Home again

Back from our Easter trip to Illinois. We met many new people. Like the two policemen, young, handsome and polite, who gave us a $130 ticket near Greenfield, Indiana, and the fine crew of good old boys who rescued us with a tow and tire repair near Danville, Illinois. Got to see the inside of an auto repair shop that was established by the owner's grandfather in 1924.  But great service!  If you’re ever near Danville and need help, call Carnaghi Towing and Repair, Tilton, IL.  Don’t ever ignore your “check tire” light.  Get it up on a rack and look for nails causing a slow leak.

We spent Wednesday evening with my husband’s sister Indianapolis, then went on to Illinois and spent Thursday through Sunday with my sister. We had a nice visit with my cousin Dianne. The ladies of my high school class had a breakfast at a local restaurant, while my husband was having breakfast with a group of men from the Church of the Brethren in Leaf River.  We had dinner with my brother and wife Saturday evening at La Vigna near Oregon. On Easter Sunday we attended services at Trinity Lutheran and had a nice Sunday brunch in Polo at LaBranche which is an extension of the facilities at the White Pines State Park.

On the trip I finished reading "Maisie Dobbs" for our May book club.  I'm not crazy about detective genre, but this was very interesting. Enjoyed it a lot. This is the first in a series, and I just might try another one.  It used to be that I would get car sick if I tried to read in the car, but that doesn’t bother me now.  Also started (audio) of the infancy narratives of Jesus by Benedict XVI and also liked that. I've probably read those dozens of times, and never found what he did.

What’s happening to college tuition rates of increase?

I don't think who is in the White House should affect college tuition, but this is odd--huge increases in the last 5 years.
•The 14% real increase in average published tuition and fees at private nonprofit four-year institutions from 2008‑09 to 2013‑14 was larger than the 9% increase over the previous five years.
•Average published tuition and fees at public two-year colleges increased by just 4% in inflation-adjusted dollars, from $2,425 (in 2013 dollars) in 2003-04 to $2,530 in 2008-09, but by 29%, to $3,264 in 2013-14.

And now the federal government has control of the loans? Looks like we're headed for another bubble ready to burst just like housing in 2007.

https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/tuition-and-fee-and-room-and-board-charges-over-time-1973-74-through-2013-14-selected-years

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/04/14-income-based-repayment-akers-chingos

This isn’t the real cost

The greatest cost is in loss of time and bonding between mother and child.  Most day care/childcare workers don’t have the level of training and love as the child’s mother—if they did, they’d be paid higher salaries or they’d open their own business, or become an administrator (who earn about the same as teachers) and hire the day care workers. No one in a nursing home says, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office and less at home with the kids.”

The average annual cost of care for an infant in a day-care center can range from $4,863 in Mississippi to $16,430 in Massachusetts, according to a report last year by Child Care Aware of America. Depending on your state, the average cost of full-time care for an infant in a day-care center ranges from 7 percent to about 19 percent of the state median income for a married couple with children, the report adds. In 2012, in 31 states and the District of Columbia, the average annual cost for an infant in center-based care was higher than a year’s tuition and fees at a four-year public 

The median salary of a day care worker is $8.94/hour, less than a receptionist, a retail clerk at WalMart, a cashier, a stocker, security guard, a fork lift operator, photo technician in department store, etc.  Unless she has a child in the center and gets a break on her costs, I’m thinking she’ll move on rather than go on food stamps.

And children are resilient, they can perhaps overcome this.  But what about Mom? How can she make up for the hours and years her child is in day care, and she’s 20 miles away in the classroom, or behind the computer, or driving in traffic?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/youd-better-budget-for-that-baby/2014/04/15/791a3ccc-c4d7-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

http://www1.salary.com/Retail-Stock-Clerk-Full-Time-salary.html

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobs/qt/childcare-worker-earn.htm

http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/mothers-prefer-home-child-care-by-people-they-know/2231074/

http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/default_site_pages/2012/ccgb_mothers_workforce_jan2012.pdf

Rise of the superbug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikZQPB45Zbw

University of Texas at San Antonio microbiologist Karl Klose discusses the problem of antibiotic resistance in a 2013 TEDx talk.(There’s a gap in the middle—a technical talk with no tech back-up.)

Humans have more bacterial cells than human cells.  Yuk.

Snow on tax day, April 15 in Columbus, Ohio

Our next door neighbor’s deck.

Walhalla Ravine, Columbus

True health

"Scientific research has multiplied the possibilities for prevention and treatment, and has discovered therapies to treat many illnesses", said the Pope. "But when we speak of in full health, it is necessary not to lose sight of the fact that the human person, created in the image and semblance of God, is a unity of body and spirit. These two elements are distinct but inseparable, because the person is one entity. Therefore, even illness, the experience of pain and suffering, does not relate only to the bodily dimension, but to man in his entirety. This creates the need for an integral treatment, that considers the person as a whole and unites medical care with human, psychological and social support, spiritual guidance, and support for patients' families". Pope Francis, April 12, at the  Congress of the Italian Society for Oncological Surgery

Meet me in St. Louis

I'm watching "Meet me in St. Louis" with Judy Garland and Tom Drake who was "Uncle Buddy" to my nieces and nephew, the brother of their maternal grandmother who was also his dancing partner. Always fun to see this movie. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1531

Abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods

Let’s play ball!

Prayer

Don’t try these excuses

Jay Carney and Claire Shipman have a strange way to decorate

In the background of this family kitchen are two Soviet propaganda posters.

Are they dumb? Flaunting their politics? Haven't studied world history?

"Washingtonian MOM magazine's spring issue has a profile of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney's wife, ABC News contributor Claire Shipman, that features a picture taken inside their home. In the background of the photo, you can see two framed Soviet-era propaganda posters."

The link between the media (ABC) and the administration (Obama's press secretary) is bad enough, but this?

http://www.businessinsider.com/soviet-propaganda-posters-jay-carney-2014-4#ixzz2ygREzGWq

If you like realism and propaganda go to the Russian Museum of Art in St. Petersburg. Some of it is amazing and not seen outside Russia because the Soviets killed millions and we used to notice those things. But as kitchen décor?

The sad fact is that progressives in much of the developed world have a soft spot in their hearts for communism.  Yeah, it murdered a hundred million people or more, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.  And those who were murdered were not very fashionable, for the most part.

The Washingtonian photo is a tell.  There is a sickness, a willful blindness toward the crimes of communism because it is so close to the progressive ideology that animates the American Ruling Class.  Shipman and Carney are the perfect exemplars of that class.  Smart, fit, busy, anxious to make their own lives perfect, and convinced that the price other people pay for their progressive dreams is not worth mentioning or even noticing. American Thinker Blog

The voter ID victim scam

Democrats are trying to frighten blacks with the voter ID thing again. Last night I heard yet another Democrat claim that 25% of [poor?] blacks don't have ID. That would mean they also don't have a bank, a pharmacy, a doctor, a car, and they don't use food pantries or free medical centers or any government services. All require ID. What's wrong with you Democrats? Why aren't you helping them get identification and appropriate services instead of scaring them into being block voters?

I volunteer at a clinic where people either have no income or less than $15,000 and I have yet to meet ONE who didn’t have an ID, and some are foreign and some out of state.  Why are the Democrats lying about this? For the same reason they lie about the income gap—votes.

Eric Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder is giving black Democrats a bad name as a whiny, petulant "nothing's my fault" kind of guy. When Tom Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez were maligned and beaten up by Democrats and the media, they didn't take it personally, but politically. And Obama's the ONLY President ever treated this way? Gracious. Clinton was impeached! Nixon resigned! Several have been killed in office. Vice President Agnew was forced to resign. Vice President Dan Quayle was so ridiculed by Democrats and the media I was embarrassed for THEM (I was a Democrat then). Remember the Murphy Brown incident, and he was right--but don't confuse liberals with the facts. Jimmy Carter is the butt of a million jokes, and was even in office. Last time I checked none of them were black, although Gonzalez was Hispanic. There is enough disgrace and malfeasance in Holder's tenure to sink several Attorney Generals, and he uses his race as an excuse? Man up!

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/04/a-fed-up-eric-holder-goes-after-congress-unprecedented-unwarranted-ugly-and-divisive/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-boehner-race-no-issue-in-gop-treatment-of-obama-eric-holder/

http://www.black-and-right.com/2012/04/16/eric-holder-and-lenny-breuer-protected-by-boehnerthe-wimp/

"The frustration is that the American people have not been told the truth about what happened at the IRS. The American people have not been told the truth about what happened in 'Fast and Furious.' The administration has not told the American people about the truth about Benghazi," Boehner said. "And we've been going through all these hearings, having to hold people in contempt because they've made it impossible to get to the documents. They've not been forthcoming. They owe the American people the truth." John Boehner, CBS file

“Why should Republicans tolerate the corruption of Holder and Breuer?   House Speaker, John Boehner, is protecting Holder and his gang and trying to make a deal with Holder to avoid a criminal contempt court action against Holder which Congress would easily win.   Is it because V. I. Governor de Jongh pulled the race card with,“It is a sad day in our nation when reckless allegations can be published without substance or verification as part of the smearing of our President or his Attorney General. This kind of broad brush stereotyping was shameful in the days of Jim Crow, and it is more so today?”    So, Boehner won’t be called a racist and will be a nice guy? Boehner participates, along with Holder and Breuer, enabling total public corruption and the perversion of US Law and the US Department of Justice.   Leo Durocher of the Brooklyn Dodgers, expressed it best, “Nice guys finish last.””  Black and Right

ICD-10 is part of the ACA and will be delayed again

Slipping past with all the other hoopla about ACA, the president has moved another date, originally planned for June of this year, to well beyond the elections of 2014. "On April 1, 2014, President Obama signed into law legislation that states that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot adopt the ICD-10 code set as the standard until at least Oct. 1, 2015. This is the second consecutive one-year delay for the ICD-10 implementation and is expected to be the last such delay."

Notice the "at least."  It could be later and it's already been delayed once. How's that for planning?

Luckily, there are now codes for injuries that occur while skiing on waterskis that are on fire as well as codes for orca bites. As you may imagine, these codes will certainly streamline my ability to treat my patients with these very common ailments.

So why is it that our government and its agencies think that there administrators are well qualified to develop codes for medical diagnoses? How is it that bizarre codes for humorous and extremely unlikely scenarios are being included and programmed into the system?

If you ask CMS administrators, they will tell you that these new codes were adopted by the US government after careful consultation with coding experts, CMS administrators and physician advisers. However, I am not exactly sure which physicians were involved in signing off on codes for “balloon accidents,” “spacecraft crash injuries,” and “injuries associated with a prolonged stay in a weightless environment.” http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/01/heels-obamacare-rollout-icd10.html