Christmas City Dispatch

A Southern Idaho Journal focused on various news/commentary. Founded October 2025. Why "Christmas City Dispatch?": Christmas City is a local nickname for the writer's city of residence.

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I was reading up on Hantavirus to separate the clickbait from the concrete facts on the subject. There's one strain (Andes) that can be spread human to human, but it's super rare in general.

All other strains are definitively NOT spread human to human and the likelihood of someone contracting them in a developed country are remote to the extreme.

They are spread by things like rodents.

I am writing this because some people fear that it could become a pandemic, that's just not going to happen.

It's easy to think that any virus could become a Stephen King level apocalypse, but the sound science on this one says no.

I would say stop the fear mongering, but I doubt those who profit most from it would bother listening.

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Mainstream media has incentives to overblow things,most people know this by now. Even if something isn't necessarily a crisis, it benefits networks to fear monger.

Fear mongering gets eyes glued to their channels for the next "big update" on PERCEIVED crisis'.

My advice to people is weigh rhetoric against actual evidence, and go from there intelligently.

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A woman I saw recently was whining that if illegals are sent home,she basically won't have anyone to exploit for cheap yard labor. My mind was absolutely blown.

Without meaning to, she was showing she doesn't actually care about illegals, just what they can provide HER.

It's stomach turning narcissism.

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Found out DQ frozen treats aren't technically ice cream,in the strictest sense of the words. It's ultra processed with all sorts of cheap ingredients that make it just ice cream adjacent enough to be passable.

I'm not uniquely slamming DQ here, their practices are pretty much industry standards for fast food level frozen treats, and they don't pose a UNIQUE health risk that I know of, but I just wanted to raise awareness.

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We often talk about immigration enforcement in the abstract, but recently one of my father's friends/tenants (who has been a legal US citizen since the 1980's, naturalized out of Cuba) was erroneously detained by officials.

I get that it's a high pressure job, and I understand mistakes like this could be honest, not necessarily done in malice.

It's a nuance many people won't admit exists because they're too busy screaming and plugging their ears.

I'm not going to demonize the agency, but I will say that mistakes like these can be mitigated with a little more due diligence.

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Affirming misguided ideas is not Loving, and challenging/correcting them is not bigotry. Despite what many in modern culture seem to believe.

Real Love actually leads people to truth.

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Many times when people have (especially political) disagreements, the reflex is to go nuclear on each other.

It never occurs to some people that it's possible to "disagree agreeably" or more plainly, to critique opposing IDEAS while being civil to the person who holds them.

We need to get back to a place where we talk things out rationally on their merit (or lack thereof) without reflexively choosing the

"I disagree with you, so you must be evil" mindset.

With that said, there are things that are objectively evil, I'm not trivializing that fact.

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I'll just leave this here.

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Whatever someone feels about the C19 jabs, I do have to say that some of the ways they tried to get people to take them (like bribing with free fast food) was ridiculous.

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Recently heard about a Rideshare driver in NYC getting shot in the head. Evil, and to anyone in the Rideshare business, stay extra vigilant out there.

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I am deeply concerned that because of content creators who use alarmism as a hook, if something that deserves critical attention DOES happen, people might dismiss it altogether or take it lightly.

They'll likely do it with the mindset of "I've seen this alarmism before, it's exhausting".

My point is people need to quit crying wolf, or eventually people will stop bothering to listen.

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There are many writers who write about incarcerated life, that doesn't mean they're glorifying criminals.

In many cases, the stories are cautionary tales, warning of the CONSEQUENCES of wrong choices/wrong behavior.

I am writing this post because I recently saw someone attacking a singer-songwriter for writing a song about an incarcerated man.

The singer-songwriter wasn't promoting criminal behavior at all, but because the critic had the attention span of an ADD affected squirrel, or simply a fundamental inability to grasp nuance,the critic missed the point.

That point being that ultimately crime destroys everything it touches.

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I saw something where a woman was going off in lunatic fashion on her child's teacher. She was blasting the teacher, proclaiming that it was the teacher's responsibility to make sure her child was doing homework.

The lady was utterly in error here, it's actually on PARENTS to make sure their children do homework, generally.

If the "child" in question is actually nearly an adult, that's an exception. They have personal accountability.

By then, the "child" knows full well the cause and effect relationship between their unwillingness to do homework, and their flunking out.

It's simply the teacher's job to put forth the material and teach it, what a child does with it afterwards is on the parents to a certain point, but eventually fully on the students themselves.

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Earlier today, I came across a little urban vehicle called the Eli Zero. It's electric and from the video demonstration I saw I liked the way it handled.

You definitely won't be taking the great American road trip in the thing, but for a little zip around smaller areas, it's your friend.

The price range is where I started to balk, because according to what I heard it's in the steep thousands range (12k or so)

I don't have that kind of money personally, just saying. Maybe I can find a gently used one sometime in the future that'll knock the price down.

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I saw a video of Kali Muscle and quite honestly I think he may still be 'roided up, despite claims to the contrary.

Granted I can't prove it, but I'm definitely not the only one thinking it.

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We need to get the geriatric class out of the government of my country. This should be a bipartisan effort as well.

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It is absolutely insane to me that Social Security in 2025 only gives around $255 for final expenses for beneficiaries.

That was set WAY back during a time when a funeral could reasonably be done for around $700, and hasn't been updated for inflation or other considerations.

Reform is definitely needed, and urgently. When a family is grieving, they shouldn't have the added stress of wondering how they'll afford laying their Loved one to rest.