Get ready to celebrate

“…more children in America die of a gunshot wound that any other reason, that’s stunning and that is sick.” US President Joe Biden

The president said this in a recent debate with former President, Donald Trump. We know, of course, that President Biden made a gross error when he made this statement.

According to the National Right to Life Committee the estimated number of children killed in the act of intentional abortion in the United States since Roe vs. Wade is in excess of 63 million. This number does not count the abortions performed in California for the last several years. California and a few other states do not report the number of abortions performed, and therefore, are not included in the 63 million abortions reported.

When President Biden made that statement, he totally ignored abortion, the elephant in the room.

In other news, we are reminded that Aug. 14 is celebrated each year as “Navajo Code Talkers Day.” During World War II it became very important to find a way to communicate between our armed forces deployed against the Japanese Empire.

Our nation’s military leaders discovered the Navajo language could be used to transmit important messages to our fighting forces in the Pacific Theater. Some 400 Navajo Marines were recruited for this important task. The code was not broken by the enemy during the Pacific War. This was of great importance to our military forces.

The code was encrypted using the Navajo language as its basis, and was never broken by the enemy. More than 800 important messages were successfully transmitted. None of these messages were ever translated by the enemy.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed Aug. 14 to be celebrated every year as “Navajo Code Talkers Day.”

Another important holiday this month will be celebrated on Aug. 26. On that day we will celebrate “National Toilet Paper Day.”

Beginning in about 79 A.D. the Romans used a sponge on a stick for this purpose. After use it was simply rinsed off and left for the next person.

In about 1857, single sheets of toilet paper were produced and sold in the United States. It was simply loose, flat sheets of paper.

In 1930, the Germans invented the perforated rolls, similar to the ones we purchase today. It is now available in various degrees of softness and absorbency. I can remember two times in the last few years when this toilet paper became almost unavailable.

The first time was in the early 1970s, when then-President Nixon instituted price controls on many products, in an attempt to restrict inflation. The early response of manufacturers was to discontinue the production of unprofitable items. One of the memorable items that swiftly became scarce was toilet paper.

I worked at the (now defunct) State Mental Health Institute in Clarinda at the time. One of my jobs was as purchasing agent for the Institution. It quickly became a real problem to find enough toilet paper for the roughly 500 employees and resident patients.

This attempt of the government to “solve” the problem soon became an embarrassment to the Federal Government and the price controls were relaxed.

The second time I saw a shortage of toilet paper was just about three years ago. This time it was the supply chain issues caused as a by-product of the China virus epidemic. In just a few days, there were no paper products available in the supermarkets and warehouse stores. That seems to have been corrected. There are now adequate amounts of product available, although at a much higher cost.

Much of the world avoids the toilet paper problem because of the widespread use bidets. This is very similar to how the Romans dealt with this problem.

Get ready to celebrate “National Toilet Paper Day.”

Mike Lang, Chairman, Union County Republican Central Committee