2314 Myths about the military

It's been awhile since I heard Democrat Charlie Rangle spouting off on Fox about reinstating the draft to make the military more fair. That the military recruits the poor and minority in a disproporationate percentage to their numbers isn't true, and in fact, it is probably less of a path out of poverty than it was for previous generations because today's all volunteer military requires a high education and skill level. You probably saw this piece in November when it first appeared, but it is worth repeating.

"Yes, rural areas and the South produced more soldiers than their percentage of the population would suggest in 2003. Indeed, four rural states - Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Maine - rank 1-2-3-4 in proportion of their 18-24 populations enlisted in the military. But this isn't news.

Enlistees have always come from rural areas. Yet a new study, reported in The Washington Post earlier this month, suggests that higher enlistment rates in rural counties are new, implying a poorer military. They err by drawing conclusions from a non-random sample of a few counties, a statistically cloaked anecdote. The only accurate way to assess military demographics is to consider all recruits.

If, for example, we consider the education of every recruit, 98% joined with high-school diplomas or better. By comparison, 75% of the general population meets that standard. Among all three-digit ZIP code areas in the USA in 2003 (one can study larger areas by isolating just the first three digits of ZIP codes), not one had a higher graduation rate among civilians than among its recruits.

In fact, since the 9/11 attacks, more volunteers have emerged from the middle and upper classes and fewer from the lowest-income groups. In 1999, both the highest fifth of the nation in income and the lowest fifth were slightly underrepresented among military volunteers. Since 2001, enlistments have increased in the top two-fifths of income levels but have decreased among the lowest fifth.

Allegations that recruiters are disproportionately targeting blacks also don't hold water. First, whites make up 77.4% of the nation's population and 75.8% of its military volunteers, according to our analysis of Department of Defense data.

Second, we explored the 100 three-digit ZIP code areas with the highest concentration of blacks, which range from 24.1% black up to 68.6%. These areas, which account for 14.6% of the adult population, produced 16.6% of recruits in 1999 and only 14.1% in 2003."

Sean M., a commenter at Protein Wisdom has this to say about the war critics' opinion of our troops:

So, let me get this straight...if you support the war but don’t join up with the armed forces to go and fight, lefties scream “CHICKENHAWK!” at you, implying that your lack of military experience invalidates your opinion.

On the other hand, if you’re over there, your opinion on the legitimacy of the war isn’t to be trusted because you’re obviously some sort of moron who couldn’t get a job elsewhere, much less a college education.

HT for both items Yehudit.

2313 Do you have allergies?

A few weeks ago I went out for dinner with my daughter and her husband. While we were browsing the menu she mentioned being allergic to certain items. I was a bit puzzled because she didn't have any allergies growing up in our home in the 70s and 80s. "What are you allergic to?" I asked. "Oh, everything," she replied.

This week Medscape.com reported: "A recent nationwide survey found that more than half (54.6%) of all US citizens test positive to 1 or more allergens, and allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic disease, with an estimated $18 billion annual healthcare cost. Alarmingly, this statistic is estimated to increase, presenting increasing challenges to patients and physicians alike to its management. Although self-help strategies, such as avoiding the allergen can be helpful, in most cases, this is difficult and inadequate and most sufferers rely on pharmacologic intervention. Because allergic disease in most cases is lifelong, effective management needs to be immediate, efficacious, and long-term. Despite the availability of several pharmacologic options, the effectiveness of current therapies is limited by treatment formulations, frequency of dosage, and side effects, which can have an impact on treatment compliance and overall outcomes."

Thinking back, the only allergy I can recall knowing about when I was a child was that Francine, a classmate, had hay fever and she was miserable certain times of the year. So where did all this come from? The article suggests that 95% of our time is now spent indoors with constant exposure to allergens like pet dander, dust mites, mold spores and cockroach particles.

Well, let's take a look at this--what is indoors with us? When I was a child, most pets lived out of doors, in the basement, or on the porch. I don't think I knew a single person who slept with an animal, unless maybe the hired man on the farm napped in the hay mow. No one had wall to wall carpet, and rugs were periodically moved to the outdoors and beaten and left in the sun. Sheets were washed AND ironed--many with a mangle, which must have killed off a lot of dust mites.

Homes for the most part were not insulated when I was a child. The house we lived in here in Columbus for 34 years (built in 1939) had air space between the outside and inside walls--no insulation--and we had very reasonable heating bills. Air is a good insulator. Now we stuff or blow in all sorts of synthetic material and houses are much tighter. The house can't breathe and neither can you! And speaking of synthetics, we didn't have a lot of that--oh, yes, we wore nylon and rayon occasionally, but rugs and clothing were mainly cotton and wool when I was growing up. Most of that textile material did not come from Asia, South America or China.

Children spent a lot more time out doors 40 or 50 years ago. They weren't sitting in front of the TV or computer with a pet on their laps eating snacks. Also, we just weren't as concerned about cleanliness 40 or 50 years ago. A bath once or twice a week, or washing your hair once a week was considered just about right. That meant you didn't have as much soap and chemical residue on your skin and hair, nor did you smear on lotion to replace lost body moisture. Nobody had a hair dryer to blow dust around. There were no air conditioners were mold would grow and get blown into the house. You didn't have mold growing in the automatic defrost section of the refrigerator, because you only had manual defrost. Oh yes, and most people didn't have clothes dryers which also leak lint and dust into the air of a home and you used laundry soap, not detergents.

No one ate in restaurants except on special occasions, so if we shared germs, it was those to which we had some immunity. We all ate rather plain, homecooked food with very few additives or colors. Deep frying and reusing oil? Maybe if we bought a do-nut from the bakery. We ate meat, but not as much as today, and those animals weren't raised with antibiotics. The eggs and chickens were fresh, free-range for the most part (as a child I even watched them jump around the back yard headless after my dad chopped off their heads).

And everyone seemed to smoke--even up to about 10 years ago. I wonder how many little critters that killed off that we now are allergic to?

Now I'm no tree-hugger who thinks we need to go back to the way things were (and I'm going to a restaurant tonight for our Friday night date), but there are unintended consequences to "progress." $18 billion a year is a lot to sneeze at for "pharmacologic options." Might be smart to put the cat or dog in another room at night, and go outside more often to breath some fresh air. Couldn't hurt.

allergies

2312 Gay adoption

The "experts" have spoken again. It was reported in today's paper that some experts on child welfare have blessed gay adoption.

So how have the experts done in the past on this problem of extra or inconveniently conceived children? Well, in the 17th and 18th century in this country, when the parents died during the crossing from Europe, the children were indentured to strangers to pay off their parents' debt and their own for the passage. Even if they had co-religionists, like the Mennonites, to meet them at the ship, they still became unpaid workers in someone else's household. The experts agreed, it was best all around.

Then in the 19th century some early day social workers for the poor decided that orphan trains would be the best chance for some children to get out of the bad influence of the city. And, maybe they were right. City kids on the wind swept prairies of Kansas or Nebraska, torn away from siblings on the train platform, working behind the horses or cutting sod probably did stand a better chance of reaching adulthood. But my gracious, they must have been terrified and lonely.

In the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century, adoption became a little bit more formal, but if you lived in a small town, many people knew who your mother was and that she "got in trouble" so then you were adopted by that middle-aged couple who "couldn't have any of their own" or a relative. The experts thought that was the best way to handle it. With the Depression, you couldn't be too choosy about who raised the children--everyone had too many mouths to feed.*

Lots of babies of unknown origin appeared during and after WWII and our Asian wars. Movie star adoption was popular, like Michael Reagan, son of President Reagan. Even fake adoptions took place for out of wedlock babies like the daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, Judy Lewis, who actually was "adopted" by her own mother. Experts of that era believed that the stigma of adoption was better than the stigma of legitimacy. Amer-Asian children, some biracial, were sent away from their Korean and Vietnamese mothers and villages to grow up the only Asian person in some small mid-western town.

In the late 50s and early 60s the experts, by this time with Master's in Social Work, decided absolute secrecy was best, so laws were passed in most states to falsify the birth certificates of adopted babies. Even when they became adults they couldn't get their real birth certificate--forever being legally a "baby." Unless they could prove they were Native Americans. Oh yes, the heritage of Indians was more important than Irish or German or English descendant children. You can't deprive an American Indian of his or her tribal rights even if he's only 1/16 or 1/32. But you can deny any Caucasian child of all birth family knowledge about their first degree blood relatives. How's that for turn around is fair play? I'm not sure which expert thought that one up. But they probably were members of whatever "rights" group had the ear of the legislators.

Then when the feminist movement joined hands with the abortionists, we got "open adoption." Supposedly, it should hurt a child less to know that his birth mother knew the past 25 years where he was and who adopted him, but chose never to contact him. Go figure. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel really terrific knowing my birth parents knew where I was and decided not to even meet me or thought the occasional photo would do! Open adoption was supposed to cut down on abortions with the logic (probably of a lawyer) that it hurts a woman more to carry a child 9 months and place her for adoption than to abort her and never let her live and just wonder about it the rest of her life. I have no idea really who thought up open adoption (which is sort of a throw back to the early 20th century), but that's what the experts believe. The experts will also tell you it is better to kill a child in utero than to let her face life with a family that can help her with a disability like Downs or club foot. The disability rights people who lead perfectly satisfying lives will tell you that "expert opinion" has absolutely nothing to do with the child's welfare.

When the local supply of infants was dried up by abortions (with the help of experts helping the mommies), other experts turned first to Latin America, then after the collapse of Communism to Russia and the Balkans. Girl babies are not much valued in China and India, so now the experts think raising the only dark skinned or Asian child within a hundred miles won't be noticed or will work out with enough love and support. This form of adoption puts lots of money in the hands of the experts, because only rich Americans can afford to create families this way.

And while I'm on experts, let's not forget all the doctors, lawyers and social workers (notice how these days it takes more and more education to become an expert, but the solutions get more bizarro?) who decided that a child couldn't care less if daddy's sperm came from a sperm bank which paid college students who had good grades, blond hair and blue eyes. Or if mommy was an egg donor or the local rent-a-womb lady. Didn't Woody Allen marry the adopted sister of his own children whom he'd helped raise? I'll bet there was an expert in there saying it was OK. I guess that example should go into the Asian group; nah, works better with bizarro.

Now the experts are even by-passing adoption and/or abortion and going directly to just using up the cells of the embryos of the inconveniently conceived for research. Isn't it just so sweet for the pre-child that he can be useful to society without all that messy living and growing up routine? Some of us can live our whole lives without ever making a contribution to medical science!

Excuse me, I'm gagging at this point. So, the end of the story is I don't trust the "experts" who tell us that gay adoption will help children, or that children don't really need a woman (gay men adopting) or a man (lesbians adopting) in their lives--gender identification and modeling being just more outdated artifacts of another time and different experts.

*I'm leaving out orphanages and children's homes, which considering what followed their closings in the 1960s and 1970s (recommended by the experts), may have been one of the better ideas for stability and care of children without parents.

gay adoption
adoption
international adoption
abortion

2311 The working family

Who are they? I was a librarian, an associate professor; my husband is just winding down his architectural practice and had a variety of titles like associate, owner, partner and sole practitioner. So what were we? Chopped liver? Didn't we work? We've been in four of the five quintiles, and trust me, we were always employed. But every time the media wants to give us a sad, sad tale about the economy, they refer to what a tough time "the working family" is having. I think it is the new term for "working class" which pushed out "lower class" which was an unacceptable euphemism for "poor." It's really tough to find a good term for a family of five with an income of $55,000. But believe it or not, in Columbus, Ohio that income will qualify you to use the food pantry (AGI $45,200 for a family of 5).

The latest one I saw was a one column front page USAToday article on housing by Noelle Knox--either yesterday or Wednesday. She wrote that nearly 70% of Americans own their own home--but that's not good, because "working families with children" have less ownership than in 1978. Sometimes I talk back to these ladies (the journalists who write human interest stories about how tough the economy is are always women--even in the Wall Street Journal), so I said to Noelle: in 1978 "working families" weren't paying cable bills or monthly cell phones charges nor were they eating out several times a week, nor did they download music or have computers to eat up the paycheck with games, e-bay charges and blogging bills. Also, Noelle, in 1978, more of these "families" started out as married couples. Not being married, even for a period of years, helps reduce income.

And of course, Noelle didn't look for real estate in Ohio where it is affordable--no, no, no. For her sad story, she had to choose the Bacaros, a "working family" both with a good income (but not college) looking for a house in LA, or San Francisco, I've forgotten which. You can buy a perfectly decent crackerbox ranch in need of complete renovation in California for half a million, which will practically buy you a new-build mansion in a Columbus suburb.

But the real give away on these economy sad stories are the "think tanks" that provide the data. They are always "The Center for . . . name your cause." I think this one was Center for Housing Policy. But if the word "justice" is in the name, look out. Policy is another. Then they really want your money. It's the only form of justice they know.

Thursday Thirteen

Here are thirteen poems I've posted on my blog over the last 2.5 years. I wouldn't expect you to read all 13, but here are some clues. Missing someone? Try #4, #7 or #8. Tired of winter? #13 is good. Ever wondered about gossip in a small town? #1. Had any really crummy jobs? Betcha can't beat #2. Do you like to paraphrase scripture? Think on #3. Nostalgia? #6, #11.

1. What I heard about you

2. Working for DeKalb Seed

3. On a theme from Habbakuk

4. The anniversary

5. Susanna looked East

6. Christmas Formal

7. Mothers of our Childhood

8. Daddy-lions

9. December 21

10. New and unread books and unopened music

11. Last day of July

12. Complementary Colors

13.The longest month


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2309 Everything's clearer now

There was a very interesting story about classroom teaching in this morning's Columbus Dispatch. A classroom in the Harrison Street Elementary School in the Big Walnut School District (Delaware County, Ohio near Columbus) is using full spectrum light bulbs and every student gets a water bottle as part of required school supplies. The teacher is fitted with a wireless microphone and there are four speakers in the room so that every child can hear the instruction easily. They are also treated to brief periods of calisthentics to stimulate their brains. This experimental classroom is based on the research of Laurence Martel, an educational consultant on reducing stress in the classroom for better learning. I remember when I gave freshman orientation to the veterinary students I would suggest that they get up periodically from the tables in the library and walk to the hall to get a drink rather than sit for hour after hour. I didn't know I was in the forefront of educational research. I thought I was just keeping them awake.

2308 Finding a human bean

Kidney beans. Lima beans. Pinto beans. Casserole beans. How do you find a human bean?

Gekko (big computer guru) says to try this Get Human Database. I didn't try it--don't know how many snapped and ugly beans you'll get. The product I am interested in wasn't listed. But it looks like it could be useful

2307 Cyclone Larry

One of the Thursday Thirteeners The Purple Giraffe, was in the path of Cyclone Larry. Here's a description from Earth Observatory with photos:

"Tropical Cyclone Larry formed off the northeastern coast of Australia on March 18, 2006. The cyclone gained power rapidly and came ashore on Queensland’s eastern coastline, where it hammered beaches with heavy surf, tore roofs off buildings, and perhaps most destructively, flattened trees in banana plantations over a wide area. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported early estimates that as much as 90 percent of the Australian banana crop may have been lost in this single storm. Since many trees have been destroyed, it may be many years before the banana industry recovers."

And if you're visiting that Earth Observatory site, take a look at the "Meddie" story. I wonder how they are going to blame this on President Bush?

2306 I want one of these

A PowerSquid for the office and a dough scraper for the kitchen. Cool tools.

The flap that didn't fly

This item was in the NYT yesterday. I'd sort of forgotten this little anti-Bushy tale from . . . December or January.

"An inquiry has found that an American public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles, military officials said Tuesday. The finding leaves to the Defense Department the decision on whether new rules are needed to govern such activities."

Ah, now it's coming back to me . . .

"After disclosure of the secret effort to plant articles, angry members of Congress summoned Pentagon officials to a closed-door session to explain the program, saying it was not in keeping with democratic principles, and even White House officials voiced deep concern."

We should try planting good news about Iraq in the NYT and forget about the middle eastern media. Better yet, leak it. I read this story on-line, so I have no idea if it was buried in a hard to find section.

2304 PLO mission to Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood distribute this paper

says Alexandra at All Things Beautiful. And well they should. It's a gift from Allah. And Harvard. It's got legs and creds! The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt Working Paper Number:RWP06-011.

“To be sure, the contents of this essay are manna from heaven for all anti-Semites and enemies of the State of Israel. It provides well laid-out arguments and enough seemingly neutral 'facts' to mask once true and utterly irrational convictions as reasonable and scholarly. The left will be defending it on that basis alone, and ridicule any notion of it providing fuel for the anti-Semites' and Islamists' peddling agenda."

She's right (no pun), and I looked at some of the left bloggers she links to who are criticising not its content, but the right wing for taking notice of it and its poor scholarship.

She says: "I welcome this essay because it will lure out the anti-Semites amongst us, who have been waiting for such an excuse to dress their irrational hatred in reasonableness and fake moderation. It is our task to differentiate between those who welcome this opinion to debate the issues and those who pursue their morbid hidden agenda."

It lured at least a few to her comments section.

2303 Perhaps I should have known

One of the things I enjoyed about being a librarian was that everyday there was something new and exciting to learn. Retirement started to look good when I needed to relearn my job everyday because of evolving technology and therefore could never feel I really had a grasp of anything. Still, with the internet it is a bit like having a mega-million volume library in the attic of my garage. I didn't know that there were jobs for "curators of e-mail," did you? I suppose I should have, because often you read in these high profile legal cases, or even in all the investigations of Katrina mismanagement, that such and so was noted in an e-mail. So someone, an actual person and not just a computer, was tracking and saving things. So, if there are positions to corral e-mail and put them to bed, there must be workshops and conferences, which makes me wonder if Bachelor degrees in e-mail conservation and curation will be far behind?

"The Digital Curation Centre is pleased to announce that it will be delivering a two-day workshop on the long-term curation of e-mail messages. This event will be held in Newcastle on 24-25 April 2006.

The increasing use of e-mail has drastically changed the way that many organisations work. To provide evidential value and to ensure legal compliance, it is essential that traditional record-keeping practices are applied to the management and preservation of e-mails. This often requires a cultural change in organisational practices, which can be exceedingly difficult to implement. In addition, there are a range of technical issues that can impact the long-term viability and re-usability of e-mails. This workshop will investigate some of the organisational, cultural, and technical issues that must be addressed to provide accountability in the short term and to ensure that e-mails can be located, retrieved, accessed, and re-used over time." DCC Events

So, watch what you put in your e-mail. Someone you don't know and never intended for them to read it may be "curating" it for a court case, a tenure review or a divorce case.

2302 The war protests

Yesterday's protests of the anniversary of the start of the war were pretty predictable. Although I don't think the numbers were all that large, even world wide. (I tried several sites looking for information and came up with nothing specific--did anyone show up? If 500 protests were planned and 4 people showed up at each, that would be "thousands," right?) They were organized by people who want to destroy the United States and our booming economy--you know the drill: Socialist this and that, Communist Party aging Yahoos, and the various "justice" coalitions and anti-capitalist groups. I'm sure a few true pacifists, even sincere Christians, got suckered in. But it's an odd coalition they joined. The home-grown anti-Americans and the fundamentalist Muslims working together. The Osama and Michael dog and pony show. American Thinker has a wonderful piece on peace. I noticed it referred to at Cube, since I hadn't made all the rounds yet. He points out that these groups have never been against war when it comes to their own goals. Gosh, how many millions upon millions were imprisoned, tortured and killed under Communism in the USSR and China--forty? Fifty? Does anyone even know? Democide--death by government--is SOP under Communism. Where's the justice in "you play you pay?"

Vasko Kohlmayer writes: "It is understandable why many well-meaning citizens are worried about the course of this war, but they should carefully consider the manner in which they express their concerns. Above all, they should not fall for ploys of domestic radicals who seek to subvert America by limiting the government’s ability to fight the enemy whose consuming goal is our destruction."

2301 What could be this bad?

Conservator posts a bit of Library Journal's John Berry. A reader says, "This is Andy Rooney bad. It's local news bad. This is bachelor uncle raving after his fourth beer bad." Yup.

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you my favorite story about Serendipity?
In 1993 I was heavy into research on the private library of an Illinois farm family. I knew what was in the library from an estate list because the owners were my grandparents who had died in the 1960s, and they had inherited some of the books of their parents who settled in Illinois from Pennsylvania in the 1850s--with books. However, it required a lot of background material about publishers, what people read and why, the role of religion, what the schools were like, etc.

I was the librarian for the veterinary medicine college at Ohio State University, some distance from the main campus. One day I was in the Main Library for a meeting and made a quick trip into the stacks. I don't know how many books were in the collection in 1993 in that one building (12 floors), but there were 4,000,000 total in the various 20+ locations to serve 50,000 students. Anyway, I went into the stacks to browse shelves--my favorite unorganized way to do research. Although I taught classes on how to do library research (there was no Web in those days and very little was digitized), I never actually used those methods myself.

I saw a book that looked interesting but was out of order and pulled it off the shelf. When I flipped through it, I saw it contained some studies on what farmers read and what books they owned during the 1920's so I took it down stairs to the circulation desk. When the clerk attempted to charge it, the computer refused, and so she looked at the record. It was already charged out--to me! It had been charged out to me since 1991 and I had never seen the book. I had probably noticed the title in a bibliography, found it in the on-line catalog, and charged it out from my office without ever seeing it.

At Ohio State, faculty and staff could charge books out from any library on campus remotely and have them mailed to our office address. Apparently this one went astray and never made it to my office and never had the charge removed. Because I was doing so much research at that time, I probably had 20-30 items on my record. We had a computer command that would renew anything we had that was overdue, so each time I did a batch renewal, I was renewing this book that I’d never seen. I don’t know what the system allows now, but in 1993 you could literally keep a book forever if no one else requested it.

What do you suppose the chances are for picking a mishelved book in a collection of four million volumes and having it already charged out to you--two years ago?

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2299 Ridiculing religion--Hayes quits South Park

Isaac Hayes, voice of Chef on South Park, has quit. Odd, he had no problem ridiculing other religions.

"South Park co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem - and he's cashed plenty of checks - with our show making fun of Christians." Last November, "South Park" targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called "Trapped in the Closet." In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out.

Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker "never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."

You can watch the South Park Scientology episode here.

2298 I love this gal's name

Tara Parker Pope, the medical/science columnist, had an extensive article in the Wall Street Journal today about the mixed reviews and studies on vitamins--ran through the whole list of maybes, probably nots and NoNo's. Studies are suggesting that these mega doses some are taking may be doing more harm than good. If you eat all the colors, you’ll get most of all you need, or maybe a multi-vitamin. Some disease problems that are helped by A or C, cause other problems by encouraging other conditions like heart or cancer. $7 billion a year business. WSJ is usually a pro-business paper, but when the women write the stories, they often have a very skeptical slant. I love her name. Have written a poem about her.

Tara Parker Pope--
such a lovely name;
sing it, play it,
hang it on a rope.

Tara Parker Pope,
she of Wall Street fame;
read her, write her,
She will help you cope.

2297 I have no use for this on-line calendar

but I loved watching the demo for Airset, and if I were managing a group, and children's activities and my social life, and going crazy doing so, I'd sure give this one a try. I saw it at Joel On Software, a software developer who writes clearly about techie stuff on his blog, most of it over my head. I'll probably stick with Boogie Jack, but peek at Joel once in awhile. Billo gave him the nod.

Is the code for that plug-in that everyone's using to enter links of visitors on MM and TT free? I sure see a lot of people using it. Instead of the blogger entering the code, the reader does it. Saves a lot of time, I'm sure.

2296 Needs a bit more color

Honda has an ad "Introducing Shannon Banks. The next Chief of Surgery." An attractive African American woman about 19 or 20 is in the operating room "poised to make great contributions to medicine." The ad promotes Honda's "All-Star Challenge and "Battle of the Bands" for HBCU. Story about this and Shannon here.

The anesthetist, surgeon, O.R. nurse and patient in the ad are all white. I think we've made a bit more progress than that in the last 50 years.

Here's a funny minority ad that I've missed, but read about in Business Week. Grupo Gallegos (Hispanic advertising firm) won an award for this one: an Energizer battery ad showing an Hispanic man, with an arm transplanted from a Japanese man. He couldn't stop taking pictures with his new hand.

2295 I hate to buy shoes

They are all ugly. They are all size B or wider. If they don't have my size (8.5 AA), they bring out 9.5 or 7.5. I hate to shop for shoes. I think I know why everyone I see on the street is wearing clunky, fat athletic shoes. Today I walked into the shoe department at Kaufmann's Department store. The shoes were lovely and beautifully displayed. Be still my heart. I would have bought 10 pair in a minute. I picked up one--think it was an Anne Klein, but not sure--and took it to the help desk (or whatever it is called these days) where two young men stood. "Do you have this in a 8.5 narrow?" "We have no narrows," the American-looking clerk said. (The middle-eastern looking guy with an accent didn't know, or didn't understand.) "None at all--not in any style?" I persisted in disbelief as I looked around at the huge selection. "No. None." All the little old bag ladies you see wandering the malls are probably there looking for shoes.

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2293 Has anyone followed up on this?

Or protested the unfairness of one group making more than another?

"A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned nearly $37,800 in 2003, compared with nearly $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a college-educated black woman, according to data being released Monday by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women took home slightly less at $37,600 a year.

The bureau did not say why the differences exist. Economists and sociologists suggest possible factors: the tendency of minority women, especially blacks, to more often hold more than one job or work more than 40 hours a week, and the tendency of black professional women who take time off to have a child to return to the work force sooner than others."

Reported at my blog via AP in March 2005. Story here in USAToday.

I looked, and someone had blogged about it from the left, disagreeing with the stats, natch.

2292 Ladies, take notice

A casually dressed man always looks more business-like in slacks than you do in a pants suit. You won't get to the position you want by dressing like a guy.



And fellows, that bag over your shoulder will always look like a purse, no matter what you choose to call it. If you have something to say, just come out with it.

2291 Could they explain how they do this?

Laureate International Universities, based in Baltimore, runs 24 for-profit universities in 15 countries. In 2005 it logged profits of $85.7 million (revenue $875.5 million). UVM in Mexico enrolls 67,000 students on 21 campuses and costs about $4,000 a year.

FLUENCY IN ENGLISH IS A GRADUATION REQUREMENT.

Maybe U.S. colleges could try this.

(Story from Business Week, March 13, 2006)

2290 Things get ugly

if you try to protect children at a public library these days. Try to add filters to computers to block explicitly sexual material or move adult entertainment materials to adult sections away from the children, and all sorts of folks pop up who don't have children or don't live in your community. They'll march to the tune of "no censorship."

Just look at the mess the Upper Arlington Public Library has made of public relations and child protection in a request by a parent to move free Gay periodicals from the library entrance. The issue has always been called a "ban" or "censorship" in the local media and by library organizations. How silly. It is neither. These are not subscription items; the library doesn't purchase them. They are dropped off by the distributer/publisher in stacks for people to pick up as they please. There are probably 30-40 free-circ newspapers and magazines that come and go in this part of central Ohio. They are completely supported by advertisers, not subscribers. They cover sports, parenting, art, religious sects, the environment, animals, pets, entertainment, careers, young women, old women, senior citizens, decorating, fashion, Hispanic community, African American community, restaurants and cooking, and so forth. At least two I've seen are specifically targeting in advertising and articles, the gay community, but there may be more. And that includes photos, diagrams and how-to articles on performance, enhancements and techniques, either safely not so safely. Some depictions are pretty gross and graphic. Generally speaking, this not what parents like to find in the 10 year old's backpack when he comes home from the library where many go after school for unsupervised "safe" environment until the parents get home from work. But for desensitizing children to the dangers--well, these publications will work for that.

Stacks of these newspapers used to be in the large soaring attractive entry of the main library building next to the park and grade school (all the parking lots adjoin), but I've seen them in drug stores, coffee shops, grocery stores, and book stores. I've read a lot of these publications because at one time I'd planned to write an article about free-circ publications (they are not indexed or tracked by any library publications or databases--and remember this because it is IMPORTANT*). They provide a lot of jobs for free-lancers and ad-writers. Writers have told me that they pay well, too. I retired before I completed my research and finally threw out my huge collection of yellowing and faded late-1990s papers.

No public agency or private business should be required to give distribution to ANY free-circ publication. If I print up a bunch of my poetry, let's say 50 copies every week, and stack it inside the library door for people to pick up, and the librarians or library board decide they don't need my stuff cluttering up their tax supported building, it isn't censorship or banning my rhymed and metered offerings to my muse. And it isn't censorship for a library to say "We're not giving space for distribution of adult sexually explicit material." I know why librarians support not removing the material, even to an adult section of the library, but the library board? Now that really puzzles me. I thought the solution to move them inside the library actually gave some shoddy material more respectibility than they deserved; but once that bad decision was made, moving them to the adult section away from the children looked like a good compromise.

Here's the story in This Week, a local paper. I have no idea how long they keep their stories on-line.

*When I requested that the library add more Christian magazines to its collection (there was only Christianity Today to represent our culture from the evangelical viewpoint) I was told that the titles I suggested were not indexed in the library's periodical database or covered in the usual review sources that recommend publications. Also, Christianity is apparently a "subtopic" in collection development, if it is conservative, and therefore outside its collection guidelines. The two gay publications that were in the lobby, are in fact also cataloged and kept in the periodical section. I'm pretty sure since they are free-circ that they are not indexed or reviewed in standard library publications.

2289 My new Cat's Meow

I collect Cat's Meow lighthouses--there are far more produced than what I have, and I haven't found any in recent years. This week my friend Bev gave me a new one, "Marblehead Lighthouse and Perry's Monument" painted in 2005. I keep them at our cottage on Lake Erie.



On the back: "Marblehead Lighthouse and Perry's Monument Marblehead, Ohio Marblehead Lighthouse, at the entrance to Sandusky Bay, is the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes. Built from native limestone in 1821 for $5,000, the tower stood 50 feet tall; 15 feet more were added at the turn of the 20th century. Over the years 15 keepers, including two women, cared for the light which began as 13 whale oil lamps. Today the beacon projects a green signal visible for 11 nautical miles." [This painting by my husband is of the keeper's cottage.]

Cat's Meow products always have the little black cat in the painting which is done on a wood cutout which are not 3 dimensional. Unless I've never seen it from this angle, I'm not sure Perry's would look this close. However, it is a delightful addition to our little cottage.

The webpage is lots of fun with far more variety of products than I imagined (because I only look for lighthouses). I didn't even know Cat's Meow was located in Wooster, Ohio!

I also have a few Sheila lighthouses, which are 3 dimensional.

2288 Workshops for guitarists in Ohio

Back in the 80s I thought I'd learn to play the guitar--it was part of my "mid-life crisis plan." 1) Get my ears pierced, 2) learn guitar, 3) take aerobic dance. I don't have any ear lobes to speak of, so it sounded like a good idea. Got my kids all excited that Mom was going to "get with it." Well, I never did #1 (squeamish) or #2 (too difficult), but I did take aerobic dance for several years, lost about 15 lbs and found a job through one of the instructors.

After listening to The Chapin Sisters, I thought I'd throw in this information about the Fur Peace Ranch in Meigs County, Ohio. Jorma Kaukonen, guitarist for Hot Tuna and a founding member of Jefferson Airplane and his wife run the place and offer instruction. Here's the web site. I saw an article about it in the March 2006 Kiplinger's. "If you don't have a creative outlet, you wake up one day and you're 65 years old with nothing better to do than walk the mall in shoes with Velcro closures." [quote from that issue]

2287 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

The WSJ says that "promoting democracy has become the central theme of Mr. Bush's second term," based on this report.

2286 I've learned a new coding trick--I think

Blue Star Beth and her sisters and cousins and brothers are always adding fancy stuff to their blogs. So today I tried just one little thing. And I did get it to work the very first time. I coded a link so it would open a new page instead of leaving mine. This is useful because if you are like me, you start clicking on links and lose track of where you started. I'd seen this code before but wasn't sure how it worked. If I try to type the code and then save this entry, blogger will smack me and tell me I've done something illegal, so I'll just refer you here to the Blogger Forum. Now, if I've done this right, you should see that window open without losing mine, so you can come back and finish reading all my good stuff like How not to marry a jerk, or my defense of Hillary Clinton.

Thirteen things about my date to the St. Patrick's Ball
1. Balls at the University of Illinois were usually sponsored by a campus wide or large organization and held in more public places like the Armory or the Athletic building; dances were for the individual fraternity, sorority or independent residence. Other balls during that era were Sno-Ball, Beaux-Arts Ball, Military Ball, Interfraternity Ball and Panhellenic Ball.

2. Balls always had a nice dance band or small orchestra; dances usually a combo. To not have live music would have been unthinkable. There was also a photographer to take a formal portrait. I can't find the 1959, so the photo is from the 1960 Ball.

3. First we had a coffee date to get acquainted, since the St. Pat's Ball was an invitation from a guy I didn't know.

4. I borrowed a red lace dress from my housemate Sally who was slightly smaller.

5. My date wore a jacket that had belonged to his grandfather, who was slightly larger.

6. I weighed more than my date.

7. He borrowed a car from a friend.

8. I was 19 and living in McKinley Hall.

9. He was 21 living in Armory House.

10.My date was one of the few good dancers I'd ever dated. We went to many more dances.

11. He was a city boy, I was a small town girl.

12. He probably wanted to impress me so he told me that night he'd like to marry me.

13. He did.

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2284 Why teachers have more voice problems

When I was browsing the internet looking for vocal warm-ups and singing tips, I came across the Voice Academy which is for teachers. It is sponsored by the University of Iowa. Here's why teachers have so many problems. When you think about everything from the environment and acoustics of the classroom to the illnesses of the children, it makes a lot of sense.

1. Teachers simply use their voices more each day than most other professionals.
2. Teachers get little recovery time - typically working five days a week with only two-day weekends to rest. Personal and sick days are few and far between.
3. They are constantly exposed to students with sniffles and sore throats. Viruses and other upper respiratory episodes usually wreak havoc on the voice.
4. More children are hard of hearing as compared to previous generations. [Do you suppose it's their music?]
5. Environmental conditions. In particular, chemistry, art and industrial education teachers are exposed to irritating fumes. Chalk dust, dusty ventilation systems, low humidity, or molds can all contribute to vocal tissue irritation and difficulty voicing.
6. Many classrooms have poor acoustics.
7. About 75 percent of all teachers are female. Since women usually speak at a higher pitch, their vocal folds collide more times each day than those of men.
8. Teachers probably haven't been taught healthy ways of speaking. Knowledge of optimal voice use from disciplines such as speech-language pathology hasn't crossed over to the field of education. Also, when teachers have a voice problem, they may be unsure how to seek help.

There's some really interesting information at this website.

The Chapin Sisters

I had a pleasant surprise today visiting Natalie's Thursday Thirteen. She is a record/performer/music buff (loves the 60s), both old and new. In one of her posts she mentioned that the Chapin Sisters were a really nice group to listen to and provided a link to I don't love you. I love it. I've listened several times, resetting the button thingy. Simple guitar, sweet voices. They are the daughters of Tom Chapin and their half sister (they have the same mother). I wrote about Tom Chapin July 28, 2005 as a performer at Lakeside.

I didn't care for the Chapin Sisters' web site at all--found it squashed and not easy to read or navigate, but I did find a nice album cover at their dad's site.



Thanks for the tip, Natalie. I'll be back to visit some more of your suggestions.

2281 My ridiculous invention

Glenn Beck was doing an over the top routine on the new Idol show about inventions. Like the watch alarm that goes off when the hand gets near the mouth, or the butt crack designer jeans that actually has creative cut outs placed strategically and then is marketed to 15 year olds, not plumbers. So he's having a contest for the most ridiculous invention.

I won't submit this because I think someone ought to get a Small Business Administration loan and go for it. Invent a nice smelling hand cream, one for sugar junkies and one for salt freaks that emits an odor like raccoon feces when the hand dips inside the package or touches the plate of the offending food. The fat, or salt or sugar triggers a chemical in the cream, and you'd have to head for the nearest rest room and scrub down. After a few tries, my hand, like Pavlov's dog would be avoiding that bag of Fritos. But not right now.

2280 Help us plan our trip

I get a brain freeze when it comes to trip planning. I'm pretty good at the "Why don't we. . . " part, and paralyzed when it comes to final decisions. This summer we're planning to go to Helsinki, Finland to see Finn friends whom we met in the late 1970s. She's a veterinarian and he's an architect. And while we're there and so close we plan to go to St. Petersburg, either by train or by bus. We are working with a woman who helped us in 2003. Today she was riding in a car with another woman and mentioned what she was doing. The other woman said not only had she taken that exact same trip, but she had visited the couple we are planning to see (and indirectly she knows me too through my former job at the vet college).

So my husband called her, and of course, got a million suggestions because I think they stayed in Helsinki 9 months, not 2 weeks.

If you've been to Finland, or to St. Petersburg, I'm open to suggestions, especially any small tour company you might have used, little restaurant you loved, vistas you enjoyed, etc.

I've already told them I won't go naked in the sauna at their summer cottage.

Virtual tour of St. Petersburg

2279 Harvey's unhappy

He decided on his 40th birthday to come out to his doctor, a major emotional breakthrough for him*. He was disappointed that "he did not discuss my sexual history or recommend that I be tested for HIV, nor did we discuss the need for hepatitis A or B immunizations." And when he was at the registration desk of a hospital he was listed as "single," when he told them he had a partner. Harvey, I feel your pain. No one has ever suggested I be tested for HIV, and I've even had to inquire about a tetanus shot when I got a new kitten and "should I be worried about this spot on my arm."

In our diversity-hysteria society it must be very tough for doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, police, and school teachers to say nothing of bakers and candlestick makers to know what they are legally allowed to ask or advise. How many ways are there to spell l-i-t-i-g-a-t-i-o-n? It's just a suggestion of course, but if anyone, gay, straight, bi, tri or trans thinks he/she/they might have gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, lymphogranuloma venereum, hepatitis, HPV, or any of those other "fun diseases," just speak up. Anyone can fill in the "who to notify in an emergency" box. It may not be legal in that jurisdiction to even ask you what you've been doing with your free time and with whom. Harvey, by the way, IS a doctor.

[*NEJM, March 2, 2006]

2278 Recruiting hospitalists

The term "hospitalist" first appeared about 10 years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine. The term seems to be a bit squishy and nebulous and my spell checks flag it, but I think it means "there's a doctor in the house," the same one most of the time looking after other doctors' patients. Originally, doctors "in transition" took these jobs while waiting for something better to turn up. Now it is considered a specialty. Today I was perusing the ads for hospitalists in JAMA and noticed it's either a growing field, or no one wants those jobs, because there were a lot of ads. Also, some ads promote the location more than the job--unless there was nothing to say about it, then said nothing.

1. Hartford, CT: Upscale living choices, easy access to NYC and Boston, first rate schools, pleasures of coastal environment. . .
2. Brunswick, ME: 1/2 hour north of Portland, minutes from the ocean, good schools, serene life style, boating. . .
3. New York City: says nothing about the location, assuming I suppose that everyone knows the Big Apple. . .
4. Prince George's County, MD: I think the ad writer hopes all readers will know this is a DC suburban area, but she could be wrong . .
5. Indianapolis Community Hospital: not a word about the city or location. No oceans, no mountains. Just my relatives.
6. Denver: beautiful Rocky Mountains . . .
7. California: beautiful central coast. . . pretty vague, but at least it isn't LA. . .
8. Eugene, OR: major university, PAC-10 football, pristine rivers, forests, lakes, snow covered peaks in the Cascades. . .

2278 Why would you do this?

If I ever write a Thursday 13 about foods I can't cook, rice-anything would be at the top of my list. Third world women using an open fire in a pit can cook rice, but not me. If rice is going to be on our menu, we've either gone to a restaurant, or it is the boil-in-a-bag type. But this week I bought a pouch of Knorr/Lipton Rice Sides, Cheddar Broccoli, rice & pasta blend and will fix it for dinner tonight. Even in the picture, you can barely see the broccoli, so I'll have to add some. For some reason I haven't figured out yet, I buy more prepared food now than I did when I was working. Trying new recipes was not on my list of things to do during retirement.

However, I noticed in reading the instructions that to microwave this dish takes 12 minutes; stove top takes 7 minutes. Definitely not a time saver.

2277 Have they no shame?

This morning I went to the sweeper repair shop to pick up my wonderful Panasonic vacuum cleaner and noticed the police were there and the front door was busted with glass broken. Fortunately, an alarm or someone must have scared the bad guys away, and they weren't successful. "What were they trying to steal?" I asked the owner, thinking maybe they were after cash or something. "Oh, the vacuum sweepers--they go fast on the street." Imagine. Clean and tidy thieves and fences. Do you suppose a thief is dumb enough to give his girl friend a vacuum cleaner as a gift?

I don't remember when I got this sweeper, but I know I ruined one by vacuuming up paint dust when we were sanding the window trim in the dining room of our former home before painting (don't ever do that--ruins the motor because the dust is so fine). So I'm thinking 30 years? And this is the first repair or tune up it's ever had. The owner of the repair shop told me that some of today's models barely last 2-3 years--and he showed me one that had just been brought in.

Mine is a good machine--the new Panasonics like it but with a few more amps (12 instead of 7) cost about $299, and he'll give me a trade in on this one worth $50. But I think I'll just hang on to it for another 30 years. They'll have to pry it out of my hand for the funeral.


Dust mite is smaller than the size of this period.

If your spouse or kids wants to know why you are washing all the bedding in the middle of the week, tell them it's because Norma said they are full of dust mites. Although not as many as reported by the Wall St. Journal.

Monday Memories

Have I ever told you I was horse crazy when I was a little girl?
During 1949 and 1950, when I wasn’t hanging out at the livestock barn owned by father and son, Charlie and Raymond, in our little town, Forreston, IL, I was heading out to a farm of a girl friend to ride her horses. At Charlie’s barn I had to be sort of sober and grown up because there were only adults there and it was a place of business. I could watch them muck the stalls, shoe the horses, and listen as they explained the parts of a saddle and tack. I was allowed to sit on the horses and wash or curry them; and I could ask questions which seemed to cause the men a lot of mirth and red faces, such as, “How do you tell a steer from a bull?”

None of my friends were as interested in horses as I was, so after school I’d go to the barn by myself, within walking distance of our home but outside the town limits. I knew how to open the latches to the doors, so I’d let myself in. When my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I'd climb up on the stall dividers, scoot over and slide onto the horses. If I did take a friend with me, I would show off by walking under the horse. I shudder now to think of the danger I was in. There wasn’t an adult within a half mile. Usually, Charlie and Raymond bought nice, well-trained horses, but they were in the resale business and never kept an animal very long, so who knows what behavior problems they could have had? I probably weighed less than 100 lbs., and the average horse can be over a 1,000 lbs., and really, they aren't very bright.

Charlie and Raymond would take me with them in their stock truck on their buying trips--I remember going with them up to Wisconsin and over to Iowa. Again, I can’t imagine I would have allowed my children to do this, but it was a different time, and my parents knew them, or at least Dad did. I was a reasonably well behaved child, but I do remember wandering around stock barns and county fairs by myself as the men attended to their buying. I can remember being too embarrassed to ask about a rest room or for something to eat. So I wasn't as brave as it might sound. Then the cattle or horses would be loaded into the truck and we’d start for home.

Charlie and me and a gray pony
I don’t remember how I met Marlene and Carol and their large family. At least one was my age, so possibly we met at summer Bible School. They didn’t go to elementary school in our town, but attended a one room rural school. However, for Bible School, the country kids came to town, which was always exciting because it meant some new faces--important in a town of 1,000 or less. Their mother was a jolly farm woman who made beef tongue sandwiches for our lunch (which made me gag and decline her hospitality) and all the children in the family could play the accordion.

For my first visit to their farm, which was on Route 72 between Forreston and Leaf River, my mother probably dropped me off, but after that, I was on my own. So I rode my standard bicycle along a busy highway, with a gravel and dirt berm before the days of helmets and safety concerns. It was years later working in an agriculture library that I learned about the high injury and death rate among farm children because of dangerous machinery, but their townie friends, like 10 year old Norma riding her bike out to see them, were probably at risk too. (We'd also take rides on the tractor driven by a 14 year old, but that's another story.)

This family had two riding horses, one a handsome, fast sorrel mare, and the other a blind, overweight “Indian” pony, named Pinky. Pinky’s eyes were blank and glassy, but one was blue. He was white and his pink skin showed through, which is probably how he got his name. If he wasn’t an albino (who often are blind), he was close to it. The sorrel I would gallop around a pasture where she would attempt to rub me off against the fence while spinning so she could make a break for the barn.

Pinky was a step down in prestige, but was easier to catch. If you’ve never ridden an overweight equine, let me explain. When he galloped, or attempted to, his breath expelled with very loud heaving noises, especially when the three children on his back came down out of the air to make contact in sequence. Because Pinky was so fat, the saddle girth wouldn’t fit, so we rode him bareback. Away we'd go, along busy Route 72, always with two or three children atop, with cars whizzing by, many honking their horns to see if they could startle the horse. As Pinky would hesitate and balk, confused by the noise, the gravel, and holes in the dirt, we kids would slip-slide back and forth on his sweaty back, our thigh muscles burning, hanging on to his mane, the reins, and each other for dear life.

Mother would have had nightmares had she known. It’s a mystery to me that I don’t.

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2275 My best student

Last summer I taught blogging at the coffee shop in Lakeside. It was not an overwhelming success. Having something to say, knowing how to type, even a little, and being able to put some sentences together in an interesting way are important for would-be bloggers. So far, Eric is my star pupil, and has five entries on his blog, and is experimenting with photographs. He and his wife Sharon have just celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary in Puerto Rico. They were back by the week-end, and Sharon did a lovely performance in a trio for church.

2274 Catholic parents: what are you paying for?

Sometimes Glenn Beck is really the "sick twisted freak" he calls himself. However, if most of your news stories come from the cable or network news, listening to his homegrown hysteria is sometimes enlightening. Like the time he interviewed Columbus' mayor live about the assault on a disabled student, but that's not this story. This morning he told about attending his daughter's performance in her Catholic high school play. Nunsense. With 13-17 year olds.

Beck is a former Catholic (now a Mormon), but his daughters from his first marriage attend a private Catholic high school. He started the program by reporting that his eldest told him, after the fact, that her theology teacher at this school had denied all Jesus' miracles and the resurrection, that they were just nice stories to make a point. Then he moved on to describe the stage production (which even when he mentioned the title I knew was way too wrong for teeny-boppers) where the sexual innuendo, ribald jokes, and ridicule of Roman Catholic doctrine were horribly out of place being performed by children in a Catholic school. He told of them swinging their crucifix on their belts, and pretending to perform sex acts to ridicule the Virgin Birth. He said if such an outrage were performed in a public school, Catholics would storm the administration and school board, but since it was a Catholic school, no one seemed to object. Except him. A Mormon. He is outraged that he is paying for a Catholic education that is ridiculing Catholic doctrine and faith.

Catholic schools
Nunsense
Glenn Beck

2273 Show the bump maternity fashion is just ugly

There. I've said it and I'm not sorry. Clingy, tight maternity fashions showing plumbers' crack and cleavage just make pregnant women look uncomfortable and unglam, with a bursting sausage look, the opposite of what I think they believe they are doing. (Not that fashion in general makes any sense.) Low rise jeans with tube tops--please save that outfit for housecleaning. Don't go out in public and subject the rest of us to it. Pregnant women are beautiful. They are our future. Today's maternity clothes (and I actually can't tell if they just moved up a size or two or bought a specially designed outfit) make the women look like they grabbed something out of the box meant for Good Will and are in denial about what's going on.

The 2006 Auto Show

This afternoon we went downtown, parked in a wet garage (there had been flood watches earlier), and walked to our ugly, ugly convention center designed by Peter Eisenman. We stayed about an hour, and although they let you sit in a $60,000 Lincoln or Mercedez Benz, they rope off the $344,000 Lambourgini. I couldn't believe the gas guzzlers (like 11 mpg) I saw. And people whine about gasoline prices?

I think my favorite is still the Dodge Magnum for comfort, looks and value. But Dodge has a new little guy that was really cute and reasonably priced--the 2007 Caliber.
There seemed to be plenty of room inside, the seats fold down for cargo space, and the gas mileage is good. Auto Week doesn't seem to know what to call it--"Coupled with a Magnum-like face, flared fenders and bold shoulder lines that flow into the taillights, it’s little wonder people mistake the car for an SUV. . . It’s not an SUV, and we wouldn’t call it a mini crossover either. This new Dodge may be boldly styled and ride a tad higher, but at its core the Caliber is still a sedan, just a new interpretation of what a compact sedan can be."

With the low end model right around $14,000 and good gas mileage, I think people will like this one. I did.

Getting ready for the summer shows

Last summer my husband had a one artist show all summer long at the Patio Restaurant in Lakeside. I'm not sure if he's made arrangements for summer 2006, but he'll certainly have the paintings ready to go. I think he's done 14 in the past month. That would be an entire year's output for me. I've done 3 in 2006, and the one of the hockey players never came together so we're down to two. Too much blogging, I guess. Here are some of his recent works, with the cat stepping into the picture at the last minute. See those windows. That's north light. Wonderful for a studio, but I have yet to put brush to paper on that nice spot we set up for me in December.

Lighthouse cottage at Marblehead, OH
Lotsa artsa

2270 Columbus has a new magazine

It's for the young professionals and adults on the verge of greatness. I blogged about it today at In the Beginning, my blog about premiere issues.

Shame, shame on those "31 Ohio pastors"

That's all you'll need to type into Google to get the story noted in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Just "31 Ohio pastors." They don't care a whit about politics from the pulpit when they are preaching their viewpoint. I've been a member of a liberal church, and you better believe you hear politics. I didn't hear a squawk from them when Kerry and Edwards were making the rounds of the black churches and speaking from their pulpits.

This is pure pew envy. The largest churches in Columbus, like Upper Arlington Lutheran, First Community, Vineyard and Grace Brethren didn't sign on. These liberal pastors probably can't even raise a quorum in their own congregation, let alone attract new members. All their congregations added together could probably fit into our sanctuary. You'll determine their politics almost immediately by the tone of the news coverage. Usually, the media ignores churches, unless they can spot a juicy fight on the horizon.

Not that the non-signers have been pillers in the public square. Two years ago the pastor of First Community (and they don't get much more liberal) said, "If we work to take away the tax exempt status of All Saints Church in Pasadena and World Harvest Church in Columbus, that means we must do the same with First Community Church." [First News, Feb. 19-Mar. 4, 2006] OK, so that's sort of self-serving. Rich Nathan, pastor of Vineyard published a wimp-out article in the Dispatch saying in effect Can't we all just get along and stick to the Bible from our pulpits so we don't turn unbelievers off. I wonder if he means preach non-political things like sanctity of marriage, evils of abortion, evolution, parental choice, etc. UALC pastors haven't commented to my knowledge. The last time we did anything even remotely political was to sing "God Bless America" the evening of 9/11 at a church service filled with terrified people.

Cleveland Channel 5: "Another group comprised of 31 Ohio pastors believes Restoration Ohio is breaking the law, and has asked the IRS to investigate.

"They crossed the line and they're not acting as a church, in my mind. They're acting more like a political organization to elect a single candidate," said the Rev. Eric Williams.

Everson delivered a strong warning about illegal campaigning.

"Are we going to let this cancer spread to our charities and churches? Now is the time to act before it is too late," said Everson."

PewForum: "Churches and religious organizations agree to abide by the regulations of the Internal Revenue Code when they accept tax-exempt status as 501(c)(3) organizations. The 31 Ohio pastors who recently asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate possible violations by two pastors and their religious organizations had reason for concern.

The Revs. Rod Parsley and Russell Johnson have been upfront about their political objectives. They have created separate affiliates (Reformation Ohio by Parsley and Johnson's Ohio Restoration Project) to build a network of conservative pastors to promote political candidates sympathetic to their conservative religious agenda.

According to the complaint to the IRS, Parsley, the pastor of World Harvest Church, and Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church, have practically adopted J. Kenneth Blackwell, the secretary of state, as their favored candidate for Ohio governor, showcasing him on road trips and events to the exclusion of other candidates for the same office. The complaint accuses the evangelical coalition of launching a voter registration campaign and voter-education materials intended to garner Blackwell maximum support.

It is common enough for candidates to make the rounds of religious establishments, especially in African-American churches, to be introduced to the congregation. It is a different story when churches align themselves so plainly behind specific candidates. The involvement alleged in the complaint goes far beyond a mere visit. It suggests church-activated machinery to promote one candidacy."

Columbus Dispatch: HARTVILLE, Ohio — Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell told conservative religious leaders yesterday not to be deterred from political participation by a federal complaint filed by 31 Columbus-area pastors.

"You tell those 31 bullies that you aren’t about to be whupped," said Blackwell, the secretary of state, who said that "political and social and cultural forces are trying to run God out of the public square."

Trying something new

I'm not sure why you would want this, but. . .

2266 Six visitors

We live in the middle of a metropolitan area of about a 1.6 million people, in suburbia, with the newer suburbs spreading out many miles beyond us. But here's what was in our back yard in January. Six deer. Two rivers flow through Columbus, and I think they hang around the flood plains and river beds, working further down into the city. We have two creeks surrounding our complex which eventually flow into the rivers through many trees, so the deer make their way here. Grazing as they go. Sometimes bringing the babies. If they try to eat my flowers, they'll be disappointed, or have stomachs of iron. I plant only artificial blooms.

2265 Trying to keep up

with the choir is a challenge. Sunday we'll be singing "Fairest Lord Jesus," which they've apparently done before, because the music was handed out Wednesday evening, we did a quick run through, and then moved on to preparations for Easter. Many of these people have been singing together over 20-30 years--maybe more. This is actually one I remember from when I sang in junior choir as a child, which I wrote about in my Thursday Thirteen (although a different arrangement). I have a set of 3 CD's called Passionate Worship, 60 best loved hymns. One disc is "Jesus Our Savior" with the painting, The Garden of Promise by Thomas Kinkade, and selection 3 is "Fairest Lord Jesus," so I've been La la-ing in the car with it.

Having my son's Midi is a big help. Here's how it looks in the guest room. The new carpet helps muffle the sound. The cat sits right outside the door while I practice. At least she isn't howling!

2264 The bracelet

is the title I've given this painting.



It started as a black and white photograph of five children and a grandfather sent to me by my friend Sylvia. (My little brother didn't like to play with us, otherwise there would have been six children.) I cropped it to three children, and if I get really brave, I might try the five. Sylvia was wearing roller skates and I couldn't quite figure that part out with the shadows. Shoes and feet and fingers are hard enough--I just didn't feel ready for skates. Sylvia lived on a farm and says she loved to "come to town" where she could use her roller skates and her bike on hard surfaces. Roller skating in the gravel or riding a bike in a pasture was tough! Earlier view.

JoElla and I lived in the big town of Forreston, about 1,000 residents. I couldn't see a cat in the photo, but JoElla's cat was very prolific, and probably the feline ancestor of every kitty in northern Illinois, so I added "Butch" (Bertha Matilda Pussycat Elvira Mouser Mouria) in Richard's arms. I'm calling it "The bracelet" because I was so surprised to see it in the photo. It was probably my only piece of adornment and I was very proud of it. It had been given to me by my Sunday School teacher in the town from which we moved. Then the latest issue of Watercolor has a fabulous painting of two children sitting on a porch step that really almost made me want to throw this one away. It is realism beyond realism--the kind that goes beyond the photograph to show more than a photo tells. Oh well, this works on a greeting card which is how I'll use this. My sister will probably get one next week.

When we grew up, JoElla became my college roommate and later my Maid of Honor in my wedding. The last time I saw her was in 1996 when I visited her in Seattle where she was the President of a company that researches opinions and products. Sylvia, the little girl with the beautiful curls and roller skates who is NOT in the painting, is an RN and church musician, living in my hometown, and we had coffee together in October when I visited my sister and brother.

2263 Good-bye Yellow Brick Road

may be just about the best blog you'll ever read about how we got from vinyl to i-Pod in the lifetime of a 32 year old. As a child he made cassette tapes from his parents' records; he remembers when he discovered CDs and replacing the tape deck in his car; and his first experience with MP3, then iPod and iTunes.

"Like many revolutions, this one happened quietly for years, and then snapped into sharp focus in one instant. For me, it was a party here at the house. Heather and I had friends over and we were all standing around in the living room. A few of the guests started pouring over my CDs - these physical reminders, this luggage I've carted around for years. They were reading off the names, the titles, and I had a sudden revelation: I hadn't bought a CD in years. Many years.

My CDs had become this snapshot of who I was, like carrying around a driver's license with a 5 year-old photo where you're wearing old glasses and a shirt you wouldn't be caught dead in now. And here I was displaying them like a shrine in an immense tower in my living room."

Read the whole amazing, interesting story.

At least it was a eye-opener review of technology for me. The last time we were up-to-date in the recorded music department was when we had a big old 4-door '69 deep green Olds with an 8-track tape deck and two baby seats in the backseat. And I thought we'd arrived!

2262 "Together, America can do better"

Rosa Brooks in the LATimes [registration] writes on March 10 about the Democrats sloganeering:

"You can do better" is what you say to a dim child whose grades were even worse than expected. Is this really the Democrats' message to the nation: that we don't need to be quite as pathetic as we now are, though excellence is certainly beyond our reach?

This slogan speaks not of hope but of hopelessness, of scaled-down ambitions, of dreams deferred and dreams denied."

Brooks has got a point; silly me, I just thought it didn't sound grammatical or accurate. I can see "Together, Americans. . ., but . . . singular? It sounds like they've left out something--Canada? Mexico? Aren't we the United States?

"And as a message, "Let America be America again" [Kerry's discredited campaign slogan] sure beats "Hello, you've reached the Democratic Party. We're not home right now." " [Brooks]

Or, "we're out to lunch," works for me.