1548 Why he blogs

David Durrant, a librarian on my list of links, says he feels better about his conservative views now that he is blogging. Librarianship is a left wing "politicized atmosphere of groupthink and intolerance echo chamber." His op ed appears in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

"The open politicization of the ALA [American Library Association] has also trampled on the association's commitment to intellectual freedom and diversity of opinion. The ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table, for example, has become the exclusive plaything of radical leftists, and they have made it abundantly clear that those holding differing viewpoints are not welcome. For instance, conservative posts to the SRRT e-mail list are treated with open hostility.

The ALA's annual conferences have become akin to MoveOn.org meetings, where Bush bashing and liberal groupthink are the order of the day. At the association's June 2003 convention, in Toronto, the lineup of speakers included Ralph Nader, U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders, Naomi Klein, and Gloria Steinem. That was merely a warm-up, however, for the blatantly political event that was the 2004 convention in Orlando, Fla."

None of this will surprise librarians, but I'm guessing the other academics won't care. (For those of you outside the university/college milieu, The Chronicle is a cross between the Bible and the New York Times and is read by most.) Although they may be surprised to see that as a group, librarians are much further to the left than professors.

1546 The Red Cross money pit

The Los Angeles times has an editorial questioning the 70% of all the relief money for the hurricanes that the Red Cross has received.

"This skewed giving to Red Cross would be justified if the organization had to pay the cost of the 300,000 people it has sheltered. But FEMA and the affected states are reimbursing the Red Cross under preexisting contracts for emergency shelter and other disaster services. The existence of these contracts is no secret to anyone but the American public. The Red Cross carefully says it functions only by the grace of the American people — but "people" includes government, national and local. What we've now come to expect from a major disaster is a Red Cross media blitz."

"The Red Cross expects to raise more than $2 billion before Hurricane Katrina-related giving subsides. If it takes care of 300,000 people, that's $7,000 per victim. I doubt each victim under Red Cross care will see more than a doughnut, an interview with a social worker and a short-term voucher for a cheap motel, with a few miscellaneous items such as clothes and cooking pots thrown in.

The Red Cross' 3 million unpaid volunteers, 156,000 of whom it says are deployed in Hurricane Katrina, are salt-of-the-Earth Americans. But asking where all the privately collected money will go and how much Red Cross is billing FEMA and the affected states is a legitimate question — even if posed by the president of a small relief agency."

My donations haven't gone to the Red Cross, but if yours have, you may want to read the entire article and do your own research on where your money will do the most good.

1545 Speaking of Germany

"Josef Goebbels would have been happy with much of the mainstream media in the past few weeks since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Goebbels, for those of you too young to know, was Hitler's propaganda minister. He is credited with creating the concept of The Big Lie. The idea was that if you tell a lie big enough often enough, people will believe it.

The big lie of the Hurricane Katrina story is that it reveals deep and hateful racism in America, that blacks were treated worse than other people because they were black, and that this shows the hypocrisy of this supposedly egalitarian nation."

But here's the truth. Most of the horrible things we were told by our cable news networks about murder, mayhem, looting and rape, just didn't happen. Their reports kept FEMA teams out of the area. When body recovery teams from the military entered the evacuation facilities in NOLA they expected to find many bodies based on the news coverage. They found six. Gosh, five people died in Texas from using a generator improperly during Rita! The murder rate apparently slowed during the storm's aftermath. Reporters were not inside those facilities, remember. They were outside on the freeways and had no way to check the rumors. Fox News to its credit, is now correcting that image with interviews of people who are or were on the scene. I don't think they've admitted complicity in creating an anti-America news story, however. I have no idea how CNN is handling their missteps.

In addition, according to Ben Stein in this article quoted above, the blacks were victims not of racism, but geography, a terrible storm, and mass confusion. The people who came to their aid were white churches and black churches working together. People all over the country have opened their homes and businesses to these people.

So who are these racists trying to stir up hatred among us? Well, so far, they've all been liberals and Bush-bashers. It's their plantation mentality.

More on the media's role in distorting the news about the storm

Rep. Peter King (NY) on MSNBC Chris Matthews show, Hardball, Sept. 26

PK: I'm not talking about distorting the damage [of the hurricane]. I'm talking about distorting President Bush's role. Somehow, this was almost entirely blamed on him. That was a certain impression given by the media from the very first moment, when the levees broke. And you had Andrea Mitchell on talking about how that was because President Bush didn't put enough money into the water projects in Louisiana, or the levee control projects, when it turns out that he put more money in, in his first five years, than Bill Clinton did in his last five years. And no state gets more money in the country than Louisiana does. And use that as an example, and then go right through.

There was much more focus put on what President Bush was supposedly not doing, when the fact is it was the mayor who didn't provide the trucks, the buses to evacuate the people, sent the people to the Superdome without adequate food or water. And then also, there's the governor. The governor of Louisiana, and I was down there last week, she said every report that was done before this, said that a storm of this magnitude would kill 20,000 people. The fact is, so far there's less than 800. Every death is tragic, but why isn't your story less than 4% of those who were supposed to have been killed were not killed, because of the efforts of the federal government? The Coast Guard, remember, is part of Homeland Security. They were in the very first day rescuing thousands and thousands of people. That's just an example of the distortion. It's continuing today, the way you're questioning the contracts, assuming something is wrong when the president is fully following the law."

Lots of mp.3 clips well worth listening to.

"PK: [The President] was relying on what everyone, including Page 1 of the New York Times said, which was that New Orleans had ducked the storm. It wasn't until Tuesday that we realized how bad the situation was. And by then, the president had no way of knowing that the New Orleans Police and Fire Departments were going to disappear, that the governor wasn't going to adequately use the National Guard, and that the mayor had not put sufficient water and food into the Superdome. It takes a good 36 to 48 hours to move troops, the amount that were necessary, to provide relief in the Superdome."

And here's the best part.

PK to CM: "Just because the president doesn't watch you on television, it doesn't mean he's not doing his job. You know, Franklin Roosevelt wasn't hired to listen to radio accounts of D-Day. You're hired to do the job, and the president can do his job without having to listen to Chris Matthews or Andrea Mitchell or Tim Russert, or any of the others. He is doing his job."

1544 Am I the only one

who gains weight because I like to eat? I've gained 15 pounds this year and I'm not troubled, I don't blame my parents, and it's no one's fault but mine. And blogging, of course, which is very broadening. And that is PJ and Paula's fault.

Isn't this a stupid thesis?

"Mostly, fat people are fat because they're troubled, and if they lose weight, they become troubled slim people, and then they just start overeating again, and become fat people who are even more troubled than they were before." New book called Hunger.

1543 My biggest mistake

was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," [Michael] Brown told a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.

"I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn't pull that off."

At last. A breath of fresh air. I suppose since he's been made the scapegoat he doesn't have to mince words. I hope the party doesn't make him take it all back. He looks good with that backbone.

Naturally William Jefferson, the LA congressman who tied up rescue helicopters and trucks checking his house and removing items, was outraged.


Clueless Congressman

1542 Does USAToday hate black people?

If today's cover story had appeared at an RNC or administration web site, all hell would break loose. I don't think the paper's writers deliberately put a negative spin on blacks waiting at an evacuation center, but it couldn't sound worse if that had been the intention.

First, the photos. Five photos of people waiting--all evacuees, all had had jobs and homes in New Orleans. The only white person in the five photos is shown looking for jobs in the want ads of a newspaper while eleven African American women and men sit in the background staring into space.

Second, the human interest stories. One evacuee, Wayne Scardino (who I assume is white from his surname), had a successful lawn care business before Katrina destroyed his house and business, and he was planning to relocate to another city and take advantage of small business loans from the government to get started again. He had taken the initiative and responded to a flier posted at the center. The other stories, mostly about unmarried couples with children, reported how they'd refused offers from churches and relatives to relocate to different states. One woman had refused to move to a trailer. They are waiting for FEMA to "do something" and the woman whose rented duplex had been destroyed complained about the lack of privacy at the center, but said, "We could do better," than taking those other housing options. One black man who had been employed in a hotel chain is reported as saying, "It's like a vacation," and he is satisfied to just wait for the government to do something.

Also, this article quoted some Louisiana officials saying some unsavory things (to this tax payer's ear), like Blanco wants FEMA to put people up in hotels rather than trailers. So that's apparently why only 99 trailers for evacuees have been set up in LA, but 2,325 trailers have already been occupied in Mississippi and Alabama. Do you suppose FEMA will be blamed for this "slow response" to housing needs in LA?

Also, according to Kim Hunter Reed, the state policy and planning director, who is quoted in the article, New Orleans had a severe housing shortage before Katrina! There are two things that cause housing shortages: rent control and new construction red tape, including environmental hoops to jump through to get permits. Government interference in the market causes housing shortages. It happened after WWII, and continues in cities like New York which have rent control. I don't mind helping people when they are down, but New Orleans was by any reasonable woman's standard a mess before Katrina.

1541 A Cajun East Germany

Last week during our Danube River Cruise we enjoyed many outstanding lectures. Tour guide Robert who is British and has lived and studied both in the USSR and the GDR, lectured about post WWII Germany and reunification. He said (according to my notes) that USSR had hoped it could build a model country from the ashes, and in 1949 the GDR (East Germany) was formed. While the USA poured money into Germany building housing, businesses, and currency reform, the GDR stagnated. 100,000 people a year were leaving the East for better opportunities in the West. The Berlin Wall was built and the Iron Curtain fell cutting off what had been Prussia. On the 40th anniversary, 1989, the people knocked down the wall, and no one in the West had a plan B, because no one believed the Soviets would so totally fail. After 1990, things went sour. 16 million East Germans and 4,000,000 Volga Germans had to be absorbed into the rather generous German social system and economy. It was a disaster--"Too risky to invest in a work force that had been under Communism for 45 years."

Two days later Dr. Hans Hillerbrand picked up the theme with "What is a German?" He said Germany had had one of the most generous social systems in the west, with no unemployment and few pensioners in the 1980s. But as the work forced aged, and the East Germans came into the system not having contributed anything, 1.4 trillion Euros were transferred west to east to get the former GDR's economy going again. But it is a black hole. In the GDR, 8 workers were employed where 2 were needed, but easterners wanted the same salaries as westerns, who were far more capable and productive.

In today's WSJ George Melloan writes in the "Global View" column about how government handouts and subsidies to the East Germans to bring them "up" to West German standards has failed, causing high unemployment, anger and a growing Communist party, which made a small showing in the election that took place while we were there. Unemployment in east Germany is at 19%. He notes that the ambitious 4 milllion left, resulting in a Darwinian downward spiral in the population, leaving the elderly, the lazy and the indigent.

As I was reading it I kept thinking how much it sounded like Louisiana politics and government props (before Katrina) and how much worse the federal infusion of "aid" could make life there. And then in his last sentence I see we were really "on the same page," when he mentioned the hurricane aid was going to turn Louisiana into a "Cajan East Germany."

1540 Write down those stories!

In two weeks I'll be visiting family in Illinois. While I'm "home" I hope to visit a great aunt who just celebrated her 90th birthday. I'm going to take along the genealogy information I've accumulated over the years and try to fill in a few blanks, and I hope to hear some "stories." Not everyone is a story teller, so sometimes you have to ask questions like "Where was your family living when you were born? Did you hear stories about your parents' early life you could share with me?"

Here's an essay I wrote in June 2002 about a story I heard from a neighbor. He can no longer communicate, so I hope someone in his family will write down for the great grandchildren his "library."

At age 77 my neighbor climbed down the ladder from the roof of his 2 story house, wiped away the sweat, and told me how sad he was that he was now an orphan. Two brothers and a sister had died the previous year, and he was the last one--the youngest of 9. The one brother was the family story-teller--always pumping the aunts and uncles, cousins and sibs for stories which he would then retell and embellish at family get-togethers--a bard, a chronicler of their life and times. "We lost a library," my neighbor said sadly, "no one ever wrote them down, and I'm no story teller."

But then, as though lying about his own ability, he told me the story of how his father watched 3 friends die in mine fires in south eastern Ohio, and decided to move his family to Cleveland for better opportunity and a safer job. All eleven of them took the train ride to Cleveland to find the one man he knew there. All he knew was that his friend worked for the railroad, so the family sat, ate, and slept in the train station for three days until the man came through on a train. The children swept floors and ran errands for people to get a little cash together. Finally his father saw his friend, who immediately took them home with him. Within 3 days, the father had a job, and within a year, he'd made a down payment on a house for his family. I can't repeat the story the way he did, but he had quickly stepped into his brother's shoes.

Now he has Alzheimer's. He doesn't recognize his wife, children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. But the family still gathers and treats him with great tenderness and respect. The house bustles with friends and children running in and out, but the library has closed forever. Write your stories.

1539 The Michael Jackson Treatment

Cindy Sheehan gets my Jacko moves. Whenever a story about her comes on the news, I pick-up the remote and change channels, a method I used during the trial. I've also e-mailed NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox (don't watch CNN) asking them to stop making her into news. So far, I've seen snippets of "King of the Hill" and some shopping channel gems, but that's better than watching non-news.

1538 Blew her out of the media

A certain grieving mother got blown out of the limelight by Hurricane Katrina, and now can be found grinning and laughing as she is arrested in what appears to be a mosh pit for storming the White House in a war protest. Ah Cindy. I think your 15 minutes of fame is over. You are so yesterday I'm not even going to post the photo I came across while looking for something. . .interesting. . . relevant. . . and age appropriate.

1537 Why weren't they prepared for this?

"Speaking at a symposium in New York last week, Arthur Jones, chief of disaster recovery for Louisiana's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told the Associated Press that his agency he was caught off guard by the tidal wave of violence.

No disaster planner, he said, predicted that people would loot gun stores after the storm and shoot at police, rescue officials and helicopters." Katrina death toll

Hello! 1. Law abiding citizens leave. 2. Crooks stay. 3. Gun stores are unguarded. Not my field of expertise, but I think I could have figured this one out. Number 4 is Looting.

Who hires these local Homeland Security "experts." And they were supposed to protect us from terrorists?

Update: I heard today that there were no more murders during the Katrina aftermath than any other week. Can't confirm it yet, but I was hoping someone would subtract the usual death toll from the Katrina toll to come up with a figure. Also, Michael Brown says FEMA does not send volunteers or staff into unsafe areas because they are not military or police, and the media was reporting violence and gunfire. Now it appears much of that was way over-hyped and exaggerated.

1536 Roberts is in; who's next?

A strong judiciary and a weak Congress is not what our Founders had in mind, but that's the hand we've chosen to put in our glove. So who's next? This will be Bush's real legacy--Supreme Court members stay on for 30 years or more--and we know there will be a battle.

All we'll hear from liberals is ABORTION and various thinly veiled issues dealing with "morality." I'm assuming the rest of the issues are all code words for ABORTION. Do we really want the next 30 years of court battles determined by that and the direction it has taken us?

"Most of all, perhaps, [legalized abortion] has corrupted liberalism. For all its flaws, liberalism could until the early seventies claim a proud history of standing up for the powerless and downtrodden, of expanding the definition of the community for whom we pledge protection, of resisting the idea that might makes right. The Democratic Party has casually abandoned that legacy. Liberals’ commitment to civil rights, it turns out, ends when the constituency in question can offer neither votes nor revenues." Richard John Neuhaus

In most areas of traditional morality Christians (according to polls) have been willingly co-opted by the larger culture in divorce, remarriage, gambling, pornography, addictions, cheating on tests, and over-all bad behavior. Even 30 years ago, there was a clear difference in behavior, but we've lost our witness. So let's at least hang on to honesty and recognize that we've pretty much lost the ABORTION battle, even among Christians. We might as well look at the next candidate's expertise on other issues--areas dealing with business, the environment, education, etc.

It was interesting that during the Democrats' grilling of Roberts the biggest complaint was his "silence." Oh, that we had some of that precious commodity from the committee members! My oh my. Don't they love a camera! Like that has-been in Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond played by Gloria Swanson. "This is my life. It always will be. Nothing else...just us. The camera...and those wonderful people out there in the dark."

Yes, for all of us people out here in the dark.

1535 Women may regret this

If men behaving badly, but not sexually, creates a hostile environment for women, then will men be able to sue for sex discrimination when women in the work place just do the usual girl thang using all the codes women understand and men don't? Gossiping. Sniping. Whispering. Whining. Changing their minds. Giggling. Glaring. Sighing. Procrastinating. Interrupting. Wearing too much perfume. Taking off their expensive shoes because their feet hurt. Adjusting the themostat during menopause. Temper trantrums. Kitchen sink arguments. And of course, intuition.

"Screaming and yelling by men at work may now be sex-based discrimination if women at work find the behavior more intimidating than men do. On September 2, 2005, in E.E.O.C. v. National Education Association, (No. 04-35029), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “reasonable woman” standard applies to workplace abusive conduct, even if there is no sexual content to the behavior. This decision significantly expands the types of behaviors that may furnish a basis for a claim of discrimination." ASAP

And what is this reasonable woman standard? Was Governor Blanco "reasonable" to ask for more time to think about about the federal government's involvement in Katrina? Yes, a woman being hounded by shouting male advisors on all sides in a crisis would be "reasonable," but completely ineffective.

Screaming at anyone is bad behavior and that supervisor should fail on his or her own merit. Or lack thereof.

Photos of our Danube Cruise: Linz and Melk, Austria

Austria is a rather small country today, having lost much of its vast Austro-Hungarian Empire after WWI. Linz is the provincial capital of Upper Austria, with the oldest church in Austria. This is also where we toured a modern university and had a lecture on the Austrian educational system. Melk was Bob's favorite of the whole trip, and after we docked he walked into town and got an amazing view of the massive Benedictine Abbey before our tour the next day. I, of course, was wowed by its library.

Linz Main Square

Linz trolley

Linz, Johannes Kepler University

Melk Abbey

Melk Abbey interior

Melk Abbey Library

Melk, town view

Photos of our Danube Cruise: Regensburg and Passau

Columbus, Ohio is about 200 years old--Regensburg is about 2,500! I thought my architect husband would have a melt down--Romanesque, Gothic, Italianate, Baroque, Roccoco, neoclassical and romantic all within a few blocks. One thing we heard from all our outstanding local German and Austrian guides, important for any era--fame, power, ruling families, governments, churches and wealth come and go. A "global economy" was flourishing in Regensburg 1000 years ago due in large part to the Jews for 500 years then they were driven out, according to our guide. Around 500 B.C. Regensburg was a Celt settlement, and then the Romans used its strategic location to build a fortress, the walls of which are exposed and showing beneath many of the "modern" (17th century) buildings.

The Roman fort walls peeking out below

St. Peter's Cathedral, started in 1254 and finished around 1520.

Steinerne Brucke, over the Danube, built in the 12th century

Our story-teller guide showing us a door used during the black plague

The organ of the Cathedral at Passau where we heard a wonderful noon concert

Parish church in Passau

Photos of our Danube Cruise

Photos will not do this trip justice. Every village and city we saw was lovely; our boat and crew were wonderful; our guides were fabulous. Still, I want to record just a few to save in my blog. We still do the old fashioned photo album so we view our photos more than once.

Nuremberg: Let's start with the most sobering, and then move on. Hitler loved Nuremberg. Here Hitler convinced millions they were the master race in mass rallies. This concrete expanse was designed to make the individual feel both insignificant and part of something larger at the same time (according to our guide). With huge spotlights, it became a Cathedral of Lights.



Where the war trials were held.

Lovely scene in old Nuremberg, with a Starbucks nearby

On the upper deck enjoying the river view

1534 Cheney's heart problems

Surely I'm not the only Republican who thinks it is time for Cheney to step down. These latest problems are not minor. It's common to say the vice president is "a heart beat away from the Presidency," but that expression should not refer to Dennis Hastert.

1533 I'm still waiting

for someone to give the specifics on what President Bush should have done differently during Hurricane Katrina that would have made a difference--saving lives, property or speeding evacuation. If John Kerry had been President, or Bill Clinton, I think the results would have been the same . . . and so would the criticism, only it would have come from the Republicans. But it would have been John Kerry on vacation (in France? at one of his wife's mansions?). The Red Cross still wouldn't have been allowed in to provide water and food to 20,000 people waiting for buses. The buses still would have been windshield deep in water if Kerry hadn't lost by 180,000 votes in Ohio. People still would have refused to leave their homes if Hillary were still first lady. The hurricane category 3 levee still would have been breached if Bill Clinton were in office. Louisiana's National Guard still would have been the Governor's responsibility to call up.

Truly, all I've read or heard is, "Bush was clueless," "Bush didn't care," "Bush was on vacation," "ineffective response," or equally vague put downs, but nothing pointed like the criticism of Louisiana's governor and New Orleans' Mayor, who had very specific responsibilities for the safety and well-being of their citizens and functioning communication systems, but were unable to coordinate them or give up power to the next higher agency. In fact, right before Rita hit, weren't we hearing complaints from Nagin that New Orleans seemed to have a federal mayor? Wasn't he asking for that just two weeks ago?

I just think it is important all Americans understand what the federal government's response is supposed to be. After all, Bush accepted the responsibility for a slow response. We've got FEMA, and a whole alphabet soup of government agencies, and all sorts of laws and regulations that stop at our state borders. I don't want to see the Bush administration just holler Mea Culpa without some pretty careful explanation, because it just means the federal government will grow and more laws and regs that no one understands will be on the books. I'd like to see the books closed on some older disasters--have those families and businesses recovered? I think it is important because there are other disasters, like earthquakes and tsunamis that could wipe out transportation routes. So, just who is in charge here?

1532 Economic literacy

Should a course on economic literacy be taught in schools? Not just budgeting. Not how to read a stock report. But something with a little history?

"I break economic literacy into two components -- factual and conceptual. Alas, most well-educated Americans are illiterate in both areas. First, the facts. Whenever I teach a seminar on basic economics, I always survey the audience: What proportion of the American labor force earns the minimum wage or less and what is the standard of living of the average American today relative to 100 years ago?

Even among highly-educated groups such as journalists or congressional staffers, the median answer is depressingly similar -- they think 20% of the American work force earns the minimum wage or less. In fact, the actual number is something less than 3%. Usually a non-trivial portion of each group thinks that our material well-being is lower today than 100 years ago. Their median answer is that we are 50% better off than we were 100 years ago. In fact, the average American is at least five and maybe 30 times better off than we were in the good old days. There's a dramatic range because it's hard to value the opportunity to listen to your iPod while recovering from open heart surgery. But 50% is a very bad answer." Russell Roberts replies to WSJ's question about what the public doesn't know. . .

Imagine how news stories would change if journalists were required to be literate in economics! Think of the trees that have died to produce stories about families that can't survive on minimum wage.

1531 Cottage; America's favorite home inside and out

The book is finally ready--it was waiting for us in the pile of mail. Last year I'd noticed an item in the AIA newsletter about a deadline for submitting suggestions for a book about cottages. I printed it out and put it in my husband's line of vision with an extremely strong suggestion that he enter one of his Lakeside designs. He submitted some photographs along with a paragraph or two about "the healthy house" and Lakeside which is on the National Historic Register. The authors, M. Caren Connolly and Louis Wasserman contacted him, and last May sent a photographer Rob Karosis to Lakeside. The book had a proposed publication date of summer 2005 and we're sorry it wasn't available to the Lakeside market this summer, but now it's out and absolutely lovely!



We are so thrilled with it, and the photographer of Foley's home did a fabulous job. Take a peek inside the book--Cottage; America's Favorite Home Inside and Out.

From the introduction: "For many people, cottage living is a dream come true. And, as the cottages in our book show, every dream is different. Cottage owners typically ignore the commonly accepted real estate maxims, such as building for resale, maximizing square footage, including a bathroom for every bedroom, and tacking on a three-car garage. Instead they think outside the box and create intimate homes that express their personalities and how they enjoy living their lives. The cottages in this book, and the dreams of their owners, have cast a spell over us. We invite you to read their stories and imagine yourself enjoying the hospitality each cottage graciously offers."

Bob's healthy house is pages 29-35.

Lakeside, Ohio