849 Publishers not making cents

Not a statistic that a librarian or book seller wants to read, but according to AdAge, we're spending a lot less on reading today than we did 50 years ago.

"The share of money spent on entertainment has hovered around 5% since 1950, but priorities have shifted. Spending on consumer electronics has soared; spending on newspapers, magazines and books has plummeted. The average household apportioned just 0.3% of spending ($127) for reading materials in 2003, down from 1% ($51, or $317 adjusted for inflation) in 1960.

The rich, who also are more educated, spend more money on print media and books than the poor do. But don’t read too much into that. It turns out households in every quintile of income spent the same average 0.3% of budget on reading in 2003. For publishers, that doesn’t make cents."

We're spending a lot less on food and a lot more on "other," according to the article that appeared in American Demographics.

Complete story about "What U.S. Consumers Buy and Why" with downloadable charts at AdAge.com. (Might require registration.)

848 AP disrespect and disinformation

The Bradenton Herald has an Associated Press article by Mitch Stacy (Tampa) about the Terri Schiavo case. Then there is a national AP story also filed by Stacy. The local AP article is about as biased and distorted as anything I've read in the MSM. But then, I've heard that the Florida papers are really pushing her demise so they can move on. After so many years, they are probably tired of this case. Perhaps the local paper just uses Stacy's by-line and edits at will.

". . .kept alive artificially" Perhaps nutrition is "artificial" for Mitch, but not for me. None of us eat without the help of farmers, truckers, food processors, marketers, wholesalers and retailers.

". . .parents, who want her kept alive" isn't accurate, Mitch--"want her to be allowed to live" would be a better choice of words.

"The court is no longer comfortable. . ." Mitch, you need to look into whether this story should be about Judge Greer's comfort, or Terri's comfort. It hurts to starve.

"long-running family feud" Let's not trivialize what has much larger implications for society and the growing push for active euthanasia. It isn't called a "feud" in the national report. Is this an Appalachian/southern turn of phrase?

"Terri Schiavo's collapse brought on by an eating disorder. . ." Seems to be quite a bit of evidence of physical abuse--you might have at least presented the whole story instead of just Michael's, Mitch.

"I am very pleased . . ." Felos said. Mitch, you might have mentioned a possible conflict of interest, since it is reported Felos is on the board of directors of the hospice where she resides, and hospice facilities offer no rehabilitation or therapy, only a way to die. The national AP article has an even stranger quote from him--about if Terri could get up for an hour and see what was happening. Felos will make sure that scenario won't happen.

"[Gov.] Bush intervened in October 2003 to keep her alive six days after the tube was removed." My, she certainly is a tough little sucker for all you say about her "right to die." I don't know that I'd make it 6 days without food and water.

". . .Terri's wishes not to be kept alive artificially must now be enforced." There is absolutely no evidence that this was Terri's wish, and it is pretty unlikely that 25 year olds talk much about how they want to die.

"The Department of Children & Families is also seeking to intervene in the case." Let's see, what else do we know about this agency's prompt care and action?

"[Schiavo] started a new family with another woman" Nice turn of a phrase for adultery, Mitch. No conflict there, right? Also no mention of this tawdry tale in the national report. Probably not important, right?

"elements of a soap opera" You didn't use this cheap slam the national article.

"persistent vegetative state as court-appointed doctors have ruled." Just what were the qualifications of said doctors, Mitch.

I don't know why the same reporter's name is attached to two AP stories on the same topic and the two stories are so completely different, but in the other one (national) Stacy reports, "[Schiavo] has spent most of a $700,000 medical malpractice award given to his wife for her care to pay his attorney." Is it legal to spend a malpractice award intended for care to kill the patient? Does Felos take cases that have no such $$ attached? Does this part of the story not fly well in the south?

847 Attempt to censor the ad to support Terri

Bloggers raised $10,000 to put an ad in a major Florida newspaper. BlogsforTerri reports what happened.

846 Praying about head lice

We all started feeling itchy as she was telling us about the head lice infestation in her classroom and measures they were taking to prevent the spread. Head lice are (is?) a serious problem for elementary school children. The scientific name for head louse is Pediculus humanus capitis. Sort of rhymes with ridiculous. Another name for infestation with head lice is pediculosis. Description here.

The measures were common sense--the children kept their coats on the back of their chairs, rather than in the coat room sharing space, and were told to keep their hair up off their shoulders. Wouldn't you know, the parent of the child who was the source of most of the infections, objected to the teacher telling his child how to wear her hair, so the word came down from the office, "No rules on hair styles." Schools are very fearful of law suits, so even practical measures that apply to all children and don't single any one out may not be workable.

There is one school in Columbus that has no head lice. It has a special group of prayer warriors who pray about that, and for over a year, no child in the school has had head lice. So we decided we'd be an ad hoc prayer group for that school, and specifically that class room. I suppose we could have included the whole school system, but we're going after this one louse at a time.

I don't know to whom you would send this card genre, but there are e-cards for the occasion that calls for mail to nit wits.

844 Enough of the big issues for awhile

There is a growing list if irritants in my notebook, so I'll just throw them out here, like emptying the trash. You are welcome to any of them if you need a minor crusade.

1) People who drop off grocery carts a few feet from the corral, or in the middle of a parking spot that is close to the door.
2) People who drop off their passenger at the door of the coffee shop, and then don't move their giant SUV or Hummvee so I can't get my car in or out.
3) Clerks who wear protective gloves to handle food, but then leave them in place to make change at the cash register.
4) Long artificial fingernails on anyone, but especially food workers (the bacteria count under them is incredible!).
5) Messy public restrooms with permanent tattoos of feces and urine with posted signs about cleanliness and hygiene for their staff.
6) Darters and dodgers racing to the next stop light where we idle together.
7) Restaurants that drive away regulars with menu changes while trying to attract new customers (churches too, with music that does this).
8) Friends and college roommates who don't write or e-mail.
9) Magazine agencies that send renewal notices 10 months early.
10) People who look and sound and act like someone I used to know, but aren't.

843 She wants to be fed and watered

Florida Cracker always has a good take on the issues, plus she is consistent. She saves injured animals and cares about people too. About the food and water issue (and last I looked we all need some help with that):

"This witholding of food and water is actually getting pretty common. I was reading about a man named Hugh Finn whose wife had him starved to death even though his family wanted him. His family had to pay her court costs for the legal fight too.
Rather than eye Mr. Cracker with suspicion, I did a living will saying I want my food and water any way I can get them. It's not too much to ask that you be fed and watered twice a day.

The things you have to do these days to protect yourself from hearsay."

She has some further observations. Comments by one of her readers who prepares Living Wills is also worth reading.

842 Final photos

A washed up digital camera reveals the last moments of a Canadian couple, victims of the tsunami. Photos. The camera of John and Jackie Krill was found by Christian Pilet, a Baptist relief worker, who used the Internet to track down their family.

841 Tell us how you really feel, Joel

"Who the !!@*@*!! let this happen??? Apparently, the movie of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is in the hands of...Disney!!! That's right, Disney!

Just who is responsible for this? Is a Buddhist-Agnostico-New-Age-Schlockfestico redaction of the world's greatest work of Christian children's fiction really what the world needs right now?

I mean, please! Heads need to roll on this one."

The Rev is revved on this one.

840 Conflict of Interest?

Should George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, be on the board of directors of the Hospice where she resides and gets no treatment? Seems odd to me, if Becki is telling this story correctly:

"Terri was even starting to speak again - words like "yes" "no" and "stop that" - but that was before Michael Schiavo hired George Felos to help his wife "die with dignity". Now, Terri's parents have been safely removed so as to avoid "false hope". All media and medical access is tightly controlled by Micheal Schiavo and Felos; in response, Terri has at last physically and mentally degenerated to the level where she may be exterminated by polite society.

Terri's slow death will grind down to a brutal, final starvation, executed at Felos' request. Upon Terri's death, several hundred thousand dollars that were earmarked for Terri's long-term care and therapy will finally be released to her husband Michael Schiavo, his new lover and their two children, to his attorney George Felos, and quite possibly in turn to the Hospice itself. It is unknown if Felos would advocate quick death for hospice patients who do not have large sums of money lubricating their exit from life; evidently the Hospice has not been forthcoming with clients in regard to George Felos' true role at the Hospice."

Comments on Felos here.

839 Hotel Rwanda and Million dollar baby

I won't be seeing either movie, but if it were up to me, based only on the reviews, I'd vote for Hotel Rwanda to walk off with more awards.

At least, it attempts to tell the truth about when a million or so Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in Rwanda and the rest of the world looked away. It is about a hotel manager who saved about 1200 of his countrymen while waiting, saying--"they will come."

"Baby" is a love story of sorts (according to Jim at the coffee shop). But it is getting picketed by disabled advocacy groups who say the writers didn't do their homework and depict an inaccurate view of the disabled and their care. Others say it is just a political paean to active euthanasia. I don't think the disability advocates care that the boxer wanted to die rather than live without fame; they just wanted some respect for the disabled.

838 Information theory

I just used Answers.com to look up the term "information theory." It reported:

"The theory of the probability of transmission of messages with specified accuracy when the bits of information constituting the messages are subject, with certain probabilities, to transmission failure, distortion, and accidental additions."

Paul's blog (he's a PhD candidate for saving Terri's life) is about information theory. But I'm still confused. If you use "theory" and "probability" in the same sentence, I just black out.

But my oh my, I do love Answers.com.

837 Tag, you're it

When reading this story, I wondered if I would have ever made it to high school with the sort of hysteria that's reported about schools these days.

First off, I would've been in the headlines and my teacher jailed for child abuse, because one day in first grade she yanked my braids so hard she snapped my neck and then tied a towel around my face because I talked too much (imagine that!). The other children were not even reprimanded for laughing at me and damaging my self esteem.

Then there was that sex scandal. When I was in third grade and Tommy in fourth, we used to sneak across the street to the church with dense bushes (EUB?) and kiss.

Gender issues, yes we had them. In fourth grade I was the fastest runner in the class at recess, even if I had sore arches and a pain in my side from the glory. I looked around one day and saw that I was leaving the little boys in the dust, and figured out very quickly I needed to not show up the boys at their own game.


Grade school on a very cold day in Forreston

836 Let's be humble--you go first

This morning I heard an interview on radio 610 with Maurice Clarett in which he actually said, "It's a very humbling thing being humble." Athletes need to arrive on campus or at camp with a large supply of duct tape to seal their mouths. No entertainers, politicos or defendants in a criminal act ever make the ridiculous remarks that athletes do. I think journalists interview them just so they can poke fun because they didn't get a letter in high school. It's their big chance to get back at the guys who kicked sand in their faces as teen-agers.

""It's a humbling thing being humble," Clarett said. "I got a second chance to make a first impression." " some reporter's version.

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!