing woman who played for our churchs choir, and her father, my grandfather, a man who had sailed several seas and honored his Lord as easily as he breathed.

But their faith was reflected, less on cutesy Bible verses and the like, and more on just being respectful of their fellow human beings and giving way more than they received.

My point being they would never have made any struggling overwhelmed person feel at ease spouting claims that God wont allow you to be burdened too much and they, the both of them, endured and overcame a plethora of lifes daunting challenges and they gave thanks for their blessings. But they knew that didnt apply to everybody as they, as well as I over my lifetime, have seen many folks go under because they couldnt handle their lifes conditions.

They modeled, for me, how Christians should be although Ive shed much of the pure sacredness aspects of my upbringing as religion has simply, to myliking, been too full of hallelujahs and you cant do this and you cant do that and talk about the devil and the enemy and stuff like that.

However, what I took from that was a Do unto others what you would have them do unto you philosophy that has guided my behavior throughout my life.

Like in sports I was in an opponents face like Sherlock Holmes on a murder case but I never tried to hurt anybody intentionally because I didnt want anybody trying to injure me.

On the playground I stood on the sidelines of the Yo Mama putdowns and other such trash talking traditions of renown because I didnt want to hurt anybodys feeling and didnt want anybody to hurt mine.

The Golden Rule has suited me just fine.

And that brings me back to this day and time, to my Facebook timeline that expresses a few of my friends religious beliefs, their need to praise their God, something I fully understand, but I wish theyd be considerate of others when they post sentiments like:

Gas in the Car!Still got a job!Somebody needs to tell GodThank you!!!

Their feelings inspired a range of true dats and amens and I, too, felt thankful that so far, at least, Im not having any trouble making ends meet but Icouldnt help but wonder how such a message resonated with someone who:

cant pay their bills,keep food on the table,gas up their carand has no job.What should theytell God?

I wouldnt, if I were one of them, want to be greeted online with rejoicing that treated me as if I and my misfortunes didnt exist.

So, it seems to me, and Im sure my mom and granddad, if they were still around, would agree that if were to get through our ordeal as a world of people, we will simply have to treat each other the way wed like to be treated.

A world honoring the Golden Rule is an idea way past its time as such behavior might be the answer to what our collective duty should be all about during these times: saving humankind.

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It's Way Past Time to Honor the Golden Rule - OB Rag

All Elite Wrestling has been on a roll in the past few weeks. After a blockbuster night at Double or Nothing, the promotion has presented some spectacular episodes of Dynamite with the recent brawl between Mike Tyson and Chris Jericho getting unprecedented attention for the company. Another man who has been in the spotlight is former Olympic gold medalist and UFC legend Henry Cejudo.

The American mixed martial artist has been acting as an ally of Iron Mike in his beef with Y2J. Needless to say, fans are dying to see Cejudo mix it up with Jericho and his Inner Circle. However, recent actions by Cejudo have left a sour taste in their mouths.

A video has been doing the rounds on social media where Cejudo can clearly be seen breaking kayfabe. Triple C can be seen making a video where he is enjoying a laugh with Chris Jericho backstage.

Now, many of you might think that this is just overreaction as kayfabe is a myth in modern pro wrestling. WWE has acknowledged that fact and it repeatedly telecasts programs like 24 on the WWE Network where on-screen rivals are seen chilling with each other behind the scenes.

However, for the core fanbase of Professional Wrestling, this is what has pushed them away from the company. Even if fans know that the action is scripted, they want the realism associated with the product to sustain.

If you recall, the most popular days of wrestling in the Attitude era saw superstars like Steve Austin and The Rock maintain kayfabe even when they are not in action. Recently, Broken Matt Hardy became popular because of this strict adherence to his character even during interviews.

AEW has been developed by Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks on the premise of being a different product. They had pledged to save professional wrestling by taking it away from cheap theatrics to some real cold-blooded action.

It can be argued that Henry Cajudo being seen with Jericho backstage takes a lot of steam away from this angle. These are the avoidable mistakes which the company needs to do away with.

Do you think kayfabe is still an integral part of the business?

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Henry Cejudo Breaks the Golden Rule of Pro Wrestling After His AEW Debut - Essentially Sports

In the periodic table of elements there is one golden rule for carbon, oxygen, and other light elements. Under high pressures they have similar structures to heavier elements in the same group of elements. Only nitrogen always seemed unwilling to toe the line that is, until now. Recently, high-pressure researchers of the University of Bayreuth have actually disproved this special status. Out of nitrogen, they have created a crystalline structure which under normal conditions occurs in black phosphorus and arsenic. The structure contains two-dimensional atomic layers, and is therefore of great interest for high-tech electronics. The scientists have presented their discovery of "black nitrogen" in "Physical Review Letters".

When you arrange the chemical elements in ascending order according to their number of protons, and look at their properties, it soon becomes obvious that certain properties recur at large intervals ("periods"). The periodic table of elements brings these repetitions into focus. Elements with similar properties are placed one below the other in the same column, and thus form a group of elements. At the top of a column is the element that has the fewest protons and the lowest weight compared to the other group members. Nitrogen heads element group 15, but was previously considered the "black sheep" of the group. The reason: in earlier high-pressure experiments, nitrogen showed no structures similar to those the heavier elements of this group especially phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony exhibit under normal conditions. Instead, exactly this kind of similarities could be observed at high pressures in the neighbouring groups headed by carbon and oxygen.

In fact, nitrogen is no exception after all. Researchers at the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry & Geophysics (BGI) and the Laboratory for Crystallography at the University of Bayreuth have now been able to prove this with the help of a measuring method they recently developed. Under the leadership of Dr. Dominique Laniel, they have made an unusual discovery. At very high pressures and temperatures, nitrogen atoms form a crystalline structure that is characteristic of black phosphorus, which is a particular variant of phosphorus. It also occurs in arsenic and antimony. This structure is composed of two-dimensional layers in which nitrogen atoms are cross-linked in a uniform zigzag pattern. In terms of their conductive properties, these 2D layers are similar to graphene, which shows great promise as a material for high-tech applications. Therefore, black phosphorus is currently being studied for its potential as a material for highly efficient transistors, semiconductors, and other electronic components in the future.

The Bayreuth researchers are proposing an analogous name for the allotrope of nitrogen they have discovered: black nitrogen. Some technologically attractive properties, in particular its directional dependence (anisotropy), are even more pronounced than in black phosphorus. However, black nitrogen can only exist thanks to the exceptional pressure and temperature conditions under which it is produced in the laboratory. Under normal conditions it dissolves immediately. "Because of this instability, industrial applications are currently not feasible. Nevertheless, nitrogen remains a highly interesting element in materials research. Our study shows by way of example that high pressures and temperatures can produce material structures and properties that researchers previously did not know existed," says Laniel.

It took truly extreme conditions to produce black nitrogen. The compression pressure was 1.4 million times the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere, and the temperature exceeded 4,000 degrees Celsius. To find out how atoms arrange themselves under these conditions, the Bayreuth scientists cooperated with the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA. Here, X-rays generated by particle acceleration were fired at the compressed samples. "We were surprised and intrigued by the measurement data suddenly providing us with a structure characteristic of black phosphorus. Further experiments and calculations have since confirmed this finding. This means there is no doubt about it: nitrogen is, in fact, not an exceptional element, but follows the same golden rule of the periodic table as carbon and oxygen do," says Laniel, who came to the University of Bayreuth in 2019 as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research fellow.

ReferenceHigh-Pressure Polymeric Nitrogen Allotrope with the Black Phosphorus Structure. Dominique Laniel, Bjoern Winkler, Timofey Fedotenko, Anna Pakhomova, Stella Chariton, Victor Milman, Vitali Prakapenka, Leonid Dubrovinsky, and Natalia Dubrovinskaia. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 216001, 28 May 2020,DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.216001.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Nitrogen An Exception in the Periodic Table? - Technology Networks

It has been an ugly few days across America. The murder of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands, or knees in this case, of a white Minneapolis police officer has led to nationwide protests. While most of those protests have been peaceful, some have turned violent.

The anger that is being expressed right now comes from a long history of how black people have been treated in America. It started hundreds of years ago when they were brought to the New World as slaves and were considered nothing more than property. A war had to be fought just to convince half of this nation this so-called Land of the Free that it was wrong to own other people.

Even after the Civil War, laws were instituted to make sure that the rights of black people were legally suppressed. These Jim Crow laws continued to proliferate the idiotic ideal that whites were not only superior to blacks, but that the sides shouldnt intermingle. It would take 100 years after the Civil War ended for reason and righteousness to reign supreme and do away with that backwards way of thinking.

We have come a long way since the 1960s.

Subsequent generations have come to realize, as they spend more time around each other, that we are all Gods children that He created all of us in His image.

Even with as much progress as we have made as a society, the ghosts of our past still linger. When you see tragedies that shouldnt have happened like the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and the death of Ahmaud Arbery right here in our backyard it brings hundreds of years of injustice back to the forefront.

That anger has led some down a path of violence and destruction as a way to express their dissatisfaction with the system. Even if the anger is justified, this method of protest will not help in the long run.

Overzealous police arent helping calm down the situation either, especially when they deliberately fire at journalists who are just doing their jobs by reporting on what is happening. As much as this weekend has been about the historical mistreatment of black people, it is also shined a light that we need better police practices across the board.

The only way we will all be truly equal is for all of us to treat each other like we would like to be treated. The Bible verses that make up the Golden Rule dont mention any exceptions like race, political affiliation or sexual orientation. It simply commands that we treat others the way we would want to be treated.

If we treat each other with the love and compassion that we have been commanded to do so, this world will be a better place. Until then, this vicious cycle will just continue to repeat.

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It shouldn't be hard to treat people with love and respect - Brunswick News

CHEYENNE Every summer for the last 123 years, Cheyenne Frontier Days has brought a western sense of wonder to the city of Cheyenne, allowing residents and visitors to indulge in the citys rich rodeo history.

But along with the experience, CFD also brings in about $600,000 in sales tax revenue to Laramie County. With the events historic cancellation that was announced Wednesday, the city and county are preparing to see declines in both sales tax and lodging tax revenue.

This is part of the decrease in sales and use tax revenue that we budgeted for. We anticipated a definite loss, Mayor Marian Orr said.

In the budgeting process for fiscal year 2021, the city took a conservative approach for sales tax revenue projections and prepared for a 25% drop worth about $6 million. The revenue losses from CFDs cancellation wont worsen the problem any more than the city has already accounted for, according to Orr.

Normally, the city of Cheyenne receives 65% of those CFD sales tax funds, which wouldve been about $390,000.

During a series of budget work sessions, City Treasurer Robin Lockman said, The golden rule of revenue forecasting is to be conservative. This will lessen the danger of spending money that we do not have based unattainable revenue projections.

While the county will see a slightly smaller impact than the city, Laramie County Board of Commissioners Chairman Gunnar Malm said the commissioners will still try to prevent increases to the countys bottom line in fiscal year 2021 given the current financial situation.

For us looking forward, were taking this into account and trying to prevent any long-term increases in the budget, Malm said.

For both the city and county, CFDs cancellation, paired with the slow in sales tax collection as a result of COVID-19, will likely cause sixth-penny sales tax collections to stretch into the fall or winter of next year.

Initially, the county commissioners expected to finish collections for their voter-approved sixth-penny projects by June 2021, but now that could stretch into October of next year. That means the next round of sixth-penny projects will likely go before the voters later than initially planned.

What thats going to do is allow us even more time to really take a look at what projects are really necessary to put forward to the voters, Orr said.

While the city and county will see trickle-down effects from CFDs cancellation, local retail, restaurant and hotel owners will see the effects on the front end without the influx of paying customers CFD brings to the county.

For local business owners, Malm said CFD is like a second Christmas.

Hopefully, therell be some community efforts to try and prop up and support local businesses, as they go through this summer without Frontier Days for the first time in 124 years, Malm said.

I think that if theres any community in the state and the nation that is prepared and is capable of ingenuitive thinking and community support, its ours. Im hopeful and optimistic that well be able to do something to at least help offset a little bit of the tremendous loss that our community is going to see.

Last year, the total attendance at CFD events was 559,930. With so much foot traffic and so many out-of-town visitors, many local businesses rely on the boost from CFD and the summer tourism season. Having occurred for the last 123 years, CFD served as a reliable source of revenue for businesses and the city and county until this summer.

Its so incredibly critical that people shop local as much as they can. Everybody might have cabin fever and might want to head south, but really, now more than ever, to shop and eat locally is so critical, Orr said.

Margaret Austin is the Wyoming Tribune Eagles local government reporter. She can be reached at maustin@wyomingnews.com or 307-633-3152. Follow her on Twitter at @MargaretMAustin.

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CFD cancellation brings loss of sales tax revenue to the city, county - Wyoming Tribune

I take my cowboy hat off to the graduating class. This year has been peculiar. Doubt that any will surpass.

But one thing is for certain. Its a gamble worth the bet. The year of 2020 you will dang sure not forget.

Some have given up and sure to cause them certain strife, but you have reached your first achievement in your many days of life.

Youre young and full of spirit, like a filly shakes her tail. Never give up dreaming cuz youre afraid that you might fail.

A cowboys life aint cheap and with equipment comes expense. A healthy education brings you more than just horse sense.

So be diligent when studying. Youve got no time to shirk. And if you plan on making bank, for sure its worth the work.

Theres more to life than money, but it takes a lot to live. So, choose an occupation where youll have some left to give

To someone wholl be starting out, the way you are right now. Youll soon find out that everyone can use a break somehow.

Remember, in this life theres not a single thing for free. Somebodys got to pay it and its usually you and me.

Exhibit deeds of kindness. Cowboys have a Golden Rule. Youll treat each other with respect. If not, then youre a fool.

Some days will be discouraging. You wont know what to do. But this cowboys telling you therell be a light come shining through.

Your best years are ahead of you. Be ready for each task. Your God is there to help you. All you gotta do is ask.

So, congratulations seniors. You are gonna love the world. Take a step and cowboy up. Youre about to be unfurled.

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The Class of 2020 | Class of 2020 | tetonvalleynews.net - Teton Valley News

LAKE GENEVA, Wis.- This quaint downtown looked unremarkable on a quiet, rainy Monday morning: Businesses were starting to open, traffic was light. Clusters of teens, elders with dogs, and people carrying bundles of mail for the post office strolled down the street almost none wearing protective masks over their nose and mouth.

I broke quarantine to bear witness to Wisconsins mixed status. Many of the states larger metropolitan areas such as Madison and Milwaukee are retaining most of the governors safer-at-home measures to combat the spread of coronavirus. Meanwhile, the rest of the state is taking advantage of the Wisconsin Supreme Courts decision to strike down the order to stay closed giving them the option to roam free.

Tiny towns bordering Illinois took a turn in the Chicago media spotlight as refugees from the windy citys far off exurbs crossed the border to sit at bars with others who just wanted a cold beer and a cheeseburger amid all this COVID-19 craziness.

Over the weekend, the resort town of Lake Geneva was reportedly hoppin with visitors from both sides of the border, and many of them were promenading down the main drag, hitting the beach and taking cruises on the lake.

All for it, Dave Gragnani of close-by McHenry, Illinois, told the Wisconsin State Journal. He added that he planned to visit a coffee shop and a skatepark without a mask or hand sanitizer. People should have a choice. Im having a wonderful time.

Truth be told, I, too, had a wonderful time Monday, as the rain fell softly outside of Jonis Diner, a local favorite that bills itself the Best Breakfast in Lake Geneva. Walking into the 1950s-themed replica railcar after months of eating at home or while driving in the family minivan was, well, a relief.

The experience was a little weird, though there was no counter seating, and each set of visitors sat with an empty booth between them and the next diners. There was also only a limited number of items on the table (no creamer, ketchup or mustard sitting out, for instance).

The small, mom and pop business relies almost entirely on seasonal tourists to get through the year financially, but the waitress said they were wading back into sit-down service slowly and carefully.

The staff seemed just as relieved to be back to work as I was to have delicious diner coffee and a fresh, crisp golden Belgian waffle with full-sugar syrup.

None of the staff wore masks, and though my husband and I wore masks in, we kept them off during the meal. We also kept our distance, if thats even a sufficient manner of avoiding infection.

Condemn me if you will, but I had an opportunity to venture out of my hiding hole and took it. I relished it, thanking the universe for keeping me from political confrontation.

In some places, like the grocery store, you get the glare or side-eye if youre not wearing a mask over your face. In others, like Walmart, the hardware store or the gas station, you might get a weird look if you are wearing a mask.

Some assume that those who wear a mask are weak willed, easily brainwashed and possess socialist leanings. Instead, the person wearing the mask might instead just be covering their mouth and nose as a courtesy to others, including the elderly and immunocompromised.

Those who do wear masks might look at those without a face covering and think that he or she doesnt believe in science and is a selfish supporter of President Trump. And those who dont wear masks might rebut this with sincere beliefs about individual liberties and choice.

The war on masks is a way of taking a public health crisis a situation that demands political unity and best practices in governance and reshaping it into a culture war competition, wrote Zack Beauchamp on Vox.com. The question is not are we doing a good job handling this so much as whose team do you want to be on, the namby-pamby liberals or the strong fearless conservatives?

Masks and restaurant and bar visits have become a point of contention all over the country, fueling violence against innocent frontline food and restaurant employees who are just doing their best to stay healthy while working a high-touch, minimum wage essential job.

Its a tough time all around. Just remember, as we start venturing out of quarantine, to be nice and follow the golden rule. It stands up well through times of trauma: Treat others the way youd want to be treated.

Cepeda is a columnist for the Tribune Content Agency.

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Cepeda: The War on Masks is yet another battle dividing our country - Roanoke Times