2769 FLW Tour: War Memorial Columbus, IN

When I first saw this war memorial on the lawn of the county courthouse in Columbus, IN, I thought it really clashed. However, when you walk up to it and enter it, it really is impressive and sobering. Particularly moving are the letters home in the granite from the soldiers shortly before they died. All wars of the 20th century are represented.

2768 Why am I doing this?

If you stop by often, you may notice I'm not using Mr. Linky any more. That's the automatic sign in. At first, it was really cute and simple. But then it started changing. So why'd I drop it? Well, you have to sign in again when you leave a comment, don't you? So the time you save as a blogger, you use up at someone else's site with a double sign in--especially those that make you jump through hoops and hunt for the comment window while listening to ugly music. Also, if you use Mr. Linky the next time, it disappears from the former entry--yes, the reader could go to the trouble to click, open and read it, but who does that? And I doubt that those links "count" on the various sites that rank blogs (today I'm #201 based on links (or a magic formula I don't understand), which isn't too bad considering there are 50 million blogs). The time involved in meme participation is reading the other blogs, not in typing in your name, only to have it disappear anyway with the next time the writer uses Mr. Linky.

Also, increasingly for meme sites, I'm only visiting blogspot.com bloggers because some are just too difficult to leave comments. I know spam is a problem, but unless you are really controversial or flaunting how sexy you are, drawing trolls and sock puppets to your site, do you really need all that protection?

thursday thirteen
Monday Memories
blogging tips

2767 Crabby people are the smartest

One of my regular readers will certainly agree. What would we do without studies? Apparently a study has shown that after age 60, the crabbiest people are the smartest (Jacqueline Bichsel, Morgan State University).

"The theory is that more challenging and argumentative people may be giving themselves more of the mental workout needed to keep their minds sharp." Another theory is that smart people don't like being patronized, which is the attitude many older people get, so they might snap at you if you say something sappy.

Did you see that Orlando and St. Pete are #1 and #2 for angry people? Must be a lot smart alecky older golfers around there. I think Columbus was #53.

When Michelle, the Convivial Librarian, asked Middle School students what words came to mind with "librarian," they responded: "Cardigan" "old" "sssshh-ers" "mean" "crabby" "smart" and "read often." Works for me!

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen very easy, inexpensive or free things we can do this week to make the world a better place for a few moments. Pick just one. Two if you're feeling lucky and joyful.

1. Let someone into merging traffic--even if he's driving like an idiot and not waiting his turn.

2. Smile at him. The Bible says something about being nice is heaping hot coals on your enemy. Picture that when you arrive at the stoplight at the same time.

3. Pick up one or two pieces of trash--a plastic bag, candy wrapper, pop bottle, etc.--from the sidewalk or berm on your way to work or activity. What if millions of people did that?

4. Drop it in the nearest trash can. Create jobs for sanitation crews.

5. Put a quarter in the tip jar at the coffee shop.

6. Be classy instead of colloquial. Say "You‘re welcome," instead of "no problem" if someone thanks you.

7. Donate a jar of peanut butter to the local food pantry.

8. Or offer to volunteer on your day off.

9. Send a card to someone who is ill or shut-in or grieving.

10. If you don't know anyone like that, praise God and call a church or nursing home for a name and make a stranger happy.

11. If someone comes to visit, turn off the television and the music.

12. Hold open the door for someone whose hands are full.

13. If you pack someone’s lunch, put a happy note or cartoon inside.

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2765 Was your high school deactivated?

Illinois has a Glory Days website for deactivated high schools. It is an interesting site and they are looking for stories and photos and records for a lot of schools. Mine seems pretty complete, since it only submerged in the 1990s. I checked my mother's school, which deactivated in the 1950s and it seems a little sparse. I'll have to dig around in my old photos and see what I can come up with.

It's very sad when a town loses its school system. It's hard to make it as a community without that unifying effort of educating for the future. Mt. Morris lost its schools from greed, disaster and duplicity. There was a strike in its major industry, printing, about 30 years ago which spelled economic disaster for the formerly proud and prosperous town, then the bond issues didn't pass, then after they started bussing the high school kids to the next town, the grade school burned to the ground in 2004. Instead of rebuilding as the town wanted, the local rep on the school board back-stabbed his constituency and voted not to rebuild. He's since moved out of state, which was probably smart.

2764 How it all started

"On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive. This terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency and began a personal ordeal for Jimmy Carter and the American people that lasted 444 days." (Carter Library website)

And he wimped out. Disgraced himself and the USA. So now he runs around criticizing the only President we've had who is willing to stand up to terrorists. Way to go Jimmy. I've mentioned before that I liked Jimmy Carter in the 70s (I'm a recovering Democrat--but I don't dem anymore). I ignored a lot of his flaws. Inflation about about 14% or was that the mortgage rate? Unemployment was very high. Gasoline lines were long. He created FEMA. He had marketed himself as an "outsider," and thus he never really got "in," because his own party bigwigs didn't like him much. Really, they still don't.

Ex-presidents should mind their own business. Peanuts. Building houses. Stuff like that. They had their chance and they should stop acting like bitter former wives trying to make themselves look good by tearing down their successors. His approval rating was around 29% when he left office, and I wish he'd stop trying to get it up.

2763 The most popular Lakeside activity

When I was in the Association office the other day buying stamps, there was a line of people signing up for the Tram Tour, "Lakeside's History." We did this about 5 years ago with a neighbor, and I think we were the only 3 people on the ride. The tours are Monday and Tuesday mornings, 10:30-11:45, Monday afternoon 1:15-2:30, and Tuesday 3:30-4:45. Now, if you come here, you need to sign up first thing, or miss it. This week I saw 4 people on bicycles following along.



Carol, who leads the tour, grew up here attending local schools. The last tour date is August 29, and it costs $3 per person.

Lakeside, Ohio

2762 Snacks and chats on the dock

Last evening the Lakeside dock was closed to the public and donors to the Lakeside Fund were invited to an evening on the dock. Bright yellow tablecloths at tables for 8 and delicious treats were set out--of which I probably ate too many. There was a brisk warm breeze and a fabulous sunset. Then someone with a video cam stopped and interviewed us about why we come to Lakeside. I assume snippets will be used in some sort of montage for marketing. Nancy said Lakeside is where she got her first kiss--that should get in; Joe said 5 generations of his family (had his grandchildren this week) had come here; my husband said he knew within 30 minutes of first coming here in 1974 that he would be back.

Today my husband helped for 3.5 hours with Kids' Sail, where the S.O.S. guys take kids out on the sail boats for 10-15 minutes. Ninety-one children participated! This is the first year of this program, and I think we'll see many children signing up for lessons because they really love it.

Lakeside, Ohio

What have you bought on e-Bay?

When I first heard about e-Bay it was from a friend who actually became addicted to it. It's changed a lot from those early days when it was primarily just ordinary folk hawking wares. Now some businesses have closed their bricks and mortar stores and sell only this way. Anyway, my son bought his car on e-Bay, I think he bought it from someone in Atlanta, and then turned around and sold his truck to someone who flew from Salt Lake to Columbus to pick it up. All this seems very strange to me, but some people think having 8 blogs is strange. Imagine!

BMW
e-Bay auto

2760 Do you sic or spell?

I can't help it. Usually when I quote someone (block, chop, drop and link), I correct the spelling, typos and grammar errors of the original, because I'm not sure the reader of my blog will ever click over. What do you do? And do you go back and correct your own typos if you find them later--after they've already oozed into the various blog finders "as is," forever embedded in cyber-cement? I do, unless it's in the title, and then that would throw it off in the various finding links. Recently I quoted a published columnist and spiffed up the quote a bit. It's a librarian thing, I think.

2759 The greatest economic story ever told

"Exactly twenty-five years ago [Aug. 14], Ronald Reagan signed into law the first supply-side tax cuts since the JFK plan of the early 1960s. By reducing high marginal tax rates, Reagan transformed the American economy and opened the door to two-and-half decades of prosperity. Economic behavior responds significantly to the incentive power of low tax rates that raise the after-tax return on work, investment, and risk-taking." Larry Kudlow

Trip Tale: The Hermitage

It seems that everyone who visits St. Petersburg goes to the Hermitage. And it is fabulous. The crowds are incredible--I'm sure you could spend weeks there, and we only had about 1/2 day. However, if you are really interested in art and have limited time, I'd go for the Museum of Russian Art, Государственный Русский музей. The Hermitage is European art, but the other is Russian art, and much of it you've probably never seen, not even in art books or classes. There was a huge display of Soviet era art, both the public and the underground. That's where I spent most of my time. It was incredible. It's also the only place I lost my husband, so Gloria and I spent a lot of time wandering the halls looking for him. We were finally all reunited back at the hotel. We couldn't take photos in there, but here are some from the Hermitage.



I'm not sure how she did it, but our guide slipped us in with no wait, and then we started at the end and went the other direction to avoid the biggest crowds.

Me and two other ladies in the Hermitage



Hermitage
St. Petersburg
Russia

2757 Why do we tolerate leftist academics?

If we believe in the market, and they are tolerated by the people paying their salaries, what's so bad? Jane Galt answers:

"Firstly, academics are broadly ignored (ask any academic) so it does not matter what they say at all. Occasionally the marginal idea escapes the academy and has an impact, but by and large students just want to graduate, academics just want to be insulated from the real world, and the real world wants to be isolated from loonies who go on about how great Che Guevara was. In this light, the Academy is a very efficient mechanism, creating surplus for all.

Secondly, I don't know why people like to ascribe the ills of the world to left-wing ideology, right-wing ideology, or any kind of ideology at all. It's not like humans weren't making dumb and violent decisions long before "ideology" was invented, or that humans will not make dumb and violent decisions if ideology was magically erased. The issue here is that humans intrinsically do dumb and violent things, and the notion that this is somehow driven by ideas cooked up by some guys sitting in an Ivory Tower, writing papers that no one else reads, is bogus. Primitive tribes in the Amazon regularly slaughtered significant %s of neighboring tribes, and they didn't even have paper."

Read the whole article here.

I have withdrawn thousands of volumes from library shelves in a university over the years which have gone into dumpsters. I always looked at the check-out record. Many had never circulated. Blogs are read more often than some academics' books and articles.

Monday Memories: Our Lakeside bicycles

Although I don't have the first photo with me, this bicycle was a birthday gift for me in 1968 when our daughter was still a baby. It is a no gear, no speed (but me) old fashioned bike with coaster brakes and I love it more each year. Several years ago I replaced the original seat, and around 1979 we replaced the tires, which had been damaged when a friend had a spill riding it. The original tires weren't this wide, so we had to cut some of the fender back to get it to fit.

About 15 years ago we bought a 10 speed Raleigh from a neighbor for about $20 and brought it to the lake. This year the tires gave out so my husband took it to the local bike shop for repairs. The two tires, new rims, new tubes, gear repair, new carrying rack and all-round tune-up cost us $100! I was in shock.
Everyone in Lakeside parks their cars and rides bikes. Our expensive refurbished used Raleigh bike is in here somewhere.

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Lakeside, Ohio

2755 The 29th Annual Lakeside Regatta

Last night we attended the S.O.S. (Society of Old Salts) Sailing Appreciation Picnic. I think that may be the only hot dog I've had all summer--also coleslaw, potato salad and brownies. The other old salts urged my husband to enter the regatta today--so they wouldn't be last. But he declined. The day was spectacular and there were many people down at the dock to cheer on the guys. There were junior and senior sunfish, doubles, and laser class races.







Lakeside, Ohio

2754 The Waitress test

I don't think I included some of these points in my "How not to marry a jerk" blog and "How not to marry a high maintenance woman" that I wrote a few months back.

Here's one. The waitress test. "If you find yourself dating a man who treats you like a queen and other females like dirt - hit the road."

There's a long list of signs you're dating a loser over at Coffee Talk, who's recently been dumped and feeling really blue. She got them from Joe Carver's website. He's currently working with juvenile offenders. I think there's probably a link between losers and offenders. He also has an article "Love and the Stockholm syndrome."

Then she writes some advice from bitter experience for women about being dumb and living with the boyfriend:

"Marriage verses living together: Many couples today live together for years and never get married; this is fine if you don't want to marry this person, but if you do don't sell yourself short. If you want marriage from this man then stick to your guns and don't settle for less, move the wedding date up if it is so imporant for you two to live under one roof, if you're sure that he is the one for you. But don't fall for these lines from him: I want to see how we work together before we tie the knot. Or, I don't want to get married till I can buy you a proper ring, or have a nice wedding, or save money to buy a nicer home or car, or I want to pay off some bills before I get married. Accept it, he's not looking for a wife...He's looking for a Room-mate, THAT COOKS AND CLEANS AND GIVES HIM FREE SEX, and pays half of the bills so he has more money. He's still looking for MRS. RIGHT, and you just allowed him to say, "You're not her" and went along with it. You're worth more then what he is willing to offer, be smart run fast!"

Couldn't have said it better myself. I would have even told her that two years ago when I first came across her blog, but she wouldn't have believed me then.

2753 Ka Boom, Bang Thud Crash

When I stepped outside the coffee shop this morning at Lakeside, I heard a very loud "worship" band practicing at the Pavilion. Inwardly I groaned for the folks trying to sleep-in at the hotel, and for those of us planning to attend a peaceful morning worship service with communion at 8:30 by the lake. I walked back to the cottage and told my husband I just refused to go and have my ears assaulted and my heart rate changed by the thud-thud-crash of a loud contemporary worship band. It is always a contemporary service, but usually just with happy Gwen playing simple little songs at the electric synthesizer. No drums. No electric guitars or ampilification.

Part of my distaste was recovering from last night's concert by CeCe Winans. She is a fabulous singer, a terrific preacher, and a great performer, but the lights were blinding and the amplification painful. Just as distracting were her backup singers, all overweight and looking like they were dressed to chop cotton on a cool day--faded boot cut jeans two sizes too small and black jeans jackets over t-shirts. What ever happened to glamor--usually African American women can sweep us out the door with their fashion flare! This is a summer vacation spot and the audience in capri pants and shorts was dressed better than the performers!

When she performed for the President it was much quieter and more glamorous.

CeCe Winans
contemporary worship

2752 Blueberries and Cancer

I blogged about the benefits of blueberries last summer, but because they are in season, here's a reminder from this week's US Farm Report.

"WHEN IT COMES TO PREVENTING CANCER AND ALZHEIMER’S, USDA RESEARCHERS SAY YOU SHOULD ADD MORE BLUEBERRIES AND OTHER DARK COLORED FRUIT TO YOUR DIET. RESEARCHERS SAY ANTHOCYANINS, THE CHEMICAL THAT MAKES BLUEBERRIES BLUE, HELPS CONTROL FREE RADICALS WHICH PLAY A ROLE IN CANCER AND OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS. THEY SAY THE ANTHOCYANINS ARE ANTIOXIDANTS WHICH HELP SHUT OFF THE SIGNALS WHICH LEAD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISEASES. RESEARCHERS SAY IF FRESH BERRIES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE OR NOT AVAILABLE, FROZEN BERRIES ARE JUST AS GOOD."

2751 Vehicle accidents in rural areas

Virtually all the people I know who have died in traffic accidents have been from "home"--i.e., rural, northern Illinois--even though I haven't lived there since 1957. I think I've blogged about this before. My nephew narrowly escaped death from a motorcycle accident last Thursday on Chana Road near Illinois Rt.64. He will be a long time recovering, and we're calling him a prayer chain miracle. But these statistics published in Farm Journal are just stunning. Many more miles are traveled in urban areas than rural, but the rural areas have the highest number of crashes and fatalities.

26.4: In trillions, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. from 1994 to 2003

39: Percent of VMT in rural areas

61: Percent of VMT in urban areas

42: Percent more crashes in rural settings than urban settings

49: Percent more fatalities in rural crashes compared with urban crashes

2.1: The fatal crash rate in rural areas per 100 million VMT

1: The fatal crash rate in urban areas

24: Percent of fatal crashes in rural areas involving vehicle rollovers

10: Percent of fatal crashes in urban areas involving vehicle rollovers

2750 Katrina medical tragedy

Be sure to read Michael Hebert's account of the doctor and 2 nurses accused of murder in the Katrina aftermath at Methodist Hospital in New Orleans. Murder at Memorial. He looks at this case from all the angles, the specialty and skill of the doctor, the conditions, the poor prognosis of the patients, and concludes:

"The sad part about this case is that, whether Pou, Budo, and Landry are convicted or not, the unmistakable message is that all three would have been smarter if they had run away. No one is being prosecuted for abandonment. Why didn’t they run? Obviously, because they felt a sense of responsibility to the patients, a sense that no one else seems to have had. Charles Foti wasn’t on a helicopter evacuating patients that week. Neither was Mayor Ray Nagin, or Governor Blanco, or FEMA Director Michael Brown, or Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, or President Bush. It is the great travesty of this situation that the people who are really responsible for the conditions at Methodist are still AWOL, just as they were a year ago."

I disagree with him that GWB should be looked at first, because I don't believe the federal gov't was ever intended to be the first responder, but except for that, he doesn't let politics get in the way--just tells the sad options.

2749 Like little kids

the left wing bloggers are covering their eyes and shouting so they can't hear or see anything. Pathetic.

"British police have arrested 24 people suspected of involvement in the plot. At least one was reportedly a woman with a small child; two others were converts to Islam. One of the suspects reportedly worked at Heathrow Airport.

The identities of 19 were disclosed by the Bank of England as it announced it had frozen their accounts. They ranged in age from 17 to 35 and had Muslim names, many of them common in Pakistan. Pakistani officials said they were British-born.

Pakistani officials said they had arrested five Pakistanis and two Britons in the case, including British national Rashid Rauf, arrested about a week ago and described as a "key person" with ties to al-Qaida." (AP story)

Trip Tale: St. Petersburg, The Peter and Paul Fortress

When Peter the Great of Russia decided he needed a city on the Gulf of Finland he built a fort to fight off the Swedes, the enemy of the day. Later when Sweden lost The Finnish War to Russia, Finland became a Grand Duchy of Russia, gaining its independence in 1917. This fortress (Петропавловская крепость) was begun in 1703 but served also as a prison. In the middle of the fortress stands the impressive Peter and Paul Cathedral, the burial place of all the Russian Emperors and Empresses from Peter the Great to Alexander III and recently the remains of the last tsar, Nicholas II and his family and entourage, who were murdered by the Bolsheviks were also interred there. Other buildings in the fortress include the City History Museum and the Mint, one of only two places in Russia where coins and medals are minted. It is located on an island, Zayachii Ostrov.

The cathedral



Tsar Nicholas II family

FLW Tour: Sidney, OH Sullivan Bank

Tiny Sidney in Shelby County, Ohio is home to at least two famous buildings and many other lovely sites, Peoples Federal Savings and Loan (est. 1886) and The Spot Restaurant. At the Spot the regulars have name plates on the booths. President Bush ate there during the 2004 campaign. We visited both landmarks on our July architectural tour. Louis Sullivan influenced many 20th century architects, particularly Frank Lloyd Wright and he designed this beautiful bank. Our group loved it. Also, driving through these little Ohio towns, I was very impressed with the diversity of the economy. It was my first visit to Sidney, and it looks like a great town in which to live and put down roots (although, having grown up in a small town, I know that it helps to be born there).

2747 For Democrats to win in 2006

"If Democrats could take even half the voters who consider Iraq a significant but not a “vote-deciding” issue and convert them into antiwar zealots, they would win the 2006 midterm elections by a comfortable margin. With an ongoing, bloody insurgency that is costing hundreds of American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars, it is not difficult to imagine this strategy being quite successful."

Convert them into "antiwar zealots". . .isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase. Just to win an election. That's the conclusion of Amy Gershkoff at the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Report, dated August 8. Let the Iraqis die the way our abandoned allies in VietNam did in the 1970s when we cut and ran. Just to win an election. It used to be that "democide" meant death by government for political control--like the Maoists and Stalinists who killed millions of their own people to achieve their power. Now it could mean death by Democratic converted anti-war zealots. Just to win an election. Never mind the Democrats who voted for it. Including Kedwards. Of course, on August 8 she said Americans were concerned about terrorism but not homeland security so much.

No wonder the U.S. left wing bloggers are screaming that England colluded with Bush and puffed up this latest terrorism alert. They need more mind-numbed converts to one issue. Just to win a mid-term election. They don't care spit about "lost American lives," only their political careers.

2746 Uncle Sam as a step-father

After citing his grandmother's legacy for raising five strong, competent, college educated daughters, Paul Reyes calls for government aid to help today's teen Latinas, who seem to be floundering. Story here. Uncle Sam makes a poor step-father, and his daughters raised with his money go on to a legacy of welfare and poverty, so maybe Reyes needs to be talking to the men in his community instead of federal and state agencies.

2745 Send Nagin and Blanco to China

If we can believe their news sources any more than our own, Chinese officials evacuated 1.5 million people from their southeast coast Thursday in the face of a powerful typhoon. Story. Why couldn't Mayor Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco rally their first responders (the state and local administrations' responsibility) like that for Hurricane Katrina? Let's get them a government grant to fly to China to see how it's done. Florida would be too close, and besides, Jeb is in charge there.


typhoons
Hurricane Katrina
Ray Nagin
Kathleen Blanco
Typhoon Saomai

2744 Let's made blood tests admissible in court

In Ohio, hospitals aren't required to make blood tests in alcohol and drug related accidents available to put away people who drive drunk and kill others. I think Kelly Volpe might go free because the hospital which treated her after the accident which killed her 6 year old daughter never sought certification for this. Most hospitals don't because they don't want their employees tied up in court cases. I'm sure the lawyers will find a way to throw out testimony of the eye witnesses.

Common Pleas Judge Angela P. White’s ruling yesterday was no surprise, prosecutors said. White said the blood drawn by Riverside Methodist Hospital personnel to treat Mrs. Volpe for her injuries was inadmissible because of a 2005 Ohio Supreme Court ruling.

That ruling said a hospital must have a special state certification in order to test blood for law-enforcement purposes. Like most hospitals in the state, Riverside has been reluctant to seek that certification. (Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 11, 2006)

How much would it cost to have one or two employees on hand who do this? It could put away multiple offenders like Ms. Volpe whose arrests for DUI go back to her teen years.

2743 Racial profiling, claims lawyer

You've probably read that two young Lebanese American men from Dearborn, MI, Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sobhi Abulhassan, have been arrested for suspicious behavior in central Ohio. Dispatch story here. "If their names were Joe Smith. . ." whined their lawyer. Give me a break! If any of my 10th generation American, fair-haired grandsons of my sister or cousins are picked up with drugs in the car, $11,000 in cash, a dozen cell phones, a list of passengers and baggage information from a mid-eastern airline and information about U.S. airports, I certainly hope the police will detain them! I promise not to come to the courtroom with scrapbooks of their athletic accomplishments in high school and moan about racial profiling and claim they are just good American boys earning money for college.

Let's get a grip. We are at war.

2742 Muslims first, Brits second?

News reports are focusing on this idea because of the plane plots. What's the big deal? Most Christians I know would (or should) say "Christians first, Americans second." It's Biblical. Most religions promote a higher calling than the geography of your birth.

2741 Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen Medical Studies

Medical trials have writing groups, steering committees, policy committees, safety boards, statisticians, coordinators, and investigators. But what do they call the committee or group who comes up with a snappy name for the Trial, a name that can be spelled and pronounced? A name that can go down in history? I don’t know! But here’s some recent trials reported in the medical literature. They are not in alphabetical order, which is unusual for me, but in the order in which I noticed them.

1) International Study of Salt and Blood Pressure (INTERSALT)

2) Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT)

3) Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering treatment to prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT)

4) ALiskiren Observation of heart Failure Treatment: (ALOFT)

5) Valsartan In Acute Myocardial Infarction Trial (VALIANT)

6) TRial Of Preventing HYpertension (TROPHY)

7) Telithromycin, Chlamydophila and Asthma Trial (TELICAST)

8) Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE)

9) Rescue Angioplasty After Thrombolysis (REACT)

10) Medical, Epidemiological and Social Aspects of Aging (MESA)

11) Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification (POP-Q)

12) Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR)

13) Metaanalysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE)

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Trip Tale: Kalinka, Kalinka

A Russian chorus and folk dance troupe performed in our hotel's theater in St. Petersburg. Our tour guide had offered to set something up for us, but Gloria spotted a notice that one would perform in our hotel. Seven buses brought cruise ship tourists, but the hall wasn't filled. The performance was lovely, and we didn't even have to leave the building. After dinner in the hotel dining room at 7 p.m., we just walked up a flight and enjoyed the fabulous talent of this group with a live orchestra.


Калинка, калинка, калинка моя,
В саду ягода малинка, малинка моя,

Под сосною под зеленою
Спать положите вы меня.

Ах! Сосенушка ты зеленая,
Не шуми же надо мной!

Ах! Красавица, душа девица,
Полюби же ты меня!

folk singers
St. Petersburg, Russia

2739 Old Joe

The Democrats have lost the heart and soul of the party to the radicals. They will listen to the lies of the rich, white, anti-Jewish left in the party and dump old Joe, who is right with them on just about everything except defense. He is a supporter of Israel, increasingly a no-no on the left. I guess the Jews in the party don't read history, if they go with the party first and their heritage second. Jews in Germany and Russia learned the hard way.

I personally like to have some decent Democrats in office--they keep the offensive right wing nuts in check. Joe brought in a lot of votes for Gore in 2000--they would have lost by many more votes if he hadn't been on the ticket. Of course, those were the days when the Dems also believed, and preached, the danger of terrorists and WMD. They weren't rushing to support McKinney in Georgia, who is articulate, black and just as kooky as they are.

If a super-rich white guy with no political experience were running on the Republican ticket, the press would be all over him like flies on sweet corn cobs at a summer picnic. But WaPo described him as "little known entrepreneur." Yeah, a one issue candidate with the isolationist stance right out of the 1930s.

We can only hope that all the smart, patriotic Democrats and Independents were on vacation for the August primaries and they know how to vote at the polls when it really counts.

Joe Lieberman

2738 Back to Columbus

Usually I don't do the driving, but today I'll return to Columbus to pick up our cat who has, of course, been pining away for me while we were in Michigan.

We had a terrific time, staying with our friends who have a summer home in Boyne City, MI, and then drove us around to the various sites. Such a beautiful area. We were very impressed with Bay View, which looks much more like an architectural museum than Lakeside does. Beautifully preserved and restored homes from the 1870s-1915 era with a central campus.

With Jerry and Joan at the Bay View Inn where we had lunch.

Example of a restored home in Bay View. I couldn't possibly post all the photos my husband took, but this one is in the book, Cottages, which includes one of my husband's designs.

This is the street along the marina in Boyne City--a really lovely town with great appeal for both summer and winter (skiing).

We had a gorgeous trip to Charlevoix in our hosts' boat.

Lake Charlevoix
Boyne City, Michigan
Bay View, Michigan

2737 Off to Bay View, Michigan

Today we're off to Bay View, MI, to visit another Chautauqua community. I'm having a terrible time with my wireless connections--may not be doing much.

Monday Memory, a Trip Tale: July 21 Hvitträsk

I'll cheat a little here, because this memory is only about 2 weeks old. Our last full day in Finland (having returned the day before from Russia), we drove west out of Helsinki, past Espoo and visited Hvitträsk, the Finnish home of the Saarinens, architects who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s. It was the working space, and now a museum, of three young architects 100 years ago, Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), Herman Gesellius (1874-1916), and Armos Lindgren (1874-1929). Gesellius died young and Lindgren returned to Helsinki after a few years, so the Saarinens lived there with their children. Eliel Saarinen was designer of the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki (1902-1911) and the Railway Stations of Helsinki (1904-1919), from which we travelled to Russia, and Vyborg (1904-1913) where we stopped to have our passports checked.

The style of the complex is called National-Romantic, but to my eye it appears very similar to the early arts and crafts movement which influenced Frank Lloyd Wright and many others in the arts like the Roycrofters (Elbert Hubbard), which we visited on our trip to East Aurora, NY two years ago.

The main building of Hvitträsk is now a museum and includes furniture designed by the elder Saarinen and fabrics by his wife. His son, Eero (1910-1961) also became a famous architect. Both father and son are represented in Columbus, IN which we were visiting the following Friday. One of the restored houses in the complex contained a nice restaurant where we enjoyed a nice brunch/buffet for 12 euros on a glassed in patio. It was a wonderful place to visit, especially for the three architects--reduced ticket price for them, but Riitta and I thought it was terrific too.





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When I get back from Michigan, I'll link to commenters. 1. Reverberate58 2. Mrs. Lifecruiser 3. Melli 4. Friday's Child

2735 Pot calling the kettle black

Geoffrey Nunberg is on C-SPAN discussing his theme that our social and political language is pulling to the right, having written Talking Right. He runs political speeches through speech analyzers, and is concerned that the Republicans can produce a coherent, but bland, standard speech from an archive, but Democrats' speech is gibberish (my word), implying I suppose that there is variety, but no message. But I noticed he uses the word "right" exclusively for conservatives, but the word "liberal" or "Democrat" and never "left," i.e., "At that moment, the right began to brand liberals as. . ." He also refers to Democratic politicians by their full name, i.e., Geraldine Ferraro, Spiro Agnew, and Republicans by surname only, Reagan, Limbaugh, with a little spittle. I don't think he reads the NYT, WaPo, or listens to CNN.

2734 Save a word

My friend Carol from grade school, sent me a list of words and phrases we rarely hear anymore--we being people young in the 1950s. I liked this line: "Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most "supper." Now everybody says "dinner." Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts." Yes, and serve some "oleo." This year, "Bible School" went on the endangered list at our church--seems it scares away some folks so it was changed to "Adventure Week."

2733 The Purple Martin House

At the end of our street we have 4 Purple Martin houses. They eat a lot of bugs and need to be encouraged to stay. My favorite is the one that was built to look like the Lakeside movie theater, Orchestra Hall.





My brother-in-law has written a book about them.

Lakeside, Ohio
Purple Martin
birdhouses

2732 Hand dryers vs. paper towels

One thing I liked about public restrooms in Finland (didn't like paying 1 euro to use them) was the "old fashioned" cloth towels on a roller. But I'll take paper towels if I can get them and sometimes take them with me. I'm thrilled that more and more restaurants and public buildings are at least offering us a choice. Jenna has the 13 perfect comebacks for the lies they tell us about those machines that blow feces and urine around public restrooms and spread germs through damp hands on door handles.

2731 Plaskolite

When you open your cell phone and look at the screen you're seeing this product, whose headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio and which has recently opened a huge plant in Zanesville, Ohio. The vice president of marketing owns the coffee shop Coffee and Cream where I enjoy my first cup of the day.

Trip Tale: Our tour group, The G-6

It's not clear what happened to the rest of them, but by the time we got on the Sibelius train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, there were only six left of the original tour group. The G-8 had caused some shuffling of hotels and tourist sites, so I suppose the others decided to go another time. The six of us had a terrific time and were great companions. Both of the other couples had been touring Scandinavia, although not together, and like us, decided they'd rather have a little help with Russia. We called ourselves the G-6 since the G-8 was meeting in the city at the same time. This way we could all have a window seat in the van, and could all hear our guide. The other two couples, Betty Lou and Barry from Seattle and Gloria and Doug from Cape Cod, had much more travel experience than we did, but we were all novices in Russia!

At the Hermitage

In our hotel dining room

Nordic Saga Tours

2729 It wasn't political, just silly

WaPo's editorial on the House hearings on energy was not political, just silly, off the mark and clueless, says Amy. She suggests that editorial writers at least look up the webcasts of the hearings if no one can attend.

You know, I'm so old that I can remember when heat waves weren't the President's fault. Like 1988 when we had a drought in Ohio, and in 1953 when they closed the schools in my home town (northern Illinois) in September because it was too hot. I can even remember when 92 year olds died in July and they didn't blame global warming.

2728 Demand and Minimum wage

". . . I’ve met no one who, upon finding that he cannot sell his house at his current asking price of $250,000, reasons that he will attract more potential buyers if he raises his asking price to $260,000. I’ve never heard of a supermarket that seeks to clear out excessively large inventories of canned peas or laundry detergent by raising the prices it charges for these items. I’ve never heard of a construction contractor who believes that the higher the price he asks to do a job the more likely he is to be awarded the contract for that job. I’ve never encountered a car salesman who, upon my rejecting the price he asks for a car that I just test drove, says “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to my manager and ask if he’ll accept an even higher price for this baby.” I don’t encounter advertisements by merchants bragging that their prices are the absolute highest in town -- guaranteed!

Do any of you, Dear Readers, know of such behaviors? More importantly, do you know people who are generally more likely to purchase something as its price rises? If you do, surely you are by now a person of enormous wealth.

What is it about unskilled- and low-skilled labor that makes many people fancy that the law of demand does not apply to it? Are the greedy, profit-lusting employers of this labor so foolish that they’ll just dish out more money for the same output as before, without economizing further on labor – say, by buying less of it or by extracting more work from each man-hour hired? Or are low-skilled workers so daft or dysfunctional that they consistently refuse to respond to pre-minimum-wage-hike differences in wages and work conditions?" Don Boudreaux

2727 It takes a computer

Seems that 46 inmates released as far back as 1987 appeared on the municipal jail rolls and were billed to Franklin County (Columbus, OH). They're blaming a Y2K glitch. (Toledo Blade) Oh please. What about the guys from the 80s? How did they get brought forward? Sounds like my checkbook.

And in an unrelated Ohio computer story, Ohio University (Athens, OH) has fired two employees for failing to protect the University from security breaches that exposed 367,000 files with social security numbers, names, medical records and addresses. Earlier their boss had resigned. I think there was a total of 5 break-ins. And now the auditing firm investigating it has destoyed the records according to the Columbus Dispatch. So that's a mess too. I tried to track this on Google and there were so many stories about OU's computer problems, I just gave up. Sounds like they had a lot of extra money. And in searching the inmate story I used the search term "46 inmates." Could hardly believe how many totally unrelated stories involved 46 inmates.

2726 Trip Tale: Russia, first views

We met our trip companions, Gloria and Doug, in Helsinki at the beautiful train station designed by Eliel Saarinen. Martti and Riitta gave us big hugs and repeated the warnings about the dangers we would meet and we boarded the train for Russia on Monday of our second week. The Finnish countryside was beautiful, tidy and meticulous as our Sibelius train neared the border with Russia near Vyborg (which used to be in Finland). Even if it hadn't been announced in three languages we could tell we were in Russia by the smartly uniformed border police and the corresponding crumbling buildings.

But if the Russian countryside was gray and forlorn, the outskirts of Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad, formerly Petrograd) were almost horrifying after tidy, dynamic Finland which has so overpowered its former enemy in everything but military might. From 1917 to the break up of the USSR in the early 90s, the people have suffered the worst form (well, not as bad as North Korea) of totalitarian despotism. And for years before that regime, it was the Tsars and serfdom with not a lot of the population in the middle ground.

The cheaply built high rises of the Soviet era we saw in the distance were in various stages of decay, depending on their ages which ranged from 10-40 years (I'm guessing). Our guide who met us at the train with our other companions, Betty Lou and Barry, told us that after the revolution in 1917 the homes of the rich were broken up and the rooms were given to the poor--sometimes six families sharing a bath and kitchen. But even 90 years later, it is still the same in many housing area with several families sharing a bathroom and kitchen. Housing is very difficult to find.

Now in the post-soviet era, crime families have taken the place of the party and the criminals who ousted the Czarist system. One can only pray for the Russian people--that this will be a temporary phase on their way to a republican form of government.



The G-Eight Summit was meeting in St. Petersburg at the same time, so our talented van driver had to take many detours and we sat in a lot of traffic (although not as bad as Washington DC) as traffic was being rerouted so the visitors would see the restored areas with good streets. My husband with a new digital camera was giddy with snapping photos, so a lot of the pictures of our first day look like this.

Other entries about the Russian leg of our trip
Our tour group, the G-Six
Peter and Paul Fortress
Hermitage
St. Isaac's Cathedral
Russian Folk Singers and Dancers
Tsarskoe Selo
Tsarskoe Selo, pt. 2
St. Petersburg by canal boat
Church of the Spilled Blood

2725 I wonder how they do this?

Incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-wUgnyGv0

Thanks, Mickey.

2724 Lakeside, Week 6, Rhein Center for the Arts

Other classes this week are

• beginning knitting
• ceramic painting
• kites, planes and parachutes
• glass projects
• stepping stones
• stained glass
• beginning and intermediate creative writing
• candles and crafts
• photography
• ceramics
• herb projects
• caricatures and cartooning
• basket weaving
• scrapbooking
• silk painting
• jewelry making
• tin embossing
• easel painting for little kids
• creative crochet
• decorated flip flops
• mosaic top table
• watercolor workshop
• Chinese calligraphy step-stones

Lakeside, Ohio

2723 Lakeside Week 6, Perspective Drawing Class

These are photos of the class my husband is teaching this week. Thirteen brave students have struggled through a 105 heat index in an un-airconditioned building. He has promised them 3 paintings to take home for their efforts.







Lakeside, Ohio

2722 Lakeside Week 6, 2006

Not much to say about the programming--it has been so hot I've been staying inside the house, or slipping off to the coffee shop early. But we had a thunderstorm this morning and the temperature has dropped a bit. So I decided to go for a walk. Then the rain began again, so I just took a few photos. I ducked into the Lakeside Archives and found Jan, the archivist, helping my neighbors Ed and Karen research their house. Shortly after we bought our cottage, we cleaned out the crawl space. The former (and only other) owner had been a house painter, so in addition to old paint and turpentine cans and garden tools, we found his parents' 19th century marriage license and his baptismal certificate in fancy frames. We donated them to the archives.



Jan had put several panoramic photos on display from the 20s, 30s and 40s. Observation: people in the "old days" were thinner and they wore more clothes. Most of the women were wearing hats and the men suits. Must have been dressed for Sunday services. Didn't see many children or teens, who may have all been sleeping in or swimming--assuming it was allowed on Sunday.

These ladies are all from our church in Columbus, here enjoying a respite at Lakeside, and admiring my husband's paintings at the Patio Restaurant.

Our friend Wes is enjoying a novel in the Pavilion by the lakefront. Notice the puddle to his right from the morning storm.

Lakeside, Ohio