441 Clean up time

There is a web site (free) to check your web page for bad and outdated links. LinkScan/Quick Check is easy to use. However, when I fed it my URL, it found many things to warn me about in my template--something over which I have no control. Also, I had numerous messages about inserting some code inside others, which made no sense to me at all. But HTML is a foreign language to me, so I suppose I don't know all the nuances of the language. Also, it found mistakes in things I had quoted, and I also have no control over those. In general, it was a pretty clean site.

440 They don't make things like they used to--Thank Goodness!

Our neighbor Jack just stopped by and gave us $20 for our wicker chair we bought in 1989. We had put a price tag of $25 on it and had planned to put it in the yard this morning. He's also a client, so we cut a deal. It was part of a 4 piece set we bought 15 years ago for $200. Last night we bought a very nice resin white rocker for the porch and needed to make some room.

This cottage (actually a house built in 1943 with hvac and plaster walls, but it is customary here to refer to a second home as a "cottage") was my first opportunity to decorate something with a "theme" or unified color scheme. We chose the colors cream, light blue and pink/mauve; blue carpeting, and coordinated wallpaper borders throughout--sandpipers in the kitchen, geese in the master bedroom, light houses in the guest room, and nautical things in the bath. The basics of furniture came with the house--desk, couch, bookcase, kitchen table/4 chairs, 1 bedroom suite, and a nice 1930s cedar chest.

It was fun to go to the hardward store in Marblehead and buy things for the kitchen and bath. I bought blue plastic dishpan and dish drainer and mat, a blue plastic tall wastebasket, a blue plastic laundry basket, some small table lamps in blue and cream ($9 ea.), miscellaneous kitchen utensils like knives, forks, salad tongs, scissors, a canister set in blue, etc. There was no Wal-Mart around (I don't think I'd ever heard of it), so I went to a Kresge's in Sandusky and bought valances and bedspreads, and inexpensive,thin towels (dry faster in damp air). I had the fun part; my husband had the hard stuff like preparing, patching and painting the walls and woodwork, left unattended for 40 years and quite dirty.

This is our 16th summer here. I look around and all the cheapo plastic stuff and bargain basement linens are still being used and have held their color. True, the cottage doesn't get used 365 days of the year, but it all has had heavy use.

One item they truly don't make any more the way they used to is light bulbs. We found some light bulbs in a box when we moved in. One bulb we inserted in a floor lamp in 1988 is still working.

439 The Colors of Summer--Fading Fast

I've had my eye on them all summer--the pepper colors in the produce section of Bassett's. There is a watercolor class this week, so today I bought them and will take them to class to share.

Green bell pepper
Yellow bell pepper
Orange bell pepper
Red bell pepper
Lime green banana pepper
Dark green jalapeno pepper
Lavender Eggplant
White Eggplant

I'm taking along a simple white bowl, a dishcloth from the 1950s (trimmed in primary colors), a knife with a wooden handle, and a large onion.

Unfortunately, I never use peppers in cooking or salads. Still, I'm hoping for a pretty painting.

Update: The painting

Summer's Bounty

Reasons to Celebrate a 50th Wedding Anniversary

While looking for something else, today I came across my file of letters, 1980-1990. I wrote my parents once a week, usually, and then would periodically retrieve my letters which my mother saved. It gave me a good diary in the days before blogs. I've been married 45 years, so finding this letter giving my own parents advice and reasons they should celebrate their 50th made me realize we'll be there soon. Apparently, Dad had decided early that there would be NO 50th celebration. His word was law in our family and he and I knocked heads often. I wrote this letter almost two years before the fact, so it was apparently an item of family discussion. I won--they did have a wonderful celebration in August 1984.

I apparently began this campaign in 1980

January 3, 1983

Dear Folks,

I wanted to ask you again to reconsider about having a 50th wedding anniversary reception. I really do consider it an important milestone, not only in your lives, but in the lives of your children and grandchildren. Maybe it isn't the kind of thing you normally enjoy, but it only happens once.

It is unlikely that your whole family will ever be together again (children and grandchildren) in the same location--our ages and locales are just getting too divergent. Julie, Dave, Karen, Cindy and Greg are all adults now, and by the summer of 1984 even your youngest grandchild will be a teen-ager. This would probably be the last time we would ever all be "Home" at the same time. Even that idea may not be appealing to you, but that's not a very good reason to NOT have a get together.

One of the most significant things I remember about Grandad [my father's grandfather] is that he never wanted anyone to have a family reunion, so the only time I ever saw some of my cousins on that side was at his funeral. I think it was the first time I met Sharon [cousin 3 years older than me]. The logic of his reasoning is beyond me--we did all get together, but he missed it.

You were married during the Depression, survived the war years, struggled through business ups and downs, maintained your cool with four teen-agers, redeemed the empty nest with new careers and interests, suffered the loss of your parents, siblings, grandchildren, and helped mend broken relationships. I don't want you to celebrate the fact that two handsome, smart, naive kids got married in 1934, but the fact that those two young people were able to support and love each other and the many people whose lives depended on them.

How about punch and cake at the church, and about two days when everyone tried to get to Mt. Morris at the same time--lots of pictures and memories for my children and their cousins to tell their grandchildren. And if their recall is only that they talked to their 2nd or 3rd cousin whom they never saw again, well, what's so bad about that?

The two of you have always lived around family--you probably don't even realize the sense of connectedness and security that gives you because you take it for granted. But we don't--so we have to settle for a few intense, hectic days once in awhile to have that same sense of belonging. I hope you will rethink your decision not to have a 50th wedding celebration.

Love,

August 25, 1984

436 Thoughts on color

Librarian in Black who writes about technology for the rest of us sends along this tip about a neat cite for determining color for web pages: 4096 color wheel. I don't insert color changes very often in my blog, but I can if I want to.

Saturday evening on our way to our favorite restaurant, I noticed a man standing on top of the water tower, and a tall crane (very tall). The tower was getting a new coat of sky blue paint. Somewhere I read that central Ohio has only 37% completely sunny days. A pale gray would be more appropriate for hiding a water tower. Leaving the restaurant I saw a sky blue Thunderbird convertible, almost the identical color. Very pretty.

Since I've been at the lake most of the summer I haven't had much opportunity to enjoy the new paint jobs in my office and the guest room (done in mid-July). I'm looking forward to getting some pictures hung--I like the butter cream and khaki combination, but it's pretty dull. It's the same colors as the dining room and living room, but because the room is so much lighter, it looks completely different.

The electric yellow walls and the green and black drapes are now history for the guest room. In theory and the names on the paint chips, the walls and trim are some sort of shade of green, but you'd guess white walking past the door. We've got some furniture to move around, (my parents' bedroom furniture from the 1950s will reside there), and then I'll hang the green South Hannah Avenue street sign, where we lived in the 1950s. I purchased it in 2002 when the town was having a street sign sale.

It's back to the lake today. I'm getting minivan-lag.

435 The Ban on Stem-Cell Research? There is none.

I didn’t know Charles Krauthammer had been in a wheelchair for 32 years. He has a bit more credibility in my eyes about drawing a moral line on complex medical research than political pundits usually have. He’s also right to point out the dishonest flailing of President Bush about “stem-cell research bans.”

“In his Aug. 7 radio address to the nation, John Kerry three times referred to "the ban" on stem-cell research instituted by President George W. Bush. What ban? Stem-cell research is legal in the U.S. and has been so since human embryonic stem cells were first isolated in 1998. There are dozens of groups studying them, including major stem-cell centers recently launched at Stanford and Harvard.

Perhaps Democrats mean a ban on federal funding for stem-cell research. But, in fact, there is no such ban. Through the Clinton years there was a ban. Not a single penny of federal money was allowed for any embryo research. In his first year in office, however, President Bush reviewed the issue and permitted the first federal funding of stem-cell research ever.“ Charles Krauthammer, Why lines must be drawn. Time Magazine.

Here’s what the President said on this issue in August 9, 2001, and if this sounds like a ban from a man who consulted with ethicists, scientists, lawyers, doctors and theologians before committing a word to paper, then you need a new dictionary, Mr. Kerry.

As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist. They were created from embryos that have already been destroyed, and they have the ability to regenerate themselves indefinitely, creating ongoing opportunities for research. I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines, where the life and death decision has already been made.

Leading scientists tell me research on these 60 lines has great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures. This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line, by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.

I also believe that great scientific progress can be made through aggressive federal funding of research on umbilical cord placenta, adult and animal stem cells which do not involve the same moral dilemma. This year, your government will spend $250 million on this important research.

434 Which shill is President Bush?

Jerusalem Post's Bret Stephens asks

Pretty soon, the Anyone But Bush crowd is going to have to decide: Is the American president an Israeli shill or is he a Saudi shill? Does he do the bidding of the insidious pro-Israel neocons or of the insidious pro-Arab oil lobby? Is his foreign policy everything his father's was not – and therefore disastrous – or is it an extension of it – and therefore equally disastrous?

Liberal Christians need to start doing some serious thinking too about Israel. The Presbyterians have sided with the Palestinians. And other Christians are doing the same:

Like other liberal Christian churches (the Lutherans, the Episcopalians, the Unitarians, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers) the hatred and condemnation of Israel has grown so strong that advocates for Israel are not permitted to make presentations to these congregations anymore. If Jews want to speak abut Israel, they have to be from the far-Left, and they must come to trash Israel (and help bury it). On the other hand, any representative of the International Solidarity Movement is sure to draw a full house and be warmly welcomed.

And of course, there is the National Council of Churches statement, always out there to warm the heart of a Palestinian. Calling themselves "leaders" is a bit of a stretch. "Echoes" is more like it.

433 Week 8 ends at Lakeside

It's back to Columbus today. It has been so cold and rainy at Lakeside this week my heart goes out to the young families sitting in unheated cottages with 2 or 3 little ones. Our place smells like a damp gym towel, but it is a real house with walls and hvac. I don't usually run the heat in August, but this week it clicked on a few times.

Wonderful programs this week. Lots of music. Last night was an innovative group from Toronto (who will be playing in San Diego tonight--how's that for jet lag?) called called Pavlo. The guy looked like he was making love to his guitar. It was sort of Greek cum Spanish Flamenco.

Thursday night was a real treat with a 5 woman jazz group from Detroit, Straight Ahead, teaching us about the contribution African American women have made to jazz. Beautiful impersonations included Etta James and Aretha Franklin.

August is symphony at Lakeside, so our own Lakeside Summer Symphony in its 41st season performed on Wednesday with Dick Feagler (Cleveland radio personality?) narrating Peter and the Wolf.

Tuesday an amazing sister group, 12, 14 and 15, The Strings of Gold, played violin, viola and cello. Their music was as beautiful as they. Monday we skipped West Side Story (movie). Sunday night a quartet from Findlay, Ohio known as Messiah performed.

Also this week I took "Perspective Drawing" at the Rhein Center taught by my husband. This was his second week to do this, and I was in Columbus with the painters during the first week. He's really an excellent teacher, but I'm afraid I'm hopeless. I never seem to find the vanishing point or the picture plane. Our friend Bev from Columbus helped again, but also taught her own classes in dried flowers and "fish printing." She lodged at the "artists' house" and had a wonderful week.

432 It wasn't Ladies' Night at the Hardball Game

Michelle Malkin was invited to Chris Matthews' show to talk about her book. Instead, she says, she was ambushed to speak about "Unfit For Command," after some cutesy male chauvanism from Matthews about her looks and age. (The sort of thing that coming from a Rush Limbaugh would have gotten a conservative fired.) I didn't see the interview, but here's her story:

"Matthews frantically stuffed words down my mouth when I raised these allegations made in Unfit for Command that Kerry's wounds might have been self-inflicted. In his ill-informed and ideologically warped mind, this transmogrified into me accusing Kerry of "shooting himself on purpose" to get an award.

I repeated that the allegations involved whether the injuries were "self inflicted wounds." I DID NOT SAY HE SHOT HIMSELF ON PURPOSE and Chris Matthews knows it.

. . . Only someone who had not read Unfit for Command would interpret what I was saying the way Matthews did. The book raises questions by vets, many of whom were with Kerry, about whether there was or wasn't enemy fire during the Dec. 1968 incident that led to his first Purple Heart."

She was tossed from the show during the second half and never got to talk about her book. She concludes:

"What I take away from all this is that the Democrat Party waterboys in the media are in full desperation mode. I have now witnessed firsthand and up close (Matthews' spittle nearly hit me in the face) how the pressure from alternative media sources--the blogosphere, conservative Internet forums, talk radio, Regnery Publishing, FOX News, etc. --is driving these people absolutely batty."

She provides links to the show transcript. Her new book is In Defense of Internment.

Update: As of 9:18 on Aug. 21 Malkin had 99 trackbacks (to other blogs) for her article about the Matthews ambush.

431 Best College Libraries

You'll need to buy it or subscribe to see the whole list, but the Princeton Review does include the top 5 (great library) and the bottom 5 (This is a library?) college libraries at the on-line site, for The Best 357 College Rankings.

I checked my Alma Mater (U. of I. at Champaign-Urbana) and see it is #1 for having too many classes taught by grad assistants. Things haven't changed much, I guess. Actually, because I was a foreign language major, I had mostly regular professors. In Library School, I can only recall an occasional PhD candidate as a teacher, and they were pretty good. Many years later I took entry level math (not required when I was an undergrad) and had an excellent grad student who was a high school teacher of math. He was outstanding because he knew how to teach.

430 What's for dinner?

“A world devoid of tomato soup, tomato sauce, tomato ketchup and tomato paste is hard to visualize. Could the tin and processed food industries have got where they have without the benefit of the tomato compounds which colour, flavour, thicken and conceal so many deficiencies? How did the Italians eat spaghetti before the advent of the tomato? Was there such a thing as tomato-less Neapolitan pizza?” Elizabeth David (1913-1992) An Omelette and a Glass of Wine Food Reference.com

Tonight I'm fixing lasagne out of a box. It's a brand I haven't used before--one skillet dinner. Toss a salad, cut up some fruit, and we're ready for a feast.

429 Reading through a favorite magazine

Except for the issue on exotic homes, I love reading Architectural Digest. It can amuse, amaze and appease me for hours. For instance, in the September issue there is an ad for a 10,000 sq. ft. Tuscan Villa in St. Louis for $1.6 million. It is gorgeous--built in 1912. Built around the same time was a cottage on our street with a fraction of the space and no permanent interior walls or heating system. It is really cute as cottages go and has a view of Lake Erie. Its price is $850,000. Per square foot, the Tuscan Villa is certainly a better deal.

* * *

"We didn't speak a word of English when we came here". . . the first year was rough. . .he got over the language barrier through television. "I had no friends. . .I'd choose certain words and practice them in front of the mirror. My role model was Ricky Ricardo." Samuel Botero, b. 1945 in Colombia, an immigrant who rose to be a top international designer, pp. 136-137. It's fortunate that modern education theorists didn't get ahold of him and cripple his initiative and English. I love inspiring stories about immigrants.

* * *

One other thing gay men have in common with straight men is the "trophy" partner. Looking through AD, I often see gay partners (both in work and life) where one is about 20-25 years older than the other, just like their straight clients. Some of the women designers appear to do it in reverse, and have a wealthy older husband to cuddle up to and to finance their business.

428 Bloggers for Bush

This is not my list; I don’t write a political blog--and some on this list don't either, but they seem to support Bush. It resides over a Captain’s Quarters, and that seems to be about all he does. But I noticed this blogroll and thought it might be a useful list. There are probably triple or quadruple this number of blogs against Bush.

Blogs for Bush Blogroll
Little Tiny LiesPara-Bellum.Net
Captain's Quarters
Knowledge Is Power
Broken Masterpieces
Red Line Rants
Slings and Arrows
KalblogRight On Red
Cry Freedom
Incite
MJG’s Political Blog
Mark A. Kilmer's Political Annotation
DANEgerous Weblog
Ipse Dixit
Pardon My English
Sisu
The Evangelical Outpost
The Doggy Diaries
PoliBlog
Blogs For Bush
OkieMinnie Me
Bush Over Kerry
Patriot Paradox
Slant Point

427 A Few Good Women

Claire is a PhD student in 17th century studies who blogs her thoughts about gender, academe and the English language (her job that supports her studies, as near as I can tell). She works as a Language Centre Assistant, Durham University, cataloguing, digitalising and organising language materials which makes her sound a lot like a librarian (to me, anyway). She is British, but has worked in Italy and speaks fluent Italian.

Amy Ridenour works for a Washington DC think tank, The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative/free-market public policy foundation located just a little bit north of the U.S. Senate. She blogs about “anything of interest to our staff and the many interesting people we work with and talk to.”

Today she comments that “I haven't actually counted the news articles, but it looks to me as though MoveOn.org's new ad about the swift boat veterans ad is getting more establishment media coverage than the swift boat veterans got when they unveiled their ad.” Now there’s a surprise.

Miss Apropos is a “Navy granddaughter, an Army brat, an Air Force spouse, and a Marine Mom.” Woman, I salute you! On August 16 she posted this, which she found here and probably defines her politics:
. .
Here is a perfect way to start your day.

1. Open a new file in your PC.
2. Name it "John Kerry."
3. Send it to the trash.
4. Empty the trash.
5. Your PC will ask you, "do you really want to get rid of John Kerry?"
6. Answer calmly, "yes," and press the mouse button firmly.
7. Feel better don't you?

It could work, she says, for "Michael Moore," "The United Nations," "Madonna," "[Insert First Name Here] Baldwin," ohhh, the list is ENDLESS!

Ambra is a very young black, conservative Christian who yesterday blogged about the “Oreo Barbie” that was recalled (she thought that marketing team should be fired.) She’s written a long three-parter on “Why I am a Republican.”

I'll write more later. Have to run to art class.

426 The Olympics

I've added a new blogger, Pejman Yousefzadeh, to my blogroll. He is so prolific that his bio on the web ran about 10 pages with photos of the hospital where he was born and the elementary school he attended. He is a first generation American of a Jewish Iranian heritage. I liked the August 16 entry about the American Olympic basketball loss:

“I don't want these people representing me. Bring back the amateurs. Bring back the college players. They know that the name on the front is more important than the name on the back.”

425 Kerry's Revised Budget Plan

A former campaign aide for McCain’s 2000 Presidential bid, notes this interesting media failing in this campaign:

"One of the more curious developments in the presidential campaign is that the media has a strikingly different standard for Democratic and Republican candidates. Senator Kerry litters his stump speeches with countless proposals, but even now, has not provided voters with a careful accounting of how his plan fits together. That job has been left to others."

Kevin Hassett steps in to correct this and provides the links and analysis here, and goes on to summarize:

“. . . the net increase in the deficit associated with Kerry's proposals is on the order of $2.2 trillion. . . . Senator Kerry's health care proposals. . . would add more than $900 billion in federal outlays. Education expenditure accounts for nearly one quarter of Kerry's new spending, with almost $500 billion added over ten years. A $400 billion expansion of military personnel and benefits for veterans comprises most of the remainder of Kerry's spending plans, with the balance distributed among numerous social programs and increases in international aid. . . . [Kerry and surrogates] repeatedly have made the claim that they will restore fiscal discipline if elected. They have also promised to adopt a "pay as you go" rule that will guarantee deficit reductions. But they do this at the same time that they promise voters the moon and the stars."

With tech stocks tanking in the past month or so, as they did in 2000, I wonder if Kerry is elected, will the Democrats blame him for a slump that took place before he took office? Well, obviously not, but just thought I'd ask.

424 Conservative Foundations on the Increase

If you set up a foundation to protect your assets and continue your good works, the next generation or the board of directors would probably undo your plans:

. . .organized philanthropy, like the academic world, remains firmly in the grip of orthodox liberalism. Among the largest foundations in the United States, liberal foundations have been well represented by such stalwarts as the Ford, Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations, the Carnegie Corporation and the Pew Charitable Trusts--which list combined assets of some $25 billion and annual expenditures of more than $1.2 billion. By contrast, there is not now, nor has there been in the recent past, a conservatively oriented foundation with sufficient assets to make this list. These liberal foundations alone outspend the main conservative foundations by a factor of at least 10 to 1. When smaller foundations--like the Heinz Foundations--are added to the list, the disparity is more like 20 to 1. CRC News, July 21, 2004

It's not that conservatives don't set up foundations--they earn the money in a capitalist system, then their heirs do all they can to undo the system. So if the left were successful in making this a completely socialist planned economy, eventually we'd have no philanthropies at all. They would have killed their golden goose! The report goes on to point out what a little money and good ideas can do:

The conservative investment in ideas, though modest by liberal standards, has paid large dividends. There exists today, in contrast to the 1970s, an impressive network of think tanks, journals and university programs supported by conservative foundations, which are engaged in different ways in promoting the cause of liberty and limited government. As a result, there is now a robust debate in American intellectual life between conservatives and liberals. The one-sided debate, dominated by the left, is a thing of the past.

423 The Imbalance of Fame

There is an article about blogs and their influence in the August 2004 issue of Wired. (I'm practicing putting the subject and verb first in my opening sentences as instructed at a journalism tool kit site.) I saw a phrase that shocked me--"the imbalance of fame." The clear, fold-out chart was in Wired's favorite colors--lime-green yellow and cobalt blue with a hint of thalo, lined in cadmium red with a touch of simple black.*

Apparently, the "inbound" links are now the thing to watch. Slashdot is way behind New York Times in visits, but is 5th in the chart of inbound links--more than Fox News and Reuters. Anyway, why shouldn't the government correct this imbalance of fame just as it does the wealth imbalance? Why can't I have, by government regulation, some of the cache of the NYT or Slashdot blog sites, even if they have more inbound links? My readers, Sylvia, my sister, Bev, Adrienne, Greg, Michael, Sherry, Hip Liz and the rest are no less important than those thousands who click to all the news that fits. After all, NYT had a head start, so I should be moved up just because of my lack of experience, education and staff to even out the odds. Oh yes, and my gender and age.

Why should I be struggling down in zone 5 when CNN, WP, Wired, Salon and Instapundit get all the perks? I'm heading for the mall in DC to start a protest for all us little bloggers who are not getting our fair share!

422 The Blackout of August 14, 2003 study

Here's what I wrote last year about the enormous blackout we experienced:

"The Blackout of August 14 only affected Lakeside for about 4 hours. I had popped a beef stroganoff into the oven at 3:45 and headed for music class. At 4:10 the AC and lights went out and the class coordinator stuck her head in and said, "We're working on it." Dr. Taylor had distributed most of the music, so we really didn't need the overheads. It's not that unusual to have short power outages. But when I left at 5:15 I overhead some people saying, "It's on the whole peninsula."

When I got back to the cottage, Bob told me it was the whole northeast and southern Canada. So we called Phoebe, and she said it hadn't affected Columbus, but the outage went as far south as Delaware, OH. Our radio needed 4 C batteries, so I sat in the car to listen to the news, finally remembering my walkman was in the car, and it was working.

We didn't want to open the frig to put away the half cooked dinner, which would only have heated up the cold food, so we headed to Abigail's, which fortunately has gas and was serving dinner--everything except coffee which used electric percolators. Dinner was by candlelight and no one seemed too concerned. We knew the auditorium had a generator because years ago we were watching a Shirley Jones show and the power went out. When we got there, there was one lonely light bulb in the ceiling, and the stage lights. The performance hadn't started by 8:15, but then all the lights came on and they waited a bit so people who hadn't wanted to walk home in the dark could get there. The program was a young woman from Ireland and a 3 piece band.

Toledo and Detroit were still struggling on Friday, and on Saturday I heard on WJR that Detroit would still have its "DreamCruise" with 30,000 extra cars and about 1,000,000 additional people, plus the start of the state fair. They were still without traffic lights! But people are conserving water, and told not to use the AC. This is some of the hottest weather we've had all summer--haven't really had any 90 degree weather until now.

The political parties will of course be blaming each other, but there is enough blame to go around, with reports going back many years that the system was overloaded and antiquated. I heard some of these grids are 40 years old. With all the computer and tech stuff we have now, with almost everyone having air conditioning, it is hard to imagine that no one's been able to correct it. I guess de-regulation has something to do with it. Monopolies are always more efficient to regulate and all these smaller companies need to cooperate on a plan to upgrade. It certainly is a wake up call, and outlined for terrorists exactly what to do--just bring down a Canadian power plant, and you can shut down the U.S. most important cities!"

Last Thursday I read a summary in the Wall Street Journal of the year long blackout study and was surprised, or maybe not, to read that none of the theories that were being thrown around last August and September turned out to name the culprits. The Final report of the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force is ". . .a prosaic tale about dozens of small things that went wrong with a few obvious policy lessons." 1)sagging transmission lines came into contact with trees, and 2) inoperative computer software.