703 A game of cats and mouse

These are the kittens of the librarian of the Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Library (what a mouthful!) at The Ohio State University.


Susan's kittens

Singing in the shower

When did I stop singing in the shower? Is it something you do only when young? Only before your soprano turns to a gravely tenor? Or is it when you forget your Russian? Yes, I used to sing folk songs about birch trees in the shower--sad songs of unrequited love, of soldiers dying, of birds flying away.

That memory was really buried deep until today when I read the following in “Birch Use in the Former Soviet Republics,” by Andriy Boyar, Agroborealis, Summer 2004 (University of Alaska, Fairbanks).

“In Central and Eastern European countries, as well as in Russian Siberia, one of these features [related to the environment] is the relationship of people to the birch tree. Birch forests are a truly distinguished characteristic of the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian landscapes. They are of national pride. Hundreds of songs, legends and fairytales are devoted to birch. The Slavs learned to write and read using flat pieces of split birch bark when paper was unknown to them in early centuries. The beginning of spring is timed from the first appearance of birch leaves; the first spring month in the Ukraine is named Berezen, from the root word for birch.”

I had no idea that birch trees did anything other than whisper your lost love’s name in a very minor key or provide a backdrop for Soviet films. They have medicinal uses and the article includes a list of 28 ailments that birch helps, from gout to bronchitis to dandruff. The author provides relevancy for internet searches for these terms in both Russian and English and the method of using the birch product.

And birch beverages! Who knew? I think I’d heard of kvass, but didn’t know it was made from birch sap. Mr. Boyar provides a recipe in case you want to gather some birch sap this spring (I think it is more difficult than collecting maple syrup). Birch also has cosmetic uses for freckles, pimples, face masks, and oily skin. Birch branches are cleaning tools for sweeping yards and whipping the body in sauna. In rural households it is still used for lighting and heat. Ukrainians decorate with birch branches for Christian holidays and fishermen used to use it for fishing gear. Hail the amazing birch and the ingenious Slav.

There is a lot of research on the versatile birch going on in Alaska, and the previous issue of Agroborealis describes that. These files are pdf, in a nice readable format. Many libraries can catalog these free government agricultural and forestry journals for a local on-line collection so they will come up in a search. This involves staff availability, but if you request it, they may try to accommodate.

701 Today I was unprofessional

If you don't read another blog today, stop by and read "Today I was unprofessional" by Varifrank.

The room fell silent. My hindi friend then said quietly to the Euros:

"Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they dont have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didnt have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."

He left the room, shaking and in tears. The frustration of being on the other side of the globe, unable to do anything to assist and faced with people who could not set aside their asininity long enough to reach out and help was too much for him to bear. I just shook my head and left. The Euros stood speechless.

700 The Electoral Challenge

“Stranded on Blue islands,” Dirty Harry, a blogger who admits he is no court reporter, paraphrases DeLay at the Electoral Challenge this afternoon:

"This is a shame. This is noise not justice. This is the second day of the 109th Congress and Democrats immediately prove they've learned nothing by their loss. They've turned to the X-Files wing of the party. They're all about spite, conspiracy mongering, and stating the President himself had a secret computer to manipulate votes. This is an assault against the institution of our Democracy. The party that was once behind The New Deal, Civil Rights, Space Program now are out of ideas. Pre-election memos prove that the Democrat high command encouraged crying voter foul even if none occurred. This is a crime and not a victimless one. This is a direct attack to undermine our democracy and a constitutional election. It's likely Democrats will always cry foul even if there's no evidence in the future. Crying wolf. What happens if something actually happens? No one will listen. Democrats need to rise above this self destructive and yes, destructive behavior. They hurt the House and Senate and themselves. This petition is beneath us. Vote no, Get to the real work."

I saw only a few minutes of it on C-SPAN while visiting a woman in a nursing home. Her companion was convinced that the Saudis controlled all the voting machines in Ohio. It was best not to stay long.

699 Speaking of magazines

I don’t have a first issue of Redbook magazine to write about in my http://premiereissue.blogspot.com/ site, but I did read that it has reinvented itself as a couples magazine. It started years ago as a married woman’s magazine (with good fiction as I recall), then sort of lost its way in the 60s and 70s, and is now returning to its roots. Magazines are all about advertising, and apparently there is money in coupledom now.

According to Folio, a “redesign unveiled in February [2004] includes new sections such as Redbook Married Life and Redbook Busy Life.” A feature on marriage is promised each month, in addition to a story about marriage and sexuality. A few months back, the magazine added “My Life as a (New) Wife,” and “Love Lab,” where writers test popular romance advice to see what actually works. I’ve just checked the website, and if marriage were only about sex, this would be your magazine.

Another new magazine Conceive, the first-ever fertility magazine, was scheduled for May 2004, (although I never saw it) for the waiting rooms of OB/GYNs and a launch in September. It focuses on creating a family by whatever means it takes, including adoption. You won’t believe the web page--when you click on the egg (to enter the site) a little sperm dives in!

If magazines are truly all about advertising and they show trends, I wonder if this renewed interest in marriage and family might be an area for churches to consider--a route to evangelize. Our church has about 10 Sunday services, but I can’t recall a sermon on marriage. I suppose it might offend the divorced, widowed, or single people. But if there is a minivan in a woman’s future, she might be thinking of eternal security too. Having children is what got me thinking about God’s miracles.

Incidentally, if you’ve found this blog entry because you googled the words “sex” and/or “sperm,” just move on. Sorry to disappoint you, but this site’s not for you.

698 My New Yorker Subscription

The label says 15APR1805 which I hope is gobble-de-gook for sometime in mid-April this slip shod, yellow rag will stop coming through the mail slot. Several days ago a nice young man who is paid to invite me to re-up called and offered me another special. I told him "No, the magazine is an insult to anyone who isn't a left wing New Yorker," and should I go on. He sort of chuckled. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to give him an earful. He invited me to vent because, he said, they are supposed to get the subscribers' opinions.

It's not like I'd never read this magazine before subscribing. During the 90s, a friend passed hers along to me, and then I'd donate it to the Friends of the Library sale, so it had been recycled a few times before going to the dump. Now it goes direct--no stopping at the sale. I don't know what happened in the three years I didn't read it, but it is really worthless--unless you live in New York, donate to Move On Dot Org and read The Daily Kos for balanced and fair politics.

I'm only on page 8 of the January 10, 2005 issue. There is a cartoon of a little boy--maybe about 8 or 9--standing in front of a Mr. Milquetoast, WASPish type Dad, sitting in your basic suburban living room--lounge chair, end table with books, floor lamp, pictures on the wall, arched doorway, carpeted stairs to second floor, front door with privacy glass--you know the drill. Screams middleclass. The disgruntled kid looks at the floor and growls, "Unfortunately, the urine test counted for half of the grade." Whoopee. Now isn't that hilarious. Only in New York(er).

697 Andy Geiger to resign as OSU athletic director

He says it just isn't fun any more--the last two years, particularly those spent with Maurice Clarett's antics, have been full of problems.

I know just how you feel, Andy. My last year at work wasn't fun anymore, so I decided to retire. Every day was the same--regular meetings, ad hoc meetings, task force meetings, building committee meetings, lunch meetings, breakfast meetings, search committee meetings, skills upgrade meetings, sensitivity training meetings and appointments with the doctor. Get out with your dignity, Andy.

Mr. Geiger and I could possibly be related, I suppose. I have seen him in the coffee shop, but thought bringing up genealogy to a total stranger might be pushy. Martin Weybright III married Mary Elizabeth Geiger back in the 1780s. Their son Jacob was my great, great grandfather. Martin III and Jacob were both born in the Lancaster, PA area, as was Mary Elizabeth, but pioneered in Montgomery County, Ohio area in the early 19th century. All were members of the Brethren (now Church of the Brethren).

696 How to really help the Tsunami victims

Maimonides, the medieval Jewish sage wrote that the highest of the eight levels of charity was strengthening the name or hand of the poor brother or person with a loan or going into business with him because then his dignity is preserved and he isn’t beholden to you. Dr. Meir Tamari writes on this topic at My Jewish Learning.

Today’s WSJ opinion page has an article and an eye-popping chart about how tariffs discriminate against third world countries. Sri Lanka, one of the hardest hit by the tsunami, was paying $249.2 million (mostly garment industry), but the Scandanavian countries with 12 times more exports to the USA paid only 227 million.

The duty rate on products from “rich” European countries is about 1% while the average rate on Sri Lankan goods is over 16%, according to this editorial. The author suggests that when Bill Frist gets back home, he bring up the idea that the best aid may be “strengthening the hand” rather than providing more gifts and aid.

695 Do banks send e-mail?

One of my e-mail addresses--from OSU--is nothing but a spam dump (don't ever use my bruce dot six address). I must get 30-40 spam a day. I missed a message from my bookclub last week because I was slogging my way through 3,000 spam + 10 messages using delete and probably missed it. Because the OSU e-mail address was used with so many listservs, and they are archived on the internet (isn't it wonderful to be able to go back and read the off hand, stupid remarks you made in 1996?), that address is easy pickens. Other universities have managed to corral that problem, but not OSU.

Yesterday there was an "e-mail" from "my" bank, so of course I deleted it without opening. Maddie Dog has a warning posted at the blog Where's your Brain:

"WARNING: I see that people are still clicking on email links that appear to be from banks or the like. DON'T do it! No bank will ever tell you to click their links in an email and submit passwords or user names. If in doubt, open a new browser and go to your bank directly. Delete all such emails no matter how official they may look!"

694 Thanks, but no thanks

I'll drink the glass of red wine occasionally to help my heart, but don't ask me to eat Indian cuisine for my memory.

"The pigment that gives curry spice its yellow hue may also be able to break up the "plaques" that mark the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients, early research suggests."

Pejman refers us to this article on promising research.

693 Buckeyes on Parade

"The Ohio State University Marching Band has been invited to officially represent the state of Ohio in the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Parade for President George W. Bush on Jan. 20, and will perform "Beautiful Ohio" as it passes the reviewing stand. The trip marks the band's fourth Presidential Inaugural Parade appearance. The group also was selected to march in the 2001 parade that celebrated President Bush's first inauguration.

"We are very excited about returning to Washington, D.C., to march in the parade," said Jon Woods, marching band director. "We consider it an honor to be selected. It is a privilege to play for the President of the United States and to represent the state of Ohio."

The Ohio State Marching Band is the world's largest all-brass and percussion marching band. The band is known for its precision marching and military-style uniforms. It is composed of 225 playing members and a drum major. In addition to "Beautiful Ohio," the band will play "Across the Field," "I Wanna Go Back to Ohio State" and "The Buckeye Battle Cry." "

Story from OSU Today.

692 Photo Op

If this were a photo of the President on the flight deck, oh what a controversy we would have.

Seen at "Best of the Web."

Colds and flu and other viruses

A story in the paper yesterday listed a T/F quiz about what to do if a co-worker showed up at work to share your office and work station with a bad cold. First correct answer was wash your hands frequently; second was report it to your supervisor. Homicide was the wrong response.

At the Veterinary library our materials were on occasion returned with blood, guts, semen and vomit, and almost always human viruses. We really weren't in that much danger from the zoonotics, but a sick patron could infect and reinfect my staff. We had a roll of paper towels and cleaner handy, and a box of kleenex for patrons at the circ desk. Viruses can live a long time on hard surfaces like counter tops, door handles, and books returned with fingers that just swiped a runny nose. When kids are going into debt for higher education, they don't stay home to nurse a cold. Even if you have to buy these supplies out of your own pocket, it is worth it.

Viruses can live up to 48 hours on surfaces, but it might be a week before you show any symptoms, so just wash your hands frequently anyway. Carry "Wet Ones" or other wipes with you, or if you work in a library or office, hand them out to your staff to use when they can't get to a wash room.

"Passing the Peace" at church is also a problem. Carry some hand wipes in your purse or pocket, rather than worry that you've touched the hand that touched the hand that touched the door knob, etc. My husband is an usher and he's going to suggest to his team leader that they pass them out with the bulletins or at least have them available for people who want them.

Is it a cold or flu; airborne or surface; here's the scoop.

690 Pugovitsa, pugovitsa

My mother and grandmother both had button tins. When I got married and had nary a button to my name, I ordered from the Sears catalog a package of miscellaneous buttons. Such a deal. When they arrived, I was quite excited anticipating all the repair and mending I could do (not something today's bride would think about). Most of them I still have, although a few were used over the years for various sewing projects, rarely for replacement because bright pink, flat ovals or yellow duckies don't work well on most shirts and blouses.

After Dad died in 2002, I found Mother's button tin and brought it home. He had disposed of so much after her death in 2000, I was surprised he saved it, except perhaps he too thought no home should be without old buttons. I'll never use them, but enjoyed looking through and thinking about her using them (and some were my grandmother's, I think).


Many older style buttons are made from shells from the sea. Therefore, I thought this poem by the new poet laureate, Ted Kooser, is just the most imaginative and delightful way to think about buttons collected for reuse and the "sea of mending."

[from Poetry Daily]
A Jar of Buttons
This is a core sample
from the floor of the Sea of Mending,

a cylinder packed with shells
that over many years

sank through fathoms of shirts —
pearl buttons, blue buttons —

and settled together
beneath waves of perseverance,

an ocean upon which
generations of women set forth,

under the sails of gingham curtains,
and, seated side by side

on decks sometimes salted by tears,
made small but important repairs.

689 What resolutions have you kept?

Sure, I'm resolving to lose the extra weight; to keep the counters clean; to attend all the classes that looked good in December for 2005. But I can look back on the year (forgotten which one) I made two resolutions, and have kept them both. I think it was about 25+ years ago.

I realized I was wasting 20-30 minutes a day looking for my keys. I resolved to always put my keys in the same zippered pocket of my purse instead of dropping them into the black hole (my children were small so the purse was large). I was losing 10,950 minutes a year--almost 183 hours! Just looking for my keys (numerous times during the day). That resolution has added 6 months to my life so far.

That same year I also resolved to stop biting my fingernails. That took a bit of effort, but I did it, and eventually over the years, they even returned to a normal shape. Also, it is just plain disgusting to watch, and now I'm like a reformed drinker or smoker and want to slap the hand away from the face when I see someone cannibalizing their fingers.

Nail Update: Right after keying this, I must have smacked the keyboard with too much pride and satisfaction, because the middle-finger, left hand nail split and broke off. However, experience has taught me to always have a nail file near by, so I wasn't even tempted to nibble.

688 State of Fear--it's fiction, or is it?

"Michael Crichton is well known for his techno-thrillers The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, plus more than a dozen other novels and non-fiction works. State of Fear (HarperCollins, 603 pages, $27.95) is a little different. While constructed as a novel, it is also a guide to environmental issues and their advocates, principally the problem of climate change. It carries a message about global warming and will certainly have an important impact on the ongoing policy debate."

The message is, global warming isn’t happening.

“The scientific evidence is well presented, with numerous graphs and references, but more can be said. The climate has never been constant -- always either warming or cooling on all time scales (year-to-year, decadal, millennial, and over millions of years) -- independent of any human influence. While the observed pre-1940 warming is real and mostly natural (a recovery from the preceding Little Ice Age that terminated around 1850), the cooling from 1940 to 1975 is certainly not a greenhouse effect. The warming data reported during the past twenty-five years from surface stations (almost all of them on land) are likely contaminated by urban heat effects; we don't see such warming in the atmospheric record of weather balloons or from weather satellites that cover the whole globe on a regular basis (including the 70% covered by oceans). At most, human greenhouse effects would lead to a temperature rise by 2100 of a measly 0.8 degrees C.”

Review and comments here.

Opinion Journal: "State of Fear is, in a sense, the novelization of a speech that Mr. Crichton delivered in September 2003 at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. He argued there that environmentalism is essentially a religion, a belief-system based on faith, not fact. To make this point, the novel weaves real scientific data and all too real political machinations into the twists and turns of its gripping story."

To no one's surprise, WaPo does not provide a positive review, instead picks at nits: "As for the footnotes and other impedimenta, now and then the author wields them arrestingly. He assembles graphs of temperature trends to show that while big U.S. cities have been getting warmer over the past seven decades, smaller ones -- Albany, N.Y.; Charleston, S.C.; and Boulder, Colo. -- have either stayed the same or cooled off some. This should be no surprise, we are told, considering that big cities are heat traps." Read it here.

687 UN still lagging in relief for Tsunami victims

Diplomad is a career foreign service officer who blogs under a pseudonym. On day 9 of the disaster s/he writes:

"In this part of the tsunami-wrecked Far Abroad, the UN is still nowhere to be seen where it counts, i.e., feeding and helping victims. The relief effort continues to be a US-Australia effort, with Singapore now in and coordinating closely with the US and Australia. Other countries are also signing up to be part of the US-Australia effort. Nobody wants to be "coordinated" by the UN. The local UN reps are getting desperate. They're calling for yet another meeting this afternoon--" Read the full account(s) here. World Food Program has finally arrived with an assessment team. Doesn't this sound like committees and task forces you've been on at work? Assess, deny, die.

Diplomad goes on to say this is absolutely no joke: "The team has spent the day and will likely spend a few more setting up their "coordination and opcenter" at a local five-star hotel. And their number one concern, even before phones, fax and copy machines? Arranging for the hotel to provide 24hr catering service. USAID folks already are cracking jokes about 'The UN Sheraton.' "

This is really sickening. Worse than the tourists who returned to the beaches while bodies were still rotting. At least they were already on vacation--not planning one at the expense of the victims.

Compare that story to the one Amit has to tell--about neighbor helping neighbor, Muslim helping Hindu, a couple giving up their wedding feast to feed the victims. It is a wonderful story.

686 When in the course of human events. . .

There is a renewed interest in the Declaration of Independence because of the movie, National Treasure. There is a website where you can sign your name to the Declaration of Independence. You select the type of printer, the type of quill, insert your name, and then you are warned that by doing so you are a rebel against the King of England and given the opportunity to withdraw your signature! Go here to sign and print your own copy.

685 The value of a human life

“Consider that there are nearly 121 million people living in low lying areas within 4km of the shoreline of the Indian Ocean. According to TAOS/MIDGARD model projections made late on the 26th, 18 million people live in the tsunami impact area. Assuming a 5% casualty rate, that’s 900,000 injured in some way (probably 250k seriously). Assuming a 1 in seven fatality rate, that’s 128 thousand dead. I hope and pray it’s not that high, but it’s a realistic possibility.” Satellite photos here, at a site by Chuck Watson, many photos obscured now by smoke.

I have two suggestions.
1) People who think unearthing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in mass political graves was not cause enough to go after Saddam, need to peer into the mass graves caused by the December Tsunami and ask themselves if they could have stopped Nature’s forces, would they have done it? Is a dead Iraqi mother or child not of the same worth to God and humankind as a dead Sumatran or dead Sri Lankan? Is the force of the ocean somehow make their deaths more tragic and worthy of aid than death by poison or gun by a madman?

2) Shouldn’t we ask those European (Germans, French, Swedes), Russian and Chinese diplomats and business men who stole 20 billion from the Food for Oil program and then pointed fingers at us as "warmongers" to return it to the United Nations so it can be used for disaster relief? Instead of pointing fingers at “stingy” western countries who’ve completely lost faith in the UN to organize anything remotely resembling “relief,” they need to review their own behavior in response to man made tragedies. Their names are on a list. We actually know who they are. Have those individuals donated one krona, mark or rouble out of their own dirty pockets of wealth?

Who on this newspaper staff was asking this question in Iraq when graves were uncovered? "Faith in God is sure to be shaken by the disaster, admits the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. "Every single accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up with comfort and ready answers," he writes in today's Sunday Telegraph. "Faced with the paralysing magnitude of a disaster like this, we naturally feel outraged and also deeply helpless. The question 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale' is very much around, and it would be wrong if it weren't. Religious believers don't see prayer as a plea for magical solutions that will make the world safe for them and others. The reaction of faith should always be one of passionate engagement with the lives that are left, a response that asks not for understanding but for ways of changing the situation in whatever ways are open to us." The Independent (01-02-05).

684 New Link on my List

Most of the bloggers I link to, I've never met in person. Many are librarians, many are writers, many are Christians. Some are all three. I am adding "Siouxlander" who is a Professor of English and a writer and a Christian. I've written about him before, and have actually seen him, having attended a presentation he gave in April at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College. At that time, I wrote:

"James Calvin Schaap (pronounced SKOP) was chosen because I got lost and couldn’t find the presentation I had marked. (Lovely campus; horrible signage) What a wonderful serendipity. He is a professor of English at Dordt College in Iowa and explained how he used ideas from his career as a journalist to be fleshed out in his fiction. If you are homesick for Iowa (or any of those flatter Midwestern states) we were treated to a 12 minute CD of his photography called “Chasing the Dawn; a Meditation,” which I think is available through Dordt College Press.

Notes for writers: “Great stories are in your neighborhood--use experience and imagination.” Notes about life: He is currently writing a book about Laotian Christians, relocated in the USA. Working through a translator, he interviewed a Laotian woman about her job in an Iowa meat packing plant, a job he thought too terrible to even imagine. She told him she loved her job because, “In Thailand I had to butcher the entire cow.”

I quoted him again at my other, other blog, Church of the Acronym for his comments on Christian fiction, an essay that was on his department homepage. Now he has started his own blog, and if you enjoy Ariel (AJ), I think you'll like Jim.