1126 Look out Christians; we’ve got us a live one

The new crime drama, The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick playing a CIA-trained interrogator who takes over an almost all male special police homicide unit in Los Angeles, premiered tonight. We watched it and found the main character, Brenda Johnson, the super-sweet, quirky Southern Belle quite convincing. Sort of a female Lt. Columbo with quirks and surprises and hunches.

But Oh surprise, surprise! The murderer is a “good Catholic girl,” pure and virginal who still lives with her mother, and is so homophobic that she smashes the victim beyond recognition when she discovers her “lover” is a lesbian.

There were no commercials, just product placement--and of course, that obvious anti-Christian bias. But that’s becoming increasingly common, particularly in crime shows.

Photo of Sedgwick as Brenda Johnson

1125 A Homeschooler looks back

Brian gave us a wonderful summary of his year of teaching. Now MaMa T tosses the catalogs into the trash and gives us a look back at 12 years of homeschooling her son. Very touching. Lucky kid. Lucky Mom.

1124 There's good news from Iraq, including libraries

Arthur Chrenkoff is an Australian who keeps track of the stories you don't see or hear and periodically reports on them. The most recent account is at the OpinionJournal today and at his blog, Chrenkoff.

Checking one of his sources (USAID), I noticed this item about libraries: "University facilities, such as libraries, computer and science laboratories, lecture halls, and buildings, have been rehabilitated at colleges of law, engineering, medicine, archeology, and agriculture. In addition, books and electronic resources have been provided to university libraries."

1123 Why are Democrats asking for return of the Draft?

Dr. Sanity asks and answers this question.

"It is only the Demoncrats who have need of one, so that they can once again climb up to that moral highground they may have once held during the Vietnam war. Their party is anchored to the spot 40+ years ago, when they actually stood for freedom and cared about the rights of individual. I agreed with them back then, and opposed the military draft (although I did not oppose the war), which I believe has no place in a free society.

But those days are long gone. Democrats now feel most comfortable in the position of encouraging pathetic victimhood (like most of the Left) and there is nothing they'd like more than to have a military draft (which they will keep introducing) so that they can revert to being the stalwart defenders of the the poor and helpless victims of the evil military industrial complex again."

1122 Speed limits and traffic cushions

The news today is reporting that law enforcement is allowing a 10+ mph cushion above the 65 mph limit on most major highways, which is dangerous and inconsistent. It's been about 10 years since Congress increased the speed limit from 55 to 65 mph.

It's virtually impossible to find unbiased statistics on what all these limits, no-limits fiddling means (although I only spent 3 minutes looking through Google, it didn't take long to size up the politics of it). It's a real political football.

My recollection is the speed-limits were reduced to 55 mph not for safety, but to conserve gasoline back during the shortage in the later 1970s. As a parent with young children in the back seat I immediately noticed how much smoother and less traumatic driving to Indianapolis became. We had become so accustomed to seeing accidents and emergency vehicles and to long back-ups and traffic snarls that the amazing transformation after the 55 mph limits was very pleasant. Even congested urban areas smoothed out. The reduction in deaths on the highway was sort of by-product, at least that's how I remember it.

Now everyone is using statistics to try to prove a point--cars are safer, fewer deaths; more cell-phones so drivers are distracted at any speed; more miles travelled than 30 years ago, thus more deaths, and so on. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out a drunk driver is more dangerous at 65 + a 10 mph cushion than he would be at 55 or that talking on your cell phone at 65 + a 10 mph cushion makes you even more likely to mess up.

We Americans are still killing more young people on the highways than "insurgents" are in Iraq. It wouldn't hurt, and might actually save some lives to go back to 55. Or at least enforce the 65. If he's your kid, the pain is the same.

Illinois: ". . .300 additional accidents per month in rural Illinois, with associated increases in deaths and injuries. This impact was apparent on both 65 and 55 mph roads. There is some evidence of traffic diversion from 55 to 65 mph highways plus traffic generation and speed spillover." Accid Anal Prev. 1995 Apr;27(2):207-14.

New Mexico: "The rate of fatal crashes in the 1 year after the speed limit was increased was 2.9 per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled, compared with a predicted rate of 1.5 per 100 million vehicle-miles based on the trend of the 5 previous years." JAMA Vol. 262 No. 16, October 27, 1989

Israel: "After the raise, speeds rose by 4.5%–9.1%. Over 5 years, there was a sustained increase in deaths (15%) and case fatality rates (38%) on all interurban roads. Corresponding increases in deaths (13%) and case fatality (24%) on urban roads indicated "speed spillover." " April 2004, Vol 94, No. 4, American Journal of Public Health 568-574

California: Death rates decreased with the change to higher limits, however in the first year the average mph only changed about one mile. In other areas, "In the first two years of higher limits, the number of fatal accidents increased 8.7 percent over the previous two years on the 2,317 miles of highway where limits were raised from 55 mph to 65 mph. Fatal accidents increased 9.7 percent on the 1,297 miles of highway where limits went from 65 mph to 70 mph. Relatively few people, however, are killed on freeways, with most dying on surface roads where hazards such as cross- traffic and the lack of center dividers raise the risk." SFGate

1121 Some Sanity on enabling behaviors

Dr. Sanity in response to a claim that Feminists don't kill anyone so why not focus your energies on something more important.

" . . .it is not enough to focus on just the drinking of the alcoholic, a good therapist must also deal with the environment of the alcoholic and people in that environment(the psychosocial supports) that enable that alcoholic--i.e., who buy him the alcohol, who encourage him to drink it etc. If you fail to do that, then your intervention is in vain. Or, let's take the latest public obsession--the Michael Jackson trial as an example. Whatever Michael Jackson was or wasn't doing with those young boys was hardly a mystery to the boys' mothers and/or families, which had to be complicit and enable Jackson's behavior (the kids didn't get to the Ranch on foot, nor did they stay overnight without permission). No, it served the purposes of the parents to enable Jackson's behavior. It serves the purposes of the Feminists et al, to ignore the brutality of Islam towards women, in favor of demanding that the Harvard President whimper and wallow before them in abject apology for remarks that were scientifically justified."

Dr. Sanity's blog on enabling terrorists

1120 Sounds just like my kitchen

"Since it opened in 1986, Rigsby's has continually reinvented itself, offering new dishes on a regular basis and challenging the palates of its customers. But now, in celebration the many changes that have taken place in the Short North area, it has undergone an all-out face-lift, modifying its name to the more homey-sounding "Kitchen." Along with a high-tech, marble-topped bar with groovy retro chairs. . ." City Guides

I've always wanted to eat there, but never have, and now it sounds like my kitchen, marble-topped bar, retro chairs and called "kitchen." Our chairs are REALLY retro--we bought the set in 1963, Paul McCobb, walnut stain. Marble is just plain awful in a kitchen. Pretty but not durable. Don't ever get it.

1119 Too Ugly to blog about

When I read Debra Burlingame's article last week, the story was so ugly, I didn't finish taking notes on the story or record my own thoughts. You probably won't read about it in the evening paper or see it on MSM, but the World Trade Center Memorial has been hijacked.

Cox & Forkum
Buzz Machine
Michelle Malkin
Little Green Footballs
Take Back the Memorial
SISU

1118 Where are they now?

Over at LISNews, Brian says he is shocked "by the decrease in education and funding to support school libraries." Not me. I'm shocked that conservatives continue to support the administration's thowing money at education when there is no evidence that this is the problem! Bush has spent far more on education than Clinton did. Even the NCLB was essentially demanding that schools live up to the standards and goals they had set instead of ignoring the poorest and the weakest.

Last week Milton Friedman in the WSJ pondered the dropping SATs since 1970. He mentioned several dates, but didn't seem to connect a lot of dots: 1965 NEA converted from a professional association to a trade union; 1983 "A Nation at Risk" was published spawning even more government attempts to fix education; defeating voucher system in California in 1993 and 2000. Friedman never mentions the changes in the lives of women during this period.

Let's go back to the early 1970s. Abortion becomes legal and the feminist movement really builds up steam. Possibly the brightest and best were aborted--I mean over 30 million Americans who were the spawn of young college bound and career women just disappeared. (Poor and minority women didn't really get on that bandwagon right away. They still believed that children were their future, not a glass ceiling job.) We'll never know what their contributions could have been or how they might have influenced the scores and results of school testing. Then when their putative mothers did have families, many of those later-in-life children were put in the care of less capable women during their important formative years.

I don't think there's enough federal money in Washington to fix the mess of the last 30 years, much of it created by women.

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2001
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2004

1117 Just don't call him late for lunch

Howard Dean is quite successful at getting himself and the DNC into the news--like the ignored toddler who will take any attention he can get, even negative, just to get noticed. David Freddoso over at NRO uses Dean's pearls to turn a nice phrase:

". . . now I don’t think it’s spin anymore. Howard Dean is just totally nuts.”

"[he] calls Republicans “evil,” “corrupt” and “brain-dead” “liars” who “never made an honest living in their lives” and “are not nice people.”. . . But Dean assures us, “We’re not going to stoop to the kind of divisiveness that the Republicans are doing.” Quite a relief!"

"There is much legitimate debate over what makes for a good party chairman, but one criterion that nearly everyone can agree on is that he should not be his party’s greatest liability."

"When Dean starts speaking, even Barney Frank gets nervous and starts looking for the door."

"Dean will have to do the same thing [as the RNC with $30.1 million] with only $7.4 million and a foot wedged tightly in his mouth."

". . .the good doctor has worked with such zeal alienating voters and contributors that Republicans can only sit back and enjoy."

Don't get too smug guys. This looks too easy.

Update, June 12, LA Times: "Recycling old saws about the GOP being the party of the rich ignores the fact that one of the reasons the Democrats have been faring so poorly in recent elections is that they've lost the white working-class vote. If Dean spent his time pointing to inequitable tax policies that punish the middle class and reward the rich, or dwelling on the costs of restricting stem cell research, that would be one thing. Instead, he is indulging in outdated caricatures of Republican voters. So far, Dean has done a good job of pulling the party together — the Republican Party."

1116 The Columbus Rose Festival

When we moved here 38 years ago, we went around to see all the local sights and sites--Old Man's Cave, German Village, Park of Roses, and some of the state parks. But then regular life set in and I think I'd only been back to Whetstone Park where the Festival of Roses is held a few times to watch my kids play soccer.

This week-end is the 19th Annual Festival of Roses at the Park of Roses, which was established in the early 1950s, in the Clintonville area of Columbus. Although it was a little overcast and drizzled a few times, it was a perfect morning for Bev and me to browse the lovely rose gardens and many floral memorials. There are 11,000 rose bushes and 350 varieties of roses. There were numerous vendors of community action groups, local restaurants, artists and clubs in tents along the brick sidewalks. The Festival is today and tomorrow, but the roses will continue to be on view. The two day event is free and draws 25,000 visitors. We spent about two hours oooing and aaahing, bought a sandwich and drink from a vendor which we ate under a tree on a picnic bench, and then Bev drove me through some of her favorite neighborhoods in Clintonville.

One of my favorite rose bushes was next to the guys in the Dixieland Band where we stopped to chat (I like a good trombone). I noticed the plaque said, "Forth of July." I asked Bev if she thought it was misspelled or if it meant "forth" in another meaning "out in view" or "out of." We meant to ask a guide, but forgot. The Dispatch gallery of photos of the roses lists a "Fourth of July" variegated that looks just like the one we admired, however.


Fourth of July

1115 Basic Black is Back

Oh goody. Basic black is back for fall. I can whip out that black number I bought in 2001 with the sparkly bodice. I think I've only worn it three times. I've never had the reason or opoortunity to buy the feminine, colorful frocks popular the past few years.

There are color czars or forecasters that decide all this for us--popular colors don't just happen. In home decorating, what we used to call "avocado green" is now "wasabi green." But black is black--I don't know if they've found a way to rename it. Widow's weeds black. Coal miner black. Horsefly black. Tar baby black. I mean, black is black, right? About every 3 or 4 years, the fashion people proclaim that the little black dress is back. I'm ready for them this year--now I just need an invitation.

I do like the swingy, floral and colorful skirts cut on the bias or a circle I see the young women wearing, topped with dressy t-shirts and short jackets and high heels. They brush the knee, show off the legs, move gracefully, and they are so feminine. And so 2004 apparently.

1114 Second hand porn

The Lion's Den, a local (chain?) "adult" porn store has a large print ad for "turn your stash into cash" in the newspaper. Yes, you can get cash for all those gently used and abused magazines and DVDs. What a disgusting way to use perfectly good trees and energy resources.

I wonder how the obituaries of porn industry CEOs read? Do they write their own or leave it up to a family member to fill it with euphemisms? Do they die without a verb?

1113 Beyond concrete and plastic

Have you ever seen someone putting out such effort that you wanted to stop and shake her hand or give him an award ribbon? Yesterday I saw two such people.

1) A Chinese immigrant (and I'm sure this was her ethnicity and status) who works in the shopping center at Jasonway and Bethel in Columbus was carrying water across the parking lot to water a garden she had built on the narrow grassy strip between the parking lot and road. The soil was mounded up inside planks and she'd probably purchased and brought it there, and the little plot was about 6' x 6'. I don't know if it is a vegetable garden or a flower garden because the plants are only about 6 inches high and I was traveling about 35 mph. I'm guessing she carries water to it every morning before starting work (I saw her about 7:30 a.m.), or takes it there during her break.

2) While passing through Delaware, Oh I saw a man laboriously walking behind his wheelchair through a grassy field--about the size of a football field, only not as well groomed. He was moving each leg with great effort. If you've ever tried to wheel a bicycle through grass, you get the idea how difficult this was for him. I've seen disabled people push their wheelchairs on sidewalks or in malls for exercise, but never in a bumpy field of weeds. Whether his car was at one end or the other, he'd have to make the trip across and back.

1112 Friday Feast 51

Appetizer
Name one thing that made you sad this week.
We had a phone call Saturday from the wife of a good friend. I've never met her, but she was going through her husband's files calling people who didn't know about his unexpected and sudden death. He lived with us about 33 years ago and really livened up our household.

Soup
What was the last object (not person) you took a picture of?
In May I took photos of our flowering magnolia "bush" which is really taller than our house. It was truly magnificent, but the photos didn't do it justice.

Salad
Who do you talk to when you need help in making a decision?
My friend Nancy keeps up on fashion trends and good buys for the home--she reads a lot and those are topics I don't pay much attention to. But for technology I check with our daughter--not gamer-generation stuff, but things like cell phones, answering machines and DVD players. For spiritual advice, we see a pastor/friend we've known for 30 years.

Main Course
If you were a weather event, what would you be, and why?
I would most likely be a partly-sunny, or partly-cloudy forecast. This makes me perfect for living in the midwest--Illinois, Indiana and Ohio--where we only have about 40% of the days in full sunshine.

Dessert
Suggest a website that you think your readers would enjoy visiting.
I visit a number of sites every day or once a week--like Belmont Club, Captain's Quarters, City Journal, First Things, and most of the Ladies I list on my links.

Friday Feast is located here.

1111 A teacher reflects on the last day of school

Brian, a middle school teacher, writes An Audience of One . Yesterday he reflected on the last day of school.

“This year is in the books now. I won't forget it for a variety of reasons. I had a successful professional year, not letting all of my inner turmoil affect my work to any great degree. I gained the respect of my colleagues. I worked with a lot of children and grew to love them. I formed good relationships with scores of parents. My principal approved of the work I did. All of that is something that gives me a very good feeling. I'm proud of what I accomplished professionally this year. I always am. I must be a lucky man to have always loved my job every year of my professional life. I've crossed paths with hundreds of teachers and many thousands of children. They've taught me many things and enriched my life. I keep saying it so much that I sound like a broken record--I wish it was transferrable to the other areas of my life. . .

I started so long ago with a head still full of hair and idealism pulsing through my veins. I wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids. I wanted to notice them like I craved to be noticed as a shy, soft-spoken, child. I knew I'd never get rich, but I've been enriched in ways that matter a helluva lot more than that green stuff people obsess about. I won't be counting my money on my deathbed. I'll be counting my memories. If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it in a New York minute.”

I haven't read enough of his blog to know what the inner turmoil is all about, but I'm glad he feels good about his life's purpose. I loved my career as an academic librarian, and although I was mentioned in a few prefaces and acknowledgements in theses, there will be no life time impact on others like a good teacher in the early years has, or a college professor who is a mentor for careers to come. I had a few teachers like Brian--his students are very lucky.

1110 The Methodists are Coming!

We're off to the lake to prep the cottage for the Methodists--Ohio East and Ohio West. We only rent two weeks of the summer and the United Methodists conferences in Ohio have their annual meeting there. I've never been there during those weeks, but I've heard the place swarms and bustles, the restaurants are packed, and the shops do the majority of their business in two weeks (sounds like Christmas season, doesn't it?).

So, I put all our personal items away and remove the food from the kitchen cabinets. It shouldn't be such a big deal but think about removing all your personal toiletries and clothes and food stocks from your home and storing them someplace, and you'll see the problem. In the last few years, the back seat of my van has doubled as a storage closet.

We're having a hot spell here (90s, humid) and there will probably be summer storms. We'll slip down to the Lake for a few minutes, maybe with an ice-cream cone, to catch the breeze.

1109 The Cheerful Oncologist

Considering my own experience with oncologists (my daughter's thyroid cancer), "cheerful" is not the adjective that comes to mind. However, when I was working I always enjoyed reading the poetry and essays published by doctors in the medical journals (usually the last page). Many are beautiful writers. The Cheerful Oncologist really has some thought provoking posts. I liked this thought in "Tell me that you'll wait for me."

"All of us have a one-way ticket out of here. As we drift off to sleep tonight, let us give thanks for the opportunity to serve those who are ahead of us in line, as we ask those behind us to do the same when our flight number is called."

1108 Medical Marijuana

This is not a topic on which I am even minimally informed, but I'll weigh in anyway. I've never understood why conservatives are against using marijuana to releave suffering and pain, especially considering the devastating side effects of some prescribed pain meds. And please don't tell me it's because pharmaceutical companies (owned by eeeeviiiil Republicans) don't want the competition from something cheap and natural. We hear that about every vaccine and miracle drug that comes down the pike--what would happen to this particular health care bureaucracy if a disease were really cured. I worked in a medical library for over 14 years and constantly browsed the serials, and let me assure you there are plenty of diseases re-emerging (just check out this month's CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases on my links) or today's article in WSJ about the increase in drug resistant TB. The real danger is the left killing off incentive to invest in R & D and the health care industry.

However, medical marijuana doesn't have the poisoning side effects or even the addictive powers of many of the chemical potions we've created in the lab. I have a relative who's had two major surgeries (different body parts) in the last 3 years, and both times had to take special treatments to get her off the pain killer addictions even though she was extremely careful.

More disturbing to conservatives should be the Supreme Court seeing this as the commerce clause and striking it down for that reason.

"Writing for the court majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the case was "troubling" because of users' claims that they needed marijuana to alleviate physical pain and suffering. But he concluded that the court had no choice but to uphold Congress's "firmly established" power to regulate "purely local activities . . . that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce." " WaPo article June 7

Makes you wonder what the Supremes were smoking while coming up with this.

1107 Party Hardy

Staying up late, partying and eating poorly can all increase those dark circles under your eyes. But so can gravity, heredity, skin color and the natural aging process which decreases the fat pads under your eyes. (I'd love to have a fat transfer from my thighs to my eyes.)

Now there is some hope for your dark circles and spider veins with Vitamin K cream. I'm kind of wondering how this works, because I know you're not supposed to eat food high in Vitamin K when you take a blood thinner like Coumadin. Those foods are liver, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and green leafy vegetables (e.g., spinach, Swiss chard, coriander, collards, cabbage). It must decrease the little blood vessels breaking up. So if you eat more greens, could you skip the cream? This one costs $27 for 2.5 oz.