282 Shifting the Collection

The letter writing book I blogged about yesterday was found while I was shifting my premiere issue collection. Magazines are terribly heavy and I was lugging them up two stories. Being a librarian, I also decided to put them in subject piles, and they are now all over the floor of the guest room and bed awaiting their new home in the upstairs hall built-in bookshelves (if we had a third bedroom, this would be the door way to that room).

While cleaning off the shelves in the family room, I decided we were never going to use the small, extra microwave we had put down there. We just aren't big enough snackers to warrant a back-up. So I put it on the floor and retired about 10:30 before deciding what to do with it, or the empty shelves.

This morning my husband asked me about the microwave. "Did you open it?" he asked. "No, is there something in it?" I asked eagerly, knowing he sometimes hides presents. He didn't say anything. So I opened it, and there was the package of corn chips I told him to hide from me.

281 Letter Writing

You may think having four blogs is a bit over the top, but I have always written more than most people. When my children were young--before the days of personal computers and word processing--I managed to write once or twice a week to a high school friend, my mother, and my sister. I have boxes of letters that were returned to me over the years from my mother who saved them. They are great diaries.

Letter Writing by Agnes Morton (Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, 1914) is a book I picked up at a used book store, just because I'm interested in letter writing. It doesn't have a beautiful binding, and by today's standards of e-mail dashed off in two or three sentences, it is quaint if not hopelessly old-fashioned. She writes

In a crystal well lie the drops of ink,
And many a pen dips over the brink,
Plunges, then rises, its keen point wet
With a shining drop of liquid jet.
I wonder what story each one will tell;
For 'tis strange what varied meanings may dwell
All in a drop of ink.

Her last section under Social Letters concerns love letters. After declaring one should never tell your heart's desire and hope in writing, she acknowledges that sometimes miles may separate the lovers, and there will need to be love letters. The examples she gives are accepting and rejecting a proposal of marriage, renewing a suit that has been unfavorably received, a proposal indicating a prudent choice, and a letter from a sedate, elderly gentleman.

Pause, my soul, and linger yet;
What wouldst thou do with this liquid jet?
Search out thy motive, ponder it well;
The solemn truth I bid thee tell:
Is thy message one of love, or hate,
Of truth, or falsehood? for soon or late
Thy written words shall come again
To bless or curse thy ready pen.
If loving-kindness move thy heart,
If noble impulse bid thee start,
If clear sincerity be thine--
Then write; and show what power divine
May dwell in a drop of ink.

280 Every once in a while

I find out I did something right. The papers and morning talk shows today have stories about children not getting enough sleep, about parents despairing at bed time, children cajoling to stay up later. I just shake my head. We never had a problem getting the children to go to bed and stay there. I think they were freshmen in high school before they stayed up past 9 p.m. As toddlers their bedtime was around 6:30 p.m. and my peers thought I was crazy.

I recall that my daughter used to wake up about midnight and call for me. So I'd go into her room, pat and kiss her, and she'd roll over and go back to sleep. Finally, one night when she was about four years old I told her, "Mommy needs her sleep; let's not do this anymore." And she never did. Obviously, I was in as much need of reassurance in the middle of the night as she was, and when it wasn't working for me anymore, we agreed to stop.

We had a quiet dinner together as a family, sat together on the couch for reading (no TV), bath, individual prayers with both parents, a good-night kiss, and turn out the lights. Only when we had a sitter was there a problem. They were often teen-agers of the "wear them down" variety. I'd always have to remind them that rough play, hide and seek, or snacking just caused wakefulness. I still think so.

That said, how they sleep as kids, makes no difference in their adult life. It is not life altering. We are born with our clocks already ticking. We have one slug-a-bed and one up-and-ready. Our quiet sleepy child turned out to have a thyroid disorder, and our jumping up and down, rocking the crib kid is still hyper and very high energy.

Our bedtime schedule for our children fit our lifestyle, made evenings pleasant, and gave the parents time together. Didn't make a bit of difference to our children!

279 Game Tables and Great Rooms

According to the Wall Street Journal, great rooms are on the way out, and game tables are making a come back. We have a game table/secretary which we think was made for my husband's grandparents, Stanley and Irma Byrum, when they married in 1906. What makes this piece unusual is that we have a black and white photo of the man who did the intricate inlaid wood designs. It makes me wonder if he was a relative, because I'm not sure why they would have saved a photo of the craftsman all those years. Unfortunately, water was allowed to damage the one side, inlaid with roses, so we have to place a book or lamp over that.

Some game tables are the specialty of Butler Specialty--desks and consoles going for $300 to $1400. Brighton Pavilion has $3,800 models. There are 65 companies now designing and creating game tables, up from seven just four years ago. WSJ article here.

I've never cared for the "great room" concept where the dirty dishes in the kitchen were visible from every angle of the living space. We rejected many condo plans for that reason. It was a popular plan in the 80s and 90s, so this condo built in the 70s was just right. To our surprise, one family here with our floor plan, gutted it and made the entire first floor all open! WSJ says "privacy" is the new ultimate luxary--"a room of one's own."

278 What I like about guys

This is what I like about guys--even if they hate each, they can unite for a common cause. The photos of Gore, Clinton, Kerry and Carter, all of whom have said awful, hurtful things about each other, is just heart warming. Politics and beds, or something like that. Women would never do that--just forgive and forget for a cause.

"The Democrats' top totems -- including two former presidents and a vice president -- preached unity to a roomful of the party's faithful last night at a fundraising bash at the National Building Museum. They were unified in support of John Kerry, their presumptive presidential nominee. And they were unified in contempt for President Bush." Washington Post

277 Mixed messages from Page

Black teen age girls don’t get much respect, even from each other, says Clarence Page, syndicated columnist for a number of papers, including the Columbus Dispatch, where I read it March 26. In Hip-Hop culture, Page writes, everyone disses black females, including black females. He writes that the code words for males includes dog, homeboy, playa, lame, sugar daddy and payload, but for female they are skeezer, ‘hood rat, ho, trick break, bitch, gold digger, and hoochie mama.

Page cites an undated study by Motivational Educational Entertainment (MEE) Productions Inc. which says that urban youth are untouched by positive messages from schools, parents, media and health-care providers about responsible sexual behavior. I found the executive summary on-line, and it was dated January 2004.

Maybe I read it too fast, but I didn’t see anything in the MEE report about blaming Hip-Hop messages, unless Page is using the term very broadly. Also, later in his article he says, We, their elders need to provide someone to look up to, to believe in when he has just made the case that they are looking at the Hip-Hop performers and their marketers for their life style. The MEE executive summary, however, definitely stressed the importance of parents in forming the teen’s attitudes.

276 Soup's On

Each Friday night in Lent we've invited different people to our home for a simple soup, salad and dessert meal. Our Friday night date money is going to the Lower Lights Medical Mission on Columbus' west side.

Tonight it is broccoli soup with onions and mushrooms, fresh fruit/veggie plate, and apple/raisin/date pie with sugar free ice cream. As I was tasting the soup, I complained to my husband about the amount of sodium in commercially prepared chicken broth--38% of the RDA in one serving.

"Why must they put so much salt in it--it costs more to buy salt-reduced!" I complained.

He said, "I feel a blog coming on."

275 Around the world in six shirts

I needed to iron my white linen table cloth for dinner tomorrow night. I think it was a wedding gift, so that makes it about 44 years old. It was probably made in the USA, but a long time ago, we thought things made in Europe were superior, so possibly not.

While the iron was hot (which is where that expression doesn't come from), I decided I might as well do up the shirts and blouses hanging next to the washer. It truly was a trip around the world.

Blue, long sleeve, cotton blouse--Macedonia

Beige with black, red and white dots, long sleeve silk blouse--China

White, short sleeve, cotton t-shirt with button trim--Vietnam

Coral and white stripe, long sleeve, cotton blouse--Indonesia

two blue denin shirts, one about 10 years old, the other new--Bangladesh

I wonder which shirt off my back Mr. Kerry wants so we can stop shipping jobs overseas?

274 For cancer survivors

I noticed in the paper March 24 that there will be a new magazine in the summer called Heal. It will be free and they expect a circulation of 100,000. It will focus on articles dealing with cancer survivors, post treatment issues, insurance, fear, fatigue, etc. Here is the website for Heal--the editors are looking for stories and advertisers.

When treatment is over, a new life often begins. Being healed is when the spirit and the soul merge with the physical self whether cure has occurred or not. In essence, cure is possible without healing, but healing can happen with or without cure.

And thanks to modern science, many are living years with cancer as a chronic illness. Others reach remission/cure but often fear recurrence.

Heal has a sister publication, Cure, which focuses on research and education. It was launched in 2002.

And let me segue here to my new blog In the Beginning which is about my hobby, collecting premiere and first issue journals and magazines. Nothing makes me more unhappy than to walk up to a news stand, scan the shelves, and find a Vol.1,no.2. I thought that happened this week with LowCarb Living, but I wrote about it anyway because I was preparing something on the obesity epidemic for this blog. Then I did find vol.1.no.1 in my collection. Look at my blog links at the right and you can click on it. I have just a few entries so far, and it is evolving as I go, but it will continue to be about my hobby and the exuberance and hope that goes into a start-up.

273 Free Martha!

Web site for free Martha buttons, including the witch hunt theme.

272 Europeans react to the bombings in Spain

Chuck Bearden has posted a thoughtful comment at www.LISNews.com about the reaction of Europeans about the March 11 bombings in Spain. A librarian, he formerly worked in public and academic libraries, in information technology, and now works in health informatics, according to his bio at that site.

“I would go further and say that 9/11, and Bali, as well as something like Madrid 3/11, would have taken place even if the U.S. hadn't invaded Iraq, or even if Bush hadn't been elected. Of course, the invasion of Iraq necessarily changed the calculations of AQ et al. in their choice of targets. It brought new problems, new demands, new reasons to attack here instead of there, but the first WTC attack, and the USS Cole attack, and the African embassy bombings show us that war was declared years ago.

Until the war on terror is over, the question will never be "Will they attack?" but rather "Where?".”

271 Kerryaoke with the liberal press

Maureen Dowd's journalism style has lent itself to a new noun, Dowdification, coined by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. It means, used as noun or verb, the willful omission of one or more words so the meaning of the statement is no longer understood but that the statement suits the needs of the writer in launching an ad hominem attack whether or not the construction is truthful or grammatically complete. Dowdsizing would be a better term, in my opinion.

So I'm coining a new word--Kerryaoke, pronouced "carry-yokey." Karaoke is a Japanese word for a form of entertainment in which patrons take turns singing the lyrics to prerecorded music. Kerryaoke would be the press singing along with John Forbes Kerry, no matter how off key, no matter how "nuanced" his contraditions of his previous stance, no matter how harmful to our battle against terrorism, no matter how many unnamed foreign leaders support him.

I'm relying on Google here to declare myself the first to use this word, Kerryaoke, in this manner. The word exists on the Internet in one record, because there is a guy named Kerry who sings karaoke.

270 Through the eyes of children

This morning our Visual Arts Ministry hung 120 pieces of art of the children of Highland Elementary School in Columbus, OH. We have one of the finest spaces in the Columbus metropolitan area for art, and I'm surprised that artists don't beat down our doors for this kind of gallery space.

Seeing this much kiddy art in such a terrific display can bring tears to the eyes, particularly since these kids don't have a lot of what we think of as advantages in this area. Their parents probably don't drag them to art shows they way we did, or buy them special materials, or enroll them in Saturday art classes at Ohio State.

But the color, shapes, and fantasies just bubble right up and appear in colored pencil, ink, fabric, acrylic, and pastel to illustrate bugs, birds, their neighborhood, flowers, parks, pets, patriotism, automobiles, friends, and just a few things that make you just pause and wonder at the enthusiasm.

If you live in the Columbus, OH metropolitan area, you can see this show at The Church at Mill Run, 3500 Mill Run Drive, Hilliard, OH 43026, upper level. Here's a map.

269 The Constitution

One of the most important things going on in Iraq right now is the hammering out of the constitution. Perhaps this is a good time to look at ours.

Constitution of the United States
Adopted by convention of States, September 17, 1787;
Ratification completed, June 21, 1788

Particularly take a look at the dates, and notice how long it took our forefathers and ancestors (both my German and my Scots-Irish ancestors were in the country before the Revolution, but not part of the process) to get it together after our revolution.

Check it out here at Emory.

Readings and audio for The American Revolution and the Founding of a New Nation, Sunday, June 23, 2002 to Friday, June 28, 2002, Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio, which has numerous free institutes on line with recorded lectures and list of readings.

Ashland University is the home of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs which"was established and named in honor of the late Congressman who represented Ohio's 17th Congressional district for 21 years. Representative John Ashbrook was a popular and forceful advocate and spokesman for limited constitutional government and reduced federal spending. That concept was re-emphasized by President Ronald Reagan when he personally dedicated the Center on May 9, 1983."

Among the offerings at the Ashbrook Center are free Saturday seminars for teachers.

268 The Debate

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." --John F. Kerry, explaining his vote for AND against supplemental funds for troops in Iraq -- the same troops he says Mr. Bush sent in "under-equipped." When asked about Kerry's invitation to debate on the issues, George Bush responded, "We'll talk about that when Senator Kerry is finished debating the issues with himself."

Seen at The Federalist Digest, March 19, 2004

267 Men behaving badly

In the Columbus Dispatch columnist Kathleen Parker wrote "People such as [Howard] Stern and [George] Carlin have built careers out of making obscenity funny, that is, if you're emotionally trapped in a 7-year-old boy's psyche." . . .[who] find great hilarity in body functions and are prone to uncontrollable giggles upon hearing vocabulary that refers to human anatomy."

266 Don't do as I say

The early morning customers like to sit around the fireplace, so my chair was only about 6 inches from the young Catholic (uniform) student behind me. I saw him carrying the bracket sheet for the NCAA tournament being held here in Columbus--the March Madness. Soon Mom and Dad joined him at his table. Cozy.

Then I hear Dad say, "Don't be caught at school with that. It's gambling. They'll crucify you." "Is not," young boy said. "What'd ya pay?" said Dad. "inaudible" son's reply. "Why is she doing it?" said Dad. "inaudible" said son. "She barfed in the trash can?" said Dad. "Oh no. A hair on my roll." Obviously, the conversation was drifting away from basketball, perhaps the intention of the young boy. Later I heard Dad advising his son on which team to enter in the brackets.

265 Woman Behaving Badly

Usually it's men who make disgustingly loud noises blowing their noses. At coffee yesterday I observed an overweight but elegantly dressed and made up older woman walk to the center of the room and blow her nose so loudly, so vigorously, I thought the roof would collapse from the air disturbance. Twice. Then she returned to her table, finished her hot chocolate, and walked out into the snow storm to her car, head uncovered, coat open. So, apparently she's not sick, just rude.

264 Don't tell us. . .

Today’s Wall Street Journal (March 16, 2004) letters to the editor column contained a letter from Tim Knowlton in response to the French op ed piece last week, “Are we still all-Americans?”

“Don’t trot out the tired baseless arguments of unilateralist, of “pre-emptive.” There are soldiers from many lands fighting the terrorists in Iraq. Don’t tell us there are not, it would be an insult to their sacrifice. Don’t tell us the United Nations could have helped, because it shrank from its duty all these years. Don’t tell us that negotiating with Saddam, or waiting through another round of inspections, would have kept him from murder and torture. That’s an insult to the millions who have died and suffered under his rule.

And please stop saying that President Bush lied. That insults the memory of those who died horrible deaths from Saddam’s weapons.”

Other writers were less civil, pointing out the French caving in to various brigands and thugs over the years (VietNam, Hitler), . . .the French are back stabbers, . . . carrying water (I.e. oil) for Saddam, . . .and that le Monde is the official left wing mouth piece of the French government.

The on-line version was even more scathing in readers' outrage at Colombani:

Mr. Colombani has the right to his asinine opinion about Mr. Bush's handling of the Iraqi war. Conveniently he forgets or chooses to ignore that his own country, France, was a willing partner of Saddam Hussein. Therefore the need for them to delay and place roadblocks on any attempt that spearheaded by the United States may uncover the extent to which the French had been in Saddam's bed. Oscar H. Atehortua Sr. - Brooklyn, N.Y.

With regard to "containment" vs. "pre-emption," since when did the French contain anything? If they had not been cowering in Paris they could have pre-emptively acted when Hitler defied treaties ending World War I, and we would not still be mourning the 50 million who died as a result of the European community's fetish for negotiation and conciliation. By the way, Hitler violated his treaties fewer times than Saddam did. Michael Becker - Phoenix

263 Sportswriter loves to read

“If Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated wrote about politics or cosmology instead of about sports, he would be widely recognized for what he is: a superb writer. (For Rushin at book-length, see the witty travelogue Road Swing: One Fan's Journey into the Soul of American Sports, in which he describes a dying television as "a Zenith at its nadir" and compares a golf course in the Pennsylvania hills to "a green silk tie across a rumpled bedspread.") In this week's blog, Nathan Bierma talks with Rushin about reading and writing, sports, and sports writing.” When asked if writing was easy for him, he says:

“I try to follow the rule that the easier something is to read, the harder it was to write, and the harder it is to read the easier it probably was to write.”

. . . “On our family vacations to California when we were kids, I always went to the library, and checked out books on all the places we were going in San Francisco. … My wife [basketball star Rebecca Lobo] and I live in a small townhouse. If we ever get a house, I don't care what it has except a library. I'd like to just sit in a big chair with a goldfish-bowl-sized brandy sifter, and a globe, surrounded by books. We have boxes of books on bookshelves, boxes in our garage. … I was in a used bookstore and picked up a 1200-page biography of Charles Dickens. I will probably finish it in the time it took Dickens to live his actual life, but I will finish it.”