913 English and Alcohol

When I took the English test and got a score that said I was more knowledgable than 99% of the people in my age group, I thought WOW. But when I took the alcohol knowledge test and it also said I knew more than 99% in my age group, I figured it just wasn't running the numbers for my age group because not enough people were taking the test. I answered the alcohol questions randomly because I know nothing about alcohol and only have an occasional glass of house wine. I've never even tasted beer, so I left one of the beer questions blank which offer that option. Still scored pretty high. So I guess that's why I curved so high in English. Darn.

Update: The link to the test for Mr. Cloud.

912 LeetSpeek

If you’ve wondered why you see so many numbers, capital letters and screwed up spelling in some teens-on-line-chat, you’ve probably been reading “leet.” Take a look at this site, “A Parent’s Primer to Computer Slang” by Microsoft to decipher what those bilingual kids are talking about. If you come across pr0n (porn) or h4x (hacks), it may mean something bad is going on.
Tip from In Season Librarian

911 Worst Neighbor Award

When we were in Florida in February 2003 I recall reading in the local Longboat Key paper about the battles with street lights and dog feces. Now Florida Cracker has the follow-up to one of the stories I might have read.

"[Psychologist] Holli Bodner had a yearlong feud with Jean Pierre Villar about street lights and dog poop before committing him to a mental health center in April 2003." Tampa Bay 10 News

I debated about skipping this number because of all the false hits it will bring to this site, but it is also the date of our anniversary. So if you've wandered in here expecting something else, my apologies, but enjoy your visit.

The Blogger posting mechanism is really messed up and is double and triple posting entries.

910 Tara Parker Pope

Tara Parker Pope writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal on health, and she answers questions from readers. She also contributes occasionally to career articles. She has also written a book on the cigarette industry. I know nothing about her--I just think her name is fabulous and wonderful. Because she writes about health issues, I’m guessing she gets a ton of mail telling her that she is wrong, crazy or in cahoots with the evil pharmaceutical industry or conversely, the alternative medicine wackos. This entry is not about that. I just like her name. With a name like Tara Parker Pope, she should be in a sit-com or on stage, so I’ve written a poem about her.

Tara Parker Pope--
such a lovely name;
sing it, play it,
hang it on a rope.

Tara Parker Pope.
she of Wall Street fame;
read her, write her,
She will help you cope.

909 Mending is a sacred rite

Several weeks ago a button popped off my husband’s sport coat as he was getting ready to walk out the door to usher at church. He rushed upstairs to grab another jacket, leaving the button on the kitchen counter, where is sat until yesterday. About three days ago he brought the button-missing coat down stairs and hung it wordlessly in the hall, where it stayed for a day. I finally moved the poor thing to the dining room and laid the button on top. That put it within 5 ft. of my mother’s sewing cabinet. I think I was secretly hoping a needle and thread would appear and do the job. Meanwhile, the cat has discovered it and thinks the button should be on the floor.

Today I was looking through the photocopy of my mother’s commonplace book which she compiled between 1946 and 1999, although I think some things were published earlier, just not pasted in (poems about the war, for instance). Reading one poem about mending made me pause and wonder if young wives and mothers mend these days.

Women Mending by Nelle Graves McGill

All women at their mending wear a look
As legible as any open book;
And by the way in which they bend above
Each garment, show their wisdom and their love.

A girl just mends her dress to make it do--
Impatiently--till she has something new.
A young wife darns an unaccustomed sock,
With proud, expectant eyes which seek the clock.

A mother sews a tiny button in place
On baby’s gown, a glory on her face;
Or patches up a rent in son’s best breeches
As if she’d reinforce the youth by switches.

But grandma’s fingers touch a boy’s torn cap
As if it were his head upon her lap;
Her tremulous hands are light above the seam
Of grandpa’s coat, as though she darned a dream--
Most frail and beautiful--to make it last
Until his need, and hers, of dreams be past.

Old women know that women must repair
Life’s worn habiliments, to keep life fair;
They know that mending is a sacred rite,
To be performed with prayer, while God gives light.

I checked Google to see if Mrs. McGill might have a collection of verses. I didn’t find anything, but she is in my anthology of “Contemporary American Women Poets" (1935). However, I did find an obituary for her daughter Monna who died two years ago at age 93. She’d been a radio and stage actress in New York, had worked in Kansas City, and then returned to her hometown to live with her parents (probably to care for them) and worked as an editor and correspondent. She published short stories, poetry and essays.

I’m sure there is a story in there somewhere, but I need to go pray over a button while there is light.

908 Using Loose and Lose

Are you lost? Losing your way with the words "loose" (lus) and "lose" (luz)? “She had to loosen her slacks, so she dieted to lose weight and then her slacks were loose.” “Loose morals caused him to lose his way.”

lose, lost, losing--a verb
loose, looser, loosest--an adjective
loosen, loosened, loosening--a verb

“People who study errors in language make a systematic distinction between inadvertent errors -- in the case at hand, slips of the pen or typos -- and another type of mistake, which arises from imperfect command of the conventions at work in the larger community of language users -- in the case at hand, "spelling errors" in the sense of errors involving the conventions of spelling. Writing or typing "teh" for "the" is an inadvertent error, and a very common one. Writing or typing "loose" for the present tense or base form /luz/ of the verb whose past tense is spelled "lost" is, I maintain, almost always something else; people who spell this way, and there are a great many of them, almost always intend that spelling (while those who spell "teh" surely do not intend that spelling).”

Read the whole article by Arnold Zwicky at Language Log.

907 When dependency means a death sentence

“Terri Schiavo’s death is not imminent. She is not on a ventilator, dialysis, or other life sustaining equipment. She is not awaiting a transplant or other major surgery. She is not in pain. She has two parents and siblings who love and care for her. She has access to good health care. If given basic care and food and water her life will continue in more or less its present state. The very fact that her present state is pretty miserable is precisely why some think she should die. . . .Those advocating Terri Schiavo’s death, including her husband, are not making their case on medical grounds, but on Terri’s radical condition of dependency and low quality of life. “ Father Michael Black

First seen at Jordan's site.

906 The Democrats' resistence to private accounts

Why have the Democrats been so virulently opposed to salvaging Social Security with private accounts, I've wondered. It didn't make sense. It could save our safety net. It could help the poor. In the late 90s they were saying SS was broken and broke. (Of course, they were also reporting that Iraq had WMD in those days.) Maybe it is just hatred of anything Bush?

I think John Zogby has really put his finger on it in an editorial essay in today's Wall Street Journal (Mar. 15, 2005) Zogby's polling firm has analyzed the 2004 election from every possible angle, and turned up some interesting information about Democrats who are also part of the self described investor class.

It is possible that if George W. Bush is successful in creating a larger investor class, a group that goes across all the demographics of female, Hispanic, Black, middle-class, etc., the Democrats will lose their base.

The investor class is self-identified as 46% of the total vote in 2004, and their world view tends to be conservative, middle-class, modest, and saving for the kids' college. And if they are Democrats, many of them voted for Bush.

"Like the New Deal, the president's "ownership society" is a compelling new vision and veritable redefinition of a society less dependent on government largess, of a middle class more independent and more capable of securing financial security on its own."

That would be bad news for the Democrats who need a large group of poor, disadvantaged and minority constituents to maintain their base. There will be many more theories and ideas thrown out for consideration to save Social Security, but this one by Zogby answered a nagging question for me.

905 No Late Fees

Scribbling Lizard (Gekko) is really determined to find out the true story behind the "no late fee" advert at Blockbuster. So, she clicked, and clicked, and clicked on their website until she finally found something definitive about just how they get those videos back with no incentive.

"If you still have a movie or game seven (7) days after the due date shown on your receipt, we will convert your rental to a sale. The movie or game will be sold to you at the selling price in effect at the time of rental, which is either the retail price, or, when available, at the previously-rented selling price, less the initial rental fee you paid."

Gekko muses and does the math: "So you do get a late fee, after all. The fee amounts to somewhere around $15 - $25. They've simply extended the late fee period from the due date, to seven days following the due date. Seven days times their previous $3 a day late fee charge was $21. Hmmmm. And they pretty much say "You just bought yourself a movie or a game, fella." Cool. Unless the movie was a piece of crap.

Well, thank goodness they have that covered! If you don't want the movie, you can return it, and get credited the sale charge."

Nice investigating, Gek.

I think libraries do something similar. If you keep it too long, you own it.

904 Blog People’s Revenge

“Bloggers are showing American Library Association (ALA) president-elect Michael Gorman that revenge is apparently a dish best served digital. Bloggers, librarians included, are responding in great numbers—and in rather prickly fashion—to Gorman’s recent LJ Backtalk piece “Revenge of the Blog People.” The piece has drawn over 1000 responses to its posting on popular technology webzine Slashdot.org, and emails were pouring in to LJ’s editorial department.”

March 13, 2005 LJ article

Slash dot link to the original item February 25, 2005.

903 Everybody talking 'bout heaven ain't goin' there

So according to the last entry, I'm going to "cat lady heaven" because I treat a small mammal with fur and whiskers and a crooked tail well. It's a cute quiz, and fortunately I already know I'm going to heaven, but not because of my cat, and not because of anything I've done right.

Actually, I'm not sure of the preposition to use, whether heaven is up, over, in, around or through. Scripture is rather vague about that. In an odd turn of events, the earth, the country, the towns that we know so well are what is transitory, and the Christian's real citizenship is in heaven. (Keep that in mind flag-wavers.) Space and time is something we only need on earth, so I suppose the preposition really doesn't matter--heaven is where God dwells and "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." (Rev. 21:3,4) In order for heaven to have no tears and sorrow, maybe you'll need to have your cat or dog--I'm sure it can be arranged.

902 A quiz for cat lovers

Going to Cat Lady Heaven: Your cats are pampered
and treated like the perfect creatures that
they are. There is definitely a spot reserved
for you in Kitty Heaven :)

What kind of Cat Parent are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hip Liz, on the other hand . . .

901 The Secret Life of Sororities

The Yale Review of Books (undergrad publication) has an interesting review of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins (Hyperion). Robbins is a Bush hater who has distinguished herself with Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power and now looks for more intriguing secrets among our campus Greeks. Review by Rebecca Adler here.

I was never even remotely interested in pledging a sorority when I was in college. As much as I liked my friends in my high school clique, that was enough for me by age 18. I’m thinking Robbins might have thought differently--perhaps was hankering for a Kappa or Chi-O pin, and was rejected. I wore my “independent” status like a badge at the university. Quite to my surprise though, when I got to know them I really liked and admired the sorority women in my classes--they were smart, helpful, hard working, and had lovely personalities. It was the exclusivity I didn’t admire about these clubs. But according to Robbins, that may be the least of the worries, as she chronicles date rape, binge drinking, silly and barbaric hazing routines and mixes in some disturbing statistics. We don’t know if the same thing is going on in the indy dorms and apartments around campus, because that wasn’t her research project, and also, she only followed four women. Not a huge sample when you consider the size of the sisterhood.

In the end, the reviewer turns the magnifying glass on the author and writes: “Robbins falls short of her original open-minded intention, that of examining an unknown culture through a year's immersion. Throughout her account, Robbins maintains a steady downward gaze with an upturned nose, causing Pledged to morph from a sensationalized account of college life into an accusatory diatribe against the power and stupidity of Greek life. After reading through Robbins's ranting, the reader wants to shove her off her privileged soapbox, to suffer humiliation like the pledges she spent so much time with and wasted a whole book destroying.”

900 Parents of Teens, check this out

There’s no way to know if high school romances have changed that much since you and I were young, Maggie, because no one investigated it with sophisticated mapping until recently. But if you’ve got teen-agers who are dating, you might want to take a look at this research and review the facts of life and STDs with them.

“For the first time, sociologists have mapped the romantic and sexual relationships of an entire high school over 18 months, providing evidence that these adolescent networks may be structured differently than researchers previously thought.”

“James Moody, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University, said this network could be compared to rural phone lines, running from a long main trunk line to individual houses. As a comparison, many adult sexual networks are more like an airline hub system where many points are connected to a small number of hubs.” Report of his study here.

Click on this link, and you’ll see there were only 63 monogamous couples in the whole school! Everyone less was more or less, sexually linked. A to B, B to C (and therefore C to A), and B to D (and therefore D to A, B and C, and so forth) Pink dots are female; blue are male. Isn’t that cute?

Because the OSU research announcements go to my spam dump which I only read occasionally, I happened to see this at Collision Detection. Don’t know when it first appeared, so my apologies if you've all seen this.

Update: Math was my weak link. I think I've changed the number of this 4 times.

899 Revenge of the Blog People

"The tail" is the 95-99 percent of blogs that are not giant traffic getters, according to Hugh Hewitt's book, Blog (2005). That's me. I'm in the tail--there are millions of us in the tail. I get about 70-80 hits a day on this blog, and 10-20 on my other four blogs. The one in the group blog, LISNews.com, may get more hits than all of them because there is sort of a "bound with" audience there. The top ten bloggers may get millions of visitors. More people will read them, more librarians will read them, than will ever read Michael Gorman. See! You don't have a clue who he is, do you? (Unless you too are a librarian). He doesn't have a blog. He's pouting. Yes. Pouting and saying blogs don't matter. People who see their name in print on a somewhat regular basis just hate it when others pass them by on the other side.

Conservator, a librarian blogger says: “Nine months before Michael Gorman sneered at blogs and bloggers in an opinion piece in Library Journal, Rory Litwin sneered at blogs and bloggers in an essay in his online journal, Library Juice.”

Shows you how much I know! I thought Rory Litwin was a blogger. He can call his screed an e-zine if he wants just because it has enumeration, but mine has numbering too. A blog is just a contemporary "commonplace book," something people in earlier centuries enjoyed. Collecting and annotating on the Internet. It is thinking out loud and watching to see who catches on and wants to share in the discussion. It's done a lot for research and writing skills, even for children and teens. But I admit, I only glanced at Litwin's a long time ago (because it’s gone over the left edge of common sense and is of little value to the library world or my world.)

Where was I? Oh yes. Michael Gorman. He wrote about the wrath of the "Blog People" attempting to drag him into century 21 because of his op-ed piece in the LA Times in December, 2004: (although most librarian bloggers are liberal, he'd apparently only seen conservative blogs): "It is obvious that the Blog People read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them and judge me to be wrong on the basis of what they think rather than what I actually wrote. Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs. In that case, their rejection of my view is quite understandable."

898 A Fog Feed

Our Irish dinner at the home of friends was delicious and educational. Our hosts tell us that "Fog Feed" is Gaelic for "An Extravagant Meal," and it surely was. Here's the menu and their notes:

Bacon, leek and potato soup with cheddar--Sir Walter Raleigh gave potatoes from his farm in Virginia to the poet Edmund Spenser, who became the first person in Ireland to cultivate them. The Walter Raleigh Potato Festival is still held annual in Ireland.

Shrimp cakes with lime mayonnaise--In the early 19th century, shrimp accidentally caught in the nets of Dublin Bay fishermen were considered a waste product and sold to the poor by fish mongers.

Fluthered Chicken--Cooked in stout.

Ham potato patties--The Irish almost never serve chicken without being accompanied by ham.

Oatmeal bread--Oatmeal was introduced by the Celts.

Pickled beetroot salad

Apple dumplings with raisins and mincemeat served with cream

Coffee, wine and Irish dark beer.

My ancestors on my father's side were Scots-Irish who came to the United States in the 1730s. I don't think they ate this well.

897 It's the week-end

Again snow! Last night we went to the dollar theater to see "National Treasure" with Nicholas Cage, and when we came out it was again a winter wonderland, but in the second week in March, that is getting a bit old. Huge flakes, blowing. We could barely see to get out of the parking lot. We had planned to go out to eat after the movie, but decided to head for home and eat left-overs. The cat was pleased--she just hates our Friday night dates.

But the movie was very good and we enjoyed it. We had some popcorn, saw some friends. It's an adventure movie, but a minimum of killing that I could see. I think one guy disappears into a pit never to be seen again (bad guy); someone is shot but we learn later he was not killed. No sex. So it's fairly safe if you want to take the younger folks--or the older folks like me who are sort of picky about language and violence in films.

Tonight we're going out for dinner at the home of friends who are marvelous cooks. Their home is filled with wonderful antiques, and the other guests are always interesting. It should be a fun evening. It's coming up on the anniversary of our first date--1959.

896 Kate Adamson's story

Like Terri Schiavo, Kate Adamson had a serious brain accident and was trapped in a body that wouldn't function. However, her husband, unlike Michael Schiavo who is trying to end Terri's life, followed through on rehabilitation. Read her story here.

WICatholic reports: "A disability-rights activist, who was once dependent on a feeding tube and considered "a vegetable" by medical professionals, has joined the fight to save Terri Schindler Schiavo and hopes to visit the 41-year-old disabled Florida woman by mid-month."

895 The Jackson Trial

I'm really getting sick of Michael Jackson’s trial coverage. First of all, he should be accorded the same rights as other citizens, and he is innocent until proven guilty. I plan to click “mute” whenever it comes on the T.V. I can still remember seeing him at a downtown Columbus hotel when he was a cute little African-American child in bell bottoms and a bright shirt singing with his older brothers.

Second, commentators and pundits are really getting graphic with the details and then moving on to tell salacious and lascivious stories that have nothing to do with Jackson, but everything to do with weird behavior and a strong desire for ratings. They are using this case to snicker and giggle. Pedophilia is not funny.

One radio talk host with the initials G.B. went on and on about how he wouldn't know what to say to his kids if they were in the car listening to reports of the trial, and then he went into a comedy shtick that caused me to be thankful no other adult was in my car. And so I changed channels. I had the impression he thought he was doing a nightclub comedy routine instead of drive-time a.m.

Jackson is strange, horribly disfigured, and a has-been publicity seeker. What's the excuse of the people reporting on the trial?

894 Library Journal Nonsense

You can’t always trust a librarian, particularly if it comes to politics or religion. If you saw all the anti-administration and new age books on the "new book" shelves at my public library you'd see what I mean. You can, of course, trust me, because I used to be a humanist and a liberal, and I‘ve seen the light. And I'm also a blogger, part of the "information reformation." However, I do remember all the good things, like having an open mind--so wide open you could drive a dump truck of misinformation through it and come out the other end empty. Anyway. Enough about me. According to Books and Culture this precious bit of hyperbole appeared in Library Journal:

“The Library Journal has this to say about Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code: "This masterpiece should be mandatory reading. Brown solidifies his reputation as one of the most skilled thriller writers on the planet with his best book yet, a compelling blend of history and page-turning suspense. Highly recommended."“

Brown does use a lot of historical material, which he freely mixes with fiction, misinformation, lies and gnosticism--just about anything other than Biblical truth. My dear relative (who faithfully attends church on Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day) loved it and millions like her have kept it firmly on the best seller list.

Church members, particularly women, have contributed to its popularity. Teaching and preaching is so weak in our male managed mainline and evangelical churches, and women are relegated to such a minor role, particularly in the pulpit and seminaries, that our Christian leadership has left us sitting ducks for the Dan Browns of this world.

Jesus and Mary Magdalene? Mystery religions? Hidden, rediscovered gospels? If you know anything about cults and false teachings over the last few centuries, or even popular fiction, there is nothing new here. Brown just writes a better story. And that story is as old as the serpent chatting up Eve, “now, sweety, what exactly is it God said you could eat?” But also, if the churches taught the true role of women given to them by Jesus reported very clearly in the New Testament Gospels (have you ever noticed women followers always “got it” when the male disciples were still scratching their heads), maybe we wouldn’t have so much drivel on the best seller list. Sigh.