Liberal librarians aren't enough; must be radical

Do you need a template for every ridiculous thing radicals and anarchists are against? How about the Little Free Library, those cute little cubby holes that allow you to trade books and pick one you like? They hold maybe 10-15 books and can be seen in a variety of neighborhoods. Radical librarians don't like them because they represent the corporatization of non-profits, and other twaddle to obscure to repeat.

 https://journal.radicallibrarianship.org/index.php/journal/article/view/17/32

"LFL® does not seek to determine how many people have actually improved their literacy or increased their access to books of interest. Building a box of books is one thing. Ensuring that the contents are maintained, relevant to the population being served and consistently stocked is quite another."

Having a public library branch a mile away is also no guarantee there will be anything I want to read even if well maintained and filled with TV movies, cook books and soft porn fiction.

Switching to summer clothes

We had some warm weather last week and I guess I got excited. I took my white LL Bean 100% cotton jeans out of storage, and found a huge black stain on one leg. Not sure where it came from--maybe from hanging in the car. So I tried about 4 things to get it out, finally resorting to Clorox right out of the bottle when there was just a faint blue 2" spot. That did it. But they've been washed so many times now I can barely get them zipped. I'm breathing, almost. . .

It would not be a big sacrifice if I had to give them up.  I think they cost me $1.00 at Volunteers of America.  Very nice quality.

Friday Family Photo and Mom's story repeat

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2010/01/friday-family-photo-and-memory.html

An entitlement repealed

A government entitlement repealed. Wow. Small businesses can grow again. Maybe there will be health insurance with deductibles people can afford, and there will be counties with at least one provider.  I didn't know I'd have anything to celebrate, but for dinner we're having beef roast, baked potatoes, fresh salad, strawberries, and chocolate pie.

Reflections on health and the economy

This winter/spring in treatment for shingles (face and eye) I've had a lot of medical appointments. Some days it was my only time out of the house. Today I sat in the parking lot to read because I was a little early, and I counted the health related buildings around my ophthalmologist's location. Ten. I'm not sure I'd ever been in that area of our suburb before 2 months ago, and we've lived here 50 years.  The buildings all appeared to be 10-20 years old--health is a booming business.  I was reading Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal." Buy it for your children.  You need to know about illness, hospitals, hospice and death, and how much it costs.

The evening before surgery the father and daughter talked. She was a palliative care specialist, but it's hard to talk to your own parent and she realized they'd never had that "what if" conversation. It's like the "where babies come from" talk with your kids, only more complicated.  His neurosurgeon told him if they didn't remove the mass he had a 100% chance of being a quadriplegic; if they did remove it, a 20% chance. What makes being alive tolerable, the daughter asked. "If I'm able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV then I'm willing to stay alive," was the shocking answer of this professor emeritus. She had no idea he even watched football. For the rest of the story, p. 184-185.

Dr. Gawande's book was published in 2014. He reported changes in health care and said 1/2 to 2/3 of the global population would be middle class by 2030 and they would be facing (or already are) many of the same problems as the West. So I checked that (he gave no citation). I was surprised to see in a Brookings Report that figure had already been surpassed by 2016. Max Roser reports in 1820 the share of the global population living in poverty was 94 percent while 84 percent lived in "extreme" poverty. By 1992, the poverty rate had dropped to 51 percent, while the "extreme" poverty rate had dropped to 24 percent. Using a different measure of international poverty, the rate has dropped from 53 percent in 1981 to 17 percent in 2011 – representing the most rapid reduction in poverty in world history. 

Why? Capitalism. And that's why the black clad antifa and anti-American rioters who are burning buildings and harassing police are so scared. Without poverty or the threat of it for leverage they have no power. If children are educated and learn the truth about socialist economies, the anarchists lose their hold on them. They must destroy and lie.

 https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/global_20170228_global-middle-class.pdf

 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/amazing-chart-shows-thanks-to-capitalism-global-poverty-is-at-its-lowest-rate-in-history/article/2562224

Religious freedom being restored by Trump?

Is that the Johnson rule? The one that Senator Lyndon Johnson rammed through in order to keep his Senate seat? Back in the 40s? The one that atheists and liberal Christians have used to silence those groups they fear? The one that never shut down a black church but left others cowering in fear of . . . what?

Lots of lefties are confused or miseducated by our public schools poor teaching of history. "Separation" of church and state isn't in the Bill of Rights, but the prohibition of the Congress making laws respecting an establishment of religion or its free exercise is. The British colonies were religion specific--some Puritan, some Lutheran, or Quaker or Baptist, Anglican and mixtures. But we do have a Bill of Rights that demands the government get out of the pew, stay away from the altar and pulpit, leave our religious schools, nursing homes and hospitals alone. Over the years with threats of the IRS, the federal and state governments have increasingly made demands on religious groups--one state threatening to close churches if they didn't provide transgender bathrooms. 

Where the atheists and liberal Christians have protection is our country with at least 35,000 denominations and "Bible only" churches agree on very little. For that reason, no government interference is necessary. Where 2 or 3 are gathered, a new denomination will arise. In fact, stopping government interference is one of the few things (abortion being another) Christian churches have ever agreed on.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/04/trump-marks-national-day-prayer-signs-executive-order-on-religious-freedom.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/02/donald-trump-religious-liberty-executive-order-237888

Federal welfare costs

There's a scary "Anonymous" poster going around the pages of liberals on Facebook showing how terrible the U.S. is in its priorities. Oh, how we must hate the poor and needy, the elderly, the homeless, the Indians and those with HIV. Used it to stir up the riots on Communist Day, I'll bet.

That's not what the Committee on the Budget in the Senate says. CRS identified 83 overlapping federal welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011 — more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense. The total amount spent on these 83 federal welfare programs amounts to roughly $1.03 trillion. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount expended on just 10 of the largest of these programs has increased by 378 percent over the last 30 years. That's why a good job is the best program for the poor and low income, not another government program to fatten the bureaucracy. 

So that was $1.03 Trillion on welfare in 2011. Wonder what it was for 2016? For a list of the 83 programs:
Senate Budget Committee

Repeal and replace

The Democrats are going berserk over the proposed insurance bill. You'd almost, if you'd been asleep for 8 years, think anything had improved for the poor and low income during the Obama reign. The poverty rate in 1983 was 12.8% and in 2015 was 13.5%. We have 123 wealth transfer programs, 83 of which overlap. The ACA was collapsing in 2016 so Democrats could reach their goal--make way for single payer, so the federal government could control more of our lives. Meanwhile millions went without any insurance or lost theirs. The ACA took away peoples' choices for doctors and networks and encouraged others to just pay a fine until they needed it, which if you were poor, would be the smart thing to do.

Book Club titles for 2017-2018

Yesterday our book club (originally formed by a group of young mothers in Clintonville over 30 years ago and I joined in 2000 when I retired) selected titles for the 2017-2018 year. I’m partial to non-fiction, so I’m excited about this list. All will meet at Bethel Rd. Presbyterian except where noted.

September: Hero of the Empire; The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. This will be at Peggy's

October: Being Mortal; medicine and what matters in the end by Atul Gawande. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDdtAiTrwt4

November: Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

December: Hidden figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, now a movie.  Meets at Carolyn's.

January: Worst hard time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

February: Leopard at the door (novel) by Jennifer McVeigh

March: Bad ass librarians of Timbuktu And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer

April: Hillbilly Elegy; A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (he now lives in Columbus)

May: Cod a biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAmVU2WL7bY He wrote a book about Salt, and if it’s anywhere near as good, I’m looking forward to this one.

If you watch Fox News, what will you do now?

What do you plan to do for news that isn't Soros run or a DNCast to get "the rest of the story" now that the sons have taken Fox under (fired the guy who made it great). Do we really need another CNN? Or MSNBC? Those of us who watch Fox know the difference between news and opinion shows.  For opinions you can watch anything on broadcast or CNN or MSNBC that goes by the name of News. It all starts with the selection which reflects the owners, the advertisers and the producers. On Fox all the panel shows commenting on the days events had a good mix of conservative, liberals, contrarians and libertarians drawn from the various media. In the last 2 months the schedule has been rearranged so often, you'd get whiplash.  Tucker Carlson isn't a news show, but he's been in 3 time slots--first Greta's, then Megyn's then O'Reillly's, and if they muzzle him as they've done the others, he'll be no fun to watch.

There are the talk shows on radio (Hewitt, Prager, Medved), but they only reflect snippets of AP, the NYT or WaPo or what's been filtered by the producers and writers. Patrick Madrid talk radio (Immaculate Heart) has a 3 hour morning show (we only get 1 hour) discussing contemporary events, but I wouldn't call it news exactly.  EWTN has an excellent evening news, but it doesn't come on until 9 p.m. Sensible, reasonable. Thorough. And it doesn't slam Christians.

I suppose we could resubscribe to Glenn Beck which we did for about 3 years. We got tired of his survivalist and religious wanderings (a former Catholic now a Mormon, but with little resemblance to either), and at least in the early years of his show he'd have good news coverage. Not sure what he has going on now, but we got bored with the eclecticism and praying on air.

Income of Americans

Don’t fall for those memes and posters on income disparity, all weepy about how awful things are.  There’s household income, individual income by labor, then there’s income from all sources, then by education, or by gender or by race. The rich do have more, but they also pay most of the taxes.  But no matter how you slice and dice it, Asian Americans (40 different ethnicities) do better than any other group, all the way from Indians ($101,591) to Chinese ($69,586) to Pakistani ($62,848) to Bangladeshi ($44,512). (Nielsen report on Asian Americans) And they are more likely to be married, and to have more members in the household earning money, and to have more education.  The difference between Nigerian Americans ($62,086) and black Americans ($36,544) is much greater than between white and black Americans. (Wikipedia)

The CBO household income figures are higher than any I’ve seen elsewhere because it includes all income including government transfers. In 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, AVERAGE household market income of $86,000—a comprehensive income measure that consists of labor income, business income, capital income including capital gains), and retirement income. Government transfers, which include benefits from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, averaged approximately $14,000 per household. The sum of those two amounts, which equals BEFORE TAX INCOME, was about $100,000, on average. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51361-HouseholdIncomeFedTaxes_OneCol.pdf

Monday Memories-- Medical Library Association, Washington D.C. May 15-21, 1992

I arrived in Washington around noon on Thursday, May 14, and was picked  up at the airport, then we rode the metro to a shopping area and had lunch at Slades.  We went to choir rehearsal at Immanuel Presbyterian and also got to see a video tape of the Spring musical.  Really cute.  We saw the famous Falls, after which I assume the towns are named. We ate those yummy cinnamon biscuits in the morning after our walks (surely they cancelled each other out).  There is a very convenient shopping center, Loehmann's Plaza, next door to the apartments where she lives.  Friday we toured Alexandria, an old restored village with lots of cute unique shops. We explored the Torpedo Factory with its wonderful crafts people and had lunch at a little deli overlooking a river (not sure which one).  We shopped on Saturday and bought yummies to eat at a health food grocery. That night we went to see a Goldie Hawn movie, "Crisscross," that was sort of a downer--not her usual comedy stuff.

The area she lives in is really lovely, and Virginia is so pretty in the spring.  She says I missed the peak color, but for one who has lived all her adult life in central Illinois, central Indiana and central Ohio, it looked pretty darn peaky to me! Sunday we went to Boulevard Baptist church where she plays the organ and in the afternoon went to a play, "How to succeed in business."  Karen picked me up there and we whipped into DC on a parkway that Karen knew about so I could register at my hotel and attend the conference of the Medical Library Association.

Washington is such an impressive city--there must be a million things to see and do there.  But the extent of my sight-seeing was one quick walk to the zoo, which was close to the hotel, and a 2 1/2 hour trolly/bus tour around the famous places.  I did get out and walk around the Vietnam Memorial.  It was good to see my friends from the other Veterinary Medicine libraries.  We only see each other once a year, but we have our electronic mail on the computer and a newsletter, so we keep in touch. The group visited the Zoo and talked to the veterinary staff and attended many meetings, none memorable enough to include either then or now!

One highlight of the meeting was when Compact Cambridge (an abstracting indexing service located in Cambridge, MA) took us all the Kennedy Center Tuesday evening for either a performance of the symphony, an opera, or a cabaret.  I saw "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and it was just fabulous.  It was rock, rock-a-billy, gospel, blues, honky tonk, and ballads, all taking place in a gas station with an adjoining dinette.  The actors were so versatile.  We had the best time. After the play we had a chocolate extravaganza, with fabulous desserts. 

The conference met Sunday through Wednesday. The veterinary medicine librarians met with the pharmacy librarians.  In 1993 the conference was planned for Chicago, (see my blog here) and I decided to fly out in the afternoon instead of the evening.  It is just too hard to get going the next day. This year I was back at work for 1 1/2 days, then we had a 3 day holiday, and then a 4 day week.  So I needed a little more adjustment time.

Later in May 1992, the Mid-Ohio  Health Sciences Librarians had their spring meeting in Columbus.

On Wednesday, the Mid-Ohio Health Sciences Librarians met for their spring meeting and we first had a guided tour of  "In Black and White" at the Wexner Center, our very controversial arts center here at Ohio State.  No, it wasn't a show about race, but fashion and the curator was Charles Kleibacker, Designer in Residence in Ohio State's Dept. of Textiles and Clothing (he died in 2010).  The show brings together actual examples of fashion from the 1920's to the 1990s by designers such as Chanel, Dior, Galanos, Givency, Armani and Mackie.  Everything was either black or white, even the sets.  Samples of designer's studios and workrooms were also worked into the show.  One thing was apparent--if the fabric is lovely and the design good, the dress is timeless.  The dresses from the 20's and 50's looked just as good as the day they were first paraded down a runway in Paris.  (Images of Kleibacker shows)

Then as an unexpected bonus, we slipped into a lecture by designer Shannon Rodgers, (d. 1996) who designed clothes for many movies.  He was designing back in the 1930's so he was in his 80's, but his presentation was very interesting and witty.  He was still working for the fashion museum at Kent State.  He did a mini-fashion show for us with three models.  One was wearing what he designed for Rosalynn Carter, one he did for Dinah Shore, and various other famous people. The Wexner Center is so impossible to show anything in, that a special exhibition space had to be designed to fit within the exhibit area, and that was interesting too.

After the show, we all walked to a campus dive/restaurant to have our business meeting.  As 15 middle-age librarians trooped in, all the tie-dyed, earringed -shaved heads turned to stare. We librarians really know how to shake up a place. The food was great.

(Notes on this memory are from my 1992 letter to my parents about MLA and Mid-Ohio.)

Today I noticed this in the American Library Association State of America's libraries 2017 report. All the buzz words that can fit left of center. Did you pass a bond issue to combat Islamophobia, or have a Democrat tell you what is fake news? Have you ever suggested a Christian magazine or a pro-life title and been told there's no demand?  Try asking for a reading list on social justice for the unborn.

"Our 9,082 public libraries play a vital role in such community services as early childhood literacy, computer training, and workforce development. In addition, they provide a safe place for everyone, reflecting and serving the diversity of their communities in their collections, programs, and services. The thousands of public libraries in towns and neighborhoods across the United States invite community conversations and actions that further understanding and address local needs.

Public libraries nationwide are taking action, using signs and social media to proclaim “everyone is welcome”; creating reading lists on demographics, voting, social justice, and other hot topics; partnering with community organizations to combat Islamophobia and racism and to connect with disenfranchised populations; and developing programs to help community members spot “fake news” (such as false or misleading statements, video or images shown out of proper context, dubious statistics, manipulated content, partisan propaganda, or satire) and evaluate information online."

Morning mass around the world

One of the things I enjoy about Catholic mass, which I sometimes watch while riding my exercycle, is the Scripture readings.  There is so much more focus on the Bible in their services. In Protestant services the focus is primarily on the preacher and the sermon. I also enjoy watching/listening to Eric Waters, our former pastor of UALC who now is in Texas, although I would always be a week behind if I watched on Sunday.

 For a long time I watched the services from Australia--which is a few hours ahead of us.  The participants were rather elderly--and it was intended for the nursing home crowd who are unable to leave their homes.  Even the priests limped or struggled.  Then I tried Canada for a few weeks.  Sometimes I visited the Philippines, although the English was a bit difficult. The choirs were very interesting. Today I tried the April 30 service of the Passionists.  I'd never heard of them, so had to look them up: 

"The Passionists of St. Paul of the Cross Province belong to a world-wide community of Passionists, a Catholic religious community founded by St. Paul of the Cross, one of the great missionary saints of the Catholic Church. (St Pauls Benevolent Educational And Missionary Institute Inc.)

The Passionists of St. Paul of the Cross Province serve in the eastern parts of the United States and Canada in parishes, retreat and spiritual centers, monasteries and residences. You can find us in cities like New York, Pittsburgh, and Hartford; in addition we serve worldwide in poor and remote areas of Jamaica, West Indies, and Haiti."

They were joined in this service by a Catholic boys school in the Bronx.