Thursday Thirteen about the Da Vinci Code

Don't let Dan Brown or Ron Howard ensnare you in their web. The book and movie are fiction, but even the background that Brown calls "fact" is false. If I wrote a novel and screenplay about 9/11 and placed the WTC in Columbus, OH, and made the terrorists Dutch nationals you'd probably think it a bit screwed up even if Tom Hanks played the lead.

The New Testament was pretty much completed before the end of the first century after Christ, so Brown's just a victim of his own imagination on that one. The Priory of Sion has been proven to be a hoax, not from the 11th century, but from the 1950s created by Pierre Plantard. Brown's whole novel depends on this hoax, which he claims to be fact.

1) The Council of Nicaea didn't decide the divinity of Jesus. There have been Dan Browns around for 2,000 years and a few in 325 for the Council.

2) Long before the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), Jesus declares himself God to his followers and they believed him. Brown ignored not only the testimony of Jesus, all his disciples, the writers of the Gospels but also these men (called church fathers), all of whom wrote for believers before the Council took place:

3) Ignatius and Clement, 1st century

4) Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian, 2nd century

5) Origen, Novatian, Cyprian and Methodius, 3rd century

6) Lactatius and Arnobius, 4th century

7) Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the resurrection and wasn't a prostitute.

8) There is no Biblical evidence that Jesus was married, and no reason to keep it a secret if he was. His first miracle was at a wedding; he held a much higher view of marriage than the current Christian church.

9) Da Vinci says the figure in the painting is John. He's the artist, so he should know.

10) There's a lot of evidence that Dan Brown plagarized huge sections of another book and there's huge evidence that by the end of the first century A.D. Christians accepted the current books of the Bible. So who you gonna believe? A guy who makes his living writing fiction and laughs all the way to the bank, or the guys who died for their beliefs?

11) Constantine had converted to Christianity, so he wasn't a pagan, and he had nothing to do with deciding books for inclusion.

12) The Dead Sea Scrolls are Jewish and pre-date Jesus.

13) Gnostic gospels were written much later than the books of the New Testament and are basically Greek, not lst century Jewish. They also did not value women, as Jesus clearly did.

"Discussing the Da Vinci Code" by Lee Strobel and Garry Poole, Zondervan, 2006.

Banner photo by Donald Kinney, Pestbouncer.com
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Da Vinci Code

2481 My new walking companion

My walking routine is up to about 2.5-3 miles a day, depending on the weather. Joining another group of ladies here and abroad on the internet has really helped. Yesterday at the library I checked out the audio book "Christ the Lord; out of Egypt" by Anne Rice. I've never read her vampire stuff--actually, I rarely read fiction unless it is selected by my book club. This book has had excellent reviews (but then, many like Dan Brown's fictionalized/ fabricated "history" too). This book uses a real person, Jesus as a young child, but is based on the Gospels and New Testament scholarship--not that that would guarantee a faithful reinterpretation of the facts, but I'll give it a shot--for a walk in the park.

2480 I want one of these

Seen at CafePress.

2479 What's wrong with this picture?

Technorati today says there are 39.9 million blogs, so let's just say 40 million. And I am ranked 2,523, but I'm not in the top 100,000. OK, I can handle that. I don't think it has a way to track all seven of my blogs together, and even blogger.com gets that number wrong, showing something like 9,000+ posts when I can only find about 3,500. But here's a strange thing. Technorati has a little chart that tells how many posts you have per day. This chart says I posted 15 times on May 11. Now that was Thursday Thirteen, but there were only 3 posts. It doesn't count comments, because there were 40. So what is it tracking?The number one blog on technorati is in Chinese. They have a few billion head start on us. There are some gadget blogs doing well like Gizmodo and Lifehacker. Left wing bloggers have spawned, regardless of what they say about the right taking over the country. A couple of blogs I link to are in the top 100.

2478 What I don't understand about safety

I'm just saying, does this make sense to you, because I don't get it.

No one has died from exposure to DDT. But millions die every year in the third world from malaria which could be virtually eradicated by DDT spraying of standing water.

Pain medications that help millions are pulled off the market and the drug companies are sued if a couple of elderly men die of a heart attack while taking them. This leaves millions to live a life of disability from chronic pain.

No one seems able to decide if HRT is safe for menopausal women. Meanwhile a few million of them wish they were dead or are so depressed from lack of sleep they could qualify for disability.

Illegal immigrants are bringing virulent strains of TB into the food prep areas of our restaurants, and to the crowded houses and apartments they are sharing with other "undocumented" folks, some children in our schools, but we're getting movies and warnings about birds who also ignore our borders.

Bariatric surgery has a rather high morbidity and mortality rate (in my opinion), and even higher for the duodenal switch. Diet drugs disappear from the market if studies show a few random heart attacks or strokes. Why not this surgery for weight loss which is becoming increasingly popular?

Artificial fingernails are a cesspool of germs in every study. Why do you still see women with them in hospitals, clinics, veterinary facilities and food prep areas?

Taking a wild guess, I'd say, "follow the money." If there is no drug company to sue, safety is a lower priority for protest groups.

drug safety
bariatric surgery
malaria
artificial fingernails
Menopause
tuberculosis

2477 What several strokes feel like

BigMamaDoc writes about her series of strokes two weeks ago--and I wondered as I read it if being a doctor helped her at all, or if what saved her was her sister who knew she was acting peculiar and got her to the ER. She said everything was irritating her, like she was being rubbed down with sandpaper.

I'll always be grateful to the doctor my daughter worked for, who instead of firing her, told her she was getting so crabby, he wanted her to see an endocrinologist. He found a massive goiter, starting to suffocate her, and when it and her thyroid were removed, they found the cancer.

So if you're acting strangely, let's hope someone doesn't keep quiet about it.

2476 Americans are losing to the Brits

the battle of the bulge. We are more likely to be overweight and are less healthy. I looked all through the article in JAMA 2006;295:2037-2045, and "based on self-reported illnesses and biological markers of disease, US residents are much less healthy than their English counterparts and these differences exist at all points of the SES distribution." The study used citizens over 50 who were non-Hispanic whites so that they weren't dealing with problems of immigration in either country.

Still, I submit that a white American isn't ethnically or genetically the same as a white citizen of Britain. Even though we speak English, that is not our dominate ethnic group. All of my father's ancestors were Scots-Irish, all of my mother's were Swiss and German (although there was no Germany when they arrived here). I think the researchers need to take a closer look at our differences, not just our social economic scores and education levels.

Smoking is a big problem in both countries in this age group, and that contibutes to lung disease, cancer, and myocardial infarctions. But obesity is, pardon the pun, huge in the USA contributing to higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and myocardial infarctions.

I read this article in print, which is much easier than in pixels, but you can click open the tables and see the information. You really can't dispute that we're fat and not so healthy. I just don't think they've sniffed out the reasons for the differences (other than weight).

2475 Pervert in the library

The Annoyed Librarian is back! She writes about the recent arrest of a pervert using a library terminal to solicit teen-agers for sex.

"I hope the ALA strikes hard and fast to defend the right of this pervert to pick up teenage girls with public library computers. Don't the New York State Police realize that it is an invasion of his privacy and intellectual freedom to arrest him for soliciting sex from a minor on a public library terminal?"

You go girl.

2474 Da Vinci Code Movie

I've written about this at my other, other blog.

Da Vinci Code movie

2473 Screaming at the radio

Bob Conners, a local radio drive-time talk personality on WTVN 610 a.m. has a beautiful voice. He finds interesting things to talk about and occasionally interviews people about the economy or tourism or education. What makes me want to scream at the radio is the taped interviews for public service announcements. Last week it was a woman describing some kind of nursing program. Her voice was like fingernails on a blackboard--so nasal and unpleasant. And she spoke so fast, I couldn't wait to finish parking the car so I could jam the off button. Don't producers or sound engineers help these people?

Six Ten also has terrible male "voices" doing weather updates. There was (is?) a guy with a Greek surname whose diction and phrasing were so bad that I'd immediately change stations if he came on. I'd rather look out the window and take my chances. Not only was it "rip and read," but I would actually blush on his behalf. He was either an intern or the owner's son-in-law looking for work. I hope someone told him he didn't have the right face for radio.

2472 Reality advice

Columbus Alive (local entertainment newspaper) has an advice column called "Heart to heart." The last issue addressed the problem of a 22 year old woman who was watching so much reality TV that her boyfriend complained because they could never go anywhere or do anything. The advice maven suggested she pick 2 shows to follow and realize she was doing it to save the relationship. Now, if it were me, I'd have suggested she dump the boyfriend, because obviously he was so boring she was numbing her mind with reality TV.

2471 Glenn Beck doesn't get it

Glenn Beck doesn't seem to realize this battle's been lost. Today, as I listened in the car, he's taking calls about a survey that reports 48% of Americans think it is OK for mothers to leave their children in day care and go to work. (That's a paraphrase.) He's the father of new-born girl, of a one-year old adopted son, and two teen-age daughters from his first marriage. As he says, it is the pot calling the kettle black, but he thinks it is best for young children to be raised by a parent, not a care provider.

A child comes into the world already formed. Intelligence, personality, physical appearance, and predisposition to many health problems are already in place.--practically carved in stone. You get to contribute 1%--the values they'll carry to adulthood. Why would anyone want to turn that over to a stranger, if this is your only chance to make a difference post-conception?

On Mother's Day I wrote here about attempting to return to work part time when my children were small and deciding to wait until they were in school when I got a close look at the options. That said, I believe there are some home situations where it's probably better for a child to be gone 10 hours a day (or even it's entire life) rather than live in chaos; unfortunately, those moms are probably not finding quality substitutes. They are such poor mothers, they probably wouldn’t even know good day care if they found it.

Today at the coffee shop a single mom who lives with her boyfriend and 3 sons told me about babysitting for a friend. The other woman, also a single mom of two, has an abusive boyfriend and needed to get away. While he's spreading his sperm around central Ohio, she lives with her father, his girlfriend and her son, and a recently returned sister and her family, all under one roof. Can you imagine the chaos for all those children? Not a married father in the entire household!

The poverty rate for single women who had their first child before 21, didn't finish their schooling or marry their child’s father is extremely high. If she has married the father of her children and completed high school her children will probably not grow up poor. A step-father later doesn't really change the statistical mix that much, for the children's future.

Women--you have the power to change the world. Use it.

Monday Memories--the lost beds

Have I ever told you about our lost and missing beds?

No one noticed they were gone. Until sometime in 1987. We were planning where our house guests would sleep. Then we noticed. We had lost or misplaced many beds.

What happened to our "marriage bed" is anyone's guess. We don't remember where we got it, or where it went, but when we moved from our honeymoon apartment in Indianapolis in 1961 to Illinois, the bed didn't make the trip. When we moved from Maude's furnished room in Urbana to the apartment in Champaign on Third Avenue, we brought over a grandmother‘s bedroom suite with a lumpy and saggy mattress. After the baby was born in 1961 we splurged and spent $60 on a new box springs and mattress from the Champaign Mattress Factory. Did those delivery fellows haul the old one away?

That new "ortho" bed moved to our first house, the White Street duplex with us, and later grandma’s furniture went to Tamara and Sasha (who drank too much) when we bought our lovely oiled walnut set (which we still have). Mom and my sister came on visits so we bought an orange daybed that sort of looked like a couch. It was terribly uncomfortable. Later my brother came and took the crib and dresser for his baby, Amy. The last time I saw the dresser it was around 1984 in Florida. Our baby’s plaid pram with the folding mattress went to the guy who also bought my trombone.

When we moved from White Street to Charles Street, we had an extra bedroom. We bought another double bed mattress set from the mattress factory. The orange daybed moved to Charles Street and then back to White Street (which we kept as a rental property) when we decided to rent the second floor apartment out as a furnished place. Only one double bed went with us to Columbus, Ohio in 1967, so one of them must have gone to the apartment for the renters.

After being in Columbus about 3 weeks, we bought a king size bed from a mattress factory and put the other one in the second bedroom of our apartment on Farleigh Road. Later the top mattress was damaged in the move from the apartment to our house on Abington Road in 1968 (where we lived for 34 years). It got so lumpy from the broken springs that in 1974 I purchased two long twin top mattresses from Lazarus. I have no idea where the King size top mattress went.

Meanwhile, two more baby cribs and a port-a-crib were purchased. The red one was given away to a welfare mother. We still have the green crib and the port-a-crib was finally put in a yard sale last year. For some reason I've been anticipating grandchildren all these years and didn’t let go of those cribs.



25 years later in a truck bed
When the children outgrew the cribs, we bought bunk beds for one and used the double bed (mattress factory #2) for the other. We also bought folding single bed for guests. It was used maybe three times; we sold it to my friend Susan, who later also bought the bunk beds when our son outgrew them. With no place for company to sleep, we bought a couch that converts to a queen size bed around 1978. It was in the family room for years and then was given away around 1993.

We bought our daughter a queen size waterbed with under bed storage and a bookshelf headboard when she was a teen. We sold her old bed to the person who answered the ad for the dresser that matched the red crib that went to the welfare mother. We also bought a soft sided waterbed in 1983 for ourselves. We gave our son one half of the king size bed (whose box springs came from the mattress factory and the mattresses from Lazarus) and gave the other half to his friend George (who changed his name to Stuart after a rock star).

When our daughter graduated from high school in 1986 she moved out and took her waterbed. A whiz at packing, she stuffed it all in the back of a Ford Fiesta. Only the crack in the dining room ceiling remained. I bought a navy blue pull out couch and put it in her empty room. Then our son graduated in 1987, moved into his own apartment and wanted his bed (the one-half of our king size). That left his room empty. Meanwhile our daughter, following a family tradition, lost her waterbed in a move to another apartment. So we gave her the navy blue couch around 1990 and she got rid of it in 1994 (how I don‘t know).

I inherited my parents’ maple bedroom suite in 1990 (which had been at Mom's retreat center in Franklin Grove, IL) and that went into our son’s empty room for a few years and then traveled up to the Lake house when I converted his bedroom to my office. Since we already had 2 beds in the Lake house guest room, there was some swapping and donating done. My friend Helen got one. Friends at the Lake gave us a wonderful old style metal double bed with mattress for our daughter’s room in Columbus. I painted it green to match the dresser that matched her baby crib which was in storage. In 2001 we replaced that mattress giving it to our son who had separated from his wife and needed a bed for his bachelor apartment. When they reconciled, he dumped that bed. We replaced our water bed (I have no idea where it went) and bought a queen size mattress set after trying out two others and rejecting them. The faithful old army cot purchased in 1961 and rarely used was sold in our daughter's garage sale in 2001.


My parents’ maple twin set (from Illinois) has come back to Columbus from the lake and the metal bed is back at Lakeside from which it came in our guest room.

Would you believe we had to borrow a bed from our daughter when we put the house on Abington up for sale in 2001 so one bedroom would look right?


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2469 Say hello to a new teacher

In April JK graduated from college and has now started her first job--teaching special needs children. What a challenge. She's positive, sensitive, beautiful, has a can-do spirit, and usually writes a Thursday Thirteen, which is how I started following her story. If you were or are a teacher, or ever had a teacher who mattered in your life, stop by her site and give her a hug or a word of encouragement. [I find her site a tad difficult to navigate, but if you click on "currently" you should find her latest entry.]

2468 Dixie Chicks

They wouldn't have gotten that much time on 60 minutes if they'd been pro-Bush, now would they?

Video of 60 minutes interview here.
Dixie Chicks

2467 Mothers' Day Musing #2

Business Schools are targeting at home Moms according to a Wall St. Journal article on May 10 by Anne Marie Chaker available here in Career Journal. It could cost you anywhere from $5-10,000 for a 2 week tune-up. Such a deal! Those must have been some high paying jobs those mommies left.

There's never been much money in being a librarian, so no one targeted me when I decided to return to the labor force in 1977. I sort of fell into it when my friend Ana Llorenz, the Romance languages librarian at OSU called and told me that there was a listing for a fill-in for Marti Alt who would be out on maternity leave. Yes, in those days, libraries had enough soft money to replace someone who would be gone for a few months. I took the job and that led to a 3+ year position in agricultural economics.

But some years before that, Sandy Boyd who worked in Cataloging, my old department, and I had put together a job sharing plan and tried to shop it to the department head. In the early 70s, during the first wave of the current feminist movement, there was tremendous pressure on women to get into the labor force. I was the spoil sport. I started looking around at child care options (my children were then in about 4 and 5). Even in our nice suburb it seemed grim. One woman was on a busy corner with no fenced yard; someone else had a dog that looked a little dicey to me; the churches that offered child care near the university were not in good neighborhoods. So I backed off for four more years until the children were in third and fourth grade. I never regretted it, and can't see that it made any difference in my career track.

One woman who took advantage of Harvard's New Path program used it to develop her custom cake business. Sweet.

2466 Mothers' Day Musing

"Accidents Happen. Mornings after can be tough" is the new poster for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology urging doctors to tell women to keep a prescription for "emergency" birth control handy. (That's also known as the "morning after," Plan-B or "mega-regrets" pill.)

I wonder how many of the doctors, ad agency employees and maybe you, the reader here, were the result of an "accident" or unintended conception. Fortunately, many of us were conceived in a kinder, gentler more humanistic era--like the Great Depression or WWII. Possibly our parents weren't thrilled, but soon learned to love us and make do. And then others, well, you got lucky I guess and slipped on through despite the laws protecting choice and the peer pressure your mom experienced to abort when it just wasn't the right time to start a family or you were too close to your sibling. Congratulations on showing up!

Happy Mothers' Day

to all of you who are mothers or had a mother or still have a mother. That ought to be just about everyone. Sorry, but I got the best.

My mother-in-law and my mother, together in 1993

2464 Big Update

Today I updated all seven of my blogs. One has been on the back burner for several months, and I just never got around to finishing it (dated December), but now they have all been put to bed. Actually, counting LISNews.com, I have eight, but I rarely post there anymore.

2463 The 45th TOSRV

TOSRV means Tour of the Scioto River Valley, and the 45th is this week-end, May 13-14, 2006. The challenge isn't so much the terrain, as the weather. I think it is generally just awful, no matter when the cyclists try to do this 210 mile round trip from Columbus to Portsmouth. My right hand man for several years when I was the Vet librarian rode in TOSRV and he also ran marathons. He was sort of a small, wirey guy--I'm not real tall, but I'm taller than he was. He became a woman. I'll always miss him.

Cycling
TOSRV