4204

Chicken and salmonella

The news was full of some Salmonella stories this morning--pot pies, I think. Chicken just must be cooked thoroughly before you eat it. Same with giving uncooked meat to your pets. They all have it. Kill it!

"The company reminds consumers that these products are not ready-to-eat, and must always be thoroughly cooked as instructed on the packages," the company said in a statement on its Web site. "The cooking instructions for these products are specifically designed to eliminate the presence of common pathogens found in many uncooked products."

The pot pies in question have the code P-9 printed on the side of the package, ConAgra said." CNN

I served chicken cordon bleu (swiss or Provolone and ham rolled inside chicken breast) the other night, with cooked carrots and fresh greens salad, banana nut muffin with sugar free Cool Whip. Yummy. However, I did purchase the chicken roll ups at Fresh Market, which is the next best thing to having a chef drop by at dinner time. The instructions said, "Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes wrapped loosely with foil. Uncover and bake approximately 15 more minutes. I added 5 minutes, and still think it should have been more, because my husband's portion was just slightly pink. Next time. . . I'll adjust the cooking time and also split the portions. My husband complained that they were too large. Hmm. I had no problem at all.

4203

Ambushing the Acting Architect

When you get two e-mails on the same "have you heard of this terrible deed" story, you have to take a second look (I usually delete them). Most often the stories are written by the netroots (progressives and liberals suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome) or the wingnuts (nutty conservatives looking for conspiracies). When it's about an architect, I indeed look into it.

The story going around at the speed of light is that the Acting Architect of the Capitol has deleted or removed God and religious references on official certificates and documents. Why an architect decides, I have no idea. I'm my husband's staff (letters, specs, forms, billing) and I read all his newsletters and magazines. I've never believed English was an architect's strength. Now if you google this topic, the language will be a bit more hysterical. But there does seem to be something to it.

First, who is he and what has he done to create such outrage? Stephen T. Ayers is a Bush appointee, a veteran and a degreed and certified architect serving until they find the "real" architect. The Architect retired earlier this year and the AIA has been unhappy because the word is out that this plum appointment wasn't even going to be an architect (the Librarian of Congress isn't a librarian, for instance, and the Secretary of Education may not be a teacher). "In March 2006, following a rigorous interview process before a selection panel comprised of the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives, the Comptroller General, Senate Sergeant at Arms, and senior AOC officials, Mr. Ayers was selected as the Deputy Architect/COO. In this role, he oversees approximately 2,200 employees and manages the day-to-day operations of the Agency." AOC site

Second, at least one leg of this story is planted firmly in Ohio. A story appeared in the Dayton Daily News about a teenage Eagle Scout trying to do something nice for his grandfather:

The inscription on the certificate accompanying the flag that had flown over the United States Capitol was supposed to be a personal message from 17-year-old Andrew Larochelle to his grandfather, a veteran and a devout Catholic.

Andrew requested the certificate say, "This flag was flown in honor of Marcel Larochelle, my grandfather, for his dedication and love of God, Country and family."

But, the Acting Architect of the Capitol, Stephen T. Ayers, censored "God" from the request.

"I was completely shocked at the way things played out ... faith is very important to our entire family," Andrew said.

Andrew, who will be honored today for his 11-year effort to become an Eagle Scout, plans to present the flag to his grandfather during that ceremony.

"A lot of what I learned about faith comes from him," Andrew said. "I never expected such controversy over getting my Eagle Scout rank."

The flag request was made by Andrew's father, Paul Larochelle, through the office of U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, who on Saturday gave the family another certificate, written just as they requested.

"Our Nation's Capitol contains many religious references including "In God We Trust" inscribed in both the House and State chambers," Turner wrote in a letter of complaint to President Bush. "The architect's policy is in direct conflict with his charge as well as the scope of his office and brings into question his ability to preserve a building containing many national religious symbols."

Turner said Bush is currently in the process of appointing a new Architect of the Capitol.

So, two Western Republicans, Tancredo and Musgrave, both from Colorado and conservative Christians, are leading the charge to reverse his unpopular decision by the acting architect, according to the Denver Post.

Federal officials should allow the word "God" to appear on certificates accompanying American flags sent from the U.S. Capitol to members of the public, two Colorado lawmakers said this week.

Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and Tom Tancredo joined several other Republicans in sending a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting she end a policy of the Architect of the Capitol that prevents the certificates from including religious expressions.

"This officially sanctioned hostility against religion flies in the face of the constitutionally guaranteed right to the free exercise of religion," Tancredo said. "This misguided and contradictory political correctness has got to come to an end."

Let's see if this can get resolved before all the Christmas vs. Holiday hysteria swings into action. I know that Harry "Hush Rush" Reid is good at parsing sentences and looking for hidden meanings.

Banned Books Week

BBW is over for another year (wasn't that the name of a magazine for large women?). Banned books goes on all year at my library because banning begins at selection by the staff, not complaints from the patron. Today, I picked up a magazine, AudioFile June July 2007. Glancing through it, I noticed it had a religious section, so I decided to see if my public library had any of the religious audiobooks reviewed in the issue. The first one I tried was a James Dobson, Focus on the Family issue. Didn't surprise me that they didn't have it. Even though his company produces top-notch audio and video, he is politically a conservative--an anathema at this tax supported, public library**. So I read the review of R.C. Sproul's audio book The Holiness of God read by Grover Gardner (6.5 hours, unabridged). Reviewer noted that the print version published 20 years ago had become a standard work, and that the audio did justice "to a deep work on a subject often taken for granted."

I bring up the catalog again (which doesn't work well and is an aggravation) and punch in "Sproul, R.C." One item--a contribution to a King James Bible version. A search of Amazon.com brings up over 200 titles, because Sproul, a Presbyterian, is extremely prolific (note: his son uses "R.C. Sproul, Jr," although they don't have the same name). Although he focuses on theological themes, he has also written for children and youth, and I think has tried his hand at fiction. He has written books on home schooling, cultural issues, biography, Bible studies, The Westminster Confession, marriage, apologetics, the reformation, death, and the life of Jesus. He is a well known as a Christian author, teacher and speaker. There are a few duplicates on the Amazon listing--some titles are published both in Spanish and English; several have audio; some are both paperback and hard cover.

However, I counted 46 distinct titles with publication dates between 2000 and 2008 (it's possible some could be his son's--hard to tell). Forty-six titles in eight years, and Upper Arlington Public Library couldn't find a spot on the shelf or in the budget for even one! Richard Dawkins, the non-religious bigot who sees religion as a human construct and the source of much evil in the world is much more acceptable at UAPL. His Blind watchmaker has 3 copies; The God delusion has 7 print copies and one audio.

And this, dear readers, is what I call banned books.
------------------

** If you check the UAPL catalog by publisher, you will find Focus on the Family, all from the early to mid-1990s--the library staff was a bit less "focused" and rigid in those days.

If you believe this

My blog is worth $413,243.28.
How much is your blog worth?

I have some CO2 credits to sell you.

God and Hillary Clinton

First, let me say that I think candidates for office, whether city council or the presidency of the United States, should be allowed to speak at any forum, even if it is the pulpit of a church. Americans learn democracy in the committees and congregational votes of their churches and synagogues. Black Americans have a long tradition of this--and according to the polls, it hasn't hurt their faith one bit. Second, some Christians are terrible hypocrites about this. Here in Columbus we had a group gang of 31 smug, self-righteous, mainline preachers trying to take the tax exempt status from World Harvest (which draws much bigger crowds than they do) during the 2006 election cycle. Third, I haven't read this book--and probably won't since I'm not a Hillary fan. Still, it's an important topic. Faith does shape one's politics.

I listened to an author interview; he has written other "God and. . ." books. (Here is another interview, but not the one I heard and it addresses different issues.) He said that George W. Bush spoke at a church 3 times in his first 3 years in office, all at memorial services. Hillary Clinton spoke 6 times in churches on one election day (her senate run in New York). Yet she is the one who says she won't "wear her religion on her sleeve" (audience applause) because that would be Pharisaical. She gave many "Why I am a Methodist" speeches when the folks in Arkansas were a bit doubtful about the young couple living in the governor's mansion in the 80s.

If this book is as carefully researched as the author claims, and is accurate just on this "sleeve" issue, Senator Clinton will continue to set up a straw man to divide Christian loyalties to meet her own political goals.

My opinion. Christ taught nothing new about moral and ethical behavior. Our faith is not about what to do, but about who we believe in. So Matthew 25, where Christians are commanded to help the poor, sick and imprisoned is a basic religious tenet for both Christians and Jews. The Gospel of Matthew is a very Jewish book drawing heavily on the Old Testament.

Main line Protestants have no problem using this text to decide that it is the government which needs to do it with everyone's tax dollar, not just the taxes of Christians and Jews. However, the same group is quite vocal about not teaching Creation, the theological bedrock of both faiths in that it deals with God's sovereignty and how death entered the world. They ridicule conservative Christians and side with atheists, agnostics and humanists. They are vocal about blessing gay marriage, even to splitting their denomination, using every passage about marital love in the Bible. They are silent about the killing of the helpless unborn, except to mouth platitudes about "choice," and "saving the poor or deformed from a life of pain."

Today I saw a letter to the editor in WSJ which voiced concern that the Christian right was taking the reins of the Republican party (a very common complaint). Again, I ask all Christians, liberal and conservative to please show me where Christians are having any influence at all in education, economics, politics, entertainment or academe. I wish it were true, but I don't see it. Twice in 60 years we've had a Republican Congress with a Republican President. Show me a single government program or boondoggle that was turned back, slowed down or reversed by conservative Christians.

The Jena six

I hope I've got this wrong, but did I hear that an aging pop stud with an appelation disorder has come out with a protest song about the Jena Six? Well, you gotta do what you gotta do to stay in the spot light.

Meet my friend, Mr. JAM. He's actually been to Jena and spent some time there. Go to his blog and check out a few details. While you're there, check out his excellent photographs.

4198

Why liberals are afraid of Clarence Thomas

He's written an autobiography titled, "My grandfather's son," and liberals are squealing and denigrating again. They used to just condemn his qualifications; now it's his emotional state. It's not just because he's an uppity black man who isn't grateful for all they've done (the whites). It's not just because he's got black skin and Negroid features (the Civil Rights leaders who grew up with the brown paper sack rule of acceptable appearance). It's not just because he complains about rich feminists hunting for more shackles and glass ceilings (as black women were still scrubbing floors). No. He stomps all over and rips up their favorite playgrounds giving them no place to hang out. So I suppose they have a right to pout and bully him, and call him too angry or disturbed to be on the bench. But, as John Yoo points out in today's WSJ, "Clarence Thomas is a black man with a much greater range of personal experience than most of the upper-class liberals who take pot shots at him."

And if he's too angry,

does that include the other angry people who came out of the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and 70s?

Or who left the church because of its inaction on race issues?

Or who used company rest rooms with racial slurs on the walls?

Or who saw the futility in the black power movement after a brief, heady flirtation?

Or who dabbled in leftist politics in the 70s and found it empty rhetoric?

Or who disappointed and argued with his parents about his political views and life choices and lives with regrets?

Or who had to learn to speak standard English and give up his distinct (and ridiculed) childhood dialect?

Or who says a degree from Yale is worth about 15 cents in the real world if you are black?

Or who believes busing poor black kids to poor white schools did nothing for educating children?

Or who saves a complimentary letter to reread from time to time as an affirmation of his beliefs?

Or who believes criminals need to be tried by juries, not judges?

Or who went the lonely route and voted for Ronald Reagan, turning away from government engineering of social problems?

Now, for conservatives who read this book: they may wonder as I did, why he didn't know until joining the Department of Education that busing was never about education for disadvantaged black children, it was always about neighborhood integration and the real estate market. They may be puzzled that he knew so little about black on black crime when he began working in Missouri. They may wonder why he would stay eight years with the EEOC--did he think he was God, because if it was as bad as he said, that would be its only salvation. Why he didn't get rid of Anita Hill sooner if he knew she was trouble. Did the first Bush ever take his advice on black appointments?

I found the inefficiency and relationships between the various federal agencies and departments discouraging--I think more could have been said. More solutions offered. (Although as a Supreme, he probably has areas on which he isn't allowed to comment.) If it were me, I would have had a few regrets about that, too. Also, for this reader, many of his insights, sounded more like hindsight.

Still, it's well worth reading.

Jesse Peterson is looking for a few good (white) men. I wish him luck.

Time to think about flu shots and pneumonia vaccine

It's been so hot (in the midwest), you've probably not thought much about flu season or pneumonia. Most of the churches and many of the large supermarkets around here are offering flu shots for older and at risk people. I know there are those who think vaccines are part of some sort of conspiracy cabal (just who this bad element conspiring to kill us with vaccines is, I'm not sure--but I think they drink the Kool-Aid with the Princess Diana conspiracy folks). With the bad news about hospital acquired infections, I would think you would want something preventative to keep you or your elderly parents out. Maybe they won't die of pneumonia, but they might acquire something else really ugly.

"Among patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia, those who had previously received the pneumococcal vaccine had a lower risk of death and admission to the intensive care unit than patients who were not vaccinated, according to a report in the Oct. 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine 2007; 167(18):1938-1943, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Streptococcus pneumoniae, one of the causes of pneumonia--23-valent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine (PPV)--has been available since 1983. Most guidelines recommend PPV for those at high risk of developing pneumonia, including older adults and nursing home residents."

In this study of nearly 3,500 patients in Canada, "22 percent had been vaccinated with PPV, and 624 died or were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Those who had been vaccinated with PPV were less likely to die or be admitted to the ICU than those who had not been vaccinated (10 percent vs. 21 percent). This finding was mostly a result of lower ICU admissions--less than 1 percent of those vaccinated were admitted to the ICU, compared with 13 percent of those who were not vaccinated. Results were similar when the researchers looked only at patients older than 65 or those living in nursing homes--groups for whom universal PPV vaccination is recommended." [from Newswire via JAMA ]

I want to look like a high school cheerleader again

This reality show on CMT started up yesterday and I watched a bit. I was never a cheerleader, wasn't athletic, nor did I envy them, but I think they contributed a lot to the fun of the football and basketball games. Watch this. One woman said, "No one but my husband has said I'm pretty in a long time." Well, who else matters?

One of my cousins I met this year through an internet genealogy site used to be a Denver Broncos cheerleader, if I remember correctly. Is that football? I saw four or five former cheerleaders this summer at our reunion (2 from our class and 2 from the class after us and maybe one from my husband's class), and they still have the nice personalities and perky spirits that supported the teams and worked up the crowds.

A relief from the heat

This evening a cool front should move in and move our heat. . . to the east. I'm sure this is a relief to the global warming folks too, because none of the October heat records were posted after 1963, and that's a bit of an embarrassment, I suppose. Well, if you worship man's control of nature, that is. Now we've had a string of really hot days which will bump up the average. For the first week of October, the former records for our area were set in 1952 (89), 1919 (88), 1953 (89), 1959 (89), 1951 (90), 1963 (86) and 1941 (88). And remember, in those days, no one had air conditioning, so it must have been pretty uncomfortable on those record setting days.

I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.

You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness grow with it;
I, the Lord, have created it.
Isaiah 45:6b-8

4194

BARF

As seen at Medscape.com continuing education unit on zoonotic diseases (requires registration):

The current trend for "natural diets" has led some owners to provide their dogs with a "bones and raw food diet (BARF)." The diet often consists of whole raw chicken mixed with vegetables. A recent study found that 80% of dogs fed this diet shed Salmonella in their stool. Another source of Salmonella for dogs and, subsequently, human infections has been processed pig ear treats.

Hmm, as they say, "everything but the squeal," but I don't think I'd buy that "treat."

4193

Repost my triggers

This morning I went back to my Thursday Thirteen where I posted my 13 food triggers. It was September 28 of last year, and we'd just returned from California. I stepped on the scales and saw 150 lbs and decided it was time to change my ways. Unlike a lot of women who claim ignorance on why they gain weight, I knew exactly what the reason was. I was eating more and moving less. I'd gotten broad band and it was. . . broadening. It took 6 months, but I got back to 130 lbs and size 8.

When I returned from Ireland on the 19th, I'd bumped up about 2.5 lbs, but you should see the wonderful food we had! After a week or so, it went back down, but now it's up 3. So this morning I reviewed the list, and I was violating 10 of the 13 triggers, and at the grocery store this morning I kicked in another (avoid the snack food aisles at the store). So I've posted them on my printer shelf, and on the inside door of the pantry.

For example, one big food trigger is pizza of any type, but especially pepperoni with double cheese. I think I've had that 4 times in the last 3 weeks. Friday night we ate at Sloopy's in Lakeside--I had a personal size pizza, and my husband had a sub which came with chips. Chips are also on my food trigger list. Not only did I eat my own pizza, my hand kept sneaking under his arm for his chips, and I also had chips on Saturday at the town's Fall Festival lunch. I've been sneaking peanut butter, and the other day I got a package of crackers out of the cupboard intended for my husband who has actually lost weight since he took up sailing. Ice cream isn't even on the list, but I've been eating it, too.

Yes, indeedy,
I'm gettin' needy
It all looks yummy
to my tummy
don't need no snacks
in my slacks
so it's no more chips,
no more slips,
no more trips
(goes to my hips)
or double cheese
if you please.

4192

Wild Horses

couldn't keep me from buying this little box I didn't need. I much prefer rectangular boxes, bigger boxes, that will actually hold something. But I couldn't resist. The others in this display were round; totally useless now that I don't wear hats. So I bought the square box, 4 3/4" interior dimension, lid 5 1/4". It won't even hold a jewel box for a cd, which measures 4 7/8".

Hsus and Socks

I heard today on radio (Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent) that Sandy "the socks" Berger-Burglar is going to join the Clintons to get Hillary elected. So they've got Hsus (pronounced Shoes) and Socks on their team. Isn't he a felon? Or does stealing from the National Archives not count as much as saying "phony soldier" on air about a real phony soldier in the Democratic playbook. I don't remember any Senate condemnation of Berger that took over a week of their time. What I wrote in April:

I am very concerned that the Justice department covered for the Clinton administration official in not breathing a word about the Sandy Berger burglarly and crimes at the National Archives in front of the 911 commission. That whole investigation was done not knowing he was a criminal. Who knows what was compromised or why Gonzalez let this happen. He was supposed to take a lie detector test, but Justice hasn't followed up on that either. I'm also concerned that certain National Archives employees attempted to "catch him" on their own, without reporting him, and possibly bungled the burglary. They should be fired. They way overstepped their responsibility by trying to second guess his motives and behavior and should have called their supervisor or security.

Needed: a savvy editor

I haven't yet finished Clarence Thomas' autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, but unless he makes a big reversal before I get to the end of the book, I think his editor made a huge, huge boo-boo. It's about Thomas' first marriage and alcohol problems.

Never, never let your author say he knew before the wedding that it was a mistake. This strips the woman (and child) of all dignity, no matter what nice things are later said about her, her parents, and other good things. It makes your author, whom you were hired to protect from himself, look like less than a gentleman.

Second, never, never let your author continue to say, "when I left her," "when I left the marriage," or "after I left her," because it makes him look like a pompous fool who doesn't realize two people make up a relationship. To a man, it might sound innocuous; but to a woman reader, it makes him sound like a first class clod. If he says it once, OK, maybe your editorial skills are shoddy and you missed it, but several times? Back to school for you!

Third, (and I haven't come to the part where he gets sober) don't let your author go on and on and on about how poor he was after his Yale Law degree and several government appointments and never have him acknowledge how expensive it is to drink away all your discretionary income. Whether liberals or conservatives read it, that's a financial lesson it's never too early or late to learn.

4188

A million leftist monkeys typing, but they're no Shakespeare

"In the parable of the million monkeys banging on typewriters for a million years, the reward is supposed to be the complete works of Shakespeare. But have you heard the parable of the million interns? Here, the prize is Rush Limbaugh's head, and Bill O'Reilly's, and Brit Hume's, and pretty much any other prominent conservative or non-leftist who doesn't kowtow to the Democratic Party and its “netroots" army of Lilliputian cannibals. This, in a nutshell, is the vision behind a group most people have never heard of, at least not until this week, Media Matters for America." Good stuff. Jonah Goldberg

In articles and interviews [in the 90s], Brock [founder of Media Matters] outed himself as a liar. He confessed to lying in the Anita Hill book, even though the lies he admitted to were peripheral to his exoneration of Justice Clarence Thomas but devastating in what they said about Brock himself; he admitted he'd been a hatchet man and borderline extortionist. In a piece for Esquire - in which he was depicted bound to a tree, nipple exposed - Brock apologized to Bill Clinton and expressed regret over his "Troopergate" stories for the American Spectator. He said they were all true, mind you, but that he shouldn't have written them.

The hatchet work continues.

4187

Is it too much to ask

for something of substance from the Washington Post? Is it all Op Ed, Whimsy and Hokey-Smokey? I just read (I think you need to be registered):

An Exit Toward Soul-Searching
As Bush Staffers Leave, Questions About Legacy Abound

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007; Page A01

What a bunch of nothing! Why do "journalists" pretend to get inside people's heads? Too lazy to research? Need some inches to get paid? What a sorry, sorry profession.

Senator Clinton's connections

If you want to know what the country could be like with Senator Clinton as President Clinton II, just google Governor Granholm of Michigan. The whole country could be more taxed to death than it already is. The Christian Right spokesmen who are trying to drum up support for a third party candidate that isn't divorced, pro-choice, Mormon or in recovery from cancer, needs to think about Granholm and then Perot. It was not Democrats who elected Bill Clinton, it was Republicans jumping ship because they said the first Bush lied about raising taxes. Well duh. That's what pols do. Get over it.

But if you want to know Senator Clinton's connection with Media Matters, which does her bidding in stopping freedom of speech read this. So you've got a Democratic candidate who will raise your taxes so you can have the quality of care that Medicaid recipients get, and then shut your mouth so you can't complain about it. What a combination.

The unread books list

A strange list indeed. I have no idea why this would matter. These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. LibraryThing is that thing I said I didn't use in my TT. So, people own these books, but many sit unread on their shelves.

Instructions: Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your tbr list. Then copy this to your own blog, and you have a prepared topic! I got this from Cathy Knits.

Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels (Read assigned sections in high school)
Les misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

The only titles on my TBR list are Clarence Thomas' new autobiography, My grandfather's son, and Laura Ingraham's Power to the People. I'll probably review them later. Interesting stuff, some a little hard to believe.

4183

For the veterans who protest the war

I completely support your right to do so; this is the kind of freedom we're fighting for there. People in muslim controlled dictatorships certainly don't have this right. Don't let any lying senator try to shut you down they way they're going after Rush Limbaugh.

At the same time, it's possible your high school social studies classes were a bit light in the loafers and only included information about evil businesses or government abuses. Here's an older item from my blog about a veteran, Eli, who lived in my home town:

I had looked up this battle because in reading War Record of Mount Morris I noticed a WWII veteran from our town, Eli Raney, I considered "old" when I was young (although truthfully, I thought anyone over 25 was old). Born in 1892, he was 50 when he reenlisted during WWII and he served 14 months in frontline construction in New Guinea and the Philippines. So I flipped to the back of the book for his WWI service and see that he was a member of Company D, of the 104th infantry, and arrived in France in August 1918, just in time to be in this battle [the battle of Saint-Mihiel in September in which 7,000 men were lost, and went down in the history books as "a morale boost" but not a big battle]. He was not among the wounded, but was wounded in the Argonne campaign."

4182

Friday Family Photo

I've been looking for a reason to post this, and I realized while sorting through some photos yesterday that these were taken in 1987 and 2007. The first is my mother and her sister, Muriel, taken at the home where they grew up. We'd had some sort of family gathering, an impromptu reunion with relatives from both sides of the family. That was my first summer as an empty nester and I really enjoyed being back in the "nest" myself. The second was taken this summer. Mom died in 2000; Muriel is now nearly 91 and is the youngest and only surviving grandchild of the folks I'll show you next week. She's enjoying the Fourth of July parade with her daughter in the second photo.

Thirteen things about Norma's blogging

Photo from http://www.messiahinternationalministries.org/
1) This week is my fourth blogiversary. I started blogging on October 2, 2003, and then that just didn’t look tidy, so I "back-filled" October 1 and use that date to collect certain themes as I went along, family stories, poetry, etc. I have 11 blogs using blogger.com and one on another server.

2) Collecting My Thoughts. This is the primary blog (you’re reading it) and it can include just about anything. One time I wrote a TT on 13 topics at this blog. There are probably more. This is also where a year ago I wrote 13 things I was going to do to lose my blogging weight gain.

3) My second blog was about church activities. I've actually changed its URL and title, Church of the Acronym. A former minister decided we should be known by our acronym, UALC, because denominational names like Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, had fallen out of favor in manuals for mega-churches, now I think mega-churches are falling out of favor, so we're Lutherans again. This blog gets neglected. I link to a number of Christian and religious blogs. Some are just awesome. Mine isn't very spiritual; no gentle meditations.

4) My third blog was the log I write in at a library collective. The owner used to be a librarian at OSU. This wouldn't be of interest to anyone, probably not even a librarian because the young folks sure don't want to hear from a retiree, but it does help me keep up on the new, techie toys that enchant librarians. Also, I think it is difficult to navigate. I have a huge number of links to librarian blogs over on the left (no pun), but that just scratches the surface. Librarians are crazy about blogging.

5) I'm thinking the next one was for my hobby. I had great plans for this--tracking my premiere issue collection. I enjoy rereading it, but not updating it because it. . . is like work. In the Beginning sounds religious, but it is about first issues of magazines and what causes people to go into this business (most fail). Although I'm dreadfully behind in updating, I just can't resist buying a new title. It's especially fun when I know the person on the cover!

6) I go out for coffee every morning about 6 a.m., visiting a variety of local stores during the week, so I decided to write about what I see and overhear there, calling it Coffee Spills. I learn so much at the coffee shop, talk to a lot of people, and see some odd things; I really could update this every day, but I don't.


7) I write a lot on health, and one of the big health issues right now is obesity and how it relates to general well being. I tend to be pretty practical--eat less move more, or ELMM is my plan. If you've ever heard the news or stepped on a scale, you know that information is always flip-flopping on this, so that was sort of my theme when I started, i.e., the craziness. But it has evolved to general information. Most of good health is about lifestyle.

8) One day I came across a drawer of sewing patterns and thought it might be fun to match them with photos and family stories. I wasn't much of a seamstress, so I limited myself to one month of blogging. Because I mention aprons (I think), this blog still gets about 30 look-sees a week, even though I haven't updated it in 2 years. It's called Memory Patterns, has 75 entries and was terrific fun to write.


9) Somewhere along the way I was invited to join a walking group--I think it was the Easter season of 2006. We just kept walking after Easter. Cathy organized it, as I recall, and she was one of my Christian lady links. Now it is called Exercising through the Church Year.

10) I love the great American success story--like the Russian immigrant who founded Google, and believe it is our country's strongest value. Millions want to come here--no one tries to immigrate to Communist countries, unless they just accidentally step over the border. So I am outraged at Mexican leaders and La Raza's behavior--and our own President's lackadaisical attitude about the terrorist possibilities of millions streaming in, so I created another blog, Illegals Today. It really swims against the torrent of multicultural and diversity propaganda we get everyday from our media, politicians, educators and clergy.

11) My high school class was having its 50th reunion, so I decided to create a blog to capture some memories, hoping others would help. That wasn't my most successful writing adventure--I think only four people helped. But I do get nice e-mails from classmates I wouldn't have otherwise heard from.

12) Then it seemed time to create something about maturity and retirement, so Growth Industry came out of that idea. I'm pretty far behind in updating that one too. The last time was August. Sometimes I forget it is there.

13) The most recent one was On my bookshelves. I looked at those library control software things, but they had no appeal. I didn't really care to see if 1,000 other people had the same book. I really wanted it for my own use--some titles I don't keep very long, others I've had forever. Some are friends, others relatives, some drop-ins.


Thursday Thirteen

Some children are more equal than others

The 1978 Federal Indian Child Welfare Act, was intended to prevent Indian children from being separated from their culture, and requires state foster care agencies to contact the child’s tribe when the child is put into state custody, allowing the tribe to intervene. Isn't it a shame that Hmong or Chinese or African or Irish or Slovakian children are born to people with no "culture" and no "tribe" [extended family] to intervene on their behalf?

Phony senatorial outrage

ABC News recently broadcast a report on phony soldiers, including Jesse MacBeth. Is Salazar going to vote to censure ABC News? Daily Sentinel story here. Of course not. This is all about stopping talk radio and freedom of speech and thought. ABC is no threat to that!

A transcript of the call from Limbaugh’s show on Sept. 26 had this conversation with a caller to his show:

Caller: “No, it’s not. And what’s really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.”

Limbaugh: “The phony soldiers.”

Caller: “Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they’re proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they’re willing to sacrifice for the country.”

Limbaugh, later in the broadcast, said Jesse MacBeth was one of the “phony soldiers.”

Caught with their pants down and gums flapping, the Dems are saying now, "Well, he used the plural--and Jesse is only one." Like there aren't others?

I watched O'Reilly interview one of the vets against the war last night--I think Wesley Clark the former Republican funds the group. The guy made complete sense and he stuck to his guns no matter how O'Reilly tried to get him off track to condemn some liberal who had made stupid statements that weren't ambiguous, and were in print. The vet said, "Instead of talking about the war, the senators are talking about people talking about the war." You are so right, young man, and thank you for your service (assuming you are a real veteran who fought in Iraq, but with the people funding you, it's hard to tell.)

4178

The baby boondoggle

"Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home." FoxNews.

Hugh Hewitt said today, "Hillary Clinton is not a liberal; she's not a progressive; she is a radical." She's also got a loose screw. First she and other feminists encourage women to abort some 30 million babies in the past 3 decades; now she's going to pay them (the ones whose mothers didn't abort) to have babies? How split brained is that? Where is marriage in this equation? Unmarried women having babies is the primary reason for the poverty of children in the USA. Would this $5,000 be in addition to welfare and WIC? Can the illegal immigrant parents borrow it for legal fees? Would Congress get to borrow it for other uses until the kid is college age--sort of like a pre-social security fund? What if the kid doesn't want to go to college or buy a house? Would a houseboat or travel trailer do?

How many votes will Hillary buy with this ploy?

4177

Such a precocious child

"Growing up in hardworking northwestern Wisconsin, David Obey leaned Republican early on, even supporting Sen. Joe McCarthy, before he turned Democratic." It must have been awfully early on, like before he could shave. He's my age. McCarthy died in 1957. I believe the voting age was 21 back then.

Democrats have either long noses, or short memories. Like Senator Tom Harkin accusing Rush Limbaugh of not supporting the troops by calling some phony soldiers, well, phony soldiers (they didn't serve and told outrageous lies and there has been legal action against them which was reported in the news). Senator Harkin. Isn't he the guy who lied about his combat service in Vietnam and his handicapped brother? I guess he forgot he didn't serve there, or that his brother was retired, not fired. And then there's the phony angst of Harry Reid, old white flag Harry. Just rips your heart out, doesn't it? Do these Senators have so much time to waste on condemning Rush for what he didn't say? And accusing him on the floor of the Senate of using drugs?



This whole campaign against O'Reilly, Rush and talk radio, funded and fueled by the arm of the Clintons, Media Matters, sure does have a McCarthy ring to it, though, doesn't it? I do seem to remember old Joe--we talked about him in history class. A sign of things to come if she gets elected?

Update: I didn't see this in time to include it, but Byron York comments on the McCarthyism tactics of the left of trying to stop a person's livelihood: "when Limbaugh talked about "phony soldiers," he was referring to phony soldiers--that is, to men like Jesse Macbeth, an "antiwar" activist who claimed to have served in Iraq, received a Purple Heart and killed innocent civilians, when in fact the Army discharged him before he even completed basic training.

If Democrats want to support the phony troops, it is their right to do so. But when they try to interfere with Limbaugh's livelihood, that amounts to an effort at creating a McCarthy-style blacklist.

The Fox report says that 41 Democratic senators signed this letter, which means that 9 or 10 did not (depending on how you count Joe Lieberman). Will they speak out against their colleagues' intimidation efforts? And where are the Republicans in all this? With the Democratic Party increasingly in thrall to hate groups like MoveOn and Media Matters, America urgently needs politicians of either party with the courage to take a stand for decency."

James Taranto noted the similarities prefacing it with, "In recent weeks we've seen how the MoveOn.org Democrats have aped the tactics of Joe McCarthy, including character assassination of military officials and childish wordplay on people's names ("Senator Half Bright"; "General Betray Us"). Oct.3, Best of the Web.

More on this topic of fake vs phony:TNR and Weekly Standard battle over fake military stories.
Media get caught by faked military records.
Fake photos of the war.
Fake reporter who is fake Marine revealed on Daily Kos (did Senate investigate Kos for these charges against the military?)

4176

Just bought two best sellers

They aren't in the library. Clarence Thomas' My Grandfather's Son is on order at the Upper Arlington Public Library, and has 8 holds from people who want to read it; Laura Ingraham's Power to the People has one copy, checked out, and 6 holds. However, if I wanted to read about Katie the real story there are 3 copies, all available; and Maureen Dowd's Are men necessary? has 3 copies, all available, plus one for sale for $2 on the Friends shelf (hard cover, book jacket, looks unused). There were 2 DVD sets of the first 6 episodes of "30 Days." I checked Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus--they seemed to have been alerted that there might be an interest in the Thomas book, and they had circulating copies (all checked out) with multiple holds.

When I asked the tattooed, earstudded clerk at the store for the Ingraham book, he didn't seem to know of it, and looked it up on the computer. He found it, and led me to the back of the store, to a bottom shelf in the history section. "Isn't this an odd place for a #1 title?" I asked. "Oh, it's probably up front; I just didn't want to look for it," he groused. Then I asked for the Thomas book. He turned on his heel and nearly ran to the front of the store and pointed. And there it was; under the table in plain view. How could I have missed it? With my two books in hand, I carefully looked at all the tables. Laura wasn't there.

However, both rang up for 30% off even though there was no sticker on her book.

If you live in Columbus and want to read one of these, let me know. It will be a long wait for the library to take action. You know it is BBW and they are probably busy dealing with cranky conservatives.

4175

Columbus Fall Art Shows

Sunday we enjoyed a trip to German Village (restored area of Columbus, OH) to see the Fall Show of the Central Ohio Watercolor Society at Caterina LTD, 571 South Third St., Columbus. If you're looking for a delightful outing with friends, go out for lunch at any of the wonderful restaurants in that area, shop for Christmas gifts at Caterina (dishes from Poland, Italy and France), and enjoy the show on the second and third floors.







I love this pottery made and painted in Poland. Each mug is different, and there were several styles of bowls and casseroles, all with lovely designs. These were $12 each--more than I usually pay for a mug, but I have some in the cupboard that are nearly 50 years old and cost $.10. Run the average.

Then as you drive home, swing by the Caspian II Building at 3518 Riverside Drive in Upper Arlington, south of the Nottingham Road Stoplight. The Upper Arlington Art League has its fall show there. My husband has 2 paintings in the COWS show and 3 in the UAAL show.

By the way, the Upper Arlington Art League helped get the hugely successful community Labor Day Art Show off the ground. In 1966 this show started as an art exhibit for local artists near the Miller Park Library with about a dozen artists. Don Dodrill got the ball rolling and then founded the art league. I think my husband and I may have been some of the first members (although I don't belong anymore). Then when the show outgrew that space, it moved to Jones Middle School for a few years, then up to the city building on Kenney Road, across from the OSU golf course. Now it is held in a city park and attracts tens of thousands (I blogged about it here). As it grew, the UAAL developed a kids' art tent and helped with events as well as many members entering and selling their works in the show. All of this was eventually taken over by the city. UAAL is the only group of amateur and professional artists based in UA, although many of their members are also participating in COWS, Dublin and Worthington groups.

Many of the founders of UAAL are still in the group, and of course, they are now in their 60s, 70s and 80s. The city has a gallery in its city/municipal building, called the "Concourse Gallery." The Cultural Arts Commission has now decided that the UAAL isn't good enough to have shows in their gallery. Shame, shame on you, UA, for living up to your reputation as just a bit hoity-toity and stuck up, for not respecting your elders, and being clueless about your own history!

4174

What's between the lines on your resume?

Joann S. Lublin's column on resumes in the WSJ yesterday mentioned that employment seekers are being taught how to cover up or hide

imprisonment
cancer
alcoholism
drugs
spousal abuse
lack of a high school degree

Even in the early 1990s at Ohio State, we weren't allowed to ask if the candidate had an arrest or conviction because that was considered discriminatory against minority males.

We weren't supposed to notice if she was pale as a ghost, weighed about 100 lbs, had no hair, and looked like she couldn't lift a heavy journal

We weren't allowed to ask how she would navigate our narrow, pre-1950 stacks in her wheelchair.

If he held the application one inch from his face, we weren't to ponder how he would fill out the hand written time sheets for our student staff, or check their accuracy if a student did it for him.

If his skin was leathery and tan with sunny high lights in his hair and his most recent job in a library was 20 years ago shelving books at Capital University, we were not to assume he didn't desperately want a career change from riding mowers for the grounds department.

We weren't supposed to tell a PhD candidate in Asian literature she was over qualified for a serials check-in job, even if we knew she'd die of boredom before the first paycheck.

We weren't supposed to notice that a candidate was 7 months pregnant and had formula spit up on her shoulder.

I suspect more rules for interviewing have been added in the last 15 years.

Health insurance for children

David Brooks on Sept. 28 had an Op Ed in the NYT about the phony pain Congress suffers when speaking of our debt. "The U.S. government has $43 trillion in unfunded liabilities, or $350,000 for every taxpayer," he writes. Congress has a Mardis Gras-tomorrow will never come mentality.

These habits infect everything they touch, even a straightforward and successful program like the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-chip. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of uninsured children has been declining steadily for years. It shouldn’t be that costly or hard to insure the ones that are left.

And yet because S-chip is a product of the current climate, the expansion plan in Congress has all sorts of corruptions and dishonesties built in. First, it perpetuates a smoke screen of obfuscation between who pays and who chooses. States have an incentive to ramp up benefits because they know that most of the cost will be borne by taxpayers somewhere else. Second, it entices children out of private and into public insurance, even though after 2012 it cannot cover the cost.

I have little sympathy for smokers, but I do admit, I don't know any college-educated, well-off smokers. They've sucked it in, endured the headaches and quit. The smokers I do know are blue collar folks--retail, hospitality, auto repair, clerical, factory, construction. So Brooks zeros in on the wealth transfer that will have to take place for this entitlement.

The S-chip bill takes money from these relatively poor, politically immobilized people and shifts it to those making up to $62,000 a year. Nobody is raising a tax on wine consumption or gasoline consumption to pay for this benefit. Instead, Congress is taxing the weakest possible group [lower income smokers] in order to shift benefits to others, some of whom are middle class.

Have you ever noticed that if a government program is successful and begins to eliminate the problem it was set out to solve, Congress will expand it out of fear of losing a piece of the action?

More stuff, more stress

A few years ago, a well-heeled girlfriend told me that her 80-something mother was living in a tiny trailer in Arizona with a minimum amount of furnishings. She'd told her family, "When I die, just push it over the cliff." She wasn't poor; but she'd learned what most of us do after awhile--your possessions own you, not the other way around. In an article, about "Stressed out Moms" Ingrid Schlueter writes,

One factor seems to be expectations going into marriage. Newlyweds of my parents’ generation had very modest expectations financially. My parents started out in a basement apartment in Des Moines, Iowa that didn’t have much in the way of amenities. They graduated to a studio apartment later and then to a three bedroom flat where my brother, sister and I spent our early childhood years. From there it was a very simple, three-bedroom Milwaukee bungalow. No family room, one bathroom, old, basic kitchen and bath. The carpet when we moved in was the original and that goes for the linoleum as well. Mom made it all comfortable and homey, and we kids didn’t know that we lacked a thing. That’s where my parents lived until I was married.

Today, few newlyweds start out this way. Home ownership is seen as essential for many, even if it requires both husband and wife to work outside the home. It’s a dangerous way to begin because once the couple starts relying on two incomes to live, it is very hard to stop when a baby comes. Then the couple begins the stressed out years of trying to find and pay for exorbitant childcare, while strangers get the privilege of caring for their baby. Add a couple more children to the picture, and you have a lot of outgo for that same two-income couple and the race to meet all the demands begins."

That's exactly the same thing our Irish bus driver John (50 and the father of 5) said about the younger Irish generation setting up homes and getting mortgages. It's not a local problem.

4171

High level pharmaceutical decisions

What I would ask a librarian. Are there committees at pharmaceutical companies to decide which syllable and how many get the accent?

rosiglitazone (pronounced row sih GLIH ta zone)

Thiazolidinedione: (Pronounced THIGH-ah-ZO-li-deen-DYE-own.

It would sound and flow better if the final -ne were its own, stand alone syllable, don't you think?

The new polyester pants suit

I remember when my mother's generation (they were college age in the early 1930s) discovered the pastel polyester pants suit in the late 60s and early 70s. I'd seen her age group in slacks only in the garden--and here they were blooming like a bed of bright flowers. They could finally get in and out of the car gracefully (remember skirts were extremely short back then--not great for chubby or vein lined legs) and accommodate an expanding waistline. Yes, the rising of the mini-skirt put millions of older women into pants suits. I eventually succumbed and bought some myself--pale green, bright fuchsia, and yellow polka-dot. Oh, I felt quite smart--and comfortable.

Now it's khaki Capris, low sling-back sandals with a tiny heel, and fashion T's with just a little decollete to tease. The new polyester pants suit for the working Mom in her 40s-50s. I see so many women dressed like this at Panera's where they stop by for coffee and bagels to take into the office, that it makes me wonder if they called each other first and asked, "Whacha wearing today?"

On October 1, WSJ reported [paraphrased here]:

After years of fashion shows inspired by homeless people and biker chicks [Dior] promises to focus on grown-ups--prim, pricey and sophisticated.

I won't hold my breath for Columbus' Capri-wearing Mamas.

Movie making and politics

There's always been a bond between film makers and politicians. Both get rich and powerful by preaching; but you feel a little jerked around if you grew up with the films of the 40s and 50s, or watch them on TNT or AMC, and compare them to 21st century garbage. Last week Kyle Smith in the WSJ asked, "What's come over liberals?" He says their Bush-era movies are muddled, condescending, violent, vigilante, with trash talking points and weak plots with the usual predictables. Seeing a pro-American film in a theater today is as likely as seeing a pro-Stalin film in the 1950s, says Smith.

I'd just call it the "Law and Order" template; the little screen leading the way.

Bad guys (gang) are white.
Good cops are black.
Saintly friend (minor role) is black.
Real villan is white business man (if they use the L & O template, could also be clergy or husband of the female victim).
Behind the crime there is never personal responsibility
Give the "hero" or "heroine" amnesia or victimhood so they can become a killing machine but still spout leftist propaganda.
Important talking points:

acceptance or glorification of gays
unprepared military
whimpy or non-existant clergy
blame the Jews or
life in the mean streets of Mega-metropolis

To an apple

Oh Fuji, and Gala
Sweet Braeburn and Granny,
I'll return in the winter,
But for now, I will stray.

Be still my heart,
rejoice my taste buds.
It is the season
of the glorious Honey Crisp.

4167

Is this a bribe?

While the Ohio State University Libraries main library is closed (for another 2 years, at least), its temporary location on Ackerman Road is much closer to me, but not particularly convenient if you are actually attending or teaching classes there. I noticed this in the campus online version of OSUToday:

University Libraries is accepting proposals for the 2008 Course Enhancement Grant program. Grants of $2,000 will be given to instructors for the enhancement of courses by substantially integrating library resources and services. The deadline for proposals is Friday (11/2) for courses to be taught during Winter or Spring quarters 2008."

Do bus route maps to find the relocated collections count?

4166

Attention John Edwards' supporters

RealClearPolitics provides a lesson in economics.

"Of the charter members of the first Forbes 400 in 1982, only 32 remain today. Far from a country where only the rich get richer, the wealthy in the US are very much a moving target. While there are 74 Forbes 400 members who inherited their entire fortune, 270 members are entirely self-made. Though many attended Harvard, Yale and Princeton, there are countless stories within of high school and college dropouts, not to mention others who grew up extremely poor. Politicians who regularly engage in class warfare would do well to keep the Forbes 400 out of the hands of their constituents, because it makes a mockery of the kind “Two Americas” rhetoric suggesting the existence of a glass ceiling that keeps hard workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. To read the Forbes 400 is to know with surety that the U.S. is still very much the land of opportunity. . .

For the hard of hearing, Advanced Bionics founder Alfred Mann (#204) developed cochlear implants, and for those who are immobile, Stryker Corp. CEO John Brown (#380) makes artificial hips and limbs to help the bedridden stand. With cancer still a tragic fact of life for many, Abraxis CEO Patrick Soon-Shiong (#117) presently has the patents for 30 different treatments that will hopefully over time help to make cancer go the way of polio." [unless crafty politicians can tax or sue them out of creativity and existence]

HT HP

It's never about health, it's always the "gap"

The USA imports working-poor people because we have trouble growing our own. Our own poor may be homeless, or mentally ill, or elderly or in fragile health--essentially, unemployable; our own social agencies don't know what to do except offer them government assistance, insurance and welfare. So we wink at the working-poor from other countries who because of language or illegal status, must live a reduced lifestyle. We have a broken, unworkable, 20 year old immigration law, and a Congress who can't figure out how to fix it without swamping our social services and education system. The primary goal of both Republicans and Democrats appears to be to log more constituents for their parties.

Even with a jump start over the border, or a generational family tradition of government assistance to replace fathers-in-the-home (the primary cause of home grown poverty in the USA is single motherhood), our poor are better off than the poor in most countries because we set the bar very low. To qualify for SCHIP, our health insurance for children of low income employed people, the family of four income eligibility is at at 250% of the poverty level, or a little over $51,000 for a family of four. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like poor to me--remember, income isn't wealth.

No matter, though. It's always about the GAP between the rich and poor or the poor and middle class; it's never about the poor as real people with real health problems, or even their income. Even if every poor person in this country had full health, dental, vision and cosmetic surgery insurance with pet insurance thrown in for Spot or Fluffy, if someone richer had more, could elect a higher standard of care, it would be a terrible burden to bear for the psyche of liberals.

Here's the latest gap. Help for the obese. Bariatric surgery can reduce diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, sleep apnea, osteoporosis, etc. and improve general sense of well-being. Did you know that there is a gap between white, obese women who have bariatric surgery and black and Hispanic obese, women who have it? Also, a gap between white, obese women and white, obese men? Yes, 84% of the patients who have the surgery are women and 90% of those are white. But black and Hispanic women are more likely to be obese.

However, even people who can elect to have this surgery--rich, obese white women who live in cities that have special surgery centers--often choose not to have it. 15 million people are obese enough to have the surgery, but only a tiny fraction do. I'm just guessing here, but 1) there is a fairly high morbidity and mortality rate--you can survive, loose weight, but reenter the hospital several times--that ain't fun, 2) you still have to diet, 3) you still have to exercise, 4) after all that pain and frustration and giving up the comfort food you love, there are no guarantees you will live longer or save your marriage or job, 5) some minority groups and white males do not see obesity as quite the cultural sin that wealthier, white women do and have no wish to change their behavior, 6) this surgery is usually performed on those who have the best chances to survive and comply to the lifestyle changes which significantly helps the statistics of success, and 7) you can, with persistence, gain it all back!

For more information see, "Toward the rational and equitable use of bariatric surgery," JAMA, Sept. 26, 2007, pp. 1442-1444

4164

Passengers' Bill of Rights?

You can drive a 747 through the loopholes according to this travel editor. The legislation was introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to provide the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act. I guess we know which sex has to handle a wet, poopy baby who's been crying for four hours, don't we?

The legislation requires airlines to offer passengers the option of safely leaving a plane they have boarded once that plane has sat on the ground three hours after the plane door has closed.

This option would be provided every three hours that the plane continues to sit on the ground.

The legislation also requires airlines to provide passengers with necessary services such as food, potable water and adequate restroom facilities while a plane is delayed on the ground.

The legislation provides two exceptions to the three-hour option. The pilot may decide to not allow passengers to deplane if he or she reasonably believes their safety or security would be at risk due to extreme weather or other emergencies.

Alternately, if the pilot reasonably determines that the flight will depart within 30 minutes after the three-hour period, he or she can delay the deplaning option for an additional 30 minutes.

I've never had to sit on a runway longer than an hour (most recently when our flight was diverted from Shannon to Dublin, Ireland because of fog), but even I can figure out that all you need to do is open and close a door after 2 hours and 58 minutes to get around that 3 hour rule. And the restrooms are already inadequate, so what is "adequate?"

4163

Gas Guzzlers

Bring back the grid! This plan is unsafe for children, impedes walking or biking any where, jams up artery roads if you can find them, and drinks up your gasoline as you wander around, turning around looking for an exit street.

Business 2.0, Sept. 2007, Indianapolis, "How to play the real estate bounce-back," p.61

4162

Who funds Media Matters?

Wealthy Democrats, most with ties to the Clintons, either from former cabinet posts, or heavy campaign supporters. George Soros, an immigrant who has done extremely well with our economic system and wants more government in our lives just like the old country, is another brick in this wall against free speech. Media Matters was founded by David Brock, yes, the former conservative who came to fame writing about Anita Hill, then had an epiphany and rushed down the sawdust trail to switch parties. Media Matters goes after conservative talk radio--that's its whole reason for being. The name, "Media Matters," is brilliant. I'll give them that. It does matter--and most of the media are liberal, but like the babies who escape the abortionist mills and minorities who leave the plantation, some reporters, journalists, media executives, movie stars, sports figures and celebrities make it out alive to speak to the masses--those of us outside the beltway living in fly over country.

Harry Reid (D) is an important talkinghead/spokesperson/mouth for Media Matters. He almost would have nothing to say if they weren't coaching him from behind the curtain.


"And you, Scarecrows in radio land, have the effrontery to ask for a brain! You billowing bale of bovine fodder!!"

4161

Pay back time for the MoveOn dot Org fiasco

Poor old Harry Reid. Can't get it right. Has to take his sound bites from Media Matters and haul it up to the halls of Congress. I doubt that he's ever listened to a Rush Limbaugh radio show.

Although Americans of goodwill debate the merits of this war, we can all agree that those who serve with such great courage deserve our deepest respect and gratitude. That is why Rush Limbaugh’s recent characterization of troops who oppose the war as “phony soldiers” is such an outrage.

Imagine old Harry defending the troops! Respect and gratitude, what a laugh. Rush is probably the biggest supporter of our troops out there. You can go to Rush's web site to see what the fuss is about. Don't EVER take the MSM's word for what is said on his show. Media Matter slices, dices and runs it through their blender.

4160

Mischa Berlinski's Fieldwork

The novel we're reading for book club provides an anthropological investigation (fieldwork) for several interesting species--The Walker family [Christian missionaries], the Dyalo [fictious tribe based on a mix of real people that Berlinski researched], a beginning anthropologist [Martiya, anthropologist daughter of a Dutch linguist], academics, and to a lesser degree, couples who live together, stringers for magazines, American and European ex-pats, former college friends digging out letters from their basement storage and memories, Asian towns and prisons, teachers of English in exotic lands and linguists who create written language, whether Christian or academic. I fully expected Berlinski to speak ill of the Christians and laud the anthropologists, but it was just the opposite. He is neither, but definitely sees the anthropologists the more strange and misguided of the two, although both Martiya and the Walkers believe in the reality of evil spirits.

"The thirty years in China had seen the Walkers [Christian missionaries] occupy a dozen houses, all of them drafty, dreary places, with dirt floors and sod walls; and Laura had lived in them prepared to leave at a moment's notice should the good Lord need the Walkers elsewhere. She had lived the last fifteen years in the Mission House in Abaze, which was filled with spiders and simply did not get clean no matter how she scrubbed it. Laura never complained about her choices in life, but for thirty years now she [had wanted a real house like her sister in Kansas]. . . No Dyalo had ever thought to build a house with wooden walls--a Dyalo home had thin walls of thatch and woven bamboo--and organizing the labor in the wild country was a difficult job. . . The Dyalo wouldn't even consider the idea of working for wages; and if a man gives you his time as a gift, Laura felt, she really couldn't complain if he decided to take a week off. . . She was more than 50 years old, and although everyone helped, in the end, Raymond, Paul, and Laura built most of that house themselves." p. 111

"Farts-a-Lot [Martiya's host in the village, in whose hut she lived] kept a row of bottles of homemade rice whiskey, neatly lined up. In each bottle, there was some repulsive embalmed animal: a snake, a scorpion, a centipede, a few huge termites. These were added to the whiskey . . . to increase his potency, which, to judge by certain late-night mutterings was faltering. . ." p. 178 "The taste of the morning soup, more than the strange costumes and songs, and the weird language and the panoply of rites and sacrifices to please mean spirits, . . .that soup made Martiya feel as if she was living with the people from National Geographic. The vile soup was recycled day after day, and spiced with bitter herbs and a creepy brown fungus; it tasted as if everything that was the Dyalo and Dan Loi had been distilled into a concentrated broth; it seemed almost alive, slithering on her tongue like an oyster; it was as intense as eau-de-vie. All morning long, no matter how many times she brushed her teeth, Martiya could taste the forest on her teeth." p. 179

"It sometimes seemed to Martiya that half of the village was involved in bitter quarrels with the other half, and Dyalo feuds ran deep: there were people in the village who had no idea that a new baby had been born just one hut down, despite the agonized howling that accompanied Dyalo childbirth, so deep did their antipathies run. Watching the Dyalo snipe and bicker had disabused Martiya of the naive notion that tribal peoples would live in peaceful harmony with one another, just as watching the villagers hack down virgin forest and set it on fire for their fields had disabused Martiya of the notion that the Dyalo would live in placid harmony with nature. But as an anthropologist, she couldn't indulge in such diverting pleasures as blood quarrels. She needed to be a neutral Switzerland, an unencumbered Sweden. Farts-a-Lot [her host] was a leading member of the largest clan, the clan of the Fish, and Martiya suspected that if Farts-a-Lot felt in any way slighted, she'd never swim with the Fishes again." p. 188

Martiya thought that when "she got back to Berkely, all the other scholars and anthropologists and students of human behavior would help her understand the things she couldn't. Instead, Martiya found herself positively shunned in the department for having visited a preliterate society. The window of anthropological fashion had shifted while Martiya was in the field, and preliterates were out. . . It was an irony that 80 years after Bronislaw Malinowksi told all the anthropologists to get off the veranda of the mission house and go and live with the natives, the only people in all the world who seemed to share Martiya's obsessive interest and fascination with the Dyalo were a family of missionaries waiting for the world to end." p. 251-252

4159

Thank you, 60 minutes!

Years ago I was a regular 60 Minutes viewer. Then I watched a smear job they did on the people of little Polo, Illinois. I don't recall the details of the story, but I think the town had cut off the utilities of a down-and-outer who was scamming the whole community. Then there was the Dan Blather flap. But I did watch Steve Kroft's interview of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas last night, and it was extremely moving with lots of added footage, plus an actual conclusion that gave Thomas the last word. How refreshing. What we know now. . . It was all about abortion for the hate-smear Clarence Thomas foes (I could have sworn it was racism, pure and simple). It was about standing on principle for him.

Flipping through blogs today, I saw one whiner that thought Thomas smeared Anita Hill. Not at all. He said she wasn't the meek and mild, demure young lady portrayed by the press. The Anita Hill he worked with was a fighter who would have never tolerated the indignities of what he was accused of, not for 10 minutes, let alone 10 years. What's demeaning about that? If she became a pawn of the press, slurping up the bright lights, she certainly wasn't the first.

Buy My Grandfather's Son. Let's show the Just-us Brothers (Al and Jesse) what a real man sounds like. Let's get this book into the school library. Ask my public library to buy 16 copies like they did for the anti-Bush titles. It will restore your faith in the very sorry mess that is Washington.

What are the chances?

At 1:47 this afternoon, two people, one in Chicago and one in Colorado, googled searches about Roger Vernam, an illustrator of children's books, and both found my blog. I hope they found the second one too. Maybe they were discussing him on the phone?

4157

An October resolution

Making resolutions isn't my thing. Or maybe making them is, and keeping them isn't. I just couldn't tell you how often I start the month saying something like, "This month I'm going to try a new recipe," or "This month I'm going to see a movie," or "This month I'm going to learn how to use Lulu.com and upload my memoirs." Tomorrow is October 1 (book club, and I'm only on p. 50 of Fieldwork, which one review describes as a fictional account of "3 separate tribes--the fictional Dyalo, American Protestant missionaries, and the tribe that lives in ivory towers . . .studying other tribes"). But I did find a wonderful peach crisp recipe I might try, I mean, if I were going to make a resolution. It's not peach season, but it sounds good, and easy to modify for Splenda. I'll let you know if it's really yummy, and if I finish the book.

Fresh peach crisp recipe is a delicious dessert with cinnamon and whipped topping or ice cream.

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 pounds fresh peaches, peeled, pitted
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup soft butter

PREPARATION:
Butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Preheat oven to 375°.
Slice peeled, pitted peaches into the prepared baking dish. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon into a medium bowl. Cut butter into flour mixture with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Sprinkle crumbs evenly over peaches in baking dish. Bake at 375° for 45 to 50 minutes, until topping is golden brown and peaches are tender. Serve peach crisp warm with cream or whipped topping.

From About Southern U.S. Cuisine

4156

What teens can do to help the world

St. Francis DeSales High School seniors were protesting the death penalty at the Ohio Statehouse last week (Columbus Dispatch, 9-27-07). I don't support the death penalty (there were 2 executions in Ohio this year) because I don't want to be drawn into doing evil by the evil deeds of others. However, these teens could save thousands of lives each year by working for raising the legal driving age to 18. Yes, it's that simple. About 6,000 teens are killed each year in auto accidents because they don't have the maturity and brain development to handle the constant decisions about safety and driving that it requires. Anyone driving with a teen in the car, even adults, increase their risk of an accident.

I won't hold my breath that they'll try to make a real difference about something they face every day. Maybe they could start small and just turn off their cell phones while driving.

Nationwide, car crashes are the leading cause of teen death — among especially 16-year-olds, according to the highway safety group. Statistics include motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles.

Teen motor vehicle fatalities declined in the 1980s, almost entirely because of crackdowns on underage drinking. But the decline leveled off in the 1990s, and the rates haven't changed much since.

A number of factors make teens vulnerable to auto crashes. They lack experience behind the wheel. Their brains are not mature enough to handle the multiple mental tasks driving requires. They don't always wear seat belts. They're more likely to speed, especially at night and especially with other teens in the car.Tennessean.com

4155

NPR's liberal bias is aggravating

Usually I don't listen to our local NPR, WOSU Radio, but you all know what's the fare on Saturday--garden shows and sports. So three different times today my dial stopped at WOSU-AM.

First in the car I got Wesley Clark, complaining about Bush in Iraq but suggesting, I think, that we need to take out Iran. I only caught about 5 minutes, so I'm not sure of his drift or if he's running again. Then about an hour later on a return trip I got a book interview, and the author was genuflecting before the memory of FDR and complaining that conservatives portray liberals as spendthrifts taxing us to the poor house, but liberals haven't been in control since the 1960s. Huh? Where was this guy during the years the Democrats ran Congress and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were in office? The interview was so worthless, I'm not even bothering to track it down for you.

But the absolute worst was around 5 p.m, when needing noise while I fixed dinner, I heard on WOSU-AM a tiny clip of Bush's speech at the U.N. about dictators, and then a whole bunch of sound bites from various dictators slamming President Bush charging violations of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and dripping blood of the innocent Iraqis. They could have at least balanced the time.

Right after the Bush slamming with my tax dollars where NPR became a mouthpiece for dictators I might not otherwise had to listen to, I got Nina Totenburg just aghast by Justice Thomas' new autobiography. Boy, is she miffed that he's escaped the plantation. Successful black folk should be more respectful and know their place, I suppose.

"Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' autobiography My Grandfather's Son hits bookstores Oct. 1, coinciding with the start of the court's new term. Justice Thomas received a $1.5 million advance for the memoir, which is being promoted by conservative interest groups. It covers his life up to his swearing in as a member of the high court. He offers vivid, and at time seething, details about events surrounding his nomination, the charges of sexual harassment against him by Anita Hill, and his memories of growing up poor in rural Georgia. NPR obtained an advance copy." [from promo]

Nina's shocked, just shocked, that he's made this book so personal. It's just unseemly, you know? Now, any other black leader or celebrity growing up poor without his parents would be lauded for "a tortured soul," but Justice Thomas is a conservative. He's also been skewered in another book, according to Eugene Volokh in WSJ.