Programming for week 2 at Lakeside, Ohio

Two interesting seminars are scheduled: "Faith and foreign policy in the U.S." and "Cultural bridges as U.S. military strategy." And of course, a highlight at the Rhein Center, my husband will teach his class on perspective drawing and watercolor techniques.

Parts of Stephen Rock's latest book, "Faith and foreign policy," are on the Internet, and after looking at it, I probably won't walk out, which I often do rather than argue with the speaker.

Good preparation for this week is this document titled, "The American religious landscape and political attitudes" (2004) which defines traditionalists, centrists and modernists within 3 groups, the evangelicals, mainline protestants, and Roman Catholics. Traditionalists are the largest group within each category of Christian.

After Democrats were defeated in 2004 I remember watching a panel of them on PBS discussing the election and they agreed that they needed to (pretend) move to the centrist/traditional Christian viewpoint--and it worked in 2006 and 2008, mainly by redefining what values words mean. Obama used the "hope and change" vision that is New Testament language with a familiar ring to push his socialist agenda. He fooled many, but we're smater now. Unfortunately, too many "centrists" were just fence sitters and fell for a pretty face and charming rhetoric.

Dynamite program tonight at Hoover: Riders in the Sky. A very funny and musically talented cowboy quartet. Monday we'll hear the Jazz Ambassadors of the U.S. Army. Next Friday, Second City, which will have the whole audience laughing. This week's herb study is on horseradish--the herb of the year. What a strange name, and I'm sure Carolyn will explain.

I used our sparkling clean and fresh laundromat on 2nd street this morning. It's official: my washing machine has died. It won't spin out the water. We drove to Sandusky last night to look at Sears and Lowes. Doesn't seem to be much of a recession there. The parking lots of the motels were full (Cedar Point is near by) and so were the restaurants. Traffic everywhere.