835 The Green Correction

This morning I saw Vol. 2, no. 1 of The Green Magazine , a golf magazine for minorities, at Barnes and Noble. When I reviewed it last week I thought it had folded.

834 Presidential Dog and Pony Show

Joe Blundo says he loves seeing former Presidents Bush and Clinton together. He wants them to bring their new sense of cooperation to the U.S. after touring tsunami stricken countries for a "Shut up and do something Initiative" for Americans.

I thought the commercials were nice too, but President Clinton looks a bit pale and wan, don't you think. So I thought maybe I wouldn't lose that weight after all.

833 Anniversary of Lincoln's first assassination attempt

Today is the 144th anniversary of the first assassination attempt on President Lincoln. Most people don't know that it was an Ohio librarian who saved his life.

Colonel William T. Coggeshall, State Librarian of Ohio for 6 years, 1856-1862, was only 42 when he died in 1867. He wrote Poets and Poetry of the West, (Columbus, OH: Follett, Foster And Company, 1860). At the time, Ohio was considered “the West.” He died in Ecuador where he had gone as Ambassador after the Civil War ended. Coggeshall had been hired as a bodyguard and secret agent for President Lincoln, and saved his life shortly before his inauguration by intercepting a grenade thrown on the train. This was not revealed until 1908, long after the deaths of both Lincoln and Coggeshall. The incident is reported in Colonel Coggeshall, the man who saved Lincoln, by Freda Postle Koch.

One other example of his devotion to Lincoln, is that the Coggeshalls had a daughter born on September 20, 1862, the day Coggeshall received a telegram from Washington that Lincoln had a final draft of the emancipation proclamation. He decided to name the baby girl, "Emancipation Proclamation Coggeshall," but not until Richmond fell. Richmond didn't fall until April 3, 1865, so she was called "Girlie" for two and a half years, and then named Emancipation Proclamation. When she got to school, a teacher nicknamed her Prockie, which she was called the rest of her life (she died at 51). Her grave marker says E. Prockie, but her family continued to call her "Girlie."

The State Library of Ohio now has a room named for Coggeshall.

832 Are Florida statutes being violated?

To look at these statutes in Florida about the rights of the disabled, you'd think they'd be protected. But even without a careful reading, it would appear Michael Schiavo has violated most of them, and Florida authorities have just looked the other way. He hasn't filed a guardianship plan for years, he's provided her no therapy since 1992, he has mismanaged her money (rehab money has been spent on lawyers fighting her parents), he moved her to hospice without court authority, and he is living in adultery, a misdemeanor in Florida (which ought to make him a poor guardian of her interests as well as a bad husband). He's also given orders to her caretakers not to treat simple maladies which could be fatal for a bedridden person. Now these are charges--not court findings. But shouldn't someone be at least be looking at the guardian courts that are supposed to review the guardian's plan for therapy?

831 Lust

Usually I don't take my car to the dealership for service, but this was a warranty recall, so after the coffee shop I drove north to hunt for the dealer (winding streets through the shopping centers). I prefer the local Pro-Care or Marathon guys, because going to the dealer is the equivalent of being asked to wait in the bar for an hour while your table number comes up in a restaurant. It gave me just enough time to wander around the show room and see a car I'd never noticed before, the Dodge Magnum. It is a station wagon with attitude, muscle, and good gas mileage.

I just love my Dodge minivan--it is my third since 1989. It is the only automobile I can ride in for hours and not be crippled, and it is tall enough to at least allow me to see around a few of the SUVs that hog the road in these parts and short enough to fit nicely in the garage and not throw me into the trash cans when I exit. But taking someone to the airport, the doctor's office, or a restaurant, and trying to shove or lift them into that back seat is a chore. We took our 84 year old neighbor to a concert last Spring and it was a bit of a challenge. Even running boards (or whatever we call them today) don't help much. Riding in Jean's Lincoln last week reminded me how nice it was not to rip a skirt or hike it up my thigh trying to climb into a van.

830 The voice of experience

One of Terri's bloggers writes from personal experience with rehabilitation. How well I remember facing the "experts." After my daughter's cancer surgery I sat in a room with a table of specialists--each recommending their own specialty, each contradicting the other.

"I am biologically tenacious, aren't you? Knowing what I know now, I am extremely grateful that I have never lived under Judge George Greer's jurisdiction. I have chronic progressive multiple sclerosis, have an electric wheelchair, and have been through acute rehabilitation at the University of Utah Medical Center four times. In two of those extended stays in the hospital I was given the beautiful opportunity to learn how to swallow, speak, eat, and to continue with my life. I was treated by experts, a multidisciplinary medical team that had the experience to evaluate and rehabilitate me. All of these opportunities have been denied Terri Schiavo.

In previous orders by Judge Greer to remove Terri's feeding tube he based the orders on the testimonies of doctors who say Terri is in a persistent vegetative state(none of which were qualified medical rehabilitation experts). But doctors employed by the Schindlers to assess her condition conclude that with therapy, she could learn to eat and drink on her own and perhaps learn to talk. However, those assessments were not allowed in court by Judge Greer." Richard has more to say.

Although I personally believe the rehabilitation will come too late, I also don't believe that is the only issue--whether she can speak (or do math or paint a masterpiece). We do not place value on people because of their speech or swallowing. The media reports slip off the horse on one side or the other--either the side that she has no brain activity at all, or swerving over to maybe there is hope for her like the woman who awoke from a coma after 20 years. When in doubt, choose life.

829 About as far off as a test can be

You Are 29 Years Old

29 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

It must have been the question on lying. None of them fit (can't remember the last lie I told), so I checked Lied about my age, because that sounded like something someone my age would do. But perhaps you're more likely to do it in your 20s than 60s? I don't feel 29; would not want to be 29 and have to go through all that nonsense again!

828 Childhood memories--learning to draw

Both Karin and Paula are blogging about childhood memories, getting ideas from different sources, and both are writers having recently participated in the write a novel in a month (NaNoWriMo) contest. I've just about tapped that source out (childhood), or the memory cells are shriveling (Quick--if you've got one, write it down. Don't expect it to stick around forever).

This was written two years ago, and no, I didn't stick with my plan.

When I was in the early elementary grades, for some reason I fell in love with horses. I was probably about seven, because I don’t remember having any interest in horses in first grade. In pretend outdoor games, I was always riding a horse--galloping. Also, indoors--as I would trot on my hands and knees through the living room with my younger brother on my back until Daddy would complain we were making too much noise. My blue bicycle was my horse, Rusty (even though it wasn’t) and my friend JoElla’s bicycle was “Red,” also a horse and also blue. We would ride Rusty and Red around Forreston developing the storyline as we went.

My interest in horses soon moved to books and drawing. I read all the Black Stallion series by Walter Farley and all the Marguerite Henry books. I still have my “Born to Trot” and “The Blood-bay Colt.” I would draw horse stories, it seems now, by the hour at the dining room table. Mother brought home discontinued wall paper rolls for me to use as drawing paper if we ran out of our own scraps. (This was before the pre-pasted came on the market.) My uncle worked at a printing plant and she would also get bundles of unused white newsprint from him for me to draw on.

Mother never interfered or gave advice--she did however, buy me a few “how-to” drawing books and took me along with her to Freeport to the adult night school where I took a brief drawing class (the only child in the class) while she took a typing class. I really didn’t care much for this class because horses were the only thing I knew how to draw or cared about, and the instructor would set up a still life with draping and small figurines--really boring for a kid. But one day Mother stopped at the dining room table--I can see and hear her as though it happened today--and observed that horses had “hocks” and if I would just make a few curves in the hind legs, my horses might look more realistic. She had grown up on a farm and ridden behind “Beauty,” in a carriage when the roads were bad in the Spring and also had a pony one summer when her family was in Nebraska. So, although she wasn’t much of an artist, she knew the shape of a horse from direct experience, something I didn’t have. What a transformation. Instead of straight legs, my horses now had a bit more grace, and I drew even more furiously and made up even more exciting stories.

To this day, a horse is the only animal I can draw. Every time I look at my stick-like figures of dogs, cows and bunnies, it puzzles me that I can draw horses while blindfolded or standing on my head or in the dirt with my big toe. Obviously, my skill with horses is a result of practice and devotion and not talent. So last week, I decided I would go on a crash course to learn to draw animals. I never set goals because I’m a problem solver. So, to solve this problem of stick figured dogs and cats, I decided I would practice drawing one and a half animals a week--for seven days I would work and concentrate on one animal and around day five I’d start the next animal. I have a very smart cat. She rolls up in a ball and closes her eyes when she sees me pick up a pencil and open a sketchbook.

Update:
day 3

827 There is no stay

This blog for Terri says there is no stay; the media have reported even that incorrectly.

826 Gender styles in blogging

Finding female bloggers for my links took a long time. But now I've got a good group. Today I found a "Gender Genie" that thinks most of my own blogs are written by a male! You copy and paste one of your own writing examples (fiction, non-fiction or blog) into a window for analysis. The results color code the key words for determining gender. Interestingly, frequent use of the word "the" throws this writer into the male column. I tested several of my blog entries. The one I wrote about my husband being locked out of the house rated me as a female; the one I wrote about bread pudding had me overwhelmingly in the male column. Go figure. The blog I wrote in April 2004 about the Festival of Writing also put me in the male column, as did the one about deer-car collisions on the trip to Illinois.

The designer of the test has about 60% accuracy, but if I keep submitting, I'll mess them up. If you try this, you need to be careful not to use as an example one in which you do a lot of quoting. Otherwise, it isn't checking on you--but that other guy.

Gannon Guckert

Has anyone made any sense out of this dual identity, reporter/blogger, straight/gay story? It must be a really light news day if all the MSM AND bloggers have to do is report this non-story. It sure is chewing up bandwidth and pixels. Meanwhile, Terri dies tomorrow (or starts dying, since starvation is slow and painful).

I've tried WaPo, NYT and Slate, and some lesser beings. The innuendo, snipes and slurs are almost tsunami level. Remind me again, which party is it that has it in for gays? If you have a reasonable, well-informed link to suggest, e-mail me.

824 My blue flip flops

This is not about John Kerry. Two years ago I purchased a pair of bright blue flip flops with little sparkles on the straps for $1.00 to wear in the shower house at the RV park in Florida. I left them with my sister-in-law to use when I came back, or for anyone else visiting. I'm no expert on this type of footwear, but apparently, neither is anyone else, not even the ones who spend a lot more.

Last week Wall Street Journal did a survey on flip flops (average cost $600 a pair) and tested men to see if they could pick the $24 variety from the $1,000 kind. The designer/brands were Manolo Blahnik, alligator strap for $1,190; Brian Atwood, gold, $450; and Miss Trish, $530. And so forth. (The Manolo Blahnik shoes the new Mrs. Trump wore at her wedding were so expensive they were on loan!) The men failed the WSJ test--usually choosing the cheaper pair as the more expensive. So they tried asking women, and they too failed. Apparently there is no way to tell the pricey ones by looking. So if you're going to pay $1,000 more for flip flops than I do, would you leave the price tag on, wear a sign around your neck, or just casually drop a comment to your closest 30 friends at lunch about the high cost of looking good?

The rich have a different set of problems, don't they. I can't find a photo of these sandals, but here's a site that makes my feet hurt to look at it.

823 Now I'm a mammal?

When I went to Florida I was a marsupial; when I came back I was a reptile, now I'm a mammal. If this makes no sense to you, let me explain it is a rating system for blogs, based on unique links (I think). No matter how many people visit my site, it always flatlines at 71, so that apparently doesn't count.

No matter--that's not my topic. What I want to comment on is that the main stream media (MSM) has either ignored Terri Schiavo's situation or given erroneous information--saying she is in a vegetative state when her father says she can smile, return a kiss and say simple words. I visit a woman in a nursing home who can only tell me with her beautiful eyes that she knows I am there--and no one is trying to kill her. I visit another woman who had a brain stem aneurysm when she was 18, and has been using a feeding tube for over 30 years, but she knows who I am even if I haven't seen her in 5 years (I used to be her volunteer). She can also be fed with a spoon, but it takes a long time. Terri's husband won't allow her to be fed with a spoon. So the MSM has it wrong.

What about the bloggers--the pajamahadeen? Those big brave wannabe journalists of the new media? Well, most of the "higher beings" and "mortal humans" are off chasing stories about reporters in the MSM, charting red state/blue state minutia and nattering about someone who borrowed someone else's computer, leaving it to us little guys, the reptiles, mammals and slime to chip away at this story. Too busy to save a life of a woman in Florida, who will be executed on Tuesday, February 22. Here's their opportunity to really make a difference and they've put away their keyboards, folded their pajamas, put on their neckties and gone out for the evening. Thump hairy primate chest and chatter about how they brought down Dan Rather.

Current exhibits at Columbus Museum of Art

After church today we drove downtown to see this winter's group of exhibits at the Columbus Museum of Art.

Duane Hanson: Portraits from the Heartland December 11, 2004 - March 6, 2005

The Allen Sisters: Pictorial Photographers 1885-1920 January 15 - March 20, 2005

Claude Raguet Hirst: Transforming the American Still Life January 15 - April 10, 2005

Bringing Modernism Home: Ohio Decorative Arts 1890-1960 January 28 - April 17, 2005

and the photographs of Art Sinsabaugh, which for some reason don't have a link on the museum page.

The Hanson sculptures are amazing and eerie. Because there are guards sitting around very still close to the sculptures, sometimes you're not sure--is this a real person or a sculpture. The woman reclining in a lawn chair in her bikini had a sun burn and cellulite! The museum was full of families--many peering into the faces of these lifelike. . . forms. Looking more real than most real people.

The photographs of the Allen sisters make me want to go through the few old Ladies Home Journals I have from the early 20th century (my grandmother's). They did a lot of photographs for magazines, and the exhibit shows the changes in their art over the years. Ms. Hirst's still lifes were also very interesting--particularly the ones she did of books, and her uniquely female way of painting of "bachelor art" a genre that appealed primarily to men.

My favorite was the Ohio Decorative Arts exhibit, and the Sunday morning lark became a bit more expensive (also included lunch in the museum restaurant, designed by my husband) when I couldn't resist buying the book, Bringing modernism home; Ohio decorative arts, 1890-1960, by Carol Boram-Hays (Ohio University Press, 2005). Because of the large number of glass and pottery companies in Ohio, it really is possible to build a very large collection with just Ohio artists (although many were immigrants from Europe and Japan).

"Bringing Modernism Home illuminates how Ohioans were influential in bringing international vanguard movements such as Arts and Crafts, Art Deco and Art Moderne out of the rarefied atmosphere of art galleries and museums and into the domestic realm. Included are works by nationally regarded figures such as Russel Wright and Viktor Schreckengost, as well as renowned creations by the important studios and manufactories Rookwood Pottery, Rose Iron Works, Hall China, and the Libbey Glass Company." Read more.

Art Sinsabaugh's photographs, which we just stumbled into, included many scenes we remember from the Champaign, Urbana, and Rantoul area. At first he didn't like the flatness of central Illinois, but soon found it beautiful, and by cropping his 12 x 20 negatives, he was able to achieve the far horizon/big sky those of us who lived in that area recognize. Also the Chicago scenes from the 1960s are wonderful.

821 Governor Bush and Terri

This writer thinks Governor Bush is being too weak about his powers and the state constitution of Florida:

"Florida’s state constitution says "All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness...No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability." The fact that a Circuit Judge continues to ignore Florida statutes does not change the state constitution.

Jeb Bush took an oath to uphold that constitution and yet (despite receiving 120,000 e-mails begging him to save her), he let Terri Schiavo starve (and dehydrate) for six days back in October 2003 until the Florida legislature passed a law that gave him political cover. Now that the courts have struck down "Terri’s Law", don't be surprised if Jeb behaves as if the constitution he swore to uphold is still not relevant to Terri Schiavo. Don't be surprised if he allows her husband to slowly starve and dehydrate her to death."

This is one of the contributions at Wittenberg Gate blog. Governors can commute death penalties for murderers, why not victims? Some things about law I don't understand.

820 Which Democrat would you be?

Pejman Yousefzadeh speculates about being a Democrat (it's a stretch), and how he might choose between the Clinton wing and the Dean wing of the party:

"If we once again transport ourselves to an alternate universe--one in which I am a left-of-center Pej--I would resolve the argument by asking which wing of the Democratic Party had the most electoral success. The Democrats ran an angry campaign in the 2002 midterm elections--and lost. They then proceeded to run an even angrier campaign in 2004--and lost. By contrast, Bill Clinton won twice, and while his party lost both houses of Congress in 1994, the more ideological Democrats have not fared any better in congressional elections, and Clinton helped his party achieve midterm gains in 1998--an amazing feat given that Clinton was mired in scandal and that the President's party usually loses seats in midterm elections."

He wrote this for Redstate.org, commenting on the Washington Post article, but he has his own blog where this is cross posted.

819 Mounds of trash

Near by we have an Adena burial mound--at least that is what I told my children when we'd drive a mile or so from our home to look at it on the other side of the Scioto River. I don't remember how I learned about it. There has been a lot of development in that area in the last 30 years, but I hope the mound has been protected.

There are many mounds much more famous in other Ohio counties, and according to the 1892 History of the City of Columbus, Columbus and Worthington had a number of them, leveled as "progress" took ahold in this area.

"One of the most pretentious mounds in the County was that which formerly occupied the crowning point of the highland on the eastern side of the Scioto River, at the spot where now rises St. Pauls Lutheran Church and adjoining buildings, on the southeast corner of High and Mound Streets in Columbus. Not a trace of this work is left, save the terraces of the church, although if it were yet standing as it stood a century ago, it would be remarked as one of the most imposing monuments of the original Scioto race. When the first settlers came it was regarded as a wonder, and yet it was not spared. The expansion of the city demanded its demolition, and therefore this grand relic of Ohio's antiquity was swept away."

Joel Brondos of Collarbones tells of visiting Cahokia Mounds State Park recently where his family had stopped when he was a child. In addition to the mounds made by the early American peoples, he noted that we now have mounds of landscaped trash around St. Louis (and other cities). Just down the road from the sacred mound we used to visit, luxury housing has been developed--at the site of a former gravel pit along the river. As we'd drive across the bridge during construction, we watched the holes and valleys fill with refuse, rocks, road debris and concrete chunks from demolition sites and then the piles would be leveled with compactors. Surely when the early peoples built their monuments to their culture, they thought they would last forever. Building luxury homes on a compacted pile of trash certainly is a sign of our culture, as were the Adena mounds.

817 Making sure the kids are alright

Not my topic, but that was the article title in the Wall Street Journal yesterday by Sarah Tilton. All about baby monitors. When did "alright" become a standard English word? I checked Answers.com thinking it would give a little on this one, but even it listed "alright" as nonstandard English. When I was writing professionally, it was beyond nonstandard--it was circled and deleted.

One of the hot topics in letters to the editor yesterday was the "senior projects" article [that appeared Feb. 8, I believe]. I didn't see the articles, but it isn't "alright" with parents that kids who've squeeked through 11 grades have a sink or swim senior project. One wrote:

"If Johnny can't write clearly [in 12th grade] perhaps he needs to practice writing in grades K-11. . .read the works of great writers. . .practice annotation in middle school and elementary school. If Suzy can't do basic math, she may need to give up "anger management," and "family life" classes and do more math."

Forgive me for not reading the article, but when was this golden age of public school education? Certainly not in the 1920s for my parents, nor the 1950s for me. Nor the 80s when my children were in school (although standards were stiffer in their era than mine). As I've noted before here, if it weren't for the "Authors Card Game," I wouldn't have even recognized an American or British author of the 18th or 19th century when I was a teenager. If my parents hadn't paid for my piano lessons, I wouldn't be able to read music.

I had a senior project in high school; I think it was 1/4 of our American history grade. The class was taught by the coach, so only the athletes were safe. We knew about this ahead of time, so the summer of 1956 I followed the presidential election and clipped articles about Eisenhower and Stevenson and the conventions from Time and U.S. News and World Report. I know I got an A on the project, but I don't think that would pass muster as research in today's high schools--articles from two weekly news magazines.

The two high school courses I have never stopped using are Latin and typing. A dead language that is the foundation for our own and a clerical skill (can still type 60 wpm) for a machine that no one uses today--who'da thunk it.

816 Important cultural survey

Is your librarian tattooed? Do you have tattoos and work in a library? Must be the new image. Curmudgeony Librarian is doing this important lifestyle survey. Librarians are not exactly a cross section of society--still predominately a female profession (except for directors--that position is probably over 50% male), still predominately (overwhelmingly) liberal even in red states, and the last time I looked, educated far beyond what the position description called for.

Tattoo was not on my list of words to use, but curmudgeon was. I love it when a plan comes together.

815 Shall we dance?

We went to the dollar theater tonight and saw Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez in Shall We Dance. The minute it started I whispered to my husband, "Didn't we just see the Japanese version of this?" Well, I think it was about 8 years ago, but it was a really charming movie.

"On his evening commute, bored accountant Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) always looks for the beautiful woman who gazes wistfully out the window of the Kishikawa School of Dancing. One night he gets off the train, walks into the studio, and signs up for a class. Soon Sugiyama is so engrossed in his dancing he practices his steps on the train platform and under his desk, and becomes good enough for competition, compelling his wife to hire a private investigator to find out why he stays out late and returns home smelling of perfume."

In those days of the late 90s our Friday night date restaurant was Gottlieb's down on Third Avenue, because I remember we went there after that movie. We don't see many movies, but we've closed a lot of restaurants in our day--and it was one of them. For the last five years we've been going to Old Bag of Nails, a sandwich/bar/deli near here, so that's where we went to meet our son for dinner after this movie. Not only was Richard Gere not a good fit for this movie (just doesn't strike me as an uptight business man deeply in love with his wife, the always ugly Susan Sarandon), but worse, they've changed the menu at "our" restaurant. More dinners, fewer salads and sandwiches. It will probably close soon. I read that the owner tried to get a liquor license to set up shop in Westerville, Ohio, the home of the WTCU and Driest city in the country.