2302 The war protests

Yesterday's protests of the anniversary of the start of the war were pretty predictable. Although I don't think the numbers were all that large, even world wide. (I tried several sites looking for information and came up with nothing specific--did anyone show up? If 500 protests were planned and 4 people showed up at each, that would be "thousands," right?) They were organized by people who want to destroy the United States and our booming economy--you know the drill: Socialist this and that, Communist Party aging Yahoos, and the various "justice" coalitions and anti-capitalist groups. I'm sure a few true pacifists, even sincere Christians, got suckered in. But it's an odd coalition they joined. The home-grown anti-Americans and the fundamentalist Muslims working together. The Osama and Michael dog and pony show. American Thinker has a wonderful piece on peace. I noticed it referred to at Cube, since I hadn't made all the rounds yet. He points out that these groups have never been against war when it comes to their own goals. Gosh, how many millions upon millions were imprisoned, tortured and killed under Communism in the USSR and China--forty? Fifty? Does anyone even know? Democide--death by government--is SOP under Communism. Where's the justice in "you play you pay?"

Vasko Kohlmayer writes: "It is understandable why many well-meaning citizens are worried about the course of this war, but they should carefully consider the manner in which they express their concerns. Above all, they should not fall for ploys of domestic radicals who seek to subvert America by limiting the government’s ability to fight the enemy whose consuming goal is our destruction."

2301 What could be this bad?

Conservator posts a bit of Library Journal's John Berry. A reader says, "This is Andy Rooney bad. It's local news bad. This is bachelor uncle raving after his fourth beer bad." Yup.

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you my favorite story about Serendipity?
In 1993 I was heavy into research on the private library of an Illinois farm family. I knew what was in the library from an estate list because the owners were my grandparents who had died in the 1960s, and they had inherited some of the books of their parents who settled in Illinois from Pennsylvania in the 1850s--with books. However, it required a lot of background material about publishers, what people read and why, the role of religion, what the schools were like, etc.

I was the librarian for the veterinary medicine college at Ohio State University, some distance from the main campus. One day I was in the Main Library for a meeting and made a quick trip into the stacks. I don't know how many books were in the collection in 1993 in that one building (12 floors), but there were 4,000,000 total in the various 20+ locations to serve 50,000 students. Anyway, I went into the stacks to browse shelves--my favorite unorganized way to do research. Although I taught classes on how to do library research (there was no Web in those days and very little was digitized), I never actually used those methods myself.

I saw a book that looked interesting but was out of order and pulled it off the shelf. When I flipped through it, I saw it contained some studies on what farmers read and what books they owned during the 1920's so I took it down stairs to the circulation desk. When the clerk attempted to charge it, the computer refused, and so she looked at the record. It was already charged out--to me! It had been charged out to me since 1991 and I had never seen the book. I had probably noticed the title in a bibliography, found it in the on-line catalog, and charged it out from my office without ever seeing it.

At Ohio State, faculty and staff could charge books out from any library on campus remotely and have them mailed to our office address. Apparently this one went astray and never made it to my office and never had the charge removed. Because I was doing so much research at that time, I probably had 20-30 items on my record. We had a computer command that would renew anything we had that was overdue, so each time I did a batch renewal, I was renewing this book that I’d never seen. I don’t know what the system allows now, but in 1993 you could literally keep a book forever if no one else requested it.

What do you suppose the chances are for picking a mishelved book in a collection of four million volumes and having it already charged out to you--two years ago?

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2299 Ridiculing religion--Hayes quits South Park

Isaac Hayes, voice of Chef on South Park, has quit. Odd, he had no problem ridiculing other religions.

"South Park co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem - and he's cashed plenty of checks - with our show making fun of Christians." Last November, "South Park" targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called "Trapped in the Closet." In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out.

Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker "never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."

You can watch the South Park Scientology episode here.

2298 I love this gal's name

Tara Parker Pope, the medical/science columnist, had an extensive article in the Wall Street Journal today about the mixed reviews and studies on vitamins--ran through the whole list of maybes, probably nots and NoNo's. Studies are suggesting that these mega doses some are taking may be doing more harm than good. If you eat all the colors, you’ll get most of all you need, or maybe a multi-vitamin. Some disease problems that are helped by A or C, cause other problems by encouraging other conditions like heart or cancer. $7 billion a year business. WSJ is usually a pro-business paper, but when the women write the stories, they often have a very skeptical slant. I love her name. Have written a poem about her.

Tara Parker Pope--
such a lovely name;
sing it, play it,
hang it on a rope.

Tara Parker Pope,
she of Wall Street fame;
read her, write her,
She will help you cope.

2297 I have no use for this on-line calendar

but I loved watching the demo for Airset, and if I were managing a group, and children's activities and my social life, and going crazy doing so, I'd sure give this one a try. I saw it at Joel On Software, a software developer who writes clearly about techie stuff on his blog, most of it over my head. I'll probably stick with Boogie Jack, but peek at Joel once in awhile. Billo gave him the nod.

Is the code for that plug-in that everyone's using to enter links of visitors on MM and TT free? I sure see a lot of people using it. Instead of the blogger entering the code, the reader does it. Saves a lot of time, I'm sure.

2296 Needs a bit more color

Honda has an ad "Introducing Shannon Banks. The next Chief of Surgery." An attractive African American woman about 19 or 20 is in the operating room "poised to make great contributions to medicine." The ad promotes Honda's "All-Star Challenge and "Battle of the Bands" for HBCU. Story about this and Shannon here.

The anesthetist, surgeon, O.R. nurse and patient in the ad are all white. I think we've made a bit more progress than that in the last 50 years.

Here's a funny minority ad that I've missed, but read about in Business Week. Grupo Gallegos (Hispanic advertising firm) won an award for this one: an Energizer battery ad showing an Hispanic man, with an arm transplanted from a Japanese man. He couldn't stop taking pictures with his new hand.

2295 I hate to buy shoes

They are all ugly. They are all size B or wider. If they don't have my size (8.5 AA), they bring out 9.5 or 7.5. I hate to shop for shoes. I think I know why everyone I see on the street is wearing clunky, fat athletic shoes. Today I walked into the shoe department at Kaufmann's Department store. The shoes were lovely and beautifully displayed. Be still my heart. I would have bought 10 pair in a minute. I picked up one--think it was an Anne Klein, but not sure--and took it to the help desk (or whatever it is called these days) where two young men stood. "Do you have this in a 8.5 narrow?" "We have no narrows," the American-looking clerk said. (The middle-eastern looking guy with an accent didn't know, or didn't understand.) "None at all--not in any style?" I persisted in disbelief as I looked around at the huge selection. "No. None." All the little old bag ladies you see wandering the malls are probably there looking for shoes.

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2293 Has anyone followed up on this?

Or protested the unfairness of one group making more than another?

"A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned nearly $37,800 in 2003, compared with nearly $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a college-educated black woman, according to data being released Monday by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women took home slightly less at $37,600 a year.

The bureau did not say why the differences exist. Economists and sociologists suggest possible factors: the tendency of minority women, especially blacks, to more often hold more than one job or work more than 40 hours a week, and the tendency of black professional women who take time off to have a child to return to the work force sooner than others."

Reported at my blog via AP in March 2005. Story here in USAToday.

I looked, and someone had blogged about it from the left, disagreeing with the stats, natch.

2292 Ladies, take notice

A casually dressed man always looks more business-like in slacks than you do in a pants suit. You won't get to the position you want by dressing like a guy.



And fellows, that bag over your shoulder will always look like a purse, no matter what you choose to call it. If you have something to say, just come out with it.

2291 Could they explain how they do this?

Laureate International Universities, based in Baltimore, runs 24 for-profit universities in 15 countries. In 2005 it logged profits of $85.7 million (revenue $875.5 million). UVM in Mexico enrolls 67,000 students on 21 campuses and costs about $4,000 a year.

FLUENCY IN ENGLISH IS A GRADUATION REQUREMENT.

Maybe U.S. colleges could try this.

(Story from Business Week, March 13, 2006)

2290 Things get ugly

if you try to protect children at a public library these days. Try to add filters to computers to block explicitly sexual material or move adult entertainment materials to adult sections away from the children, and all sorts of folks pop up who don't have children or don't live in your community. They'll march to the tune of "no censorship."

Just look at the mess the Upper Arlington Public Library has made of public relations and child protection in a request by a parent to move free Gay periodicals from the library entrance. The issue has always been called a "ban" or "censorship" in the local media and by library organizations. How silly. It is neither. These are not subscription items; the library doesn't purchase them. They are dropped off by the distributer/publisher in stacks for people to pick up as they please. There are probably 30-40 free-circ newspapers and magazines that come and go in this part of central Ohio. They are completely supported by advertisers, not subscribers. They cover sports, parenting, art, religious sects, the environment, animals, pets, entertainment, careers, young women, old women, senior citizens, decorating, fashion, Hispanic community, African American community, restaurants and cooking, and so forth. At least two I've seen are specifically targeting in advertising and articles, the gay community, but there may be more. And that includes photos, diagrams and how-to articles on performance, enhancements and techniques, either safely not so safely. Some depictions are pretty gross and graphic. Generally speaking, this not what parents like to find in the 10 year old's backpack when he comes home from the library where many go after school for unsupervised "safe" environment until the parents get home from work. But for desensitizing children to the dangers--well, these publications will work for that.

Stacks of these newspapers used to be in the large soaring attractive entry of the main library building next to the park and grade school (all the parking lots adjoin), but I've seen them in drug stores, coffee shops, grocery stores, and book stores. I've read a lot of these publications because at one time I'd planned to write an article about free-circ publications (they are not indexed or tracked by any library publications or databases--and remember this because it is IMPORTANT*). They provide a lot of jobs for free-lancers and ad-writers. Writers have told me that they pay well, too. I retired before I completed my research and finally threw out my huge collection of yellowing and faded late-1990s papers.

No public agency or private business should be required to give distribution to ANY free-circ publication. If I print up a bunch of my poetry, let's say 50 copies every week, and stack it inside the library door for people to pick up, and the librarians or library board decide they don't need my stuff cluttering up their tax supported building, it isn't censorship or banning my rhymed and metered offerings to my muse. And it isn't censorship for a library to say "We're not giving space for distribution of adult sexually explicit material." I know why librarians support not removing the material, even to an adult section of the library, but the library board? Now that really puzzles me. I thought the solution to move them inside the library actually gave some shoddy material more respectibility than they deserved; but once that bad decision was made, moving them to the adult section away from the children looked like a good compromise.

Here's the story in This Week, a local paper. I have no idea how long they keep their stories on-line.

*When I requested that the library add more Christian magazines to its collection (there was only Christianity Today to represent our culture from the evangelical viewpoint) I was told that the titles I suggested were not indexed in the library's periodical database or covered in the usual review sources that recommend publications. Also, Christianity is apparently a "subtopic" in collection development, if it is conservative, and therefore outside its collection guidelines. The two gay publications that were in the lobby, are in fact also cataloged and kept in the periodical section. I'm pretty sure since they are free-circ that they are not indexed or reviewed in standard library publications.

2289 My new Cat's Meow

I collect Cat's Meow lighthouses--there are far more produced than what I have, and I haven't found any in recent years. This week my friend Bev gave me a new one, "Marblehead Lighthouse and Perry's Monument" painted in 2005. I keep them at our cottage on Lake Erie.



On the back: "Marblehead Lighthouse and Perry's Monument Marblehead, Ohio Marblehead Lighthouse, at the entrance to Sandusky Bay, is the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes. Built from native limestone in 1821 for $5,000, the tower stood 50 feet tall; 15 feet more were added at the turn of the 20th century. Over the years 15 keepers, including two women, cared for the light which began as 13 whale oil lamps. Today the beacon projects a green signal visible for 11 nautical miles." [This painting by my husband is of the keeper's cottage.]

Cat's Meow products always have the little black cat in the painting which is done on a wood cutout which are not 3 dimensional. Unless I've never seen it from this angle, I'm not sure Perry's would look this close. However, it is a delightful addition to our little cottage.

The webpage is lots of fun with far more variety of products than I imagined (because I only look for lighthouses). I didn't even know Cat's Meow was located in Wooster, Ohio!

I also have a few Sheila lighthouses, which are 3 dimensional.

2288 Workshops for guitarists in Ohio

Back in the 80s I thought I'd learn to play the guitar--it was part of my "mid-life crisis plan." 1) Get my ears pierced, 2) learn guitar, 3) take aerobic dance. I don't have any ear lobes to speak of, so it sounded like a good idea. Got my kids all excited that Mom was going to "get with it." Well, I never did #1 (squeamish) or #2 (too difficult), but I did take aerobic dance for several years, lost about 15 lbs and found a job through one of the instructors.

After listening to The Chapin Sisters, I thought I'd throw in this information about the Fur Peace Ranch in Meigs County, Ohio. Jorma Kaukonen, guitarist for Hot Tuna and a founding member of Jefferson Airplane and his wife run the place and offer instruction. Here's the web site. I saw an article about it in the March 2006 Kiplinger's. "If you don't have a creative outlet, you wake up one day and you're 65 years old with nothing better to do than walk the mall in shoes with Velcro closures." [quote from that issue]

2287 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

The WSJ says that "promoting democracy has become the central theme of Mr. Bush's second term," based on this report.

2286 I've learned a new coding trick--I think

Blue Star Beth and her sisters and cousins and brothers are always adding fancy stuff to their blogs. So today I tried just one little thing. And I did get it to work the very first time. I coded a link so it would open a new page instead of leaving mine. This is useful because if you are like me, you start clicking on links and lose track of where you started. I'd seen this code before but wasn't sure how it worked. If I try to type the code and then save this entry, blogger will smack me and tell me I've done something illegal, so I'll just refer you here to the Blogger Forum. Now, if I've done this right, you should see that window open without losing mine, so you can come back and finish reading all my good stuff like How not to marry a jerk, or my defense of Hillary Clinton.

Thirteen things about my date to the St. Patrick's Ball
1. Balls at the University of Illinois were usually sponsored by a campus wide or large organization and held in more public places like the Armory or the Athletic building; dances were for the individual fraternity, sorority or independent residence. Other balls during that era were Sno-Ball, Beaux-Arts Ball, Military Ball, Interfraternity Ball and Panhellenic Ball.

2. Balls always had a nice dance band or small orchestra; dances usually a combo. To not have live music would have been unthinkable. There was also a photographer to take a formal portrait. I can't find the 1959, so the photo is from the 1960 Ball.

3. First we had a coffee date to get acquainted, since the St. Pat's Ball was an invitation from a guy I didn't know.

4. I borrowed a red lace dress from my housemate Sally who was slightly smaller.

5. My date wore a jacket that had belonged to his grandfather, who was slightly larger.

6. I weighed more than my date.

7. He borrowed a car from a friend.

8. I was 19 and living in McKinley Hall.

9. He was 21 living in Armory House.

10.My date was one of the few good dancers I'd ever dated. We went to many more dances.

11. He was a city boy, I was a small town girl.

12. He probably wanted to impress me so he told me that night he'd like to marry me.

13. He did.

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2284 Why teachers have more voice problems

When I was browsing the internet looking for vocal warm-ups and singing tips, I came across the Voice Academy which is for teachers. It is sponsored by the University of Iowa. Here's why teachers have so many problems. When you think about everything from the environment and acoustics of the classroom to the illnesses of the children, it makes a lot of sense.

1. Teachers simply use their voices more each day than most other professionals.
2. Teachers get little recovery time - typically working five days a week with only two-day weekends to rest. Personal and sick days are few and far between.
3. They are constantly exposed to students with sniffles and sore throats. Viruses and other upper respiratory episodes usually wreak havoc on the voice.
4. More children are hard of hearing as compared to previous generations. [Do you suppose it's their music?]
5. Environmental conditions. In particular, chemistry, art and industrial education teachers are exposed to irritating fumes. Chalk dust, dusty ventilation systems, low humidity, or molds can all contribute to vocal tissue irritation and difficulty voicing.
6. Many classrooms have poor acoustics.
7. About 75 percent of all teachers are female. Since women usually speak at a higher pitch, their vocal folds collide more times each day than those of men.
8. Teachers probably haven't been taught healthy ways of speaking. Knowledge of optimal voice use from disciplines such as speech-language pathology hasn't crossed over to the field of education. Also, when teachers have a voice problem, they may be unsure how to seek help.

There's some really interesting information at this website.

The Chapin Sisters

I had a pleasant surprise today visiting Natalie's Thursday Thirteen. She is a record/performer/music buff (loves the 60s), both old and new. In one of her posts she mentioned that the Chapin Sisters were a really nice group to listen to and provided a link to I don't love you. I love it. I've listened several times, resetting the button thingy. Simple guitar, sweet voices. They are the daughters of Tom Chapin and their half sister (they have the same mother). I wrote about Tom Chapin July 28, 2005 as a performer at Lakeside.

I didn't care for the Chapin Sisters' web site at all--found it squashed and not easy to read or navigate, but I did find a nice album cover at their dad's site.



Thanks for the tip, Natalie. I'll be back to visit some more of your suggestions.