497 A Rich Childhood

"You can't describe the vastness of the Panavision prairie to East Coasters. Either the idea bores them--sorry, if there's not an all-night Thai take-out every ten blocks I am so not there. Or it's incomprehensible--what, a dirt ocean that just sits there?

Yes. That's it. The earth is flat and the sky is big, and you're a small lone thing rolling between the two. True Midwesterners have no time for oceans--all that pointless motion. It comes in, it goes out. What's the point? True Midwesterners have no time for mountains. They're so obvious. They don't do anything. We have mountains, in a way; they're called clouds. And they move. Can yours do that? "

Read the whole essay by James Lileks here.

496 Head Start is a Dead End for Children

Strengthening “Head Start” is under Bush’s budget plan if he is re-elected. The program is nearly 40 years old and has shown no appreciable long term results for education. Children have been immunized, families have been linked with various social service agencies, and a huge number of people have been employed--about 27% of them parents of the children. A program that started out planning to cost $17 million the first year (but cost $100 million), had ballooned to 1.4 billion in 1991 under Bush 41, and about 8 billion in 2004 under G.W. Bush. That’s about $7,362 for each of the 910,000 enrolled children.

The Head Start program is administered by the Head Start Bureau, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACFY), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Grants are awarded by the ACF Regional Offices and the Head Start Bureau’s American Indian and Migrant Program Branches directly to local public agencies, private non-profit and for-profit organizations, Indian Tribes and school systems for the purpose of operating Head Start programs at the community level. (DHHS web site)

Using Google, it’s practically impossible to find an independent assessment of this program. If a politician votes to freeze the program at current levels, he is accused of “dismantling it.” Here’s an example from New Hampshire--I have no idea who Charlie Bass is, but this statement called “Voting to Dismantle Head Start,“ shows the problem:

"[Charlie] Bass voted for a bill that dismantles some of the high-quality standards and comprehensive services that have made Head Start a successful early childhood education program for New Hampshire’s toddlers. Current funding only allows 3 out of 5 eligible children to be served by Head Start, but Bass froze current funding levels and cut enrollment in Head Start for the first time in history. It also created block grants that provide no standards for minimum class sizes, child-teacher ratios or curriculum effectiveness. Bass’s vote was decisive - it passed by 1 vote, 217-216. [GOP Head Start Reauthorization Bill - Passage, H.R. 2210, Vote #444, 7/24/03. Adopted 217-216 (R 217-12; D 0-203)]" http://www.nh-democrats.org/Blog.asp?id=49 6/8/04

Unfortunately, Head Start has no high-quality standards, and it has no high-profile “graduates.“ Funding requests just call for more money to expand the failed program and to hire more degreed teachers--as though that were the problem all along. The NCLB of President Bush created great controversy when it attempted to test the program and was criticized for testing pre-schoolers.

After 40 years shouldn't we be seeing improvement in scores, behavior and over-all quality of inner city and minority districts? The “jewel” of the Great Society is made of paste--library paste, it seems. If you know of a study that claims that Head Start is a success, that isn’t written by someone who takes it to the bank, I’d sure like to hear about it. I think our children deserve better, but no one knows how to do it.

495 Phones in Dorm Rooms Disappearing

The Keptup Librarian points to an article that reports how phones in dorm rooms are disappearing and being replaced by cell phones.

Phones in dorm rooms? What's the fun in that? I still remember checking the bulletin board by the phone in the office at Oakwood Hall (now torn down) in November 1957 and finding out my nephew David had been born. And at McKinley Hall at the University of Illinois where we had one phone per floor (more advanced than little Manchester College), I'd watch for that note: "MC 2:15 WCL." If you are of a certain age, you'll know how that message caused the pulse to pick up.

494 House by the side of the road

Every morning this past summer on my way to the coffee shop near Lake Erie, I passed a 1950s ranch along the side of the road. It looked like the typical 3 bedroom, 1 car garage, big picture window in the living room I remember from my youth--a "modern" house. It was sitting on a truck bed waiting for a foundation. Then a second ranch, maybe from the 60s, moved in next to it, sitting on supports for weeks. The owners of the lots who had moved them there to catch the summer renters, probably lost a prime $1200-$1500 a week from fishermen or vacationers anxious to enjoy the lake.

Cement shortage, I wondered? We import cement from China (takes 44 days), but impose high import duties for cement from Mexico (takes only 4 days), probably to protect American companies. This is hurting our housing industry and will impede the rebuilding in Florida which has just been through four hurricanes, tornadoes, and flooding. I'd like the USA to give Mexico all the help it can in free trade or trade concessions, so Mexican workers can stop risking their lives by coming here illegally.

Of course, it's much more complicated that that as this Houston Chronicle article shows: "Cemex, the world's third-largest cement company, acknowledges that Mexican prices are high compared to many other markets, and only slightly cheaper than in the United States. But company officials blame expensive energy, labor, transport, distribution and regulatory costs in Mexico, and the absence of government subsidies given to many foreign producers."

493 Wired Magazine: The Plot to Kill Evolution

Inside the crusade to bring Creationism 2.0 to America's classrooms is the subtitle of this "scary" cover story. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. How do you kill what doesn't exist? I haven't opened the October issue yet, but it will probably soon be up on the Wired website. Arnold was still on the cover when I last looked (September issue). Wired is one of my favorite magazines, much more satisfying in paper than on-line, and great to take along as a companion on trips to the coffee shop. Science and technology are really amazing, but occasionally, the authors who bring them to life for the layman don't have a clue about who started it all.

492 Is he Nixon? Dean? Edwards? Clark? Gebhardt? Sharpton? Or just plain ol’ 1970s John Kerry?

Kerry’s campaign made Vietnam an issue, and continues to do so. If he’d stepped up to the podium and said, “Reporting for Duty” and then apologized to all the veterans he maligned in the 70s, he’d have gotten the bounce he wanted. These guys are getting old and are willing to forgive and forget. But the wounds he caused are raw and open. Since he became Howard Dean this past week, I don’t know where he’s going now--it’s a crap shoot. Democrats have all their primary candidates rolled into one guy--except maybe Joe Lieberman--depending on the week or month and whether the words are James Carville’s or John Kerry‘s.

The Swiftboat Vets will probably never forgive--O’Neil (who says he would have been voting for Edwards had he been the candidate) debated Kerry 30 years ago and has never backed down--makes the same points today but with more documentation. The Swiftboat Vets 527s are using recordings of Kerry at the hearings, and some left 527s are using recordings of Bush, but far less effectively. Some 527s are just stringing Kerry’s remarks about the war and Saddam in a long series of sound/video bites. Bush has denounced the 527s and Kerry has denounced the publisher of the “Unfit for command” book and demanded that bookstores stop selling it. So much for freedom of speech. Swifties have spent about $500,000 and liberal 527s have spent $63 million. Plus the Dems have that paragon of virtue and character, Michael Moore, playing at first run theaters. For bottom of the barrel advertising, it is the Democrats, hands down.

Now Kerry is repeating history and denigrating our allies, insulting our soldiers and calling the new Iraq leader a liar. He’s hinting at the draft as a possibility. Not a good way to start his administration, if he is going to be the Commander in Chief after January. His billionaire wife calls people she disagrees with “scumbags,“ and tells reporters to “shove it,“ and thinks blacks should support her because she is an “African-American.” We had France and Germany in the coalition for the Gulf War and Kerry voted against it. Last night sound bites on the news had him sounding more unilateral and bellicose than I’ve ever heard from our President. But just days ago he sounded eerily like Nixon promising to get us out of Vietnam and then dragging it out 4 more years. What a team for the White House.

Keep in mind, even if Kerry loses, and I definitely believe he could win, the liberals have won all the wars--presidencies are just battles. Everything the Democrats and I agreed on and supported in the 1970s and 1980s has come about. We parted ways on abortion, but eventually the Republicans will slide into that quicksand too, because they‘ve mimicked their opposition on everything else. I always thought the party that claimed to care about the weakest and poorest, should have stood up for the unborn, but it didn’t.

In my opinion, George W. Bush is far more to the left and liberal than John Kennedy was in 1960--that’s just the movement and direction of the country. I’ve drawn a line in the shifting sand and said I think we’ve gone far enough with the laws on environment, sexual harassment, medical socialism, victimization of every personal problem, and crummy education that demands nothing from the students. Democrats want more laws, I want fewer, or at least I’d like to have the laws on the books enforced (which is what the NCLB was intended to do).

491 Kitty Kelley's Three Reasons to Elect Bush

Andrew Ferguson's review of Kitty Kelley's Bush Family "pathography" begins with a quote from Nancy Sinatra and moves hilariously on from there. He sums it up with three positive anecdotes which he thinks may be reason enough to re-elect President Bush.

I don't want to suggest that "The Family" is completely one-dimensional. Occasionally you come across anecdotes that a lawyer would call an "admission against interest" -- charming stories running counter to Kelley's theme of unrelieved Bush depravity and which can therefore, by the rules of evidence, be presumed true.

Since you won't find these in more sensational accounts of "The Family," I will close with three of them.

Story one: Laura Welch, the future first lady, was still a mystery to the Bush family on the day she married George W. in 1978. The Bush matriarch, Prescott's widow, tried to interrogate her after the ceremony.

``What do you do?'' the old lady asked her.

``I read,'' Laura replied.

Story Two: In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush was tired of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's gold-plated reputation for brilliance -- exemplified by his insistence on being called ``Dr.''

One CIA aide, referring to ``Dr. Kissinger,'' was quickly corrected by his boss.

``The (expletive deleted) doesn't perform surgery or make house calls, does he?''

Story Three: Though he's disdained Yale since his graduation in 1968, George W. Bush agreed to host a 35th class reunion.

One classmate, Petra Leilani Akwai, had undergone a sex change since graduation, and partygoers waited to see the reaction of Bush -- understood by all correct-thinking liberals to be a crude and backward boor.

Akwai greeted the president in the receiving line.

``You might remember me as Peter when we left Yale,'' she said.

``And now you've come back as yourself,'' Bush said.

It has been said by pious historians that we elect not only a man but his family to the presidency. Taken together, I'd say these three anecdotes -- funny and poignant and revealing -- form the best reason yet for President Bush's re-election. All thanks go to Kitty Kelley.

Full review of Andrew Ferguson at Bloomberg News. Thanks to Independent Women's Forum for the tip.

490 Women Bloggers--Where are You?

My blogroll has a small list of women bloggers, but it has certainly been a pain to track them down. To be fair, a number of women are listed under the library and media category, and there seems to be no shortage of them in that category. Ambra (Nykola.com) is wonderfully refreshing in the under 25 group (perhaps a group of one?), because I see such awful writing, both in content and style, from that group.

Here's my criteria: No trash talking, four letter words, dirty jokes; interests beyond the latest entertainment fluff job; as little angst as possible about being 1) fat, 2) single/divorced or 3) underemployed ; capital letters and standard English; Christian or Jew if possible, but will take any belief system not based on the writer's own navel gazing and "inner spirituality;" some evidence that she has read a newspaper or book recently; liberal or conservative or libertarian is OK, but must adhere to the previous criteria.

I prowl through other's blogrolls; I click through "next blog" at the top of the screen. I know they are out there. Four of them are mine.

489 There is no free lunch

Apparently, the Oprah audience who received the new Pontiacs will be paying about $7,000 in taxes. This was reported on both Fox and NBC local last night, but originally recipients were told the taxes were covered.

488 Kemp and Cisneros--What a Team!

"Of all the Cabinet secretaries who have served in recent decades in Washington, none has done more to energize their bureaucracies than Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros. Running the backwater Department of Housing and Urban Development between 1989 and 1997, Republican Kemp and Democrat Cisneros used their competitive drive and enthusiasm to draw attention to what may well be America's most neglected issue.

Now the two men have teamed to produce an election-season report outlining a housing agenda for the nation - one that could command support in Congress whatever the outcome of the November vote."

I saw them interviewed on Fox News' Cavuto show last night. This quote is from David Broder's column, and the full article is here. He says the 12 point agenda is neither right or left, but good for those who want to build, preserve or rehab affordable housing. Finally. Now let's hope someone in Congress will pay attention.

487 Martha and Teresa

George Washington’s election as President was a disappointment to his wife, according to a web site on the Presidents. She wanted to continue living in quiet retirement at Mount Vernon after the war. Nevertheless, she quickly assumed the role of hostess, and first First Lady.

When Teresa Heinz married John Kerry she said, “I’ll go down the aisle, but I won’t cross the aisle.” (Her first husband, whose name she retains, was a Republican.) She added, according to an article in W (a must-read for fashion, beauty and arts insiders, which I looked at today in the doctor‘s office), “for anyone who loves life the prospect of becoming First Lady was worse than going to a Carmelite convent.”

486 Hurricanes and Politics

I've now heard three things about how the hurricanes in Florida and the southeast might affect the coming elections. The first, which I originally heard on Fox News, was that after natural disasters people are so miserable they'll vote against any incumbant;* second, if Bush had been more aggressive about environmental issues, there wouldn't have been so many hurricanes,** and third, more counties that voted for Bush in 2000 were hit than the Gore counties, so it is punishment from God (a liberal's blog comment).*** I haven't heard it mentioned, but if polling places are damaged or voting machines out of whack, there will be law suits to hold up the results. Although the Haitians have suffered the most casualties, and they won't be voting.

*The now-famous quote that August [1992] from Dade County's emergency operations director, Kate Hale — “Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one? For God's sake, where are they?'' — summed up the frustration that many people in Florida voiced in the days after Andrew hit. (Some of Floridians’ anger was also directed at then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, who delayed asking for federal troops.)MSNBC

**BlameBush!

***Crooked Timber

485 Is this the medical care liberals want for us?

Although I have a degree in Library Science, I never took a "kiddie lit" or young adult lit class, focusing instead on my interests of the 1960s--Soviet studies, Russian literature and cataloging (so much for what you plan for at 24). But I came across a blog today written by a Brit called An Englishman's Castle in which he asks for suggestions for reading for his teen-age son who will be having a replacement cranioplasty and will be hospitalized for awhile.

Then he goes on to the scary part: "his doctor has suggested that he takes his own cup and cutlery in as well as cleaning materials and also to keep a large box of antiseptic wipes by his bed and insist that anyone coming to examine him cleans their hands. I hope he has the balls to do so..."

Even with our system, I remember asking a young medical tech to please wash his hands after he sneezed into them while preparing to examine my eye before the "real" doctor got there. "Oh, it's just allergies," he insisted. But I too insisted, and he reluctantly did as I asked. Some days you gotta have the balls. . .

484 The joy of cartoon memories

Did you have a favorite book at Grandma's house? When visiting my father's parents we cousins could walk to the town movie theater to get away from the boring adult conversation. However, when visiting my maternal grandparents, who lived on a farm, entertainment was a bit more old fashioned--playing in the out buildings, climbing trees, creating villages with a box of wooden blocks, playing the card game "Authors," or looking through dusty, old books. Not a bad way to spend a boring Sunday afternoon.

When my family visited that same farm house, about a decade after my grandparents were gone and my mother had converted the house to a retreat center for church groups and family reunions, my own children entertained themselves with the same activities (no TV). They would reach for a favorite book which was a compilation of cartoons from the late 19th century through the 1940s, Cartoon Cavalcade. It was most likely a People's Book Club selection (like Book of the Month but through Sears). It was my mother's book, and I had spent many hours browsing it when I was little. Many of her books migrated to the farm house to provide just such entertainment for quiet week-ends.

Good cartoons are difficult to create and probably even harder to understand from a distance of 50 years. For that reason I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful entry at Library Dust for September 19 on H. T. Webster, the creator of the Casper Milquetoast character, whose work is now rarely seen except in libraries' cartoon collections. McGrorty writes:

"Where I will go is out on a limb enough to suggest that Webster is one of the finest cartoonists the country has ever seen in the pages of its newspapers. Cartooning is a difficult line of work. The artist has to create images that will become familiar without going stale over a considerable period of time, and always be amusing: funny, wry, hysterical or any of the other degrees of mirth must be produced with regularity, which effect requires a great understanding of human nature and an evocative power that must be strong but operate with no wires showing. If you do not think this is so, try to sketch the future panels of your favorite strip in your head—just see if you can follow the formula. It is difficult because the cartoon is such a precise balance of things, all familiar and practically sacred to the regular reader—who nevertheless requires frequent shifts in focus and theme upon the established base."

Click over to Library Dust and read some excellent writing about this cartoonist. Then blow the dust off one of your favorite books.

483 Yet another position for Kerry

Last week in the Washington Post Charles Krauthammer wrote, “If the election were held today, John Kerry would lose by between 58 and 100 electoral votes. The reason is simple: the central vulnerability of this president -- the central issue of this campaign -- is the Iraq War. And Mr. Kerry has nothing left to say. Why? Because, until now, he has said everything conceivable regarding Iraq. Having taken every possible position on the war, there is nothing he can now say that is even remotely credible.”

Not so. John Kerry has changed his stance again. He’s taking a very hard line now--sort of sounds more like Howard Dean in the primaries than Dean. I heard the latest version (along with recordings of his previous pro-war positions in 2002 and 2003) on talk radio this morning. I wanted to cite a specific neutral source. I “googled” the phrase, “John Kerry’s latest position Iraq” just now and got over 100,000 matches. Now, there really haven’t been that many, but I’d guess easily 9 or 10.

One Democrat I read today said that finally Kerry had a message that people could understand--it had a subject, verb and predicate. And he laughs at President Bush’s speech?

482 Stars and Stripes in her Eyes

Melanie Phillips has returned to Britian after a brief stay in New York with "stars and stripes in her eyes," she says in the September 15 Jewish Chronicle.

"It’s the sheer energy of the place that strikes you, the sense of can-do, the certainty that people can improve life for themselves and others and that setbacks can be overcome. Serving others is not a chore but a pleasure, because satisfaction is to be gained from making someone’s life that bit easier or nicer. You get the impression that people are glad to be part of the same human race as you.

What a difference from cynical, depressed, defeatist Britain. Yes, the US lacks subtlety; yes, sometimes it’s brutal and primitive (think of its prison system). But that sense of optimism, the belief in the future, is a precious commodity."

A Brit I met at the coffee shop last year said the same thing--and he'd been here for thirty years! He said he noticed the difference immediately.

481 Don't Mess with this Mama!

Lauri homeschools her brood and is proud of it. She home schools because she believes it is the best way for her children to get an excellent education. And she's really irritated that some feminist is questioning her motives.

"The crux of Ms. Boyce's problem with home schooling, I suspect, is the "don't tread on me" American ingenuity that is HS. To HS one has to believe they can educate their children not the state, that they, not the state, know what is best. And most folks do not question the superiority of HS because it is obvious, they question their ability to hs because it takes hard work and dedication. The honest folks state they couldn't do it (HS), the dishonest tell others they shouldn't do it (HS)."

Read her excellent rant here.

Note: I'm trying to update my "blogroll," but after several hours, still can't find the error, so the page may not be working quite right. I'll try later. Right now it is time to go. . . to the library!

480 How Myths about Librarians Get Started

Although I have two shelves of older unanalyzed first issues, I was reading two of my newer titles, Cottage Living and Find! to put in my hobby blog, In the Beginning, which is about first issue magazines. A man I see frequently in the coffee shop stopped at my table.

"You're always reading," he said. "I wish I had more time, I'd read." (This is either a lie or a fantasy told by most non-readers--he probably finds time to do what he really enjoys. Golf. Fishing. Watching TV.)

"I'm a retired librarian--you know, that's all we ever do--just read," I joked.

He asked where I had worked and I told him the Veterinary Medicine Library at Ohio State, and he said he is there frequently in his job as a caterer. He was quite jolly, and I'm sure he believed me that librarians read all day--that's how rumors get started--over coffee and jokes.

479 Christmas is Coming!

Harry and David, L.L. Bean, and Cheryl's Cookies catalogs all arrived last week. Sigh.

478 The Price of Pork

Was it Hurricane Opal or Floyd or both that brought us all those photos of dead pigs floating in flooded fields at those huge hog farms in the south? There’s another kind of rotten pork, and that’s the smelly stuff that gets included in bills intended to help people in the devastated areas. Both parties do it--pork is an equal opportunity diet--and apparently it will be added to hurricane relief in supplemental bills.

“Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today issued a Category 5 warning to taxpayers that members of Congress are preparing to take advantage of the devastation caused by Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan to fund their own parochial projects. House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young (R-Fla.) will introduce an emergency supplemental bill to help pay for damages caused by the storms, and members are already looking for ways to tack on pork.

“Congress simply has no shame. Knowing that this is most likely the last opportunity to bring home the bacon before the election, members are busy maneuvering behind the scenes to add their pet projects to the emergency supplemental,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said. “Considering the record $422 billion budget deficit this year, loading the bill with pork could be more costly than cleaning up after the three hurricanes.” "

Full comments on this story with other pork classics at this site. The “King of Pork” is Democrat Robert Byrd according the CAGW.