3914

Fill in the blank

"It seems incomprehensible that authorities in a scientific discipline would be unaware of the wealth of data in the scientific literature that contradict the basis for its official position on"

dietary fat intake

global warming

global cooling

malaria control

acid rain

market forces

ethanol for fuel

alar

HRT

stem cell research

gender differences

fossil record

human behavior

safety

and so forth

Comment extracted from the Ottobonis' article in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol. 12, no. 1, Spring 2007, p. 12 concerning the WHI low fat diet study.

You will waste hours

at Little Splurge, but it is such fun finding things you didn't know you wanted or needed, like this terrific shoe organizer.



HT Knowledge Problem

3912

Why big business opposes market-based medical care

Craig J. Cantoni used to earn his living making corporations more competitive and productive. He was the go-to guy who would figure out how to reduce costs in health care--higher co-pays and deductibles, second opinions, etc.--although he says the one problem he never could solve was how to stop employees from thinking they were spending other people's money. He admits he was slow to ask himself some painful questions about how he earned his living.

Corporate executives in high tax brackets benefit the most from getting employer-provided medical insurance with pre-tax dollars. But millions of lower-paid rent seekers also benefit from employer-provided medical insurance, including employee benefits managers and administrators, benefit consultants, tax consultants, actuaries, ERISA attorneys, producers of record-keeping software, and publishers of benefit forms and booklets. . . Many are Republicans who in the privacy of the voting booth would never vote to give up their regulatory rice bowl. . . Many others are Democrats who bemoan the plight of the uninsured and deplore the growing wage gap. But in the voting booth, they would never vote to give up their regulatory rice bowl, which drives up the cost of medical insurance and lowers wages by subsituting medical insurance for wages."

Read his article , published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, based on his address to the AAPS in 2006.

3911

25,000 wounded: they will need a lot more help

Josie at Life in a Cracker Box tells about her wounded husband's recovery and their life at Walter Reed. It's an important story being repeated in many families.

3910

The use of scare quotation marks

Annoyed Librarian is commenting on the use of scare quotes by the American Library Association (ALA).

"So it's not a debate on non-library issues, but "non-library" issues. I've noticed ALA always likes to use the scare quotes to poison the well on any debate before it even starts." Check it out. The comments alone are well worth the visit--just in case you thought librarians sit around selecting books to put on the shelves.

3909

Beyond hot here in Columbus

Yesterday it was 95 degrees in Columbus, OH. I was on duty for the mail run between our church's Lytham Rd. campus and Mill Run campus in the afternoon. There was road construction everywhere, even turning around after discovering I was blocked was difficult. At the intersection on our road I think I waited 4 lights to turn left.

I was surprised to see a number of people driving with an open window. They were all smokers. Inhaling hot smoke in a hot car, waiting at an even hotter, semi-stalled intersection, to creep along onto fresh hot asphalt, and drive behind trucks spewing more heat and pollution. Now how smart is that?

Smoking. It doesn't just damage your lungs and heart--it must destroy your brain cells too.

3908

The new media

Yesterday we got some sort of cable upgrade--not only does it now ring our phone, but we have more channels to not watch. I haven't yet read all the instructions and am just learning to use the new remote.

There is no reason in today's world of cable, broadcast TV, radio, satellite, wireless, iPod downloads, internet, usenet, blogs, digital archiving, on-line library collections, creative commons, etc. for anyone to be information deprived or only informed on one or two topics or viewpoints. An article, The Media Cornucopia in the Spring 2007 City Journal by Adam D. Thierer will show you the pictures, if you're tired of reading. We have somewhat of a free market in the media, and that drives the democrats crazy. They want more restrictions, not less.

So what's the problem? Well, the biggest one is that conservatives are able to get their message out (and so are radicals, anarchists, marxists, libertarians, pedophiles, polygamists, pornographers, pianists, go-fers, gamblers and golfers) unincumbered by the mainstream media's control. They see this diversity, which liberals usually try to cram into our thought world as positive, as a negative because some conservatives, like Murdock who owns Fox Network, owns more than one information source. Like ABC, NBC, CBS and AP aren't all clones of Twiddle-dum and Tweedle-dee despite the ownership?

Theirer gives an example of a "a lesbian feminist African-American who likes to hunt on weekends and has a passion for country music" who can program her television tastes to exactly suit her. But it also means that when PBS does a half hour bio on Ruth Graham (Billy Graham's wife) they can leave out any mention of Jesus. This also gives us hours of Paris Hilton in jail and who was the father of Anna Nicole's baby.

The latest hoop-la has some Democrats and Republicans united in efforts to close the ears and mouths of the people. And that's the immigration issue. We know too much because we have too much information and we're calling and writing our president and congress. For shame!

"When Rush Limbaugh has more listeners than NPR, or Tom Clancy sells more books than Noam Chomsky, or Motor Trend gets more subscribers than Mother Jones, liberals want to convince us (or themselves, perhaps) that it’s all because of some catastrophic market failure or a grand corporate conspiracy to dumb down the masses. In reality, it’s just the result of consumer choice."

Monday Memories of my town

Actually, it's not "my town" and never was--I haven't lived there for 50 years. But after I started a new blog about what's on my bookshelves, I was reminded again of my connection to print. At my new blog, I'm mostly transferring, copying, or revising other entries about my books, but am eyeing my bookshelf of books printed in or about the county in Illinois where I grew up. So I'll quote here from Don Smith's privately published memoirs (1997):

"Mt. Morris has been more cosmopolitan than its size alone would dictate, partly because of the presence of the seminary and then the college but largely because of influences associated with the publishing trade. Printing is an inherently literate business; and Kable's emphasis on magazines--rather than wallpaper, food cartons, or oilcloth--meant that editors from Chicago and other cultural centers regularly visited the Mount on business. Similarly, management people from Kable's, as well as Watt and Kable News, often visited major cities on business. All these contacts with the outside world helped create a small oasis of sophistication amongst the corn and soybean fields. . .

One of my classmates [class of 1946] followed his father and his father's father there [Kable's], and the tradition was extended into the fourth generation when both of his sons joined the printing company's ranks. . . Mt. Morris attached considerable important to intellectual and cultural concerns as reflected in the excellence of the schools, the public library, and the town's near-professional concert band. . . few homes were in disrepair, and there was no real slum or shantytown. Most residences were handsomely landscaped one-and-a-half or two-story structures, and a certain amount of house-and-garden one-upmanship and peer pressure kept even sluggards in line. . . [there being] generally no substantial difference between the home of top Kable executive and that of a pressman."

Smith does a nice job of weaving together his family and personal memories with the town's considerable history, even mentioning some sources I've never seen, like Kable Brothers Company, 1898-1948, and the late-1980s Memoirs of H.A. Hoff, the school superintendent, both of which I assume are on someone else's bookshelf. Don Smith taught journalism at Penn State, State College, PA for 33 years.

3906

Happy Fathers' Day, pt. 2

Today at the coffee shop I was standing at the condiment table with a man in plaid, baggy bermudas. "Happy fathers' day," I said while we mixed cream into our coffee. "Thank you, but I'm not a father," he replied. "But you had a father," I said. "Oh my goodness, I never thought of it that way. Thank you so much." Another happy customer enjoying the holiday.

But some people aren't responsible. Read what else happened in the coffee shop.

Happy Fathers' Day

to all of you bloggers who are fathers or who had fathers. We're having the family here today, which caused some phone calls between my children who wondered what I was up to. But inviting someone for dinner is a good excuse to clean the house and get out the nice china. Unless something happens before noon, here's the menu

pork boneless roast with cranberry glaze tossed salad (supplied by lovely daughter) served in Grandma's painted bowls fresh, tender crisp broccoli fresh fruit--strawberries, pineapple, white grapes mixed home made bread (supplied by handsome son) brown rice tossed with mushrooms and red pepper (still not sure about this one--I'm making it up) lemon fluff with cherry topping (no sugar, low fat) served in Grandma's dessert dishes

Yesterday I wandered around Macy's looking for a gift, but at our age, we have everything we need or want, so I suggested to him golf lessons, but he didn't seem too excited about getting hot, sweaty and out of breath. Enjoy the day.

3904

Contact your Senator and Member of Congress

Here's a handy link provided by the WaPo which will tell you how often your guy misses votes (John McCain ought to be ashamed of himself!), and how they voted. Also links to their e-mail, and you still need to be writing about the immigration/amnesty plan. I've written Rep. Pryce and Sen. Voinovich (R-Ohio) saying I'm against amnesty for people who entered the country illegally to work, attend school or have babies. I know there are other reasons, but that should cover most of them. We know President Bush isn't going to back down, so you've got to contact your representatives and senators. Don't forget; do it today If we can't control our own borders, we sure can't do it in the middle east.

3903

It's probably easier, faster, and cheaper to hire an illegal

I'm trying out my new toolbar from the National Science Digital Library using the keyword "immigration," so after a bad link to the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, I came across the list of instructions, guidelines and regulations for the Office of Business Liaison. I read somewhere that government regulations cost each household $8,000 a year (don't quote me--it's just a vague nightmare). So this is part of that. It says the form hasn't been revised since 1991, but later says it might be available in 2005. Isn't this 2007? How long since this page has been revised, I wonder? I don't envy employers trying to do the right thing, do you?

Office of Business Liaison
The primary function of the Office of Business Liaison (OBL) is to educate the United States business community on employment, business, investment, training, and employer education-related immigration issues. We have a home page for this Office, which writes Employer Information Bulletins published on our website.

OBL is receiving inquiries regarding a revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. Please be aware that a revised Form I-9 has not yet been released to the public. The current version of the Form I-9 and the Handbook for Employers, M-274, are dated November 21, 1991.

Both the Form I-9 and Handbook are undergoing revisions to reflect subsequent changes in U.S. immigration law and procedure. A revised Form I-9 may become available in 2005. However, a release date has not been determined. USCIS will conduct outreach and make education materials available to employers when a revised Form I-9 is available.

The Form I-9 can be downloaded from this Web site (see the Related Link). Additionally, for the most current information on the Form I-9, please review the OBL Employer Information Bulletins. These Bulletins are designed to educate employers on employment-related immigration matters. For questions or more information, please call the toll-free Employer Business Investor and School Services Hotline (EBISS) at 1-800-357-2099.

3902

What he saw in Iraq

In the WSJ yesterday (6-15-07) Joe Lieberman tells "What I saw in Iraq." You remember that Joe was abandoned by his party when he chose to support Bush on the war, but he won reelection anyway. I'm not sure what happened to his committee status. But I think he reports things we won't see in the regular news sources. It helps to have been there, I suppose, rather than sit in air conditioned studios and opine or read what someone else wrote.

90% of suicide bombings are the work of non-Iraqi, al-Qaeda terrorists

al-Qaeda's leaders say Iraq is the central front of their global war against the U.S.

al-Qaeda wants to use the Sunni-Shia bloodshed to collapse the Iraqi government and radicalize the region (it has certainly worked with the American leftists)

Iran is doing everything in its power to drive us out of the region

al-Qaeda has shifted its focus because the surge is successful, not because it isn't. Democrats have it backwards.

Why do Democrats and some wimp-Republicans want a failed state in the middle east brought down by al-Qaeda and Iran?

3901

On my Bookshelves

I know this will be a big shock to my regular readers, but I have a new blog, On my bookshelves. So far, I'm just rearranging or moving things. There are many ways to organize your own library on the internet, but I didn't want to learn one more program.

3900

Who buys the food in your household?

Kellogg's is going to stop marketing to children under 12. Excuse me? They never sold a thing to my kids when I was in charge of my kitchen table. I didn't take them to the store--hey, it was my only time to be alone! I've never stood in a check out line with a 10 year old holding the check book or credit card with promises to pay off with their earned income.

It's the parents responsibility to choose the food, pay for it, prepare it and serve it.

Disclaimer: No matter how healthy your little family eats (fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, whole grains, etc.), once they are on their own and start eating with friends as teens, all health benefits are off the table. Literally. They will joyfully chose junk. Both of my children are good cooks, one is even a gardener who gives me fresh produce in the summer and bakes home made bread, and the other tries Martha's recipes and sets a fabulous holiday table, but there were many years as young adults that they violated everything they learned at home about good nutrition.

You don't need legislation or law suits by special interest groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest who need to find a steady supply of victims to maintain an income stream. Parents with young children just need some common sense, a back bone, and a book or two from the public library. They also need to send the kids outside to play more often and turn off the TV and computer.

BTW, yesterday I ate a bowl of Kellogg's Raisin Bran for breakfast. I was hungry the entire day.

Friday Family Photo

This photo of my brother was taken just about four years ago, June 2003, in our cottage at Lakeside, OH. The photo has been scanned from an album, so is a bit fuzzy. I wasn't blogging then (started in October 2003), but I did write letters, otherwise I probably wouldn't remember the details of his visit.

He is a stockbroker and lives in Florida, but has many clients in the midwest, and at that time, one was in Columbus. He needed to visit her and had planned to come alone, but his wife's father was in the hospital in Detroit, so they decided to come together (driving) and she would fly back to Florida from there as he continued on to Illinois to visit other family and clients. When they got to Columbus on Friday, my husband had already left for the lake on Wednesday. I broiled steaks, fixed corn on the cob (which my husband hates), salad and fruit and we had a lovely dinner on the deck--one of the prettiest evenings of the year. He met with his client that evening and on Saturday morning we all started out for Lakeside. The trip took longer than usual because I was navigating, and we were chatting, so we missed the turn on Rt. 4. Instead of 2.5 hours, it took almost 4. We walked around the town, went out to eat at Abigail's, and then my husband rented a golf cart and we drove around looking at the different homes and remodeled cottages he had designed or worked on. We actually have a map and a "tour" t-shirt of my husband's projects.

At Lakeside, which is a Chautuaqua community, the "week" starts on Saturday afternoon, so the big program is Saturday evening. The program that Saturday night at the auditorium was Red Hot and Blue, a group of three men and three women from Branson, Missouri singing and dancing to the songs of the 1930s-1960s. Very high energy and nice costumes. On Sunday morning we had breaksfast at the Patio, after which they continued on to Detroit to visit my SIL's dad.

It was a very nice visit, and if he's reading this, "Hope you'll come back soon, little brother!"

3898

Joe Klein is just wrong about where the venom originates

In my opinion, left wing bloggers are the most vicious and much more plentiful, so Klein is giving them a pass when he writes for Time about his critics on the left that, "Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered." They aren't aping, Joe, they aren't imitating; they invented the sneer, smear and shout campaigns. Or are you too young to remember the 60s? I've never heard Rush or Hannity or Laura or Malkin say anything as vicious as what I can read on any leftist blog--or particularly their commenters. They have way more class than the left--for starters, they provide information instead of name calling.

And if I were a hard hitting, commie blogger, I sure wouldn't appreciate being compared to Rush Limbaugh as my inspiration!

3897

The Correct Thing

I have a book from my grandparents' library titled, "The Correct Thing in Good Society," by Florence Howe Hall (Boston: Page Company, 1902). It also gives advice on what is not correct. For instance, if you are providing a luncheon for your lady friends, it is not the correct thing

for the butler to wear evening dress

for the hostess to be disappointed or troubled if her guests fail to do justice to an elaborate lunch, since "dieting" has become so general that it bids fair to overthrow the elaborate and indigestible ladies' lunch

to talk gossip or scandal at a ladies' luncheon

to serve chocolate alone after an elaborate luncheon

to omit providing each guest with a silver butter knife

for guests to "grab, gobble and go," taking leave before the luncheon is over

for the guests to carry off the decorations.

I've let my butler go--just too many slip ups at my luncheons, like forgetting the butter knives.

3896

Thursday Thirteen--Out damn'd spot, out I say

Thirteen things about spots in Norma's world

1) Lady Macbeth was hallucinating when she said that, but I wasn't. There definitely were rust-colored spots on the front of the on-sale, pale yellow, pants suit that fit me perfectly.

2) It sort of looked like small drops of blood! Just like Shakespeare!

3) A friend was in the store at the same time and I showed it to her. She suggested Tide to Go--said she'd had good luck with it.

4) I reluctantly put the suit back, but that day I bought the little instant stain remover that looks like a pen and is small enough to sit on the bottom of your purse and sneak back into the dressing room.

5) I returned to the store, went into the dressing room and applied a little to the smallest, least noticeable spot. Wow. It disappeared, and left no outline on the fabric!

6) I took the suit to the cash register along with a moss green blouse with yellow petal appliques.

7) The first time I wore it (pale yellow) I brushed up against something and got a much larger spot on the knee. I sat down with my little Tide to Go, and poof it was gone.

8) For several weeks I've had my eye on a pair of brown stacked heels at Meijer's. They were on a mark-down table because (I think) the right shoe had some really odd spots on the leather--maybe a mold.

9) Each week I looked at them when I shopped for groceries. I had the exact pair in black and they are the most comfortable shoes I own.

10) So yesterday I dug around in the laundry room and found some brown shoe polish. I put a small amount on a piece of cloth, put that inside a plastic bag which I placed in my purse and went back to the store.

11) The table had been moved and at first I thought the shoes were gone, but after walking around awhile, I found them. I slipped the piece of cloth out of my purse and wiped it on the spots. They did not disappear, but they did blend into the texture.

12) Because I had shopped there the day before, I had a coupon for shoes and jewelry (not cat litter which I really needed or a digital camera that I really wanted). So I bought the shoes that fit and look nice (and shiny) for $5.40.

13) Shoe polish doesn't come off your fingers quite so easily, so I probably looked like I'd just changed a diaper when I got to the check out, but I keep alcohol gel hand cleaner in the car, and that took care of my newest spots!

3895

New notebook

Today was new notebook day. I don't know if I have the nerve to record everything I didn't blog about since May 4 like I did last year here (44 items).

Still, sometimes I wonder . . .

44) Poetry editor of JAMA is Charlene Breedlove--she published a poem by Joannie Strangeland. Am I the only one who finds that funny? Pseudonyms?

3894

Tom Tancredo (R) on Amnesty Bill

"The President continues to ignore the will of the American people," said Tancredo. "He simply cannot accept the fact that Americans are not interested in rewarding illegal aliens with a $2.5 trillion blanket amnesty."

President Bush, who boasted Monday to reporters that he would see them "at the bill signing," has made his amnesty proposal granting a pathway to citizenship to some 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States his top domestic priority.

"It's time the administration to put an end to this tired old ‘Groundhog Day’ routine and shelve this misguided amnesty plan once and for all," Tancredo concluded, "It's time for them to start enforcing our laws." Tancredo's press release.

Non-Mexicans heading for our border. They'd be arrested if caught in Mexico.
The sad thing is Bush is losing his base; the people who supported him on Iraq are realizing he has no intention of protecting our own country. I don't want to see the Iraqi people massacred the way we allowed the Communists to do when we pulled out turned tail and fled VietNam, but neither do I want thugs, crooks, terrorists, welfare sops and all the relatives of our current crop of millions of illegals flooding over the border, many of whom are just using Mexico as a funnel to get in. I also don't think we should continue to prop up a corrupt, bad Mexican government who refuses to build up its own economy. I don't know a single conservative or Republican who supports Bush on this, but most did support him on Iraq.

I think we need to go back 40+ years and look at the racist ideas of the Johnson administration and why they thought our racial mix in those days was so awful and needed to be changed. The 1986 IRCA compounded the problem. Strengthening an already bad, unenforceable immigration policy is making the bad worse.

3893

When the left is right

It's not often I have an opportunity to agree with Al Sharpton or Michael Moore, but those two were recently right on something. Sharpton is making the rounds complaining that celebrities get a better deal in sentencing and jail time than the poor (I would add the middle class to that, because I wouldn't get Paris' treatment), and Michael Moore admitted on TV that after making Sicko, he decided he needed to be more careful about his own health, and has started eating fruits and vegetables and exercising. It also appeared to me that he got a haircut, which tremendously improved his appearance.

3892

There's more of us than you think

"Gov. Mike Huckabee was right: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." So was Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter who also had the courage to raise their hands for creation in the presidential debates.

And now a new USA Today/Gallup Poll has found two-thirds of Americans agree. And those who believe creationism is "definitely true" more than double those who believe strongly in evolution." Janet Folger

3891

Somehow, I'm not surprised

"BIOFUELS--DOE Lacks a Strategic Approach to Coordinate Increasing Production with Infrastructure Development and Vehicle Needs." And that's just the title.

3890

What do socially responsible librarians talk about?

Certainly not libraries.

Darfur
Rachel Carson
Hunger, homelessness and poverty
Global warming
feminism
gay, lesbian, transexual, bisexual issues
Katherine de la Pena McCook lifetime award (you'd have to be there)
flogging books by their members, like Library Juice
fixing media bias (on the right)
Pastor's [sic] for Peace
alternative media
free speech buffet

And you thought all librarians did was read while wearing sensible shoes, shushing and unjamming the printer!

3889

A Line in the Sand

There is an important report available on the internet titled, "Line in the Sand; Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border," prepared by the Majority Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Investigations, Michael T. McCaul, Chairman.(2007?) It concludes that in order to stop the criminal activity at the border, we need:

Greater control of the border can be achieved by:

• enhancing Border Patrol resources, including expanding agent training capacity, and technical surveillance abilities;

• constructing physical barriers in vulnerable and high-threat areas;

• implementing state-of-the-art technology, cameras, sensors, radar, satellite, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to ensure maximum coverage of the Nation's Southwest border;

• making permanent the "catch and return" policy;

• expanding the use of the expedited removal policy;

• establishing additional detention bed space;

• improving partnerships and information sharing among Federal, State, and local law enforcement;

• building a secure interoperable communications network for Border Patrol and state and local law enforcement;

• mandating a comprehensive risk assessment of all Southwest border Ports of Entry and international land borders to prevent the entry of terrorist and weapons of mass destruction;

• promoting both international and domestic policies that will deter further illegal entry into the United States; and

• enhancing intelligence capabilities and information sharing with our Mexican counterparts and improving cooperation with the Mexican government to eradicate the Cartels.

Achieve some of these goals, Mr. President, and then maybe we can talk about reforming our immigration policies. Show us you are as serious at home as you are in Iraq.

3888

Glamorous professions

Photography always sounded sort of glamorous to me until I read the breakdown of hours, requirements, salary and benefits in today's WSJ. Remember, the average school teacher earns more than $34/hour.

Who, on average, is better paid--public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker.

According to this article, event photographers earn between $10-25 an hour as stringers. Now that's next to awful, don't you think? And the requirements sound a bit demanding to me, although what do I know--I was just a librarian who sat around all day and read books. An event photographer might spend as much time in editing, correcting and production as shooting the event; might have to invest $10,000 in equipment; probably misses all the important holidays with his/her family; and has a physically demanding routine dragging around all that equipment and doing set-ups.

Now, the pluses are you get to attend some interesting events and might see celebrities. You can't pay the rent or utilities by sighting Michael Jackson or Paris Hilton once a year.

Might be smarter to become a teacher, retire early, and take up photography on the side.

3887

Strangers chatting in the park

We stopped our walk (going opposite directions) to watch the children in organized play. We were amazed to see a group of very little boys in matching, over sized t-shirts--maybe 3 or 4 years old--being led by men also in matching t-shirts and caps in something that resembled drop the handkerchief. Some mothers had sought out shady spots in which to park the strollers with younger children. At first I thought it might be an early VBS group or a day-care center on an outing. Then I realized all the leaders were men, so they probably weren't fathers, day-care workers, or VBS volunteers. It began to dawn on me that this was a city parks program, and these were probably paid high school or college age staff.

"I wonder when these children get a chance to just be kids and not have adults organizing their play time?"

"I don't know, but I think they are too young to understand competition or soccer."

And we continued on our way, getting our exercise the old fashioned, fuddy-duddy way, pondering the ways of the young who had none of our advantages of hindsight. The little boys joyfully followed their leaders in pied piper fashion.

3886

FDR's dismal record

When I was in high school and college, we were taught that FDR was practically the savior of our nation. All sorts of socialist programs were instituted, but we were told they were all for our own good, even the ones that failed. My mother and father never agreed on the worth of his presidency and programs and their entire lives cancelled each others votes. Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson are the three legs of the tippy stool of socialism we deal with today.

Today's WSJ reviews The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes (HarperCollins, 2007). "Roosevelt's dismal performance in the 1930s would not prevent him from becoming the most popular sitting president in American history," the reviewer writes.




From the left, he is viewed as

an inspirational leader who offered hope and

a wager of battles against evil capitalists

His critics on the right see the era of FDR differently

his policies prolonged the miseries of the Great Depression

he left behind the hard-working, middle class citizen

did far more damage than Hoover, who himself was a poor president

was soft on the cruelties and economic failures of the Soviet Union

developed a class-war rhetoric still in use today.

It will be interesting to see if my public library can find a way to purchase this title not friendly to an icon of the left. Publisher's Weekly, bible of all public librarians, includes in its review the usual put-downs : "breezy narrative," "tells an old story," "plausible history," but does concede that it is an even-tempered corrective to the unbalanced stories of this era. Since it just came out in June, it's probably not yet on order at public libraries. I'll try OhioLink in a few weeks.

Monday Memories of Memories

The Tech Reunion

The Committee for the Reunion did a fabulous job. From the nametags, to the dinner to the visit to the campus, it all ran smoothly, and we saw lots of old friends and heard many, "Do you remember when we. . ." I do wonder though what's happening to the classes behind us. There was no 25th or 40th for those classes, even though the other years we've attended there have been. Where are the classes of 1967, or 1972 or 1977?

For some reason, we don't have a copy of my husband's senior picture--red hair and sparkling green eyes.

These two friends hadn't seen each other since 1960, and without an announcement, probably couldn't have found each other at the dinner. My husband became an architect and Ron (on the right) became a very successful commercial artist. Now in retirement, they are both painters.

My new Tech friend Barb (on the right) who loves RV-ing, seeing the country, and reads my blog! Check out her reunion site for more photos and memories.

The Tech campus has 76 acres with many new buildings since the 1950s, but this landmark is called Stuart Hall, opened in 1940, named for the first principal. The first students arrived September 11, 1912 and classes began 5 days later.


My husband earned a letter in track and cross country. It is one of the few schools in the country where you could run cross country and not leave the campus.

The class gathered on the steps of the Arsenal Building for their class photo. There were more people at the evening event, and some here that didn't come to the dinner. If I'd been in charge, of course, I'd have asked all the ladies to put aside their purses and papers, and tell everyone to take off their sun glasses. However, no one appointed me to problem solve for the class photo. The Arsenal Building stored military supplies during the Civil War, and today has administrative offices.

The Awards Ceremony was held in Anderson Auditorium (1975), and the Alumni Choir sang below an American flag with 34 stars (found in the attic of one of the buildings).

Three members of The Slobs (social club) standing on the second floor of The Barracks, which at one time was under the command of the U.S. government (which owned the entire site). It was the building in which these guys had ROTC. One of The Slobs, Scott, brought his mom to the Alumni awards ceremony and lunch--a Tech grad of 75 years ago. And she's still beautiful!
Good-bye Tech. Maybe we'll see you 5 years for the 100th anniversary of your founding.

3884

IRCA to CIRA--from alphabet soup to nuts

To get a feel for how we got to the mess we're in with IRCA (1986) and its growing little sister CIRA (2007), read the panoramic view in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 367, 1966, a special issue titled, "The New Immigration." It's an interesting issue, with articles by people like Ted Kennedy and Frank Mott. We would be welcoming skilled, professional and technical workers we were told, and the charts and graphs showed a very small percentage of service and farm sector workers. President Johnson had assured us before signing the 1965 immigration bill into law in October 1965 that, "Nothing in the legislation relieves any immigrant of the necessity of satisfying all of the security requirements we now have, or the requirements designed to exclude persons likely to become public charges. No immigrants admitted under this bill could contribute to unemployment in the United State." (LBJ, January 13, 1965). Pipe dreams. A joke. No crystal ball, not even an understanding of human nature, just like now. With all the other social problems going on in the 1960s, the American people hardly noticed that "family reunification" clauses might mean one legal immigrant could be bringing in 20 relatives who then would bring in their relatives.

We (or rather the giants we elected to congress) needed to rework it all in 20 years and got the "Immigration Reform and Control Act" of 1986--the word "control" was added because almost all the immigration was non-white, non-skilled, many political refugees, with much of it illegal by the 1980s and with the growing problem of porous borders. Then the Immigration Act of 1990 was added to the pantheon. There is an interesting overview of the competing interest groups and issues like homosexuality, aids, social security, welfare, etc. at "The Politics of Immigration Reform in the United States, 1981-1990" by Daniel J. Tichenor in Polity Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring, 1994), pp. 333-362.
Online here. Tichenor marvels that Congress got anything done at all--sound familiar? In other words, they gave us a bi-partisan mishmash, filled with complex and competing ideas over 20 years ago.

"With little support for internal enforcement, IRCA dealt with the illegal population residing in the country by granting legal status to nearly three million illegal aliens. The enforcement provisions of IRCA, which penalize employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens, never
established a reliable identification system of employee eligibility. As a result, an underground industry of fraudulent documents permitted illegal immigration to return to pre-reform levels. The Immigration Act of 1990 granted stays of deportation to family members of aliens legalized under IRCA. The 1990 law also established an increased "cap" on legal immigration that may be "pierced" for relatives of citizens. Several refugee groups received special protection as well."

Opinion polls indicated Americans wanted a decrease, not an increase, of immigrants in the 1970s and 1980s. Then as now (as proposed by Bush--the non-amnesty amnesty), the problem of illegal aliens was solved by making them legal--only in 1986 there were approximately 3 million illegals. No one knows how many we have today--12 million is used as the low end figure.

We have competing forces--the 1986 IRCA solved nothing and actually made things worse. Adding the word "comprehensive" in 2007 to an already unworkable plan won't improve it. And I'm guessing that if the internet, blogs, cable TV and talk radio had been around in the 80s, so that the American public understood how it was being screwed by big business, big agriculture, big labor, feel-good, liberal Christians and weak willed, clueless politicians, particularly Republicans, IRCA would have gone down in flames in 1986.

"The 1986 and 1990 laws were supported by a fragile coalition of liberals, who celebrate entitlements, and conservatives, who embrace the market. The pro-immigration tenor of these laws cohered not to a dominant public philosophy, but rather accommodated the programmatic ambitions and ideals of distinct political movements."

There are powerful interest groups in this country who want a continuous supply of poor people--not just to fill low skilled jobs, but to use as political pawns. They need the statistics to prop up demands for more and more taxes, the life blood of politicians. Then they are also combining forces with other interest groups like Moveon.org and La Raza who simply want to destroy the USA as we know it.

Those of us who object to porous borders, irresponsible legislators, foreigners flaunting the law, criminals wandering our streets, and wasted money on social programs are called nativists, xenophobes, and racists. When in fact, we are the ones who have been lied to, promised the impossible, and are cuckold.

3883

Sandy vs. Scooter

"Why the "unusually harsh sentence," as William Otis, a former federal prosecutor who served on the advisory committee on sentencing guidelines, put it? Because, the judge explained, "people who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of the nation in their hands, have a special obligation not to do anything that might create a problem." Of course, Sandy Berger, national security adviser to Bill Clinton, hid original documents on his person, took them out of the National Archives, destroyed them, and lied to investigators. One might think of this as "creating a problem." But Berger got no prison time and a fine one-fifth that imposed on Libby." Kristol

But then, Berger was a Democrat. The President has the power to pardon, even for a such a strange non-crime as this.

Live Breathe and Die: "In recent years, the Democratic playbook has included talking points designed to convince Americans that the Republican Party is mired in corruption. The phrase that Democrats incorporated into their public pronouncements was a Republican ‘culture of corruption.’ As evidence of this, they point to Scooter Libby, charged with lying to a grand jury. They also point to the political witch-hunt in Texas where charges had been brought against Republican, Tom Delay.

What the press sweeps under the rug though is the ongoing evidence of true corruption in the Democratic Party. Unlike Scooter Libby, who apparently had lapses in memory, getting dates mixed up, many prominent Democrats were caught red handed, intentionally sticking their hands in the cookie jar. There are varying degrees of crime, and the real criminal intent seems to be on the side of the Democrats. Whether or not the public hears about the culture of corruption amongst the Dems is another story."

3882

We're on our way

to the Tech reunion. The class meets tonight at a private club, and all the classes get together tomorrow on the campus. That's when we'll see most of the guys my husband hung out with--The Slobs. Arsenal Tech isn't your ordinary school. It's awesome--or was when my husband and his parents attended. Bigger than the town I lived in.

At the last minute, my husband decided to wear his tux--I'm sure he'll be the only one--so I had to change my attire to a dress. But that's fine. We love to dance, and no lady looks graceful dancing in slacks or jeans. They just don't swing. And I have two outfits for tomorrow--one if it is cool, one if hot. Our weather has ranged from 40 to 91 in 48 hours here. And I'm taking along "Digging to America" by Anne Tyler to read in the car, and some old radio shows on CD, so we're all set. The cat, of course, is in hiding, thinking we're going to throw her in the car, but she isn't going on this trip.

Catch up with you later.

Thursday Thirteen Resolutions

According to Willowcreek's Network, my highest score is in Wisdom, and second highest are Administration and Giving (tied). These are not popular, fun "gifts." These traits are sensible, insightful, practical, fair, commonsense, thorough, objective, responsible, resourceful, disciplined, organized, efficient and conscientious. See what I mean?

Because I write on a variety of topics, and so many blogs, I have to be cautious about criticism. You just have no idea how much is excluded (I keep a written journal), so I make an effort to redirect some energy. Not always successfully. First, I drafted this 13 list and then went through and deleted the word "try." Try is a really wimpy verb, and I criticize others who use weak verbs and sloppy sentences. It's unlikely I'll be able to keep these--I think I've already broken number one and number four, but here goes.

1. When I see an outrageously dressed person, brown cotton eyelet full circle skirt, gray pumps and pink bandana I will turn my head or close my eyes instead of drawing a sketch.

2. When I see someone who has problem at the sample table of the coffee shop, I won't speculate what losing or gaining 20 lbs could do for his/her health and knees.

3. When I see a smoker, I will resist cataloging wrinkles, coughs, and yellowed fingers using my strongest traits.

4. I will resist going to church so I won't be tempted to comment on things that upset me or theology that doesn't make sense.

5. When I see a loose dog or cat, I will pray for the critter's safety instead of criticizing the careless, bad mannered owner even my neighbor with the Vizsla that wants to join us on our deck during dinner.

6. When I see an ugly, unreadable, squirrely webpage or blog, I will not scan through it looking for the webmaster or comment section.

7. When I accidentally come across Katie Couric or another gloomy news reader, I'll just change channels.

8. When I hear or read about what the idiots in Congress are doing, I'll refrain from calling them names--or the people like me, who elected them.

9. I will blog less at my regular site and work on my hobby bloggy and illegal immigration blog. I stopped blogging for a week and dropped 300 points on TTLB.

10. Since I'm such a good problem solver, I'll satisfy this need by finding and fixing problems in my house, car, garage, closets and bookshelves or experimenting with new recipes. By 2010, I can probably have these under control.

11. I will try to keep track of only 2 or 3 Republican 2008 candidates and not poke fun at or make rude comments about the other moral midgets others.

12. I will ignore family problems. Mine and yours. No one wants to be someone else's fixer-upper or project.

13. I will refocus on my art. A critical eye is needed in perspective, value, hue, tone, and quality. I think it's been a year since I did this one.

3880

The sad record of the Left

"There are no megalomaniacal mass-murderer that the Left has not supported, no Democracy that it has supported." Read the list here by Steve Haas at American Daughter.

Let's move the UN

This building is obviously too expensive to repair, so I think it is time to let another country enjoy hosting it. Free up some parking places in New York. Give those mansions of foreign diplomats to the homeless hotels.

HT Amy

3878

What's uglier than power line towers?

Lots of things.

Wind farms

nuclear power cooling towers

solar panels dotting the neighborhood

piles of firewood for cook stoves

earth mound houses and huts

banks of batteries for a cloudy day

fields of corn to be fed to automobiles

3877

Reading the want ads in JAMA

You might think it's about the work. Not so, if these want ads tell the story.

A Columbus, GA position provides malpractice insurance, a great climate and accessibility to all the attractions in Florida.

Puyallup, WA offers a diverse community where you can live the lifestyle you want.

Philadelphia offers opportunities for research on smoking, obesity, depression and suicide.

Mercedes, TX wants you, but you must have proof of legal authority to work in the U.S.

Southeastern Kentucky counties offer excellent pay and a naturally beautiful mountain location.

Boulder offers a partnership track in a fabulous location.

If you take the job in Columbia, SC, you'll live and work in a wonderful coastal area, 2 hours from Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and the Sea Islands.

3876

Here's a pup you don't want

A few weeks ago I showed a cute puppy that needed a good home. He'd been badly abused. Here's a "puppy" that fits over your oxygen tank if you abuse your lungs with cigarettes. He's called Oxy-Pup and comes in two styles.


This photo is from a display in China and is supposed to represent how many cigarettes one smoker would consume in a year. I saw it at The Laundress, who has now gone a full year without smoking. Good girl.

3875

Remember the Tuskegee Syphilis Study?

That was a study that went on about 30 years in the 20th century among poor black men in the south to see what happened when syphilis went untreated while they were receiving "free" health care.

"The United States Public Health Service, in trying to learn more about syphilis and justify treatment programs for blacks, withheld adequate treatment from a group of poor black men who had the disease, causing needless pain and suffering for the men and their loved ones.

In the wake of the Tuskegee Study and other studies, the federal government took a closer look at research involving human subjects and made changes to prevent the moral breaches that occurred in Tuskegee from happening again."[CDC]

In my non-medical opinion, we're doing the same thing to black children in Africa under the guise of malaria research. I was absolutely sickened by the latest issue of JAMA (May 23/30, 2007, Vol. 297, No.20), which is entirely about malaria testing of combination drug therapy primarily on children of Afghanistan, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, and Ghana. I don't understand all the big words, but I do know that while "healthy" children with high parasite loads were receiving short term medications, they weren't receiving insecticide treated bed nets, currently one of the more effective methods to combat malaria since do-gooder environmentalists inspired by Rachel Carson got DDT removed from the market in the 1970s.

I can also read the treatment outcomes--yes, no one died (oh goodie), but the side effects were observed (remember these are children!) which included anorexia, coughs, weakness, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, pruitus, seizures.

"The overall health of the children in this cohort was excellent. There were no deaths and no episodes of malaria that met WHO criteria for severe malaria. There were 19 episodes of malaria that were considered complicated and treated with quinine for the following reasons: single seizures, hyperparasitemia, inability to sit up or stand, persistent vomiting, and lethargy." ["Combination therapy for uncomplicated Falciparum Malaria in Ugandan children" p. 2210]

No one ever died from DDT. Not a bird. Not a baby. Just mosquitoes that killed babies. But every year more than a million people now die from a disease that was virtually under control in the 1970s. Most of those who die are children. JAMA is usually politically astute on social and political issues--left of center all the way. It's all aboard the global warming band wagon. It tippy-toes around the environmentalist disaster with this ridiculous comment:

"Following the collapse of the global eradication campaign in the early 1970s, malaria control programs around the world dwindled as funding dried up, technical guidance became confused and at times contradictory, and much of the global community seemed ready to accept that malaria was an unavoidable fact of life in tropical regions."

What nonsense! The eradication of malaria collapsed because somebody was more worried about bird eggs than African children living to adulthood. It's a very nasty disease to survive, let alone to die from. The survivors have life long disabilities. And there are many long term effects from the anti-malaria medications, to which the parasites are becoming resistent, so those meds are becoming stronger.

I shudder to think of all these people (pregnant women, babies and developing children) sleeping under or on pesticide treated nets and mats, the other brilliant plan to fight malaria. A ridiculously expensive plan, even if it were to work, and even if mats and nets could be distributed to every household in danger. It is so much easier, safer and cheaper to kill the disease at its source--the female mosquito! For 2003 it was estimated that in sub-Saharan Africa to get bed nets to 80% of the population would require 175.2 million insecticide-treated nets. I wonder how safe it is to work in a warehouse filled with thousands of ITNs, or to drive a truck load of them over bad roads in the hot sun to distribution centers. And roads. Are there roads by which these ITNs can get to the people who need them?

Meanwhile, the researchers/authors discuss how many women and children might be sleeping under the same net, and would that affect the number. How many angels dance on the head of a pin.

3874

More abortion tax dollars wanted by Planned Parenthood

Since it started offering abortions in the 1970s, Planned Parenthood has performed over a million abortions, many of them with our tax dollars. No, it doesn't get all its funding from the public trough, just about a third through Title X, and it's coming back for more. Some people actually donate money to this death machine, which I suppose is the balance of its budget. 5,000 abortions a week isn't enough--it wants $100 million more--even as its abortions are up and its other services such as important health tests for women, are down. Having a Republican President who had a Republican (wimp alert) congress was no protection for those babies. President George W. Bush and the Republican-majority Congress Increased Title X to a record $288.3 million in FY 2005. And what about PlaP's claims on its website that Title X money isn't used for abortions? Well, let me think. Dump it all into one pot, pay the other bills like mammograms and high blood pressure and salaries and rent with it, and use the other accounts for surgical abortions. It's an industry--and the product is death. All that's needed to shut it down is to check the number of teen abortions against the number of reports to child welfare agencies on underage children seeking services. That won't happen.

Now that the ban on chopping up the few babies who make it alive to the birth canal was upheld, the Democrats are really panicked. "Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Jerrold Nadler have introduced a bill, called the Freedom of Choice Act, that would dramatically expand federal protection of abortion rights beyond what is required by Roe v. Wade or Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The bill would invalidate many federal, state and local abortion laws, including the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act." [ACLJ] However, Democrats have always played straight with us on this issue; they are pro-abortion. It is the Republicans who are too squeamish to stand up for what they said during their campaigns for office.

Go here to fight additional funding for Planned Parenthood with your tax dollars.

3873

Populist pandering by politicians promising penalties

A reader's comments in USAToday, June 5:

"As long as we live in a society where people drive their Yukons and Expeditions 3 blocks to the store instead of walking, where roads are jammed with people driving to work while half empty trains and buses pass them by and where leaf and snow blowers have replaced rakes and shovels, I will be keeping fingers crossed for $6/gallon gasoline."

You do just have to sigh when Congress panders for votes over the few gas stations that raise prices beyond their profit margin. Like they never do anything unethical or for a profit (like William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana).

Did I ever tell you that it's been 40 years?

Yes, we moved to Columbus, Ohio 40 years ago this week. Hardly seems possible. For some reason I remembered that this morning on my way to the coffee shop, thinking I still feel like a visitor!

I was recruited in February 1967 at the University of Illinois by the personnel officer of Ohio State University Libraries to come as a Slavic cataloguer; he located a job for my husband with an architect he knew through church. The night we met Sam Calabretta (partner in that architectural firm), I fell in love with the idea of moving to Columbus. My husband was a bit more conservative and wasn't really sure it was right. But Sam was so upbeat about the possibilities here, we were soon sold on the idea. My job wasn't as good as the one I left, but my husband's was probably 10 times better. And since the children arrived soon afterward and I didn't return to work until 1977 in another position, it worked out fine.

On our job interviews in April, we found a lovely apartment at 2120 Farleigh Road in Upper Arlington. We didn't know we weren't in Columbus (it's a suburb), and after six months we bought a home about 5 blocks from the apartment and we lived there for 34 years.

Our apartment on Farleigh, 2nd from left
I didn't take many photos of the inside; this was at Christmas. We had that TV until the 80s. The wreath behind me was made from IBM cards and sprayed with gold paint--a very popular 1960s craft. We still have that chair and the dining room hutch in the back ground. I think we still use some of the x-mas decorations, too.

3871

When guys open up

their hearts fall out. Something amazing happened at my daughter's garage sale on Friday. Two different men, nice looking in the 50-60 age range, told us their deepest secrets and hurts. I think it was because my son-in-law was in the garage. They were really talking to him--my daughter and I just stood by, mouths open, bug eyed.

One guy told SIL that he'd lost his church job because of a personal scandal--he'd come home and found his wife in bed with another--woman. No matter what my SIL injected into the conversation to move on (of sorts, but it was really more like a confessional), the guy just kept giving details. His girlfriend was in the neighborhood interviewing for a job, he said, so he was just filling time at our garage sale.

Then about an hour later, another guy about 60 came in. His t-shirt identified the company, which was one my SIL had had a problem with. So he shared some information on who to call to get an adjustment. From him we found out that he'd been married about a year to a wonderful Christian woman, but his former wife, with whom he'd been in business, had had an affair with a friend via the internet. Good-bye marriage, but he got the property and business. When SIL expressed sympathy, he said, "Oh well, I hadn't been in love with her for 3 years, and she was sort of a flaky tree-hugger, worship-mother-earth type."

Maybe it was the heat. The women who came just walked in, looked, and either bought something or left.

3870

Hispanics--the made-for-politics racial category

"With the beginning of large-scale non-European immigration in the late 1960s as a result of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, entrants from Europe fell from over 50%, 1955-64, to less than 10% in 1985-90, while Third World entrants rose rapidly. This opened an opportunity for lobbies to create new categories of 'disadvantaged minorities.' Thus the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a powerful interest-group in alliance with the Democratic Party, succeeded in establishing a racial category known as 'Hispanic,' which included latin mestizos, people of predominantly European, black, and American Indian descent, descendants of long-assimilated Californios and Tejanos, and other groups who once spoke Spanish--almost anyone in fact who found it advantageous to belong, so long as they could not be accused of being 'Caucasian' or 'Aryan.' This pseudo-race came into existence as the result of statistical classification by bureaucrats." Paul Johnson, A history of the American people, Harper Collins, 1997, pp. 956-57

3869

1776, the good, bad, and hopeless

I don't particularly like war stories. After all, the U.S. has been at war with some country some where throughout its existence. But lest you get indignant, so have most countries, unless you're reading a modern history published in the U.S. for use in our schools, then all communist and marxist countries/governments are given a pass, and all Americans are invaders, pillagers or scoundrels.

Still, David McCullough's 1776 is a very sobering book. It only covers one year of our revolution which lasted until 1783, but there are so many times the Americans came close to remaining British subjects. In 1776, Americans had the highest standard of living in the world. I imagine there were many asking, Why are we in this war? Many Americans, Loyalists, and British wanted the war to end with peace talks because of the high losses.

"In a disastrous campaign for New York in which Washington's army had suffered one humiliating, costly reverse after another, this, the surrender of Fort Washington on Saturday, November 16, was the most devastating blow of all, an utter catastrophe. The taking of more than a thousand American prisoners by the British at Brooklyn had been a dreadful loss. Now more than twice (2,837) that number were marched off as prisoners, making a total loss from the two battles of nearly four thousand men--from an army already rapidly disintegrating from sickness and desertions and in desperate need of almost anyone fit enough to pick up a musket. . . The British were astonished to find how many of the American prisoners were less than 15, or old men, filthy, and without shoes. . .

What lay ahead of the Americans taken prisoner was a horror of another kind. Nearly all would be held captive in overcrowded, unheated barns and sheds, and on British prison ships in the harbor, where hundreds died of disease. . . Washington is said to have wept. . ."

The Fort was not reclaimed by the Americans until the end of the war in 1783, and it was renamed during that time for a Hessian, Fort Knyphausen.

3868

Call me anything but Muslim terrorist

Four people have been charged in the US over a plot to bomb John F Kennedy airport in New York, US officials said. [BBC]

Four people, including a former member of Guyana's parliament, have been charged with planning to blow up New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, U.S. officials said on Saturday. [Reuters]

Three suspects have been apprehended with a fourth at large, all believed to be part of the plot with connections from New York to Guyana to Trinidad, authorities said. One suspect was taken into custody in New York as part of a federal-local investigation, and two were apprehended in Trinidad. The at-large suspect is in Trinidad, reports said.[MarketWatch]

Authorities said Saturday that they had broken up an alleged terrorist plot to bomb aviation fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy International Airport, arresting a former airport worker and two other men with links to Islamic extremists in South America and the Caribbean. [Washington Post]

Three people were arrested and another was being sought Saturday for allegedly plotting to blow up a fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and runs through residential neighborhoods, authorities said.

The plot never got past the planning stages. It posed no threat to air safety or the public, the FBI said Saturday.[AP]

The plotters sought to blow up the airport's jet fuel tanks and part of the 64km pipeline feeding them from New Jersey. Three of the four suspects, who included a former airline cargo handler, have been arrested, federal law enforcement officials said. [Breaking News Australia, via Reuters]

And six people were arrested a month ago in an alleged plot to unleash a bloody rampage on Fort Dix in New Jersey.[AP]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have reported that four arrests have been made in a foiled plot to blow up jet-fuel supply tanks and pipeline at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), in New York City. The DOJ suggested the plot was interrupted in the early planning stages through cooperative law enforcement work in the United States and abroad.[Wikinews]

We've got FOUR, we've got PEOPLE, we've got ARRESTS, we've got PLOTTERS, we've got SUSPECTS, we've got a WORKER and a CARGO HANDLER . . . I guess even using the word MEN is too politically charged these days.

3867

Great Grandma's sunscreen

It was called common sense coverage.



Gardeners, golfers, sunbathers and tanning salonistas need to know: Skin cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in the United States and accounts for about 2% of all cancer deaths. In 2005, about 59,580 individuals in the United States were expected to develop melanoma and approximately 7,770 (62,000 and 7,900 in 2006) were expected to die of it. (JAMA and Proc Natl Acad Sci USA) Melanomas are often resistant to radiation therapy and to many chemotherapeutic agents. That's a huge price to pay for being fashionable.

The next time you hear reports of how many soldiers have died since 2003 in Iraq, ask yourself about these preventable deaths. Twice as many in 1/4 the time.

Update: In Tara Parker Pope's column (WSJ, June 5) she reports that a white cotton t-shirt is almost no protection, and even less if wet. A green t-shirt offers 50% more skin protection than white, but even that is only an SPF of 10. You can buy clothing treated with sun block. Rit Sun Guard is a laundry additive which increases the UPF rating to 30 and lasts for 20 washes.

3866

Climate change map

This map, which appeared in JAMA 296:8 and is found on www.sciencesource.com, is supposed to show the possible hazards of global climate change. As you can see, it is Europe. According to the article, the summer of 2003 was the hottest in Europe in 500 years. It used to be very cold in Europe, and warm in Greenland (which is how it got its name).



But wait! The white areas showed no change and the blue areas were cooler, not warmer (the map here is small, but on the larger map, there are many white spaces). To my untrained eye, over half of Europe was cooler or unchanged in 2003. France, however, was very hot. This article was about how epidemiologists can get on the global bandwagon by researching microbial foodborne illnesses, diarrheal illnesses, changing disease patterns during El Nino warmings, incidences of tick borne illnesses due to milder winters, and waterbourne and foodborne illnesses all linked to weather disturbances. Also, more malaria, but then, that's been caused by well-meaning but deadly environmentalists who got DDT off the market so bird egss would be OK. "Think big," they are told. Be afraid, be very afraid.

3865

Are you serving alcohol to underage drinkers?

About a month ago there was a big hoop-la in our community because a limousine driver reported to school officials that his passengers on the way to the Upper Arlington prom in the Arena District had alcohol. About 10 other limos were searched and 125 kids didn't get into the prom that night, even those who didn't know there was alcohol in the vehicles. Some parents were furious; some kids were heart broken.

And where are you on this? Are you serving alcohol to kids? The parents of the guilty, or older friends of the teens, obviously purchased it. If you own stock in any alcohol related industries, you too are serving children. An article published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (2006;160:473-478) reports that the short-term cash value of underage drinking to the alcohol industry was $22.5 billion in 2001--17.5% of total consumer expenditures for alcohol. Well-designed public service announcements about "responsible" drinking are a drop in the ocean of booz. But the study didn't stop with that. It went on to figure the consumer expenditures for underage drinkers to maintain their consumption as adult drinkers with abuse and dependency, which equaled at least $25.8 billion in 2001. Teen age brains are still forming and alcohol and cigarettes consumed before adulthood have much more serious consequences for addictions and health. If you can get to 21 without starting, you probably won't have a problem and will be responsible.

So, the combined value of illegal underage drinking and adult pathological drinking to the industry was at least $48.3 billion, or 37.5% of consumer expenditures for alcolhol in 2001. Some estimates mentioned in the study place it even higher than that, at $62.9 billion and 48.8% of consumer expenditures.

If any business were to lose over 17% of its consumers' purchases, it would be hurting. But how much are they, and stockholders, hurting us? The alcohol industry needs to cultivate the underage drinker in order to be profitable, and no amount of chit-chat or sweet talk about "responsibility" is going to change that. But you don't have to participate in this fairy tale--just get it out of your portfolio. Just say No to alcohol profits.

The abstract of this article appeared in JAMA, July 26, 2006, Vol. 296, no. 4, p. 373.

3864

Garage sale finds

Although a number of "pickers" had already gone through the jewelry, I noticed this piece, which was black and priced at $.50. I suspected it was silver, or silver plate, so I took it in the house and cleaned it up with silver polish. I don't wear much jewelry, but I thought this was interesting. It seems to be strung on a piece of leather, and I may look for a way to shorten it. I wore it to a party last night with a black t-shirt and white slacks and got more compliments than I'd ever had on anything I own. And when I told the women the price. . . what fun!



This piece was maybe $1.00 and still in the May Co. box with the price tag. It too was black from tarnish, but I thought it cleaned up nicely. Looks cute with a t-shirt.



Of course, my daughter didn't even get $1.50 for these--she just gave them to me, but if you had been there, that would have been your price.

One of the cookbooks I got (out of hundreds, new and never used), was a Taste of Home 2002 Annual. I used one of the recipes for our neighborhood party last night. Very tasty. I could have figured this one out on my own, but when I saw it I realized I had the ingredients and wouldn't need to go to the store after a hot day at the garage sale. I arranged bright red strawberries, with stems, and Granny Smith sliced apples (dipped in orange juice to prevent browning) on a pretty glass sectioned platter, and in the center included "Fudgy Fruit Dip":

1/3 cup fat-free sugar-free hot fudge topping
1/3 cup fat-free vanilla yogurt (I used low-sugar strawberry yogurt)
1 1/2 teaspoons orange juice concentrate (I didn't use this)

I think I used more like 1/2 cup of of the fudge sauce and 1/2 cup of the yogurt because I had a large plate of fruit. It makes a nice dipping consistency. Browsing a new cookbook is the fun part, but in this case, I actually found something I could use.

3863

Big garage sale today

I'm off to help with my daughter's garage/estate sale. The proceeds will help pay off the bills for her mother-in-law's final illness. She was about to bring up a load of clothes all with the original price tags while we talked on the phone last night. I suggested she use two ladders with a beam between because the garage was so stuffed she had no place to put them. Two ladies who had been pestering them to take a peek had just been let in the garage by her husband. "Oh my God," I heard one of them shriek. So she sold about $200 in costume jewelry, and I don't think anything was priced over $3.00. She said you can't even tell anything is gone.

It's going to be a long hot day--the area needs rain, but just not today, please. I may not get my 2.5 miles in.

She's tough!

8 boxes of cookbooks
Lenox roses
Vintage purses
china and costume jewelry
Update: I got 2 wonderful silver necklaces for $.50 each (although she actually just gave them to me for helping), and a Taste of Home annual cookbook which I've already used, and some Christmas coasters.