1063 Tag you're it. . .If I could be

The game consists of answering five questions and then tagging three blogger friends to answer five questions. I can also add three categories. Vox Lauri has tagged me. The questions she sent are:

If I could be a scientist...
If I could be a farmer...
If I could be a musician...
If I could be a doctor...
If I could be a painter...
If I could be a gardener...
If I could be a missionary...
If I could be a chef...
If I could be an architect...
If I could be a linguist...
If I could be a psychologist...
If I could be a librarian...
If I could be an athlete...
If I could be a lawyer...
If I could be an inn-keeper...
If I could be a professor...
If I could be a writer...
If I could be a llama-rider...
If I could be a bonnie pirate...
If I could be an astronaut...
If I could be a world famous blogger...
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world...
If I could be married to any current famous political figure...
If I could be an Office Supply Salesman...
If I could be a Dog-show judge...
If I could be a Coal Miner...
if i could be a baker...
if i could be a comedian...
if i could be a monk.

My response:

If I could be a musician, I would play piano like my sister who is fabulously talented.
If I could be a dog-show judge, I’d be biased toward Dalmatians.
If I could be a farmer, I wouldn’t use pesticides or herbicides and eat corn on the cob with hot butter and salt in early summer.
If I could be writer, I’d show up at Regis and Kelly, Oprah and the bank while enjoying 67 weeks on the best seller list.
If I could be an Office Supply Saleswoman I’d set up a flashy web site and work from home while I blogged.

And I’m adding,
If I could be a publisher
If I could be a spy
If I could be a greeting card designer

And I'm tagging Karin, Cuppa, Pat in NC.

1062 Preparing for guests

Tomorrow I'm having guests for brunch/lunch. Some women are fastidious housekeepers, some are gourmet cooks and some are fabulous hostesses. I'm none of those, but for a few hours I can fake an average of the three. Maybe I can't be a 10, but I can be a darn good 5. Today I am cleaning and setting the table; yesterday I prepared most of the food. This will allow me to be a good hostess tomorrow and only pay attention to my guests instead of freaking out over water spots on the knife blades or a missing salad plate that's in the dishwasher.

Today I'm dusting everything at eye level, for anyone 5'2" to 5'8". The men don't care, so I'm only measuring the women. I'm really going after the cat hair too. You never know when a guest might have allergies and sneeze all over the end table you just cleaned. Also, I vacuumed the cold air returns. That's something you don't usually look at in your own house, but if you have a pet, your returns probably look like a piece of gray felt. Also, your HVAC will work a lot better.

I'm also really cleaning the bathrooms. Again, only women notice, but I hate going in to freshen up at a dinner party and find dust on the toilet and cobwebs on the mirror. Just makes me a tad suspicious about the food prep area, eh? Do you have Cross and Bible interior doors? Maybe you didn't know they were called that, but I'm married to an architect, and boy are they dust catchers--the doors not the husband. And computer equipment. Yikes. My desk is next to the only downstairs "powder room." Nothing attracks cat hair and dirt more than technology.

One of my guests is a collector--of antiques, seasonal ceramic things, and just about anything historical having to do with cooking. So I gave a swipe across my great-grandmother's "wachamacallit" (I think it was used to punch down rising bread dough) and my grandmother's ceramic butter churn that looks like a small cement mixer. People do like to touch, and I'd be embarrassed if they got dirty fingers (these things are dusted only if company is coming). One guest is a piano teacher, but I gave my piano to my daughter in 1996, so now she is dusting that.

That's enough blogging for now. I have to go poke the artificial day lilies around the patio wall and make a pecan pie. My husband hates them, but they are my favorite, so I only make one when I have guests around to eat at least 60% of it. The other pie is apple--for that, I am unmatched, a complete 10.

1061 Pepsico's gonna pay for this

Have you ever been in a group and noticed someone, usually an outsider, trying too hard to be an insider? That’s what Pepsico’s CFO Indra Nooyi did at Columbia’s Commencement Sunday. She gave the U.S. the finger. Just trying to be one of the good ol' boy blue staters. Suckin up, as it were. And then back peddling when she set even a few liberals, to say nothing of conservatives, back on their heels, she claims her speech was “misconstrued.” In this day of blogging, you’d better be ready to have your text analyzed and your hand gestures videotaped.

The Times of India reports: “She pointed in particular to paragraphs from her speech where she spoke of her fealty to her adopted country. "Although I’m a daughter of India, I’m an American businesswoman. My family and I are citizens of this great country," she said, adding, "This land we call home is a most-loving, and ever-giving nation -- a "promised land" that we love dearly in return. And it represents a true force that – if used for good -- can steady the hand along with global economies and cultures." “

Sweet. But I'm not impressed. Wes Martin, an MBA graduate in the audience reported (at Power Line) that holding up the middle finger "She launched into a diatribe about how the US is seen as the middle finger to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees us as an overbearing, insensitive and disrespectful nation that gives the middle finger to the rest of the world. According to Ms. Nooyi, we cause the other finger nations to cower under our presence. But it is our responsibility, she continues, to change the current state of world opinion of the US. It is our responsibility to make the other fingers rise in unison with us as we move forward. She then goes on to give a personal anecdote about some disrespectful US business women in an Asian country and how that is typical of Americans overseas. No talk of what the US has done for the world throughout its history. No discussion about the ills that have been cured and the rights that have been wronged by the US. Just how wrong we are for the way we are perceived and how right they are in their own perceptions of the United States."

It’s a shame when a woman and a minority makes it through the glass ceiling only to embarrass herself digitally. Oh well, I needed a reason to stop buying Fritos.

Link to her speech

1060 Got gas?

For high flying frequent flyers.

Seen at Badaunt and My best gadgets.

1059 The Shopping Adventure

A few people are coming for brunch on Sunday so I needed some items and some kitty litter. Only one Kroger, the one south and west of the University carries "our" brand. While noticing the new construction on the campus I got in the wrong lane, and turned down another street, thus taking me past a huge new apartment complex near Krogers that I hadn't seen before. This area when it was on the rural far northwest side of Columbus was settled by African Americans in the late 19th century. Gradually, the white suburbs grew up around it and its little church, and from what I could see, it has now been pretty much obliterated by progress--and they probably got a hefty price for the lots.

That Kroger has also changed since the last time I bought kitty litter. I spent a lot of time just wandering the aisles looking at dishes, small kitchen appliances, and the new book and magazine sections, much fancier than the old ones. It had everything imaginable--even a Starbucks--except the one item I really needed, Half n half. I got so carried away looking at the goodies I also forgot to pick up the white flour for the apple pie.

When I got to the check out I asked for a courtesy card, and was told "We don't do that any more, but you can type in your phone number." "I don't have a Kroger card and don't want one." So I tapped the guy in front of me and asked if he'd slide his card through for me. And he did (he gets the goody points for my purchase). The flustered clerk then told me I wasn't allowed to do that (it was done by then). I told her it still recorded the purchase, so why did it matter. She had no answer, but I think she thought it was cheating. She then told me I could go to the office and get an application, and again I repeated, "But I don't want a Kroger card."

Oh well, I suppose I could try stealing the kitty litter. It might be easier than going through this routine each time. Loyalty cards are the 21st century's wooden nickle. I do let them stamp my coffee card at Panera's, but no one asks me to fill out an application to get it. They sell that information, you know--probably a bigger profit than Half n half.

1058 Reducing Radiation Exposure

“Use of a custom-designed lightweight tungsten-antimony shield during chest computed tomography (CT) examination reduces the radiation dose delivered to female breasts by 43% to 73%, without compromising diagnostic information or image quality, according to the results of a study presented here at the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society 105th Annual Meeting.”

Story at Medscape.com, now celebrating its 10th anniversary

1057 Flush out the Perps

Library books and some Portage County taxpayers are victims of the stacks urinator in two public libraries. Sounds like a guy thing, although I've seen pictures of women urinating standing up, so you never know. Blake reported this at LISNews.com. This has as much appeal for library users as the unfiltered terminals with porn that librarians seem unable to handle.

What color are you?

you are palegreen #98FB98

Your dominant hue is green. You're logical and steadfast, focused on figuring life out and doing what makes sense. You value being trusted because you know you're taking the time to figure things out and everyone should just follow you. Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

1055 The next bogus news story

It's just a hunch here, but I'm thinking the next news story proven to be bogus and blown out of proportion (with fewer casualties than the Koran flushing story) will be the one about pushy Christians at the Air Force Academy. It seems to have originated with a female Lutheran Chaplain, if the one I saw on TV is the person referred to here.

"A chaplain at the Air Force Academy has described a "systemic and pervasive" problem of religious proselytizing at the academy and says a religious tolerance program she helped create to deal with the problem was watered down after it was shown to officers, including the major general who is the Air Force's chief chaplain."

I'm a Lutheran (but not pre-natal or sprinkled--I grew up anabaptist and have been immersed) and I know Lutherans are touchy about their wallets and tongue tied about evangelizing. If a Baptist were to breathe a word that he found his relationship with Christ a help in times of stress or battle, a Lutheran might be clueless because that's not "our" terminology. Also, Lutherans believe baptism and communion are sacraments and a means of Grace, but only those two, so that too might cause some disagreements, say over coffee or even in the classroom, with Catholics or other Protestants. Christians can get very heated about this, and feel quite threatened if someone hints their belief system doesn't measure up. And this problem seems to have arisen in the "Respecting the Spiritual Values of all People," class or R.S.V.P, created by Capt. MeLinda Morton. If she attended a Lutheran seminary, she probably skipped the class on "How to share your faith."

But the fact that the New York Times , WaPo, and the Socialist web sites are on this story like ants at a barbeque makes me suspicious that the story is a lot of hot anti-Christian air.

I would have tossed her program just for the cutesy acronym.

1054 Is Poverty Generational--Answering Vox Lauri

In response to my blog about “Easy does it,” the ten easy, personal lifestyle choices of the last 30 years that are causing people in the their 30s and 40s to fall behind their parents’ standard of living, Lauri, a college educated librarian who is the primary support of her family, wrote:

“You made mention of your stable, supportive family that helped you start out in the world, that, as you know, is priceless. Imagine trying to live and pay for your future while going to school. Even a state school can break someone with no funding. Add into that mix kids who have never had squat wanting to fit in with kids who have new clothes and cars, you end up with bankruptcy. And once you are in debt, good luck getting out-- I swear the system is rigged to keep you down. And ironically those who shrug off astronomical interest rates as "punishment for foolishness" well they pay too in taxes to support social service agencies and greater demands on charity.”

Yes, a stable, caring family is a wonderful asset. I can’t tell you how thankful I am that often Dad said, “No,” when I wanted a loan. It caused some hurt feelings and arguments, but “father knew best,” as the saying goes. Also helpful was the fact that in the early 1960s banks would not consider a wife’s income in calculating how much money they’d loan for a mortgage. Tithing our income for church for the last 30 years also had the added benefit of never having any extra cash for eating out or movies. All this worked together to start a pattern for us of never relying on my income until my husband went into business in 1994. And by then the children had left home, the cat died, and I had tenure, benefits and a wonderful career.

Generational poverty is a nice theory, until you really look at the sons and daughters of my generation. Most of my peer group--the educated, upper middle class 4th and 5th percentile group, living in some of the finest suburbs with the best public schools and private schools--have children and grandchildren making many of the “easy choices” I listed, and some will probably never be able to permanently attain their parents’ standard of living until the will is probated. Even if they inherit a generous amount, a life time of bad choices may cause them to squander that. I can’t think of a single family in my social group whose adult children haven’t lived together before marriage, or brought a "before the union" child into the marriage, or experienced falling income from a divorce or two or three, or filed for bankruptcy from extensive consumer credit, or leased too many a new cars, or bought a bigger home they didn’t need, or had problems with alcohol and drugs decimating the family income. Suicides, jail terms, prostitution, gambling and lots of returning prodigals--you name it, and my financially comfortable generation has seen it happen in their families.

The level of CEO salaries, the outsourcing of American jobs, and being a wage “slave,” Lauri’s other points (and I agree CEO’s salaries are way out of line, but we've taxed American businesses into leaving the country) would not have changed any of this spiraling downward creating the income gap between generations. We are still a nation of great opportunity and freedom--but freedom of choice comes with a huge price tag that says "WAIT," and for some that price is just too high and too painful.

Update: Read Walter E. Williams' article on How not to be Poor. A family of four is "poor" by our gov't standards with a household income of $18,810 (2003). Although my 10 easy steps were about a gap developing between generations in the upper percentiles, not poverty per se, it is clear that unmarried parents are the biggest cause of poverty among children, so single parent homes aren't helping the middle class stay afloat either.

1053 Hard to believe where this came from

"The filibuster is an inherently reactionary instrument most famously used to block civil rights legislation for a generation. Democratic senators themselves decried the filibuster not long ago when they were in the majority and President Clinton's judicial nominees were being blocked.

Frist is on the verge of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. He plans to bring the nomination of Priscilla R. Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, before the full Senate today. Democrats have blocked her nomination in the past, and Frist is now threatening to force a change in rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial nominees. That would be a great triumph for the American people. It would be an even greater triumph if the Senate were to destroy the filibuster altogether."

LA Times editorial, May 18, 2005 (unless this is an example of one of those "pharming" tricks).

1052 The Newsweek Story that Killed

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/05.05.15.Flushed-X.gif

I heard a former MP from "GITMO" call in on the Glenn Beck show yesterday and he outlined the careful procedures to protect the Koran. He disbelieved this story from the first time he heard it. In fact, he thought the military was at risk. He said only a Moslem chaplain could touch it, and the MPs were not allowed to look through them for hidden explosives.

Christians know that God's Word is not on the paper. Whether we print it out from the Internet, read it in 16th century English, or recite what we learned in Bible School 40 years ago, it is all God's Word. Nor is our freedom in the flag or the pledge. Not so with Moslems and the Koran, and I think terrorists will take advantage of how the US bends over backward to protect the beliefs of that faith group.

1051 Cold and Creepy--Planning my Funeral

When we married in 1960 we had a huge emotional and financial safety net--between us we had six parents, seven grandparents, and one great-grandmother. Not to mention our own siblings and all the siblings of our parents and grandparents. We brought to our marriage about $200, some wedding gifts I'm still using, an old Buick that stalled at every intersection, two incomplete college educations, and a lot of youthful naivete. I know we didn’t appreciate the wealth in that bank of knowledge and support--I mean, no one is smart in their early 20s, right? I remember an uncle helping me with the income tax property depreciation in 1962, and my dad explaining mutual funds to me in 1990. My mother’s wise counsel went far beyond finances to religion, marriage, parenting, gardening, cooking, sewing, reading and friendships. One of my aunts never failed to appear with a cheery hello and her bubbly personality when we visited my parents, making us feel special even in our mid-50s. Now they have all “gone to their reward,” “passed on” or are “in the arms of Jesus.” (see my poem “Dying for a Verb). I will always miss my grandmother who died when I was 43.

During the grief of losing each parent (only one was sudden and unexpected), we’d vow to pre-plan (called pre-need in the funeral business) so that cost would be covered and our children or surviving spouse wouldn’t get drawn into bad decisions at a difficult time. Now it is just us, so yesterday we met with a person (salesman? director? planner?) at a local funeral home.

After all the paper shuffling, throat clearing, chit-chat and carefully chosen words, we went back into the room with all the overpriced paper goods and the array of caskets. It was very cold and dark in there. Frankly, I don’t think I need to buy a Kincaid register book for $110, or a $50 box of thank you cards. But if you think you’ll save money by ordering your casket from somewhere else and using it for storage until you need it, think again. We discovered the casket is a very small expense, at least the style I selected, a tasteful olive tone in 20 gauge steel for $1795. Even the Monticello Oak, which was very handsome and simple and my husband’s first choice was under $3,000. The ballooning costs are in the vault (ground or mausoleum), the transportation, and opening and closing the grave.

It’s a good thing we had this little chat, because we definitely discovered we had very different tastes in funerals! (We’ve always had trouble agreeing on furniture and décor, so I suppose I’m not surprised.) It reminds me a bit of planning my daughter’s wedding in 1993. I started with a how-to-book and a dollar figure, and she took it from there. My husband’s plan came to about $13,000 and mine was under $5,000. And yes, you can pre-pay, but it is actually an insurance plan, and it only looks good if you pay at the beginning, because if you pay over 10 years, it doubles the cost and probably eats up any savings. We brought all the worksheets home, and we’ll have to hammer out a few more details, but here’s a break down of their charges (not necessarily what we chose):

Basic services and overhead $1,245
Embalming $ 595
Body prep $ 260
Facilities for viewing $ 425
Ceremony at funeral home $ 495
Memorial service at funeral home $ 325
Ceremony at another funeral home $ 495
Ceremony at any other facility $ 495
Memorial service at any other facility $ 325
Anatomical donations $ 495
Organist $ 70
National music service $ 20
Refrigeration $ 75
Cremation $ 275
Transfer of remains (30 miles) $ 175
Hearse (30 miles) $ 225
Limo (30 miles) $ 195
SUV (30 miles) $ 175
Caskets $795 to 24,000
Outer container $595 to 18,000
Burial clothing $100-$200
Forwarding remains $2,315
Receiving casket from another mortuary $ 895
Immediate burial (no ceremony) $1,720
Direct cremations (no ceremony) $1,664
Cremation containers $95 to $3,975
Package basics $2,195

On top of these costs are the cemetery costs which we’re still looking at. Per square foot, this is pricey real estate, probably Hawaiian coastline prices. I don’t think anyone will be visiting our grave site, especially if we live as long as our parents. So a little flat marble slab in the ground is sufficient, and I haven’t looked at the prices. These prices don't differ greatly from a 2002 article by Motley Fool, but you can see the price creep in just 3 years.

I used to think cemeteries that looked like set-aside prairie reserves or jogging parks were nice, but after visiting Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery last summer to see the Frank Lloyd Wright’s Blue Sky Mausoleum, I’m lusting after marble monuments and mature trees.



I’d like to write a somber but pithy concluding paragraph for this entry, and usually they come to me if I just keep typing, but somehow, nothing comes to mind.

* * *

Five things not to say at a funeral is at my other, other blog. Caution: contains theological concepts.

1050 Easy does it, the widening gap between rich and poor

If you are a liberal and you don’t read the Wall Street Journal, you’re missing a great opportunity to find out what is wrong with our business driven economy and culture. It won’t do you much good to read a left wing or socialist screed--everything you read there will be incorrect and biased. Preaching to the choir, as it were. But the WSJ comes down hard on misbehavior in business, government and education and doesn’t pull any punches. The female journalists are particularly ruthless in finding graft, fraud and the soft underbellies of the capitalist system.

Right now the WSJ is running a series on the widening gap between the rich and poor in the United States. The first installment by David Wessel had the oddest statement about American politics that I’ve seen in a long time: “Americans have elected politicians who oppose using the muscle of government to restrain the forces of widening inequality.” Really? Ever heard of Title 9, or Medicaid? Earlier in the article was the phrase, “Despite the rise of affirmative action. . .” Can both statements be true? It would appear to me that the constant tinkering our government has done (and for most of my adult life, the people I elected, the Democrats, were in control of the Congress) has made our life what it is today.

Today’s installment by Bob Davis was about easy credit, and most of his examples were from Utah, a state we generally think of as conservative, religious and Republican. I haven’t seen the rest of the series, but I’m offering my ten easy and ubiquitous reasons, in no particular order, why the gap has widened in the last 35 years.

1. Easy credit cards: We got our first credit card in the late 60s--I think it was a "Shopper’s Charge." We now have one department store credit card and one bank card--we’ve never carried a balance. Since the late 80s and into the 90s, many new households have never known what it was to live on their earned income.

2. Easy divorce: Christians now have the same divorce rate as anyone else in the culture. When we married 45 years ago, regular religious observance offered families some protection. No fault divorce particularly hurt women and children, pushing them economically into competition with two income families.

3. Easy sex: Casual one-night stands were glorified in the movies of the 70s and 80s. Although adultery and fornication had long been a theme in literature, drama and movies, casual sex and living together before marriage became the gold standard of relationships by the 80s, even though it’s been proven that it increases the divorce rate. Then easy sex came into the living rooms via TV so that even young children think who’s spending the night is no more important than what toothpaste mom buys. Women having and raising babies alone is the biggest cause of growing poverty.

4. Easy birth control and abortion: The millions of Americans that might have sprung from the loins of some of our best and brightest have been denied life itself, and thus their slots in the pie chart has been taken by poor, uneducated immigrants. Obviously this creates a huge gap between the middle class and the poor, who instead of having a solid footing as those aborted citizens might have had, flood across our borders or arrive as refugees with nothing.

5. Easy technology and gadgets: Time wasted on I-pods and text messaging and vegging out in front of bad movies on DVDs has certainly absorbed billions of hours that could have been invested in networking, education or advancing up the career ladder. Cable and cell phone monthly costs easily equal what we spent on a mortgage.

6. Easy bankruptcy: Load up the credit cards with consumer spending, mortgage your future, then make the rest of us pay it off for you. It might have been Plan B 20 years ago, but is now Plan A. Interest only mortgages, leases for larger and more expensive vehicles, second mortgages--for a generation who thinks the future will be paid for by someone else, it’s a recipe for a growing gap.

7. Easy leisure: Thirty five years ago (1970) few middle class families took vacations--if Dad had a week off (and most companies didn’t offer it) he spent it fixing the house. Sure it’s a huge industry and employs a lot of people, but we’re looking at the gap aren’t we? We’d probably been married 10 years before we took a family vacation (my parents never had one), and then it was at my mother’s farm for a week. Our daughter and her husband had been to Key West, Arruba and took a Mexican cruise in the first 5 years of their marriage.

8. Easy entertainment: This is related to leisure and technology, but today’s young families have difficulty being alone or quiet, it would seem. Even 30 years olds seem unable to walk around without head phones. They are spending their children’s future at movies, sporting events and theme parks. A visit to the library is most likely to pick up a movie, not a book.

9. Easy college loans: Instead of attending a state school, working during the summer or attending closer to home, many young people begin their working lives with huge debt, a debt that takes years to pay off, assuming they don’t default. Loans were so easy in the 80s, that parents who could well afford to pay tuition had their children at the public trough.

10. Easy shopping: You can be a couch potato or a computer novice and never leave home to shop. Addiction is easy. Just call in with the credit card.

See? And I haven’t even said a word about how much health care costs, or how the women’s movement changed our culture, public transportation or taxes. And while the government is tangentially involved in these areas, mostly it boils down to perfectly legal choices, choices which when they become ingrained in our way of life lead to poverty or slippage down by a quintile for the next generation.

1049 R.I.P. My New Yorker subscription has FINALLY died

Scott Esposito is blogging today about something he read in the New Yorker. I'm sure it's just great--I have myself occasionally found something worthwhile in the New Yorker. But I realized today when I was clearing the coffee table in preparation for company coming (removed about 13 magazines) that my subscription has finally ceased. Oh blessed day, I thought you'd never arrive. Scott's Blog, Conversational Reading, is a litblog and contains reviews. He's also a writer.

1048 Learning Denglish

The Blonde Librarian was surprised when she settled in Germany with her husband how many English words permeated German. But she was also surprised to find out they sometimes didn't mean what she thought. Read her story here about das Handy, das Mobbing, and der Smoking.

1047 Addicted to the Truth

I got 5 out of 5 correct on this test. See how you score.

1046 Spring planting time

I planted my red geraniums today--with just a sprinkle of white baby’s breath (I think) to set off the color. I can see them out my office window near the Japanese Maple (I think) and Magnolia (I think). All my flowers are artificial, but the dirt and the pot are real. I think I have a few sprigs of artificial ivy I can poke in the pot. Here’s a poem my brother-in-law, the horticulturist, sent me last year.

Norma works in fertile soil
And gently tends her seed;
She diligently plies the hose
And pulls up every weed.

In time, her flowers bloom with joy,
Their colors quite fantastic;
But they won't die or fade because
Each one is made of plastic.

1045 Blogging at its Best--The Vietnam Experience

If you want to read blogging at its best, drop by the web page of Neo-Neocon, a 50-something woman (I think) writing about why and how she is no longer a liberal, but isn't sure what to call herself (I can certainly identify). She is doing a series on Vietnam and its aftermath, how the war changed our culture and is affecting us to this day. She has just finished part 4-C of "A Mind is a Difficult Thing to Change." Her own excellent essays are expanded by the comments from her readers, many of whom are Vietnamese-Americans, or Vietnam era vets, or people who now feel betrayed--yet a second time. When I last looked at 4-C she had 58 comments, many of which are long essays themselves.

Neo Neocon writes: "Subsequently, if the press continues to be seen as the truthteller and the government the liar, no number of press releases by the government can ever overrule what the press says about an event. These beliefs have been adopted for a reason--to make sense of a terrible experience, based on the best knowledge available at that time. Part of the "never again" reaction is that it becomes a point of pride to never again let oneself be duped, to never again naively believe. Those who no longer trust in the government are seen as sadder, but infinitely wiser.

But what if, at some time in the future, evidence surfaces that that hard-won knowledge may be wrong? How many people, having lost faith because of a betrayal, and having laboriously reconstructed a new worldview, can revise that worldview again? What if that worldview turns out to have been a house of cards? Who can stand two betrayals--trust having been placed in a rescuer, the press, who is now exposed as having been a liar and a betrayer, also? Who can return to believing that the government--although flawed (there is no returning to the initial state of naive, unquestioning trust)--is now to be trusted more than the press, after all?"

Blog on, Neo Neo. We're all waiting for the next part of the series.

1044 Imagine chaperoning on this school trip

Cindy (one of my linkers) and her husband were chaperoning a group of 12 seniors in Washington DC and were in the Capitol Building when it was evacuated during that airspace scare last week.

When they weren't moving quickly enough, one cop yelled: ""Don't you remember 9/11? This is not a drill! RUN!!!"

Meantime, sirens of all kinds were sounding, official cars were zooming by with police escorts, whistles were blowing, and we heard fighter jets overhead. My first reaction was confusion, then disbelief--"This CAN'T be happening!" Then fear sets in, then self-preservation. My husband was struggling to keep our group together. Girls were having trouble running because of sandals and flip-flops; one boy in our group lost a shoe at one point and had to get it back on; all the while people continued to yell at us to "run! move! get out of here!"

I don't know how far we ran, maybe only a few blocks, but we re-grouped in front of the Department of Health and Human Services building, and shortly afterward a security guard informed us that the all-clear had been given. Shaken, out of breath, still on edge but relieved, we started calling family members on our cell phones."
Whole story here.

My story isn't nearly as exciting, but I'll tell it anyway. Friday night we went with our neighbors Bill and Jean to "Old Bag of Nails" where we'd eaten almost every Friday night since it opened until mid-February when they changed the menu. We hadn't been there in almost three months. Last night we were watching the 10 p.m. news and that restaurant was the focus of a robbery/chase story on Saturday.

"Upper Arlington and Columbus police chase a suspected robber through the streets.
Police say Darryl Kelly robbed the Old Bag of Nails Pub in Upper Arlington, and took off with police cruisers close behind. The chase went on for 7 miles through Upper Arlington and Columbus. At one point Kelly's car smashed into one of the police cruisers trying to stop him. The chase finally ended 11 minutes later at Taylor and Rosethorn Ave." . . . [Recently, we've been eating at Lane Ave., but apparently he was there on Friday and we weren't]. . . "Upper Arlington police say a man armed with a revolver entered into the Christopher and Banks store at the Lane Avenue mall late Friday afternoon."
(Channel 10 story)

1043 Halcyon Days

After church this morning I was talking to Lori who is teaching knitting to the children of Highland School where many of our members, including my husband, volunteer. She was excited about what she is learning about teaching knitting, so I said I wished she had an adult class. She was waiting for a live one, because within 2 minutes we'd arranged for her to come to my house Thursday morning at 8 a.m. to teach me to knit!

When I got home I remembered I had an old knitting/crochet guide book that had belonged to my Mother, and I thought I'd scan the cover to use with the story I'd planned to do about Lori teaching me to knit (later in the week). In the hunt for the book, which I haven't found, I came across a plastic bag of paper memorabilia I must have brought home after Mother's funeral in 2000. It contained things like a poetry book she'd created in high school, the 1933 Century of Progress guidebook, a dear post card in child script from her brother Clare (died in WWII) from Winona Lake, IN, and two score cards for the Chicago Cubs for 1934, which were probably picked up during my parents' very brief honeymoon. The odd piece of paper was a stock certificate for 300 shares of the Halcyon Mining Company of South Dakota. At $1.00 per share that had set my Dad back $300 ($4,000 in today's money) at a time when they had two toddlers and were in the midst of the Depression.

I called my brother, who is a stockbroker and who ably handled my father's investments in his later years, and asked if he had any recollction of this or why Dad would have taken such risks. He wasn't familiar with event, but speculated it might have been a salesman passing through town with the lure of quick riches. I'm sure the company went belly up, and it doesn't take much imagination to recreate my parents' discussion of the use of their very limited funds (assuming my Mother even knew about it). I think Dad hung on to it as a reminder--because I have a dim memory of his showing it to me many years ago.

Old stock certificates are collectibles even if the stock itself is worthless. This hobby is called "scripophily" and is related to stamp collecting. "Scripophily, the collecting of canceled old stocks and bonds, gained recognition as a hobby around the mid-1970s. The word resulted combining words from English and Greek. The word "scrip" represents an ownership right and the word "philos" means to love. Today there are thousands of collectors worldwide in search of scarce, rare, and popular stocks and bonds. Collectors who come from a variety of businesses enjoy this as a hobby, although there are many who consider scripophily a good investment. In fact, over the past several years, this hobby has exploded. Dot com companies and scandals have been particularly popular." (Wikepedia)

Here's a site that sells gold and silver mining stock certificates, and you can see for yourself how interesting and artistic they are. I did find a Halcyon certificate on the Internet selling for about $45 in one offer. My husband has matted and framed it for me so we'll keep it around as a reminder that things aren't always as good as they seem in the heat of a sales pitch.


Halcyon Mining Company

1042 Back to my hobby

My friend Bev gave me a new premiere issue, Red, so I've entered it on my hobby page, In the Beginning. Paula, this is called "real life in fabulous shoes" so you must take a look.

>
Diane Lane on the cover of Red

1041 Michigan trounces Ohio

So near and yet so far. Our neighbor to the north has the technology in place for 70.8% of its counties to locate 9-1-1 cell phone callers in distress. Ohio has only 3.4%. If your car is hijacked on a 2 lane road, and you have no idea where you are when you're stuffed in the trunk, you'd better hope you're in Michigan and not Ohio. Story from May 12 WSJ.

1040 Pope Who?

Our friend Ken was attending Mass last Sunday at the church of his son and daughter-in-law. The priest was praying and asked for prayers for Pope Benedict XV. Someone in the congregation piped up and corrected him, "Sixteenth."

1039 Phony through and through

Yesterday Glenn Beck was doing a parody/schtick on Florida weatherman Bill Kamal who was caught in a police dragnet of a “men and boys” web site when Kamal made arrangements to meet a “boy” he thought was 14. He only wanted to comfort him in the death of his father, he said. Beck really took him to the comedy woodshed for this tearjerker:

“In the interview with Channel 10, Kamal denied the chat room was called BoyzForMen, saying it was either SonsAndDads or DadsAndSons. He said he was hoping to be a big brother to some poor, unfortunate kid, because he was a fat child and he knows what it feels like to be picked on and teased.”

I don’t know if it safe for anyone to meet a lover on the internet, but it seems to be risky if you are a public figure involved in something your audience or constituency wouldn‘t like. Take this story about the Mayor of Spokane, Jim West. He is calling the Spokane reporters of the Spokesman-Review that trapped him soliciting a 17-year-old on the Internet the “sex Nazis.” As it turns out, these are not isolated incidents for either the Floridian or the Washingtonian. Men just don’t suddenly decide, “I think I’ll go on the Internet today and look for young boys to entice.” Others are coming forward and charging West with molestation some years ago.

Talk about a phony. For years he masqueraded as a “fiscally conservative Republican opposed to gay rights, abortion rights and teenage sex.” That’s a really great cover, isn’t it? He was married five times, and dated women, but it apparently was not a well kept secret that he was gay. Many Republicans are really Libertarians and a legislator’s sex life is of no interest as long as he does his job. But most voters don’t like a politician’s phoniness, or violating the basic values of his supporters.

“West has been no friend to Spokane’s gay community, said Dean Lynch, a former Spokane city councilman and the city’s first openly gay politician. Spokane’s gay and lesbian community has “general knowledge that Jim West is a closeted gay man,” but they are quiet because of the “tremendous power that he wields." Lynch said.”

Editor and Publisher on May 12 ran a column on the ethics of the undercover work of the Spokesman. It includes excerpts from an on-line chat with 10 editors.

1038 Storage space, is there ever enough?

My husband was in California last week to attend his father's funeral and spend time with his brother and sister (the three didn't grow up together but have become close as adults). Flying over Orange County he noticed all the swimming pools which seem to be a fact of real estate there just as basements are here. In California, I haven't met anyone in a metropolitan area who had a home with a basement. . . slab on grade seems pretty natural to our warm weather sibs.

But in Ohio, we have $100,000 basements. At least that's what you're led to believe if you sell a house without one. For 34 years we lived in a lovely neighborhood of more expensive homes because our two-story, colonial house was slab on grade. When we put it on the market in 2001 we were always told how much it could have sold for if only we had a basement. Never mind that in the big flood of the 1970s, ours was the only home for blocks that wasn't flooded. One of our neighbors had a wine cellar in the basement. All the labels came off in the flood.

We thought we'd left basement woes behind us, but the other night my husband took a phone call from someone interested in buying that house (it has been on the market because the new owners are divorcing). Would you believe the guy wanted to know if he could jack up the house and put a basement under it? I guess he'd heard the previous owner was an architect and apparently thought he'd designed it (my husband was born the year that house was drawn up). Asked him why he hadn't built it with a basement. My advice: throw out some junk or rent a storage facility. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than a $100,000 basement.

1037 Grandma's smoking gun

Children whose grandmothers smoked have a legacy--more health problems, more than if just their mothers smoked. And if your prenatal nourishment wasn't good enough for you to pad your little fetal thighs and hips, then you're more likely to put on weight in your middle and have all the health problems associated with the "apple shape."

Another thing to thank my sainted mother, and not-quite-so-saintly grandmother for: neither were smokers, and both paid very close attention to the food they prepared for their families. Because of the Depression and WWII, both had gardens and limited meat. Fruits and vegetables were home canned. Sugar was rationed so desserts were limited to special occasions and Sundays. They both died in January of their 88th year.

According to Sharon Begley's column in today's Wall Street Journal (May 13, 2005) "if you are undernourished as a first trimester fetus, you won't pad your hips and thighs with enough fat tissue." Then as an adult, all the extra calories go to your waist (apple shaped as opposed to pear shaped). This makes you more susceptible to heart diseases, diabetes, and breast cancer. Every extra calorie that goes into my mouth goes immediately to my hips and thighs. Thanks, Mom.

Unfortunately, she doesn't cite sources, although she collects some interesting items. So I did a look through Google and did find a fairly recent book that may be available in your public library, called Prenatal Prescription. The smoking-fetus connection can be found in the article "Maternal and Grandmaternal Smoking Patterns Are Associated With Early Childhood Asthma" by Yu-Fen Li, PhD, MPH; Bryan Langholz, PhD; Muhammad T. Salam, MBBS, MS and Frank D. Gilliland, MD, PhD in Chest. 2005;127:1232-1241.

And obviously, if grandma decided to have an abortion, you aren't reading this.

1036 Academentia

Would you spend $40,000 a year to send your daughter to Smith if you couldn't even figure out the restrooms? The OpinionJournal article by Roger Kimball who wrote about tenured radicals 15 years ago when things were simple (plain vanilla marxism) is quite enlightening. He suspects, that along with Mark Twain's demise, the death of the counterculture is greatly exaggerated. I agree with his solution. Dump tenure which has become a means to stifle dissent and fresh ideas. Seems to be the only way.

"Many parents are alarmed, rightly so, at the spectacle of their children going off to college one year and coming back the next having jettisoned every moral, religious, social and political scruple that they had been brought up to believe. Why should parents fund the moral decivilization of their children at the hands of tenured antinomians? Why should alumni generously support an alma mater whose political and educational principles nourish a world view that is not simply different from but diametrically opposed to the one they endorse? Why should trustees preside over an institution whose faculty systematically repudiates the pedagogical mission they, as trustees, have committed themselves to uphold? These are questions that should be asked early and asked often."

When I get these phone calls from the Alma Mater appealing for money, I just tell them I'm retired and can no longer support either the College of LAS or the GSLIS. But I think I'll come up with a new line.

How Normal?

You Are 60% Normal (Really Normal)

Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal You're like most people most of the time But you've got those quirks that make you endearing You're unique, yes... but not frighteningly so!

How Normal Are You?

1034 Charles Schumer and Alexander Hamilton

Is Charles Schumer (NY-Dem) crazy or just uninformed? Has he forgotten that it is the House, not the Senate that is proportional? Each State has 2 Senators. Now he’s saying his vote should count for more because he represents 19 million and Hatch only represents 2 million. Now he wants “checks and balances”--says the founding fathers wanted filibuster? And we had no parties back then either. Our founders thought parties a bad idea, and maybe they were on to something. Wonder if he’s read American history? Perhaps it was out of vogue when he attended school? I recommend Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. I listened to clips of Schumer on the Hugh Hewitt show yesterday and could hardly believe my ears.

I also listened to the Putin interview on 60 minutes the other night. He said democracy can’t always be imported (to Iraq and Afghanistan) and it will be experienced differently in different cultures (like Russia, for instance). I agree. Russia, Iraq and Afghanistan will never have an Alexander Hamilton, and our country would look very different if we hadn’t had him. Unfortunately, we are loaded with Schumer types.

1033 Blogging about Libraries, Librarians, Books and Readers

Here is a collection of my blog entries that concern libraries, librarians, and books/literature. Sometimes I wander and wonder, but I eventually get to the point. I will add more as I come across them.

Bossy Librarians

How many Lutherans?

Banned Books Week

Anti-Bush books at UAPL

Time to think about privatization?

Librarians and nurses

WSJ includes 2 articles on libraries and I comment

What's on the library shelves

American Archives

Women's Building at the Chicago Columbian Exposition, 1893

Cybils award for children's literature

Damage from photocopying

Oregon Illinois Public Library

Department of Athletics donates to library renovation

Social Capital in Librarianship

Samuel Hodesson and the Vet Library

Gay Book Burners

Dude! What have you done with my library?

Walt and Meredith Survey Librarian Bloggers

Laura Bush

1991 White House Conference on Library and Information Science

Dear Donna Sapolin [inquire at your local library]

Acknowledgements to librarians

The Hungarian

If there were no ALA

Libraries aren't for everyone

Fecal count

On reading

Biased Book Reviewers

When work is no fun--Andy Geiger

Viruses in the library

Hunter Thompson

Harold Bloom

The Real Nancy Drew Author

William T. Coggeshall and Abraham Lincoln

Got Game?

Calico Cat

Library Cats

Librarians, Left and Right

Library snacking

What do librarians do?

Why I became a Librarian

Who has more fun than a librarian?

Myths about librarians

Top library job goes to non-librarian

The Librarian's Job--a poem

What is your librarian buying?

Shush

My Life imitates the Internet

Digging deep, piling high

Librarians wonder about this

Mt. Morris Public Library

How to Run a Bookclub

Two librarians recall childhoods with books

Ag Econ Bibliographer

Stop Setting Goals

How to donate books to your library

Are you prepared for retirement?

Tribute to a Mentor

If I were the library director
Part 1;
Part 2;
Part 3;
Part 4;
Part 5

Librarians as babysitters

My bio: I began my library career in high school working at the Mt. Morris, Illinois Public Library, continued at Manchester College and the University of Illinois as an undergrad student employee. Sometimes tragedy points you in the right direction, and after the deaths of my two oldest children I returned to graduate school and got an MLS from the University of Illinois and worked in Slavic Studies there. I worked briefly as a Slavic cataloger at Ohio State University and then stopped working to raise my children.

I returned to professional work in the late 1970s with part time and temporary contracts in a variety of subject fields at The Ohio State University Libraries including agriculture, user education and Latin American Studies. This allowed me always to be home when my children were there. In 1986 I settled into a wonderful tenure track position in the Veterinary Medicine Library, retiring as Associate Professor in 2000. My career included publishing, attending professional meetings, teaching, lots of one-on-one contact with the patrons and students and planning a new library which opened after I retired. For the last 11 years I've been the "staff" for my architect husband of 45 years. One of his designs will be appearing in a book later this year (2005).

My motto is you can have it all--but not all at the same time. I loved being a full-time, stay-at-home Mom, I loved being an academic librarian, and I really, really love being retired with time to write and paint and read and, of course, take naps.

NYT isn't crying Uncle

Some bloggers seem to think that the New York Times is finally admitting its liberal bias, but I read through its internal audit report, and I don't see it. Saying you're going to cover more religion and rural issues is hardly admitting you've been biased against people of belief or fly-over country. They could just report more bad stuff, you know. Perhaps some were encouraged by the phrase they were going to listen to "unorthodox views and contrarian opinions." If that's their view of conservatism, then I won't hold my breath for a more balanced cover of the news.

And taking surveys, creating blogs, and answering readers' e-mail? All that admits to is they've been kind of set in their ways with big heads. That's not necessarily being biased or slanted. And checking their sources and using fewer anonymous sources? Gracious, how in the world did they get to the top without checking their sources. For instance, take this in depth review of policy:

"As just one example among multitudes, a sprightly feature described the lengths that
assistants to celebrities go to keep their bosses happy and satisfy their every whim. Its reliance on an unnamed source left readers wondering whether the source had worked with the star in question and knew the star’s petty preferences or was simply passing along second-hand gossip, or even whether the source was seeking to present the star unflatteringly for self-serving reasons.

The point is not that particular individuals failed, but that the newsroom as a whole often fails to honor the paper’s stated policy in the course of reporting and editing. Too often we do not trouble to challenge our sources to speak for attribution even when a request to do so can be easily accommodated. In the chain from reporter to reader, too few editors realize that it is their job to challenge evident violations of our policy."

Of course, perhaps this silly story didn't need to be run at all. Leave that one for People Magazine.

1031 Nothing like a Sousa March

Makes me want to get out my trombone--this story I saw at Florida Cracker about the U.S. Military Band performing in Moscow.

"I've met every president. I've met hundreds of kings and queens. But marching through Moscow behind three of my soldiers carrying the American flag is pretty much the highlight of my career," said Lt. Col. Thomas H. Palmatier, commander of the Army band, which came here along with President Bush and other U.S. officials to help mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. LA Times Story.

"We played inside the Kremlin walls! We played 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' on the streets of Moscow! It was a pretty emotional experience," Palmatier said."

Victory Day, the war being called in Russia the Second Great Patriotic War, is sort of tricky to celebrate. Viewpoint of the Moscow Times.

1030 Bits and Pieces, This 'n That

We had our passport photos taken this morning. Except for travel to Canada, we've never been out of the country, but that will change this fall.

We passed a Bob Evans on the way up to the Lake on Mother's Day. A long line snaked into the parking lot about 11 a.m. Every woman and girl was in jeans or slacks and a big t-shirt. Mother's Day certainly isn't the dress up occasion it used to be. My sweet daughter left a gardenia corsage in the frig on Friday because she was doing the right thing and visiting her mother-in-law in the nursing home that day. I wore it Saturday night and Sunday morning.

We noticed a man using a walker in his yard, trimming the grass with an electric trimmer. Looked a little unsafe to me.

Another yard with a mailbox by the road, had an umbrella propped up against the post, but no one around. The house was set back about 100 ft. Looked like someone took a stroll down the lane in the rain, the sun came out, she found a letter, or maybe a Mother's Day card, and was so happy, she forgot the umbrella and walked back to the house in the sunshine. Do you owe anyone a letter? More fun than e-mail.

Overheard at McDonald's near Port Clinton where I had coffee yesterday--me and about 10 old fishermen. "My rod and my reel, they comfort me." "I fish, therefore I lie." Then the talk shifted to a missing friend, Paul, then World War II, and VE Day. They were probably all WWII veterans. Thank you all for your service.

Boogers. I know young people think studs through their noses and eyebrows and upper chin look daring and fashionable. But I wear tri-focals, and I assure you, from a little distance viewed through the mid-range (for computer screen or auto dashboard viewing), it looks like you missed something after a big sneeze.

Gasoline in Columbus on Friday was $1.97 and was $1.94 in Bucyrus (Rt. 4). I'm getting whip-lash with these price changes. Two blocks south of the $1.94 Shell there was a Marathon station selling it for $2.09. How unhappy would you be if driving north in a gas-guzzler SUV you filled up and then saw it for $.15 less a gallon two blocks later?

A house on our street in Lakeside had a "pending" sign. We were a bit surprised, but know the owner has three cottages. We thought--"Maybe he needed the money for college for the kids." Later, we were pleasantly surprised to learn he has purchased the last "fixer-upper" (almost falling down). We'll all be grateful when he takes care of that eye sore. So he probably needed the money for that.

1029 Science was never this much fun when I was a kid

Patsy posts pictures (say that five times fast) of nature camp--stocking a stream, riding horses, climbing a wall, separating hydrogen and oxygen, watching wildlife and sleeping in cabins. Homeschooled kids are so lucky.

Happy Mother's Day

To everyone who had, or has, or is a mother--Happy Mother's Day. It's lovely here--we're off to the Lake.

1027 Intelligent Design and Evolutionary Theory

On the way home from the coffee shop I was listening to NPR on the radio--a discussion of the current battles in Kansas. Apparently, some Kansians are worried they might look like rubes. I guess no one worries about how silly evolutionists look--they are running so scared and are so protective of their beliefs, that they've even renamed university departments of biology, see Ohio State.

Whole Wheat Blogger takes aim on May 6 at a recent article that blames ID-ers, and of course, President Bush, for our drop in science skills (everything that is wrong is Bush's fault--he's so powerful he made my stocks drop in 2000 before he became President). Bunk and blather, he says to that biology-biased author.

"It seems to me that Mr. Bice is suggesting that theists cannot be scientists. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. I've had classes in algebra, calculus, Laplace, physics, electronics theory, and digital systems (among many others). Not once did I have to apply evolutionary theory in any of my classes. Whether or not animal A evolved into animal B is irrelevant to an electron traveling through a transistor. I don't think that Isaac Newton was pondering his origins when he decided to create a new kind of math (with funny symbols, no less). I doubt he was pondering the origins of the apple that fell on his head as well.** I'm sure he was more concerned with the how and the why.

Mr. Bice also seems to be pushing biology as the be-all, end-all of public science education. He says, regarding science education, Such an education, despite the protestations of theocrats, requires comprehensive instruction in the central, unifying concept of modern biology: evolution. I think that many people would agree with me if I said that statement would be more accurate if instruction was replaced with indoctrination. When it gets right down to it, I think that's what it's about. It's about driving a wedge between parents and their children. People think that Christians are fanatic in their desire to have some alternate theory of origins taught in public schools, but evolutionists are just as fanatic in allowing only one option."

He then moves on to outline what is most likely the reason for the fall off of interest in science--inadequately prepared students, and the teaching of self-hate. You may not agree with all his points, but he makes more sense than Mr. Bice. It's not like there was a golden age of having more than one idea on origins in the last 50 years. I was in grade school over 50 years ago, and was never taught anything except evolutionary theory cum a little old fashioned paganism. I believe "Mother Nature" was the term used in the social sciences, and in the science classes we were treated to drawings of pre-humans and horses with toes. Of course, no fossil record, just drawings by textbook publishers. I could look around me and figure out there was a Creator, and take a closer look and see that everything aged and eventually fell apart. (I'm experiencing this personally.) This wouldn't be an approved class trip today, but they used to take us to the "state hospital" in Dixon where we stared at babies and children who were apparently going through some sort of "evolutionary" change, and it certainly wasn't for the better.

When I go to the doctor, I'm hoping s/he has warmer feelings for the Creator than for Darwin. My chances of solid, ethical care are much better!

1026 McDonald's sells apples

When I wrote about my apple-breakfasts the other day, I had fully intended to write about McDonald's becoming one of the biggest customers for the apple industry. Yesterday, a dear Christian sister, Bev, drove me to the airport to pick up my husband. We had been hanging an art show, then stopped by my house to check the flight information, and she brought in one of the new apple bowls from McDonald's. Being a "fruit picker" myself, I took a peek, and was pleasantly surprised--fresh sliced, a variety of types, a little pool of yogurt, and some crumbly sprinkles. We both though it a bit pricey--about $3.00--but it is a wonderfully refreshing treat, easy to eat. Check it out your next time in a McDonald's drive-through.

1025 Time's Up!

If I've ever seen a reason for God to say, "OK. It is finished (again)," it is the story of chimeras (ky-MIR-uhs), specifically the SCID-hu mouse story in today's Wall Street Journal. My work in the Veterinary Library at Ohio State made me vaguely aware of their debut in 1988, but I was busy with pig-poop, feline aids, and horses with one testicle, so I didn't pay much attention to mice with human-brain stem cells. "The Centaur has left the barn" says bio-ethicist Henry Greely.

Bio-ethics. Now there is an oxymoron. We Americans can't agree on the humanity of an 8 month fetus or the right of an unborn baby to live if he has deformed limbs. How in the world will we deal with human brain cells that are part mouse brain? Do we really want a cure for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's that badly (and there is absolutely no evidence that stem-cell research will ever provide this) if it means eventually they find they've gone over the line (after killing thousands of mice to examine their brains to see if they are becoming more human)? I wonder what the researchers will do when they find they've got a mouse that is more human than mouse? Kill it, I guess, and harvest the cells. Can't be more human than an 8 month old fetus, right?

1024 Mule trivia

Another thing (see previous post) I didn't plan to write about today is mules, but I found this among my Ohio Farmer notes from the 1850s. "Mr. Ben McCann, of Fayette, sold recently, to Mr. Charles Frost of Indiana, the largest mule doubtless in the Union. He is 5 years old, upwards of 19 hands high and weighs 1835 pounds. Ohio Farmer 8(23):172 May 28, 1859.

Now back to cleaning the kitchen!

1023 When my life imitates an Internet search

One of the problems with reading on the web is the linking feature. I can never get through the original article, start clicking away on the links and end up researching something I had no interest in 15 minutes before. This happens in life too: clean your kitchen and end up digging out files from 10 years ago.

I rushed in the door from the coffee shop this morning intending to clean up the kitchen before my husband returns from California. After cleaning up the tiny aspirin the cat had dumped to the floor, I began stacking up books and papers to remove from the kitchen table. When I moved the pile to my office, I discovered that "Recollections of Life in Ohio from 1813 to 1840" was 2 days overdue at the public library. I had come across it several weeks ago while browsing the shelves for something else. I am a "first family" Ohioan (ancestor arrived before 1803, the date of statehood), so I checked it out thinking it might be interesting to see what sort of Ohio my grandfather's grandfather had come to as a teen-ager. I promptly forgot about it, and never read it.

When I opened it this morning I discovered it was written by one of Ohio's most famous authors, William Dean Howells. Although I'd intended to return it unread, after leafing through it, I decided to renew it. Calling the library to renew (too much trouble on the computer), I discovered I needed my library card which meant I had to find my purse, etc. (Nothing is easy at a library.)

Then I had a vague recollection that while I was researching women writers who published in Ohio Cultivator and Ohio Farmer in the 1850s, I came across the information that Howells had been a printer for one of those publications. So that started a hunt for my notes, which I thought were in a metal recipe box. After about 10 minutes I pulled out a cardboard file the contents of which I didn't remember and found my notes on the back of old circulation cards from OSU Libraries. After several passes through them (the rubber band had long ago died and left them in disarray in the box, I found it: "William Howells, Ohio Cultivator 11(10):155 May 15, 1853. Poet. Typesetter for Cultivator." I can't tell from my notes if one of his poems appeared in this newspaper, but I think it did, in case you are a Howells researcher. I also noted his appearance in "Poets and poetry of the West," p. 678, which apparently reported he was a regular in Ohio Farmer, Atlantic, and Ohio State Journal.

The last thing I had intended to write about today was William Dean Howells, but sometimes you just have to follow the links.

1022 Can it get any more crazy?

James Taranto and Christopher Hitchens engage in a little name calling in today's Wall Street Journal (May 5, 2005). Taranto says he is not a Christian and not religious, but he is put off by the self-righteousness, close-mindedness, and contempt for democracy and pluralism of all that characterizes the opposition to the religious right.

Hitchens also claims not to be a Christian, but has a laundry list of complaints and fears against "growing religious factions" trying to force government leaders to follow their position. He calls them "moral majority types," "Bible thumpers," "all-fired pious," "grotesque," "back stabbers," "crusaders" and "clericalist bigots."

Whoa! I've been a Christian all my life in liberal, traditional, and evangelical congregations. I can assure all the non-Christians (especially the bizarre, twisted thought that went into the current Harper's witch hunt which lowered that esteemed publication to the level of those pulpy newsprint things that report on three headed aliens) and Taranto and Hitchens types that there is no cabal or movement.

How do I know? You can't find three Christians in two churches that agree on anything--not baptism, work of the Holy Spirit, abortion, war, end times, environmentalism, divorce, parenting, vaccines or what to bring to the pitch-in- dinner. Last week we had at our church a Christian "long-age" (about 17 billion years) creationist. I happen to be a 6 day creationist myself, but I'm not going to tie my shorts in a knot over someone saved by the work of Jesus Christ who is confused about Genesis! The week before we had a beautiful Catholic mother whose son was murdered talk to us about the importance of forgiveness. So we don't see eye to eye on Mary; she could write the book on forgiveness and what hate can do to a person. Everyone in her Lutheran audience was crying.

If you're so worried about the "religious right" (a strawman invented by a displaced and powerless left), drop by Barna.org and see what flimsy beliefs undergird people who identify themselves as born again or evangelical "Christian." You can point all the fingers you want at the political right, but be careful about throwing in the adjective "Christian." That just makes you a religious bigot.

1021 What it means to have a daughter

My daughter stopped by Tuesday to use my computer briefly. She works about 2 miles from here. She was the most beautiful baby in the world, and the most beautiful child and teen. She wasn't even ugly in middle school, when most of us have our body parts growing at differing rates. But as a bride, she was stunning. I thought about that when I read and enjoyed this moving story.

1020 Maybe I can’t pronounce phytochemical, but I can eat it

An apple a day. My favorite variety is Braeburn, but I will also eat Cameo, Fuji and Pink Lady. Jonathons are tasteless, Yellows too soft, and Grannies too sour. The apple has to be crisp, because I like to eat it sliced, with the skin on. This means I have to scrape the wax off with a sharp knife first, which is why I rarely eat an apple that’s provided by a restaurant or in a box lunch. Not only do I not want that wax in my digestive system, it is quite dirty.

In order to eat the 5-6 servings a day of fruits and vegetables recommended for a balanced, healthy diet, I core and slice an apple into about 16 pieces, clean a raw carrot and cut it up into 10-12 manageable pieces, toss in 3 or 4 dried plums (prunes we used to call them), maybe a few white grapes or strawberries if on hand, and top it off with a handful of washed walnuts. Given my druthers, I’d eat crackers and peanut butter or cheese for lunch, and if I succumb to temptation, at least I know that a bowl of apple slices and some add-ons have me pretty well covered. I love the apples, but the plums are the real power house of vitamins and minerals--beating out apples, bananas and oranges, ounce for ounce. Here’s what you get with an apple:

“Evidence suggests that a diet high in fruits and vegetables may decrease the risk of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, and phytochemicals including phenolics, flavonoids and carotenoids from fruits and vegetables may play a key role in reducing chronic disease risk.

Apples are a widely consumed, rich source of phytochemicals, and epidemiological studies have linked the consumption of apples with reduced risk of some cancers, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and diabetes. In the laboratory, apples have been found to have very strong antioxidant activity, inhibit cancer cell proliferation, decrease lipid oxidation, and lower cholesterol. Apples contain a variety of phytochemicals, including quercetin, catechin, phloridzin and chlorogenic acid, all of which are strong antioxidants. The phytochemical composition of apples varies greatly between different varieties of apples, and there are also small changes in phytochemicals during the maturation and ripening of the fruit. Storage has little to no effect on apple phytochemicals, but processing can greatly affect apple phytochemicals.

While extensive research exists, a literature review of the health benefits of apples and their phytochemicals has not been compiled to summarize this work. The purpose of this paper is to review the most recent literature regarding the health benefits of apples and their phytochemicals, phytochemical bioavailability and antioxidant behavior, and the effects of variety, ripening, storage and processing on apple phytochemicals.” Abstract, “Apple phytochemicals and their health benefits” by Jeanelle Boyer and Rui Hai Liu, Nutrition Journal, 2004:3.5, May 2004 (available full text at BioMedCentral)

Now, go munch on an apple.

1019 Senate Bill 24--protect, promote or deny free speech?

A male student who worked for me at Ohio State in the early 90s was taking a women's studies course as a humanities requirement in his senior year. He was terrified to open his mouth in class, the atmosphere was so poisoned and hostile toward men--and he needed the credit to graduate. He even asked me if I thought it was OK to use the word "huMAN" in one of his papers. I recall a full professor of English driven out of his prestigious university, not because he was a conservative, but because he was an apolitical liberal and a threat to his more radical colleagues. He was a well-established scholar who graciously helped me with one of my publications. His department assigned him freshman English classes where he was to incorporate feminist principles into basic rhetoric. He lost grant money and assistants to help with research, and was ostracized by his colleagues. He left to teach at a branch campus of a state university in another state. Yes, it is indeed the new McCarthyism, but now it is used by the liberals.

Professor Lynne Olsen of Ohio State said in a TV interview tonight that Senate Bill 24 isn't necessary--there are already laws in place that prevent professors from promoting their political viewpoints. Not so says some OSU students who support the bill. One complained that over one-half of her theater class time was spent on the topic of homosexuality. She believes her tuition money and time was wasted on this course. Another said that in one of his classes last fall the professor used up the students' time to denounce and ridicule President Bush. I'm not a bit surprised by this, but I agree with Dr. Olsen, how will this be policed--there are already rules (not being followed--my thought).

The first section of Bill 24 reads:

"The institution shall provide its students with a learning environment in which the students have access to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects they study. In the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly methodologies and perspectives shall be a significant institutional purpose. In addition, curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social studies shall respect all human knowledge in these areas and provide students with dissenting sources and viewpoints."

The bill also specifies that professors wouldn't be denied tenure for their political views, but that's pretty hard to prove. There are many ways "colleagues" can sabotage someone on his/her way to tenure--it takes a long time. Committee appointments. Student assistants. Grant applications. Rumors. Cliques.

"Faculty and instructors shall be hired, fired, promoted, and granted tenure on the basis of their competence and appropriate knowledge in their field of expertise and shall not be hired, fired, promoted, granted tenure, or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs.

Faculty and instructors shall not be excluded from tenure, search, and hiring committees on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs."

Liberal faculty, who would be the first to holler if a conservative tried to promote intelligent design or different brain development of the sexes, see this bill as a terrible threat to their free speech. And it is. They've had the freedom to undercut conservative values and faculty on the campus for the last 25 years. And I think that is the point. I wouldn't be surprised to see faculty unanimously oppose this bill in Ohio--I doubt that there are enough conservative faculty present on any campus to even wave a white flag.

1018 The Rewards System

Actually, I believe honesty is its own reward. If you don't lie or cheat, you don't have to try to remember what you said or cover up any do-do so you don't step in it. But occasionally, what goes around, comes around.

About two weeks ago we had dinner with Bill and Joyce at The Rusty Bucket. My husband paid with a couple of twenties. When the waitress returned the little folder, he opened it and found she'd given him $5.00 too much in change. So he called her over to the table and told her. She thanked him; called him honest. The next Friday we went to eat at The Rusty Bucket with our daughter. This time he paid with his credit card (yes, we do use them occasionally but have never paid a finance charge). He left a cash tip--he almost never adds that to the charge. When he got home and pulled out the slip, he noticed that the charges were incorrect--the bill was about half of what it should have been. So he called the restaurant and told them, and asked specifically that the waitress not have it taken from her salary. The manager thanked him, called him honest, and said she wouldn't be penalized (may have been the cashier's problem).

The next day we realized about 4 p.m. that the mailman hadn't been by to deliver or pick up our mail. About 4:30 there was a knock at the door, and it was a stranger with our mail, which included some very important, time sensitive material. He said it had been dropped through his mailslot next door. I thanked him, and realized the mail wasn't late, just misdelivered.

No one lives in that condo; it was sold in November and the new owners aren't moving in until June. He had just stopped by to check on some things and noticed the mail and brought it over.

1017 Credit's Dirty Little Secret

That's what Jim Aviles of San Francisco called it in a letter to the Wall Street Journal today. His point was that merchants pass along to customers the higher fees banks are charging merchants for each credit transaction. Well, yes of course, no one gives away a product, so marketing and selling expenses are part of what you pay for. That's also my objection to loyalty cards and rebate gaming--those of us who don't or won't play, are the ones paying for those of you who do.

But the poor disproportionately pay by cash or check Aviles says (actually a lot of us who don't want to be trapped in credit card debt are careful about their use). People who are poor credit risks or who have filed for bankruptcy are probably included in that. So the poor are footing the bill for credit card users because we all pay the same price. No more cash discount.

"Here's the dirty secret of the card issuing industry," Aviles writes. "Because card regulations demand that cardholders pay no more for goods and services than cash and check customers, the working poor are subsidizing the vacation points earned by American's top income classes."

I just received one of those "rewards" credit cards in the mail. I am pre-approved and get a "companion" mini card. Isn't that just so cute! Just like the grocery and drug store loyalty card--I can attach it to my key chain. Now, my rewards have to be spent at a particular auto dealership, one point for every dollar I spend on other purchases, plus (I'm breathless) 2,500 bonus points after I make my first purchase, which would be (whoopee) $25 off my next new car or service.

The small print on the back says "Pursuant to requrements of law, including the USA PATRIOT ACT, Bank of America is obtaining information and will take necessary actions to verify your identity." I wonder if other librarians know about this? They are the stronghold protecting us from the PA (although not from terrorists).

If I charge my next car (usually you pay less for a car if you pay outright and don't finance), I'll get 5 points for every dollar I charge (subject to additional terms and conditions not stated here in the small print). I assume this "deal" for points would keep me from shopping for the best car loan because I'd have a $20,000 credit line.

The next line says they have already obtained information in my credit report in order for me to receive this offer to see if I was "creditworthy." But they still want my Social Security number and my mother's maiden name (don't banks ask for that too?)

The next noise you'll hear is my scissors cutting up this credit card, even though I'm subsidizing your next purchase by paying cash.

1016 Odd headlines for AP Story

Who writes these headlines? Did he read the story, or is there something missing? In today's Columbus Dispatch I noticed the story, "The economy is the nation's top issue, Midwesterners say." So I glanced through the Associated Press story, and things didn't seem to add up--about us frightened Midwesterners. So I looked to the chart on the right and scanned down the various issues, settling on concerns about the Economy. Midwest--14%; Northeast--30%; South--17%; West--14%. The headline seems to come from an open-ended question asked by the Ipsos public affairs poll, but if they all replied "economy worries me most," why doesn't it show up that way in the chart, where it looks like the Northeasterners are panicked?

1015 Fathers for Life

Apparently U.S. conservatives aren't alone in their concern about activist judges--Canadians are too. Fathers for Life is a Canadian web site about family concerns. Scroll down the main page to Men's issues and click. You'll see an archive of articles.

Hat tip to Purposeful Dreamer.

1014 The Juicy Studio tests for your web page

I tried out a few of the tests at Juicy Studio. I found out this web page has 396 links, and every one of them works! Yea. Juicy did burp a little on some of the links to comments, and suggested hand checking those. Then I tried the readability tests. This is a bit trickier, because so many of my entries contain considerable quoting, and if I tested those, I wouldn't be testing Norma, now would I? So I tried the waffle story and the cell phone story and a few others that weren't particularly weighty, but at least were all MINE.

My "fog index" is between an 8 and 9--or the level of a popular novel. I think a 10 gets you to Time Magazine. 15-16% of my words have 3 or more syllables, and my reading ease score is 66-67, and the test suggests you aim for 60-70. Then the grade level tests out at between 5 and 6. So apparently, a fifth or sixth grader could read my essays and understand. So if you can't make heads or tails out of what I'm saying, it must be you, not me. If you just don't agree, well, I didn't see a test for that. But since I'm older than you, you'll just have to bow to my gray hair and greater experience.

1013 If I could be. . .the new meme

Robin Lee Hatcher explains a new meme going around called, If I could be. I noticed one of the professions was "librarian." What do you bet not many have chosen that one?

1012 Let your voice (or e-mail) be heard

Terry over at Summa Mamas wrote to eBay about the recent auction of the Eucharist. Here is part of the response she got, posted at her site (I'm assuming she got permission):

"We understand that the listing of the Eucharist was highly upsetting to
Catholic members of the eBay community and Catholics globally. Once this completed sale was brought to our attention, we consulted with a number of our users, including members of the Catholic Church, concerning what course we should take in the future should a similar listing appear on our site. We also consulted with members of other religions about items that might also be highly sacred and
inappropriate for sale. As a result of this dialogue, we have concluded that sales ofthe Eucharist, and similar highly sacred items, are not appropriate on eBay. We have, therefore, broadened our policies and will remove those types of listings should they appear on the site in the future."

This is a very good business move on the part of eBay, in my opinion, and I hope consumers will continue to let businesses, churches, institutions or government agencies know when they have overstepped the boundaries of good taste. Let common sense reign.