So far, there are Semites in Egypt.  Canaanites thrived, first as rulers, then not.  The Hyksos were expelled into the desert.  But they were former rulers, not former slaves.  And their expulsion is too early to be the Biblical Exodus. In the middle of the 14th century, around 1350 BCE, the Pharaoh Akhenaten, adopted monotheism.  It is unclear whether there was a connection between his monotheism based on a  sun god and the God of the Israelites.  Bohstrom points to a vizier’s tomb, a man who served both Akhenaten’s father and then Akhenaten.  The man was  named Aper-El or Aperia…

Every year for Pesach, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz publishes an article or two that argues the Exodus never happened, didn’t happen the way the Haggada tells us, or actually did happened. This year, Haaretz published on April 5 an article by Phillipe Bohstrom, an archeologist. Bohstrom acknowledges that  “The Exodus could be a distant Semitic memory of the expulsion of [the] Hyksos, or small-scale exoduses by different tribes and groups of Semitic origin during various periods. Or it is a fable. He suggests there is a logic to accepting that there is something real in the Exodus story:  “Psychologically ….…

One of those boys is on a ventilator.  The Coronavirus.

Robert Redfield actually got two jobs – Director of Health and Human Services and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 

Heather Cox Richards writes: Today, the White House warned Americans to expect 100,000 to 240,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic; more—as many as 2.2 million-- if Americans do not strictly self-isolate. This best case scenario is close to the numbers of US Army soldiers-- 235,000—who died in battle in World War Two. Trump is trying to spin this appalling disaster as a victory. He has declared that if we are able to keep the deaths in the lower range “we all together have done a very good job.” The president and his team are eager to absolve him…

Late in March, the FDA granted the drug’s maker, Gilead, authority to control access to the drug. Gilead could increase the price significantly and reduce its availability.. Fortunately, Gilead declined the designation

The world has changed since early March.  Who knows what voting in early March means in the light of the pandemic turning out world upside down.