Bare foot walking, pt. 2

My feet and legs felt good this morning, so I took two more walks bare foot, one in the morning and in the afternoon, then decided to look it up. Google found some interesting stuff, keeping in mind Google can find something good to say about every imaginable health cure from eating bugs to amputating limbs.

But according to my limited research, I was correct in sensing that my body aligns itself very differently in bare feet than in shoes. This very interesting article in New York Magazine contained some references, interesting snippets, and some great photoshopped pictures of feet.

The sole of your foot has over 200,000 nerve endings in it, one of the highest concentrations anywhere in the body. Our feet are designed to act as earthward antennae, helping us balance and transmitting information to us about the ground we’re walking on.

For all I know, other areas of the skin are also well endowed with nerve endings, but after a few strolls in the back yard my arches, ankles and toes were starting to feel more alive. I wouldn't call it a tickle, but they definitely had been in prison far too long.

Try this test: Take off your shoe, and put it on a tabletop. Chances are the toe tip on your shoes will bend slightly upward, so that it doesn’t touch the table’s surface. This is known as “toe spring,” and it’s a design feature built into nearly every shoe. Of course, your bare toes don’t curl upward; in fact, they’re built to grip the earth and help you balance. The purpose of toe spring, then, is to create a subtle rocker effect that allows your foot to roll into the next step. This is necessary because the shoe, by its nature, won’t allow your foot to work in the way it wants to. Normally your foot would roll very flexibly through each step, from the heel through the outside of your foot, then through the arch, before your toes give you a powerful propulsive push forward into the next step. But shoes aren’t designed to be very flexible. Sure, you can take a typical shoe in your hands and bend it in the middle, but that bend doesn’t fall where your foot wants to bend; in fact, if you bent your foot in that same place, your foot would snap in half. So to compensate for this lack of flexibility, shoes are built with toe springs to help rock you forward. You only need this help, of course, because you’re wearing shoes.

Other articles made reference to the coolness of walking bare foot, which was true if I was in the shade, but some areas of the lawn are already dry and crusty from the current heat; other articles get close to spiritual--in touch with the earth, being grounded, etc.

Another mentioned it as a natural form of reflexology, with the manipulation of joints and tendons in the foot and toes.

"[Reflexology is] A type of massage applied to the feet to compensate for the lack of barefoot-walking on uneven ground. Small rocks and roots would randomly work with your body weight, stimulating the release of static charged channels of trapped energy linked to other areas in your body. Also stagnant blood and lymph flow is discharged as the renewal of oxygen fresh blood is supplied, stimulating tissues at a cellular level. Similar to acupressure principles, reflexology works with the body’s energy flow to stimulate self-healing and maintain balance in physical function. This technique reduces pain, increases circulation and thus relaxation." Some kind of sanctuary

I don't know about energy flow, but nothing is more boring (or hot in June) than walking or running along an asphalt road, and nothing more punishing to the knees and feet than walking long distances on concrete. At least walking in the grass is low impact and fun. I had none of the usual shin splints. The real test for me will be when I put a pair of sandals on--stay tuned.

She tried to walk home from church bare foot.

Bush was a big spender

especially on social programs. He increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. You’re thinking, well, it was 2 wars, but it wasn’t that. Some of the increase was from mandatory spending--would happen regardless, but much was discretionary. He added thousands of new programs during his eight years in office. In 2008, there were 1,816 subsidy programs in the federal budget that spread hundreds of billions of dollars annually to special interest groups. The number of subsidy programs grew by 30 percent since 2000 and by 54 percent since 1990 according to Mercatus Center at George Mason.

Then President Obama, in just four months, has made President Bush look like a stingy piker, carefully monitoring the government purse strings. According to Obama’s own ten-year deficit projections, this so-called "New Era of Responsibility" will have deficits every single year that will be bigger than the deficits of the Bush years. Mercatus analyzes Obama’s budget and concludes: “Based on his budget, the only promises the President can credibly make are high marginal rates, higher tax burdens for all, dramatic spending increases, and unprecedented and sustained levels of debt for the American people, their children, and grandchildren. Unfortunately, we know the consequences of such policies: slower growth rates, higher unemployment rates, lower standards of living, and higher levels of poverty.”

Not to mention all the segments of the economy that have been taken over in Obama's War on the Economy (O WOE) to create a socialist country.

I don't believe in the death penalty

but if I did, this man, Daniel Wilson, would be first on the list to go. Locking a woman in the trunk of her car and setting the gas tank on fire, or beating up an elderly neighbor and leaving him to die, Yup. And you know what? Because he's a white male who killed a white woman and another white male, they aren't even "hate" crimes.

Deploring violence is a one-way street

"Shortly after the murder of George Tiller, pro-life groups put out statements denouncing the crime. These statements came from all over the pro-life camp. Some were more forthright than others, it is true, but most were admirable in their categorical rejection of vigilante killings.

This morning, a U.S. Army recruiting station was attacked. One recruiter was killed, another hurt. Any statements from the antiwar Left deploring that violence? I've seen none from Code Pink, which has called U.S. servicemen "war criminals" and worse in service of a "fascist dictatorship," and whose rhetoric has, in general, been comparable to that of the less temperate branches of the pro-life movement. If you want to check International ANSWER'S press statements, you'll find nothing deploring this violence." Media Blog

To Mary Mapes and the establishment left, where are you with your outrage and condemnation today? Will the President make a statement about the murdered Army recruiter like he properly did yesterday about the abortion Dr? Will he condemn the vigilantes in Berkeley? Founding Bloggers

Governor Palin has also put out a message deploring the killing of Dr. Tiller. And she has a child most pro-abortion people wanted to die because he is has Down Syndrome (93% are killed before birth). We wait to hear a Democratic governor or the President speak out about a U.S. serviceman being killed.

It’s ironic and angering that only three weeks ago, Democrats in Congress shot down a bill to include military veterans on a bill giving them “hate crime” status and protection, but did grant it to convicted pedophiles. The Democrats felt including members of our military would be insulting to gays and minorities (but adding pedophiles would not be insulting).Vicki

The class of 57 had its dream

And that probably didn't include growing old, but we did. Our former high school, new when we graduated, is located between the town cemetery and the retirement home--so we should have had a clue. Some of us have already passed the 70 mark, some will soon, but most of the class of 1957 were born in or around 1939. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression that had been dragging on for 10 years. That was the year Hitler marched into Poland, and we were toddlers when Japan dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor. It was hard times and some of our parents might not have been thrilled by our showing up! If you look through the yearbooks of my home town at the class of 1953, it was about half the size of ours. People were cautious about the future in the 1930s. Here's a column from the Cleveland Plain Dealer that former classmate Mike and wife Judy sent me. Regina Brett’s "50 life lessons," written when she turned 50 in 2006. Can you think of 20 more to make it 70?

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.
18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.
38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
45. The best is yet to come.
46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
48. If you don't ask, you don't get.
49. Yield.
50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.


51. Here's one from the 1880s: "The husband must not see and the wife must be blind." The Gospel Messenger, December 18, 1888.
52. Less stuff means less stress
53. Naps and chocolate (dark).
54. Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.
55. "It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all." Laura Ingalls Wilder
56. When it comes to politics, keep an open mind. It will pay off in the end. Murray
57. Having more than one political party can be good but it can also be very ugly. Murray
58. "Life by the yard is hard; by the inch is a cinch." Or something like that I saw on my sister-in-law's refrigerator.
59. "I know folks all have a tizzy about it, but I like a little bourbon of an evening. It helps me sleep. I don't much care what they say about it." Lillian Carter

How could it be worse?

I just noticed at a right wing on-line site that pro-lifers fear a backlash from the President because of the murder of an abortion doctor. Murder is always wrong; whether it be the innocent unborn or the guilty perps. However, how is it going to get worse? This is already the most anti-life president in the history of the country--he's way far left of Congressional Democrats on the born alive issue. He has co-opted the most Catholic of the Catholic institutions, named for Jesus' mother, for goodness sake, to promote his pathological, twisted view born of some hatred for babies of teen mothers in difficult circumstances. He doesn't wring his hands over the murder rate of black men; or the pedophiles on the internet; or the people in the auto industry having their lives destroyed by his take-over; or the millions of African children dying due to misguided western environmentalists; or even the state of poverty of some of his own first degree relatives. This man needs to get a grip.

Monday Memories of going barefoot

I looked through my albums, but I was a poor deprived child--my mother's camera broke after the first two children, and I can't find a photo of me in bare feet. Although I'm pretty sure that like most children growing up in the 1940s, I rarely wore shoes in the summer except to go to church. Several years ago my son had a summer job mowing lawns. I was a bit concerned because he was suffering from a bad back--stenosis of the spine, I think. Anyway, after a summer of walking behind a lawnmower, he was fine. I'm not sure he was barefoot, however, he might have been.

To stay on track here, the toes on my right foot began to hurt last summer while I was wearing a pair of sandals and giving a presentation in front of the Green Gables (Lakeside) on 19th century architecture. I sort of limped home and put the sandals away. Most of the time, the foot didn't hurt as long as I didn't wear them.

Last week-end I put on a different pair and the same pain started--I think it is a nerve between the 3rd and 4th toes, but I suppose it could be on the ball of the foot. So I googled it--found a picture and pointed. I read through the stuff, book marked it, but have already forgotten what that nerve area is called. (Cousin Bill, help me out here.) But I did remember my son. So today I went outside with my CD of Luther's Small Catechism, took off my shoes and socks, and walked for about 30 minutes in the back yard. It's a very different sensation. For starters, you have to lift your foot a little higher because dragging your toes through grass is not a fun feeling. Then you have to watch for sticks and rocks. And dog poop. I wouldn't say my foot feels better, and my back hurts a little from the awkward gait, but it wasn't too bad for a childhood memory.

Reassuring China

According to today's WSJ, Timothy Geithner "is expected to try to reassure China--the largest holder of U.S. Treasurys--about its U.S. debt investments as well as the strength of the dollar." Now, the Obama team can't be blamed for China owning us--that goes back a bit. But the Chinese aren't stupid. They thought they were investing in capitalism! What a surprise! One more company, GM, taken over today and given to the unions, and the President announces it is only going to get worse. Old Timmy's going to have to really peddle fast to get out of this mess. Plus, doesn't this sound a tad tentative?

expected
to try
to reassure

Don't go phishing

If anyone claiming to be your ISP or bank or credit card company or church or bookclub or any organization/club asks you to confirm your e-mail and other identifying information, don't do it. We at the osu dot edu domain have been phished lately. They are trying to steal our identity, so don't reply. The one I got looked "phishy" simply because the sentence construction and capitalization was so odd--I hoped we weren't employing such poorly trained staff at our OIT. But another librarian got a better one and checked; this is what she was told:

A large number of Ohio State e-mail addresses have recently been recipients of phishing scam e-mails, asking for their password in order to prevent the account from being removed.

These messages are a scam, and were NOT sent by the Office of Information Technology or anyone else within The Ohio State University. **Do NOT reply to this message**.

Once again, these messages are a scam, and were NOT sent by the Office of Information Technology or anyone else within The Ohio State University. Do not reply. If you have already replied, go to our Account Management web site (https://acctmgt.service.ohio-state.edu) and change your password immediately.

Our network security team is aware of this issue, and since it was sent they have been working with the other Internet Service Providers involved to ensure the situation gets dealt with as quickly as possible.

For more information on Phishing, see:
http://buckeyesecure.osu.edu/SafeComputing/IDTPhish

Our network security team has already taken steps to disable this account and contact the user for further investigation. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

If you have any more questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us
at 8help@osu.edu or by phone at (614) 688-Help (4357).

The Poor and the Christian Church

As I've noted here numerous times, I'm really uncomfortable with Christian churches taking money from the government to meet their God-given commitments to those less fortunate, while shelving God's command to preach the Gospel because that's not allowed with USDA food distribution grants or the HUD housing rehab or the HHS neighborhood clinic. "Peace and Justice" Christians, whether liberal or conservative, Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox, need to open the Old Testament--to the Book of Job. The story of Job is a non-Israelite story. Scholars don't agree on how old the story is, or where it came from, but a casual reading shows that Job was considered a righteous and moral man by his peers and himself, a man devoted to God. Job in his own words described his close fellowship with God, his wonderful family, his blessings of wealth, and his respected position in the community (this sounds like the "health and wealth" gospel you find on Christian TV). Then disaster takes it ALL away. We see that Job is an adherent of an ancient patriarchial religion, common among many desert people--he avoids adultery, including carnal lust, even the smallest thought that would contaminate his mind; he doesn't lie or deceive and was never unfair; he was fair even to his slaves; he was a man of great charity, helping the widow and fatherless orphans; he didn't worship idols and knew that silver and gold could be idols; he didn't gloat when his enemies failed; he didn't hate the foreigner and practiced hospitality; he hadn't obtained his land by robbery; no one ever charged him with being hypocrite. He "wore righteousness as a garment."

So if this is the sum total of what Jesus came to preach, he was a few centuries late--the people already knew all this. What constituted righteousness was well known, common knowledge, just as today. So Christians need to make sure that their own "righteousness" is more than that, it must include the Gospel, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If the USDA summer lunch and snack program forbids distributing printed Bible tracts, or says you can't sing songs about Jesus or that you can't console a pregnant mother with life giving testimony about your own situation, then DON'T TAKE THE MONEY! Don't pay your church staff to go after and manage these grants. It's a deal with the Devil.

President Obama promised us in his 2008 campaign that he was going to strip religion from these programs--and even in the old days of "a thousand points of light," (Bush I slogan) Christians were restricted about what they could do or say in order to receive government grants. But we've already seen how President Obama co-opted the Catholic church in their own building on their own grounds dangling before them the prestige of having the President stand at their podium. He won't be any less harsh to Lutherans running lunch programs in neutral community buildings in Hilliard and on the Hilltop.

Government programs are rarely "temporary" and almost never go away. They just get bigger because so many staff government jobs are dependent on them. They spawn entire marketing and printing projects, distribution channels, factories to process food, conferences and workshops to keep employees informed of changes in the law (with travel to interesting cities like Las Vegas and New Orleans), warehouses and storage equipment, soup kitchens, special healthy snack creation, and all manner of cross fertilization of other projects, especially environmental, the current craze. What started 65 years ago when my grandparents were farming in Illinois and Iowa to use up agricultural surpluses to help the farmers after WWII, has run amok creating a dependency among the poor and the distributers alike. And I use the word "poor" loosely here--to qualify for food assistance, the family of 4 can earn $41,299 and add $6,959 for each additional family member.

"Ohio Foodbanks began in 1985 to develop the federally funded Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) within the state of Ohio. Working in conjunction with the Department of Education and then the Ohio Department of Agriculture and finally with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services the Ohio Foodbanks struggled through many years of programmatic development, burdensome federal bureaucratic processes, repeated threats of cuts to the TEFAP food sources, and the constant recognition that even in the best of times, the food was generally in insufficient amounts to meet the growing needs of the hungry Ohioans." So now they are a line item in the state budget guaranteeing a permanent income stream. OASHF

"TOLEDO NORTHWEST OHIO FOOD BANK
• 87% of pantries, 70% of kitchens, and 36% of shelters are run by faith-based agencies affiliated with churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious organizations.
• At the agency level, 80% of agencies with at least one pantry, kitchen, or shelter and 69% of all agencies including those only with other types of programs are faith-based. Toledo NW Ohio Food Bank, 2006"

Cross posted at Church of the Acronym.

The teleprompter on the brothers Emanuel

[Speaking about BO's speech on Wednesday in Los Angeles] "Last night's policy dinner was amazing. Big Guy compared himself to FDR, announced to the crowd in Beverly Hills that the recession was over, and then fist bumped David Geffen. In fact, Big Guy was so good that people just started writing him checks. It was funny, most people here say they weren't even aware we were in a recession.

Not so amusing was [Rahm Emanuel] Toes' brother, Ari, who showed up for the event. He's a big, foul-mouthed muckety muck out here in Hollywood. Most people in the White House didn't recognize Ari or even know Rahm had other living siblings; they just assumed Toes strangled them in their cribs.

I could tell right away they were related, when Ari claimed Big Guy's limo was in his spot in the Beverly Hills Hilton valet lot and tried to have it towed."

Here's Charlie Rose interviewing the three Emanuel brothers in June 2008.



The prompter calls him "Toes" because he used to be a ballet dancer before entering politics. Now he just runs the United States and we get to dance to his tune.

Another important job for librarians

Librarians, the most left of all professions, exceeding even the Hollywood stars who periodically appear before congress to opine (223:1 Democrat to Republican) spent a lot of time during the Bush years flapping their gums and becoming aroused at meetings over the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) that might snag a terrorist sitting innocently planning mayhem at a terminal in their library. I'm sure now that we're going to have an internet czar, that they will be equally as concerned that Obama not appoint another ethically challenged Timothy Geithner to an important post. So far, he has no details, which means it is wide open for abuse, but I know we can trust the librarians, because after all, "Knowledge is power," and librarians are certainly at the top of the ladder in pay grade, prestige and political clout.

This lovely mosaic, "Knowledge is Power," is at the Fisher College of Business which is closing its library.

A tax cheat and a cheating liar

That Timothy Geithner. What a guy. People desperately want to believe Obama knew what he was doing in appointing him chief tax cheat.

It's Over ... or Not. The deepest recession in modern memory is coming to an end, said Department of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during a May 18 briefing. Geithner pointed to improvements in credit and financial markets, among other indicators, as signs that the economy was starting to come back. However, the Federal Reserve Board's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)—the body that sets the federal funds rate, or the interest rate banks charge each other for loans—downgraded its economic forecast for 2009 in the recently released minutes of its late April meeting. Almost all FOMC members downgraded their projections from the ones they made in January, and the group as a whole is now projecting the U.S.'s real gross domestic product in 2009 to decrease by 2 percentage points from 2008, to 1.3 percent. The FOMC also predicts U.S. unemployment to continue rising and increased its projection for unemployment in 2009 to be between 9.2 and 9.6 percent, up from 8.4 to 8.8 percent in earlier prognostications. The FOMC projects nationwide unemployment to remain near 8 percent through 2011, before trending back to between 4.8 and 5 percent over the longer run. The FOMC did agree with Geithner in one respect, though, saying it expects a recovery in sales and production to begin in the second half of the year."

Weekly Federal Update, May 18-22, by Ethan Butterfield, Architect Magazine On-line edition. I'm always amazed at people who can count how many years FDR drug out the Depression, and yet believe following his example will somehow not cause the same disaster.

The three Rs of Preservation

Reuse. Reinvest. Retrofit. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we'll have the battle of the "greenies" on this one. I almost turn pea green reading my husband's newsletters and magazines.

The Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles was built in the mid-’60s and designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the World Trade Center. "How is the demolition of a 40-year-old, fully functioning building environmentally responsible?" asks Richard Moe of The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP). "In a state known for its environmental stewardship and strong focus on sustainable development, it boggles the imagination to think a developer could propose tearing down a newly renovated, thriving hotel—-a landmark of Modern architecture—-and replace it with new construction. Because historic preservation inherently involves the conservation of energy and natural resources, it has always been the greenest form of development." AIArchitect, May 29

In Ohio, we tear them down even sooner than 40 years. Our mayor wants to dump the City Center which I think is only 20 years old. Make a down town park. Now that brings in a lot of tax money. He'll probably get stimulus money for it the way he did for that phony Obaloney show on saving the police class right after the coronation. They've now run out of "stimulus" money, and will probably have to let some of the go.

A Brit observes President Pantywaist and asks why?

Gerald Warner at Telegraph.co.uk writes and wonders as do many of us on this side of the pond--why does Obama hate America so much?

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia, to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers. . .

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cozying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realized, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

I really wish there were evidence to refute this.

Exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis

Symptoms are: darkened urine, prolonged weakness or aching muscles, cramps, muscle tenderness, swelling, confusion, seizures, nausea and/or fever after vigorous exercise and extreme temperatures. It is not unusual to find it in fit military trainees. I won’t even attempt to summarize this excellent article by Sandy at Junk Food Science which also reports on nutraceuticals and supplements, and their possible link to rhabdomyolysis. Taking any pill, prescription or non-approved herbal supplements, can have serious consequences.

When I worked in the veterinary library I used to get calls about rhabdomyolysis in horses, but wasn't aware it also affected human athletes or week-end exercise warriors.

Support for Sotomayor

I've read some hesitantly positive things about her, and I think she's our best bet right now. One of the best clues is the far left wack-jobs don't like her. But she's also made some decisions that show she really can read and understand the law. Under the tutelage of Alito and Roberts, whose brilliance should reflect a bit on her, she may be able to turn the corner. Underneath all that empathy and "natural" Latina wisdom, we'll hope for a fine legal mind also. Her roots are as European as mine, just a little further south, but that would probably be considered racist for the press to point that out.

Praying for the President

There's almost nothing more difficult for me (other than the discipline of regular exercise) than praying for President Obama. I intensely dislike him and everything he stands for. I believe he has kidnapped our spirit/freedom/wealth and sold them into slavery. But. However. Notwithstanding. Therefore.

Christians are clearly commanded to pray for their government's leaders, whether they be Roman Caesars, Romanian Communists, or Haitian dictators. And oddly enough, the Christian church seems to thrive under that sort of government, more than when they are invited to partake in the evidence of earthly powers by electing Methodist pastors to the state house or community organizers to the White House, with that call and post, old time, negro rhythm so appealing to agnostic liberals.

I remember way back in the 80s when the Communist regime in USSR was just beginning to thaw a bit, it was discovered there was a huge group of Lutherans in Siberia no one knew about--they were descendants, as I recall, of POWs of WWI from Germany who had intermarried with the local women, and they had stayed true to the church despite no longer even understanding the German language they used in their liturgy. Several weeks ago we had Chinese immigrants speak to our Bible study group and the stories they told us about how the church has thrived in mainland China under the Communists, but is weak in Taiwan where they had freedom to worship, were just amazing. They told us things about the Communist system which actually aided the growth of the church, even though at the time, there was terrible suffering and death.

So, how do you pray? I got a clue watching a program a few weeks about a mother whose daughter was kidnapped and murdered; she described how she prayed for her daughter's captor. She realized that her own bitterness and fear was bad for her, crippling her ability to function for the rest of her family and she needed to forgive him (at this time, she didn't know her daughter was already dead, only that she had been taken). She began by praying about very simple things . . . things that didn't matter at all, like maybe if he were fishing he'd have a good catch, or he'd have a sunny day, or a good meal. She reasoned (incorrectly on that point) that if life were better for him, maybe he would treat her daughter well. She was able, day by day, to lose her own bitterness by praying for a person who was evil, and who had hurt her terribly, and eventually came not to hate him. By the time he finally called to taunt her, about a year later, she was calm and caring, completely catching him off guard. She was able to keep him on the phone by expressing genuine, not fake, concern built by hours of real prayer. This lead to his arrest. Then it was discovered that he had murdered the child shortly after her kidnapping. And he then committed suicide awaiting trial. Not a happy "answer to prayer," or was it? She had refused to participate in his evil, and prayed for him.

So there are some little things I can pray sincerely for Obama--and that is his relationship with his daughters, because that I can tie in directly with his pro-abortion views. Only God knows how a man conceived and birthed by an unmarried teenager (her putative "husband" already had several wives back home) can be so bitter toward the unborn, but perhaps he was made to feel unwanted by his birth family and grandparents. Whatever the source of his hate, I can ask God that his daughters shower him with love and kisses and warm his cold, cold heart. Yes, indeed, I can do that!

Christians don't need evolution taught in the schools, or Christmas carols sung at public events, or plaques with the 10 Commandments, or government grants to feed the hungry; we need some good, old fashioned persecution by a hostile president, and boy, we've got that! Alleluia, let's get started! He has helped by destroying that golden calf of consumerism to which our knees had bowed. We can expect great things to happen during the Obama reign.

Three years ago in Finland

It seems like ages, but it was July 2006 and we were visiting our friends in Helsinki. I was desperate for something to read, so I bought a Time magazine. According to my blog

"I paid 4 euros (about $5.00) for 52 pages of Time, 19 of which were photos of the World Cup. Photos I can figure out in Finnish. Five pages were devoted to bashing the "Bush Doctrine." No mention or credit for liberating the Iraqi people from a cruel dictator; no credit for identifying North Korea within months of taking office as part of the Axis of Evil; no mention that his neo-con advisors are former Democrats; or the 500 WMD that have been found; that the Iraqi people have voted in free elections. Although Bush has always acknowledged we were in for a long battle against Islamic terrorists, when he reiterates this, the MSM seems to think it is a victory for their side.

So what does Time recommend? Some Truman era reruns. They don't mention how extremely unpopular Truman was his second term--I think he was lower in the polls than Bush. Another article by Jos. S. Nye, Jr. pined nostalgically for the days of FDR and containment. Tell that one to the Estonians and the millions of other east Europeans who died in the Gulags waiting for the Americans to come and free them. Sixty years ago we sold out 40 million East Europeans to the USSR; let's not repeat that mistake by selling out the Iraqis."

I'm pining for the Bush era; I should have been more grateful. Maybe the press bashed him, but unemployment was 4.5%, the economy was booming, the magazines were fat with advertising, there were 20 houses for sale in Lakeside instead of 60, and the capital wasn't full of socialists.

Is the SCOTUS nominee “outside the mainstream” on abortion?

A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves pro-life on the issue of abortion and 42% pro-choice. This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995. According to US News and World Report, this development will keep the Republican Party marginalized. Also, DFLA are interested by another finding of this poll to note that for the first time in a decade, more men are against abortion than women, 54% of men to 49% of women. Democrats for Life

I'm not sure why this poll marginalizes Republicans as reported in US News. It just means Democrats don't vote their conscience when it comes to abortion.

You need to be very worried

Those of us who worried about a socialist being elected have seen all our fears met and exceeded. From Heritage.org: In just 4 months President Obama has

Continued to fast-track government control of health care with a $33 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which isn’t even limited to children and only worsened our nation’s health spending problem.

Pushed through a $787 billion stimulus bill that essentially federalized the construction and renovation of public schools, began subsidizing health insurance for unemployed Americans regardless of income, created more than 30 new federal programs, effectively abolished the hugely successful 1996 welfare reform; and created a trillions dollars of new debt, to be dumped into the laps of our children and grandchildren.

Passed an Omnibus spending bill that raised discretionary spending by 8%, contained 9,287 pork projects costing $13 billion, and spent $123 billion on programs for which government auditors can find no evidence of success.

Used the $700 billion TARP slush fund to effectively nationalize General Motors, turn Chrysler over to the United Auto Workers union, and strong arm the nation’s banks into accepting taxpayer money and government control they did not want.

Actually, I think he just by-passed European, post WWII socialism all together and is going directly into the past to communism (1950s USSR), or national socialism (1930s Germany). You didn't holler when he took over the auto industry, you're not complaining about the health grab, you allowed Congress to have families of business people threatened by Obama supporters, so you probably won't complain when he nationalizes your private pension plan to bail out social security, or says churches can't apply for government grants to feed the hungry if they support traditional marriage, or decides we need only x-number of hours of electricity a day so we can save the planet, or wants you to paint your roof white. If auto dealerships can be closed down because they didn't support the Democrats, your internet business can be unplugged, too. And it is all meaningless folks, he has no intention of "saving" the economy, he only intends to destroy it.

Why Sotomayor won't be borked

When degenerate profligate (but I repeat myself) Ted Kennedy is allowed to destroy a man’s character as he did Judge Bork's in 1987, he invents a new verb, a new low forever memorialized in our language. To bork, or borking. I don’t expect Sonia Sotomayor to get borked. Although I think the Congressional Republicans are obsequious wimps, they generally don’t stoop to the evil of a Ted Kennedy, or the bald-face lies of a Nancy Pelosi or the traitorous speeches about the war of a Harry Reid. Maybe they just aren’t clever enough. Then there was Joe Biden and his mystery tour of his own life during the confirmation hearings of Alito. And to think he is now a heart beat from the presidency!

“Then-Judiciary Committee chairman Joseph Biden, Kennedy’s lieutenant in the assault, told the Philadelphia Inquirer not long before Bork was nominated: “Say the administration sends up Bork. I’d have to vote for him, and if the (liberal interest) groups tear me apart, that’s the medicine I’ll have to take.” But when it came time to take his medicine, he ran away like a Kennedy fleeing a car accident. The fact that Biden was about to run for president — for the first time — probably helped him rationalize his flight from honor.” Ted Kennedy’s America. The Borking of American politics, by Jonah Goldberg

I do hope the Republicans come to the hearings better prepared than the Democrats were to face Judge Alito, who may be the only one who even understands how badly the liberals have messed up constitutional law in the past half century and was able to make them look silly asking questions they didn't understand.

Patch, patch, patch

I got a hair cut and color today. It takes longer and longer to look presentable. I don’t leave the house without my buddy, Merle (Norman--make-up brand), and try not to wear sweat pants and athletic shoes in public, unless I’m exercising, of course. Yesterday was Peggy Lee’s birthday. Ms. Lee (whose real name was Norma) was going up in a hotel elevator to put on her make-up, stage clothes and jewelry for a show. A woman asked, "Are you Peggy Lee?" She replied straightforwardly, "No, not yet."

HT Powerline which has some details and links to video.

What is torture?

Not even those who have been tortured agree. But isn't it interesting that after Vietnam, the U.S. government didn't even investigate this question, although they had hundreds of POWs they could have interviewed. But Obama claims he knows?And uses his own special brand of empathy and understanding to smear our entire country to our enemies and friends.

"If someone surveyed the surviving Vietnam POWs, we would likely not agree on one definition of torture. In fact, we wouldn't agree if waterboarding is torture. For example, John McCain, Bud Day and I were recently together. Bud is one of the toughest and most tortured Vietnam POWs. John thinks waterboarding is torture; Bud and I believe it is harsh treatment, but not torture. Other POWs would have varying opinions. I don't claim to be right; we just disagree. But as someone who has been severely tortured over an extended time, my first hand view on torture is this:

Torture, when used by an expert, can produce useful, truthful information. I base that on my experience. I believe that during torture, there is a narrow "window of truth" as pain (often multiple kinds) is increased. Beyond that point, if torture increases, the person breaks, or dies if he continues to resist.

Everyone has a different physical and mental threshold of pain that he can tolerate. If the interrogator is well trained he can identify when that point is reached - the point when if slightly more pain is inflicted, a person no longer can "hold out," just giving (following the Geneva Convention) name, rank, serial number and date of birth. At that precise point, a very narrow torture "window of truth" exists. At that moment a person may give useful or truthful information to stop the pain. As slightly more pain is applied, the person "loses it" and will say anything he thinks will stop the torture - any lie, any story, and any random words or sounds.

This torture "window of truth" is theory to some. Having been there, it is fact to me." Col. Leo Thorsness, POW for 6 years

Isn't this how we got in this housing mess?

State of Florida helps single mom with child purchase home with stimulus money. Neighborhood stabilization program.

Well, lookee here. "Neighborhood Stabilization" money to go to ACORN, the voter fraud folks. Wonder if this has anything to do with payback for 2008 election?

Imagine if a Bush advisor had been this sexist

You know, like calling a Dixie Chick a bitch or a lesbian like Lindsey Lohan a dog because she didn't support his politics. How long before there would have been a congressional investigation with an enraged Barney leading the charge?

Waterboarding Sotomayor

"The Caribbean before the landing of Columbus served almost as a bridge between the north coast of South America and Florida for the Amazonian tribes in the south and the north american inhabitants. When Christopher Columbus on his second trip in 1493 landed in Puerto Rico and claimed it for Spain, he found the island populated by as many as 60,000 Arawak or Taino indians, which for the most part, were friendly compared to the Carib indians in some of the more southerly islands which were warlike and to some degree cannibalistic.

The conquest of the island didn't take long, and the peaceful Tainos were put to the task as slaves for the purpose of mining the gold that was found on the island. The gold didn't last long and in 1511 there was an uprising of the Tainos, who up to this point had believed that the Spaniards were Gods, and took a soldier by the name of Sotomayor and dunked him head first in a river for several hours to see if he would die. Just in case, they had prepared a feast for the Spaniard if he came out alive. However, it wasn't the Spanish sword that took most of the lives of the Arawaks, but the diseases that were brought from Europe and for which the indians had no defenses."

I haven't checked the authenticity of this story--just thought it had a familiar ring.

Puerto Rico was ceded to the U.S. after the war of 1898 with Spain. It became a commonwealth of the U.S. in 1952, and hoped to become the 51st state. In any case, Sonia Sotomayor isn't the daughter of immigrants, but citizens.

Obamart

Archeologists have unearthed a cache of Soviet statuary in France--everything from kolkhoznitzas (колхо́зница, collective farm women) to tank drivers to arm and sickles built for the 1937 Paris World Fair. Apparently, it's making French communists downright nostalgic. When we were in St. Petersburg in 2006 we visited the Russian Museum of Art which contains wonderful examples of this style of propagandistic, government sponsored art, and frankly I found it more attractive than some of the stuff of the last 50-100 years that flourished under "freedom of expression." Yes, a 10 foot tall Lenin in a painting pointing the way through the snow is daunting, but no more so than some of the stuff designed by Axelrod for the 2008 campaign.

This would be a good time for the French Communists to remember that Stalin killed more of his own people than Hitler did. Millions and millions. Just because the Nazis also killed the French and Stalin only wiped out generations of East Europeans, doesn't make him anyone to be admired. He also ordered thousands of artists, film makers and writers to death camps.

They are running out of money for the excavations. But not to worry. When American leftists have finished plundering our "wealthy," they will have a lot of money to send to France to glorify dead Communists.

Empathy and Sotomayor

Is it really a code word for liberal? If it is, it shouldn't be.

em·pa·thy; ˈem-pə-thē ; a noun from the Greek, empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion. 1: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it; 2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner ; also : the capacity for this. Merriam Webster definition

Who has less empathy than

The radical feminist denigrating white males?

A union leader living high on member dues while the company leaves town or the country?

A congressman or mayor sending his kid to private school while denying the locals the right to school choice?

An environmentalist who would rather see your home burn to the ground than allow you to clear diseased and dead brush?

A Code Pink crowd demonstrating outside a hospital filled with wounded veterans?

Gay radicals taking over a church service and physically demonstrating their "life style?"

Barney Frank grilling a CEO the government appointed so harshly that his home and family are threatened by ACORN bussed activists?

Animal rights activists who would kill lab animals and the years of medical research they represent rather than let them be used to save your pet, your child, or your mother?

The "green" building trades, including architects, with a handful of LEEDS awards who want your building removed because it's too expensive to bring it up to carbon footprint standards?

The tiny percentage in main line denominations who are forcing their sexuality agenda down the throats (excuse the pun) of their fellow members, the other 99.9%, rather than withdrawing and creating their own organization because their lust is for approval?

The horse protectors who have succeeded in getting slaughter houses closed so animal owners have no option for disposal of their aged or crippled horses?

Where is the empathy for the unborn child, full of hope and potential for changing the world, about to be cut out or sucked out of the womb designed to protect her?

Where is the empathy for the millions of Muslims, particularly women, freed from the tyranny of the Taliban?

Where is the empathy of a male web-gossiblogger who sandbagged a female, straight contestant because she refused to be his advocate.

Where is the empathy of the food-nazi whose demands, if met, would put more thousands out of work in the processed and frozen food industry.

Where is the empathy of the mold/asbestos/lead demolition teams who have removed hundreds of city blocks of housing, bringing the yuppies back to town, and pushing the low income to the suburbas away from transportation, community, and churches they've always known.

Where is the empathy for the millions and millions of Africans crippled or killed by malaria by "do-gooders" and Silent Spring fans who got DDT removed from the market.

Where is the empathy of the journalists who have destroyed the credibility of newspapers by abandoning the "who, what, when, where" stories in favor of gossip and anecdotes and political views?

Yes, empathy is in very short supply, particularly on the left.

Will they be allowed to use the T-word?

Car bomb. Busy street. Police killed. 90 injured. Wonder if VOA will need to dust off the terrorism words so unpopular
in the Obama regime.

Update: The WSJ apparently didn't get Obama's memo and used the T word at least 3 times.

Update 2 (May 29): AP reports they've got 39 suspects--described as militants, fighters and extremists. Obviously, they got the T-word memo.

More on philanthropy

Not on my watch!

Speaking of philanthropy--what about Race for the Cure

Saying anything negative about the various races for this or that cause or disease in which volunteers raise funds from family and friends and sponsors is like being against motherhood and apple pie in this country. But let's look at the facts. It IS called "Race for the CURE." A cure would imply some heavy duty research, right? The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation was founded in 1982 by Nancy Goodman Brinker after losing her sister, Susan Komen, to breast cancer. According to their latest annual report, the Foundation and its affiliates have raised, in sum total (2009 figures) $1.3 billion dollars and have awarded more than 1,000 breast cancer research grants totaling approximately $190 million. (from the Komen web site) Cha-ching. That means the Foundation has spent $1.12 billion on expenses. Could you stay in business with figures like that? Would you sponsor a runner if you knew that in 2007 total revenue was $274,875,945, and total functional expenses were $239,544,000, and that the COO, Patrice Tosi, was paid $513,095 (2007 figures latest available in Charity Navigator).

Even the small amount that isn't used to keep the organization up and running with well paid staff, is primarily used for education and screening grants, not research that will really benefit women in the long run. Yes, mammograms are important, as are printed brochures and posters reminded women of the signs, but folks, unless the English language has really changed more than I realize, "education" is not "cure."

Lop a few zeros off those figures so you can understand the problem. If the Boy Scouts took in $1,300 selling Christmas trees, and $180 went into the fund for the trip to Yosemite, and the leaders kept $1,120 for their own expenses, the cost of the trees, advertising the tree sale and you and your son were also asked to volunteer to help, wouldn't you think something was funny if all you raised for all your efforts was $180?

I would love to have someone prove these numbers somehow make sense and not just get nasty and sling mud because I've pointed out another idol with clay feet.

Mistaken identity

When I was making my wonderful purchases at the yard sale on our street in Lakeside on Saturday, I mentioned to the owner where we lived and said my husband was an architect. He got very excited and said, "Oh, he's the guy with paintings in the Patio Restaurant. He had a great painting of our niece, Rebecca, last year, but it was sold." I looked a little puzzled and said, "Which painting was that?" "The one of the little girl fishing off the pier." "Oh, that was Lindsey, and we almost didn't sell it." (Lost her in the divorce.) "But it looked just like our fishing tackle box and was a dead ringer for our niece." Then another person stopped by to pay my husband the balance for the painting she bought last summer. I don't know why he let her take it without payment, but he did, and then she apparently forgot about it. So he sent her a reminder--a year later. She's quite a talker, but she took pity on him since he was on a ladder painting the house. The things you don't know going on in your own family!

Killing off the next level of jobs

There are some well-off Americans, not rich by their estimation, who are now feeling the affects of "going for baroke." They had nice jobs with philanthropies and non-profits. They'll soon see the tuition rise at the kids' private schools, as more parents pull out in order to cut back to pay for the mortgage, the summer house, the SUV, and basketball camp for junior. In two income families where both are lawyers or executives and one loses a job, that's a drastic cut in money spent in the community. Their tony communities will be raising taxes and it's just possible Maria will head back for Mexico. Yes, when Obama or the governors soak the rich, ask them to pay more than their "fair" share, they just move, and that hurts the local economy. It's really tough on the people who were basing their incomes on the rich folks' donations to good causes, many of which benefitted the poor, the mentally ill or handicapped, the immigrant and the disabled, or the rich folks' shopping habits, or the rich folks' leisure plans.

Philanthropy is a huge industry in the USA--Americans have always been generous, but they also get tax breaks for this generosity, and here's President Obama calling those tax laws written by our Congress, "loopholes." In 2006 Americans gave about $300 billion to charity, and 65% of that came from people earning less than $100,000. But that's over now. Bye-bye executive and administrative level jobs in philathropy. Let's see how it has worked out, soaking the rich, that is.

"Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it."

One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates." Read the rest here.

I don't like to see people I care about losing their jobs, but it is so tempting to say, "I told you so." Well, eventually, the rich will have no where to go--there are very few states standing up to the massive takeovers by the federal government. Or they will just put all their assets out of the country or in even more clever "loopholes."

Then Obama will come for you, dear friends and relatives, who thought we needed hope and change and a radical leftist in the White House. That's about all we'll be left with--a little change, and the type of hope the 3rd world peasants have for a better day.

A Two-fer

Or three-fer. Sonia Sotomayor is a woman, an Hispanic, and also a "first." First childhood diabetic nominee to the Supreme Court, first daughter of a nurse. First Puerto Rican woman diabetic first appointed by a Bush. So why do some liberals think she's the wrong pick?

Update: I listened to Obama on the way to the grocery telling why he chose her--she's part of the "common people." No, Mr. President, I'm common. I didn't grow up in the city, my mother wasn't a professional woman, my brother isn't a doctor and I didn't go to fancy, private schools and get a law degree. She's about as common as you are. What he really means is she is a leftist who will vote her party's desires and preferences and cause of the day. And it will be called "empathy." Anything but constitutional law.

And she believes that judges make law! So much for our three branches of government.

Swine flu deaths now at 12

Another 30,000 and there will be as many as the regular, non-hyped flu.

Health savings proof demanded by Obama

Nice try, sir. How about proof that the universal coverage by government fiat and computerized medical records feeding into a government database will save money? The recent hijacking of Virginia's 8 million health records and 35 million prescription records hasn't brought much attention to this problem--probably because there are thousands of government employees and Democratic Congress people involved as "victims" in that heist. It is proof positive of what happens with centralized medical records. I think it has been 3 weeks and the site is still down as the "criminal investigation" continues into the crooks holding the records for ransom. The irony is this "secure" web site was set up to discourage illegal behavior.

Monday Memories--When Mom was a war wife

This is another great book I picked up at a Memorial Day yard sale (how appropriate). It was only fifty cents, but what makes it special, besides the interesting content, is it still has the cover. That's unusual for a book going on 70 years old. When I checked on e-Bay I didn't see any that still had the cover. The book was given to someone named Emily on Christmas 1944--and I'm guessing she was entering this new experience of being the woman left behind. Oddly, the handwriting looks exactly like my mother's, who in March 1944 had to learn all the tips and tricks the author Ethel Gorham writes so well about as a war-time wife. My review here.

My other blogs on WWII

Grad Student research grabs headlines

Last week I was complaining to my librarian colleagues about an undergraduate scholar poster competition at Ohio State where the website for entries contained no links to the library for research purposes, just sites for templates on formatting the posters! The first abstract I looked at which was on disproportionate representation by rural areas in the military had enough holes in the short paragraph you could have driven a tank through it. But it didn’t make the national news probably because it's been done before, and now that the war is Obama's problem, the press doesn't care. This one did, by grad student Kerri Tobin, reported at Junk Food Science on IQ and junkfood.

Last week, more than 400 news stories in just two days reported that a study had found conclusive evidence that fast food makes children stupid and lowers their school tests scores. How many journalists do you think actually went to the original source and read the study?

None.

How can we be so sure?

Because there is no published study. There was no ability for any educational or health professional, let alone a journalist, to examine the research and its methodology, data and interpretations.

Read the whole story at Junk Food Science and why and how we are so often mislead by the press with the fear of the day. "Had any reporter or editor gone to the original source material and understood it, they would have instantly realized that none of the claims they were hearing were credible."

A Thigh Master appointee?

We knew this was coming, didn’t we? More taxes to hurt the poor and grow government agencies.

“Hot dogs, potato chips, soda and beer are staples of the traditional Memorial Day cookout, but Washington wants to redesign the menu. Just in time for your neighborhood block party, the Obama Administration and Senate Finance Committee are signalling a change in your diet.

President Obama has named Thomas Frieden, the New York City health commissioner who championed a ban on artificial trans fats, as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Frieden's campaign forced McDonald's to change the way it cooks french fries -- you may have noticed the taste -- and he has lately called for all restaurants to use less salt. Let's hope he spends at least some of his time considering flu pandemics and bioterrorism.” Memorial Day Make-over

Actually, I’m in favor of some government meddling in my food. Like, why can’t we clearly have on every label--canned item, frozen food package, and bag of carrots or lettuce--“grown in the USA.” The “distributed by” doesn’t mean a thing. I waste so much time looking for that tiny piece of information, and even then I came home the other day with carrots grown in Mexico. I’m not going to give USDA an A+ on everything, but we have a much better chance of avoiding parasitic diseases transmitted by careless hygiene, bacteria and gross amounts of pesticides, if we can buy American, even if our inspectors don't have enough staff, and we can’t do that without the information. I don’t want them off the market, they are important for trade, but I want to make the choice. That’s one area of my life where I am pro-choice.

Where it is grown or baked is more important to me than the percentage of fat or salt. I think I can figure out that a handful of potato chips won’t hurt me, but a bagful just might. And non-calorie pop must make people hungry and thirsty, because I never see a thin person drinking one. (Actually, I do buy it occasionally for my husband who wants something cold on an 84 degree day painting the house.)

Also, with so many people suffering from allergies, I think the wheat and peanut labeling is a good plan. Just don’t take the wheat and peanut products out of the store because two people within a mile of the store have severe reactions. In the last 30 years, there have been all sorts of movements by novices, animal rights groups, amateurs and environmentalist-food nazis to remove certain things because of obesity. And what has happened? We’re much fatter than we were in the 1970s as a nation, particularly men and children. Junk Food Science is the best place to go to read about the hype that comes with food warnings--it's the science that's junk, not the food, says Sandy.

If Americans need to lose weight, I suggest that Congress begin by emulating our First Couple. They are slim and trim and growing a garden in the yard (with tax paid gardeners). The Bushes were also a normal, healthy weight, and so were the Clintons (after Bill slimmed down) and the Bushes before them. It’s Congress that is fat in body and attitude--along with some of the regulatory agency employees and research staffers. Their retirement plan and health plan are also fat and sassy--and you'll never see anything like that!

If you're interested in beer, here's a cute story about beer and history at TonyRogers.com.

"The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.

These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives."

Sad news

I learned today of the death of Murray Weber. He was killed early Saturday morning when he was hit by a train near the Lennox Shopping Center. I knew Murray when he was a little boy growing up in Upper Arlington and he and my son were friends. I met him again later as a young adult, a veteran I think, and caring for a paraplegic in his home. I'd lost track of him during the last decade, but in my mind's eye he is still a beautiful, tall young boy, with hope, humor and caring in his heart.

"The Franklin County Coroner has identified the man who was struck and killed by a train early this morning in Clinton Township.

David Murray Weber, 40, of Columbus, walked onto the tracks and into the path of an empty freight train, according to a report by the Franklin County sheriff's office traffic bureau. He was killed instantly.

The incident occurred at about 1:31 a.m. on the railroad tracks behind the Lennox Town Center, south of Kinnear Road.

The report also stated that the man was seen causing disturbances at a nearby restaurant prior to the incident." Columbus Dispatch

Obituary

Randy's Ten Suggestions for Litter Critters

Randy lives on Cape Cod, and it seems some of you visitors are less than careful when you come to that beautiful vacation spot. He has posted some photos of the latest community clean up at his humor blog, and observes, "When someone comes tootling along sipping the last sip of an iced coffee and heaves the empty cup out the window, only one thing comes to my mind: Life imprisonment with no possibility of parole."

So Randy Hunt has a few ideas on how you can break that bad habit. It will work anywhere, even if it's Lakeside or Columbus, Ohio:

10) No matter how old you are, think about what your mother would say if she saw you littering.

9) Whether or not you remember the commercial released in March 1971 on the second observance of Earth Day, watch the Crying Indian Commercial.

8) If you catch your kids littering, make them pick it up.

7) If your kids catch you littering, make them pick it up. They’ll quickly learn how the rest of us feel about other people littering.

6) Instead of throwing that losing scratch ticket out the window, save your two bucks and use it to buy gas to drive to the library and check out a book on environmentalism.

5) Take your habit home with you. Rather than ruin the town for the rest of us, throw your litter onto your living room rug.

4) Save your empty Dunkin Donuts and Mary Lou’s cups. They make great gifts for the personnel at the transfer station. Trust me. They love ‘em.

3) If you find yourself throwing beer cans, liquor flasks, and nip bottles out your car window, seek counseling. You’ve got worse problems than being a litterbug.

2) Rather than throw your empty cigarette pack out the window, eat it. It can’t be any worse for you than smoking the 20 cigarettes.

And the number one suggestion for people who feel compelled to litter is:

If your name is Ron and you feel compelled to litter out your car window, consider purchasing this hip hop vanity plate: M O dot R O N.
Copyright 2009 Randy Hunt

WHO is killing Africans and why

"In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result. Malaria, politics and DDT

Sadly, it's not just misguided environmentalists with an agenda, many Christian groups have bought into the bed net scam, too. But then, many European Christians of the 17th century thought slavery in the New World was saving Africans from going to hell in the Old--and the DDT ban has killed far more people than the trans-Atlantic slave trade ever did.

Our Alaskan Cruise

About eight years ago we were preparing to take our first cruise--our first really big trip. I had it on my list of things to do when I retired and wrote it into my Post Employment Plan (PEP). Also in my PEP was to take up painting again (after about 30 years.) Those were the days before blogging when my family and friends just received fat envelops or stapled copies of things I wrote. When I was visiting my family at Easter, I found one of my hand painted post cards from that trip. I didn't have a scanner in those days, so had no record of it. I'd taken along a tiny little w.c. set and post card size #300 paper. I have no idea where the rest of them are or to whom I sent them.

Lakeside yard sales

I was headed for the Erie Road Mkt to buy milk and oj and just had to pass two yard sales! Got 3 fabulous CDs for $3--Sweet And Lovely: Capitol's Great Ladies Of Song with Keely Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Julie London, Peggy Lee, and others; Mary Chapin Carpenter (whom I heard live here at Lakeside in the 90s before she became famous); and a Glenn Miller. Also a one volume Bible dictionary for $1, and a midwestern garden book for $1 (I don't garden, but benefit from our son's special touch with plants). But on the way back with my treasures I passed a cottage with a laundry basket of Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne pottery for $10.00. We have more than enough dishes here at the cottage, also in blue and white (Currier and Ives), but this looked good to me. I tried to pick it up (put the money in the coffee can because the owners weren't there) and couldn't even budge it. I drafted the two young boys across the street to watch it and help load it in my van, and I came back with the car.

I think there are 5 dinner plates, a bunch of saucers, 3 cups, 6 sandwich plates, sugar and creamer, large pitcher, 4 soup bowls, serving platter and a serving bowl. I think they might be seconds, the stamp on the bottom is not clear on some, but for a cottage that's fine.

And the laundry basket was included in the price!

Axelrod and Rahm need to rein him in

This constant marketing of the President as though he were still on the campaign trail is over exposure. Axelrod's profession is marketing, and Rahm Israel Emanuel's is dance. So you put the two together and you get . . . a President who dances around the truth and does the splits? As soon as I hear that odd cadence (not black, not white, not Illinois, not Kansas, not Hawaii), I rush to switch channels or stations. It's grating when you can't figure out where a guy comes from. The only thing that has changed since 2008 is the phony diction and rhythym of a black preacher. He learned to talk "black" as an adult in Pastor Wright's church and African American linguists pointed this out before he became the favorite. The Righteous Brothers of the 1960s sound more black than he does, but that's what boomers like. Then the linguists shut up because it seemed to be working, particularly on guilt-ridden moderates. It is a foreign language for Obama--only whites think it is authentic. Because I was a foreign language major and worked with immigrants a large part of my work life, I became accustomed to listening closely to make sure I understood. His accent is the proverbial two dollar bill we used to talk about--although we eventually got one.

On back of the $2 bill, "replacing Monticello, is engraving of John Trumbull's painting "The Declaration of Independence"; because of lack of space, 5 of 48 men in original painting were not included in engraving." Removing a piece of history--imagine that!

Rahm may get the credit for bringing the Democrats into power in 2006 by being ruthless, but in Ohio and elsewhere they got in by pretending to be highly ethical, soft, quasi-Christian wannabees. Also the "scandals" referred to in this review were nothing compared to Nancy Pelosi's. Usually, they were at the expense of gay Republicans, but HEY any sacrificial lamb for the Messiah! Also, the economy started going south after Democrats took over Congress, and it is Congress who has the final say.

"Responsible for everything from handpicking Congressional candidates to raising money for attack ads, Emanuel, a talented ballet dancer better known in Washington for his extraordinary intensity and his inexhaustible torrents of profanity, threw out the playbook on the way Democrats run elections.Instead of rallying the base, Rahm sought moderate-to-conservative candidates who could attract more traditional voters. Instead of getting caught in the Democrats' endless arguments about their positions, he went on the attack, personally vilifying Republicans from Tom DeLay to Christopher Shays. And instead of abiding by the gentlemen's agreements of good-old-boy Washington, he broke them, attacking his counterpart in the Republican party and challenging Howard Dean, the chairman of his own party. In 2005, no one believed victory was within the Democrats' grasp. But as the months passed, Republicans were caught in wave after wave of scandal [concerning homosexuality mostly], support for the war in Iraq steadily declined, and the president's poll numbers plummeted. And in Emanuel, the Democrats finally had a killer, a ruthless closer like Karl Rove or Lee Atwater, poised to seize the advantage and deliver what President Bush would call "a thumpin." From review of The Thumpin' by Naftali Bendavid

Learning from the past

The dueling speeches--Cheney and Obama--certainly show that we have administrations with entirely different perspectives on war and defense. WaPo version. President Obama is attempting to criminalize, after the fact, actions that were taken by the former President and Congress which were ruled legal just a few years ago. At the same time, he's attempting to shore up his support on the hard left--those who pushed him into office hoping he'd dance to their jig--who think he's backing down. Obama's view on security and defense is that of the USA/FDR of the 1930s, the drill we went through as Hitler knocked off his neighbors and threatened England--watch, wait, and talk. The other, the Bush-Cheney plan (with Congress's approval and support) was to go on the attack rather than wait any longer. Last night I heard a woman liberal on a panel critiquing the two speeches whine that Cheney had mentioned 9/11 twenty times in his speech, that it obviously was a defining moment in his mind.

I've been reading "Westminster Pulpit" the collection of sermons of G. Campbell Morgan now 100 years old. He had some interesting points about remembering the past.

The true backward look is that which sets the past in relation to God; that which lays to heart the lessons God has intended to teach by the experiences of the past; and is that which always has the future in mind. . . [commenting on Moses' use of the past] These people had been brought out of Egypt and its bondage to God, and to that freedom which was perfectly conditioned within government and within law. This was fundamental, and this they were charged never to forget. Take the Old Testament and read right through it, listening to its teachings; and whether you are reading its devotional literature, or that which is distinctly prophetic in the sense of the forthtelling of the Divine Will, you will discover how constantly these prophets, seers, and psalmists, took the people back to Egypt, and the fact of their deliverance there from. That was absolutely fundamental. V. 4, p. 10-11

Morgan goes on to make a spiritual point, and I don't think he mentions that often the escaping Hebrew people wanted to go back to Egypt where they were slaves rather than face the tough problems of the wilderness.

Arthur Erickson, 1924-2009

Arthur Erickson, the famous Canadian architect, died May 20, 2009. Story here. His firm and a Columbus firm Feinknopf Macioce Schappa were partners in the competition for the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Their submission won the popular vote, but wasn't selected by the jury. In fact, it was so popular, even the other participants thought they'd won. Too bad. If you're familiar with the Wexner you probably know it has been extremely expensive to maintain for a named "gift." The most recent renovation cost $15.8 million for a building built in 1989, named for the primary donor, Les Wexner, founder of Limited Brands, which includes Victoria Secret, and Bath and Body Works.

In 1982 the OSU Board of Trustees authorized a competition for an arts center and my husband’s firm (he was a partner) Feinknopf Macioce Schappa was paired with the Arthur Erickson firm of Vancouver, British Columbia. Trott and Bean, both OSU grads (Bean lived across the street from us) was paired with Eisenman/Robertson of New York. Three other Ohio architectural firms from Dayton, Cleveland and Columbus also participated. The program was vague--an understatement. The participants didn't even have the place for the building specified let alone a firm focus.

In the vicinity of the supposed location there once was an armory which was removed in 1959. To tie into the history of the location, Peter Eisenman's design (with two loyal OSU alumni) includes faux towers reminiscent of the armory at the corners of the building and some sort of alignment with the football field and flights into Port Columbus! Not being familiar with this piece of OSU history, the Eisenman building always reminds me of a collection of glued popsicle sticks.

Although FMS + Erickson didn't win, it was an exciting time in my husband's career with Erickson's people coming to Columbus several times, and he going to Vancouver to work with them. He loved working with this group and fell in love with Vancouver.

In 1996 we visited Vancouver after my MLA meeting in Seattle, and stopped at the Erickson firm again, but much had changed (downsized, different location). It had been about 12 years. My husband didn't know many of the people. But we did visit several of Erickson's buildings in that area: Museum of Anthropology (1972) Vancouver; Simon Fraser University (1963) Burnaby, B.C.; and Robson Square (1973-79) Vancouver.

Update: If you think I'm tough on librarians, you should read my thoughts on architecture and the rush to be green.

There is a photo of the Erickson/FMS popular winner on p. 9 of "Design by Competition" by Jack L. Nasar. It has been scanned by Google.

The "Give Back" theme of the Democrats

It's graduation season. Giving back is always and forever the theme of speeches at graduation, but it seems only the Democrats have recently discovered it as a way to smack down Republicans. And that's so strange. Because all research for years and years has shown that conservatives, particularly conservative Christians, are more generous with their time, talents and money than liberals. Joe Biden and Al Gore's contribution record is laughable, and President Obama's was almost as paltry until he got serious about campaigning for the presidency and one of his advisors noticed this moral flaw.

I personally was a bit uncomfortable with George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light" theme. I was a Democrat then, but also an evangelical. It just didn't seem right to me that the President was doing a Preacher's job. Later I found out it was Peggy Noonan, his speech writer, who came up with "kinder, gentler nation," and "thousand points of light." Liberals absolutely hated this Bush theme because it encouraged Christians to do even more (and apply for government grants to do it). After Democrats were trounced in 2004, they had many pity parties--I know this because I watched some of them on C-SPAN. The conclusion apparently was to pretend to care more than conservatives, so that they could gain political office. Play down the liberal-progressive drivel. In Ohio we elected a former Methodist pastor as governor on an ethics platform because our former governor played golf with someone and it wasn't recorded as a donation, or something silly. Our new governor, who seems a nice person, has had nothing but trouble with some of his morally-challenged appointees. You remember, don't you--the folks who decided to investigate Joe the Plumber for calling Obama's bluff accidentally.

But that Presidential leadership into good works wasn't good for the churches, either. Christians were getting a bit fat and sloppy at the government money trough.
"Wanna feed the hungry? Wanna rehab housing for the poor?"
"You bet!"
"Just apply for a USDA or a HUD grant."
"What will it cost?"
"Not much. Just take down the cross of Jesus and don't hand out literature."
"Well, OK, it's for a 'good' cause."

It's not that Candidate Obama didn't notice that U.S. citizens were already volunteering for all manner of projects from community concerts, to cleaning up rivers and streams, to recycling yard waste, to helping immigrants learn to read. No, of course he knew. But he needed something to make us feel guilty and morally deficient, like we couldn't decide for ourselves if taking an elderly neighbor to the doctor was the right thing to do if the government wasn't tracking it. So he's going to make it mandatory.

Right off the bat I can tell you what will happen.

First, volunteering in a religious activity where evangelizing or proseletizing takes place will not count, in fact, it might even be penalized. If that activity takes place in a church basement--like a food pantry--all religious symbols will need to be removed.

Second, certain 501-c-3 non-profits (religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, public safety, amateur sports, or prevention of cruelty to children or animals) will count more than others--like the ACORN, Saul Alinsky-type, left-leaning organizations, animal rights organisations (as opposed to animal welfare) and radical "greenies" claiming concern about safety. Signing up illegals to vote, for instance, will be a credited, gov't approved volunteer activity. Helping someone refinance a mortgage they can't afford, will count if the helpee is a minority. Helping a woman avoid an abortion or going back to Mexico to give birth in her home community will not.

Third, many non-profits, if not allowed to use government money because they won't dance to Obama's tune, will have to close shop. People who wish to remain in the "giving" field will increasingly need to be employed by the liberals and socialists.

Fourth, your mandatory volunteerism will become a factor in your job security and promotion ladder. Maybe even in hiring. The "volunteerism" required of many school children (begun years ago) can barely pass the sniff test.

Fifth, eventually, only those volunteer activities that directly promote the government approved agenda (what ever it is at that time) will be allowed.