Thursday, May 22, 2008

Why I'm praying for Ted Kennedy

He's not my enemy and I don't hate him--Christians are specifically told to pray for that group for some very practical reasons. It's hard to hate someone you pray for, and hate always damages the hater. No, that's not the reason, although it would be a good one. I just don't hate Ted Kennedy. Yes, I could pray for him because he is one of our nation's leaders, and Christians are also instructed to pray for their leaders. I guess I just don't think of him as my leader--although I know he took his brother's seat in the Senate and the people of Massachusetts, my fellow Americans, have continued to vote him there year after year, season upon season, and his votes in Congress have impacted my life in many ways.

Ted Kennedy is my brother. That's why I'm praying for him. A brother in Christ. We both believe our righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21). We've both been adopted into God's family, sort of a big dysfunctional, squabbling family, but nevertheless, we are brother and sister. He's a Roman Catholic and I'm a Lutheran, and we do see some of the details differently. When we take the bread and the wine, he's getting a "do over" with the body and blood of Christ, whereas for me Christ is spiritually present, encouraging, caring and loving me. That's huge. Justification by faith is central to my faith, whereas Ted looks to church traditions and the pope for the final word. Lutherans don't believe in Purgatory--we know that immediately upon our death we are in some way with Jesus (as we are also in this life through the Holy Spirit) even though our final hope is in the bodily resurrection just as Jesus was resurrected. I'm not sure how many masses will be said for Ted to abbreviate or avoid Purgatory, but from a very human view, I'd say a lot--if I believed that, and I don't.

Scripture doesn't say it this way, but God doesn't grade on a curve. In God's eyes, no matter what Ted has done or not done, it's no worse than what Norma's done. God has declared that sin and death entered the world through one man, Adam, and those who receive his abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness do so through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17) Ted Kennedy and I believe Jesus is our righteousness. We can take it to the bank, we can take it to the grave. That's secure. No one can touch it. Thank God! And God bless Ted Kennedy and his family during this difficult time, and draw him very close as they make difficult decisions.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Save gasoline, save lives

Sometimes the easiest and simplest things do the most good. If we'd go back to the 55 mph speed limit we could save so much gasoline and reduce accidents. We did it in the 70s when there was a gasoline crisis, and we could do it again. It wasn't intended to reduce accidents, but it did. Libertarians and conservatives hated it, and the speed limits were raised. Many do not want to do the most obvious, easiest safety and wealth saver. I remember how driving became so much more peaceful at 55 and there were far fewer accidents of all types--both serious and minor.

There was a horrible accident in Columbus last week-end--four teenage girls died. I think I read none was wearing a seat belt--it's the law, but it's not "cool." If we just had the guts to raise the driving age to 18, thousands of lives would be saved every year just by giving those immature brains a chance to mature.
    The three high-school students — Cori Anne Lake, 16, her sister, Cristin Michelle Lake, 15, and Jessica Elizabeth Mason, 15 — died after their Chevrolet Monte Carlo collided head-on with a Dodge Intrepid Sunday afternoon on the southern Outerbelt, west of Rt. 62. Meanwhile, a passenger in the Intrepid, Tasha Conley, 19, of Columbus, died yesterday at Ohio State University Medical Center. Deputies said the Monte Carlo lost control on eastbound I-270, traveled onto the median, flipped and landed on its roof in the westbound lanes, where it was struck by the other car, which was driven by Jerry McGath, 19, of Columbus. Columbus Dispatch story
Teen drivers are lethal. You are more at risk even having a teen in the car--even one who isn't driving--especially a male. "The AAA Foundation analysis shows that from 1995 through 2004 crashes involving 15, 16, and 17-year-old drivers claimed the lives of 30,917 people nationwide, of which only 11,177 (36.2%) were the teen drivers themselves. The remaining 19,740 (63.6%) included 9,847 passengers of the teen drivers, 7,477 occupants of other vehicles operated by drivers at least 18 years of age, 2,323 non-motorists. The analysis also shows that 12,413 of these fatalities occurred in single vehicle crashes involving only the vehicle operated by the teenage driver. . . Two teens in a car increases the likelihood of a crash by 86 percent, three teens by 182 percent, according to research conducted by Johns Hopkins University.
" Teen Driving Statistics

The teen brain: "New medical research helps explain why. The part of the brain that weighs risks and controls impulsive behavior isn't fully developed until about age 25, according to the National Institutes of Health. Some state legislators and safety activists question whether 16-year-olds should be licensed to drive.

Sixteen-year-olds are far worse drivers than 17-, 18- or 19-year-olds, statistics show. Tellingly, New Jersey, which has long barred 16-year-olds from having unrestricted driver's licenses, for years has had one of the lowest teen fatality rates in the USA." USAToday

It's really not that hard to save thousands of lives, if we just had the will. Even making it against the law for a teen driver to have a teen passenger would drastically reduce fatalities. And it's not even political.

Columbus Kids Perform at Capitol Theater

My husband is a mentor at Highland Elementary School and this year has helped in the science and math class. All the mentors were invited to see the children perform at the Capitol Theatre in the Riffe Building downtown. He said six schools from Columbus and one from Hilliard were included. The student bodies were distinguished by different color t-shirts. The theater was jammed with parents and relatives.
    From a news release: "About 400 fourth and fifth grade students from six Columbus city schools and one Hilliard city school will perform as the culmination of BalletMet’s Momentum, a yearlong in-school program of BalletMet’s Department of Education. The event is free and open to the public.

    All fourth or fifth grade students in the participating schools—Clinton, East Pilgrim, Highland, Literature Based at Hubbard, Leawood, Oakmont elementary schools and Hilliard’s Ridgewood Elementary school—take part in a weekly dance class during the school day as part of their curriculum. All lessons include an academic component, integrating Ohio Department of Education content standards. Also, participants get the unique opportunity to perform on stage for a live audience."
He said the performance was outstanding as the children reenacted the history of Ohio, from our 8 presidents to the underground railroad to the rock and roll Hall of Fame. Ballet Met also performed. It was a great finale to a fun year working with the children.

Upper Arlington Lutheran Church a few years ago took in as its third campus, Hilltop Lutheran, a church with a great physical plant but shrinking congregation, which gave us a presence on the west side and an opportunity for urban service. Many of our members volunteer at that school and the Sunday service numbers are growing.

Cooking from scratch saves money

And still does.

More about coupons, sweepstakes, refunding, over-lays, price increases. Everything except loyalty cards and internet coupons, which didn't exist in 1982.

Sept. 29, 1982, Columbus Dispatch

The new face of homelessness

is a woman driving and sleeping in her SUV. If you believe CNN news. I stopped to watch a feature about the plight of women in Santa Barbara or one of those upscale California coastal communities who were sleeping and living in their vans and SUVs. Their city had an ordinance about that, but had made a concession and opened a city parking lot 7 p.m.-7 a.m. where they could be reasonably safe. The info-babe interviewed two of them. As I recall, one had a job, but had lost her condo in foreclosure. Her daughter was staying with friends.

There were two huge holes (or more since I didn't see the whole thing) in the story. First, the economy has gone south since Democrats have taken over Congress with their big anti-Bush "we need to have change" push, but the implication is always that all problems reside in Bush's hip pocket. Second, one woman had at least 2 very large dogs in her SUV--either Goldens or Labs, and the other woman had 4 cats. Now pets are OK in your own property, but many, many landlords and agents will not accept pets. So even if you love your pets, even if you think they are your children, whose responsibility is it that you're sleeping in a van with dogs if you can't make other arrangements after losing your home?

This is the kind of inanity that passes for serious journalism--that even walking through the room and seeing 30 seconds of the story, I can figure out that much.

So I checked Google. The 67 year old with the 2 large dogs has 3 adult children and lost her job as a loan processor, but gets SS and works for $8/hr. One could live modestly in Columbus, Ohio on that, or probably even in rural California. However, on the left coast, most communities have ordinances to protect the environment and green spaces that have the unintended (or intended) consequence of keeping out the poor and working class folks. They usually don't allow the big box stores either that provide food and goods at a reasonable price for low income people. Now that she's "retired," she really can't expect to live there. She apparently never saved privately for her retirement, isn't married and isn't welcome to live with her adult children. There are 49 other states (well, except maybe Oregon and Wisconsin which are just as liberal) who will be happy to have her and where she can live with her pets, but she just may have to give up those beautiful ocean views and her unhelpful children.

A plan to save us

Paul D. Ryan's plan to save us from the looming entitlement crisis is so sound and so sensible, you know before you get to the last paragraphs that Democrats won't support it. Remember how they said in 2006 they had a plan? (Hope? Change?) Ha. The economy has plummeted since they took back Congress and scared everyone with their hot air, hair brained ideas to punish the successful and abandon our allies.

Ryan's plan requires a sense of personal responsibility, the federal government getting off our backs and to stop using our "trust" fund for other programs, the states reassuming some tasks they've let go, a more fair tax plan, and long range planning. These elements are really lacking in the general population, so it will be a tough sell. Millions have grown up wanting someone else to be in charge of their health, their education, their personal relationships and their pensions. Ryan suggests
    universal health coverage . . .shifting the ownership of health coverage from the government and employers to individuals, providing a refundable tax credit – $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families – to purchase coverage

    . . . modernizing Medicaid by giving states maximum flexibility to tailor their Medicaid programs to the specific needs of their populations

    providing workers under 55 the option of investing over one-third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts

    simplifing the tax codes rates and eliminating capital gains tax to stimulate investment(don't we hear that every 4 years?)
Sigh. But oh, we can dream.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Financial scare stories

When someone like Michelle Obama whines about being required to pay back the cost of her Ivy League education which has landed her a darn good paycheck on a non-profit board, I want to ask why she didn't just go to a state college or university. She still could have been a 2-fer and gotten special grants and loans but would have had much less to pay off.

USAToday ran an article last week on a 49 year old living in a million dollar California home with at least 15 years left until her retirement whining about her 401-K being down 4% and the dropping real estate values in her Redlands, CA neighborhood. Today it's a 30 year old married Bryan Short, merger and acquisitions lawyer scraping by required to pay back the college loans that got him this great job in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Do these journalists (who probably are free-lancers and making a fraction of the income of these whiners) ever want to kick them in the knee? Surely they didn't go looking for these stories!!

But the biggest lie in these financial stories is that Gen-X (1965-1980) and Gen-Y folks won't ever do as well as their parents. This is always quoted from left of center think tanks who testify before Congress on why there needs to be more government assistance. That's nonsense. All they have to do is live the way we did when we were in our 30s. Then a middle class standard of living was much simpler than today. Smaller homes, fewer cars, fewer toys. We had no cable bills, no broad band, no gaming devices, no cell phone bills and if we went out to eat it was on Sunday morning for eggs and toast, or Friday night for a pizza. We vacationed at my mother's farm one week and used the other week (after he got 2) to fix up the house. At our house we had one car and Mom stayed home, so there were no child care bills. If Bryan and his wife tried living at the very comfortable standard of living we had 35 years ago, they might be surprised how quickly they'd whittle down those college loans and credit card bills.

And that household income these journalists report? A lot of us in the 1960s and 1970s, if we were white collar workers, purchased our own life and health insurance with after tax income, had minimal if any benefits for vacation and sick leave, and had no retirement plan at all. Benefits were for factory workers and union members. And why they think it's better that a company, which could go under or be merged, hold on to the employee's pension rather than her owning a self-directed 401-k or 403-b is a mystery to me.

Oh yes, Ms. O'Shaughnessy, you forgot to mention that in the 1960s and 1970s, hardly anyone except celebrities and hippies lived together before marriage, and we also got married younger with fewer years to rack up bills traveling the world and having a blast. Most of us didn't have college loans to pay back because we didn't borrow money to live grandly while in college.

See also:
The burden of student loans
The working family
Material well being of Americans
How to spend your way into foreclosure
My story doesn't sell newspapers
Six figure incomes--I feel their pain
Young people in debt

Knocking down a straw man

Straw man n (ca. 1900) a weak or imaginery opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted.

I saw this flat out lie in an annoucement about a program being offered Thursday for students at Ohio State.



    "Racism, sexism and ageism have all been at the forefront of the 2008 Election."
The forefront? Who are they kidding? Naive students who don't know any better, never read the newspaper or unplog their I-pod, that's who. The rest of us know better. The whole nation has been tippy toeing around these three issues (even though I did see a comedy show on cable ridiculing John McCain's age and you can find outrageous slander on the Daily Kos, all written by the left about their own).

I'm 68. I believe Obama, a mixed race American (white mother, African father, raised by white grandparents), is a marxist keeping company with strange and evil cronies, many Communists; I believe Hillary Clinton, a white woman age 60, a former first lady of the nation (God bless her for her service), a New York carpetbagger, is a Socialist; and I believe John McCain, a white man age 72, who left his wife for a younger, richer woman, is a RINO who has sucked up to the main stream media and independents and is now about to get stabbed in the back by the people he tried to placate. Does that mean I'm a racist, a sexist, or an ageist?

You can tell liberals set up this OSU discussion program. I don't plan to attend, but I think I know what will happen. It will turn into an Obama rally. Conservatives don't talk that way. They don't like to mush people together in little groups and then turn them against each other.

  • Conservatives believe that if a black candidate talks about raising our taxes until our investments are destroyed, regulating what car we can drive, wants judges who will make the constitution their personal playground of their own values and beliefs and waffles on what he said about concessions to militant Moslems who want to destroy our ally Israel, that he's not a good guy to put in the White House. We have a lot of history books (at least those published before the early 90s) that tell about what happens with appeasement--either pre-WWII with the Germans or post-WWII with the Soviets, or with North Korea to close out the Korean War, or even the worse course which was to run off whimpering the way we did in Vietnam. Millions died from our "talks and concessions."


  • And if a white woman is trying to sneak her husband in for a third term on her petticoat tails and wants to destroy the health care system, she's not going to be my choice for the first woman to lead the country. We only have to go north of the border or watch the rich rulers from socialist countries fly in on their private jets for complex and swift medical care to know we don't want her.


  • If the decorated 72 year old Vietnam veteran who bravely served his country even as a POW can't figure out how to secure our own borders, or that the global warmists are hucksters bent on destroying our economy, God Bless him for his bravery 35 years ago, but he's not my man regardless of what he says about Iraq.
  • Monday, May 19, 2008

    How colds affect the economy

    This is our Friday Night Date restaurant; but we are not in a rut. Sometimes we go to the one in Worthington or Dublin.

    Actually, this is just one man's cold. My husband's. He was sniffly all week, so we didn't go out to eat at the Rusty Bucket. He got a little sad, so I said I'd go get a pizza. Instead of getting our usual take-out from Iacono's (medium pepperoni with extra cheese) which has gone up to $14.50 because of the greenies burning corn for fuel, I drove over to Marc's and picked up a frozen large pep for $5.50. It was OK, but nothing to blog home about. Both Rusty Bucket and/or Iacono's lost on that deal, but also the waiter we would have tipped. Even Cheryl's Cookies missed a sale because sometimes we stop there on our way out and I get a yummy chocolate peanut butter brownie.

    Then Sunday, I suggested he stay home from church. I sat with Joyce, whose husband Bill also had a cold and stayed home. But she told me about her neighbor who is recommending ZiCam, the kind you dab on your nose. He's had great success, she said. So today while I was at Marc's I bought some ZiCam, and while I was browsing the shelves, I also picked up a new cold product from Alka-Seltzer Plus Immunity Complex that I hadn't seen before. Whatever money we saved by not going out Friday night, then buying a cheap pizza, was definitely used up buying cold meds. I don't think any of them really help, but you feel good doing something, don't you?

    Speaking of greenies, one of the reasons they want to knock down your commercial building and start over is to lower the occurrence of 4 of the most common respiratory illnesses which account for 176 million days of lost work each year. "Improvements in green design and construction will create a 9-20% reduction in cases of the common cold, translating to 16 to 37 million fewer cases annually." Well gosh, think of all the people in the OTC business they will put out of work. (These stats, if you choose to believe them, are not mine--they come from a left coast think tank via Buildings magazine, May 2008, p. 32.)

    It's EMS Week

    It used to be (in the old days of the 1970s or 1980s) that if you did a good job, you got something called a paycheck. If not, a pink slip. Then came the merit raises, and the occasional departmental party hosted by the boss or pot-luck which were supposed to cover it. But today's gen-x and gen-y workers need so many hugs and warm fuzzies, that entire businesses have grown up to create appreciation gifts and events. I noticed this item in the OSU Medical College newsletter.
      "May 18-24 is National Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Week. OSUMC will provide refreshments and information to EMS crews at both emergency departments, deliver gifts to fire departments and provide educational seminars throughout the week. Look for our "Thank you, EMS" billboards around town and join us in thanking EMS for the lifesaving work they provide."
    When I retired in 2000, I had FIVE retirement parties, one in the vet library, one in the main library, two in restaurants and one at the faculty club. The university must have either been very happy to see me go, or very sad.

    What they're saying about me in Spanish

    "Este blog ocupa la posición 2529 de los 51382 blogs indexados en Bloguzz. En English está en el puesto 1536 de un total de 23477 blogs. Está perdiendo capacidad de generar buzz en los últimos días.
    Su nivel de influencia absoluta es del 47%, es un blog influyente en la blogosfera. Es uno de los mejores blogs en English." My Spanish is a bit rusty, but I think they're saying I be big, important blog, but recently I've been losing my influence. Ha. What influence? (I'm actually bigger in some other markets, like Truth Laid Bear). So why so few comments? Do I really have the last word? I also receive spam in Russian, and that too makes me feel important. Yeah.

    If I had $542 to spend at the grocery store

    with or without food stamps ($542 a month for a family of 4 earning $26,856 per year), here's what I could get in Columbus, Ohio, shopping at a store within 2 miles of my home that doesn't require a loyalty card. Then I would have about $282 left over for the rest of the month. Everyone has something in the frig or cupboards, and I'm assuming catsup, mustard, margarine, and pickles are residing in mine. Indeed, I probably need to look at the expiration dates! I also seem to have an awful lot of rice and canned beans and miscellaneous canned fruits. And I've got frozen peas and corn in the freezer because I use them when I don't have fresh. But if I had to buy smart and buy cheap, I'd go for real food. And I wouldn't confuse shampoo and toilet paper with food--which is what many journalists do when they write about soaring food prices.

    The quantity listed here is a bit unrealistic for my small condo kitchen, but it could be done in 2-3 trips to the store over 2 weeks, and without purchasing too many perishable items in quantity. Apples, cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions last a long time--asparagus and bananas don't. And you'd need a decent size freezer compartment to hold the meat.

    I often buy marked down meat on Monday, but didn't see any today, so these prices are from the flyer. This list also contains things I rarely buy like spare ribs and bacon--but they were on special this week, and bacon can go a long way in flavoring other items or as a garnish for salads. Also, I rarely bake anymore. I just put the flour and sugar down just in case Mom's watching from heaven.

    Dairy
    2 gallons milk (6.00)
    3 (24 oz) real cheese (9.60)
    3 doz eggs (6.00)

    Fruits and Vegetables
    16 lbs potatoes (5.00)
    3 lbs cabbage (1.50)
    3 lbs tomatoes (4.50)
    10 lbs apples (Braeburn)(13.90)
    10 lbs peaches (14.90)
    4 cartons orange juice (10.00)
    3 lb carrots (1.00)
    2 cantaloupe (4.00)
    8 corn on cob (2.00)
    3 lbs asparagus (5.00)
    bag of onions(3.00)
    2 cukes, seedless (2.50)
    5 lbs bananas (2.50)
    seedless grapes (3.00)
    asparagus 3 lb (5.40)
    green salad mix (3.00)
    broccoli (1.00)
    cauliflower (1.00)

    Meat
    Brats (2 lbs) (6.00)
    5 lb chicken breast boneless 2.29/lb (11.45)
    bacon (2 lbs) (4.00)
    ground chuck 5 lb (7.50)
    3 lbs hot dogs (5.00)
    10 lb boneless ham (11.90)
    10 lb spare ribs (9.90)
    8 lb hamburger (frozen patties)(11.90)
    canned tuna 24 oz (3.00)
    fresh fish 3 lb. (21.00)

    baking, condiments, semi-processed
    raisins 24 oz (2.50)
    peanut butter 16 oz (2.00)
    Miracle Whip 32 oz (2.50)
    jam or jelly 32 oz (2.70)
    broth for soup 2 cans (1.60)
    pasta 5 lb (4.00)
    salad dressing(1.50)
    olive oil l lb (5.00)
    shortening 3 lb. (2.50)
    10 lb Flour (5.00)
    10 lb sugar (4.00)
    walnuts l lb. (6.00)
    green olives, large jar, salad (3.00)
    coffee 39 oz (6.90)
    oatmeal, old fashioned, lg. (3.00)

    Treats
    Ice Cream (3.00)
    Cool Whip (1.25)
    popcorn (jar or bag, not mw) (2.00)
    peanuts dry roasted, jar (3.00)

    TIP: A potato combined with milk (or cheese) is nutritionally a near perfect food. And very cheap. 8 lbs of potatoes will cost you about the same as 10 oz. of potato chips which have no nutritional value at all.

    My blog on the thrifty plan.

    The Thrifty Plan and me in 1982.

    The green clergy

    If environmentalism is a throw back to the pantheism the Christian missionaries faced down after Pentecost, the new age religion that has been growing like a destructive mold on our college campuses since the 1960s, the robes of its well organized clergy are "green." My husband's professional architectural, engineering and construction magazines and e-zines are so loaded with this religious hype and jargon it is astounding. Here are a few quotes from the latest issue of Buildings. (The editor says that readers of Buildings are the key decision makers in the commercial and institutional buildings market, and although that may just be trade hype, these same ideas are reflected in all building related materials and publications, but especially in the college courses. If he chose to, my husband could do nothing but attend professional credit classes on this stuff.)
      Being green is more than just a practice, however, it's a process, a culture, and a belief system. "Green," "environmental" and "sustainable" are more than just labels. They're practices that include every aspect of business: invention, definition, construction, production, and the ultimate disposal of the product. . . The green trend continues to grow exponentially. . . the greatest impact that green building can have in the commercial arena is on a company's most valuable resource: its people. (long list here of all the health advantages, especially respiratory illnesses) Then it turns to the other green--money. "It's hard to understand why any business or consumer would be hesitant about going green. An investment in commercial green practices is ultimately returned in the long run. . ." p. 32, May 2008
    Wow. What a market. Land in most cities has become very dear--let's just grab some neighborhoods, declare our right to do this so "the people" will have better air circulation and lower density, and build something new and green. Let's promote it as more healthy, something that will emit less CO2. Then let's forbid cars or tax them into disuse, get rid of those smelly buses and install a trolley line.

    Some 19th century buildings might be saved if they can be declared historic, but look out 20th century! This means tearing down or rezoning just about everything built in the 1970s and 1980s, not that this would be a huge loss from an aesthetic viewpoint, but most of these were designed for what were current ideas at that time about energy (air tight), and they caused huge problems for air circulation and hazardous materials. They will also be extremely difficult to carry to the dump, because of all the new green regulations. And the stuff with asbestos or lead paint? We've been tearing those down for years creating jobs for lawyers and regulatory agencies, not to mention haulers and dump truck operators. There will be litigation, more regulation and in general, only the largest and wealthiest builders and developers will survive, more low income people will be pushed out of their homes and jobs, and in general, red tape will become green.

    Americans are losing their representative form of government to regulatory agencies. The latest polar bear scam is just one of the more glamorous, well publicized examples. There are thousands and thousands of green candles being lit down the road as this religion converts more and more sensible, thinking people into mindless believers. I'm not sure what the bread and wine will be, but it will have a green tinge.

    Sunday, May 18, 2008

    Mother's Day Corsage

    Not many women wear corsages on Mother's Day anymore. Mine held up well enough to wear it a second time, the next Sunday, May 18. A gift from my daughter and son-in-law. I love gardenias.

    Reviewing responsibilities

    I spent a lot of time looking at videos and photos from China. Back to back with the Burmese disaster, much of which could have been avoided if its government had heeded days of warnings from other entities, the death, destruction and homelessness is almost beyond belief. Millions and millions of homes and businesses and schools gone. Regardless of those who want to make this a religious issue, global warmist fundies (man made), or an end times issue (God's punishment), it might be a good time to look through the Code of Federal Regulations FEMA section so it is clear in your mind where our first line of defense is for natural disasters. Don't look to the White House; look to your Governor.
      Requests for technical assistance under section 201(b) of the Act shall be made by the Governor or his/her designated representative to the Regional Director.

      (a) The request for technical assistance shall indicate as specifically as possible the objectives, nature, and duration of the requested assistance; the recipient agency or organization within the State; the State official responsible for utilizing such assistance; the manner in which such assistance is to be utilized; and any other information needed for a full understanding of the need for such requested assistance.

      (b) The request for assistance requires participation by the State in the technical assistance process. As part of its request for such assistance, the State shall agree to facilitate coordination among FEMA, local governments, State agencies and the businesses and industries in need of assistance in the areas of disaster preparedness and mitigation.

      [54 FR 2129, Jan. 19, 1989]
    The Governor has to be familiar with the procedure, and then act. This didn't happen in the Katrina Hurricane. Both the Governor and the Mayor failed their people. What's going on in those affected states now--aside from these same inept officials scamming the rest of us for aid money? Are they sitting back waiting for the next disaster, or do they have a plan?

    And while you're at it, do your part. Get the trash in your local area off the road sides and out of culverts so the water can flow. Don't dump your leaves and clippings into the streams to clog up storm drains and creeks and rivers downstream. You might think you're saving pick up and disposal costs, but you may pay big time down the road. Here in Ohio we're about six inches over normal rainfall. The sun is shining at the moment, but the streets and lawns are wet.

    Saturday, May 17, 2008

    My peanut butter nightmare story

    In my No Free Lunch newsletter, #13, (see the previous entry on the background of that newsletter) I wrote about my peanut butter fears. It sounds a bit like today's gasoline stories, so I thought I'd share it. I was actually discussing concentration in the food industry and reported that in 1963 the 50 largest companies accounted for 42% of all food manufacturers' assets, and by 1978 it was 63.7%, and that by 2000 it could be 100% (as reported in "The U.S. food and tobacco manufacturing industries," 1980). Here was my nightmare scenario in 1981
      "I don't have a crystal ball and I'm certainly no economist, but as someone who has been eating peanut butter on toast for breakfast since 1945, I'd like to share a fear of mine with you.

      There was a terrible drought in the summer of 1980--bad year for many crops, particularly peanuts. If you can get peanut butter at all, you're paying dearly for it. Peanut butter is a product that can be simply made (grind up, add salt, pack in jars) by a small company and can be marketed locally because of its wide appeal. If a national firm comes out with a $1.00 off coupon on their brand of peanut butter, the smaller firms will probably be out of business in a short time. And the American shopper will fall for it, because she thinks a coupon is saving her money.

      And then, my nightmare continues, OPEC countries begin buying up acreages in the south that produce our peanuts, and decide to invest some of their oil earnings in the food conglomerates that produce our peanut butter.

      Soon foreign investments are in control, and cutting back on what they'll let us buy, and American shoppers are lining up at the grocery store at 5 a.m. to get a scoop of peanut butter for breakfast."
    See how worrying about tomorrow spoils today? I'm still eating peanut butter, but that last paragraph does remind me of the gasoline problem. We have no control over the source of our oil, but need it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything else. I also didn't remember this drought, I think because we had such a bad heat wave and drought around here in 1988. So I looked it up, and here's what I found in the Monthly Weather Review, v. 109, #10 (Oct 1981)
      Economic losses during the hot, dry summer of 1980 were estimated at $16 billion. Despite these substantial economic losses, analyses of historical (1895–1980) monthly temperature and precipitation data across the 48 contiguous United States indicate that conditions could easily have been worse. Much more hostile conditions have existed in the past, particularly during the 1930's and the 1950's. However, the summer of 1980 does stand out from the past two decades as an extreme anomaly across the southern and southeastern United States.
    Wasn't this during the time when we were warned about the coming new ice age? Well, at least this can't be blamed on President Bush.

    The government's thrifty plan for food

    Food stamps are issued based on the USDA's calculation of what a family of four with an annual income of $26,856 would need to eat nutritiously. AP writers, like the one who misled you all in the Tribune's May 16 article (Columbus Dispatch May 17) on Chicagoans using food stamps, say this can't be done with today's rising prices. Hogwash.

    First of all, any family of 4 can eat on that plan even without food stamps, and the stamps will get them $542 worth of food a month. Buried at the bottom of the article (which is where truth is always found in an AP story, if it's there at all) is the crux of the matter: "carts filled with soda pop, bags of cookies, potato chips" because its cheaper for low income people to feed their families bad food than good food. Lie upon lie! Get this journalist to a library, or at least show him how to Google a dot gov site. Then have him walk the aisles of any supermarket with $500 in his hand and have him purchase ONLY real food--flour, sugar, shortening, apples, potatoes, tomatoes, rice, beans, oatmeal, peanut butter, milk, eggs, etc.; he'll be be stunned at how much food he can buy.

    In the early 1980s I was writing about food budgets, coupons, sweepstakes, and other ways to play with your food, just as I do today in my blog, but using an electric typewriter, a bottle of white-out, research in the OSU Agriculture Library, and a photocopy machine to issue my own newsletter, No Free Lunch. I was interviewed on a local TV talk show, spoke to women's book clubs, a faculty lunch group at OSU, and I was featured in the local suburban newspaper. However, because my theme was in some ways anti-business and chiding the consumer for poor planning, I was not in great demand as a speaker or writer. You can't tell business that their methods are suspect and consumers that they are not behaving rationally and expect to be popular!

    I was just as opinionated then as a liberal Democrat as I am today as a conservative Republican. I wrote a lot about how government and food conglomerates worked together to confuse or hurt the consumer and put the local food companies at a disadvantage (and I hadn't heard of a Wal-Mart). Actually, I still feel that way, but now wonder why Democrats continue to lull voters into thinking even more government control of their lives and wallets is beneficial. And I see how increased regulation of business hurts the little guy, and especially the poor.

    In issue 8 of No Free Lunch I wrote about how the government determines the Food Stamp benefits and then I compared that to my own food purchases. I was a SAHM (I think I worked three hours a day at OSU on a temp contract), with 2 elementary school aged children, living in an upper middle class suburban neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Here's what I wrote (all figures based on food costs in 1980, almost 30 years ago):
      "Benefits on which the Food Stamp Program are based are adjusted to changes not in the Consumer Price Index, but in the cost of the "Thrifty Food Plan."

      In January 1980 this plan allowed $49.60 for 2 parents and 2 elementary shcool aged children per week. My own food bill at that time was about $45 per week, including paper products and non-food items, not included in the government's Thrifty Food Plan.

      How can my food bill be lower than "thrifty?" First, I don't use the menu on which the government's plan is based. A second consideration is "economy of size" (a misuse of the term)--my husband and I are not big people, so we don't require as much food as larger people.

      I don't do any of the usual things promoted as cost saving--I don't comparison shop, I don't shop at a major food chain, and I try not to use coupons and refund schemes. I avoid highly promoted, expensive new products.

      I do buy a higher proportion of my food fresh and unprocessed than the average shopper, and I contribute my own labor (which is not taxable). I do not buy prepared desserts and snacks, and that was the big jump in food expendistures in the last 15 years. We drink orange juice and egg nog instead of soft drinks. A garden or a freezer would help, but I'm satisfied that food in America is a very good buy."
    So what does the AP writer in today's paper say about Food Stamps and the Thrifty Plan? Here it is, full of half-truths, myths, and gotcha's. The truth is our government has been crippling poor people for generations now with the best of intentions. Enmeshed with subsidized housing, government funded school breakfasts, lunches and after school snacks, summer lunch programs, food stamps, SCHIP health plans, church food pantries (almost all getting government grants to purchase food to give away) combined with an education system that expects failure, little or nothing from the students or parents, unmarried families (that's a huge penalty for the poor), and more and more "green" regulations that the poor can't even use or which will destroy their neighborhoods for redevelopment. How in the world do these people ever hope to climb out of this government made mess?

    What using less than the thrifty plan looked like in 1981

    Friday, May 16, 2008

    NARAL supports killing babies

    Why would these women be surprised and outraged that NARAL aborts the Clinton campaign as it hops a ride on the Obama bandwagon?
      "NARAL blogs are being overwhelmed, and many state affiliates are angry at the national group’s decision [to go with Obama].

      Emily’s List is furious. And Martha Burke, former chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, tells Stein she is “disappointed”: “It feels like they are abandoning a known ally for a less committed candidate because they want to jump on a bandwagon. I think the pro-choice community should stick by a woman who has stuck by them.”" Huffington Post

    Why call it Burma?

    According to the State Department, the official name of the country hit by a disastrous cyclone last week is "Burma."
      The Union of Burma (or Myanmar as it is called by the ruling junta) consists of 14 states and divisions. Administrative control is exercised from the central government through a system of subordinate executive bodies and regional military commanders.

      Power is centered on the ruling junta--the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC--which maintains strict authoritarian rule over the people of Burma. The Prime Minister is appointed directly by the SPDC. Control is maintained through intimidation, the strict censuring of information, repression of individual rights, and suppression of ethnic minority groups.

      The SPDC continues its harsh rule and systematic human rights abuses today, and insists that any future political transition be negotiated on its terms. It proclaimed a seven-step roadmap to democracy beginning with a National Convention process, purportedly to develop a new constitution and pave the way for national elections. However the regime restricts public input and debate and handpicks the delegates, effectively excluding pro-democracy supporters.

      Although the SPDC changed the name of the country to "Myanmar," the democratically elected but never convened Parliament of 1990 does not recognize the name change, and the democratic opposition continues to use the name "Burma." Due to consistent support for the democratically elected leaders, the U.S. Government likewise uses "Burma."
    So there you have it. The liberals will call this junta run, unrecognized, rogue government Myanmar, and the conservatives will call it Burma. Regardless of what you call them, the Burmans, Shans, Karens, Rohingya, Arakanese, Kachins, Chins, Mons, non-indigenous Indians and Chinese, and many smaller indigenous ethnic groups are dying by the thousands because of the inaction of their government.

    Update about that cyclone: "Citing the deadly Burmese storm and recent storms in China and Bangladesh, [Al Gore] declared on National Public Radio: "We're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming." There's just one problem -- it's not clear there's any link between climate change and hurricane numbers or intensity. The number of big storms has been falling, not rising." Best of the Web, Joseph Sternberg, May 12

    Feast in a Flash Falls Flat

    This must be why a lot of "new" time saving recipes don't appeal to me: "Caramel Apple Burritos" for dessert. (p. 11, Quick Cooking Annual, 2002) You need 3 large tart apples, peeled and sliced, 10 caramels, and 5 flour tortillas, warmed. You peel and slice the apples, cook them, add the caramels and put that on the warmed tortilla, rebaptize it a burrito, fold and serve. Call me crazy, but a burrito instead of a wonderful flaky pie crust drooling and oozing apple juices smelling of cinnamon and nutmeg? With a dollup of ice cream or whipping cream? Thanks, but no thanks.

    You make a delicious apple dumpling the same way you make a delicious apple pie--my Mom could make these blind folded.

  • A terrific crust (2 cups of flour, 2/3 cup of shortening, 1 teaspoon of salt, 5-6 tablespoons of water, lightly mixed and rolled out) cut into squares, a little thicker than if going into a pie tin

  • a halved or quartered, peeled apple on each square

  • covered with a bit of sugar/flour/cinnamon mix

  • bring up the edges of the square and seal in the middle

  • brush it up with a bit of milk to make it brown

  • bake at 425 for 15 minutes and reduce the temp to 350 for 30-40 minutes

  • get to work on the rest of the meal while it bakes, and call one of the girls in to set the table.


  • At our house they were served warm in a bowl with milk on top. (About the same number of calories, but a heaven's width difference in taste and tactile satisfaction.)

    Although I've lots of memories of Mother with her rolling pin, I have no photos. This one was taken about 25 years ago when we lived on Abington Road. Friday Family Photo.

    Thursday, May 15, 2008

    Really big price

    Over $33 million for Benefits Supervisor Sleeping. Realism is coming back in a really big way.

    Grow up, Mr. Obama

    This speech was about Israel, now 60 years old. Stop trying to crash the party. Your whining and hiding behind your supporters' skirts and Soros' money are really irritating. Your tantrum is an embarrassment. Run a FIND check on that 5 page speech. You aren't in it, neither is Democrat, neither is candidate, nor any mention of our campaign. Your political views and values have excluded you.
      "Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance, freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all of the world because they are a gift from Almighty God. Securing these rights is also the surest way to secure peace. Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism. And societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners for peace."
    President Bush has never backed down on his belief that democracy is the best system--for everyone. You might disagree, some in his own party do too. You might call it cowboy diplomacy, but as Daniel Henniger pointed out today in the WSJ, even when the democracy isn't very good or stumbles, it's way ahead of what the people in Burma and China have as we see their totalitarian, marxist governments turning down aid.

    Instead of looking for yourself in the "some" comments, why not find yourself in the "we" comments? Tell us exactly what you think of democracy and the value of every man, woman, and child. Are you picking on the word "some" because you don't see yourself in the "we?"
      "We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation.

      We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world.

      We believe that religious liberty is fundamental to civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms – whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.

      We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israel's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction.

      We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve." Bush speech
    Update: Michelle Malkin writes: "He could be talking about Jimmy Carter, Cindy Sheehan, the White Flag Democrat leaders in the House and Senate, or hell, his own State Department," I wrote, but concluded that “if the shoe fits,” Obama should wear it and stop whining.

    Today, the White House says Bush was talking about That ’70s Appeaser, Jimmy Carter, not the Messiah.

    Doesn’t matter who exactly Bush had in mind. The shoe still fits Obama’s delicate foot, but he refuses to slide into the glass slipper of appeasement and own it." There's more.

    Update 2: Heard on the radio today (paraphrase) and I don't recall where: "for a guy who sat in the pew for 20 years and didn't hear the racist, anti-American sermons of Rev. Wright, he sure didn't have trouble hearing his own name which was never used in the President's speech."

    Update 3: "It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned. These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama. Senator Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Senator Obama talk about with such a man? It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.” —Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008 via the Page

    Update 4: Neo-Neocon "It has now become a low blow to strike any blow at Obama. It has now become officially an “attack” to campaign at all against him—or even to suggest opposition to something he may have done or may have said, whether you mention him or not.

    Case in point: President Bush is not allowed to allude to appeasement as a bad thing without Obama (and many Democrats) getting into an outraged hissy fit about it."

    Update 5: "But it's also possible that Obama & Co. are sincere--that when they hear the president talking about countenancing hatred, appeasing terrorists and breaking ties with Israel, they think: He's talking about us!" James Taranto, Best of the web, May 16

    Update 6: " Since the end of 2002, the Democrats have turned hard to the left on foreign policy, with Lieberman a rare dissenting voice. The Connecticut senator praised President Bush for his Knesset speech last week, and said that Bush's criticism of those who advocate appeasement applies to Obama, whether the president meant it to or not." James Taranto, Best of the web, May 19

    On the Home Front

    When you have a kitty, you've got to expect a little clean up. Not as bad as dogs, but some. For some reason, she feels the urge to urp a hair ball after using the litter box, but doesn't want to use the box. Usually, supper comes with. So she looks for a pile of laundry. (The box is in the laundry room.) This morning she managed to deposit last night's supper in the change pocket of my husband's work jeans.

    Yesterday my husband came in the kitchen when my hands were in a mess of meatball mix. He saw the Quick Cooking magazine (recipes) on the counter. A flicker of hope flashed across his face as in, Oh wouldn't a new recipe at our age be fun? But no, I was just fixing my favorite Sweet Sour Meatballs (clipped from the paper in 2000), and the magazine was for my hobby bloggy on premiere issues, In the Beginning.

    I've started the audio book "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks about an Australian rare-book expert who has the opportunity to restore and preserve the Sarajevo Haggadah in 1996. I had planned to read this book for book club suggestion for 2008-2009, but there was only one copy with 12 saves at UAPL when I first inquired, and then it slipped my mind. So maybe for next year. The audio performer--Edwina Wren--is excellent with all the accents.

    My husband has a cold so I've moved into the guest room. I woke up about 3 a.m. and flipped on the little TV and got to watch Secrets of the Dead on WOSU, "The Fall of the Minoans."
      Five thousand years ago, the Minoans, Europe’s first great civilization, flourished on the island of Crete. The sophisticated inhabitants, named after the legendary King Minos, were the first Europeans to use a written language, known as Linear A, and the first to construct paved roads. They were an advanced society of highly-cultivated artisans and extremely skilled civic engineers. The Minoans were excellent ship builders and sailors, and their maritime empire was so vast, it rivaled that of the ancient Egyptians. They were an enigmatic people, worshiping snake priestesses and engaging in human sacrifice with origins not linked to Europe as expected, but to ancient Iran, which may explain why they were so different from the Greeks who rose to power after them.
    It would be nice to see the art, but that's not on our itinerary this Spring. It was so interesting, I didn't go back to sleep. The civilization disappeared apparently after an enormous tsunami following a volcano eruption.

    Tomorrow the retired OSUL librarians are meeting for lunch. There are so many of us now that I'm surprised the place can function without us! Not really. I had a lot of special contract positions and various appointments in my library career and I learned years ago that no one is indispensable.

    Speaking of sleep, a member of my family who was told her aches, pains and restlessness at night might be fibromyalgia, bought a sleep number bed. She said the first night felt a little strange, but since then it's been the sleep of the dead. When the alarm rings in the morning, she thinks she just fell asleep. Also, no stiffness or pain in the morning. Maybe I'll have to try that. I think our mattress is about 11 or 12 years old.

    Terri and Gerry mow the lawn

    Terri is a columnist for the WSJ (Fiscally Fit) and yesterday posted her "how we're dealing with the gas crisis" obligatory article. It seems that a few years back she and her husband were having regular battles about upkeep of the lawn--he enjoyed doing it but just found better things to do with his leisure time. Finally, they agreed on a lawn/edging service, but the husband continued to do the weed and seed part. Each year the service went up about $5, but this year, due to gas prices it went up $10 (apparently Terri and Gerry's incomes didn't go up during the same time period to cover increases in cost of living--or did it?). Enough of this, said Gerry, I'll do it myself, and began looking at $2500 riding mowers. Terri panicked and went online and found one for $1750. So now Gerry and their 8 year old are bonding on the mower ($11.50 for 3 gallons of gasoline to run it.)

    Call me crazy, but this doesn't strike me as a sound financial idea if you factor in trips to the ER. It's not a safe way to bond with a small child; it's eating up time they could be doing something else; we all know Terri will end up mowing the lawn when the novelty wears off the new pet. Terri needs to click over to the left and check out my posts on finances. We're obviously different generations. Letting an 8 year old mow the lawn with a power mower isn't a good idea. Let them sort laundry or run the vacuum cleaner.

    That's not Terri in the photo; that's Sandra of Tedandsandra.com. But you can hardly tell the difference, right?

    Wednesday, May 14, 2008

    4853 New twist on an old myth

    When I was a little girl, children were told to clean up their plates because there were starving children in China (or India or Africa depending on where your church had missions). Most of us were skinny and baffled how that would help other kids--but guilt never makes much sense. Today I heard some expert say that if Americans would just eat less, Indians would have more. The reason people don't have enough food has nothing to do with available calories in their own country. Since the 1970s all countries, even the poorest, have been self-sufficient in food. The problem is corrupt governments that let it rot, or who steal it, trade it or control people with it, or don't build roads so poor, rural people can get to it. When the Irish were starving in the 19th century, Britain was exporting their food. When the Ukrainians were starving in the early 20th century, they were living in the bread basket of the world. Those were political, not agricultural, famines. Right now people are starving in Burma after a natural disaster, but they were probably awfully thin going into it; U.S. and U.N. food aid has been stolen by the military-communist controlled government. There are calls for the U.N. to DO SOMETHING besides form a committee and write a report!

    Burning food stuffs to run cars does change the balance of trade and supply, and even if it never got to Burma, wouldn't you feel better if you weren't burning it?

    SAM is carbon neutral

    SAM means Sustainable Asset Management. I didn't know these folks, who manage other people's assets, even had a carbon footprint; they have no product. But I suppose they have to turn on a light every now and then, feed the monkeys in the back room peddling to keep the computers running, give a bowl of rice to the slave girls fanning them (in place of air conditioning), or even occasionally send their CEOs someplace beyond the Alps via pack animals. They can trade their emissions from funny looking, low energy lightbulbs from China (highly recommended by John McCain) and be neutral. Isn't that nice? From their webpage.
      SAM – TACKLING CLIMATING CHANGE

      As a forerunner in creating and managing sustainable asset management products and services, SAM also strives to ensure that its day-to-day management and operations are sustainable. Having witnessed the great challenges arising from global climate change, SAM has adopted a clear climate change policy in 2000. In line with Switzerland's Kyoto Protocol commitment, SAM has set its target to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) by 8% per employee by 2008 (compared to the base year 2001). Moreover, beyond the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, SAM commits to neutralise its nonreducible GHG emissions. To achieve these goals, SAM adopted the following measures:
        1. avoid greenhouse gas production;
        2. reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and
        3. neutralize all remaining greenhouse gas emissions through investments in alternative energy technology or clean development projects.
    Who said it's not easy being green? Kermit?

    KISS: The rules of supply and demand

    Yesterday gasoline jumped twenty five cents between the time my husband filled up in Bucyrus, and when he came back through 3 hours later. Thomas Segal says no blog he's ever written generated more comment than the one he did on the ethanol hoax. His is not a blog I regularly read; someone sent it to me. His follow up to those who say he's clueless is about what we all know
      "We all know there is abundant oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. We know more oil is in the Dakotas and even Wyoming. We know there are huge deposits of oil off the California and Florida coasts. We know there are tons upon tons of oil shale in the West. We know that thousands of oil wells were capped and are no longer in production. Deep deposits of oil at up to 16,000 feet and natural gas, more than 3 miles underground and off shore await us… and we know the technology exists to bring them to the surface.

      We know that in the past three and one half decades no new oil refineries have been built, nor have the existing ones been modernized due to the restrictive rules and regulations placed upon the industry by governmental agencies.

      While people are forced into making choices between buying gasoline to drive to work, or placing food on the table for their families, a few of our capped wells in California and other locales are being reopened. In California alone, there are currently more than 3,000-capped wells and many have seen only between 20% and 25% of their oil extracted. Some were capped just waiting for new technology and higher prices. Many were capped due to environmental objections. To be completely objective, we must also admit a large number were capped because they had turned into dry hole."
    Our bold and brave Democratic Congress stand between us and the gasoline pumps. Tell them to move over.

    Will the New Green just be a shade of Cabrini Green?

    When city planners, social workers, developers and architects start eyeing the neighborhood and deciding that they know best how Americans should live, hang on to your wallet. You might get the Cabrini Greens of the mid-20th century, or the paradigm-shift-responsible-growth green designs of the 21st century. What we've got going up on Tremont Road here in Upper Arlington isn't exactly a Cabrini Green, but it's ugly as hell and is euphemistically called "mixed-use development." That means the developer was allowed to tear down four family units inhabited by modest income elderly and young couples, and put up four story, half million dollar condo units sitting on top of a Walgreen's or Starbucks.

    Cabrini Green for those of you who didn't grow up near Chicago is the infamous public housing complex that was going to fix slum housing and crime through regulation and relocation of the poor. When I was a teen and we would drive past those shiny new developments, I probably believed that new bricks made new people. I was so open minded you could have driven a loaded dump truck through my brain. Even though I could hear my dad grumbling in the background about what a waste it was and how it'd be a slum within a decade. He was right (he was a Republican and my mother a Democrat and they regularly cancelled each others' votes on election day). Didn't work. Stacking 15-20,000 poor people and welfare families into high rises creates a high rise slum. Imagine! In fact, it probably contributed to more gang violence and white flight than anything else social scientists have pushed Americans in to over the years from their protected ivory towers and government buildings made of pork. Then when they decided to tear it all down 40 years later because it was so unsafe and unsightly (not to mention sitting on increasingly valuable land), the poor had to be uprooted again, just a different generation and a different ethnic mix.

    The Green Alphabet Soup


    Here's the green alphabet soup of code words for the New Green, minus the Cabrini. Keep in mind that asbestos in insulation and lead in paint were the best ideas of the smartest people of an earlier generation. A generation from now your grandchildren might be ripping out extruded-polystyrene foam and collector panels with glycol. And if you thought your local zoning board was tough, just wait till you encounter the green czars of building regulatory agencies.
      LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

      USGBC - United States Green Building Council

      CNU - Congress for the New Urbanism

      NRDC - Natural Resources Defense Council

      ND - Neighborhood Development
    You may think you have the right to vote, that we have a representative form of government, and that there are courts to whom you can take your case as an American citizen, but regulatory agencies and groups can snatch that away from you faster than you can say "endangered species."

    Here are the non-acronym code words and phrases that I see in all my husband's magazines and newsletters. Some can be mixed and matched, not that I'd suggest that just to take it to your community's zoning board.
      sustainable

      alternative

      renewable

      payback

      energy efficiency, energy costs, energy investment, energy footprint, energy security

      ecosystem, eco-friendly

      wetlands

      recycled

      effects of global warming

      green choice

      safe environment

      high performance replacement [fill in the blank]

      drought resistant or drought tolerant landscaping

      smart growth, responsible growth

      access to transportation (public), walk to the grocer (this is code term for keep out big-box stores), bicycle paths, footpaths

      best practices

      benchmarks

      neighborhood design, mixed-use design

      geothermal, solar, photovoltaic, window film

    How to have an award winning home


    Here's how to have an award winning design that will get past your regulatory and zoning commissions and get your home into the latest building magazines.

    1. Buy a lot that is near public transportation, a bike path, and within 1/2 mile of the nearest store--even if you'd never shop there. But look out for places like Ohio State where the bike path ends for 100 ft. under a bridge and the city and university can't agree on whose responsibility it is.

    2. Use photovoltaic panels on the roof. Have a battery back-up if you live in a low sun area like Columbus (37% sunshine) or Seattle.

    3. Collect rain water and heat it with solar panels. Keep an eye on the mold problem.

    4. Use paint that has one of the approved, seal of perfection from one of the above groups. No one knows how long this stuff will last or what the long term affects are to your health, so be forewarned.

    5. Make-up for the cramped square footage by having high ceilings (steep roof helps those panels). Spiders love it.

    6. Don't attach your garage to the house so you can avoid all those environmental codes about fumes. Live in North Dakota? Tough.

    7. Use less wood by not using headers of traditional framing and pray for no tornados in your life time. Or, don't build in tornado alley.

    8. Site the house on the lot to take advantage of the sun, even if you're facing the free-way or the landfill and missing the forest, the view for which you bought the lot.

    9. Don't build on a compacted landfill like just off Trabue Road in Columbus, Ohio. Something might ooze up later. (I watched them create that.)

    10. Choose a climate for your lot where you won't need air conditioning. Like Huntington Beach, California or Bainbridge Island, Washington.

    If you had to do all this, when would you do the rest of your job?

    Dicentes enim se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt




    Darwinistas
    Global Alarmists
    Pantheistic Feminists
    Gay Marriage Gestapo
    Emergent Pastors
    Liberation Theologians
    Postmodernist Panderers
    Diversity Distortionists
    Technology Utopians
    Just-Us Justice
    Culture Supremacists
    Thought police
    Abortionistas
    (Romans 1:22)

    Tuesday, May 13, 2008

    Now this is low

    Seen at the home page of the Order of Discalced Carmelites
      Information pirates have recently robbed e-mail addresses, especially those who use the server gmail.com. They either create new addresses in the name of a friar or sister and, pretending to be in difficulty, ask for financial help. NEVER BELIEVE IN these messages, and never send the money they asked for or give your own bank account details.

    Looks pretty normal to me

    Last night my husband called me into the living to see the video that's going around the internet that was shown on and commented about during O'Reilly. I looked at the fuzzy video which seemed to be two kids stretched out on the floor having an epileptic seizure. "Looks pretty normal to me," I said. "Dancing has always been about imitating the movements of sexual intercourse." He was not pleased. He loves to dance. But even the waltz was once considered an outrage by the old timers watching the young people dipping and doing. And the jitterbug? Oh. My. Goodness. And have you ever seen old footage of Soul Train--say about 30-35 years ago. Lawdy, Lawdy Miss Clawdy (1952, 1941). It's hot. And the old Elvis Presley footage on the Ed Sullivan show. Parents and grandparents were screaming--and so were kids, although for different reasons. Nope, I didn't see anything new. Not the kids. Not the outrage. I tried to locate the video to provide a link, but the old computer just froze and burped overheated.

    The health and wealth justice scam

    Lance Armstrong has an opinion piece in the WSJ today. To promote his foundation he gives a nod to the current health justice line, which is really an insult to common sense. Which is going to help the poor more, leveling out and dumbing down all the health care services, or basic research which benefits everyone?
      A leading cancer specialist, Dr. Harold Freeman, says there's a disconnect between what we know and what we do. On many levels, we know how to defeat cancer; we just don't do it. Funding for cancer research. Investment in prevention programs. Access to screening. Early detection and effective treatment for everyone. Support for people living with cancer. Personal commitment to healthier living. These are the priorities we must pursue.
    Social programs, prevention, screening and education, those are the elements of the walks, runs, and marathons, but yet all we hear is that we're losing the battle. Obviously, siphoning more off for social goals isn't going to keep anyone alive, is it?

    When I count the members of my own family who have had cancer--my daughter, my mother, my father, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles and one sibling--I can't find a single one who didn't have access to the best in whatever medical care was available at the time their illness was diagnosed. And with the exception of my daughter and my mother, all are on my paternal side of the family genealogy. Of the three who were still smoking when they were diagnosed (the only ones who actually died from cancer), you can't tell me they didn't know! These were bright people. It was the diagnosis, not education or screening, that stopped that behavior.

    Before we let the liberals, progressives and marxists dismantle the research, academic and commercial powerhouses which will provide the basic research and technology we need to fight cancer, let's really look at all these media "gap" stories coming at us from all sides, whether in education, health care, legal system, housing, or nutrition. Let's stop turning health care into a big political battle that ignores that there are issues other than income that determine the state of our health.

    I'm waiting for the research team brave enough to play the race card, to compare the health statistics of say, a lauded socialized system like Norway, with the health statistics of the American scrambled and cobbled together system for Norwegian Americans who have not married outside their ethnic heritage. Of course, they'd be unlikely to get a grant, and then probably couldn't get JAMA or NEJM to publish it.

    Welcome to vacation land

    In today's USATody a Brit complains that his Florida property taxes in Palm Beach have risen from $4,500 to $20,000 in 4 years. A "homesteader" Floridian pays $3,000 for the same unit next door.

    Yes, Mr. Rich European, we've experienced that at our second home, too, although Danbury Township would sock it to us even if we lived there 6 or 7 months of the year. Lakeside, Ohio, is the golden goose in that taxing district, and it makes no difference that we send almost no children to the schools--the fact is, we can't vote. This is the rub in all 2nd home communities. Celebs like the McCains, Kerrys and Clintons who have multiple homes have enough money that it doesn't matter. It really is taxation without representation. The children of Marblehead, Ohio should be using gold plated computers and swimming in diamond studded natatoriums courtesy of the vacationers who don't live permanently in the area. I could move 100 ft. to the west and lower my taxes. If the children who attend Danbury schools aren't excelling in every academic area, leading the state in testing and contests, then it's a sure sign that money isn't what makes a good school.

    Dear Carly


    Thank you for your "Dear Friend" Victory 2008 letter dated simply "Tuesday Morning." Nice, personal touch.

    I filled out your CRITICAL ISSUES SURVEY, although I hate those kind of "when did you stop beating your spouse" questions whether done by Republicans, Democrats or Libertarians. However, I didn't enclose any money, the purpose behind the survey (when a politician asks for my opinion, I know the next question will be about money). We gave during the primaries--which were not apparently decided by conservatives, but by RINOS and Democrats in cahoots with the media. Right now we have a RINO/Democrat, a Socialist, and a Marxist (and now a Libertarian who will drain votes from both the final 2 candidates) running for the White House. Your survey did indicate that McCain has learned to mouth the global alarmist rhetoric, and that he is ignoring the serious border security problems funneling drugs, disease and dysfunctional racists into our country. When you send out some literature explaining how he will help our energy situation by using the vast resources we already have, and how he'll respect the sovereignty of the nation, issues important to conservatives, maybe I'll open my wallet.

    Monday, May 12, 2008

    Recycle your greeting cards

    Here's another way to put fuel in the gas tank without burning corn and creating food riots. Recycle your greeting cards and spend that $4-5.00 on gasoline! On Saturday I got the box of cards out from under the bed and my husband had a selection of 20-30 Mother's Day cards, and he picked one from 1990, which of course, I didn't remember and enjoyed just as much as if he'd gone to the card store. In 1990 this card was $2.00, so I figure it would have been about $4.00 in 2008.

    It gave us an opportunity to remember our own mothers, who were both alive in 1990, and also how he used to tape (VCR) the Blondie movies (although we had a break-in in 1986 and our VCR and tapes were stolen). Our son-in-law was just a future dream at that time, and my husband hadn't started his own business, and I probably didn't have tenure yet at OSU. I think Mystery our first cat was 14 and still alive and our Lynxpoint not yet born. I was driving my first Chrysler product van and loving it--now I'm on my third.

    We enjoyed church with our children, and many stopped to admire my Mother's Day gardenia corsage--not too common these days at a service where many of the women are in jeans or slacks (contemporary service, 9:45). Then we came back to the house for a wonderful dinner prepared by our daughter (lasagna and lemon pie) and son (salad and Texas toast). She had purchased a pasta maker so this was really a fresh item. I think this is much better than going to a restaurant. I don't mind providing the tableware if everyone else brings the food. The tornado warnings sent them all home to check on their pets.

    Also on the week-end I think I put about 50 miles on my car just running back and forth across the river to the Mill Run Church where we hung the Spring Show for the Upper Arlington Art League. That's actually what gave me the idea that we could recycle a card. UALC members on this side of the river could probably save gas just by switching back to Lytham. The grandchildren will survive, which is usually the excuse given for those who live a mile from Lytham driving over there.

    Although, to tell the truth, the expensive part of the art show wasn't the gasoline, but seeing a piece of art by Jeanie Auseon that we agreed to buy. I don't think I could explain the medium because it is some type of photographic print on fabric stitched with a silver thread. If you see the show I think it is #45.

    The Upper Arlington Art League spring show was judged by Tracy Steinbrook who is an instructor at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus. The UAAL is one of the oldest community art groups in the NW area. The show runs until June 12 and can be viewed at The Church at Mill Run, 3500 Mill Run Drive, Hilliard, Ohio 43026. The show is sponsored by the Visual Arts Ministry of Upper Arlington Lutheran Church. Come out and support your neighbors.

    Sunday, May 11, 2008

    Be a good neighbor, screen your trash containers

    Since noticing that Upper Arlington Lutheran's Mill Run Campus has an Abitibi* recyclables green and yellow trash container in its front yard instead of at the back of the SW parking lot where it would be screened by trees, I've been looking at other commercial and church buildings in our area.

    Our UALC campus on Lytham Road screens (or hides) its regular brown dumpster from view by location and landscaping at its service drive (you'd have to be looking for it to see it), but has the green and yellow dumpster across the street in an open parking lot, quite visible from Lytham Rd, and even Middlesex, on the east side, rather than in a corner on the west side where the vans are parked. The Christian Church on Haviland, two blocks away, has only the brown dumpster, and it sits in the parking lot not screened by anything. It's visible from the street and from every adjoining property.


    St. Andrew's Catholic Church on McCoy has its regular dumpsters unscreened on two sides, but they are snuggled in close to its utilities building at the edge of the south end of the McCoy parking lot which is a similar color. They sort of blend into their environment. The green and yellow dumpster at St. Andrew's is barely visible from the street because of its location at the west side of the McCoy parking lot, but it does greet the parishioners as they come for worship. The neighbor's trees and landscaping screen it from their view.


    Advent Lutheran on Kenny Road doesn't screen either its brown dumpster or the green and yellow dumpster, but puts them as far away from the church as possible on the SE side. That puts the green and yellow one, unscreened, next to their apartment complex neighbors. However, the almost spectacular, prominent position of Advent Lutheran at that intersection makes both visible at the Tremont/Kenny intersection.

    Commercial and municipal neighbors take much greater care of the visual environment than churches. It's not clear to me if churches have different zoning codes because of the way they are (not) taxed, or if they don't have the same sense of propriety that businesses have. There are two shopping centers at Fishinger and Rt. 33. Some of the fast food firms are free standing, like Arby's and McDonald's and I'd give them both a A for being good, hide-the-trash neighbors.


    They've built special enclosures and painted them to be unobtrusive. The owners of these small shopping centers which lease to a variety of businesses--coffee shops, pizzarias, restaurants, pet food store, dry cleaners, gift stores, etc.--have provided screens for all the dumpsters, and they are all placed in the back where the customers and the passing traffic don't see them. Then there is additional screening either by privacy fencing, a brick wall or landscaping so they aren't displayed to the residences next door. I am wondering if the green and yellow guys aren't allowed in commercial spaces. That probably has a history that goes back 30 years or so, because I've seen news stories about problems in recyclable drop off areas that weren't maintained properly.

    NIMFY

    * (From their web site) The Abitibi-Consolidated Paper Retriever® Program promotes recycling by placing Paper Retriever bins, at no-cost, in highly visible areas at schools, churches and other non-profit organizations in the greater metro areas . . .

    Update: Meijer's between Bethel and 161 has three Abitibi containers parked along side their brown dumpsters, all nestled at the south end of the parking lot under a screen of trees. They are good neighbors--they also have a container as you go in to leave plastic bags, provide alcohol handwipes beside the grocery carts, and employ handicapped. They also have friendly, well-trained staff, so if their values and prices meet your needs, drop off your newspapers and stop to shop.

    Saturday, May 10, 2008

    More ways to save for your gas tank

    I've been making little suggestions (eat at Evelyn's at Lakeside instead of Rusty Bucket in Columbus) on how to save money so it can go in your gas tank, or how to spend it so you don't mind (drive to Chicago to the Art Institute). Now as a public service, I'm going to send you over to Deborah, who is a quilting librarian, a very crafty, talented gal, and she will save you money by reviewing the movie The Messengers, which she saw via Netflix. Not only creepy, but dumb and predictable she says; but a very well written review. Librarians are such a talented group!

    On Wednesday I saw gasoline for $3.47/gal at a Speedway on Rt. 33 (Upper Arlington). Across the bridge about a mile (Hilliard), I passed another Speedway and it was $3.79/gal. I don't know if the guy on Rt. 33 was asleep or what, but a $.32 difference in one mile seems a bit over the top even for the day before the prices always go up.

    Friday, May 09, 2008

    Happy Birthday, Minnesota

    It must have been a fairly low key celebration--150 years old on May 8, 2008. They're pretty liberal up there and a bit embarrassed. Lars Walker, a Lutheran and writer of Christian fantasy, a genre I've never read, and who writes at the blog for Brandywine Books, wrote this poem reflecting how things have changed in his life time (I'm guessing he's in his mid-50s).

    I’m from Minnesota.
    Where brave Paul Wellstone took a stand.
    We stole it from the Native Americans,
    Except for that little pointy chunk at the top,
    which we stole from Canuckistan.

    He thinks he might have stolen some ideas from James Lileks, and I think I'm not supposed to post the whole literary masterpiece here, but go and look at his stuff--looks like he's a great writer.

    Lars says that the only reason they don't all crawl back to Europe (he's Norwegian American) ". . . is because nobody would know what to do with the Hmong and the Somalis." Ohio had its bicentennial in 2003; I don't remember if anyone tried to give it back to the Indians or not. Mainly, I remember the barn paintings.

    "Ohio, my own state, "The Buckeye," you know
    The only State starting and ending in O.
    It's hi in the middle and round on each end;
    The State of Ohio I do recommend."
    Nellie Dennis Root
    4838

    Gas costs squeeze daily life

    USAToday headlines on May 9. But only for some. I'm retired, so gasoline price increases affect my leisure, hobbies, relationships and service opportunities, and increasingly my food costs, energy costs and anything that's moved by truck drivers. But not so much my cost to get my check, which is a fixed amount. Indirectly, it is reflected on my investments which I will need later on.

    Some retirees know what's important--and that an extra dollar per gallon is worth it to. . . see art. It would be more painful not to have art in your life than to have high gasoline prices.

    On Monday our friend, a member of several local art activities here in Columbus, noticed he was running out of time to see the Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper exhibits at the Chicago Institute of Art. His wife is a cancer survivor and they've recently lost a dear friend of 50 years--so in a sense, I think they feel that time is short in many ways. So he and his wife drove to Chicago (300 miles). On Tuesday they took in the Robie House and all the great walking tour stuff (Oak Park) of Frank Lloyd Wright, and on Wednesday they stood in line at the Art Institute to get in to the exhibit, and spent another four hours touring. On Thursday they drove back to Columbus. Counting the tickets, housing and food, I'm sure the gasoline was a minor cost.

    But oh, I wish I'd thought of that!

    Mine is bigger than yours

    My instruction manual, that is.
      "Chromosomes contain the set of instructions to create an organism. Men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, the latter being responsible for the characteristics that make men male, including the male sexual organs and the ability to produce sperm. In contrast, women have two copies of the X chromosome. But, because the X chromosome carries a bigger instruction manual than the Y chromosome, biology's solution is to largely inactivate one X chromosome in females, giving one functional copy of the X in both men and women.

      'Our study shows that the inactive X in women is not as silent as we thought," said Laura Carrel, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. "The effects of these genes from the inactive X chromosome could explain some of the differences between men and women that aren't attributable to sex hormones.' "
    Read about it here, although it won't answer the question why one woman would have eleven blogs.