1263 The morphing of Mr. Cloud

Anvilcloud has some great photographs on his blog, so I thought I'd just borrow one for portrait class. It was this adorable photo of Mr. Cloud with a chickadee (or something) sitting on his head nibbling on a piece of bread crust. I'm taking a portrait class this week, and I tried several photos--one of me, one of my sister, one of Condi Rice, and the bird on a cloud. Mr. Cloud turned out best, so it got transferred to the gesso'd masonite board. Then yesterday we were to paint in the shadows. Up until that point, it was a fairly recognizable Mr. Cloud. He was taped to a pillar and lots of people stopped by to admire. But, I didn't quite get the hang of putting in shadows around the eyes (this is my first try at portraits), and the longer I looked at the drying paint the more he began to morph into this guy

Yup. Put a bird on his head, and I've painted Michael Chertoff, Head of Homeland Security.

1262 Need proof reader

The blogger.com system is really neat. The new photo uploading works great--much easier than Picasa which I had been using. I've never had a spam problem with comments. Tech help usually responds quickly. I'm going to teach beginning blogging here in a few weeks, and I'll start them with blogger.com (can't beat the price). The spell check is awful, however. It doesn't even recognize the word "blog."

But sometimes you just need a proof reader because no spell check is going to clean up proper names. Today I was checking through articles about over-weight military, and how obesity could be hurting recruiting. Everything seemed to be based on the same AP story, so I was browsing through a search and came across a TRICARE article on fitness and the military. As near as I can tell, Tricare is an insurance program for the military. However, at this site, they've misspelled their own name. Now, if you go there and find it is spelled correctly, I've done my good deed for the day.

1261 Canadian-American Governor goes off the deep end

The Governor of Michigan (born in Canada) was interviewed the other morning on 760 am (Detroit). She was absolutely unglued about an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal by a Michigan State Representative Rich Baxter. I don't know her party affiliation, but I know the definition of treason, and reporting that your state's tax system is unfriendly to business and holding back recovery, isn't treason--it isn't even reason on the Guv's part. She gives women in high places a bad name.

1260 Economists advise against Aid for Africa

Aid doesn't solve corruption, or help trade or even reverse disease outbreaks. African James Shikwati say western industrial nations "have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor." [HT Florida Cracker]

Richard Posner seems to say it's not the African's responsibility to make you feel good and generous . . . "Foreign aid makes people in wealthy countries feel generous, but retards reform in those countries as well as in the donee countries. Obviously from a world welfare as well as African welfare standpoint Europe and the United States should not impose tariffs on agricultural imports in order to protect their rich farmers. Eliminating tariffs would do more for Africa than giving them an extra $25 billion a year to squander. (It would also increase the wealth of the countries that eliminated their tariffs.)

Since there are 650 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, the extra $25 billion will increase per capita annual income (assuming it isn't squirreled away by corrupt elites) by only $40. Not that such an increase is wholly trivial in relative terms: Nigeria, for example, has an annual per capita income of only about $300, and it is not the poorest country in Africa. But it is unlikely that the poorest people in these countries will benefit from the extra money; even if most of it isn't skimmed off by corrupt officials or squandered on dumb projects, it is likely to stave off fundamental political and economic reforms. (The G8 nations at Gleneagles also agreed to forgive some $50 in African debts to them, but that is a one-time event and its annualized value is therefore much less than $25 billion a year.)" Becker-Posner Blog

International Monetary Fund disconnects of the concert: "Two International Monetary Fund researchers have turned intellectual firehoses on crowds at the Live 8 concerts, publishing research concluding that, in most cases, aid does nothing to boost economic growth.

In two research papers the fund's research director, Raghuram Rajan, and research economist Arvin Subramanian say comparisons of growth rates throughout the developing world show no solid evidence that aid flows lift growth."

1259 Let's see the job finished

"Before parting company with CSM Mellinger, we attended a memorial on LSA Anaconda for Specialist Ryan Montgomery from Kentucky. Ryan and his twin brother Bryan had both joined the Kentucky National Guard and were twenty-two years old. They were serving in Iraq when Ryan was killed by a bomb. During the ceremony, soldiers referenced the attacks in London as an important reason to stay here in Iraq, and to see the job finished. I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears when soldiers from Kentucky said they needed to be here to prevent attacks in places such as London, or at the Kentucky Derby, or in Germany." Michael Yon.

1258 Frances Langford dies at 92

This morning's paper reported the death of Frances Langford on July 11, 2005 in Jensen Beach, FL. She appeared in 30 movies, few of which I've seen, but I remember seeing her in old footage of entertaining the troops during WWII. "I'm in the mood for love" was never sweeter or more poignant.

1257 The cruise on Lake Erie

Last night's cruise was lovely. I think I saw the most fabulous sunset ever. My husband, who frequently paints watercolor skies using pinks and ultamarine blues, put his arm around me and whispered, "If I painted that, no one would believe it." At 10:10 p.m. we could still see its remnants. The route was around Put-in-Bay and we came very close to Perry's Monument.


The water was a bit choppy and watching people balance their food on plates and knees was heart stopping. I met and chatted with Mary, 90 years old, and still playing golf. She reminds me a lot of my dad's friend Ruth, "the energizer bunny." I'd like to say these people have a magic formula for long life and good looks, but I know Mary's mother lived to 102 and her sister to 105. And I believe Ruth's parents lived into their late 90s. You just can't beat choosing the right parents.

As we walked toward the dock at 7 p.m. we reminisced about the summer of 1988, our first year on one of these cruises. The midwest was locked into a horrible heatwave and drought. We had rented a tiny cottage on Walnut that blessedly had ceiling fans (we didn't even have AC in our home in Columbus). Out on Lake Erie the moist, moving air engulfed us, but it felt cooler. The minute we walked down the gangplank onto the dock at 10 p.m., it was like being hit with a 2 x 4. Later that week we walked around and passed a small house for sale. We peeked in the back window. "It has a real kitchen and a basement," I squealed. We moved to the front porch, which was unfinished and unlocked and I pressed my nose against the pane. "Oh, it has a fire place!" That afternoon we contacted a realtor, who wisely showed us 4 dogs before he showed us the one we asked about. Soon we were locked into a 10.5% mortgage, just about the lowest available at that time. Because our home mortgage in 1968 had been for 20 years, we were debt free and could handle it.

We took possession the week-end after Labor Day. It was a life saver for me, being in deep, intractable grief over my children's decisions not to go to college (relax--it's not the end of the world as I believed then). The cottage was like a new baby, one we needed to visit every week-end and work on from morning 'til night. We'd sit under the fading lilac bush and eat breakfast and say, "It doesn't get any better than this." This summer is our 17th, and the cruises are still fun.

CATAWBA WINE

This song of mine
Is a song of the vine,
To be sung by the glowing embers
Of way-side inns
When the rain begins
To darken the drear Novembers.

It is not a song
Of the Suppernong
From warm Carolinian valleys,
Nor the Isabel,
And the Muscadel,
That bask in our garden alleys.

Richest and best
Is the wine of the West
That grows by the beautiful river
Whose sweet perfume
Fills all the room
With a benison on the giver.

Very good in its way
Is the Verzenay,
Or the Sillery soft and creamy,
But Catawba wine
Has a taste more divine,
More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.

Pure as a spring
Is the wine I sing,
And to praise it one needs but name it,
For Catawba wine
Has need of no sign,
No tavern-bush to proclaim it.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

1256 The sad truth about the U.N.

Even the Toledo Blade had a photo of a Muslim woman weeping at the graves. Yesterday's Wall Street had harsh words for those of weep "never again" and then demand immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

"But Mr. Clinton allowed the Balkans to bleed for three years before he "did something." He let the U.N. and Europe take the lead and was frequently heard musing about the ancient roots of the Balkans conflict, which supposedly made it intractable and beyond the reach of the United States to repair. What's remarkable is that, when the U.S. did intervene--for example, with a limited bombing campaign in 1995--it achieved fast and decisive results. Had Mr. Clinton honored his campaign pledges, he could have saved thousands of Bosnian lives and almost certainly averted the massacre at Srebrenica.

If American policy makers want to avoid facing another Srebrenica on their watch, they must never let the U.N. determine the mission. Allowing the Europeans to "take the lead" is also a bad idea. Above all, Srebrenica is what happens when Western policy makers reject taking pre-emptive measures against gathering dangers, so that by the time the dangers are obvious it is too late to do something.

It has become trendy in certain circles to speak of "No More Srebrenicas," as well as "No More Rwandas" and "No More Darfurs." If these people really believe the slogan, then the policy to make it work already has a name. It's called the Bush Doctrine."

1255 God must have plans for this little one

This morning I watched Katie Couric's interview with the parents of this baby.


Not sure what I think about little Laina Beasley.

1254 Should politics interfer with a relationship?

She writes: "We've gotten into shouting matches about Supreme Court decisions, gun control, abortion, etc. He's also hyper-rational, and I am more emotional."

I can tell by her description--playing up his "flaw" of knowing what and why he believes, and downplaying her loosely formed passionate attachment to her own beliefs--that he is a Republican and she is a Democrat. She never reveals this in her question, "can this relationship survive our politics."

Annie, the columnist, misses the boat on this one. She counsels: "Politics should never be more important than your relationship." Annie ignores that their differences are also embedded in their personalities. Notice how the writer describes playfully her own weakness ("more emotional"), but stresses his ("hyper rational"). Call me over analytical, but the word "more" is not as loaded as "hyper."

The writer describes her lover as smart, funny and easy going, which means if they marry she can probably look forward to a dogged, nit-picker who wants her to meet his standards in everything from housework to automobile-buying and a nasty wit that will turn on her in front of his friends for her less-than-perfect analysis of today's news. And instead of finding her sweet, adorable and simple in her whimsical thoughts, he'll discover that she lacks the ability to think through the erratic way she disciplines the children or to arrive anywhere on time. All the things that attract you to the "opposite" are the qualities that drive you crazy 10 years down the road when her waist has expanded and his hair has thinned.

Also, the writer wonders if counseling would help--she doesn't say they have an intellectual divide, just an emotional one. See? She doesn't get it! He says he respects her intellect, but not ALL her opinions. Maybe she should try respecting his intellect, and SOME of his opinions.

That'll be $200 please. Now go home and give him a big, emotional smooch.

1253 McClay for ALA

If Greg McClay is elected to ALA, it will be like a breath of fresh air in the stacks. McClay is running for an office [Councilor at Large] in the American Library Association, aka ALA. Silly guy thinks the professional organization representing 60,000 should stick to its knitting and resolve issues important to librarians, like abysmal salaries, accreditation, education, technology, library funding and budgets, child safety and so on. Instead ALiAns sing on command like warbling canaries in a mine shaft about various socialist and anti-war issues. Recently he posted the resolution against the war in Iraq (like the President is going to be very afraid of all the power librarians hold), which concluded:

“[long list of resolves into which are thrown the words “libraries and archives“] Resolved that the American Library Association calls for the withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. military forces, and the return of full sovereignty to the people of Iraq.”

Interestingly, this is the administration’s goal. Finally, ALA is in step. But I think even a non-expert on military affairs can go back and re-read the newspapers in the library from the mid-70s and see that our withdrawal from Vietnam killed thousands, some say millions, of our allies and condemned others to prison reeducation camps. Our hasty withdrawal after the Gulf War planted the seeds for this one.

And so Greg comments after the bombing last week:

“In light of the bombings in London today this is an absurdity. We're fighting a culture, a mindset, that despises the concept of libraries, of public information, of both a man and a woman's right to improve their own lives through self-education and the brain dead boobs of Council who voted for this are whining about the bill.”

1252 Playing tag again

Jordan at Contemplating the Laundry has tagged me for another “tell all” report. I was reading through her long and thoughtful answers thinking I was really glad I hadn’t been asked to do this one, then I saw my name.

What I was doing ten years ago:
July 1995--I think that was the summer I invited my sister to come to Lakeside to attend a summer conference for church musicians. We had a wonderful time--or I did. I attended a lot of her activities--but we were exhausted.

5 years ago:
July 2000--I was planning my retirement, to begin October 2000. I had written a plan, called Post Employment Plan which I posted on my website. I was concerned about use of time because I had no hobbies, and of course, had never heard of blogging. It hasn’t been a problem, but I developed a really workable plan.

1 year ago:
July 2004--we were planning a trip to Buffalo to visit Frank Lloyd Wright architectural sites. Most of July of last year I have here on my blog, collected at one link.

Yesterday:
I’ve already blogged about the Perfect Day.

5 snacks I enjoy:
corn chips
potato chips
peanut butter
cheese
apples

5 songs I know all the words to:
None--possibly a few first verses, but not entire songs, unless there is only one verse to "Happy Birthday."

5 Things I would do with $100 million:
Pay off my children’s mortgages.
Create a foundation which would provide small grants for women in business; fund no-kill centers for animals; scholarships for students at Christian colleges and seminaries.
Fund an art gallery for Lakeside.
Take my friends on fun trips as my guests.

5 locations I would like to run away to:
Tennessee to do genealogy.
Montana to enjoy the scenery.
South America.
British Isles
Hawaii, again.

5 bad habits I have:
Talking before I think it through.
Avoiding difficult tasks.
(need some more thinking to distinguish habits from personality)

5 things I like doing:
Reading
Watercolor painting
Blogging and reading blogs of total strangers like Jordan
Writing poetry and essays
Travel

5 things I would never wear:
bikini
hip-huggers
short shorts
tight shirt that showed my mid-riff
platform shoes
(these were all Jordan’s, but they work for me too)

5 TV shows I like:
Cold Case
Dancing with the Stars
Anything on Book TV
Antique Road Show
Turner and AMC Movies, pre-1950

5 Biggest joys of the moment:
Retirement--doing all the things I planned
Watching sunsets and sunrises
Doing just about anything with my husband
Family get-togethers when they go smoothly
Good health

5 Favorite toys:
My computer
My digital camera
My bicycle
My cat
My journal (i.e., paper notebook just the right size)

I’m tagging
Paula
Lauri
Dana
Mr. Cloud
Matthew

1251 Women not in science and technology

Articles of angst, alarm and accusations continue to fill the news. Fewer women go into math and sciences than in 1984, according to this summary. Not enough role models and programs, they say. Hmmm. Maybe that's the key. There are all sorts of women in the "soft" roles--doing the recruiting, investigating, administering, and writing the reports. The article outlines all kinds of centers, committees, grants, and special programs, all probably run by women. Maybe they need to look at these front liners.

1250 A perfect summer day

We have a lot of those here in Lakeside, and I think I've used that title before. Yesterday afternoon I biked around, stopped at a friend's cottage for a glass of lemon-ade, and then biked to the Rhein Center to sign up for art classes this week. I'd originally planned to take perspective drawing, but instead chose "Portraits in Acrylics." We're supposed to bring a photo to the class today, and I think I'll bring along the one of Mr. Cloud with the bird on his head.

Then I biked to the park and settled on a park bench in the shade to listen to an hour of rag time by Sister Jean and her husband Laundry Fat. She does most of the heavy lifting on the piano, and he plays the wash board and kazoo and sings. The gazebo where they played is right on the lake so I was able to watch the sail boats go by and gaze into the leaves of the oak tree shading us.



In the evening we took a walk along the lakefront and there was a family picnic in the park with a man singing, doing a stunning imitation of Willy Nelson and Elvis Presley. Sometimes in the same song.

In the evening we walked two blocks to the auditorium to hear Phil Keaggy. Big crowd. And I also talked to my brother in Florida, but they'd only had a little rain.

1249 How do you clean a cell phone?

Interesting article about *nosocomial infection transmission and cell phones of medical staff in a hospital.

Cell Phones and Acinetobacter Transmission

*Term used to describe infections acquired in a hospital or medical setting. In other words the patient did not have this infection when admitted or was seen, but acquired it in the course of being treated.

Aren't you glad you visited this blog--just one more thing to worry about!

1248 Eschatology quiz

You scored as Moltmannian Eschatology. Jürgen Moltmann is one of the key eschatological thinkers of the 20th Century. Eschatology is not only about heaven and hell, but God's plan to make all things new. This should spur us on to political and social action in the present. Moltmannian Eschatology 100% Amillenialist 100% Preterist 65% Postmillenialist 45% Premillenialist 25% Dispensationalist 25% Left Behind 0% What's your eschatology? created with QuizFarm.com

Moltmann’s eschatology link for more information.

1247 Wretchard is outed!

Belmont Club written by Wretchard has long been one of my favorite blogs. Now he is no longer anonymous. But he outed himself. I think when you start getting quoted by the "real" press, the temptation is to come out from behind the curtain. He tells all. He's a Filipino Australian. I would have never imagined.

A typical, measured, pragmatic, smack-down post:

"The inevitable question then is 'why could Bin Laden not find the means to attack 30 trains?' The answer it seems to me, must be Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and hundred other places where he is engaged without quarter by US forces. Resources, whether Jihadi or no are not infinite. They do not have some magical machine that allows them to be everywhere at once, to sustain losses yet grow. There's no free lunch, not even, and especially not for Bin Laden. If it were true that Islamism would shrivel faster were it pursued more passively, then pre-911 policy should have finished it by now. But what we empirically observe is that ignoring them allowed them to mount 911-scale attack. Hit them continuously and in four years they could scrape together enough to blow up a London bus and some subway trains."

1246 Remembering Rushdie

It was probably only a few hours after the smoke cleared that the Left was blaming Bush and Blair for the bombings instead of the perps. And of course, their soft-on-misunderstood-terrorists and let's-get-out-now protests didn't have a single thing to do with all those deaths in London. The TV talk shows this morning are full of aghast MSM commentators rehashing all the mistakes Americans (i.e. Bush) has made. I just heard, "they can't tell us exactly when the Iraqi troops will be ready." Sigh.

At the sale yesterday run by Friends of Hotel Lakeside I browsed through the books and came across Salmon Rushdie. Remember him? Islamofascists threatened one of their own with death for words on paper.

Down memory lane: "The book that is worth killing people and burning flags for is not the book that I wrote," Salmon Rushdie, 41-year-old author of The Satanic Verses, told Time Magazine. shortly after its publication in 1988.

Rushdie's book caused deep rumblings among faithful Muslims offended by its content, prompting protests and book burnings and even riots in which several people were killed.

The furor reached new heights when Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini joined in, proclaiming the book a work of blasphemy and condemning Rushdie to death for "insulting Islam, the prophet Muhammed and the holy Koran."

Eager followers put a bounty on Rushdie's head, adding riches to what Khomeini had already guaranteed as a place in heaven for the successful assassin. Webcurrents

1245 Laurie R. King, mystery writer

Samantha the Librarian is a King fan, and reviews her latest book, Locked Rooms, at her blog Random Thoughts. I'm not generally a fiction reader, and mysteries, almost never. I read two of King's novels in her Mary Russell series because I'm in a book club, one of the huge advantages of joining a group. It challenges you to open a book outside your comfort zone. I wrote about meeting King when I attended the Festival of Faith and Writing in April 2004.

1244 Buying a baby in three hours

A really sad story of ‘flop bachchas’ (illegitimate children) and how easily they are sold. Mumbai Mirror (via Amit Varma)

Mumbai is the renamed Bombay.