What will you do with your "stimulus" check?

According to the AARP web site:

"More than 52 million Social Security beneficiaries will today (May 7) begin receiving an extra $250 payment, as part of the effort to reinvigorate the American economy and boost consumer spending. The additional bonus check, which also will be sent to older veterans and railroad retirees, is part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the so-called stimulus package—passed by Congress and signed by President Obama on Feb. 17.

You won’t have to file any forms to get the money. Payments will show up through May as an extra check or an automatic bank deposit, depending on how you receive your benefits. Couples who are eligible will receive a total of $500.

A spokesman for Social Security says those who usually get their benefit checks during the first week of the month will be the first to receive their additional payment, which could be as early as today.

No one knows yet what recipients will really do with their $250, but that hasn’t stopped the Social Security Administration from asking. On April 9, the SSA posed the question on its website. So far, more than 4,000 people have responded. Their answers suggest that recipients are likely to go out and spend their windfall—exactly what the plan’s architects hoped for."

If you read my blog, you know I've been debating whether to even cash mine--I really can find no evidence in any of the government sites or government media that I am eligible. I don't receive SS, not on my own work account, and not on my husband's, because I receive a state teacher's pension. Back in the 1980s receiving both was declared double dipping--but only for teachers and state civil servants--private pensions weren't affected (but just you wait--I'm sure you too will be asked to save the system). So we called our accountant, and she didn't know either, but there was something new, that I hadn't seen. Apparently at one site, it is reported that people receiving FEDERAL pensions (but not SS) were eligible for the stimulus check. So we're extrapolating from that comment that STATE pensions also apply (civil service, teachers, etc.) Our accountant did say, however, that it is virtually impossible to give back a check from the government, even if they were wrong to send it.

OK, now what to do with it. I'd hoped to donate the entire amount to an organization that doesn't take government grants--so that wouldn't be most church run social services. So I was thinking our *local pregnancy distress center, PDHC--maybe a donation to honor the service of Pvt. William Long, whose death has been covered up by the hoopla over the murder of George Tiller, a man who killed thousands of babies through out his career. President Obama has not commented on Long's death by a Muslim terrorist, but expressed great concern over Tiller's death, which shows who his supporters are. But then last night's Channel 10 news reported that many Southern Ohio food pantries have closed, and they're sending our mobile Lutheran Food Pantry Truck once a week to help some of the smaller cities, like Ironton, which used to be a thriving town. The food banks, which depend on government surplus, warehouses, food processing plants and buy outs are stretched pretty far, and church members are taking up the slack. So I may divide my check by purchasing food for the food pantry to feed the children already here, and donating the remainder to save the children not born yet.

*Other cities in Ohio

This looks much harder than blogging

But maybe I should try it. My New Year's Resolution to get back to painting lasted about 3 weeks. Peter Yesis is painting a 30 day, self-portrait challenge. He's got a few more days to go and is reall bored. He even painted a portrait of his feet! Go to the left column of the blog for the thumbnails.

The Voca People

do a pretty good overview of the music I remember the last 50 years. "The Voca people are 8 friendly aliens from the planet Voca, a musical planet that has no verbal communication but use vocal expressions only. They have heard the music from earth for decades now and with their imitation abilities they have decided to pay a one evening tribute to humanity and to perform the songs they love as musical- gratitude." Actually, they are Israelis. Remember them, President Obama?



HT Lady Light who also sent me this one for Cotton Eyed Joe--which will really perk you up if you’re down!

EFCA; Free or Forced Choice?

What ever happened to the secret ballot? What else should we let unions destroy? How many more businesses do you want to have micromanaged by Washington? Let’s intimidate the worker and owner alike! What a concept!

Many conservatives believe “Employee 'Forced' Choice Act (EFCA) is legislation that would severely damage small businesses and eliminate worker freedoms leading to job loss and increased unemployment. EFCA would open workers up to intimidation and allow a government arbitrator to mandate contacts without the consent of employer or employee."

You’ll only get the union views from the Obamedia, so here's the other side.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce describes three provisions of the bill, each of which is unacceptable:

* Elimination of Secret Ballot: This legislation mandates that a union be recognized if a majority of employees in a designated bargaining unit sign authorization cards. This is the provision from which the nickname for the bill, "card check," comes. If this provision is enacted, the current system where a federally supervised election process with secret ballots determines whether employees will have a union in their workplace would be effectively eliminated.

* Writing contracts through government imposed arbitration: The second provision would result in contracts being written by federal arbitrators instead of the process of collective bargaining and negotiating.

* Unreasonable and one-sided penalty expansion: Finally, the Employee Free Choice Act imposes dramatic new penalties on employers for violations of the National Labor Relations Act, but not a single new penalty on unions or labor organizers. Read the full explanation of their objections here.

“This legislation — the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — would hurt both workers and businesspeople, and it is not the type of legislation we need if this nation’s economy is to make a timely recovery.

While it may be convenient to paint a picture of business owners and workers having contradictory interests, the current economic situation illustrates how shallow that thinking is. When businesses fail, workers lose their jobs. And when workers aren’t treated well, businesses do not thrive. The interests of workers and business owners are not in conflict — they coincide.

The centerpiece of EFCA is the weakening of workers’ ability to vote by secret ballot on whether or not a union should be formed, by allowing unions to replace these elections with a public card check system. When workers are forced to declare their allegiance to a union in the open, they are far more subject to intimidation and coercion.” Doug Wheeler

“Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, a state business association with nearly 4,000 members, reports that about 70 percent of state respondents to a survey conducted May 17 oppose ending the current secret ballot system. The study was sponsored by the Economic Freedom Alliance, a vocal opponent of the measure.

"The business community is united like never before in opposition to this legislation," said James Buchen, WMC vice president, in a statement. "Wisconsin businesses need to continue to fight this legislation because organized labor isn't going to stop." More than 300 Wisconsin businesses - including several in west-central Wisconsin - signed a letter to Congress in opposition to the legislation.” Leader-Telegram (WI), June 3, 2009

HT Maggie Thurber

Half a page on George Tiller

nothing on Pvt. William Long. WSJ, June 4, 2009. What media bias?

Well, at least one of the paragraphs described the gruesome details of late term abortions. There possibly are people who are unaware of the brutality of the procedures. Why Tiller's "preferred" method was considered good for the mother, I have no idea. I suspect it was just easier for him. His method wasn't to stab the baby in the skull and then dismember it after it was dead (Obama is the only elected politician who has said that's O.K. to my knowledge). *SCOTUS upheld the ban on late term abortion procedure known as "partial-birth abortion." Tiller preferred a lethal injection into the baby--sort like the death penalty they use for condemned murderers who've gone through years of appeals and which bring out the crowds for candle light vigils. After the injection which kills the baby the mother goes back to her motel room to wait to go into labor, and in a few days returns to the clinic for the still birth. If this was an agonizing decision, as the proponents claim, even though Down Syndrome or a heart condition or a tumor aren't fatal diseases for either mother or child, it has to be a terribly uncomfortable wait, knowing you will give birth to a dead baby, especially if initially the pregnancy was a source of joy. Do you go sit by the pool? Read a novel? Watch reality TV? And since Tiller performed abortions at a clinic and not a hospital, I don't know what he did if there were complications like hemorrhaging.

*Here's what happened:

"The Supreme Court handed a victory to the Bush administration and abortion opponents on Wednesday with its decision to uphold a 2003 federal law that bans partial birth abortions.

The decision enforces the law that prohibits the procedure of partially extracting a fetus 20 weeks or older intact from a woman's uterus and then crushing or cutting its skull before it is fully delivered.

"This is the most significant upholding of any restriction on abortion ever by the Supreme Court," said Stephen Wermiel, who teaches constitutional law at American University." FoxNews, April 18, 2007

If this was a "victory" for Bush, it's right up there with him freeing millions of women from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Bare foot walking, pt. 3

When I was a student at the University of Illinois I used to pass two disabled students at lunch time--I think it was in Lincoln Hall (now closed for renovation). I believe one may have been blind and in a wheelchair and the other had no arms. The U. of I. was a forerunner in services for the disabled, beginning I believe with disabled veterans after WWII. The armless man would push/guide the wheelchair with his pelvis, and ate his lunch using his feet as his hands. He was quite limber, as was I at age 19, and his toes functioned as fingers. Blind students attending college didn't surprise me because my grandmother was blind and I'd seen her do many remarkable things that sighted people didn't or couldn't, including distinguishing her many grandchildren by voice (she often mistook me for my sister, but so did sighted people). But I'd never seen someone hold a sandwich with his toes. (Don't know who prepared his sack lunch.) At that time I could pick up objects with my toes, I know, because I tried it after seeing him. But walking barefoot the last few days I discovered that the joints in my toes no longer are flexible--at all. I have no idea when this ended, because I so rarely go barefoot, I haven't tried to move anything with my toes in probably 40 years.

I suspect that a healthy, limber foot should be able to pick up objects. Aren't joints supposed to move? What do you think?

Today I wore hose on my barefoot walk. The temperature has dropped about 30 degrees and we've had a lot of rain, so I thought I'd just check this out rather than not do it at all. It works fine (assuming you aren't planning to use those hose for anything else) and washing your feet afterwards is much easier because anything that sticks, is probably on the hose. Not sure why, but I found the wet grass less slippery. I thought it would be the other way.

When walking barefoot in the grass you certainly see and hear and feel more of nature, even listening to Luther's Catechism on CD. A multi-sensory experience, this barefoot walking.

Give us this day our daily bread And let us all be clothed and fed. Save us from hardship, war, and strife; In plague and famine, spare our life, That we in honest peace may live, To care and greed no entrance give.

Luther wrote his small catechism in 1529, but this hymn of the Lord's Prayer in catechetical form was 1539. The tune on the CD is not the one Luther wrote.

The Obama Car

"Incredibly “green,” this car runs on hot air and broken promises. It has three wheels that speed the vehicle through tight left turns. It comes complete with two Teleprompters programmed to help the occupants talk their way out of any violations. Built by union labor with full benefits, its base price is only $83,000, but low government financing is available for any payment requested. Subsidized insurance available." From Polipundit, HT Taxmanblog.

Not to worry--it's just Karl Marx!

Well, that's comforting.

. . . the bankruptcy filings of General Motors and Chrysler, and the transfer of stock ownership from the firms' long-suffering shareholders to the government and unions, communists of the world can rejoice. The workers are now, finally, significant owners of the means of production. The United Auto Workers control about 65 percent of Chrysler and 17.5 percent of General Motors."

So Daniel Gross of Slate says it's no big deal. No Mr. Gross, it's not what you think--that maybe unionists will start thinking like owners. We've zipped right over socialism and communism in four months and landed on National Socialism, i.e., Nazi, for short. That's not when the government owns the means of production, but when it through a charismatic leader controls the owners of production and has them--the press, the church, the military, academe and the unions--in a choke hold and scared to death to speak up. The power grab in the past four months has been stunning; we haven't seen anything like it since the 1930s.

I've heard and read some very naive conservatives discussing the elections of 2010--that Obama will then have to face the growing opposition from those liberals with buyer's remorse who've realized "hope and change" was just a catchy slogan and the conservatives who've finally gotten a grip. Sorry. I don't believe it. By 2010 he'll own the state governments, beginning with California, through bail-outs. By then, all opposition communication channels from radio to TV to newspapers to the pulpit to the internet to satellite will be gone, silenced by "regulation," hate speech laws, and fines for carbon footprints.

How to kill a red state

There are lots of ways a Democratic president can punish a traditionally conservative state.

1) Destroy the coal industry

2) Destroy the auto industry

3) Use their own tax money to relocate an industry that's been here for 125 years.

"Prompting protests from Ohio officials, a Georgia city has asked the federal government for money from the $787 billion stimulus package to help finance the transfer of NCR Corp. from Dayton to Georgia.

Although Columbus, Ga., Mayor Jim Wetherington said he does not know if the federal government will approve his request, he wants stimulus money to help refurbish a 340,000 square foot facility and construct a 100,000 square foot building for NCR to make ATMs." Columbus Dispatch.

So much for keeping "American jobs" at home. Just move them around with their own tax money.

Orange Health Alert by Norma

Last week I checked out a book from the local library called "Food Cures," published by Reader's Digest. The cover says, "fight disease with your fork." You wouldn't be allowed to say that on an actual food product by law, but you can say anything in a book title, even if it's false. In fact, if you open that book, there's not a single study cited.

But there are five things you can do that may help you live a longer life--and I've mentioned them many times.

1) You can't beat good genes. That's still the number one factor in good health and a long life, and you didn't have a thing to do with it. If you're still alive tomorrow, give thanks for your biological parents and grandparents who gave you a good start. My mother died in her 88th year, her brother at 99, her father at 94, and her sister is still going at 92. Dad died at 89, his father at 92, and his grandfather was 88 in 1950 when he died, and one of his daughters is still going at 92.

2) Don't smoke.

3) Drink alcohol only in moderation, and if you think a 6 pack after work is moderation, you need to relearn the meaning of the word. You're using Obamath.

4) Reduce your calories.

5) Get some regular exercise.

There are several to compete for the next five, and I'll just mention some I've noticed recently among my friends who are over sixty.

Bicycling doesn't seem real smart to me, even with a helmet. Motorcycles almost look safer.

Stay off ladders whether cutting tree limbs, cleaning gutters or painting the house. My husband who got 1-5 right, is really bad about this one.

Only the marriage bed is undefiled, as the Bible says. Think of the diseases and heartache you can avoid.

If your doctor can't be bothered to return your calls (or your wife's calls), you need to get a different doctor.

Colon cancer can be prevented through testing--and I think it's the only cancer that can--it's called a colonoscopy, and if polyps are found, they can be removed before they turn into cancer. Don't bother with the FOBT--by the time it finds anything it's probably too late--that's why they're cheap.

If you use sun screen because you're in the sun a lot, don't forget to increase your vitamin D, which your bones need to fight osteoporosis; broken bones kill a lot of us old folks, especially fair skinned women like me.

Remember to get your flu shots--ordinary flu kills a lot more people than swine flu.

Unless you or your spouse have allergies, get a pet. They'll add laughter and comfort to your life, and you may even need to take them out for a walk.

Terminally stupid

A judge has tossed a California woman’s would-be class action lawsuit finding that a reasonable consumer would not expect the brightly colored balls in Cap'n Crunch to be actual berries. Per Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar: “Plaintiff did not explain why she could not reasonably have figured this out at any point during the four years she alleged she bought Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries in reliance on defendant’s fraud.” And could the Plaintiff's name really be Sugawara? Sounds a lot like a child trying to say, "sugar water." Listen (read) carefully. Fruit Loops do not contain fruit; Crunchberries are not real berries.

HT Underlawyered, always a great read in blogdom.

Obamath

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the 31st that “President Obama has a sweeping goal for his speech Thursday in Cairo, Egypt: to begin remaking the dynamic between the United States and Muslims abroad.” By lying?

Although the number of Muslims in the US has grown a lot in recent years, it certainly is no where near “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world” as our President offered as more disinformation (propaganda) to Egyptian leaders this week.

According to Debbie Schlussel The Pew Center(a liberal think tank)--“found that only 0.6% of Americans are, in fact, Muslims, or 1.8 million out of 300,000,000 residents of America. That includes Muslim illegal aliens, too (of which there are far more than the conventional wisdom admits).”

According to Pew, 78.4% of the US are Christian, 1.7 Jews, .7 Buddist, .6 Muslim, .4 Hindu, 16.1 nothing, and the rest, various religions.

Truly, you can’t trust anything this man says, not about his own religion, his father's religion, his grandmother's religion, Rev. Wright's religion, and certainly not about the country’s.

And lookee what surfaced AFTER the campaign. My apologies to all the conservatives I said were wrong about Obama's faith. HT Deb.

Joyce Kilmer and Lucy Stone

When I was growing up, I thought Joyce Kilmer, the author of the poem Trees, was a woman.

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree. . . etc.

After all, Joyce is my name too. However, he was an American who died in WWI at the age of 31, and whose daughter died in 1917 of the after affects of polio, but which had been instrumental in his conversion to Catholicism.

Well, every morning for months I stopped on my way to the office and prayed in this Church [of the Holy Innocents] for faith. When faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralyzed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny feet know beautiful paths. You understand this and it gives me a selfish pleasure to write it down."

Lucy Stone was a 19th century suffragist who kept her maiden name after marriage. She was involved in the big three of that century--temperance, slavery, and woman’s suffrage--all stemming from her religious beliefs. She received her degree from Oberlin here in Ohio. After a very full life of activism, Lucy Stone died on October 18, 1893 at the age of 75.

Now the reason I’m putting these two very different, talented people together is that The National Marriage Project of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in Piscatawy, NJ, is located at 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue in Lucy Stone Hall B217.

The National Marriage Project has released a study that shows what poor preparation for marriage living together is. According to the study, “since 1970 the number of Americans living together outside of marriage has increased more than 1,000 percent, with such couples now making up about ten percent of all couples.” What has resulted are weaker marriages, worse marital relationships, and children often put in danger through the impoverishment of the mother, or the abuse from her boyfriends. Try giving this to your graduating daughter. Should they live together? Here’s what the research finds:

l. Living together before marriage increases the risk of breaking up after marriage.

2. Living together outside of marriage increases the risk of domestic violence for women, and the risk of physical and sexual abuse for children.

3. Unmarried couples have lower levels of happiness and wellbeing than married couples.

The main stream bias and the Tiller murder

Today's WSJ has a tiny, 4 paragraph AP boilerplate article about the Moslem convert who Monday gunned down Army recruiters in Arkansas, killing one. Then it has a 24 paragraph article about Scott Roeder who killed abortionist George Tiller.

In 2008, according to the story, Dr. Tiller aborted 192 future American citizens, killing them during late term abortions under a Kansas law that allows for this to save the mother's mental or physical health. This murder has shocked many in the pro-life movement, some of which have devoted their lives to saving the lives of others. I've heard of no prayer vigils or remorse among the leftists who picketed V.A. hospitals or the Bush appearances, or even Laura's speaking engagements in front of ALA (librarians). Nor has there been a peep (that I can find reported) from President Obama about the death of Pvt. William Long by a home grown terrorist. Is this his way to placate Muslims? Or to encourage them?

And just as the leftist media tried to blame you and me for the deaths of President Kennedy and his brother Robert, Martin Luther King, and the school shooters, now as a conservative Christian who believes in the sanctity of life, even that of butchers like Tiller, I'm lumped together with a fanatic like Scott Roeder who acted out of his own animus and hatred for Tiller. Like the guy who killed Pvt. Long, he was being "watched."

I didn't kill Nicole Brown Simpson just because I believe in marriage, and she was married to a jealous, has-been athlete. I didn't kill Vince Foster, that Clinton aide who committed suicide in a park with an ancient gun, after he got unflattering press. I didn't send Susan Boyle to a mental health clinic just because I thought she was fabulous and she couldn't handle the adoration and the press.

George Tiller was a murderer of thousands of innocents; Scott Roeder, if he did this, is also a murderer of one.

Ad ditional nonsense

Why KIA thinks this is a good ad, I have no idea. But everytime I see it, I think of the Obamacar, our government motors car we've been condemned to buy through a combination of his driving us off a cliff through micromanaging, cap and trade and sell-outs to the unions. So, what does this say-- you can get two rodents on the exercise wheel instead of one? Is that the message? We're rats in a trap? Smaller families through selective abortions? We are going 'round and 'round? Who knows.

Rectal herpes

I write a lot of medical stuff, although not as much as I used to as I get further and further away from my former job (veterinary medicine library). Today someone visited my site looking for “rectal herpes,” so I checked to see what I’d written, and found a 2006 article about what must be one of the dumbest characters in the anals annals of medicine. Not only did he smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, but was also a user of marijuana and meth AND he was a promiscuous 31 year old gay man.

“He has AIDS, rectal discharge, pain when defecating and blood in his stool, pelvic pain, nausea, and weakness. It's the pain, not the AIDS that has sent him to the doctor this time. He has regular anal intercourse without condoms with his "usual partner" who also is HIV positive, and he has other partners.” NEJM, Jan. 19, 2006 .

He was diagnosed with AIDS as a teen-ager (12 years before) and over the course of his disease has received at various times zidovudine, lamivudine, nelfinavir, ritonavir-lopinavir, cephalexin, clarithromycin ethambutol, didanosine, stavudine, and efavirenz. In addition to AIDS he developed Kaposi's sarcoma, oral thrush, rectal herpes simplex and anal condylomas because even with all this medical treatment (or because of it) he never gave up his promiscuity. Then he was treated with acyclovir, fluconazole, and dapsone; for the current problem, he got ceftriaxone and azithromycin. Now he had lymphogranuloma venereum proctitis. A series of lab tests showed he didn’t have gonorrhea, herpes simplex, chlamydia and syphilis--all common among gay men--maybe those bacteria couldn‘t survive the chemical soup floating through his body.

I’m sure that under Obamacare, these careless, do-nothings (except for bath houses, male prostitutes and voting) will have full access to the government run pharmacies, and the elderly and poor will have fully managed and minimum care of aspirin and 7-Up.

Let them drive golf carts

One Oar in the Water, an Ohio blogger, has a good piece on golf carts. I'd been thinking the same thing. Two weeks ago when we were at Lake Erie I stopped at a produce stand. Across the street was a thinly populated Chrysler dealership. The building and out lots looked almost new. It’s not hard to imagine what the taxes from the business, real estate, and employees mean to that area. Every business up and down that high way, all through the county and on into Port Clinton are affected. This is what President Obama doesn’t seem to understand by micro managing this business--how many models, how much for advertising, imports, who can be a dealer and who can’t. Or does he? I believe he has no intention of “saving the economy,” and what he’s doing to the auto industry, and next the health care industry, all the cap and trade nonsense, is just fast tracking us into the waiting arms of the Chinese.

Has the President expressed his sorrow and advice yet?

"The suspect arrested in the fatal shooting of one soldier and the critical injury of another at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting booth today was under investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen, ABC News has learned. The investigation was in its preliminary stages, authorities said, and was based on the suspect's travel to Yemen and his arrest there for using a Somali passport. The suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 24, had changed his name from Carlos Leon Bledsoe after converting to the Muslim faith.

Law enforcement sources said he offered no resistance when Little Rock police arrested him today. It was not known what path Muhammad, a U.S. citizen who is a recent convert to Islam, had followed to radicalization."

Just wondering. After all, President Obama is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. This was his man who was gunned down. He ran for this job, and it included being a war time commander. Does he have nothing to say? Here are his comments at the death of Dr. Tiller, the civilian, the abortion doctor, just in case you've forgotten, comments made before there was any investigation as to movtive: "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence."

". . . today's Democrats really are isolated from the military. Harry Truman had been an artillery captain; John Kennedy and Carter, Navy officers. But Bill Clinton did everything possible to avoid the draft, and Obama, motivated as he was to public service, never gave a thought to volunteering for the military.

Nonetheless, circumstances made Obama commander in chief of a nation fighting two wars." David Broder

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!