2229 Would the internet lie?

I took a cybertest for a personality DNA (I think it is a reworded Myers-Briggs) and was quite surprised to see I was a "genuine architect." I suppose they don't have enough personality types for librarians to have it show in the database, or I've been retired too long.

It made for interesting dinner conversation last night with my architect husband who thinks of me as disorganized and indecisive. That's how a true architect sees things. I told him it was probably his influence of 45 years. Also he reads more and is better informed about politics and religion than he used to be, so maybe I'm rubbing off on him too. A few more years and we'll have this relationship stuff all worked out. The test gives suggestions for changes, which I will ignore, given my personality type. Goals? You've got to be kidding!!!

personalDNA

Genuine Architect

Your preference for concrete, visually pleasing things, combined with your confidence and your respect for order make you an ARCHITECT.

You are logical and detail-oriented, which allows you to get things done efficiently.

You are quite sure of yourself, so that you tend to know the best ways of doing things.

Your eye for aesthetic beauty and style indicates that you know a lot about design.

Having a routine and sticking to it is important to you; you find comfort in tradition and familiarity.

Self-reliance is something in which you take great pride—you are confident and down to earth.

You have a basic faith in yourself in many areas of your life, allowing you to be self-assured when facing challenges.

You do your own thing when it comes to clothing, guided more by practical concerns than by other people's notions of style.

Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.


Your outgoing personality, your preference for order, and your cautious appreciation of others makes you GENUINE.

You aren't afraid to be the center of attention. Actually, it is quite the opposite: You are comfortable and confident in social situations.

As a charismatic kind of person, you tend to be energized by other people and enjoy their company.

When other people are upset, you are able to think about the situation rationally, without getting too caught up in their feelings.

At times you find it difficult to understand where other people are coming from, and wish they could just see things the way you do.

You are a strongly principled person who believes in right and wrong. This helps you make decisions easily when it comes to moral issues – you don't have to waste time hedging on important values.

In your experience, people tend to get what they deserve. So, you work hard and try to follow your principles in your day-to-day life, knowing that you will be rewarded for your efforts.

2228 Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Tart with Caramelized Bananas

A mouthful in more ways than one. We watched Spencer Budros, a Certified Pastry Chef/Owner of Pistachio in Columbus' short north area make this yesterday afternoon at the Columbus Home and Garden Show at the Fairgrounds. It was the 50th anniversary of this show, so the theme was "The 50s." The peanut butter and banana dish was to honor Elvis Presley who liked peanut butter and banana sandwiches. We also saw a 1949 Chevie with plants growing out of its headlights and dashboard, tastefully planted in an abstract garden.

I must say, this was a fabulous dessert--we all got a generous helping after the demo. We missed a lot of the "how-to" although we were very attentive. Some of the mixing was done off camera, and sometimes all we could see was the back of Mr. Budros' head as he leaned over the stove (camera was positioned above him). I think it probably takes a lot of practice to be a TV chef and not step in front of the main event. Also, we couldn't see the 1950s style kitchen that was behind him--and I sure don't remember any red refrigerators.

We also got a free cook book, "Gourmet Galaxy Cafe Cookbook" put together I think by Doral Chenoweth (at least he wrote the bios), who used to write "The Grumpy Gourmet" column for the Columbus Dispatch. Mr. Budros' pastry shoppe is for the busy family or business who likes to buy desserts when throwing a party--at any time you can find 50 fancy items in his case. However, if you're all done cleaning the toilets and setting the table, you can whip this little number up. But set aside generous amounts of time for the chocolate shortbread dough chilling and flame throwing for the bananas.

Update: I requested and received permission from Pistachio to post the recipe:

Yield: 10 individual 3 1/2" tartlettes

Chocolate Shortbread:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in electric mixer bowl. Add better and mix on low speed with paddle attachment until mealy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix on low speed until just combined--do not overmix! Remove dough from bowl. Lightly flour and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for one hour. Roll dough to approximately 1/3 inch thick; cut or stamp 5 inches round. Form dough into 10 individual 3 1/2 inch tartlette rings. Bake with pie weights for 10 minutes. Remove pie weights. Bake for an additional 5 minutes or until set. Cool and store at room temerature.

Semisweet Chocolate Ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely grated (1 cup)

Finely grate approximately 6 ounces of semisweet chocolate; place in medium-size mixing bowl. Bring 1/2 cup heavy cream to a boil. Pour boiling cream over grated chocolate. Mix until smooth. Cool at room temperature.

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Filling:
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup Krema unsalted creamy peanut butter (this is a local, natural brand)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream

Blend cream cheese and granulated sugar using paddle attachment in electric mixer until smooth. Add peanut better, salt and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. Transfer mixture to a small bowl. In a mixer bowl, whip heavy cream to a soft peak. Add peanut butter cream cheese mixture to the whipped cream and mix on medium speed until smooth.

To Assemble:
10 chocolate shortbread tartlette shells, prepared (see above)
semisweet chocolate ganache, prepared (see above)
1 cup Spanish peanuts
peanut butter cream cheese filling, prepared
5 bananas, sliced (diagonal or oval shape)
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar

Remove prepared, cooled chocolate tart shells from rings. Place onto sheet pan or work surface. Spoon one tablespoon of chocolate ganache into the bottom of each tart shell. Smooth with spatula to cover bottom of tart shell. Divide one cup Spanish peanuts equally among ten tarts--sprinkle over ganache. Spoon or pipe peanut butter cream cheese filling to fill tart shell. Cover filling with sliced bananas. Brush bananas with melted unsalted butter. Refrigerate until time to serve.

To serve:
Remove tarts from refrigerator. Sprinkle granulated sugar on top of bananas to cover. Use torch to caramelize. Serve immediately.

Norma's notes: He said that brushing the bananas with butter would keep them from discoloring and add a nice flavor. He used a high quality cocoa and semi sweet chocolate but I don't remember the brand--I just remember him stressing that. He also told us how to make our own pie weights out of beans, but best not to trust me on that one. I have no idea where you get the torch--he said something about going to the garage to get it, but I think that was a joke. It's not among my kitchen tools, nor are 5" tart rings. Just know this is a fabulous dessert--one I'll never make--considering how long it took to type it--but would buy.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Tart
dessert recipes
banana recipes
Elvis Presley

2227 The daughter-in-law--taking applications

You've seen the reality show about the bachelor choosing a wife. Why couldn't there be a show called "The daughter-in-law?" I've thought of throwing a big party and inviting all the single women I know to meet my son--he'd be the only guy at the party (unfortunately, most are in their 50s and 60s, and one in her 80s). He has excellent manners and I'm sure would make them all feel special, but would probably not speak to me for awhile.

My idea of the perfect daughter-in-law is probably different than my son's idea of a perfect wife. Actually, in marriage there is no perfection, so let's just toss that word out, OK? Marriage is mostly enjoying the good qualities and accepting the flaws, your spouse's and your own. Marriage is smoothing out your own rough edges so you aren't always poking at each other. He says next time he'd like to be the boss; he wants to be only 50% to blame when there is a problem. Personally, I don't think that's the best attitude if he wants it to last longer than a week or two.

I would like her (my new daughter-in-law) to be a little bit like my friend Mitzi, who used to use her week-ends to help care for her husband's father. Not so unusual, you say? Well, she lived in Illinois and her father-in-law lived in Arizona. So I'd say she was one fabulous daughter-in-law. My father-in-law's other daughter-in-law, Kate, is another one who willingly stepped in to provide care when needed, but they lived in the same house.

I would also like her to be a little bit like my son-in-law, who is cuddly, funny, and available when we need help--like tomorrow he's coming over to move furniture so we can have carpeting installed on Thursday. He also cleans the house and does the laundry (at his house) and has a good job. She wouldn't have to be strong enough to move furniture, but it would be nice for my son if she liked to clean and do laundry (don't laugh, some women do) and was also the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

I would also like her to be a bit like my former daughter-in-law who was a fabulous cook and hostess. We aren't party people, so having her around was always a blast, and being invited for dinner was marvelous. Once when I was in the hospital she brought in a great meal and also gave me a manicure! I would also like her to be smart like my niece-in-law, Leigh, who is brainy, but very easy to talk to. I would like my daughter-in-law to be active in her church like my niece-in-law Joan, who seems to have a wonderful group of supportive friends and helps with the youth group. My son is a Christian and has learned the meaning of being unequally yoked.

I also think it would be nice if she were as good to her own parents as our daughter is to us. God save us from a woman who "has issues" she's always working on. I just don't think we have enough time left on this earth for her to find herself. She should like living in the mid-west and not be pining for mountains or oceans all the time. Sharing holidays--would that be too much to ask for?

I'm sorry this list is getting a bit long and doesn't look very romantic, but my son, of course, is going to be looking for what men always look for, so I thought that department was covered and I'd just throw out some ideas.

Oh yes, and he likes to fish, plays the guitar, and has a dog and a cat. So we want someone outdoorsy with no allergies.

2226 The Meathead Economics

That's what the WSJ is calling the universal preschool tax which would cost Californians $23 billion over the next 10 years, if Rob Reiner's Proposition 82 passes. Rob Reiner, for those of you too young to remember, was the flaming liberal son-in-law of Archie Bunker in the TV series, All in the Family. He left Gloria and she raised their son alone (in another short lived series). Now he's just another limousine liberal from Hollywood, making money off poor schmucks who buy movie tickets.

First of all, there is no evidence whatsoever that sending poor kids to preschool puts them ahead in elementary or high school. It doesn't get them into college and good jobs. Billions of dollars spent on Head Start over 40 years have not shown any permanent gains, because when the lights have been turned out and the doors of the school locked at night, these kids go home to the old environment and the parent (usually just one, ala Gloria Bunker). When California preschools are universal, you can bet your bippy that Hollywood moms will be sending their little darlings to a private school or jet setting them around the world with nannies and tutors in tow. The middle class and the working poor will be footing the bill, not the rich.

Second, California already has confiscatory taxes, and long time permanent (and wealthy) citizens are moving out of state. They love their sunshine, but they love their wealth more. According to one pundit, you can buy a home in Nevada just with the the tax savings by moving out of California. When the rich leave a state, who is going to pay the bulk of the taxes? Well, the middle-class, of course, since the poor don't pay anything.

Third, Reiner is using tobacco tax money (intended for children) to promote his latest Meathead scheme, and it has been funneled into the pockets of the public relations firms who got those contracts to sell his scheme.

"Beware of liberals promising to tax someone else to help children" they really mean you.

November story from Orange Co. Register on the Meathead tax

Wall Street Journal article

2225 This calls for a bag of Fritos

Some of you munch chocolates when under stress; I scarf down Fritos.


I just finished looking over our income tax forms before they are mailed--federal, state, RITA (our suburb), and Columbus. Even with all the eyes we've had looking this over, we've had the wrong address for our business for four years! No one seemed to care.

I have a pension and my husband has Social Security but is finishing up a few jobs for long time clients. His income is negative, so that offsets our interest income; even with a negative income he still owes taxes on his Soc. Sec.; the auto expenses for business still have to be claimed, but the record doesn’t have to be submitted; medical expenses were well over $10,000 (more than half my income) because of insurance and Medicare costs and we had no illnesses--it‘s been one of our healthiest years; we have a small house on the east side (considered a rental for us) which on paper shows up at $420,000 for depreciation (!) and the reasons are just flat out bizarre, but I assume it is so you never get to zero like we did back in the 60s when we owned a duplex. Must be very beneficial to people who own acres of apartments. But this is little house.

Here's a rerun from what I wrote on Feb. 8, but nothing has changed.

In 1995 the total pages of federal tax rules were 40,500; in 2004, 60,044.

In 2000 the number of IRS tax forms were 475; in 2004 they were 529.

In 1994 there were 16 loopholes for education and training; in 2004 that had risen to 28.

In 1995, 50% of taxpayers used paid tax preparers; in 2003, 62%.

In 1995 Americans spent 5.3 billion hours filling out tax forms; in 2004, 6.5 billion.

In 1995 there were 84 pages in the 1040 instruction book; in 2003 there were 131.

To complete the 1040, A,B, and D schedules in 1995, it required 21.2 hours; in 2003 it took 28.5. [figures from CATO Handbook on Policy, p. 120]

Monday Memories: Did I ever tell you about: When my letters turned into a memoir?
When my children left home about 20 years ago, I was suffering from empty nest syndrome big time. I decided to gather up the letters I’d written to my mother and sisters and the ones they’d written me and excerpt the “crazy” time in our year--from about Halloween through January so I would have a written record of our family life. Both children have November birthdays, so that’s about the time things really heated up at our house.

After looking through the letters (which my mother had saved), I pushed the time line back another 10 years and started with my years in college until I had about 30 years worth of letters. And I added in letters from girl friends, cousins, and in-laws. (I never throw away a letter). It was hours of typing (at the office after work since I didn’t have a computer then) and careful editing out really personal stuff. My husband designed an artistic cover, and I had the little book reproduced and bound at Kinko's.

Although the collection recorded all the cute and interesting things about my children’s growing up years, it also inadvertently became a story about a group of women--with a few men around the fringes--who were keeping things going by following a few familiar holiday traditions. At the beginning, I'm a college student and my mother is 47 years old with three children in college, a married daughter and two little grandchildren. My niece and nephew are 3 and 2 in the first letter and then are parents of their own children at the end, and repeating many of the same traditions, questions, and yearnings we letter writers had. Some people who didn’t write letters are in the collection anyway--their health and well-being and activities reported by the women who tell the stories year after year.

These letters recorded the ordinary events of our lives to the faint drumbeat of the cold war, the civil rights movement, space flight, the VietNam war, political campaigns, Watergate, economic growth and slowdown cycles, the rise of feminism, employment crises, career changes and family reconfigurations. On and on we wrote, from the conservatism of the Eisenhower years, on through the upheaval of the 60's, the stagnation of the 70's, then into the conservatism of Reagan/Bush in the 80s. National and international events are rarely discussed in these letters as though we were pulling the family close into the nest for a respite from the world's woes. If you were to read the letters, you might miss that we were even aware of world events. Or maybe because, as one of my sisters noted in a letter, when you're struggling on the home front sometimes there isn't much left to give to others.

The edited letters became the rhythm of women's lives--nursing a dying parent, holding a sick child, putting up the tree, playing the old records, going to the post office, baking favorite Christmas cookies, helping with school work, going to holiday programs, creating crafts with the children, shopping for gifts, checking the sky for some sunshine, wallpapering the hall, folding the laundry, looking for that just right job.

E-mail and blogging will have an effect on family memoirs--it will be interesting to review this phenomenon in 30 years. Digital is much less permanent than paper. Print out what is worth keeping--your children will be grown and gone the next time you turn around. And when they ask you why you printed them out for safe keeping, tell them, "Because Norma said so."

Links to Other Monday Memories
1. Kimmy, 2. AnvilCloud 3. Katherine, 4. Courtney, 5. Frog Legs, 6. Shelli, 7. Libragirl, 8. Melanie, 9. Beckie,


(If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it here)

Click here for the Monday Memories code

Click here for Shelli's blog

Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged!


View More Monday Memories Participants


Post in the comments if you want to be on the MM blogroll!

2223 Rising college costs

As tuition goes up and more students take on the burden of loans, perhaps it's time to ask some questions about the courses, and how they will help a young person's career? The Young America's Foundation identified 12 courses on college campuses that make the people pushing for the 10 commandments or creationism in the classroom look like sound, sensible thinkers worthy of our support just for some balance.

1. Princeton: "The cultural production of early modern women" which examines prostitutes, cross-dressing and same sex eroticim in 16th and 17th century England, France, Italy and Spain.

2. Occidental College, California: "The unbearable whiteness of Barbie: race and popular culture in the United State."

3. Johns Hopkins University: "Sex, drugs and rock n roll in ancient Egypt."

The whole list here, but you can probably find more examples at the college of your choice by going on-line and searching "bulletin" or "courses."

I just quickly glanced through some women's studies course descriptions at Ohio State, but they are sanitized so as to reveal nothing, but I did find it odd that in women's studies, teaching middle school students is called "peer education." So the fact of biology makes the teacher and student peers? Or have I misunderstood this jargon and it means teaching students to teach their peers about sexuality?

2222 What would we do without committees?

Although I love being retired, I'm ecstatic about not being on committees to earn a paycheck. They truly made potholes in the road to a wonderful life and career. And things have always been so, I think. The committee gets a charge, works hard, battles for every concept and sentence in the report, brings it to the larger body (none of whom have done an ounce of research on the problem), only to get a bazillion "what ifs" and "why didn't you do" comments. Librarians can spend 15 minutes placing a comma. I used to envy the guy who sat in the back and slept.

Yesterday I checked out a black Lutheran hymnal published in 1930 from the church library. I wanted to examine it to determine if it was the edition used in the 1940s-50s at little Faith Lutheran Church in Forreston, IL when my family attended. We weren't Lutherans, but this little community of believers took us in and treated us like we were one of them (we were Church of the Brethren).

I'm a preface and index reader (it's a Librarian thing), so I got quite a chuckle out of the prefatory remarks on the book's history.

". . .representatives of eight synods. . . met in Chicago, May 3, 1921 and organized the Lutheran Intersynodical Hymnal Committee. . . In 1928, after the Committee had devoted much time and labor to a careful selection of hymns to be included in this hymnal and to a thorough revision of hymns from other languages as well as to the making of new translations when those hitherto used were not deemed satisfactory. . .[provisional was printed] with a view to the solicitation of criticisms and suggestions. . . The Committee again revised its work, also eliminating one hundred and thirty-two hymns, mostly translations, and including ninety-three other hymns."

The origin of the hymnal committee was the Iowa Synod, so I'm guessing there were some improved translations of Scandinavian and German hymns in the provisional text, but I can't be sure since it doesn't say.

Ah, committees. You gotta love 'em.

2221 The sun is setting on a busy day

Today we had the artists' reception for the Digital Artists of Central Ohio (DACO) Spring Show at The Church at Mill Run, 3500 Mill Run Dr., Hilliard, OH. It took about 4 hours to get it hung yesterday. Then the young man who arranged for us to show it did the typing of the program, but he was apparently a 2 finger typist, so I didn't get it until about 8:30 last night. Between church services this morning I ran off about 50 copies in the church office.

When I got home from church about 11:30 our son was here. He brought over his Midi so I'll be able to practice the choir music. I finally found a good spot for it in the guest room. It's sort of fun--I'd never played one before. It will be awhile before I sound like The 2nd Chapter of Acts (retired, 1988), but with all the drums, guitar and cymbals, I think I could do it (if it drowns out my voice). It even has applause if I get discouraged!

Hear the bells ringing

They're singing that we can

Be born again

Joy to the world!

He is risen!

Hallelujah!



We had a very good turn out at the art show, and some of the people I invited this morning at church came by. This is a relatively new art group and many had never seen our space before. We recruited one of our own to help with hanging the next one. It's a lot of ladder climbing.

Now I'm sort of vegging out on the couch watching "Gone with the Wind," one of my all time favorite movies. The costuming and sets never cease to amaze me. I'm too tired to make a joyful noise.

2220 Net Asset Creep

Big news these days. The gap in assets between the top and bottom is growing. Wait a minute! Weren't we told 10 years ago that this was going to happen as the "greatest generation" which struggled through the Depression and World War II and scrimped and saved and invested in America began dying off and passing along their assets to the boomers? Weren't we told years ago that there would be an unprecedented amount of wealth, trillions and trillions, changing hands in this country in the early 21st century?

We're not rich by any means, but if my husband's step-father hadn't withdrawn his RCA pension and invested it in the stock market back in the early 1990s, and if he hadn't died first leaving it all to my mother-in-law, his wife of 52 years, I would've worked until age 65 or later instead of retiring at 60. And now we have money to invest for our older years which we wouldn't have had. He was just a poor kid from Indianapolis' south side who worked his way up in management, but we are the benficiaries of his hard work and the stock market boom of the 90s.

An estimated $12 trillion will be passed along to heirs in 2017 just about 10 years from now--and in the next 50 years, $41 trillion. Will there be a widening gap? Yes, unless someone in Washington decides it isn't fair that our fathers and grandfathers worked so hard, and it should be stripped away and given to someone not in the family.

The wealthy can afford the advisors and lawyers and accountants to help them work their way through the tax code. The rest of us can't. As the media starts ginning up the music on "unfair," "poverty is growing," and "it's Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy," just keep in mind your dad and mom who rarely went to a nice restaurant, or travelled, or bought new clothes. Then turn off the TV.

2219 It's an odd war

says Victor Davis Hanson. "It is an odd war, because the side that I think is losing garners all the press, whether by blowing up the great golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, or by blowing up an American each day. Yet we hear nothing of the other side that is ever so slowly, shrewdly undermining the enemy."

Read his latest assessment of the insurgency, what our media area ignoring, what is our will to win and see this through here.

"Can-do Americans courageously go about their duty in Iraq — mostly unafraid that a culture of 2,000 years, the reality of geography, the sheer forces of language and religion, the propaganda of the state-run Arab media, and the cynicism of the liberal West are all stacked against them. Iraq may not have started out as the pivotal front in the war between democracy and fascism, but it has surely evolved into that. After visiting the country, I think we can and will win, but just as importantly, unlike in 2003-04, there does not seem to be much of anything we should be doing there that in fact we are not."

2218 White guys can't write copy?

Gannett/USAToday has a poster ad promoting job fairs in McLean VA, Anaheim, CA and Atlanta for positions in advertising. In the mosaic of photos in the ad are eleven women--all Asian in appearance, some more so than others. There are five young men in the ad, one clearly African American, three sort of multi-racial featured, and one with delicate, male-model/dancer features who could be a NAMBLA poster child. Just what is the exclusion message here?

job fairs
advertising

2217 What doesn't respond to antibiotics?

This is a quiz, a useful one, and it is from USAToday. Actually, it isn't a quiz, it is the answers to a quiz.

Which ailments/illnesses do not respond to antibiotics?

• cold
• flu
• chest cold
• bronchitis

These do, with caveats

• pneumonia (if it is bacterial and not viral)
• whooping cough (if diagnosed early)

So why do 50% of people with bronchitis receive an antibiotic--the overuse of which is a major health threat?

KidsHealth

antibiotics

2216 Wild boars are extinct in Scotland

therefore it can't be against the Dangerous Wild Animals Act for farmers to raise the hairy ugly things. Story here.

2215 Facing extinction?

"Today . . . the library is relinquishing its place as the top source of inquiry. The reason that the library is losing its supremacy in carrying out this fundamental role is due, of course, to the impact of digital technology. As digital technology has pervaded every aspect of our civilization, it has set forth a revolution not only in how we store and transmit recorded knowledge, historical records, and a host of other kinds of communication but also in how we seek and gain access to these materials." Educause Review

2214 Creepy, crawly computer words

Wine words are prettier than "Observed Web Robot Behavior on Decaying Web Subsites" nerd words.

• Robot Behavior
  crawling patterns
  contents decay at predetermined rates
  decaying subsites
  Spidering Hacks
  populating each with HTML
  words that are often labeled "pornographic."
  tar-zipped
  lowest-common-denominator
  Googlebot
  log rotation process
  pruning and cross-checking
  percentage of crawls
  non-resolving IPs
  most frequent single crawler
  a mix of human and robotic crawls
  we ignored crawls from unknown robots
  a host containing robot, crawler, spider or some similarly identifiable robot-style title
  log-resolve and whois databases
  final arbiter
  static bar graphs
  The green portion
  deep-crawling
  Wayback Machine
  resource decay
  begin a deep plunge
  research on live systems
  the vagaries and foibles
  

2213 Sorry, we gave at the church

These all dropped through the mail slot today. Looks like they used the same direct mail provider.

2212 Should illegals receive

• in state tuition help with my tax money? NO
  
• scholarships? NO
  
• well, how about a public school education on my real estate tax dollar? NO
  
• surely emergency room services and hospital beds on my medicaid state money? NO

What about making it easier for them to become legal workers? I'll certainly consider any idea or program that is legal. Nothing while they are illegals.

2211 The days of wine and phrases

Wine critics write the most wonderful words. Today's wine column in the WSJ was about wine bars, and I just had to share with you these phrases. They are just so--I don't know--earthy, robust and unstoppable. Most are reusable in other stories.

• explosion of wine bars
  
• passion for wine
  
• a demographic of time-starved people
  
• a sophisticated retreat from airport madness
  
• a place of fun and wonder
  
• a menu of "4 pages of wine and 2 pages of food"
  
• opened too long--if flat, listless, stale, metallic, or oxidized
  
• take a chance on something new
  
• flights of wine--4 chardonnays from around the world
  
• the bartender/wine server should be passionate
  
• be honest with your budget
  
• stunning stuff not on the list
  
• it's not geeky to take notes

I know nothing about wine--I drink "three buck chuck" (Charles Shaw, $3.30 at Trader Joe's), and I stagger after one glass of Merlot, but I love tasty words. One recommended wine was $25.99 a bottle--a sparkling Shiraz. "It was delightful with some seriously dark, herbal and earthy tastes leavened with languid bubbles. It would go well with chili, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and barbecue."

2210 Greed, Lust, and Sex

Or as my friend Vox Lauri would say slyly, "that should bring 'em to the site." WSJ says a new network (My Network TV) will feature greed, lust, and sex.

I don't know who did their marketing research, but hasn't that already been done to death?