September 12

Today, September 12, marks the founding of a small but mighty organization that helped change the direction of our country--the Intercollegiate Socialist Party in 1905. http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/iss.html

It was created to change the trajectory of the U.S. from being Christian to being Marxist. The list of members is quite remarkable, although not all were at that first meeting at Peck's restaurant in Manhattan and in 1921 its name was changed to the League for Industrial Democracy. Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Clarence Darrow, Walter Lippmann, Walter Reuther, Eugene Debs, W.E.B. Dubois, John Dewey, Felix Frankfurter, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

So don’t underestimate a small group of young people with big ideas. They’ve been very successful over the last 100+ years.

Notice the names of the authors of the LID propaganda. http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05266.html

When powerful Democrats like President Obama talk about American values and morals,  I think he’s talking about those of the ISP/LID, and not those taught by Christ.

Murder as cause of death of pregnant women

During the Kavanaugh hearings you saw/heard unhinged women and even a few in Congress claiming women will die if Kavanaugh becomes a justice and SCOTUS is faced with interpreting the law instead of making it up or relying on feelings. Those women should know that pregnant women and new mothers are already dying--but it's from murder. And you don't hear a lot about it. (The article cited is from 2001, although there are newer ones from CDC.) First, most of these murder victims are young and black, and unless a policeman somehow factors in, you don't hear much when black men kill their pregnant girlfriends. Second, over 60% of women who have abortions are pressured or forced into it--obviously, not a good Planned Parenthood marketing slogan. And many who refuse, are killed.

"We found that homicide was the leading cause of death among women who were pregnant ... and accounted for 20% of deaths among that group, compared with 6% of deaths among nonpregnant women of reproductive age," says author Isabelle Horon, DrPH, from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, who conducted a study that looked at pregnancy-associated deaths from 1993 to 1998.

Coming in second, heart disease was found to account for 19% of deaths during pregnancy.

https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20010320/number-1-cause-of-death-in-pregnant-women-murder

JAMA. 2001;285(11):1455-1459. doi:10.1001/jama.285.11.1455 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/193666

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6628a1.htm

September 11

We all know what September 11 means, that scary day in 2001. It was sitting in my office of our home watching TV, and saw the second plane and listened to the amazing TV staff on duty that day.  But in 1988, 30 years ago, there were millions of people who'd been led to believe that September 11-13 (give or take), Jesus was coming back to rapture the church. (And it was the month we settled our mortgage and bought our home in Lakeside which we've been enjoying for 30 years and since we’re not in the group that believes in the rapture we had pretty much ignored the warnings.)  A retired NASA engineer, Edgar Whisenant, wrote 2 books predicting Jesus would return--he sold 4.5 million copies, and enterprising promoters were selling trips to the Holy Land with a beautiful view of the Eastern Gate and Temple Mount. And they ignored, or explained away, Matthew 25:13.

I fell on the treadmill at the gym, Lifetime Fitness, yesterday. I wasn't injured, just hurt my pride. Another woman, also in her 70s, a cute little brunette, stopped and jumped off her machine, and rushed over to stop mine so I could get off. Otherwise, I might still be dangling. If I hadn't been going there 6x a week, I wouldn't have had the strength to hang on; on the other hand, if I hadn't been going 6x a week, I wouldn't have even been on the darn thing!

It’s wild and windy at Lakeside

I hope our new landscaping can hold up.

Anon has been thinking, guest blogger

"I was thinking;
If only 11 million people have Obama-Care, how will 24 million people die if it is repealed? Will an additional 13 million people be randomly shot?

I was thinking;
If Donald Trump deleted all of his emails, wiped his server with Bleachbit and destroyed all of his phones with a hammer, would the Mainstream Media suddenly lose all interest in the story and declare him innocent?

I was thinking
If women do the same job for less money, why do companies hire men to do the same job for more money?

I was thinking;
If you rob a bank in a Sanctuary City, is it illegal or is it just an Undocumented Withdrawal?

I was thinking;
Each ISIS attack now is a reaction to Trump policies, but all ISIS attacks during Obama's term were due to Climate Change and a plea for jobs?

I was thinking;
We should stop calling them all 'Entitlements'. Welfare, Food Stamps, WIC, ad nausea are not entitlements. They are taxpayer-funded handouts, and shouldn't be called entitlements at all. Social Security and Veterans Benefits are Entitlements because the people receiving them are entitled to them. They were earned and paid for by the recipients.

I was thinking;
If Muslims want to run away from a Muslim country, does that mean they're Islamophobic?

I was thinking;
If Liberals don't believe in biological gender then why did they march for women's rights?

I was thinking;
How did the Russians get Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC to steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders? How did Russia get Donna Brazile to leak debate questions to Hillary Clinton in advance of the debates?

I was thinking;
Why is it that Democrats think Super delegates are fine, but they have a problem with the Electoral College?

I was thinking;
If you don't want the FBI involved in elections, don't nominate someone who's being investigated by the FBI.

I was thinking;
If Hillary's speeches cost $250,000 an hour, how come no one shows up to her free ones?

I was thinking;
The DNC is mad at Russia because they 'think' they are trying to manipulate our election by exposing that the DNC is manipulating our election.

I was thinking;
If Democrats don't want foreigners involved in our elections, why do they think it's all right for illegals to vote?

I'm going to quit thinking for a while..."

I haven’t been able to track down the writer of these—it has appeared on several websites.

President Obama returns

Obama raised taxes during a recession, imposed new regulations, spent billions on unworkable programs, ruined the health insurance of millions, racheted up racism like we hadn't seen in 50 years, paid off our enemies, stabbed our friends in the back, created a vacuum for ISIS, weaponized the FBI and IRS against the American people, turned a blind eye to riots and civil disobedience, sneered at our values and religion, created low expectations to guarantee his success, compromised the press, took over the job of Congress when he didn't like their inaction on immigration, and talked incessantly about himself for 8 years. I welcome him entering the race against Trump--it will remind everyone why Trump won.

How Obama blamed backward and forward

Although President Obama complained for 6-7 years about President Bush and the economy he inherited, you didn't hear him mention the recession Bush inherited. Not the falling economy after 9-11, but the 2000 recession. The reason he didn't use Bush's method to restore stability was Bush had used a TAX CUT, not stealing from Peter the employed to pay Paul the unemployed.  Bush’s method didn't give Washington more power over our lives. Democrats hate, hate, hate for you to keep more of your money to make your own decisions.

Specifically, EGTRRA of 2001:

*Increased the tax-deductible contributions people could make to their IRA accounts.
*Doubled the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000.
*Expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit.
*Provided greater tax deductions for education expenses and savings.
*Reduced the gift tax.
*Provided relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax.
*Phased-out the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes so that they were eliminated in 2010.
*Reduced the “marriage penalty” by doubling the standard deduction for married couples. It also doubled the income threshold for married couples for the 15 percent tax bracket. *Those measures made the tax rates equivalent to what the couples would have had if they were single.
*Eliminated the planned phase-out of personal exemptions for those earning over $150,000, and the phase-down of itemized deductions for those earning over $100,000.

And the burst housing bubble of 2007-2008? You can thank the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Our wise politicians actually believed that if you put a low income worker deeper in debt for a housing mortgage, you could lift the family out of poverty with just the appearance of affluence. They new better than local bankers. What? Require 20% down like our first home loan in 1962? You must be a bigot. And they invited speculators in. Sort of like the current education debt, which no one wants to examine, not even Trump.

Do you buy from a woke company?

It's difficult to make choices when private companies are using wokeness to market--like Target restrooms and Nike shoes--just like they've used the gluten free fad and organic label. It's just capitalism writ large. They know their market is the younger demographic who love to wear their politics on their over priced clothing label. But in the case of being woke, it means they are in collusion, not with the Trump administration, but the shadow government and powerful non-profits that have been at the beck and call of lobbyists and Soros' network for years--the Obama and Clinton holdovers, the lower level civil service who make 93% more than a secular job (at the high school education level). There's a lot of loyalty in that woke crowd and not much knowledge of history.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Woke

NFL role model Warrick Dunn

Warrick Dunn explained  why he started working to help families like Watson’s make a better life for themselves.

“My rookie year in the NFL, in Tampa, I was challenged by coach [Tony] Dungy,” Dunn said. He told us, ‘If you are going to live in this community, you want to be a part of this community and give back.’ From that challenge, I thought about my mom and her dream of home ownership, and that’s how it all started. We did three homes in 1997, and now we’re up to 159.

Now wouldn’t Dunn with winner be a better Nike spokesman than Kaepernick, the whiner?

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/19/nfl-warrick-dunn-homes-holidays-habitiat-humanity-deshaun-watson

"Because I have been able to build a reputation as a talented player, I have been able to build futures. Because I am able to play, I am able to make a difference. Because I have been blessed with a talent, I also have been given a responsibility."

http://www.warrickdunn.com/bio.html

THE ECONOMY: The way to make it grow is really simple.

1. You create an environment where people have money to spend on goods and services.
2. You create an environment where jobs are plentiful.
3. To create jobs, you lower corporate tax rates and regulations to make businesses easier to start or grow and encourage them to bring back business they have taken to other countries because they could make more money there.
4. You equalize trade to also make it less lucrative to buy from other countries and more lucrative to sell to other countries, thus making AMERICAN MADE more profitable. This also raises the incentive to keep business in the USA and bring it back here meaning American jobs! (Think steel, aluminum, etc.)
5. When you make America more business friendly (and not via lobbyists buying self-serving votes from congress members for HUGE corporations, but for mom and pop businesses we all frequent daily), those companies can hire more workers, more people are working so there is more money to spend at the small businesses, thus the businesses grow and hire more people.
6. More people working takes them off government assistance which allows them to better their lives and work towards the American Dream.
7. Less people on government assistance and more people working brings in more tax money which can be used for what it SHOULD be for, not to keep the poor barely surviving.

SIMPLE! Takes someone who is a businessman to realize this and make it happen

Obama, as a community organizer, only knew to throw government money at things that needed money. The boondoggle giant Stimulus Program was just spending more and more money but little came back in. Hiring people with taxpayer dollars (shovel ready jobs) are not permanent and while those people are paying in taxes, their entire salaries COME from tax dollars. Thus the deficit grew like crazy and we were worse off. Jobs were temporary so people were back to unemployed, and on government assistance again. Government jobs are funded by taxes, while private sector jobs are funded by business owners. It is THEIR money backing it, and if they succeed, they do well. If they fail, only they lose.

Obama believed in subsidizing everything instead of fixing the problem. Solyndra should have been some PRIVATE OWNER'S dream and they should have been the ones to take the fall, not paid for by taxpayers. Supply and demand. Subsidies mean that business isn't working. To make them work, that business owner/board needs to make necessary adjustments to be prosperous, or shut down.

It's really simple. You bring jobs and business BACK to America. You make it easier to start businesses, not harder. THAT is why the economy, jobs, and the GDP are so good now, not because of Obama's ideas and actions.

Permission to share Jennifer Rymer Krawsczyn

Opinion on Obama’s speech

OPINION: "Labeling the 63 million Trump voters as 'deplorable' and 'irredeemable' didn’t work out for Hillary Clinton when she ran a failed presidential campaign against Trump in 2016. Labeling the same voters as divisive, resentful and paranoid will not work for Democrats in the November midterm elections."

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/07/obama-tries-to-demonize-trump-voters-following-hillarys-losing-strategy.html

Obama had a great line in that Urbana speech

What was that Mr. Obama--the line about you and the media not having the bad relations of Trump and the media?

"Over the past eight years the [Obama] administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists." NYT Dec. 30, 2016

Governors who hate Trump love taking credit for the surpluses, guest blogger

We have a Republican governor in Massachusetts running for reelection.  Governor Baker is a big time Trump hater.  Massachusetts has had two bad governors in a row so nothing gets done other than more taxes and people leaving the state.  The interesting  advertisements by Baker deal with more jobs created (yes, he takes credit for the Trump economic boom) and a financial surplus of one billion dollars. 

Surpluses never happen in Massachusetts.  What is this one all about????  Well, we all know the Trump tax bill allows USA corporations to bring back money kept over seas at a now reduced taxed rate.  There was a news item two or three months ago that stated these corporations had brought back $351 B (Billion).  Probably more now as more time has passed.  It has been a bonanza. I don't think the tax rate is responsible by itself for these actions.  The USA capital investment rate is now estimated to be over 10% (I saw another number at 8.5%) because the USA is growing very nicely while Europe is still growing, but at a slowing growth rate that is declining quickly.  China's stock market is moving downward very quickly as well with a 50% drop vs 2015 and a 20% plus drop since the tariff conversations started.

But here is my point.  The high tax states also have a tax on the monies brought back into the USA.  These states did not drop their taxing rate on the returned monies.  So they all got a wind fall of extra taxation.  So Charlie Baker, governor of Massachusetts., got a 1.2 billion dollar  surprise.  But yet he has the guts to say he did it.  This is just another example of the guts these do nothing politicians can claim and look their voters straight in their face doing so.  Connecticut is worse.  It got a 3 billion dollar surprise.  What did your state get?  95% of the voting public have not an idea of what is going on.

To the brave NYT Anonymous

"The catalogue of Trump’s shortcomings are stale, subjective epithets from nearly two-years of Trump-hating screeds, without any awareness that in terms of actions, progressives like Barack Obama have been much worse. For example, the brave anonymous resister says Trump’s behavior is “detrimental to the health of our republic.” Exactly how have excessive Tweeting, braggadocio, or insults of rivals done more damage to the Constitution’s separation of powers than Obama’s politicizing of the IRS, the EPA, two AGs, the Department of Education, the FBI, and the DOJ?"

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271264/times-op-ed-definitive-proof-nevertrump-moral-bruce-thornton

“According to Bob Woodward's new tell-all book "Fear" and a recent New York Times op-ed which was allegedly written by "an anonymous White House official who we are totally not making up," President Donald Trump is an egotistical, mercurial boob who requires constant supervision by others to stave off disaster.

Yawn.

The accounts may or may not be 100% accurate, but we don't care - other than having a constant undercurrent of mild terror. Because many of us who voted for Trump, however reluctantly, knew all of this about him going in. We weren't really happy about giving the country's reins to a man whose thought process can be likened to a pinball machine, but the only other choice was inconceivably worse.”

   

Stilton's Place (formerly Hope n' Change Cartoons) features conservative cartoons and comedy. You can also visit StiltonsPlace.com online for cartoons AND a funny, passionate editorial every Mon, Weds, and Friday!

Unintended pregnancies in the military

Active duty women in the U.S. military are more likely (one study says 50%) to have an unintended pregnancy than civilian women in the U.S. population (7% compared to 5%). There's no shortage of insurance or education or birth control, the 3 things liberals like to site as the reason we need legal abortion. So why is this? I don't know--but I'm sure there will now be demands for the Department of Defense to pay for abortions.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/militarymedicine/74959

The PR spin on the sex abuse scandal

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dan-burke/must-watch-video-how-to-recognize-judas-in-your-midst

An excellent sermon, but I don’t think many are listening.

Does the Left publish faulty information?

How often do leftist media get it wrong? A lot. Note the corrections on this article about ultrasound which appeared in The Atlantic, "How Ultrasound became political." Jan. 24, 2017. Even the amended parts had to be amended. Do these writers know how to use Google to check ordinary facts (skipping the first 10-20 entries which are always biased)?

"* This article originally stated that there is "no heart to speak of" in a 6-week-old fetus. In fact, the heart has already begun to form by that point in a pregnancy. The article also originally stated that an expectant mother participating in a study decided to carry her pregnancy to term even after learning that the fetus was suffering from a genetic disorder, when in fact the fetus was only at high risk for a genetic disorder. The article originally stated, as well, that Bernard Nathanson headed the National Right-to-Life Committee and became a born-again Christian. Nathanson was active in, but did not head the committee, and was never a born-again Christian, but rather a Roman Catholic. The article originally stated that many doctors in 1985 claimed fetuses had no reflexive responses to medical instruments at 12 weeks. Finally, the article originally stated that John Kasich vetoed a bill from Indiana's legislature, instead of Ohio's legislature, after which the article was incorrectly amended to state that Mike Pence had vetoed the bill. We regret the errors."

The New York Times anti-Trump Op Ed by Jeffrey Varasano, guest blogger

The absurd piece in the NY Times today is an admission that

1) There is a Deep State

2) The Deep State is engaged in a Coup

3) Conspiracies can happen and do so often.

4) The Media often know who the conspirators are and hide
them

5) Hiding conspiracies is effective because there's institutional pressure and an old boy club that successfully keeps 90% of insiders inline and brushes aside the occasional truth teller or whistleblower. The idea that conspiracies can't happen because they would be quickly exposed is nonsense.

6) If the MSM ignores a story, "exposing the truth" has little effect. The truth does not disrupt a conspiracy by exposing it, but ONLY by reaching a high critical mass of attention and that critical mass must spring from an ideological desire plus the courage to buck a trend against often very high risk. Thus conspiracies are not the uncommon thing we have been led to believe. Quite the opposite. This type of conspiracy is as difficult to overturn as any institutional hegemony. Closed clubs only promote the ideologically like minded, so few top insiders have any interest in telling the truth and those few face very high personal risks.

7) The MSM call us "conspiracy theorists" as a trick to discredit us, because they are in on conspiracies. This is but one of many tactics they employ to render mere exposure ineffective.

8) There are many conspiracies from the past that are, in effect, lost to history. There are too many 'facts', too many theories and even too many contradictory 1000 page tomes by well meaning writers dedicated to ferreting out the truth, too many club members, too much destroyed evidence, too much fear, too much time, etc. We have been lied to many times. We can know that. But we can't know the truth. There are no institutional systems capable of certifying "the truth" on many issues.

9) There are many ongoing conspiracies in the present. There are communists, globalists, powerful bankers and hidden string pullers. If pedophilia rings can infect the church on a large scale, they can infect any institution. If global central bankers, business leaders and politicians have global meetings without cameras, they are doing so to further their interests and don't want you to hear what those are. They don't get together for the entertainment.

10) If hegemonies can span generations then there is no reason to think that hidden conspiracies are any different, since they are a type of hegemony themselves.

The Fourth estate is looking more foolish than usual

Yesterday we had media bias at its lowest point in weeks (and they are in the dungeons already) when Kavanaugh turning away from an outstretched had in a room of hundreds of rowdies became the story. Not his amazing ability, not the need for calm and common sense, not even the stupidity of the resistance only having 500,000 pages to look through. And wasn't it just so lucky the camera was pointed directly on a grieving parent he didn't know? Fortunately we had that story about a former Cosby show actor working at Trader Joe's to bring us back to how fine our media are in journalistic sleuthing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/09/05/geoffrey-owens-woman-regrets-taking-actors-photo-trader-joes/1200173002/

Kavanaugh has a heart for the poor and homeless—infuriates the Left

 

"An observant Catholic, Kavanaugh serves meals to the homeless through a Catholic Charities program and regularly attends church at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Northwest Washington with his daughters and his wife, Ashley, who was Bush’s personal secretary." (Washington Post), which buried this item at the end of an article about how Republican (aka partisan) he is. Also "observant Catholic" is dog whistle language for protects the unborn.

From helicopter parents to lawnmower parents

Lawnmower parents go to whatever lengths necessary to prevent their child from having to face adversity, struggle, or failure.

Instead of preparing children for challenges, they mow obstacles down so kids won’t experience them in the first place.

https://www.weareteachers.com/lawnmower-parents/

Bob Woodward has another book

"After reading Mr. Woodward's "Bush at War," it seems to me that the U.S. officials who either approved or participated in passing the information—in documents and via interviews—that is the heart of Mr. Woodward's book, gave an untold measure of aid and comfort to the enemy." And that was 2002.

Now he's at it again. Smearing Trump. He also wrote about Obama's wars but I don't think anyone cared or read the book. Now HE was a Teflon president. I can't even remember how many volumes were in Woodward's exposes of Bush, but I checked our public library at the time and wrote at my blog:

"UAPL LOVES Bob Woodward and Michael Moore. Oh. my. gosh. They must own stock in those men. Woodward's latest book had 15 copies (I noticed the other day they are ALL on the shelf--nothing checked out--just taking up space collecting dust). I think Farenheit 911 had 17 copies (and it has been proven to have so many errors from a number of sources that I'm surprised they hang on to so many copies.)"

The Woodward Trump book will sell well to public libraries--most public librarians are Democrats--more so even than the ACLU, Hollywood and Planned Parenthood. Just go in, check the shelves and ask for some balance. Best to have a title in mind, because they rely on review publications, and librarians write the reviews. You pay for this and deserve something you aren't ashamed to have on the coffee table at home.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

I met the Shaw women through blogging 15 years ago. Four sisters, their cousin and their mother who is now over 90 all bloggers. All were pastors’ wives or teachers or both.  They are an amazing family.  Now they are all on Facebook, so I follow and talk to them there. This post is from Facebook and is by Larisa, Carol’s daughter, whose daughter and Carol’s granddaughter, Lily, was diagnosed with cancer over 10 years ago, had passed the important milestones, and then two years ago had a relapse.  She writes:

September college football, relapse, end of treatment, childhood cancer awareness month!

I head into September conflicted once again. 10 years ago the first September after Lily was diagnosed I charged into the month determined to raise awareness for childhood cancer.

The last 10 years hasn’t weakened my resolve, but it has rocked me to the core. The first go around I was filled with the hope and confidence of a fighter in their first fight beating their opponent. Now bloody and tired we are trying to deliver the knock out punch praying cancer stays down on the mat for not sure how much more we can take.

2 years ago on September 1st I remember feeling almost guilty posting about childhood cancer awareness month as I thought about Lily surpassing the ages of many of the friends we had lost. She was doing so well. I remember telling Deb at a fundraiser I felt we had reached the point cancer didn’t rule our lives.

That obviously all changed Sept 22 of that year with one blood test. Over the past two years I have waffled between thankful my baby is kicking cancer’s butt for the second time and very mad/sad over the fact she would have to deal with this all again after overcoming so much. I’m mad I couldn’t protect her from that. Mad she has so many horrible side effects. Mad she missed out on so much.

Many people say cancer parents are so strong. I don’t know how accurate that is. Often I feel like a stronger person would be able to protect their child from the horrors, instead as a cancer mom I am responsible for making sure she gets to and through every single bit of torture that could kill the cancer and then smile and continue life as if this is all normal.

I count out 20 or more pills a day for my child to take.

When she hurts I offer up not Tylenol, but oxycodone.

I thank the nurses when they hook her up to toxic chemo therapies.

I calmly call over a nurse and doctors when her throat starts closing from infusions.

I have pushed chemotherapy directly into her blood stream.

I kiss her forehead and help them position her as she drifts off to sleep so they can inject poison into her spine.

I sucked dead skin out of her mouth with a small vacuum and hid the flesh that came out so she wouldn’t see how bad it was.

I’ve helped them hold her down to give painful shots.

I silence IV pumps when I can’t take the beeping anymore.

I have stayed up all night to press the morphine button so she will sleep through the pain. Praying she wouldn’t remember the pain and she wouldn’t become an addict.

I have given multiple shots a day into her abdomen. I have asked her younger sister to give her shots too when I wasn’t there .

I have smiled and tried not to act like it didn’t make a small part of me feel inadequate when some well meaning parent gave me a homeopathic “cure” that I knew was bogus, but still made me question myself.

I have brushed out clumps of hair from her head. Twice.

I have smiled and laughed as they have shaved off her beautiful blonde hair. Twice.

I have kissed her forehead and caressed her face with the true intentions to see if she has a fever.

I have remained calm when people have asked what we did to cause the cancer.

I have told her I needed a shower when really I just needed the water running so I could cry without her hearing.

People think cancer moms are strong but we are just doing what we have to do.

I can’t even speak for all cancer moms because while I have done many hard things, I have never had to do and pray I never will have to others.

Explain to my child what hospice is.

Hold her hand and kiss her and let her know it’s alright to go.

Go to her funeral.

Wake up each day and go to sleep not being able to do all the horrifying things that I’m privileged as a cancer mom to be able to keep doing.

The true heroes in the battle are our kids. I am as close to her battle as I can be, but never once have I had to actually take all those pills or head off to clinic finally feeling ok after weeks of feeling bad only to get another dose of medicine that will make me feel horrible again.

While I know as an adult - true friends are hard to come by, it is a hard lesson she had learned now twice that while everyone comes around the initial diagnosis that their lives continue and that when your life is chemo and blood counts it is hard to identify when their lives are homework, boys and sports. Sometimes it leaves you feeling like an outsider just wanting to be part of it.

Or that when you have no hair, it’s horrifying but it’s also hard when your hair grows back and no one understands the battle you are still raging.

So it has taken me 3 days into September to figure out what to say. And I still haven’t. I’m pretty sure no one wants to read a depressing post but it’s honestly where we are right now. So, I still have nothing much to say inspirational other than we need a cure. We need to do better for these kids. We need to better support them and their families. And September is our month as childhood cancer fighters to bring that awareness to the forefront.

I have watched the past couple days while numerous friends have turned FB gold for the kids. Some I know have done it in honor of Lily and that makes my heart sing. We have come so far in 10 years and I appreciate those of you turning FB gold while I have been standing in the corner of the ring trying to figure out how to finish this fight.

So for September if everyone who follows this page could just do one thing to help the kids fighting this battle. Give a hug to a friend fighting. Take a meal to a patient. Change your FB page gold to support the kids. Make a donation (no matter how small) to an organization that helps find a cure or support families. Just one small gesture will make the difference.

Historic site for United Methodists

Sunday at 3 p.m. I walked two blocks to a ceremony to unveil a plaque commemorating Lakeside as an official Historic Site of The United Methodist Church (UMC). The final approval came in June, and the plaque will be placed on the original Lakeside Chapel (now a museum). If you're on our Christmas card list, you've seen this building before. The first camp meeting was held September 11, 1872, and the first sermon preached with 20 tents on August 27, 1873. The first two buildings on the 30 acre site were Hotel Lakeside and the Lakeside Chapel built 1874-1875. But there's more to come in this designation. Now we have to become a Heritage Landmark of the UMC and that might take another few years because the meeting is in 2020. The honor will actually be for a cluster of seven buildings, and our archivist prepared a lot of research on the history of the buildings.

Speaking of Methodists, I've seen some mean, nasty battles on Facebook, even between family members. But nothing beats the Wesley family's political and religious battles of Susanna (mother of John and Charles) and Samuel Wesley back in the 18th century. Both Susanna and Samuel were offspring of dissenters, Christians who refused to conform to the Anglican Church, but they in turn dissented against their own parents and joined the Church of England. But the couple had political differences--he supported King William III and she liked James II. Their political differences were stronger than their shared lives and beliefs (they had 6 living children and 8 deceased) and Samuel eventually changed bedrooms and then moved out. With Queen Anne, they could reconcile and he moved back, but they continued to sleep separately. You know how old political differences divide us. But a fire in July 1702 burned 3/4 of their home and Samuel returned to the marriage bed. On June 17, 1703, little John Wesley was born, and 4 years later Charles Wesley (their 18th child). John and Charles went on to found the Methodist Church, and I've looked at a few web sites (I'm not a Methodist) and can't determine if Susanna ever supported them in this. Independent thinker to the end, she's nevertheless called the Mother of Methodism. (Story source: The One Year Christian History by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten, Tyndale, 2003, Sept. 3, pp. 494-495)

Signage battle in paradise

This summer rainbow colored signs have appeared in the tiny yards of some Lakeside cottages--I call them "virtue signaling" and they speak to "women's rights" (aka abortion), "science is real," (climate change), gender, race, illegal immigration without ever using those words. Since our owner's agreement says no signs, people have been asked to remove them (we don't even own our land--we lease it). Now I'm seeing signs about First Amendment free speech rights. Sorry. This is a private association, and First Amendment applies to the government not being able to shut you up, not an association you willingly joined. The Association also forbids smoking, alcohol, mean dogs, and parking on certain streets. That's what makes it such a nice place to live and safe for little children.

 

Adrienne Ross, guest blogger, don’t bring shame to my memory

“I'm glad I didn't spend one minute watching funerals the past few days. Didn't tune in to a lick of them. And from what I've read, the division that ensued turned what should have been life memorials and celebrations into clown shows. Bring back the days when funerals weren't miniseries on TV starring a cast of characters settling scores. Do me a favor, y'all, even if I become rich and famous, if I should die before the rapture (which I don't expect!), please don't put my funeral on TV. There's something morbid about folks with buckets of popcorn and butter sitting 'round their living rooms watching a funeral. Don't send out invitations to VIP folks who have "earned" a seat at the "event." Don't mention my political party. And don't use my funeral to criticize the president, whoever he or she may be at that time. Just get your praise on 'cause I guarantee that's what I'll be doing in Heaven while y'all are crying on earth--and yes, somebody better cry, at least a lil bit! Ain't nobody got time for all this other nonsense. I won't be leaving behind a set of instructions that would bring shame to my memory, and please don't y'all shame it, either. Love y'all, and thank you--WAY in advance!”

Ms. Ross is a former NY English teacher who now lives in Missouri, writes a regular column, is an author, and an inspirational speaker.

I’m not the only one who collects thoughts

 

 

 

Winding down the 2018 season

Seventy days certainly goes by quickly.  We’re into Labor Day week-end and the place has come to life.  It was so quiet without children.  And I was in bed for 3 days with a cold this past week. Tonight is a Neil Diamond tribute program by Jay White, and then fireworks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1gMGZ5yexw

So this summer we’ve had Elvis, and John Denver, and Karen Carpenter and Neil Diamond tributes.

I love my new hair style (curly perm), even if Bob is less than enthusiastic.  Especially like that I can walk in the wind or rain, quite common here on the lake, run my fingers through it and I’m ready to go. I’ve had a lot of compliments, got one today a month after the fact, which are rare these days.

I’d been having some foot problems with all my walking and exercise, so I looked up the symptoms, thought back to my change in size about 6-9 months ago, and decided to drive to Sandusky and buy an 8.5, same style, and it seems to help. I’m also going barefoot in the house.  Not sure why I had changed to an 8—maybe the 8.5 wasn’t available plus the 8 felt fine when I wore it.  It’s hard to find the shoe style I like—don’t like the ones with mesh.

I went to a great talk on the change in the nutrition labels on Monday and am now noticing—Bob bought me some cans of chicken noodle soup so I could eat something, and there it was!  The rest of the week’s programming looked good too, but I was asleep in the guest room.  A friend said the foreign films were among the best she’d seen (part of a program).

Yesterday I did walk to the rummage sale, and got a great deal on a painting/print (not sure which until we take it apart) by our deceased artist friend James DeVore. Tomorrow everything will be half price, and I saw a small mirror I’d like to pick up to keep in the bathroom vanity so I’ll probably go back.  One year at the ½ price sale, I got an 8 place setting of white china for $5! I can’t buy paper for that. Plus it was lovely. 

Our daughter and son-in-law have been living in our home while theirs is being remodeled, and she sent me a photo of the mums she planted at our condo. There’s no color yet, but it should look terrific later in the fall.   The impatiens had been decimated in a storm.  Looks nice.  They’ll be moving out this week-end now that their house is finished.  Well, finished for now.  In October they are getting new floors, but they won’t have to move out for that.  I think he starts upstairs and works down.  I would love to have our marble tile floors replaced, but Bob says no, too expensive. They are cracked, and there’s no sheen left.

I have to figure out how to use up our leftovers. A neighbor is having something this evening—pizza and we’re invited.   Bob was doing the shopping when I was sick, so we had to find someone who could use the milk we didn’t’ need that he bought--a half gallon of 1% milk. I think Sunday there is a barbeque on the hotel lawn. Monday evening we’re invited to the Barrises for dinner. We’re not leaving until Tuesday morning, but have a lot to do on Monday.  We’re usually not here for the holiday, so I’m watching the schedule and the frig.

On John McCain

John McCain was an adoptive parent. He adopted his first wife's sons, and he and his second wife adopted, Bridget from a Catholic orphanage in Bangladesh. She needed facial surgery and had deformed feet and hands. She would have had a very grim life, or could have starved,  if not rescued by the love of this family. And Bridget did her part for the McCains, too. Her health problems caused them to become involved in charities that help the poor and medically fragile. When Cindy brought Bridget back from Mother Teresa’s orphanage she also brought to the U.S.  a 2nd girl who also needed medical care.  That girl was adopted by one of McCain’s aides.

https://heavy.com/news/2018/09/bridget-mccain-john-daughter-adopted-cleft/

Photo from 2008 campaign when Bridget was 17.

The need for affordable housing in Columbus, Ohio

I just read yet another article in Columbus Business First “Stop being scared of people who need affordable housing”  on the need for low income housing in Columbus—this time to satisfy the need for workers by Columbus businesses and those businesses which might relocate here if there was a solid pool of workers. AFFORDABLE in government housing speak means money has been transferred from tax-payer abc to entitlement receiver xyz, but many in that chain are not poor--they are staffers in government backed programs and agencies (like HUD, USDA, HDAP, OHFA COHHIO) earning good salaries, with excellent benefits and job security, which is why the programs must be continuously expanded.  I looked through the list of agencies, non-profits and city employees who attended the meeting.  Then I looked back through my blog to 2008, when I’d written on this topic. Ten years ago the plea was that good housing transforms lives. And I said:

“Housing doesn’t change lives. Marriage does. Parenthood does. Faith in God does. Employment does. Education can. Art and music can. Pets might. Leisure activities don't. Substance abuse will definitely change your life downward. But not housing. Ask any landlord who turned the keys over to a careless, slovenly tenant. Housing doesn’t create safe neighborhoods; it doesn’t get transportation issues funded; it doesn’t improve health; it doesn’t pass bond issues. In partnership with the private sector, this kind of housing for low income people creates jobs and profits for the construction companies.”

Our first home was a duplex, purchased for $14,000 in 1962.  Our renters paid the mortgage, we borrowed from my father the down payment.  Then in 1964 we bought a second house in a better neighborhood and rented both units.  That paid for both houses and a car payment. If we hadn’t bought that first run-down, sweat equity duplex in a neighborhood on the way down, we wouldn’t be where we are today.  But being a landlord was the pits.  I wouldn’t wish it on any couple in their early 20s.  

My parents’ first home was a small, two bedroom with a down payment from my father’s grandmother.  My parents and the babies slept in one bedroom and 2 men rented the other bedroom, and also boarded there. I think one of my aunts slept on the living room couch.   But with 4 children, they sold it and bought a larger 2 bedroom one street over (3 girls in one bedroom and my baby brother in my parents’ room) and didn’t need boarders to pay the mortgage.  No grants, subsidies, tax credits, just a loan from a family member and a mortgage based only the husband’s income (even in the early 60s, a wife’s income wasn’t taken into consideration on what a mortgage applicant could afford).

According to my 2008 blog entry, The Columbus Housing Partnership (dba Homeport) was 20 years old then and had  developed over 4,000 affordable homes which had served over 23,000 people.  So CHP is now 30 years old—should there be any lack of affordable housing in Columbus?  When the original owners 30 years ago, moved out and up, shouldn’t new home owners have taken their place? The original owners would now be grandparents able to help out family members, right?  Other agencies mentioned in the Business First article were Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (which was founded in 1974),  Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, Affordable Housing Trust for Columbus and Franklin County, and Columbus Department of Development.

I’ve seen real estate ads for Columbus that are definitely affordable, and closer to public transportation than planting a development in the suburbs, but they are all in neighborhoods that need good city support—police, fire, schools, small shopping areas, decent utilities, etc. and none will qualify for various fancy loan vehicles.  I think they are looking in all the wrong places for affordable housing.

A friend accused Trump of showing tendencies to be a dictator. My response

Can you be specific?

He doesn’t even have control of the Executive Branch, over which he’s supposed to reign!

• Supreme Court appointees who will follow the constitution and not their feelings about social justice? 
• Cutting the red tape of long standing regulations that frees companies from the oversight and boot of Big Gov?
• Attempting to undo Obama’s Executive Orders, which is his legal right, and to have a low court stop him?
• Commending the ICE employees, and all law enforcement?
• Attempts to stop voter fraud (again, he’s been stopped by the courts)? 
• Proposing defunding sanctuary cities who won’t follow federal law?
• Taking away security clearances of employees who’ve gone to work for the media?
• Urging the building the wall that was voted on a decade before he became president? 
• Pulling out of a climate change agreement that was never a treaty and never approved by Congress? 
• Calling out the negative stories about him that appear daily/hourly at WaPo, NYT, LAT, VOX, HuffPo, Politico, Daily Beast, etc.?
• Eliminating the mandate to purchase an insurance product that destroyed the coverage for millions and lined the pockets of insurance companies? 
• Criticizing the millionaire NFL players for their phony protest against the police after sore loser Kaeppernick was radicalized by his girlfriend? 
• Being unfaithful to 3 wives? (which would point to many presidents, CEOs, faculty and administrators of universities, muffler repairmen and mountain climbers).
• Saying mean, uncouth things about McCain, Megan Kelly and Rosy O’Donnell?
• Resetting the clock for NAFTA, treaties or tariffs?
• Expecting loyalty from his friends and people who worked for him? 
• Bringing North and South Korea together for the first time since the end of hostilities in the 50s?
• Bringing home misbehaving basketball players, jailed pastors, and Korean American tourists? 
• For criticizing DACA, an illegal executive order by Obama after he assured the nation immigration was the responsibility of Congress?
• For complaining on Twitter that Obama had spied on him, and being right, and Clintons’ lawyer and Weinstein’s lawyer (now Cohen’s lawyer) Lanny Davis was the source of the leaks to CNN which Davis now had to walk back as inaccurate, aka lies?
• For supporting the military?
• For suggesting a space branch?
• For becoming excited about a military parade?
• For the GDP increase to 4.1% second quarter of 2018?
• Working to bring companies back to the USA after the last president assured us those days were gone?
• Criticizing chain migration?
• Moving the embassy in Israel as all other presidents promised but didn’t do?
• Getting a black woman pardoned from an unfair sentence?
• Medical choices for veterans?

This is just off the top of my head, but nothing sounds like a dictator (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez, Castro, Maduro, or even powerful crony capitalists like Zuckerberg and Bezos who control their people with threats of firing if they aren’t politically correct). If anything, the media, the courts, the entertainment industry, academe, lifetime employees of the federal government, departments within the Executive branch like CIA, FBI, DoJ, and the Trump haters in both parties have worked overtime to undo the election of 2016.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a published book listing his faults day by day as reported in the media every day since he took office.  I don’t know how many copies have been sold, but I saw it in a book store that did not have a single pro-Trump, pro-conservative, or even middle of the road title on the shelves.

How to read the new nutrition label

This is the final week of programming at Lakeside, and the director of education uses our own Lakeside "experts" who present fine programming. Yesterday was Wendy Stuhldreher a retired professor of nutrition and public health explaining the new labeling for food (she used a one page FDA graphic issued Jan. 2018 which I've been unable to find). My take away was, "just eat your vegetables." She said it many times, especially at Q & A. Her point was that although vegetables may not be high in protein or calcium, they perform with other nutrients as an orchestra, and all play their part.

She also stressed that vegetarians must find compensatory nutrition because they don't eat red meat. The audience was definitely in the osteoporosis/bone loss age group, so she also stressed calcium, but added that it was an investment we needed to make when we were young because the body starts making withdrawals from the bank of our bones by middle age. For a cheese good for protein and calcium, she recommended cottage cheese.

My mother's generation started that 2% and 1% milk trend (she was 5'1" and always watched her weight), and now my generation is probably low on the calcium reserves that needed the fat content for our bones. I think I continued with the 1% and skim until a few years ago.  Don't give young children skim milk as a replacement for whole.

When I first decided to attend Wendy’s lecture, I thought I knew how to read a label, but there have been significant changes, and we found out why, like Vit. D is now listed, but Vit. A & C have been removed because deficiencies in those are rare. Sugar is sugar on the new label. Fat is fat, and "calories from fat" has been removed. Potassium need has been added. (You can't get enough by eating a banana, which most of the audience believed).

The public health concern about sun damage and advertising about sunscreen has been so successful, we now don't get enough Vit. D and today's children don't play outside as much as the boomers and Gen-Xers. She gave the new thinking on sodium/salt--because more of us are eating out, we're not eating as many vegetables--and it's not the sodium, it's the lack of vegetables.  One woman (very thin) in the audience commented about addiction to sugar, and Wendy said that has not been proven and commented on the difficulty of using control groups for nutrition studies.  But one she did recall concluded sugar was less harmful than other sweeteners.

I know how we all love to read those organic and health food websites, but when doing an initial search, I add USDA or FDA to check the research, aka bibliography/footnotes.

Why would we change the Ohio Constitution to improve drug sentencing and treatment?

The 2018 Ohio Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment is a ballot initiative aiming to change Ohio’s constitution to achieve four goals:

(1) change drug possession felonies to misdemeanors,

(2) prohibit prison sentences for technical probation violations,

(3) expand the ability to earn up to 25% off a prison sentence through rehabilitative programming, and

(4) redirect funds saved from reduced incarceration to drug treatment and victims’ services.

Although it is easier to amend a state constitution than the federal, this definitely sounds like something that should be done by legislation and the court system, not by changing the constitution, especially the part that goes around prison sentencing, and part 3 about reducing the sentence with rehab programing. What an invitation for a cottage industry of poorly thought out programs, millions in grant money to be frittered away.

I attended the programming this summer at Lakeside (and read Quinones’ book, Dreamland: True Tale of America’s Opioid Epidemic) on the drug problems in Ohio. In the 70s and 80s we were active in a prison reform group and a teen rehabilitation program. I can see nothing in this proposed amendment that actually speaks to the problem of improper sentencing, nor which will reduce or redirect funding or reduce deaths.

https://ballotpedia.org/Amending_state_constitutions

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/constitution-amend-with-care.aspx

https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/documents/reference/current/guidebook/chapter1.pdf

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2018/08/23/proposed-ohio-constitutional-amendment-backed-by-facebook-founders-would-reform-sentencing-for-nonviolent-low-level-drug-offenders

I stepped on the scale today

It's adding up. Patio donuts—cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla are my favs; peanut butter on toast; cheese on crackers; honey on biscuits; fried potatoes, eggs and sausage for the breakfast special after Sunday services; the pie lady at the Farmer's Market; bowls of ice cream on the porch with friends; hosting a block party; going to the CIC club for brunch with John and Katie; invites to Arlene and Roger’s peach cobbler. Over my adult life I've lost about 130 pounds beginning in college, but usually 20 pounds here and there (1960, 1983, 1986, 1993, 2006, 2015). And the last time, 2015, it was 30 lbs.! and it's time to suck it up, pull it in, and stop having so much fun.

President Drake of OSU needs to step up

“According to the 23-page report, (see page 17, Section IV, B4, B5) Meyer and athletic director Gene Smith were not negligent in the overriding element of the origin of the investigation. The report also included Meyer telling Smith in October, 2015: “If you hit her, you are gone.” Gene Smith also told the assistant coach he would be fired if charges were fired.

Subsequently, Meyer and Gene Smith were suspended for reasons pertaining to their monitoring and discipline related to Zach Smith and for relying solely on the Powell Police department’s conclusions that domestic violence could not be proven in the first place. As Gene Smith’s lawyer, Rex Elliott, stated Thursday night, Gene Smith constantly communicated with the school’s Title IX compliance officer about the alleged 2015 incident and ordered the OSU police to monitor the Powell police investigation. He concluded that his client and Meyer were suspended solely “to appease the lynch mob.”

To cut to the chase, the six-panel report concluded, Zach Smith either never should have been hired in the first place or fired much earlier than his July 23 termination.

But it had nothing to do with covering up alleged domestic violence (there were no charges).

It’s time for Drake to act and stop the bleeding.”

Jeff Snook, from his Facebook page

Looking for jewelry at sales

For years I've been looking for a black and white or just black necklace. I rarely wear jewelry. I discovered that coral, teal and off white are popular, but black went out a few years ago. So yesterday at the antique sale at Lakeside I browsed all the costume jewelry booths. I found one for $8.50 and one for $20, but didn't buy them. I went back in the afternoon after the rain thinking I'd buy the cheaper one, but of course it was gone. $20 was still available. So I moved on to the soggy (we'd had a real downpour) $1.00 box out on the lawn and found 2 for $1.00 each.

Porch stories at Lakeside 2018

There’s a 20 year old movement of communities and neighbors getting together to tell stories.  The book, The Moth, has become very popular and many communities are forming around the concept of the old time story telling as a social event.

“The storytelling phenomenon the Moth — with a Peabody Award-winning radio show on more than 450 stations around the world and a hugely popular podcast — is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The Moth was founded in 1997 by the writer George Dawes Green — its name comes from his memories of growing up in St. Simons Island, Ga., where neighbors would gather late at night on a friend’s porch to tell stories and drink bourbon as moths flew in through the broken screens and circled the porch light. It has since grown into what its artistic director, Catherine Burns, calls “a modern storytelling movement” that has inspired “tens of thousands of shows worldwide in places as diverse as Tajikistan, Antarctica, and Birmingham, Ala.” “ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/books/review-the-moth-presents-all-these-wonders.html

Last summer, a Lakesider, M.A., decided Lakeside needed a way to capture some of the flavor of this national movement.  The first meeting of Porch Stories which was planned for one of the large gracious porches of our little community was rained out, so we met at the Lakeside Women’s Club—and had practically standing room only! I believe there were three last summer and four this summer. M.A. has her rules—pithy, no more than 15 minutes, created a significant change in your life or beliefs and no questions from the audience to interrupt the flow.

On Monday, August 20, my husband was one of the story tellers, speaking to 115 friends and neighbors at the Lakeside Women’s Club.  Several days later I’m still being stopped on the street with comments and questions. He told about his first year of going to Haiti on a short term mission trip and how that changed his life. The next night, all the story tellers from 2017 and 2018 met for a reception so all could get to know each other.  It was an amazing gathering, and we caught up on three stories we’d missed while we were in Columbus one week this summer and had an opportunity to discuss the “rest of the story.”

Michael Smith, guest blogger, on truth, facts, conspiracy theories and bias in politics

Interesting isn't it? How many people:

- Who can't stand the conspiracy theories of Alex Jones but believe the Steele dossier is real.

- Refuse to believe that the Hillary Clinton campaign was not connected to Russian "interference" when there is clear evidence they paid the law firm Perkins Coie to pay Fusion GPS who paid Christopher Steele.

- Believe Donald Trump committed campaign finance crimes, yet Hillary Clinton did not.

- Continue to insist that illegal aliens commit less crime than legal immigrants and citizens:

1) when every single illegal immigrant has already committed one misdemeanor if they have crossed the border once and a felony if they are repeat offenders, and

2) when illegal immigrants make up approximately 9% of the total population but 27% of the prison population.

- Believe if the Second Amendment was ignored and all guns were banned, there would be no more gun crime but don't accept that enforcing current immigration law to completely ban illegal immigration would end crime by illegal immigrants.

- Believe that one non-NRA member committing a gun crime means all NRA members are responsible, but one Islamist committing a terrorist act does not mean all Muslims are responsible.

- Don't believe a border wall will be effective, but build fences around their property and lock their doors.

- Believe "toxic masculinity," misogyny, sexism and sexual violence against women are problems, but importing people from cultures where these aspects are common is not.

- Believe the real issue in the Mollie Tibbetts murder is not that the murderer was here illegally, it was that he was a male.

- Claim to oppose fascism and racism while engaging in fascist and racist acts.

- Believe for speech to be free, it must be restricted or banned (for certain people).

- Believe it is totally intellectually consistent to say private social media companies can choose their customers, but a private cake bakery cannot.

- Believe that a scandal is only a scandal if the New York Times, the Washington Post, or CNN says it is.

- Believe sexual harassment is always real and the accuser should always be believed without question as long as the accusations aren't against #metoo members - then it was consensual and the accuser is a liar.

Of course, these are prominent features of our hypocritical progressive friends. For them, cognitive dissonance is a feature, not a bug.

None of this - not a single damn instance - is about the referenced situation - it is all about the political position of the person and how best to protect that political position. It's making up rules and crap "facts" as they go along just to keep their agenda alive and moving.

Guest blogger David on the Urban Meyer/Zack Smith domestic violence case

For non-Columbus, non-OSU Buckeyes catch up—the well-loved football coach Urban Meyer was suspended for not stepping into the marital mess of one of his coaches, who also happened to be the grandson of Earle Bruce, another football icon in our community. Gene Smith is the athletic director.

---------------------------------------------

The last thing I’m going to say. . .

1) If you haven't ever dealt with a sexual harassment/abuse case, don't be tempted to repeat the opinions of others who haven't, either. Unfortunately, I have had to deal with several over the years.

2) If you did have to deal with one, did you investigate it yourself? If you did, you're an idiot--that is unless you were trained and designated by the organization you worked for to do so. It is highly unlikely that conducting such investigations falls within the scope of either Urban Meyer or Gene Smith's job duties. They are required to report such incidents and then let the designated investigators handle it (I am assuming, If not, Ohio State is even more mismanaged than I thought).

3) If you are an investigator, were you able to question the victim if he/she wasn't an employee or, in the case of schools, a student of your organization? Unless you are in law enforcement, the answer is probably no. In my situation, having worked in a state agency, I had no authority to question an employee's spouse, significant other, or whatever unless that person also worked for my agency. Now, the Highway Patrol, which was our investigating body, could do so. And I could use whatever information the Patrol obtained.

4) When there is a criminal investigation, many organizations also conduct their own parallel administrative investigations because an organization rule might have been violated. Sometimes you wait for the outcome of the criminal investigation, but you don't have to because the standard is lower. I don't know if Ohio State did that in the Courtney Smith case or not. From what I have read, she did not allow the police to move forward on her complaints. I hope they at least referred her to a local battered women's shelter.

5) As far as Zack Smith's conduct is concerned, there are suggestions that Urban should have known about his visit to a strip club, his sending a lewd photo on his cellphone, etc. It would be interesting to know what kind of procedures the athletic department has in place for reviewing expenditures (it seems to me they should have caught that and dealt with it right away). However, I don't know of any organizations which routinely review what an employee is using his/her cellphone for, even when the organization has issued it.

6) The very fact that most of the witnesses questioned believed that any action taken against Zack Smith was dependent upon the outcome of any criminal charges--and there weren't any criminal charges--tells me that Ohio State hasn't done a very good job of communicating its expectations in such matters. Whoever is responsible for disseminating such policies needs to go back to the drawing board.

-----------------------------

https://www.businessinsider.com/urban-meyer-zach-smith-domestic-violence-allegations-ohio-state-2018-8

https://sports.yahoo.com/timeline-urban-meyer-zach-smith-saga-ohio-state-230126856.html

Since there are media sources and sports figures who hate the Buckeyes almost as much as they hate President Trump, finding credible sources to link to is difficult.  Since Mrs. Smith didn’t bring charges, and it is rumored she often called the police, I’d say Meyer was not responsible to babysit his coach.

How to trace an e-mail address

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-trace-your-emails-back-to-the-source/

“The first thing you do when you hear that email notification is check the sender, right? It is the quickest way to figure out who the email is from, as well as the likely content.

But did you know each email comes with a lot more information than what appears in most email clients? There’s a host of information about the sender included in the email header—information you can use to trace the email back to the source.

Here’s how to trace . . .” And some very detailed instructions.

The NFL protests—a big yawn

The original NFL  protest by trouble maker Colin Kaeppernick (who has 3 white parents and a white Muslim girlfriend) was about police violence against blacks which is a myth perpetuated by liberals, media and those who don't read Bureau of Justice reports. And of course, he needed media attention because he's a sore loser with a bad record and had been cut. How it became a flag and patriotism issue, I think was simply a slap in the face to the fans who pay those ridiculous salaries to watch grown men be violent and run around.

Using rates instead of numbers, a white man committing a crime is much more likely to be stopped/shot by police than a black man. Why is homicide for blacks at arrest out of proportion to their population? The offending rate for blacks is 34.4 per 100,000 compared to 4.5 per 100,000 for whites, yet 42% killed by police are white. Based on that figure, it looks like whites are more likely to be killed by police while committing a crime than blacks. (Bureau of Justice. Arrest related deaths, 2003-2009. NCJ 235385) But when a white man is shot breaking into Jim Little's Cleveland home, no one cares except Jim. If a black man committed the same crime, all Cleveland and Ohio and the east coast and west cost media would be talking about it, ramping up the racism to get more votes for Democrats.

“We are still here” The French culture in Illinois and Missouri—Sunday’s program

Instead of meeting in Hoover Auditorium at 8:15, the Sunday evening program is at 6 p.m. in the Steele Memorial in Central Park along the lakefront.  This week the performer was Dennis Stroughmatt of Albion, Illinois et L’Esprit Creole with music and stories from an Illinois culture I’d never heard of—the French Midwest Creoles who lived in southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and southeastern Missouri.  Stroughmatt  has been researching and preserving the language and culture of these descendants of French speaking Canadians who emigrated to work in the mines for about 20 years.

https://france-amerique.com/en/fiddles-french-and-the-quest-to-save-a-forgotten-dialect/

https://france-amerique.com/en/la-resistance-des-dialectes-francais-aux-etats-unis/

“Illinois French stands halfway between Canadian French and Cajun French. You can hear influences from all the settlers who passed through the area — French from Brittany and Normandy, Irish, Germans, and Native Americans. “

The language is called Paw Paw, but today only 30-50 people speak the 300 years old language. Even 60+ years ago when I took Illinois history in school, I’d never heard of it. Similar dialects are spoken in northern Maine and in Louisiana.

Daddies and babies

I love seeing the daddies and grandpas pushing the baby strollers in the dawn's early light at Lakeside. Someone drew the short straw when the little one woke up. But yesterday about 7 a.m. as I nodded and spoke to the 30-something dad, I could smell the cigarette smoke on his clothing (he wasn't smoking--we're a smoke free community, even on the streets). I could still smell it a block away as I walked where they had just been. Think about the house and car! And the baby's lungs! And think about how that sweet baby learns to associate the smell of cigarettes with hugs, cuddles and daddy.

Joan and her sister Carol, blogging and Facebook friends,  were both school teachers before retirement, and have said, “When I taught school, I could tell which children had parents who smoke because the smell of smoke permeated the children’s clothes.”

So I decided to look it up—if I were concerned, surely someone has researched it.   And yes.  “ Children’s Hedonic Judgments of Cigarette Smoke Odor: Effects of Parental Smoking and Maternal Mood” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783765/

“We hypothesized that children of smokers would like the cigarette odor and prefer it relative to a neutral odor more than children of nonsmokers. Moreover, we hypothesized that children’s preference for cigarette odor would be attenuated if their mothers experienced cigarettes in a negative emotional context. . . . The current findings suggest that early learning about the sensory aspects of smoking is anchored to children’s experiences at home and the emotional context in which their mothers smoke. However, it is not clear how variation in the timing and amount of exposure to cigarette smoke during childhood affects the formation and persistence of such olfactory associations. If these odor associations persist throughout childhood into adolescence, our data may suggest that children who experience cigarette smoke in the context of a relaxed mother may have more positive associations with smoking, whereas those who experience the odor with a mother who smokes to reduce tension may have more negative associations. Whether such associations (either positive or negative) affect children’s risk for smoking initiation is not known. The long-term effects of early hedonic judgments about cigarette odor are important areas for future research.”

Meeting friends at our age

I don’t know about you, but finding new friendships at our age is difficult. Everyone is set in their social groups or busy with grandchildren.   Except at Lakeside.  Tonight we enjoyed for dinner the peach cobbler Arlene sent back with Bob when he went over to chat with Roger, who’s been on the mend from various ailments.  We met them about 3 years ago when they bought their cottage after being long time Lakeside renters.  Ironically, we discovered that in the summer of 1967 we lived on the same block in Upper Arlington. 

Also today, Bob decided he’d just grab a few leaves out of the gutters (while I was napping and couldn’t stop him) so he asked Tom to help him drag the ladder out from under the house, so Tom did, and just ran up the ladder and cleaned the leaves out himself!  Last Sunday our neighbors John and Katy Martin invited us for brunch at the CIC club with other neighbors Richard and Rosemary who are here for 6 weeks as renters across the street. 

Then this morning as we sat down at a table for 4 at the Patio restaurant we invited Jim and Margie Norris of Olmsted Falls (or New Olmstead) who were waiting in line to share out table.  Normally, we would have never met them because they have 6 children and 12 grandchildren, but had come for the week-end to see Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits.  We had the best time, then ran into them again in the afternoon outside the coffee shop and down on the lakefront where they went to watch Bob helping with Kids’ Sail, a free program to help young children learn about sailing. It turned out they’d also stayed in the past at the Idlewyld B & B with our friends Dan and Joan Barris whom we’d met about 8 years ago.

Friday night we invited neighbors Ron and Mary Ann Janke over for ice cream and then went to the evening program, Mike Albert and the big E Band, an Elvis tribute program that’s been to Lakeside to perform over 12 times.  We’d met them about 3 years ago, and the guys are in the Guys’ Club, but Mary Ann and I sat together at a volunteer luncheon recently and got acquainted. Friday there was an open house for the cottage across the street which is for sale.  We ran into more neighbors and chatted for awhile (from NC).  Our neighbor Dorothy Crutchfield was widowed last year, so we had her over for dinner last night.  Although she and Cleo had purchased their cottage in 1974, she’d never been inside ours, although we’d often been at neighborhood events together and they were at out 50th 8 years ago.

Yes, it only lasts 10-11 weeks, but it’s casual and easy to sit on a porch or fall in step on the way to a program. In 2 weeks we’ll all say good-bye until the next summer.

What’s bad is good, and good is bad

Do you ever have the feeling that "science" isn't very scientific? Wine. Chocolate. Coffee. Butter. Fat. All the things we were taught were bad, and now they are good. And now variety which we were all taught was good, might not be?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/dietnutrition/74498

The blog about a miracle baby

Nick wrote this in July 2016, and I just took a look at this adorable baby’s photo at his FB page.

“Here's the real story, in case you've heard. For the last nine months, my wife, Brooklyn has been pregnant with a very sick baby boy. Three or four months ago, we learned that the baby had severe hydrocephalus. Back in the old days, hydrocephalus was called, "water on the brain"....too much brain fluid. Ultimately, we were referred to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where we were told, by several of the most highly regarded fetal specialists in the country, that his condition was dire. The baby's condition was "off the charts bad". It was so extreme, that the specialists stopped measuring and monitoring his brain's fluid level because, at that point, it didn't really matter. The MRI's were sickening to look at. We were told, pointblank, that there was over a 90% chance that the baby would either die shortly after birth or have such severe cognitive impairments that any quality of life would be hard to imagine. We had a meeting with palliative care regarding the use of life sustaining measures, and had detailed, awful, and emotional discussions about the ethics of when we might need to remove or cease such measures - which would result in the baby "passing away peacefully".

Brooklyn relocated to Cincinnati and lived in a hotel close to the hospital - in case she went into labor. I commuted back and forth, while trying to work and take care of Sophie and Lily at home. On July 8th Brooklyn did, indeed, go into labor. Literally, 15 minutes before they wheeled her back to start the C-section, we had another meeting with doctors regarding the use of a breathing tube and at what point we might need to remove that tube and let the baby go to heaven. Guess what?. .the baby came out crying - which was the sweetest sound I have ever heard.

In a nutshell, Charlie Edward Schnarr, stayed in infant intensive care until yesterday - when we all came home. He's seems to be a normal, beautiful baby doing all the things that babies do. He has mild ventricular enlargement, but we can deal with that with checkups. How did this happen??... The doctors said, "we do not have and cannot come up with a medical explanation for what we've witnessed here". Some how, his brain found a way to naturally "clear" the blockage or re-route the fluid that was causing the oppressive "back-up" of brain fluid. During the last week, I heard the word "divine intervention" and "miracle" more times than I could count. Nurses with decades of experience, and esteemed, nationally admired doctors were flabbergasted but jubilant. Because of the "domino effect" of friends, family, clients, colleagues and even strangers praying and asking others to pray for us, I do not doubt that there were thousands of people praying for us.

I'm a practical person that certainly believes in science and medical technology, but I absolutely know, from the bottom of my heart, that God was involved in this. I give ALL of the credit and glory to him. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers, notes of encouragement, cards, texts, emails, and outpouring of love. Prayer is positively powerful. God is real, and he still performs miracles.

God bless,
-Nick Schnarr (from Facebook post)”

Today’s smoothie

A few days ago I wondered if one could make a smoothie with a giant cucumber—regifted. Well, no one said yuk, so today I made one and it was delicious. I used carrot juice, a huge chunk of cucumber with seeds and skin removed, and a very large, over ripe garden tomato. Rather than push my luck and my digestive system, I didn't add onion, but did use some onion salt. It's fabulous. Probably more a cold soup than a smoothie, but it sure tastes good with the corn chips.

John Brennan and the resistance

Brennan has accused President Trump of treason for meeting with a world leader, Vladimir Putin, he doesn’t like and with whom the past 3 presidents have met. He is attempting to undo the 2016 election and destabilize the nation. He is definitely the “leader of the resistance” of the swamp. Why should he be allowed the privilege of a security clearance? It isn’t a right. I had to turn in my keys when I retired from OSU; I did not lose my right to talk about the veterinary library or to talk to the interim librarian or to discuss various things happening on the campus. I have used great discretion in not telling tales out of school—which the Trump haters are not doing. And neither has Brennan lost any rights. He lies. He misused his office and his privileges. Trump did the right thing.

Today's smoothie and yesterday's outing

Carrot juice
organic spinach
frozen bananas
frozen pineapple
fresh strawberries

Yesterday we went out for lunch at Bistro 163 which is a very nice "pay it forward" restaurant in Port Clinton, with Dan and Joan Barris who own the Idlewyld Bed and Breadfast in Lakeside.  Then we went to the adorable artistic/resale/ shop called Lilly and Gerts.  Joan and I had heard her give a talk at the Lakeside Women's Club recently. It's a terrific store, and we all bought something, even the guys.