Letter to a promoter for an interview

As my friends and family know, I've been writing this blog for almost 20 years (began October 2003). That's how I met some nice people whom I now follow on Facebook. So, I get offers to review books and do interviews. I did review some books, but I don't anymore, and have republished some canned interviews. Sometimes I get snarky and write back my opinions. I have no idea if anyone reads them. The one I received on Monday, January 17, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day wanted to let me know that young people aren't educated about MLK Jr. because "only 81%" knew about his "I've got a dream speech," and "only 82%" knew about the March on Washington. I think that's fantastic--they probably don't know the year their parents were born, or what happened on July 4. So, here's my response.

Dear XXXX

You’re not making a good case. Considering how LITTLE anyone, let alone youth, know about our history, if 81% know about the “I have a dream speech,” that’s fantastic! I know some who graduated from high school in 1986. One day I asked them a fairly simple question, "Which came first WWII or Vietnam War?" and they didn’t know! That’s the level of history education in our country, and we live in a great school district with high scores. What makes you think this is a lack of resources? I’ve seen Martin Luther’s statue on the internet identified as Martin Luther King! Our young people may know who King is but have never heard of Martin Luther. How many know Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican? Or that there were over 200 bills in Congress to fight lynching, and Democrats voted against all of them? You’ve got some buzz words in this message that tell your mission. . . “democratizing education,” “equal access,” “cause for equality,” “diverse backgrounds.” If you need to know how ignorant U.S. youth are, watch some of the Prager U videos or the Will Witt interviews on college campuses, “What is a conservative?” https://youtu.be/jVJO1IETjC8 Also notice how inarticulate the students are—except for the one or two who can define conservatism.

Also, MLK Day was the day I got your message—how would I do an interview BEFORE today?

Rereading old blogs on health, Lakeside, family memories

As my memory becomes less sharp, it's nice to find markers and reminders, many of which I don't even recognize, in my blog posts. The stats at blogger tell me I've written about 19,000 posts since 2003, and approx. 2,900,000 readers or bots have either stopped by, glanced at or read them. That's a lot more action than I ever got writing articles when I was working, and I don't have to hassle with an editor to get them published. Today I was looking up articles on exercise, homocysteine levels, Covid, chocolate, Lakeside (not all in one post) and found I'd written on all and since I try to include links, I also had places to look. 

I’ll never be a movie critic

The last two nights I watched movies I’d never heard of—Sex and the City (2008) and Uptown Girls (2003). I’d planned to blog about the fashions, actually.  But when I started researching them, I learned that Brittany Murphy who played the goofy nanny for Dakota Fanning’s character in Uptown Girls had died mysteriously in 2009. And also her father had mafia connections and that’s why she used her mother’s maiden name.  So I decided being a movie/fashion critic is harder than it looked. And I gave up.  It’s easier to try to figure out why anyone would vote for Joe Biden.

https://extratv.com/2019/12/20/brittany-murphy-a-look-back-at-her-mysterious-death-10-years-later/

Dairy Carrie has a few words for vegan Joaquin

“When you went on to say that we are “more disconnected from the natural world” in the same breath as saying that animals are equal to humans, you lost me. In the natural world where Mother Nature reins supreme, the lion does not see the gazelle as its equal. The lion sees the gazelle as its lunch. The natural world is where predator/prey relationships and the food chain exist. Humans have been eating animal products since the first person realized that meat is tasty and according to McDonald’s, since then billions and billions of burgers have been served. “

https://www.dairycarrie.com/2020/02/10/dear-joaquin/?

Snow blindness question

Dear Dr. Toole,

I’m a retired OSU librarian, and receive the Ohio State OSU Health Beat daily. Although it’s an interesting blog/aggregator/prepackaged digital publication, I think it’s a little sloppy on its research and links. It cites health articles from Reader’s Digest which has used articles from newspapers with no links or citations, or CNN, for instance.

Today it had an index summary of an article on snow blindness, and it refers the reader to a contracted commercial aggregator site, HealthDay, Dec. 15 which it often sites. In that article it credits, but doesn’t link to, a Wexner Medical article of Dec. 5. My concern was that the large photo accompanying the article was of 2 adult skiers, a man and woman, with a baby on the man’s back. The 2 adults had on sunglasses and the baby didn’t. The article explained in some detail the damage to eyes caused by bright sunlight and snow. It’s the first thing I noticed, and thought it was a little odd. So I decided I would try to find the original article. I googled as much as I knew—produced at OSU in December. There I found your name and an article on an inhouse  blog, December 3, https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/snow-blindness. From that I went to the staff directory. From that I went to your vitae. I see a lot of your articles concern children. So here’s my question, which should have been answered at the first link I went to at OSU Health Beat; Is it safe for young babies to be out skiing in the bright sunlight without proper sunglasses-- "Blocks 100% UV-A and UV-B," or "UV400."?

Also, because OSU has its own reliable articles for the layman on health topics (as yours was written), wouldn’t it be better and more authoritative for OSU Health Beat to cite those articles with a link rather than a commercial health cite that has further reduced the level of research providing no link. If HealthDay was able to find your article, why couldn’t the OSU staff?

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/-/media/Files/WexnerMedical/OSU%20HealthBeat/2019/12/MB-121719

https://optometry.osu.edu/directory/faculty/andrew-toole

https://consumer.healthday.com/eye-care-information-13/eye-and-vision-problem-news-295/snow-blindness-a-wintry-danger-752853.html

https://blog.quiet.ly/industry/aggregators-vs-traditional-publishers/

Old fashioned lies or bullshit?

If I refer you to an environmental, medical or nutritional story, I do try to use a responsible source, whether it’s about chocolate, red wine, vaccines or pollution from balloons. There are a lot of scare stories on Facebook and the Internet.  Best not to pass them along.

I wish there were a better word, but this does seem to cover the territory.

https://www.llrx.com/2018/12/the-bullshit-algorithm/
Does the story…
1. …feature a powerless, helpless, or disadvantaged victim?
2. …push a political or identity hot button?
3. …result in the most dramatic outcome possible (death versus injury)?
4. …include irrelevant details (details not directly relevant to the crux of the situation)?
5. …suggest a simplistic next step or action (get rid of X, stop eating Y)?
6. …include a “twist” in the story, a surprise, or a big reveal?
7. …feature “scientism” (little evidence with big conclusions)?
8. …include hard to verify evidence (no links to reputable source, or only links to other non-authoritative sources)?
9. …use anecdotal versus statistical corroborating evidence?
10. …make grammatical or spelling errors, or use clumsy language?
11. …use over the top emotional appeals incongruent with the situation?
12. …use scientific jargon (e.g. “dihydrogen oxide” instead of the more common “water”)?
13. …attempt to be relatable using the experience of people “like you”?
14. …make spurious correlations (seeing patterns of related items that could have other causes)?
15. …dangle dread (chemicals!) without explaining the context of risks?
16. …push for urgent, immediate action?
17. …include charts, graphs, images, or videos that don’t have anything to do with the core features of the story?
18. …hint at a conspiracy, that someone is hiding something (ideally, a “big corporation” or “big government”)?
19. …publish first in a “bullshit attractor” (TED Talk, Facebook, etc.)?
20. …include statistics touting its popularity (e.g. how many people are talking about this)?

Sally’s sourdough solution

Sally Hyde Lomax writes:  “I first made sourdough about seventeen or eighteen years ago when the children were all very small. I was inspired by a recipe in the Sunday papers from Gordon Ramsay. Personally I loved it and kept the culture going for quite a while, but the children hated it, and asked for “proper” bread. So eventually, I gave up, because Derek and I were getting fatter on it, and we were still buying standard bread for the children which we were probably also eating. We then later moved on to a bread maker which provided many years of packed lunches and lovely bread, but not sourdough.

However, a few years back, I had my gall bladder removed, and after that I annoyingly found that I could no longer eat wheat, or other gluten containing products, without a horrible reaction. At the same time the children started leaving school and the need for packed lunches diminished, and so the bread maker was used very little.

Then, recently three things happened. In the process of doing my research for my MA I went round to someone’s house for an interview, and was given a lovely piece of sourdough bread. Having been brought up to always accept hospitality graciously, I said nothing about my gluten intolerance, ate it and LOVED it. I waited the next day for a bad reaction, but found that I was absolutely fine. Then, I read an article about homemade sourdough being good for gluten intolerance, due to the probiotics. Obviously the article said quite clearly that it is not a cure all, but with longer proving times it appears to help, and gluten intolerants have gradually been able to successfully re introduce a little wheat to their diet. Finally, I chatted to a fiend who has a much more serious gut problem than me, which prevents her eating any dairy, caused by a very nasty infection she sadly picked up. She is currently looking at ways to fix the problem, which involve fully replacing the gut bacteria.

Suddenly the penny dropped. It was possibly the heavy duty antibiotics that I’d had for the horrendous infection of my pancreas, prior to my gall bladder removal, that had cleaned out my gut of all good bacteria, and thereby caused my problem.

And so a few weeks ago I started on a mission to replace the probiotics. I read lots more articles and decided that I was going to make a sourdough culture. I decided however to allow myself a bit of slack and made it with spelt rather than standard wheat. It is still wheat but it is less refined and a much more traditional version of the grain, and does appear to be a little more often tolerated by gluten sufferers.

I proudly grew my starter fur a week before the first loaf. I fed it carefully each day and nurtured it like a baby. And then I went about making the bread. The first few batches weren’t instantly successful as they were a little heavy, but I’ve persevered and now I have a method which appears to work. Paul Hollywood would possibly not yet approve, because it’s certainly not as light as standard bread, but the taste is delicious, and with sufficient proving times, I appear to be able to eat it. Hooray! It’s so much nicer than the average gluten free bread. “

  

I met Sally who is British blogging about 15 years ago and now follow her on Facebook, from which this was copied.

Fascinating guidelines for manners of well educated people

Because of Jim Acosta, there will need to be specific, written guidelines for behavior of journalists. He can only lose his press pass if he violates written rules, not common decency rules everyone understands.  In the past, there was an unwritten, decency code which journalists recognized in order to be welcomed at the White House (or anyone’s house).  Many groups on Facebook or online content services now have guidelines on how to post comments or content.  This one is from PLOS, a science publication website. Imagine having to tell well educated people not to plagiarize or defame each other.  Or not to yell opinions at the president or refuse to shut up.

• Don’t plagiarize.
• Don’t defame others.
• Don’t name-call, attack, threaten, or use profanity.
• Don’t use posts to promote products or services.
• Limit the number of links in your comment to three or fewer.
• Don’t use third-party content without permission.
• If you have permission to use third-party content, give proper attribution.
• Arguments based on belief are to be avoided. For example the assertion, “I don’t believe the results of Study X” must be supported.
• The content of comments should be confined to the demonstrable content of the specific blog post and should avoid speculation about the motivations or prejudices of its author.
• In its moderation of comments, PLOS BLOGS reserves the right to reject, at our discretion, any comment that is insufficiently supported by scientific evidence, is not constructive, or is not relevant to the original blog post.
• PLOS BLOGS reserves the right to remove any content that violates any of these guidelines, to block repeat and/or egregious violators from posting, and to suspend accounts as we deem necessary.
• PLOS Blogs is the final arbiter of the suitability of content for inclusion on its PLOS BLOGS Network.

Wouldn’t most of these seem like common sense, the basic rules of courtesy we should have learned in school or at home.  It’s the adult equivalent of playing in the sandbox with classmates in kindergarten.  This list came from the PLOS blog guidelines.
https://blogs.plos.org/about/

I’m not the only one who collects thoughts

 

 

 

Good food, good causes

I've been browsing "Mennonite Girls can cook" blog. I think they are Canadian. Lots of great, simple recipes. Like "Orange French Toast." http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/2017/07/orange-french-toast.html  Yummy.

  

"We are a group of ten women who share recipes and our faith, with a purpose, inspiring hospitality while using our resources to help needy people around the world.  A simple recipe blog that started to document our family favorite recipes began in 2008 has resulted in two cookbooks."
http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/p/about-us.html

DeVine wants you to HuntRepubicans

I've been blogging since October 2003 and about 1.5 million have visited my page, according to blogger.com statistics. Who knows? I don't know when Blogger started keeping the stats, because I didn't have that capability when I started. But it's certainly more people than read my articles in library journals when I was the veterinary medicine librarian at Ohio State.

This week the most popular article (164) was about that crazy Democrat, James DeVine, who urged his party to hunt down more Republicans after the Scalise shooting. But that was probably just hits on the topic, not actual stop and read. The left is demanding that NRA comment on that terrible tragedy where someone with a concealed carry permit was shot by a policeman, but where is the DNC disavowing a call to kill Republicans? I guess that shows the power of negative news--ropes people in.

Blogging is not the social media darling it was a decade ago, but I find it useful to look things up I was thinking 10-15 years ago. I particularly enjoy my Monday Memories, Thursday Thirteen and Friday Family photos. Yesterday I tried to view my blogs about our 2015 trip to Spain, but see I haven't written them.  I have over 500 photos in the file!

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/06/19/tucker-carlson-battles-hunt-republicans-democrat-over-steve-scalise-shooting-james-devine

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/hunt-republicans-tweet-james-devine/2017/06/16/id/796443/

Anti-white microaggression by the left

I came across a blog today that had good information, but labeled itself, "pro-white." That's a bit off-putting, isn't it? That's knee-jerk bias, ON MY PART, because I frequently come across pro-black, or pro-gay, pro-Catholic, or pro-woman blogs that openingly report from a biased point of view and I don't discount their views.

It's leftist microaggression that eats away at the fabric of our society--making everyone victims, spreading bigotry and hatred. Hatred of Christianity is at the root of socialism, and most of our Founders were European Christians or their descendants. They had the audacity to tell citizens they didn't need to worship the government or a King. Destroy the family and religion so government has no competition for loyalties, that's the point of the hatred they sow. 

It's on the TV news, opinion shows, internet social media--hate white Christians, dump Shakespeare because he's a dead white male, keep whites out of meetings, don't let white men or women speak at graduation, and teachers can't teach if they are white. Even Condi Rice is an honorary white because she's a Republican. If Muslims are bad, then Christians must be worse because they fought back their armies and religion a thousand years ago. After the Orlando tragedy, lefties came out of the woodwork to blame Christians because there were two protected groups, gays and Muslims, so the only logical thing for a liberal to do was blame Christians.

Lots, and lots of hatred. I haven't yet heard Omar Mateen called a white man, but since that's how the Census labels him, I'm sure it's out there in a hate message by ‪#‎Occupy‬ Someone's Mind or ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬.

Do you need to be present at your wedding?

Although this “Ask a Librarian” question primarily concerns Islamic law in The Gambia where proxy marriages and divorces are allowed, there was a time (WWII) when proxy marriages were more common in the U.S. and is still legal in four states,

“In the United States, proxy marriages were apparently common during World War II; today, four states (California, Colorado, Montana and Texas) still recognize this form of marriage with certain restrictions.”

Maybe it’s just me because I was a librarian, but the Library of Congress  Law librarians blog is fascinating, and I could spend a day or two just wandering through.

According to a survey, the top 10 Astroturfers

TOP 10 ASTROTURFERS by Sharyl Attkisson

Astroturfers often disguise themselves and publish blogs, write letters to the editor, produce ads, start non-profits, establish Facebook and Twitter accounts, edit Wikipedia pages or simply post comments online to try to fool you into thinking an independent or grassroots movement is speaking. They use their partners in blogs and in the news media in an attempt to lend an air of legitimacy or impartiality to their efforts. They call truth a myth, then “de-bunk it;’ they build straw men then chop them down; and I think they make about 20% of their stories about LBGT, even though that’s 2% of the population. (My opinion, not Sharyl’s.)

1. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Everytown

2. Media Matters for America

3. University of California Hastings Professor Dorit Rubenstein Reiss and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Dr. Paul Offit

4. “Science” Blogs such as: Skeptic.com, Skepchick.org, Scienceblogs.com (Respectful Insolence), Popsci.com and SkepticalRaptors.com

5. Mother Jones

6. Salon.com and Vox.com

7. White House press briefings and press secretary Josh Earnest [I’d add Marie Harf]

8. Daily Kos and The Huffington Post

9. CNN, NBC, New York Times, Politico and Talking Points Memo (TPM)

10. MSNBC, Slate.com, Los Angeles Times and Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC and Jon Stewart.

http://sharylattkisson.com/top-10-astroturfers/

You can be sure my blog has no sponsors, no ads, it’s 100% Norma’s research, opinion, and experience. When I’m wrong and when I’m right, I’m standing on real grass, not Astroturf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU

Windows Live Writer

I've been blogging for 10 years, but even so, nothing has made it easier than Windows Live Writer. I write my draft, it checks my spelling and grammar, let's me download the photos, and check the labels. If I copy something from another online source which has links, it picks up the links for me.  Then I hit publish.  It retains the drafts in case I find a mistake after I've posted it. I've become dependent and hardly know how to code or revise my template anymore.

http://www.hanselman.com/.../DownloadWindowsLiveWriter201...

My New Year’s Resolution 2013

I did this.  Only put 4 slips of paper in it.  But I looked at it today.  I had forgotten all 4, so it’s still a nice plan, if you can keep up with it. I guess this is what blogs are for: web logs, a log you keep on the world wide web.

I am the First Amendment

I am a blogger—I support the first amendment.  The democratization of the media is threatened.  http://iam1a.com/   I am protected, and so are you.  I am the First Amendment. To exercise your first amendment rights set up a blog account, but don’t expect me to let you be nasty, insulting and mean here.

Happy 10th blogiversary to me

Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom coined the term "weblog" Dec. 17, 1997.  It meant a diary or log kept on the world wide web in reverse chronological order, or simply BLOG, that others could read. Technically, I started blogging on October 3, 2003, but then back dated it to October 1 because it just looked untidy the other way.

Barger thought blogs should be primarily links to other people’s writings. Why I don’t know.  I like to include links to the articles and sources I cite, but it’s just plain boring to come across a blog that has two sentences and then a link to someone else who thought of it first and did the research.

I’m not sure when blogging peaked—maybe 2005-2006, as least for young people—so it was hot less than a decade.  Now if I want to read the people I met blogging I need to track them down on Face Book, Twitter, or Pinterest because after 2012 it was just hard to find them.  Social media has moved on to the pithy and brief, the bitter and sarcastic.

For this blog I’ve written over 12,000 posts and had about 580,000 page views in 10 years (Blogger tracks that for me).  But I have 9 other blogs, or maybe 10, so all told, I’ve said and read a lot in 10 years. I used to print them off (don’t really trust Google to maintain Blogger forever), but that soon became a space hog in my office, so I quit doing that about 5 years ago.

Here’s what I used to blog about—13 topics.  The longer I was retired, the less I wrote about libraries; the older I got the less I said about parenting; after a few years, I’d pretty much exhausted my memory on the good old days and family stories; the people who ran the memes like Thursday 13 and Monday Memories and the poetry challenges all turned to other ventures.  So that sort of leaves “current events,” or what a mess the world is in.  And recipes.  That’s always a good fall back.

Here’s my problem . . .

How to be a guest at any blog—but especially mine. Thursday Thirteen November 8

                    

1.  Don’t attack your host. Think of your visit as standing in the hall or on the porch and you’re passing out political literature you want her to read.  Do you start out by accusing the owner of hatred and vitriol because she disagrees with you? 

2.  If you disagree with an idea or a citation, please supply the information.  I’m smart and I cite my sources of those writers who are smarter, but I’m not a mind reader about what you call “hate.’

3.  If you’ve got more than a paragraph, please start your own blog.  It’s not difficult and many sites are free. Or hit publish and make a second comment.  Looks better on my site meter.

4.  You can skip the name calling--homophobic, racist, sexist, etc.  That dog won’t hunt here.  Plus your mother taught you better.

5.  Please pay attention to quote marks and citations.  I’ve been attacked as homophobic for quoting gay bloggers and journalists! 

6.  Just because your president is black, doesn’t mean his policies are good for black people, minorities, churches, or the economy. If what he touches becomes untouchable for bloggers because of his race, how will you ever know what he’s doing?  The media won’t tell you.

7.  If you don’t like the cartoons or graphics, you should see the ones I’ve rejected as disrespectful or nasty.

8.  I’ve been blogging for nine years.  And you?

9.  I’m a one issue (pro-life) voter, writer, woman.  Start to finish, Genesis to Revelation, womb to tomb.  Yes, I think rape is awful, but it’s not worse than murdering the innocent child that results from the violent act. Incest is icky, but in my genealogy I’m my own 6th cousin, so who do you want to eliminate?

10. I’m an evangelical Christian (Lutheran) who loves many of the documents of the Reformation and the early church before it split up. I perfectly understand your main line Christian views because I was one (UCC, Church of the Brethren), and I know the cafeteria Catholic outlook well from all my Catholic friends who use contraception.  How well do you know the documents of evangelicalism?

11.  Not only do I blog, but I’m on Facebook, and several e-mail discussion groups. I’m also a published author.  And what have you researched and published?  You can cite it here and get some free publicity. I’ll not call you names.

12. How recently did you read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or the Northwest Ordinance? I do it about once a year, but I’m also old enough to know the Democrats invented Jim Crow and LBJ fought civil rights all the way until he figured out he could capture the loyalty of blacks for 200 years if he switched sides.

13. FDR locked up about a million Americans, German, Italian and Japanese, in 1942.  I guess he thought they were disloyal or dangerous.  And you?  Do you read much about the heroes of American history? Write a blog—I’ll come and visit and not call you names.

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Thirteen, try this site.