1424 The caption of the photo was

"President Bush has recently been criticized for the amount of time he spends exercising." [WSJ photo and caption, August 30, 2005]

What hasn't he been criticized for? That would be a short list. It wouldn't include his ears; his non-working librarian wife; his non-military daughters; his English; his home state; his vice-president; his judicial nominees; his medicare drug plan; his busting-the-bank education plan; his illegal immigrant plan; his meeting with parents of deceased soldiers only once; his cowboy boots; his grades at Yale; his sense of humor; his smirk; his smile; his frown; his reading list; his church membership; his faith; his tax cuts; his resolve; his values; his believing the intelligence reports of the Clinton administration; his cabinet; his funding of museums and libraries; his pro-life stance; his Yalta remarks; oh yes, and his freeing Afghanistan; his freeing Iraq; and particularly his belief that the USA isn't the only country that deserves a democratic form of government.

But criticism for being just about the most fit 59 year old American male--well, that's pretty silly, even for the left wing Bush bashers.

Norma Blogs Hurricane Katrina

Sunday, September 11, 2005

1505 The Fear Factor

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

1512 Women can stop poverty

Thursday, September 15, 2005

1511 They may never

Monday, September 26, 2005

1537 Why weren't they prepared for this?

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

1542 Does USAToday Hate Black People?

1543 My Biggest Mistake

1546 Red Cross Money Pit

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

1549 What is Bush's Responsibility?

Saturday, October 1, 2005

1569 Good Samaritans and Katrina

1423 Behind Cindy Sheehan

According to Byron York, Lisa Fithian, an anti-war radical, is the organizer and planner behind Cindy Sheehan who was just a grieving mother before Lisa applied her expertise.

She said in an interview with NRO, "I guess my biggest thing is that as people who are trying to create a new world, I do believe we have to dismantle or transform the old order to do that," Fithian continued. "I just fundamentally don't believe it will ever serve our interests as it's currently constructed."

These days, Fithian's tactic for dismantling the old order — at least her tactic for the moment — is Cindy Sheehan. On Wednesday, Sheehan will begin her cross-country tour, winding her way toward Washington. And Lisa Fithian will be with her."

But even Comrade Fithian probably can't keep Cindy from making those gaffs on TV, so it may be her plan that gets dismantled. Today I saw a clip where Cindy said to a crowd, something to the effect, "You can tell your children you met the mother of Casey Sheehan," or something like that. How self-serving and self-aggrandizing is that?

1422 Rachel Carson's Silent Millions

Following a link to Scientist Cards which I saw on a librarian's site, I was disappointed to find that Rachel Carson was one of only two women represented.

Rachel Carson is sometimes described as the mother of the environmental movement. "The idea for her most famous book, Silent Spring, emerged, and she began writing it in 1957. It was published in 1962, and influenced President Kennedy, who had read it, to call for testing of the chemicals mentioned in the book. Carson has been called the mother of the modern environmental movement." Source

JunkScience reports on her faulty reporting of another scientist's work. "Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote "Dr. [James] DeWitt's now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched." DeWitt's 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the "control" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt's report that "control" pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.

In 1972 the EPA banned the use of DDT. No one has ever died from the use of DDT, but millions of Africans die of malaria because of this woman and her legacy. She has brought about the death of more Africans than the infamous Arab and European slave trade and the middle passage. "A pandemic is slaughtering millions, mostly children and pregnant women -- one child every 15 seconds; 3 million people annually; and over 100 million people since 1972 --but there are no protestors clogging the streets or media stories about this tragedy. These deaths can be laid at the doorstep of author Rachel's Carson. Her 1962 bestselling book Silent Spring detailed the alleged "dangers" of the pesticide DDT, which had practically eliminated malaria. Within ten years, the environmentalist movement had convinced the powers that be to outlaw DDT. Denied the use of this cheap, safe and effective pesticide, millions of people -- mostly poor Africans -- have died due to the environmentalist dogma propounded by Carson's book. Her coterie of admirers at the U.N. and environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund have managed to bring malaria and typhus back to sub-Saharan Africa with a vengeance." Lisa Makson

Surely, there is at least one more female scientist out there worthy of the honor of being on this silly website.

1421 Frequent flyer miles for fat kids with bad teeth

Disclaimer: I have no use for loyalty plans. Coupons were always the size and shape of dollars; loyalty plans use credit card sized plastic.

I hate them on a can,
I hate them in a box,
I hate them at the airport,
no matter what the plan.

I hate them more than green stamps,
I hate them more than coupons
I hate them more than barcodes
with scissor clipping cramps.

They add to the cost and the time of purchasing anything. Corporations--Keep your games out of my wallet. Don't make me show a card at the drug store or supermarket or shoe outlet. This is a useless whine because you cannot convince the American consumer that no one makes money giving away their product. We so want a pot of freebies at the end of the rainbow.

But the absolute worst must be the "Upromise" plan. Let's take Nestle for example. Three percent of every participating Nestle fun size candy bag purchase goes into little Jonny's Upromise Savings Account! Great. Fatten him up, rot his teeth, and then send him to college. "You can save 1% on Coca-Cola Classic®, Vanilla Coke® (non diet), Cherry Coke® (non diet), Coca-Cola® with Lime (non-diet), or Coca-Cola C2® (non diet) products when you purchase three or more in a single shopping trip." Such a deal I can hardly believe. Are parents this dumb? Unfortunately, yes.

1420 The good news and the bad news

The good news is "the economic well being of the American family has never been better," [today's WSJ] and the bad news is I don't think the Bush administration has a clue on how to say this or what to do with it [my personal opinion based on years as a Democrat]. As I've commented many times here at Collecting My Thoughts the toughest thing to get used to about being a Republican is how they keep hiding their light under a bushel and dash out and start tipping windmills that don't matter.

Stephen Moore, on the Wall St. Journal board of editors, writes today that "when taking into account all forms of benefits that workers now receive, compensation to workers is about 27% higher in real terms than 25 years ago. The average hourly wage is $18.00+, counting benefits it's almost $26.00 an hour. The left will cry out stagnant wages even though the median family income is now $52,600. Total compensation is up 7.5% but wages only 4% since 2000. Frankly, I was the kind of worker who would have preferred a higher wage so I could purchase my own perks in the open market, but I think those days are over since the trend started right after WWII, and we won't reverse something that's 60 years old. Workers now get all sorts of tuition reimbursement, long term care insurance, telecommuting options, and even adoption assistance. Hardly fringe by anyone's definition. It's the whole window dressing plus the view.

Nowadays, Mr. Moore points out, the workers also own the store, with 52% of Americans owning stock thanks to 401(k)s and IRAs. And guess what? The Bush tax cuts increased the take home pay of the poorer workers. We can expect virulent attacks from the left because this good economic news--much of it since 2000--means their little base is shrinking. If poverty shrinks, so does their power. And now if NCLB would actually show long term results with more children making it through a school system deeply flawed, their public employee unions might go the route of labor unions.

Immediately after the November elections, news about the bad economy disappeared from the main stream media. You occasionally still hear people saying things like, "well, in this economy," even though Americans have never had it better.

How can the economy get better? "William Galston, once an assistant to President Clinton, put the matter simply. To avoid poverty, do three things: finish high school, marry before having a child, and produce the child after you are 20 years old. Only 8% of people who do all three will be poor; of those who fail to do them, 79% will be poor." OpinionJournal Thus I think you will see the left continue to encourage single parenthood, larger welfare stipends and disparage marriage. A good economy weakens their base.

1419 The power of one

Friday night we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Abigail's (restaurant in Lakeside) with two other couples. There is a rumor that building is held together by the grape vines, but I don't put much stock in that--I think it is the wall paper. We'd all been looking forward to the Abigail's great perch dinners. One of the men, an expert on China who teaches in the foreign service and recently returned from two weeks in Japan, provided us interesting details on China's economy (it's the size of Italy's) and its growth (growing at a phenomenal rate, and in a few years the average income may hit $800 a year). Someone asked him what would replace the current government if that could happen, and sadly he replied, another totalitarian government because that's what China has always had.

On our walk home, my husband mused, "That was certainly a reasonable meal," and then he stopped and thought about it. He knew we couldn't both eat for $14.00, perch dinners plus dessert. So he headed back to the restaurant, flagged down the swamped hostess and had her refigure the bill. The waitress had dropped a one someplace, and the bill was off by $10.00.

1418 Photo album at an antique sale

Yesterday's antique sale at Lakeside was well attended and appeared to have about the maximum number of dealers the place could hold. Many are set up outside, and during showers, they just spread plastic over everything. I didn't pay much attention to antique sales until the early 1970s, then I noticed things I remembered from Grandma's house in Franklin Grove, IL. Then in the 80s, I began to notice things I remembered in my parents' home, and now I'm seeing items that I received as wedding gifts.

At this sale held the last week-end of August I usually can pick up a few pieces of my silverplate, and keep an eye open for my mother's, just as a memento. Occasionally, I see old photographs from the 19th century and pause to wonder if the little children grew up or if the young couple made it. But yesterday I saw a dealer of the mid-20th century with several photo albums. I leafed through one that looked just like the one I started when I was a little girl. It was dated 1950 and most of the black and white photos were of stock car races in Michigan--proud drivers standing beside their cars. Parts of it were the picnics and swim parties that the young people had who followed these racers. Just small and perfectly placed black and white brownie Kodak snaps--beautiful 20-something girls in swim suits and guys posing like "Charles Atlas." The dealer said the albums had come from a Toledo estate sale.

At dinner I told my husband about the album--mystified that families let these little treasures go. Although I still remember rescuing the box of photographs from his grandmother's apartment after she died. No one else seemed to see the family connection but me--and she wasn't even my grandmother. We talked a bit about digital images, wondering if family memories will be lost long before the 55-years- after-estate sale. Many people don't go to the trouble to print them, and just view them on the computer or TV screen, sort of an update of watching slides of the family get-togethers. You do it once, put them away, and rarely pull them out again. We have boxes of his parents' slides--the color is fading, and we have no idea who or what is on them, and when enough time has passed I'm sure we will dispose of them--acres of trips and scores of parties with friends, viewable only if we find a projector that will take them. Will the next generation of computers even be able to bring up today's digital photos? Or will you always have the wrong port or USB cord?

But there they were at the antique show. Black and white photos snapped by an amateur, dropped off for developing at the corner drug store, and then carefully pasted with little corners into an album 55 years ago, just as clear and crisp as they were when those young people were out having a good time at the stock car races.

1417 Parents and Science vs. Religion

It's really not that simple, is it? Many parents are angry at all the "social science" baggage that accompanies evolution, which at its core is anti-God, which throws it into teaching religion in the schools. That said, it's not like these same parents don't have other alternatives. There are books, videos, classes at church, sermons from the pulpit (I've never heard such a sermon, but I think they are out there), and intelligent conversations at the dinner table. Yes, it means you'll have to tell the kids not everything they learn at school is true. Yes, it means you will all have to be in the same room together for 10 or 15 minutes. But you can do it. Teach them to ask questions. Teach them to think if the school isn't doing it.

"Nearly 30 years of teaching evolution in Kansas has taught Brad Williamson to expect resistance, but even this veteran of the trenches now has his work cut out for him when students raise their hands. That's because critics of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection are equipping families with books, DVDs, and a list of "10 questions to ask your biology teacher." " Christian Science Monitor

I grew up being taught nothing but evolution. I just can't figure out when there was a golden age of Christian values in education, because I'm 65 and we didn't have it. We may have had more consensus on behavior expectations, but one town I lived in had 1,000 residents, the other 2,800. Most Americans don't live in small towns. I learned it; I passed the tests. We are not going to turn back the clock. I passed all the required college-prep science courses, was in all those honor societies even in grad school. And I never believed a word of it. Even when I was a liberal humanist I could open my eyes and see there was a creator. I maybe didn't believe much of the standard protestant theology, but I certainly knew that much.

I think the parents going after Intelligent Design and Creationism in the schools should turn their efforts to hiring better teachers, offering broader range of courses, reinstating standards for some basics in speaking and writing, and then take care of religion at home and church. Just as you don't think the school should be passing out condoms, many parents don't want your religion passed around either. Let them give their kids birth control if they think it is important, and you take care of the other type of creation.

1416 Where have you been?

And then she told me.

1415 Maybe there is no Cindy Sheehan

Her family doesn't seem to recognize her or her cause. They remember a brave soldier, Casey Sheehan, who volunteered, supported his president and the cause of Iraqi freedom. Her Casey seems almost unrecognizable, and I doubt he'd approve of his mother's camp followers prostituting his death. But maybe it's just her. Maybe she's been dreamed up by Moveon.org?

Kodee Kennings didn't exist and for two years people followed her story, too. (Although I think they were pro-war.) Two students thought her up and published her sad tale in The Daily Egyptian, school paper of Southern Illinois University. She'd lost her mom; now the 8-year old's sad letters to her dad in Iraq were published in the paper. But it was all phony--Jaime Reynolds pretended to be the girl's guardian and another little girl, Caitlin Hadley, posed for the photos thinking she was part of a documentary. Things were going along pretty good until they decided to "kill off" Kodee's dad. Then someone finally did some fact checking.

Daily Egyptian's acknowledgment of the hoax, but I didn't notice an apology.

1414 Tickling the ivories

Last night was the final performance of the Lakeside Symphony and the guest artist was a pianist who performed Chopin. It was OK, but my mind drifted. She was a small, pleasant looking woman, 60-ish near as I could tell from where we were seated. Something about her reminded me of the pretty graduate student we jointly hired to teach us piano back in 1966 or 1967. I had purchased a piano with my grad student stipend shortly after we bought our second house. A home didn't seem right without a piano since I'd grown up listening to my talented sister fill our home with music. It was a Baldwin acrosonic in a lovely warm walnut. It stayed with us for 30 years until I finally gave it to my daughter when she bought a home in 1996.

<----It sort of looked like this. The problem was, I played poorly and almost never, and my husband didn't play at all. But it turned out, he'd always wanted to learn, always admired people who could sit down and dash off something terrific. Because I was working at the university and one of my co-workers was an opera student, I think I asked him for a suggestion and he gave us her name.

Sometimes we went to her studio and sometimes she came to our house. But regardless, we were hopeless. I could play the piano, but not in front of anyone, including the teacher. It was worse than math test nerves. My husband who had grown up with no music in the home, none in school, no band, no chorus, no church choir, just couldn't grasp even the most basic concepts and couldn't hear any of the chord changes. She had begun with such enthusiasm, such a positive attitude, and I think we must have totally demoralized her. After a few months, we all agreed to stop the pain.

But my husband does have pleasant memories of that botched attempt--it makes a good story to tell our more musically talented friends. And he remembers a lovely, glowing, vibrant young woman with red hair whose career goal was to be a concert pianist. So when I whispered in his ear last night in the dark that "she reminds me of our piano teacher," I think I ruined his evening.

1413 In the local fish wrapper

After purchasing a few items to get us through the week-end at the local walk-to market, I spotted a photo on the front page of The Beacon. The caption read, "Last weekend, the son of actor Richard Thomas (John-Boy on "The Waltons"--far left) married Besty Burkett of Fremont. The rehearsal dinner was held at Mon Ami and the reception was held at Catawba Island Club." I'm guessing the extra woman in the photo was Alma, the groom's mother, although John-Boy is the only one identified for certain.

So I googled and found it here. Turns out his name is Richard Francisco Thomas*, and her name is Betsy, not Besty. When you are the "son of" people forget to mention your name, even if you are the groom. Sounds like Fremont was all atwitter expecting celebrities from the Fonz to Bette Midler.

*Seen at a fan site: "Although Richard Thomas is the fifth generation of men to have the name "Richard Thomas" in his family, he's not Richard Thomas V. Rather, each son named Richard has a different middle name based on the first name of his maternal grandfather. So Richard Thomas is "Richard Earl Thomas" after his mother's father, and Richard's son is "Richard Francisco Thomas" after his ex-wife's father."

1412 Picking up the Press Thread

Jay Rosen has reopened the thread on Austin Bay's post at his site. I know, I know. It's very confusing. But as near as I can tell from Neo-Neocon and Neuro-Conservative, Rosen invited Bay to provide some advice on how the Bush administration could be more open to the press. He wanted to start a dialog (in left-speak that means he wanted to change minds). Rosen got mad at the commentors, even though most of the 35,000 words were really pretty reasonable and well thought out. In academe (which is where I come from) we believe strongly that information or discussion will CHANGE minds. My entire career was built on that! Now when have you EVER changed someone's mind by anything you wrote or said? It's possible you added a missing piece, but you didn't change it. It's usually cummulative based on many life experiences AND bits of outside information. And it isn't just on politics, it could be anything--health, relationships, parenting, religion, etc. My story, for instance.

So here's some comments on the new thread. Not much heat or light here. I have no idea who Mr. Anderson is, his age or profession. Mark Anderson writes at http://poorrichardsalmanac.blogspot.com/ and disregards copyright the way he posts the whole shooting match on his site. These are a few of his "ho-hum why have you bothered and wasted my time" comments. If I were Mr. Rosen, I'd be more distressed by this attitude:

“But at the end of the day, he [Austin Bay] is a man who makes his living as a professional right-wing media operative. “

“every word Bay has to say on your blog is toward the end of advancing the same agenda Hughes and Hewitt “

“What makes Bay more than a super neo-con troll on steroids presenting his design for full-spectrum neo-con media dominance aside from his having better manners? “

“Why do you see Bay's PR strategy as a serious discussion about the future of the press and your commenters [sic] affirmation of the bias Bay self-consciously advances in his post--in precisely the manner he intended to elicit by what he wrote--as dumb bias discourse? “

“Wasting my time reading a respectful and articulate neo-con plan for full-spectrum neo-con media dominance that is not as immediately self-destructive and reality-challenged as Karl Rove's totalitarian approach bores me. . .”

“Austin Bay's bias rant makes me feel dumber. Why do you post it? Why aren't you bored by it? Being annoyed with the commenters' [sic] bias-oriented responses to your posting Austin Bay's bias rant is like being annoyed that Yankees fans show up for Yankees games.” [I think I need to diagram this sentence.]

Jay Rosen conceived a nice religion page called The Revealer, a daily review. . . which I used to read. Now written by Jeff Sharlett. But the little asides from the writers were just too much. Too much editorializing to be "news." Sort of Maureen Dowd with hat and gloves and sensible shoes, but you got the message. Like this pithy entry to Shalett's comments on the Pat Robertson flap:

"Olsen [Christianity Today] adds to the drumbeat of evangelical leaders denouncing Robertson's assassination fascination, with links to denunciations (read: distancing) from evangelical bigs such as Os Guiness, Al Mohler, and Marvin Olasky, coiner of "compassionate conservatism," who, in so many words, suggests that Robertson is a doddering old fool. . ." Jeff Sharlett [Warning: this is a tricky site to navigate; watch your clicks--I'm not even positive Sharlett is the author] Almost drips with scorn doesn't it, as "drumbeat of denounciations" gets downgraded in an aside, like a hurricane, to "distancing" and a compassionate conservative almost says "doddering old fool [he didn't]."

1411 LexisNexis vs. AlterNet

Ever wonder where the left comes up with its skewed views of reality? Is there even a candle flickering down in their data mine? Check out TomeBoy's lastest essay. To be fair, Mr. Nellis (the discussion is about someone discussing him) isn't exactly your namby-pamby left-winger; he's an anarchist near as I can tell, and I think he described himself that way. I try really hard to avoid his repetitive tirades at LISNews.com. Perhaps I misjudge. There is no evidence he is a librarian, so why should I care? Here's his "welcome" at his website:

"In fact, should any of the material on my site offend you, you are probably a religious extremist. In that case, I invite you to invoke the biblical injunction and pluck your eyes out. Frankly, I'd pay good money to see that."

Is that junior high or what?

1410 The Kitty Trifecta

She'd meowed and threw herself against the living room door from 4-5 a.m. Always hungry. But 5 minutes after downing her breakfast, she urped it up on the kitchen floor. Well, at least it's not carpet, I thought. But when I saw it was only undigested cat food, I knew there would be more. NO HAIR BALL. While cleaning that up, I heard her in the living room, so I rushed in there and cleaned up the rest of the breakfast. NO HAIR BALL. While I was cleaning that up, she made a bee line for the guest room, where I snatched her in mid-barf, so the hair ball came up in the hall. Then she headed for the kitty-litter where after doing her business she started to throw up again. But she doesn't like to do that in the litter box, so she jumped out and threw up on the little rug by the back door. By this time, I'd cleaned up in 5 places, counting the saliva puddles. Then to add to the barfing and pooping, she decided to add newsprint. She noticed yesterday's Wall Street under the kitchen table lamp and four times had to be removed from it. Actually, I just finally hid the newspaper since she didn't seem to catch on.
I've posted this before, but it's a favorite
Here's a really great site with another kitty trifecta story and great photos. I can't imagine what their vet, cat food, and broadband bills must add up to. Music, videos, professional design, etc. Don't miss the Scrungy story.

1409 When you let Blogger correct your typos you'll meet your Waterloo

One good reason to write in wp and paste into the blogger.com posting window is the spell check. It is hilarious. Some times I use it just for a morning laugh. It doesn't recognize the word "blog," for instance. Here's some gems from my Vioxx article:


"The Voice case involved a man who had undiagnosed erratum and died. "The pathologist who performed Ernst's autopsy testified during the trial that a blood clot likely caused the erratum and a subsequent fatal heart attack. . .

Well, let me weigh-in with something that IS 100% certain. I've had erratum all my life and it was NEVER found until 1996 when feeling light-headed, I walked a mile to the clinic from my office at OSI and was immediately put in a wheelchair and pushed through a construction zone to the emergency room and admitted. . .

After several days of testing at the OSI Hospital the diagnosis was "adiabatic waterloo fibrillation." . . .

It was zapped in 2002, and I went on new and different meads including comedian, because although the circuit was gone, the pulmonary veins around my heart didn't know the ship had left the dock and continued to flutter and cause problems. They needed to be retrained, and the meads were for that. About 18 months ago those meads (developed by a pharmaceutical company), were discontinued."

You're better off not to look--adiabatic waterloo indeed!

1408 The heart breaks

“The heart breaks for everyone who lost relatives and friends on September 11, as it does for the relatives of the war dead and wounded, as it does for the sons of Paul Wellstone. It does not break for MoveOn.org, Maureen Dowd, and Gail Sheehy, who have not been heartbroken, except by a string of election reverses, and are using the anguish of other people in an effort to turn them around.”

"AFTER THE JERSEY GIRLS, there was nowhere to go but to "Mother Sheehan,"* who, like the Wellstone Memorial, may be about to implode. In her case, her cover as Everymom is more easily broken, as her connection to the Loony Left is far more explicit, and her tongue is a lot less controlled. You might not know it from her televised interviews (where she seems well coached by the expensive media mavens retained by MoveOn.org), but the Internet is alive with her unscripted sayings, and they make quite a collection. To anyone's knowledge, none of the Jersey Girls or members of Peaceful Tomorrows has appeared on a program with Lynne Stewart, the convicted lawyer and friend to Islamic terrorists, and proclaimed her a personal heroine. None has ever said anything like this to a public gathering: "We have no constitution. We're the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog s--in Washington. Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq." "
Read the whole article by Noemi Emery

Seen at Bookworm

1407 How anti-war people kill

In the early 1980s I worked for a young Jewish woman on a JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act) Grant. She was a Republican and I was a Democrat, but that didn't bother either one of us because we had certain things in common--she was my aerobics instructor and I was accustomed to following her orders. I can't remember exactly what my job title was--something about program--but basically I wrote government documents. I even wrote speeches for her boss (later killed in an airplane crash). It was one of the best jobs I ever had, and she was an outstanding boss.

Her family comes to mind when I hear and see the anti-war protestors, all those dear folk who want to "bring the troops home" because "Bush lied." The naive do-gooders who light candles and string origami birds to take down to the lakefront on hot summer nights. The information that led us into this war was disseminated in the 1990s--I've seen John Kerry and John Edwards and Bill Clinton's names attached to WMD memos. But, that's not as important to me (if it was misinformation in 2002, it was misinformation in 1999) as the number of lives President Bush has saved and the number he as liberated from tyranny.

The protests bring to my mind those of the 1930s--before my time, of course. But I love old journals, and our public library had old bound volumes of Life, Look and Time, and the university too had acres of old musty journals, some unabashedly socialist and communist. It's possible they are gone now--replaced by unbrowsable digital formats where the agonized faces of those fleeing Hitler long before the US entered the war aren't so moving.

"Student organizing was one of the American Left's most successful areas of political activity during the Great Depression. Under the leadership of Communist and Socialist undergraduates, the campus activists of the 1930s built the first mass student protest movement in American history. During its peak years, from spring 1936 to spring 1939, the movement mobilized at least 500,000 collegians (about half of the American student body) in annual one-hour strikes against war. The movement also organized students on behalf of an extensive reform agenda, which included federal aid to education, government job programs for youth, abolition of the compulsory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), academic freedom, racial equality, and collective bargaining rights." Encyc. of American Left

Yes, "we" Americans knew what was going on--our press was covering it, but our anti-war forces were very powerful. Just like today. Our politicians were timid and concerned about their legacies. Just like today. We all know what is behind their protests, don't we? Sort of a self-hatred, isn't it? Hitler was marching into poor little Poland the month I was born. I'm sure my 27 year old mom read about it in the newspapers as she wondered what was going to happen to her little brood (then three), because you see, everyone knew. It was no secret.

Fast forward to my 1983 job and my great boss. She told me one time that her in-laws had each lost four children and a spouse in Nazi death camps. They met (widowed and childless) after the war in a camp awaiting relocation to the United States. They married, resettled here, started a new life and had two more children. They have a lot to be thankful for, no thanks to the anti-war protesters of the 1930s.

And so I think about those two brave people (I met them once at their grandson's bris) when you light your protest candle.

1406 What I haven't seen this summer

Yesterday I made a few notes on what I hadn't seen this summer:

• a sunset
• a sunrise
• a live skunk in our yard
• a dead skunk on the highway
• a deer in my head lights
• a teen-age couple under the street light
• the left side of 140 lbs.
• a restaurant outside the gates
• a new litter of feral kittens
• Wall Street Journal

But I'm happy to say that last night we walked down to the dock and with about 30 other people watched a gorgeous sunset. We took along the binoculars and passed them around. Because it is week 9, I think we may have been the youngest folks watching.

Then on my way home from the grocery story I noticed a slight whif of skunk, but nothing like most years. I recognize the little feral kittens from last year's batch--probably someone has captured them and had them neutered. And today I bought a Wall Street Journal.

What I have seen this summer:

• the new director becoming more comfortable and relaxed in his job
• plein air painters
• a huge interest in landscaping and home floral beds (new director's influence)
• large crowds at the lakefront worship service on Sunday
• soaring real estate prices--$800,000 on the lakefront, and $300-600,000 in our neighborhood
• growing interest in community theater
• enormous increase and interest in the arts and crafts offerings
• a new and thriving coffee shop

Way to go, Lakesiders.

Lakeside, Ohio