2331 Ready for prom?

About 20 years ago my brother-in-law's son brought him a little orchid plant in a plastic bag returning from a tour of duty in Korea. It is now doing its twice a year prom dance and this year has 12 blooms. He is a horticulture/hobbyist and has always had a lovely flower garden. At his touch green things and people just flourish. He's also written how-to columns for magazines and has published a book on Purple Martins. Since it is my policy to not mention family members' names (unless I slip) you'll just have to guess whether these orchids are blooming in California, Illinois or Indiana where I have dear hyphenated brothers. According to Robert Louis Dressler, for the orchid family there are 5 subfamilies, 22 tribes, 70 subtribes, about 850 genera and about 20,000 species, so you'll also need to guess about this 20 year old, because I don't know its name.



And then there's my efforts.

orchids

2330 Illegal Immigrant Demonstrations

Does it strike you as odd that students who may be here illegally leave school illegally to demonstrate against a proposed amnesty program that might make them legal? I don't think this is impressing the general American public, even though we are all "children of immigrants" (mine came in the 1600s and 1700s). Body Parts, a blogger from California who is much closer to this than we are (although there were demonstrations here in Columbus, too) had this to say:

Why do they think that non-Mexican Americans will be persuaded of the rightness of their cause when they wave Mexican flags?

If they want immigration from Mexico to be unrestricted so that their relatives and others in Mexico can come to the US to obtain better lives, why do they also carry banners calling for return of the Southwestern US to Mexico? Imposition of the social and economic structure of Mexico on the US would simply reproduce the kind of misery that 40% of Mexicans say they want to escape by moving to the US. Mexico is a de facto caste society, with racially based exclusion of native Americans, ownership of the majority of property and income and control of the government in the hands of a ethnic Spanish-legacy minority, and a nearly impoverished Mestizo middle class living off state bureaucracies. Mexico is a morally, ideologically, and socially failed society. If American students of Mexican descent are so eager to live in such a society, they should go sneak across the border into Mexico and live there.

I dare say.

illegal immigration

2329 Project CALM

Conservation Attention for Libraries of Mississippi is a preservation program developed by a University of Iowa Librarian, Gary Frost. He is restoring and preserving many of the irreplaceable artifacts, photographs and documents from the home (now a museum and library) of Jefferson Davis, the only President of the Confederate States of America. Davis was also a U.S. Senator and Secretary of War. Later this year Frost expects to help restore documents from the Biloxi Public Library also damaged by Katrina. Story here.

HT Rare Book News

Project CALM
Hurricane Katrina
Mississippi libraries

2328 This is a secret?

"It's no secret. On a normal weekday (without prompting from CNN), more than 70,000 distinct visitors come to the FAS web site [Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy] to view hundreds of thousands of archived documents. Over 11,000 individuals now subscribe to Secrecy News directly, and innumerable others receive it through secondary distribution."

Is this where leakers go to work when they get out of jail?

Some history of secrecy--only 6 p.

A lexicon so you can understand all the secret stuff--unfortunately, its 346 p. It would be really useful if you're writing a novel, or if you are a conspiratist, or a librarian trying to foil the anti-terrorist activities of the government. I learned that PSAs aren't just for prostate cancer, they are Presidential Support Activities. There are so many on-line links to documents about secrecy, this thesis will make your nose itch. I don't think there are any secrets.

2327 Killah must laugh all the way to the bank

supported by all the white kids who take him seriously and make him rich. He got a 4 star review in USAToday today. And he was warmly praised in the NYT Critics' Choice yesterday. And a write up in The New Yorker. The title of the latest album is "Fishscale," the street word for uncut cocaine. Oh! for Old Blue Eyes (whom I didn't particularly like until rap and hip hop started turning up, even in church) and his ties with the mob and the Kennedys. The New Yorker says Killah looks like a cross between Frank Sinatra and a jewel thief. Huh? Here's a toe tapper.

Big heavy pots over hot stoves
Mayonnaise jars and water
With rocks in 'em
Got my whole project outta order

Kilo is a thousand grams
Beige, gold, brown, dirty, fluffy, tan
Extract oil come from Cuban plants."
Aside from the lovely name, Killah, his themes are dealing cocaine, violence in graphic detail, stick-ups gone bad, and general, all around mayhem, like some dirty laundry about getting beaten by his mother. He grew up Dennis Coles on Staten Island. He's even marketed a doll action figure of himself. How cute.

“For those that don’t have no soul, y’all wouldn’t really understand or know where the fuck I’m coming from when I play shit like that,” he said. New Yorker

That'd be me

Ghostface Killah

2326 Buck Owens

Florida Cracker has a nice post about Buck Owens, who I remember only from "Hew Haw" days (which he owned). He died on March 25. Hew Haw was sort of a country parody or take off on the popular Laugh-in, and started as a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers back in 1968. Well known performers on the show included George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Mickey Gilley, Kitty Wells, Waylon Jennings, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Dolly Parton, Kenny Price, Kenny Rogers, Freddy Fender, Johnny Cash, Tanya Tucker, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Jerry Clower, Roger Miller, and Loretta Lynn. I enjoyed all the corny regular skits like the barbershop, the hotel clerk, and the jokes in the cornfield. We loved that show at our house--no one sings a love ballad better than Roy Clark. Also, I loved that Lulu--she could sing!

Florida Cracker has some audio and video, plus additional information by Donnah, another one of my linkees, about his background and work ethic in the comments. Ms. Cracker, btw, is a librarian, but I was linking to her long before I found out her secret.

Buck Owens
Hee Haw
Roy Clark

2325 Bushisms

Although I like President Bush, I doubt that when he is 20 years out of office, we'll be passing his clever, flexible, folksy way with words around by e-mail. Actually, in another 20 years we won't have e-mail as we know it, but there will be other ways to gloss over the past. Anyway, I opened my e-mail this morning to a batch of Ronald Reagan quotes. And here they are:

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so."

"Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment's would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."

"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program."

"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting."

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

Two years ago I blogged about a speech he gave as a graduation address in 1957 at Eureka College when his career was pretty much over and he was still in his 40s. Who could have imagined then what was before him.

Monday Memories

Grandma's farm
Did I ever tell you about Sunday night suppers?
Thirty years ago, my children thought eating sandwiches and potato chips for Sunday night supper on trays in the living room was just about the most exciting treat ever! That’s because we didn’t do it very often. Our only TV was in the living room, so they probably watched a Disney show. I was pretty strict about eating together as a family, and even for breakfast, the table was set. By 1976 the lime green shag living room carpet (we didn’t have a family room until 1982) was about four years old, so we probably didn’t do it at all when it was new (and they would have been too small to manage a tray much before that).

When I was a child in the 1950s, Sunday night suppers were special, too. Oh, Mom made wonderful dinners--my mouth waters as I think of it. She’d put the roast in before we went to church or she fixed fried chicken when she got home. The table in the dining room in our house on Hannah Avenue or in our Forreston home would be set with the white linen table cloth and the good white china with a gold rim. Dad would always say the prayer--and I would know the ending if I heard it today, but I‘ve forgotten it now. I’m sure there were mashed potatoes and gravy and vegetables and fruit from the cellar where she kept the home canned items in gleaming glass jars. Even though at the time I didn’t think the clean up and dishes were so great (no one had dishwashers then and she had 3 daughters), I remember that fondly now as a time to chat with Mom.

As good as dinner was at noon, Sunday night with various relatives stopping by was especially nice. Can’t even remember now what we had--maybe sandwiches or left-overs, perhaps a second helping of her fabulous apple pie. But it was casual and relaxed. And occasionally Daddy would disappear and come back with 2 pints of ice cream (we had a refrigerator, but no freezer). We children would just die of excitement and try to guess the flavor until he would get back. Mom would slice the two pints into six even portions and put them into cereal bowls. You wanted it to last as long as possible, but Dad ate quickly and would look in our bowls with his spoon poised and tease, “Do you need any help finishing that?”

Also, I know my Grandmother Mary was without electricity for only a short time after WWII at her farm in Franklin Grove, but I remember Sunday evening suppers in the 1940s of sandwiches on trays by kerosene lamp. Grandma wasn’t much of a cook, but I thought her baloney sandwiches spread thick with butter (we had neither at our house) were a fabulous treat. After a supper of sandwiches, her homemade grape juice from her backyard arbor, and factory canned peaches in dainty little glass dishes, we’d load up the car and start down the gravel lane for home. I’d press my nose against the car window and watch Grandma waving good-bye from the porch silhouetted against the flickering kerosene light in the kitchen.

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2323 Meet Chris White

He's training in NC to go to Afghanistan soon. He'll be blogging about his experiences. He says at his blog:

"Over the course of the next 14 months I will be using this site to capture the story of my adventure into the Panjshir Valley of Northern Afghanistan. . . Shortly after Christmas the Air Force informed me that I was being tasked as the lead Civil Engineer on a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

Our PRT mission is not only the first of it’s kind, but it is also considered to be the most important mission in Afghanistan. Our primary focus will be to help legitimize the central Afghan government by directly supporting the governor of the Panjshir province. Our support will be lived out through various projects to potentially include building schools, roads, hospitals and other facilities, all in an effort to help the local Afghan people reach a quality of living the region hasn’t experienced since the Soviet invasion back in the late 1970’s, which lasted over a decade. There will be other PRT missions just like ours going on throughout Afghanistan. Over 40 other countries are directly supporting these PRT missions."

I'll be watching and praying for Chris.

2322 Another medical service opportunity I'll have to pass up

"Japanese researchers have harvested endometrial stem cells from human menstrual blood. These stem cells have "an extremely higher potential" as a source of cardiomyocytes compared with bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells, they reported at a late-breaker clinical trials session here Sunday at the 55th Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology.

The findings were presented by Dr. Shunichiro Miyoshi on behalf of his colleagues at Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo. The researchers collected menstrual blood from six women and harvested endometrial stem cells."

Seen at Medscape.com which may require registration.

2321 Blog site Housekeeping

I really like the pre-packaged template I use from blogger, but it is fairly common and sometimes I think (after clicking around) I'm back on my page, but I'm on someone else who uses that same parchment and wallpaper look. So I've changed the side margins to reflect my own books. See those tall black leather bound volumes? My favorite books. I inherited 11th, 12th and 13th ed. of Encyclopedia Britannica, and that's what shows in the repeat, plus some of my kitty boxes and other books. Also I went into the help section and figured out how to reverse my archives so the most recent would be on top.

I took a peek at the Truth Laid Bear and discovered I am now #203, although I have no idea what that really means except today Blue Star Chronicles is #67 and Median Sib is #100--they are sisters that I always read along with their sister Joan and cousin Jane (I'd link, but it's been kicking IE out). "The family that blogs together . . . just might have a liberal brother blogger." Lately, I haven't been reading Blue Star Beth as often because she has so many things on it, it takes too much time to load. But that helps stats.
TLB always flat lines me a 71 hits a day, which isn't true. I get several hundred. Last week I was checking my site meter and for some reason last Wednesday I had over 500 page hits, and I think that was my busiest day ever, although I have no idea why. Something must have been in the news that pinged a story in my archives. Since I only track 100 at a time, most of it had scrolled by before I noticed. Thursday Thirteen has definitely caused an uptick in traffic (I started in January), and Monday Memories slightly so. And I swear, at least two out of every hundred are trying to figure out how to fix a broken zipper, a topic from October 2004.

Blog templates
blog statistics

2320 Love and Money

Today's WSJ has and article on nine financial points to consider if you are planning to get married. I'm going to suggest a tenth, or rather a first--talk about religion and faith matters, and factor that into the budget. First of all, it's just plain smart--you can't outgive God. But secondly, it could cause a huge fight in the future if you find out he's a dollar-in-the-plate guy and that was your first clue about his commitment! Thirdly, you might just find out that you don't know each other as well as you thought, and will call the whole thing off!

2. Know your intended's debt load.
3. Know how she uses her credit card--is she charging $1 soft drinks and lattes? Shop aholic?
4. Know your own financial behavior and mistakes--share credit reports with each other. Don't let a bankruptcy or students loans surprise her.
5. Giving up your career? Get a pre-nup. Or at least bring it up for discussion.
6. Talk about your dreams and aspirations.
7. Discuss career expectations. One income after kids? SAHM? Might be a good time to even discuss if you're planning to have a family, wouldn't it?
8. Who will be the gatekeeper and family accounts manager? Know this going in.
9. One checkbook or three?
10. Do you know the lingo--how to discuss finances--the acronyms--401-k, 403-b, IRA, etc. Do you know why paying the minimum balance on the credit card is a disaster for your coming marriage?

You can make it work without any of this--I should know--I've been married 46 years and didn't know zip about finances at 20 when I said "I do." But as we old folks are told each and every day, "It's not the same today."

2319 More ignorance about Christians

Robyn Blumner, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, writes from behind a shield of cultural bias about evangelicals today. She's upset that Bush claims ignorance about the various apocalyptic predictions for the Middle East. Well, doh! Who can keep track? If you get 3 Christians together, you'll get at least 2 viewpoints on end times, and the third (that'd be me or the President) will be clueless. (Actually, I won't take the paraphrase of a liberal columnist for anything the President said, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt here because she wants so badly to believe it.)

I'm a Christian and I'm not a tribulationist or dispensationalist. I couldn't tell a pre-trib from a mid-trib from a rapture prediction. And millions and millions of committed Christians don't see the modern day political entity called Israel as the one who benefits from all God's promises in the Old Testament. I know this; and I think the President does too. Someday Jesus is coming back. I know that because, like the song says, the Bible tells me so. I'm supposed to be ready and busy, because it could be tomorrow, or it may never happen in my life time (in which case I don't need to worry). I don't need to read the newspaper headlines, the Christian bloggers or the stars to believe this.

She's right that many dispensationalists voted for Bush. Like most of us, Christian or not, they probably couldn't figure out where Kerry stood on anything or stomach abandoning the Iraqis the way his post-Vietnam record (did you know he served?) would predict a similar diaster in this century. However, I'm guessing there's a few more issues conservative Christians have in common with the President other than support for Israel. They may have even hoped he'd keep on task about saving social security and securing the borders. Note to Robyn: brush up on what Christians believe. We're not peas in a pod.

2318 Veggie and fruit plate

There is a Cursillo* Closing at our church tonight and I've been tapped to bring snacks. I always chose a veggie tray, when given a choice although it is a mixed tray of fresh fruits and vegetables. Carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, white grapes, and 3 different types of apples, sliced. I thought about a fruit dip or some peanuts to sort of jazz it up, but who needs the calories? Not me! Today I had to do the old rubber band through the button hole trick to close my skirt--and I don't know anyone else in the Cursillo community, or even central Ohio, who needs more cookies and brownies. How about your section of the country? Most of the thin people I know have eating disorders or an illness. Or they are under 18. Yesterday we hung an art show. The artist is Greek Orthodox. And of course, it was her name day, so we had to celebrate, right? That means food.

*Cursillo, in case you aren't familiar with the word, is a renewal movement started in Spain by Roman Catholics maybe 60 years ago--means "short course in Christianity." The Columbus Cursillo community is ecumenical, but we aren't supposed to call it Cursillo anymore, since that's for Catholics. So in fact, the vegetable and fruit tray is for Cum Cristo, but because I did my week-end in the late 70s, I still call it Cursillo. But we still sing "DeColores" with gusto and peep like baby chicks and crow like roosters.

Other renewals based on the Cursillo model are: The Episcopal/Anglican Cursillo, The Presbyterian Cursillo, Walk to Emmaus (I think this is Methodist), Via de Christo, Tres Dias, Kairos (for prisoners), Great Banquet, Awakening, Pilgrimage Days with the Lord, Chrysalis, Vida Nueva, Happening, Celebration.

2317 How to blog a better blog

Pilar did a nice Thursday Thirteen on 13 steps to a better blog. Nice job, too.

2316 School uniforms benefit the kids, schools and parents

In today's Columbus Dispatch there was an Op Ed written by a 16 year old girl, Tracy Somers, who attends a Catholic high school where uniforms are required. She defends the uniform policy and thinks her points are valid whether or not the school is religious.

1. Uniforms do not take away one's individuality--if anything, they enhance it.
2. Uniforms do enhance the learning environment. On the occasional "dress down" day, she can see the results of rowdy behavior, slouching, and the time spent admiring each other's outfits instead of paying attention to the task at hand.
3. Students who wear uniforms (which she calls uniformly ugly) learn to ignore outside influences--they help build their pride and self-esteem. (Apparently, people stare at them in public.)
4. Uniforms save her time when preparing for school in the morning.
5. Schools with uniforms rarely report violence.

No, this isn't it; just thought it was a cool way to show your school uniform

While I was reading this op ed, three Future Farmers of America (FFA) came in the coffee shop. Essentially, they wear the same jacket their members wore 50 years ago when I was in high school and it still looks terrific. I stopped and spoke to them--two girls and a boy, and they were pleasant and well spoken. Between the Catholic students and the farm kids, I think the country's in good hands for the future.

school uniforms

You are invited

We're hanging a wonderful art show today by the Columbus Dispatch artist, Evangelia Philippidis. Born in Greece, she includes many Byzantine, ancient Greece and Greek Orthodox motifs and symbols in her work. There is a reception for the artist on Sunday April 2, 2 - 4 p.m. at the Church at Mill Run (Upper Arlington Lutheran Church) in Hilliard, Ohio. The show will run through Thursday, April 27, 2006, and the art is for sale.



Evangelia Philippidis
Columbus, Ohio
Upper Arlington Lutheran Church
Visual Arts Ministry

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.

Visitors and other Thirteeners: 1. Kimmy, 2. Carol, 3. Natalie 4. PJ 5. Kelly 6. Libragirl 7. Denise8. Scouser 9. Momma A 10. Tanya, 11. TNChick, 12. Carmen, 13. Jane, 14. 15. Jade, 16. Dariana, 17. Froggie, 18. Courtney, 19. Kontan Jou, 20. Lingerie Lady, 21. Mr. Roe 22. Mar 23. Lazy Daisy, 24. Melli, 25. Lauren, 26. Elle, 27. Robin 28. Karen, 29. Karin, 30. Renee, 31. Shelli, 32. Amy the Black, 33. JK 34. Master Enigma

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things.

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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.