COOK FOREST, Pennsylvania—It has just finished snowing here, and the forest looks magical, draped in white. It takes on a silvery blue shine under the blue sky that emerged after the storm finished leaving its mark. The silence is soon broken by the crunching of snowshoes off in the distance.
Article originally published at Daily Signal.
Southwest of here, a handful of anglers fishing the drift of the Slippery Rock Creek breaks the silence of the surrounding forest. At Laurel Hill, it is the rustling of the leftover fall leaves, softened by age and weather, under the weight of hikers’ boots.
Along the High Bridge, the snow that is piled on the towering old Western Maryland Railroad tracks that span the gorge over the Youghiogheny River fails to deter cross-country skiers along the Great Allegheny Passage trail as the swooshes of their skis are the only sounds for miles.
Sometimes, it is the small things that make the loudest sounds. Sometimes, it is the loudest things that make insignificant impacts. It is in the former where we can find peace, meaning, and purpose. It is in the latter that we find confusion and distrust.
This old year is wearing down, and the new year beckons. In that span of time, all of us have lost something. Some of us have lost everything. None of us will ever be the same. That is the cut that hurts the most.
Americans, whether their families have been here for several generations or they just gained their citizenship, are fiercely aspirational. We thrive on being part of something bigger than ourselves, even if the “big” isn’t that big.
Americans are fiercely tied to traditions, community, faith, family, and service, all of which are slivers of the defining moments of our lives and all of which have fallen in the wake of the pandemic.
As they have fallen, many have gone from fearing they might never come back to losing hope they ever will. It is a note we don’t just end the year with, but it is a reality we begin the new year with.
The things we don’t want to come back in 2021 that most assuredly will are the combative public rhetoric in our politics and the politics of the coronavirus. The other thing that will most assuredly and unfortunately come back will be the constant drum of fear and gloom.
Former Vice President Joe Biden set the tone of his approach to leadership last week when he said the “darkest days” in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic “are ahead of us, not behind us,” and he urged people to prepare themselves for the dark struggle.
His words hang out there, and many wonder, what more do they want people to give up? How much more loss of treasure, community, family, liberty, and livelihood are we supposed to give up? And how is it that we’ve allowed the government to continue to pick who the winners and losers are in these restrictions?
We’ve adapted all the ways we’ve been told to: wearing masks in public, avoiding crowds, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, testing, and quarantine rules. And you tell us the darkness we are in now is nothing compared with what we are about to face?
Americans need something to aspire to—a purpose or someone who will take us to a better place.
If 2020 taught us anything, then it taught us that that journey upward will not come from a politician, nor will it come from the loudest voices, which means it will likely come from within us as a people. That might be the best news for 2021.
COVID-19 lockdowns are taking down an independent news outlet
Nobody said running a media site would be easy. We could use some help keeping this site afloat.
Colleagues have called me the worst fundraiser ever. My skills are squarely rooted on the journalistic side of running a news outlet. Paying the bills has never been my forte, but we’ve survived. We have ads on the site that help, but since the site’s inception this has been a labor of love that otherwise doesn’t bring in the level of revenue necessary to justify it.
When I left a nice, corporate career in 2017, I did so knowing I wouldn’t make nearly as much money. But what we do at NOQ Report to deliver the truth and fight the progressive mainstream media narrative that has plagued this nation is too important for me to sacrifice it for the sake of wealth. We know we’ll never make a ton of money this way, and we’re okay with that.
Things have become harder with the coronavirus lockdowns. Both ad money and donations that have kept us afloat for a while have dropped dramatically. We thought we could weather the storm, but the resurgence of lockdowns that mainstream media and Democrats are pushing has put our prospects in jeopardy. In short, we are now in desperate need of financial assistance.
The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We need approximately $17,300 to stay afloat through March when we hope the economy will be more open, but more would be wonderful and any amount that brings us closer to our goal is greatly appreciated.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. This shouldn’t be the case as our traffic the last year has been going up dramatically. June, 2018, we had 11,678 visitors. A year later in June, 2019, we were up to 116,194. In June, 2020, we had 614,192. In November, 2020, we hit 1.2 million visitors.
We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.
