1212 Live Aid

There are few people more entrepreneurial or price gouging than the entertainment/rock musician club. So if they really want to help the poor in Africa, they need to encourage capitalism. Marxism and socialism didn't get them on stage raking in the dough. Somehow, I don't think we'll hear that message. They also need to sing loud enough to encourage African ex-pats to leave Europe, Canada and the US and return home to put their education and skills to work for the homeland. Yeah, I know that won't happen either.

1211 A Perfect Summer Day

When we arrived last Saturday the temps were in the high 90s and we could barely see the islands. A storm blew through on Thursday and cleared everything out. Last night we finally saw a sunset. Today has been coolish and windy. While walking along the lakefront today we could practically see people grilling out on Kelley's Island. Lake Erie is like a saucer of water, and with a little wind you get white caps.

I'd stopped in a new gift shop and heard a rumor that a house on the lake listed for $695,000 was in a bidding war, and had gone up into the $800s. So we were walking along trying to figure out which one it was. We did see one in contract which still had most of the porch protection in place. Like many of the older houses, some of its porches had been filled in. A lakefront house can get pretty chilly. Location really is everything. In Columbus, this house might go for $65 or $70,000.

Someone flagged down my husband today on his bike ride to ask if he'd retired. Their kids had just bought a house on our street and wanted to remodel. He won't take the job, but did stop and look at it and explained to them the complex set-backs and footprint rules. We do ponder what some of these young families do to be able to afford a second home--when we were their age, the groceries were spread awfully thin at the end of the month, and we'd hold our breath that nothing went wrong with the car.

Also on our street, the only "fixer-upper" left in town has changed hands. I stopped in yesterday to say hello. The floors and walls were straighter than I expected, judging from the outside. This family group owns about 6 other cottages that we know of, and I know they'll do a good job. It was an incredible mess. The former owner's family had been here on Monday to take out what they wanted. Then the next day a dumpster was in the yard, and virtually everything in the house went into it. I heard the young owner say, "Here's another typewriter," as he threw it in. The final frosting on the cake made of trash was 4 double bed mattresses. The roof is completely covered with a tarp--it's been that way for two years. The two story garage, which looks like a former stable, leans dramatically to the east. We'll enjoy watching the transformation.

1210 On activist judges

Jane Galt recalls:

"Most people seem to think of the constitution as a guarantee of everything they believe sacred and good--whatever that may be. I think of it rather as a process for finding what is sacred and good; the operating manual for a classically liberal society. The rights it guarantees are mostly the rights that allow people to meet and debate ideas. We have freedom of speech, assembly, and religion so that we can meet and debate about the truth, including the truth about God. We have the right to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable searches, and the various criminal justice rights to prevent the government from curtailing those rights through the backdoor of intimidation. We have a mechanism for electing a federal government to be our proxies for the enacting of the truths we discover into law.

This is a model, of course, and it's imperfect; the founding fathers had many things in mind (and I'm neither a historian nor a legal scholar). But as a model, I think it works pretty well. And I think there's an important idea here: the constitution doesn't tell us what those truths are.

It doesn't tell us that the right to sexual privacy is fundamental to human liberty, nor that we may not hear prayers in our classrooms or see nativity scenes on the town square, nor any of the other multitude of "rights" we've discovered since the Warren court. If we discover such things, it gives us a perfectly good mechanism for enacting those truths into law: the legislature."

1209 Mom Writers

While browsing through my site meter by referrals who had also mentioned Mt. Morris, IL, I came across the Mom Writers, "a community of professional and new writers . . . who face the unique challenges of writing with children underfoot." A very interesting site for female writers and wannabees. They've got their own t-shirts and hats. If you are a beginner, they offer encouragement and help.

1208 Book cart drill team

Librarians having fun with tools of the trade.

1207 Intelligent Design and Flag Burning

Folks, there's a reason all the verbs we use with money are also used with time--they are flip sides of the same pancake. First, they only matter on this side of eternity--neither time nor money exist after you are gone. Second, what you do with either or both can improve your life here, or make your life an early entry into Hell.

Spend
Save
Invest
Commit
Gain
Use
Redeem
Waste
Squander
Fritter away

Two of the biggest time wasters with no payoff at the other end, are 1) defending a vague spiritual concept known as "intelligent design" and 2) the freedom of expression of political thought known as flag burning.

I've had about 18 years of formal schooling, and probably 2 more if I added up all the required workshops and classes needed to hold down a job (another post: the non-formal education system is larger than the formal one, so if you want job security, go there).

I can't think of a single endeavor in my life, other than answering questions on a biology test, for which I ever needed the theory of evolution. Can you? And I worked in a medical library and an agricultural library for over 20 years. The ID theory pales to nothingness when compared with the first few chapters of Genesis, so why are you wasting time and energy? Goodness, get a life and open your Bible. Millions of Christians and Jews live perfectly wonderful, satisfying lives without ever thinking about either evolution or intelligent design. And we are sooooo tired of the squabbles and you guys making us all look like ignorant rubes.

I am a 6 day creationist myself, but that's a theological solution because death doesn't enter creation until after the first sin. Billions of years of deaths just doesn't fit the template for a really dynamic faith, in my opinion. Look around. Do you see anything but entropy and decay--have you seen the human race getting better and better? We've been at war my entire life time! Let them have their little favorite theories if it gives their lives meaning. Please don't send me websites and book titles. I've seen them all and been shouted at by the best.

I wouldn't ask a college of "Evolutionary Biology" to teach my faith, but I do expect you Christians to stop telling your kids to "just praise the Lord" in 7/11 songs (7 words repeated 11 times) and provide them with a few basics about sin and why it is everywhere and what the solution might be when they're sitting in a college course with an evolution-fundy-professor.

My suggestion for response to flag burners is ignore them, just like you had to do with your toddlers' temper trantrums. They are pushing your buttons and you're falling for it. I heard a former soldier call in to the Glenn Beck show and describe the training he had to go through to learn to deal with terrorists, rowdies and kooks. They had to stand by and watch the flag urinated on, used as toilet paper, spit on, stomped on, etc., but learned to show strength and realize it was a symbol. They had to know their core values, and those weren't the cloth and design. The flag stands for something that can't be destroyed by petulant weirdos. Burning is the only proper way to dispose of a damaged flag. Apparently those who burn a flag in public protest are already a bit mind damaged, but throw water on them by ignoring them into oblivion. Stop giving them prime time MSM coverage with your silly and harmful counter protests and proposals for amendments. I personally find t-shirts, motorcycle jackets or underpants made to look like US flags much more offensive. They equate being a good American with consumerism.

1206 Blueberries are brain food

Today we finished the 5 day class on "Mind Matters" taught by Sally Kriska here at Lakeside. The topic yesterday was the Teen-age brain, and today it was "The retiring mind." One of the tips that Sally passed along was the 10-24-7 tip. She said that in order to incorporate something into the long term memory, review it 10 minutes after hearing/reading it, then review in 24 hours, and then a week later. Then it is much more likely to make it to the long term memory, because most things drop out of our memory very quickly.

One day we covered nutrition. Blueberries kept coming up as brain food. So I looked it up, and discovered a USDA site that said pretty much what she said:

"It used to be thought that shortly after we are born that we had all of neurons that we were going to have throughout life and that no more new ones would be made. Now we know that during normal aging no neurons are lost and new ones are still being made (called neurogenesis) even into old age. However, it appears that the rate slows down. One brain region where this occurs is called the hippocampus, which is a major memory control area. . .

Previously, we showed that age-related declines in memory tasks can be improved by antioxidant-rich diets containing blueberries. In this study, to begin to understand the mechanisms responsible for the beneficial effects of blueberries, we assessed changes in hippocampal neurogenesis, activation of IGF-1, and ERK levels in blueberry-supplemented aged animals. The results showed that all of these measurements showed increases in the blueberry-supplemented as compared to control. Importantly, the results showed that these increases were significantly correlated with improvements in spatial memory. Therefore, cognitive improvements afforded by fruits such as blueberries, which are abundant in compounds called polyphenolics, may be regulated by their beneficial effects on hippocampal neurogenesis."

I've never been particularly fond of blueberries, but I can put them in a pie or a dish of mixed fruit.

However, never, never, never drop blueberries into packaged vanilla pudding. It contains yellow #5 & #6 food coloring, and as you learned in kindergarten, blue and yellow make green. Pea soup green pudding.

1205 The Week the Women Went

A talk show on CKLW (800 am) was discussing a British reality show, The Week the Women Went, or something like that. The idea is to have a whole community where the men are left to fend for themselves. The hostess, Lynne Martin, was taking calls (repeat show, I assume), mainly from men, who assured her the worst part would be missing their wives' care and emotional support. They were kind of sweet, I thought.

My husband could get along without me for a week, because I have purchased for him 10 sets of underwear, and there are only 7 days in a week, so he wouldn't have to turn on the washer or dryer. He knows how to fix lunch and breakfast, so for dinner he could drive to a restaurant. He's neater than I am, even hangs up his dirty clothes, so there would actually be less housework, and the dishwasher would hold most of the dishes, or he could use paper plates. I might have a problem if he were to spill or break something--he panics, and thinks if he can't see it, he's probably got it all cleaned up. Also, some things might spoil in the refrigerator, because if he doesn't see the item he wants when he opens the door, something in his nature tells him not to look behind anything. I understand many men have this boogey-man in the frig complex.

1204 Friday Feast 54 July 1

Didn't June go by awfully fast? Seems we were just celebrating Memorial Day, which originally was Decorate the graves of the Civil War Dead day, and now it is time for July 4, when we celebrate many values, including a very, very long revolution. Here is Friday Feast questions.

Appetizer
Where do you plan to go on vacation this year, or where would you want to go?
We'll be on vacation most of the summer right here, but will also take a trip to visit historic architectural sites in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Then in September we're going to Germany and Austria. I came across the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior in a real estate ad. That area of the US looks really interesting to visit.

Soup
What color is your bedroom? If you could redecorate it, what would you change?
We watched a segment of Oprah where bedrooms are redecorated to make them more restful or more romantic. I mentioned I was a bit tired of the dark blue faux stripe, but neither of us have come up with a better idea.

Salad

Do you have a bumper sticker on your vehicle? What does it say?No. I have a blog.

Main Course
What's the worst pain you've ever been in?
Birthing babies.

Dessert

Who is your favorite celebrity? What do they do that inspires you?I'm not much of a celebrity-watcher, but I'd probably drop everything to go see Laura Bush, first librarian.

1203 A gathering of Skeptics

When bloggers gather for a party whether they are Homespun or Cotillion, you can find some interesting posts. Here is the 11th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, hosted by Anne's Anti-Quackery & Science Blog. Just because I'm a 6 day creationist doesn't mean I can't enjoy a few good scientific studies.

Here are some of the topics:
Table of Contents

- Quackery and Medical Misinformation
- Intelligent Design and Creationism
- Other Pseudoscience
- Urban Legends
- Critical Thinking
- Religion
- Astrology
- History
- Science and the Scientific Method

If you are interested in the topic of autism and vaccinations, the Orac series on the topic should not be missed. And you probably saw that hydrogen peroxide cure on TV--there's some blogging on that.

Anne does one of the best summaries of a topical group that I've seen.

1202 Even I'm not horrified

It's no secret I wish people would be a bit more careful about language, but even I'm not horrified by carefully placed, body parts scattered appropriately through a story, like this guy, Jaspan.

Hat tip Neo-neocon.

1201 When it all comes together at Lakeside

Poetry magazine doesn’t need my subscription dollars. In 2002 it received a $100 million grant from Ruth Lilly. Still, I enjoyed seeing the envelope fall out of the June 2005 issue that my friend Lynne sent me. So here’s a loosely woven group of threads about that particular gift.

1. The address on the envelope is

Poetry Foundation
PO Box 575
Mt Morris, IL 61054-9982

That’s my “home” town; I rode my tricycle on the sidewalks; graduated from the public schools; wandered the campus where my parents and grandparents had attended college; and was baptized and married there in the Church of the Brethren. It is a town that was birthed by education, built by the printing industry, crippled by a union strike, and kicked into the corner by a fire that virtually closed its schools. There is still a subscription agency there, but not a lot else.

2. The magazine, Poetry, was founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912. She nurtured a couple of generations of 20th century poets, maybe because she loved John Root, who didn’t marry her but married her sister. Poets were her legacy, not children. She is one of the sources used by Erik Larson in his book The Devil in the White City. John Root was a Chicago architect who helped plan the 1893 exposition, but died before it opened. Monroe wrote his biography, John Wellborn Root; a study of his life and work, 1896. I had never heard of Root or Monroe, but was reading the book when I opened the gift from Lynne from which the envelope fell.

3. Larson’s book may be only the second “true crime” book I’ve ever read (In Cold Blood was assigned in Library school), but I’m married to an architect and loved the architectural detail and how the author wove all the disparate pieces together. My grandmother attended the Exposition and I recall souvenirs of it in her home. And because Grandma was a thoroughly modern lady who began subscribing to Ladies Home Journal when she was 12, I’m betting I could find some of Monroe’s poems in her scrapbooks of clippings if I wanted to go back to Columbus and dig them out of storage.

4. I finished reading the book at Lakeside where I’m attending a lecture series on the Mind. The instructor had a model of the brain on the table, which she dismantled and described the details to us, including its weight. In the June 2005 issue of Poetry, there is a poem by Kathleen Halme III, “The Other Bank of the River.” The final thought is “Again I apologize for the three pound storm that is my brain and me.” Isn’t that a wonderful line?

5. Also in the June 2005 issue is an article by the poet Peter Campion (no, I’ve never heard of him either) complaining about poet bloggers--as one blogger called it, “an attack of the haves against the have nots.”

Isn’t it amazing how this all fits together?

1200 Buried alive

This story of Gitmo probably deserved a better placement, since so many people are concerned about the treatment of terrorists. JustOneMinute says it was p. A15.

1199 Desperate Dressing

For at least 30 years, I've been paying attention to how middle-aged women dress. Based on longevity, middle-age starts about age 35, and I'm figuring to stay here until about 70, when I'll be old for oh maybe 20 years, and old-old for another 5. Maybe. It's in my genes, you see. Either way, nobody gets out alive, and because I'm Lutheran, I don't even have to make a stop in Purgatory like Vox Lauri. Jesus offered me a deal I couldn't refuse.

Anyway, I'd been drafting a blog about the effect of the Desperate Housewives TV show on the appearance of mid-life babes. I've never actually watched an entire episode, but I get the drift, and I've noticed the clothing as I've clicked through and on to something, um, more uplifting. I think the show, I say in my draft essay, has really improved the way the ladies look, at least around here (summer vacation community). No more wrinkled shorts, dirty athletic shoes, and t-shirt from a lumber yard in Pennsylvania. Now it is trim cammies over tube tops or colored push up bras over little low slung skirts brushing the knee over the sweetest little sandals you'll ever see at the bottom of shaved legs. Really. I'm not kidding. I was so pleased to see women finally looking feminine again after, what, 25 or 30 years, I didn't even care if it was because of a smarmy, put down of that wonderful profession, housewivery, that created the demand. I'm not sure it is even the clothes, or their new sense that maybe there really is a gardener out there for them.

Then the New York Post came out with a story that really burst my bubble. I won't link to it, so sad, I don't want to be an ambulance chaser. Ladies in NY are apparently still tumbling out of their tight, dirty jeans and showing off their NVL undies. They should stay home and watch more TV. Ruined a perfectly good draft.

1198 Moscow Nights--ochen khorosho

Last night's program was Moscow Nights and Golden Gates Children. I thought incorrectly that they were immigrants, but they are visiting from Russia playing and singing Russian folk music. Lots of audience participation--even my husband ended up on stage smacking a tambourine.

Most of their concerts are in Ohio--I think they have 30 in one month. The costumes looked terribly hot, although delightful. We'd had a drop in temps with some rain and wind, fortunately.

1197 Unattended children will be sold

Shoe doesn't really mean it, but she'd like to announce it. She writes about unattended children in libraries. That wasn't a significant problem in an academic library where I worked from 1986-2000--although I did keep coloring books and crayons in my office for children of the occasional negligent parent who would lose herself in the stacks reading about nematodes or cryptorchidism.

1196 Borderline problem

I scored a 49 on this internet addiction quiz. That's end of the range for average. "You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage." Check yourself at Center for Online and Internet Addiction, just another site in pathologizing our fun!

Tip from Ilyka who's way beyond me.

1195 Stereotypical behaviors

Speaking of stereotypes, (we were weren’t we?) Ilyka Damen has a few choice words for feminists who are cranky that conservative women are blogging together at The Cotillion. It has always been annoying to me that feminists think only their sisters and daughters should be the judges or senators or CEOs, and apparently that has splashed over to blogging. If you think unborn babies are actually part of the human race, not a disposable scab on a woman’s body, or that capitalism is a force for good and not a pox on our flag, you are suspect of being anti-woman in many circles. She writes:

“Yes, some conservative women don't see anything to "gloat" about when it comes to sexual promiscuity. Yes, some conservative women like pearls and pumps. Yes, some conservative women do have copies of The Surrendered Wife at home. Yes, some conservative women have the awfully annoying habit of simultaneously reaping the rewards of feminism while denigrating the progressive women who blazed that trail for them in the first damn place. I'll back you up on that last particularly.

And some liberal women do have overgrown armpit hair and do wear no shoes but Birkenstocks and do smell horrid from bathing in environmentally-friendly "natural" products that don't contain any actual "soap" and do view men with suspicion and mistrust, if not actual loathing . . . but it wouldn't be very helpful of me to harp continually on that stereotype, so guess what? I don't.”

I get irritated that both groups of bloggers--liberal and conservative women who should have better vocabularies--think they need to write and sound like street walkers to get their point across. But oh well, isn’t that part of being included in the old boys club, and that‘s what they all really want? Male approval? Really, sometimes you just gotta move on for all the cursing and cussing and sexual topics. Hey, when you've spent your best career years in a veterinary library, you've heard enough of reproductive body parts! Even some Christian conservatives are potty mouths.

Or is it just that I’m old enough to be their grandmother? ‘Spose?

1194 The Unfiltered Library

Stop by Greg's site Shush [June 26]and learn all about pimps and hoes. So even if you watch what games your kids play at home, they can learn the economics and values of the underworld at the local public library. Sweet.

1193 Water and the brain

Before I forget what I learned in memory class today, let me tell you. Sally Kriska, the instructor, is a visual and physical learner/teacher, so she demonstrates some of her basic principles and she has us doing little memory exercises. To show us this morning the importance of water to our entire system, she asked for a volunteer from the class who had not yet had any water today (it was 11:30 a.m.). A gentleman using a cane came forward. Sally had him extend his arm while she exerted force to push it down. She had no problem. Then she gave him a glass of water, and he drank about 6 oz. I'd guess. Then he extended his arm and she could not push it down. Less than 30 seconds, and the water had affected his body that quickly. While this was going on a woman was adding teaspoons of sugar to a glass of ice tea to record how much sugar the average person takes in drinking and eating a typical American diet. It was truly appalling, even when you already knew it.

Yesterday she did the arm extension demo with a woman thinking sad and stressful thoughts, and then thinking powerful thoughts (I am woman hear me roar, etc.) Same thing. While thinking negative stressful thoughts, Sally could easily push her arm down, but by switching to positive thoughts, Sally couldn't move her arm.

We also did a "heads and shoulders, knees and toes" type thing to learn a healthful grocery list, starting with blueberries on our heads and tomatoes between our toes. Sally was a principal for 15 years and says that often when a child was having behavior problems, they learned the family didn't eat breakfast, and he might have a coke and chips for lunch. But apparently, the school breakfast programs aren't all that good either.

To stay awake during class or the sermon, eat the protein portion first, Sally told us. I did see someone sleeping during the class--she must have started the day with a hot, fresh cinnamon cake donut from the Patio Restaurant, which so far I've avoided.