Free Republic

During his first appearance since the backlash on Tuesday, Newsom said at the California Economic Summit that he canceled his trip to go trick-or-treating with his kids and assuage his dad guilt. Newsom said he was out to dinner with his family when his children held an "intervention" because they "couldn’t believe I was going to miss Halloween." He ultimately decided to stay home because the "knot" in his stomach was too much to bear.

The CDC wants Americans to have 'virtual' Thanksgivings, staycation holidays, and gatherings with only your household to avoid spreading COVID-19. But loneliness is a scourge, too. Make this the most joyous holiday season yet. In a nation fatigued by social distancing and dying to escape loneliness, the inimitable Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued recommendations for how to have a “safe” holiday season. Spoiler: A CDC-compliant season will not be “the most wonderful time of the year.”Our national public health experts have steered us confidently through some murky waters. After all, how else would we know that public...

Is trick-or-treat over? Is it a tradition in decline? Or evolving? This may sound like a horror story to contemporary parents and helicopter parents, or simply parents, but: When I was 8 years old I went trick-or-treating with a group of friends and no one else came along. We would walk up to strangers' homes. We would ask for candy. We would know some of the neighbors, though we would meet far more. We were 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. It was the late 1970s. Not a single parent tagged behind, or even stood on the sidewalk, waving. We...