359 Saturday clean-up--pt.1 Getting ready for the painter

When painters paint, they need to be able to get to the walls, ceilings and closets. This means emptying a room. So today I've been trying to find spaces to store the contents of the guest room. I just can't believe that after three years I am still debating about what to do with the gay guys drapes! They had wonderful, expensive, Architectural Digest taste. I'm sure it would look great in a Budapest Hotel (I heard they won an award for that one), but we are beige people, with touches of taupe or cream. Feeling wild or crazy, I might add a touch of moss green or French blue.

And then there are the shirts I'm hiding from my husband which should have made the trip out the door in the Kidney Foundation sack some time ago. I selected three as work shirts and took them to his office. "See these," I said. "They are either worn out, ugly as sin, or they make you look dead." "Oh no," he exclaimed, "my favorites." "So don't you dare drag them back upstairs," I warned.

I had an empty shelf (top) in my closet which I can't comfortably reach. I climbed up--Whew! Really dusty. So I cleaned that off and am stashing the new Martha Stewart bedding (for the after-the-painter unveiling) up there. I still have to find homes for all the Christmas decorations, extra paintings that didn't fit in the other storage areas, and the hat, gloves and shoes I wore on my wedding trip.

I plan to use my parents' bedroom set in this room, half of which is at our lake house. Then I need to decide if the double bed will fit up there with the dresser I can't bear to give up (my daughter's nursery furniture). In my mind's eye, it looks fabulous, but through my glasses, it sure is a mess.

+ + +

I made up a pie recipe yesterday--tastes pretty good on a hot day. We went out to eat with our daughter last night and then had dessert here.

Peach Fluff Pie

Crust: Keebler shortbread crust

Filling:

Peel and slice about 4 or 5 ripe peaches, cook over low heat in 2 T. margarine and 2 T. orange juice until soft. Mash and add 1/4 t. vanilla. Set aside to cool.

Small (.3 oz) pkg. Sugar free orange Jell-o, dissolved in 1/2 C. boiling water. Refrigerate until it starts to set.

Stir in 1 1/2 C fat free sour cream.

Stir in the cooled, cooked fruit.

Pour into pie crust and refrigerate.

I added some Cool Whip, just because I had some on hand, which fluffs it up a bit.

This would taste more "peachy" if you used peach jello, but it doesn't come in sugar free. You could probably use lemon, but I liked the color.

Serves 6

358 Ban the Butts in Columbus

One of the reasons I gave up on the Democrats (a small reason--the big one was you can't be a pro-life Democrat) is that nothing I worked or voted for or supported over 40 years was ever enough for them. Take smoking, for example. I hate it.

We had a white couch for 13 years. We gave it to our son about a year ago--now it is a pale yellow ochre. I shudder to think what his lungs must look like. And I'm thrilled that store clerks and library staff no longer blow smoke in my face while serving me (yes, Ohio State University Libraries staff used to be allowed to smoke in public service areas, not just in offices and cubicles.) I'm glad I can go to a restaurant and not hang my clothes in the garage before returning them to the closet.

But enough is enough my clean air friends and advocates. It's pointless to protest the most recent proposed bans on ALL indoor smoking, or smoking within 20 ft. of a non-smoking establishment. They will eventually want 50 ft. then 20 miles. And the fines and the supervision by police already stretched--$750 for a third violation, will only grow.

How do I know Democrats are behind Columbus' draconian smoking ban? Their footprints are all over it. Take an issue no one can disagree with--cleaner air, safer automobiles, better schools, higher minimum wage, safer streets, better welfare for lab beagles, improved skills for minorities and women and then rachet up the goal, keep it ever moving upward so that those comparative terms, the ones with the -er endings, must grow to superlative endings, the ones with the -est endings.

These folks will never stop. It is a religion. I don't know who their diety is, but I know the name of their devil. Personal Responsibility.

And soon they'll want my fat. Are these folks obsessed with butts?

357 Miscellaneous musings

A national holiday--we have the Farewell to President Reagan on--playing the Navy hymn (Melita) as the casket goes by "Glad hymns of praise from land and sea" or "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand" as we sing in church. President or pauper, that is all we have in the end.

Trying to install drapery rods today. I think we're too old for this. Two ladders, two people.

I switched printers here again. The HP LaserJet 4L has come home and the HP 722C will go to the Lakehouse. Crawling around under the desk looking for cords to disconnect from surge protector, and then lying on the floor half in the bathroom to disconnect and reconnect from the CPU. Like trying to untangle spaghetti. I KNOW I'm too old for this.

More rain today. My artificial lilies and pansies are holding up well. Haven't faded and don't droop.

356 Have you seen Eight Little Indians?

The next time you’re in a public library take a look to see if it has "Eight Little Indians" by Josephine Lovell, illustrated by Roger Vernam, published by Platt & Munk Co., Inc. 1935-36. Other than finding some for sale on the internet, I've been able to find nothing about either the author or the illustrator. I'm beginning to wonder if they are pseudonyms.

I must have read this book 100 times when I was little--it belonged to my sister, Carol. I was crazy about the horse pictures and tried to imitate some of the activities I read about, like creating pottery.

About 10 years ago I found 2 or 3 of the chapters at an antique store, but in rather poor condition, which made me realize the chapters had been published separately, before appearing in book form. Even so, I bought them.

Wednesday I had an urge to go to the Acorn Used Book Store. Instead of first browsing the Ohioiana and children's books like I usually do, I went to the art books. Piled next to them were a stack of these small 10 page, beautifully illustrated books.

I bought the 8 Indian stories, and left the rest (all in mint condition), so obviously Platt & Munk and Roger Vernam had done others. Lovell's name doesn't appear on any of the individual titles (Watlala, an Indian of the Northwest; Gray Bird, a little Plains Indian; Winona, a little Indian of the prairies; Micco, a Seminole Indian boy; Nigalek, a little Eskimo boy; Antelope, a Navaho Indian boy; Morning Star, a little Pueblo girl; and Leaping Trout, a little Iroquois boy.

I would sure like to know something about the author and illustrator.

355 Partisanship in the news

Partisanship is in the eye of the beholder and Peter Johnson of USAToday doesn't see his own. If we were talking splinters and planks here the way the Bible does, he'd be writing in Braille.

Today (June 9) he reports that Fox cable news is partisan because 52% of its viewers consider themselves to be conservatives, compared to 36% of CNN viewers.

But that would make 48% of Fox liberal (or some mix), and 64% of CNN liberal (or some mix), and he doesn't say CNN is liberal, only that Fox is conservative. The audience is certainly more balanced at Fox, even if the news isn't.

I think the figures came from a Pew study, however, Editor and Publisher website presents a different set of statistics also from that study, so who knows?

Political Slogans

I heard a political slogan on the radio today, a joke I assume, that went something like, "George W. Bush wants to buy your vote by doing good things for the country. Don't be fooled."

Also, heard comments on the PBS coverage of the Reagan years which apparently had some footage of protesters and pols after Reagan's get tough, evil empire speeches. The commentator said that if you put Kerry's face on Mondale, who was saying we needed to cooperate with other countries and negotiate, they would have been interchangeable. Also the protestors gathering in Washington appeared to be the same folks as today. Maybe they are.

354 Have you ever read the fine print?

I saw a newsletter (free) on a topic (could be anything--travel, horses, genealogy, publishing) that looked interesting. Now, I know these sites are only fronts for advertising--they provide free information on the internet or sent to my mail box, in order to collect readers, who will then click on ads, and the website receives a return on its investment. It is really just a modern magazine, which for a hundred years has been articles wrapped in advertising for subscribers whose names were freely sold to other advertisers.

Here’s the deal:

It wants my name, e-mail address, some demographics, etc. and recommends I read the disclaimer.

First it assures me that my privacy is very important to this company, and then goes on to explain how very unprivate all this is.

It doesn’t collect identifiable information unless I provide it (by subscribing).

It won’t sell or rent my information to a 3rd party.

It will only use my information to notify me of updates and for marketing purposes (that’s really pretty broad).

It isn’t responsible for the policies of websites to which it links.

It doesn’t use cookies to recognize visitors (but if I’m a subscriber, I assume I’m not a visitor?)

It will assist me by providing on-line shopping opportunities and advertising related to the information I’m reading about.

It will share aggregated research data, such as a my domain name and the Web site pages I have visited with advertisers or business partners.

Now here’s the big one:

as a general rule, it will not disclose any of my personally-identifiable information other than as set forth above except

when I specifically grant permission (like if I forget to check off not to share it) or

if it is required, such as when there is a good faith belief that the law requires it. It is that phrase, “as a general rule,” that sounds a bit squishy to me.

Advertisers or Web sites that have links to this newsletter’s web site may collect personally identifiable information about me. The information practices of the Web sites linked to this newsletter are not covered by its privacy policy.

If I make a purchase from a merchant or service provider listed on its Web site, the information obtained during my visit to the merchant or service provider's Web site - including tracking information, cookies and credit card number and contact information - is provided so that the purchase transaction may occur. Each merchant or service provider has a separate privacy and information collection practice.

There is a hosting company (unidentified) that protects the data about me that this company has collected.

I think the final statement is something about the above not being legal advice.

Everyday we give away our privacy, which is why I'm not too worried about the Patriot Act. We HAVE no private information. We gave it all away when we became enamored with the internet.

353 Curb service

Sunday I was sitting by the window at Caribou about 7 a.m. and a 15 passenger van drove up from Holiday Inn on Lane Ave. (across the street from Ohio State University). There was one passenger and she hopped out, came inside, got a latte, got back in the van and they left. That hotel has a coffee shop and hosts a lot of conferences, so apparently she just had to have Caribou (would have passed a Starbucks on the way). She didn't leave her bag in the van, and carried it inside. I was happy to see it was full of books and not a computer. I thought perhaps she was on her way to the Memorial Tournament (in Dublin), but it looked as though the van was going back east rather than north. Probably a rich librarian (an oxymoron).

351 Government (state) run amok

My husband paints barns (watercolor). He'll slam on the brakes, whip out his camera, and jump out of the car for a "Mail Pouch" barn tucked into a hillside with a little fog rising. The State of Ohio wants to tax the owners of such barns as outdoor advertising. The Office of Contract Sales, Ohio Department of Transportation, will actually waste our tax dollars driving around Ohio's rural roads looking for non-compliant barns--supposedly it generates $1.375 million for ODOT. But it infuriates photographers, painters, and horse owners. These barns probably bring tourists to the area.

ODOT needs to go after those kids blocking streets with their lemon-aid stands. Kerry Yoakum of Office of Contract Sales, shame on you!

350 Rice on D-Day and Reagan

"It's been really so touching. I've seen these elderly gentlemen here, some of them in wheelchairs, some of them barely able to stand, but still determined to salute the flag. And I just have an image in my mind of these young men who sat there, about to cross onto these beaches and about to meet enemy fire. I can't even imagine what it was like.

And it just reminds us, and these crosses and Stars of David behind us remind us the price of the sacrifice for freedom. It reminds us that nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice, that liberty has to be defended.

It comes, as you said, at the same time that we've lost Ronald Reagan, one of the great battlers for freedom. . . I was a young Soviet specialist when he had the confidence, the nerve really, to say that communism would end up on the ash heap of history. At that time, it seemed pretty unlikely. It must have seemed pretty unlikely that this Normandy landing was actually going to succeed and end up overthrowing Adolf Hitler. But when people who are committed to liberty set their minds to it, they can do a lot."

Dr. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor, with Chris Wallace on FoxTV interview, June 6, 2004

349 Summers at Camp Emmaus in Northern Illinois

Today I received the newsletter from the Mt. Morris Church of the Brethren where I was baptized and married, and it included a registration form for Camp Emmaus, the camp for the Northern Illinois and Wisconsin district of that denomination. That really brought back the memories--of homesickness, of being a camper in the cabins, of crafts, singing, campfires, bugs in the food, of working as an assistant cook, of being a junior camp counselor, and of climbing the fence to check on my horse which was boarded at the farm next door. I recall the sights and smells and sounds that only are experienced deep in the woods of northern Illinois--cedar, pine, maple, ash, oak of many varieties, elm, linden, poplar, and walnut dropping piles of decaying leaves and numerous shrubs with sharp points if you get too far off the path.

The mother of one of my best friends, Ada Masterson Thomas, wrote a history of Camp Emmaus in 1979 (1), and the introduction is by Carl E. Myers, the minister who married us, formerly the minister of the Mt. Morris Church of the Brethren. Mrs. Thomas, and her husband Grover, were both wonderful writers who compiled a lot of local history, he for the town newspaper and she for the church and organizations. She reports that the churches of the denomination in the 1940s had rented camp sites for its children, but proposed to find a site it could develop for God’s work with children. First the committee looked at a 160 acre farm 10 miles from Mt. Morris, but the price per acre was too high. Then Robert Fridley, a lay leader in the Mt. Morris church offered 67 acres to which he would retain some pasturing and timber rights within his lifetime. So in 1946 the dream of a camp began 3 miles from Mt. Morris in Ogle County. The Fridley land was part of the original Maryland settlement of northern Illinois of the 1830s.

As I look through Ada’s careful history I see many names that even after 50 years, I recognize--Foster Statler who baptized me, Vernon Hohnadel, a neighbor, Orion Stover whose children went to college where I attended, Earl Buck, a layman from Franklin Grove Church where my grandparents attended, Forest Kinsey who was my junior high Sunday school teacher, Kenny Zellers from my home church, Evan Kinsley, my high school principal and Latin teacher and John Dickson, my uncle.

Twenty seven churches sent 125 members to Mt. Morris to launch a campaign to raise money in 1947. By August 1948, 9,000 man-hours of labor had been donated, and the electricity was turned on and cabins were being built. The first camp of 1948 was lively teen-agers and they all had work assignments which included clearing brush, making paths, painting, and grading a ball field. By 1949 there were 8 cabins and I was attending camp there in 1950, staying in the original small lodge where meals were prepared, and becoming violently ill from extreme homesickness. Fees were $10.50 a week and there was an official list of acceptable clothing which included pedal pushers, slacks, and jeans. Today’s 2004 recommendations are: bedding, Bible, personal items, flashlight, long pants, swim suits, and towels, and fees are still a very reasonable $138.

A new lodge was built in 1951, and one of my earliest memories of it was sitting down for dinner one day in July 1953 and seeing the note on the blackboard, “Give thanks. The Korean War is Over.” The lower level which was the kitchen and dining room was a walk-out with a large fire place at the end. Food seemed to be plentiful with a “runner” assigned to each table to get seconds and extra milk.

A lake was created and later a swimming pool, which opened in 1954. A manager’s home was built near the camp entrance, and I believe my brother and his family lived there for awhile in 1965 when he was the camp manager. The current camp manager, Bill Hare, was one of my camp mates back in the 1950s.

I’m so happy to see that children are still enjoying the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of Camp Emmaus. For photos of the 2003 season, look here.

1. Thomas, Ada Masterson, comp. The founding and development of Camp Emmaus. [Mt. Morris, IL, 1979]. This book contains a list of the original 1948 teen-age campers and their leaders, an appendix of the known plants, and a natural history of the area.

348 I feel like such a slug

On the internet, it is easy to forget how you got to a particular blog or website, but just now I bumped into "All my light bulbs". The author is recovering from brain surgery and posted a list of 11 things she wanted to accomplish while recuperating. They run the gamut from learning Italian, to reading Rule of Four (I think that's how I wandered into her space looking at reviews of that book), to finishing some crochet projects (I haven't crocheted since I was 8) to writing an inspirational book about her experience.

347 He said, She said

The June 1 New York Times reported that Katherine L. Milkman, a senior at Princeton, used mathematical models in her senior thesis to analyze the fiction in The New Yorker. She read “442 stories printed in The New Yorker from Oct. 5, 1992, to Sept. 17, 2001, and built a substantial database. She then constructed a series of rococo mathematical tests to discern, among other things, whether certain fiction editors at the magazine had a specific impact on the type of fiction that was published, the sex of authors and the race of characters. The study was long on statistics and short on epiphanies: one main conclusion was that male editors generally publish male authors who write about male characters who are supported by female characters.” Full story here(requires registration).

I thought this was very interesting, considering my recent rant about how unhappy I am with my subscription to The New Yorker. I don't know how to do statistical analysis but I've noticed the different writing styles in the investment & markets section of the Wall Street Journal between women and men and the stories they are assigned. The males writers are much more idiomatic, particularly in the opening paragraphs, using idioms from gambling, agriculture, sports, horse racing and betting, war, and violence, and the women write much more straight forward, factual pieces. I have no idea why, except I would assume women don't use those idioms in normal, everyday speech, and therefore their writing style is less interesting to men, who are probably the editors assigning the tasks, and the majority of the readers. The idioms give the male style a more gossipy, tipster tone; the female style is sort of dull and school-marmish.

Male writer
“making with big bets”
“ramping up”
“capture a bigger share”
“grease the palms”
“stream of abuses”
“money on the table”
“raising their game”
“blowout data”
“exit velocity”
“road show meeting”
“bidding war”
“bit the bullet”
“took the reins”
“pushing costs down, not a slope, but over a cliff”
Stocks and markets, of course, rebound, boost, rally, plunge, surge, retreat, advance and weaken

Female writer
straight forward, non-idiomatic language
Uses idioms in quotes, usually from men

Male and Female co-authors
some idioms, but non-typical
“dipped into the talent pool”

I'm sure someone has written a senior thesis on this topic, analyzing a huge amount of data and comes to the same conclusion I have.

346 Don't leave the house!

When I got ready to scrape wallpaper today, I decided that instead of my 23 year old cotton slacks and a mismatched $1 t-shirt, I'd wear one of my exercise outfits--a brilliant red, fuscia, orange and lime green stretchy pair of capri pants and a red polo shirt. My, I look fine. And the work is much, much easier. But my husband suggested that I not leave the house.

If I hang on to those cotton slacks another 7 years, maybe I can sell them at Rusty Zipper.

345 Back to the Drawing Board

We finally got an estimate on painting my office, half-bath, and the guest room--over $3,800! When I recovered from the shock, I began looking for another estimate. Our deceased neighbor's daughter stopped by to inquire about something, and I knew they had removed wallpaper and painted the condo to put it on the market. She gave me the name of the painter who they were quite pleased with, so I've given him a call and will get another estimate. In the meanwhile, I've started stripping the wallpaper in the office. He mentioned that he would charge $20/hour for that task, so since I have enough talent to pull wallpaper from the wall, I thought I could at lease get started on that. Also, it will give him an idea of the repair that will need to be done.

When we purchased our condo, the office was the lightest, cheeriest room in the house because all the other rooms were so dark. Now that we've lightened up the rest of it, this room looks awfully dark. Taking out all the books and moving the desk will definitely be no fun.

I put a CD on while working, "The Good Life" by Max McLean. He has a voice of silk dipped in honey. I usually don't find audio versions of scripture very satisfying because after a few paragraphs the words all sound alike, but he is different. Listen here for a minute or three.

344 Home Again

The Lake was cool and rainy, but with just enough sun that my husband successfully painted our cottage. The man amazes me--he has a plan, he does it. This is the fourth time since we purchased it in the late 80s that he has painted our "mauveless" cottage.

I too had a plan--packed all my watercolor supplies, even bought a fresh role of masking tape, several issues of American Artist, and never even unpacked the bag. On Friday and Saturday I visited all the yard sales--there must have been 20 or so within walking distance of our house.

The children at Lakeside seem to grow up like frames in time lapse photography. We see them only a few weeks of the summer. The toddlers we saw the summer of 1988 (seems like yesterday) walking to the kiddie pool with their mom, are now in college and bringing girlfriends along. But some of the elderly seem to never change--just move slightly slower. Our neighbor Les has been a retired Methodist minister the entire time we've known him, and is still playing golf and acting as a supply preacher from time to time, marrying and burying.

We had the opportunity to meet and have breakfast with the photographer, Rob Karosis, who was in town to photograph one of my husband's house designs, "The Healthy House," which will be in a forthcoming book by M. Caren Connolly and Louis Wasserman, architects and authors of books about houses. He will probably take the rest of the year to photograph all the houses (I think the focus is on vacation cottages built recently) so I wouldn't expect the new book until 2005.

The opening program Saturday evening at the auditorium was Sounds of Sousa, always fun, but we left at intermission--it had been a long day.

343 The Failures of PBS's Colonial House

After Jeff Wyers and his family left the village, there wasn't much point in watching, since he seemed to be the only one who really caught the flavor of the 17th century life. Thank goodness for Jack Lecza, the treasurer sent by the venture capitalists, or the colony would have imploded. But I stayed with it--perhaps the only reality show I've ever watched with any interest.

It was so frustrating to see what was filmed and talked about, and know what wasn't. I would have much preferred to see a more complete routine of how hard the women worked to prepare meals than to hear the constant whining of Michelle Rossi-Vorhees. I'm sure she would have been much more impressive as a hard working provider than a pouting church/state activist. If she knew she was an atheist, or agnostic, before hand, why sign up for a religious settlement where you've agreed to abide by the rules?

I would have liked to see what the indentured servant Jonathon actually did to earn back his financed passage, rather than hear about his 21st century homosexuality which just had to be blathered about to millions of watchers who really didn't care. Would you take your young children to a public meeting to hear that? Probably not. But that was his coming out party--the Sabbath Meeting of the colony. How phoney and self-aggrandizing. And how manipulative of PBS.

And in the summary, post-colony scenes, why not more information on the families and servants who arrived as replacements, like the Verdecia family? One shot of people stepping into the shower would have been sufficient.

The voice-over lady. Where did she get her facts? Off a web site built by a junior high school social studies class? It isn't true there were no free blacks in 17th century America. It isn't true that 10,000,000 Africans were enslaved in America (no one knows how many were captured in Africa, shipped and died en route, but overwhelmingly they arrived in the islands and South America to work in sugar plantations). If 90% of all Native Americans died of diseases brought by the Europeans, I don't think there would have been enough left to trade with or fight with.

I'm sure the group who lived this six weeks in Maine with no modern conveniences learned something. I just wish the rest of us could have been let in on the fun.

One comment about the women's appearance: they looked terrific, dirty or not, during the filming and their complexions bloomed. They looked so artificial in the post-production scenes covered with make-up.

342 Two of Too

Two top people are leaving Too Inc. according to today's paper (this is almost a tongue twister). The usual "family issues" are cited as the reason, but an analyst suggests that the anticipated turn around was slower than expected. Too Inc. is a spin off of Limited Brands which also owns Victoria's Secret, but the products are marketed to little girls.

Maybe the guys' daughters were growing up and they took a look at what they were selling to little girls so they could dress and look as trampy as their older sisters. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the "family issue" was an attack of old fashioned modesty and morality?

341 Bill Cosby's Comments

I couldn't have made it through my children's teen-age years without the TV Huxtable family, the pediatrician and lawyer raising five kids and later, some grand children. I still love them on Nick at Night.

Now Bill Cosby's in trouble with the media and some Black organizations for pointing out some obvious failures in the Black community in the post Brown vs. Board of Education world. Shoot the messenger; it wouldn't be the first time.

However, I think Bill should come to my neighborhood and get an earful and eyeful of the white middleclass students I overhear in the mornings at Panera's. They have difficulty making it through a brief sentence without numerous inputs of "like." Like I don't know like how they can like even like keep track of like what's like going on. I think it is a new form of stuttering.

340 The father?

OSUToday, May 21, reports that Ohio State University is starting a vacation donation plan whereby employees can donate some of their leave to others. This had been possible for sick leave for some time. And it makes sense because vacation leave maxes out at a certain number of days and if you don't take it, you lose it. But the wording about fathers is certainly odd:

The vacation donation program, which will go into effect on June 1, will allow faculty and staff to donate vacation hours to other employees within their colleges or vice presidential units. The hours may be used during approved unpaid leaves for reasons such as life-threatening or terminal illnesses. . . The benefit will provide birth mothers with six weeks of full pay and biological fathers, partners and adoptive parents three weeks of full pay.

It sounds as though if the unmarried, or married, birth mother or adoptive mother, knows who the biological dad is, he gets 3 weeks of full pay. No word on whether or not he is doing any hands-on fathering, other than donating sperm. And although I assume this is for bonding to benefit the child, the adoptive mother gets only 3 weeks, but the birth mother gets 6. Call me crazy, but it is the adoptive mother who needs a little extra time for the bonding process, unless 2 years of fertility testing, paper work, trips to Russia and run arounds by birth mothers advertising in the want-ads are considered part of the bonding experience. And what about the birth mother who placed the baby for adoption? Can she get 6 weeks of donated vacation time to recover physically and emotionally? I hope they've worded this very carefully, because the news item certainly has loop-holes.

339 Did these interviews and conversations really happen

or is it the author’s way to get her message out? Peggy Noonan in a Wall Street Journal article May 20 (here with free sign-up) records a conversation with a suburban, female fence sitter--sometimes she votes Republican, sometimes Democrat, and she appears to be luke-warm on Dubya. This voter, whom Noonan calls Anna, was very influenced by the era in which she became an adult--when Vietnam protests were flooding the news. She doesn’t believe any war is worthwhile, unless maybe the enemy were invading Long Island, then perhaps we should fight. (I’m thinking, Are there voters that naïve?) I don’t know. Perhaps there was a real conversation, or perhaps Noonan has created a composite to get her point across. I learned at a recent writer’s conference that this is not considered unethical in memoir and non-fiction writing.

Based on Anna’s politics, which include musings on her adult children and grandchildren, Ms. Noonan concludes:

“If I were George W. Bush I might be thinking that down the road but not too far down, it might be a good idea to start making clear two things. One, why I am indispensable--a delicate thing to communicate, but something re-elected incumbents always have to get across sooner or later. "I am leading us in the right direction and my work is just begun." And the other is to make the case that a Kerry presidency would not be a lunge toward greater stability, that it would not be a "return to normalcy," that Mr. Kerry wouldn't right things but make them worse, bringing more trouble.

A one-two punch: If you stand with me, I'll get the peace and prosperity we seek; and if you go for him it will make the world less safe and the country less healthy.”

Couldn’t she find a Republican to interview who wants George W. Bush to return to traditional conservative, fiscally responsible policies instead of spending money like a drunken Democrat? That might make some waffling Republicans take notice. After all, I have opinions about my neighborhood and my adult children she could work into the story.