2509 Laid back at the Lake

The painting above the fireplace is us at the beach our first summer at Lakeside (the beach being East Harbor State Park since Lakeside just has rocks). My husband is stretched out over two chairs watching a very fuzzy, snowy Canadian TV show on our non-cable TV. This is window washing time--an exhausting, grubby job. We have division of labor--he does the tough stuff, I do the easy jobs.

2508 The game we won't play this week-end

We opened our new game, Lighthouse-opoly tonight. Bill and Joyce are coming for the week-end--thought we'd give it a try. But oops. There are supposed to be 6 tokens, a lantern, captain's wheel, ship, keeper's cap, bell and buoy. All we got was a buoy. So I logged into the site to fill out a customer report and noticed that one of the categories was "missing pieces." Makes me wonder if they have this problem often. I suppose we could create little tokens from twisty ties and q-tips, but somehow, that just doesn't sound like as much fun as a captain's cap or a bell.

All sorts of changes in the neighborhood (at the lake). Took some photos today. My azalea, which is planted in the wrong spot because I have such a brown thumb, is blooming like crazy.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen reasons I have called my SenatorsSenate bill 2611 (Hagel/Martinez bill) will be called Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act if it passes. (Or Mexamerica.) We're not talking just about workers. There are 13 groups to think about. CIRA will have both amnesty (for current illegals) and a guest worker plan (legals). And a plan for all their extended families. These are the cumulative figures for the next 20 years. While our Senators dither and blather about agreeing on a "comprehensive plan" millions are scrambling this moment to get across the border so they can claim amnesty under this plan.

1. Amnesty for current illegals--10,000,000

2-3. Spouses and children of Amnesty recipients--6,000,000

4. Guest workers--20,280,000

5-6. Spouses and dependent children of guest workers--24,330,000

7-8. Siblings and adult children of newly legal immigrants listed above--5,080,000

9-10. Employment based visas with spouses and children--13,580,000

11-12. Parents of the newly naturalized citizens listed above--4,970,000 (his and hers)

13. The usual immigrants still allowed under our current laws--19,000,000

Like the enabling parent who never cuts the apron strings for its helpless adult child, the USA contributes to Mexico's poverty by employing 15% of its labor force who can then send money back home to keep the inept government afloat.

You may check out these figures at www.heritage.org/research/immigration/wm1076.cfm

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2506 Taylor Hicks

I've seen American Idol maybe once in five years. Reminds me of the Arthur Godfrey show--which I never watched either since my parents didn't have a TV. But this guy, who RR put on its front page this morning, certainly has the look, although I'd have guessed him to be CW. Maybe someday I'll hear something he sings.

"CBS owner William S. Paley detested Godfrey but bowed to his incredible popularity. CBS president Frank Stanton loved Godfrey because his shows were so cheap to produce but drew consistently high ratings. In 1955 when Disneyland cost $90,000 per hour, and costs for a half hour of The Jack Benny Show totalled more than $40,000, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts cost but $30,000. This figure was more in line with the production of a cheap quiz program than fashioning a pricey Hollywood-based show on film." MBC Archives

Cheap to produce and high ratings. Nothing's changed much in 50 years.

Taylor Hicks
American Idol
Arthur Godfrey

2505 Blogging might be light

Friday through Monday, if I can't find a connection at the Lake. We'll go up on Thursday, clean like demons, relax a bit, then welcome friends for Saturday and Sunday. Lakeside and Marblehead take turns having the Memorial Day ceremony and I don't remember whose turn it is this year. There is a Civil War cemetery near by on Johnson's Island, which was a POW camp for the Confederates. As many as 15,000 men were held there over the course of the war. I believe they have ceremonies there too. Gitmo is paradise compared to sitting out a few winters on an island in Lake Erie.

2504 Google jockeying

I saw this term at ACRLog and immediately recognized the behavior. "What is that? A Google jockey is a participant in a presentation or class who surfs the Internet for terms, ideas, Web sites, or resources mentioned by the presenter or related to the topic. The jockey’s searches are displayed simultaneously with the presentation, helping to clarify the main topic and extend learning opportunities." Now, I don't do it in a class, but I do it all the time when I'm reading medical or political or economic material and don't understand the context or terms, or want to know more about what the author has published. Sometimes I fall off the horse, forgetting that I need to get down to the wire.

2503 Dan Quayle was right

Lloyd Bentsen was a good man, and served his country well. He was a brave WWII pilot, and served in many capacities. The media is not serving him well, however, by quipping at the end of every 20 second obit his comment about Dan Quayle not being Jack Kennedy. I think I heard 3 or 4 announcements of his death, and it was like a template--do these news guys all use rip and read script?

Dan Quayle may well have been a much better man than Jack Kennedy--we'll never know. Jack might have become his brother Ted. One is remembered for being assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and the other by the media. But it wasn't too long after Bush and Quayle left office, that Atlantic Monthly printed the article, "Dan Quayle was Right" by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. In that article she reminds us again of the terrible toll divorce and single motherhood has taken on America's children. Quayle, you'll remember, was unmercifully ridiculed and demonized for taking on the fictional Murphy Brown, whose writers turned her into American's poster mom, who with friends and boyfriends, attempts to raise her child.

"On the night Murphy Brown became an unwed mother, 34 million Americans tuned in, and CBS posted a 35 percent share of the audience. The show did not stir significant protest at the grass roots and lost none of its advertisers. The actress Candice Bergen subsequently appeared on the cover of nearly every women´s and news magazine in the country and received an honorary degree at the University of Pennsylvania as well as an Emmy award. The show´s creator, Diane English, popped up in Hanes stocking ads. Judged by conventional measures of approval, Murphy Brown´s motherhood was a hit at the box office."

Ten years later in 2002 he was interviewed on CNN and asked if he'd say anything differently, and he said no, and he was pleased to see so many fatherhood initiatives.

Do you know that immigrant children are healthier than our native-born children? As our immigrants assimilate and take on our casual family relationships (i.e., shacking up instead of marrying), their children become less healthy. They have poverty, crowded conditions at home, uneducated parents, no health insurance, and probably a lot of stress in the home, yet they are healthier because they are more likely (in that first generation) to have parents married to each other and living together.

Dan Quayle was right. The left has continued to pillory him, panning his 1996 book, "The American Family; discovering the values that make us strong." Their only plan to fight poverty is more government programs, but Uncle Sam makes a terrible step-father.

Dan Quayle
Lloyd Bentsen
fatherhood

2502 The lamestream media

American Daughter is using that term; Rush Limbaugh calls them the driveby media. Many people still refer to our usual news outlets on TV, radio and newspapers--CBS, NBC, ABC, Time, Newsweek, CNN, etc. as mainstream media, or MSM. As I've mentioned before, "MSM" also means "men having sex with men" and is commonly used in the medical literature. So sometimes I get confused. Especially if the MSM are talking about the MSM.

2501 Family stories

The prompt for writing group this week is about unusual family stories--either those we've been told or just knew about--did we know the people involved, is it funny, tragic or weird, is the story true and what can be learned from it. I poured through my notes, jogged my memory, and exercised discretion, but decided my family was incredibly boring or else they were gossips who didn't keep secrets for me to uncover. So last night I turned off the computer, went into the living room and said to my husband, "My family is not weird; can I use yours?" He was busy nodding off during a 1950s Dorothy Dandridge movie on TV, and was either startled into consciousness or insulted. "My family might have been on the cutting edge of societal change, but they weren’t weird."

2500 Dixie Poults

have laid an egg for their fans

Dixie Chicks

2499 Library notice

The public library sent me an e-mail that a book I requested some weeks ago is now available (I think it was in cataloging). It's called The Jasons; The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite. I have no recollection of this book, but I must have read a review of it and decided I wanted to look at it. But what surprised me when I checked Amazon.com just now was, it told me that "Customers who searched for "the jasons" also expressed interest in: Men's underwear, low sling, no line (had a photo), Geeks of War, and Learning to eat soup with a knife." The last two seem to be books, but I was a bit surprised that Amazon is hawking skimpy underwear for men or that people looking for books on history of science are buying underwear at the same time! Now that I've read the PW and LJ reviews at Amazon, I'm wondering "What were you thinking?"

2498 A pricey, but beautiful spring day

The furnace man just left. They wear little blue booties when they come in the house--isn't that thoughtful? His voice and mannerisms were exactly the same as one of my high school classmates--a jolly, talkative guy who I think is a closet introvert. It was sort of eery. It wasn't a repair, just a tune up, cleaning the heat pump and a new filter for the furnace. $166. I asked for a price on having the air ducts all swooshed out with that huge vacuum cleaning system furnace companies use. I remember we had that done once in the 34 years we lived in our house, and it is just amazing the gunk and dirt that is cleaned out. So it's based on the number of cold and hot vents. Walking through the rooms I counted 24, which will bring that to about $650. All the main rooms have a cold air return, but there isn't one in the kitchen or any of the baths and halls or laundry room.

And there's a guy on his knees on our sidewalk repairing the mortar between the flagstones which disintegrate with the freezing and thawing and the salt. That will be about $270 as I recall. And my husband called from the Lake and has an eye irritation, so I've made an appointment for him to roll into town at 4:45 and see the doctor. Money talks--it says good-bye.

2497 Happy Birthday NYPL

Answers.com today had this item, and since it concerns a library, I'm noting it: "Ninety-five years ago today The New York Public Library, at the time the largest marble structure ever built in the United States, was dedicated by President Taft in New York City. Designed by J. M. Carrère and Thomas Hastings, it took 16 years to build. Edward Clark Potter sculpted the two lions which guard the entrance. The building's main reading room is 78 ft (23.8 m) wide by 297 ft (90.5 m) long, with ceilings 52 ft (15.8 m) high. The library has nearly 2 million cardholders, and its collection grows by some 10,000 items a week."

Usually when I'm visiting a city, I make a point of visiting the major library, however, the last time I was in New York was in the early 1960s, and wasn't yet a librarian. This summer we'll be in Helsinki and St. Petersburg, and I'm hoping to see some biblioteki (that's not a transliteration of anything in particular--just thought it sounded good).

My father's name was Howard William, and most of my life I thought he'd been named for his maternal grandfather, William, but late in life Dad told me he'd been named for William Howard Taft, who was president until 1913, and who dedicated the NYPL. Taft would have just recently left office when Dad was born (inauguration was March 4 in 1913 and Dad was born later in March), but maybe my grandparents didn't like Woodrow Wilson. The doctor forgot to register Dad's birth name at the county courthouse, so when he went to file for Social Security Dad discovered his birth certificate said, "Baby Boy" instead of Howard William. But both of his parents were still living, so the county accepted their affidavit that he was what he'd been called his whole life.

Call your Senators right now!

Don't wait! I have just phoned the Columbus offices of Senators DeWine and Voinovich and told them I do not want to have our country overwhelmed by millions of immigrants as S.2611 will do.

Read American Daughter.

"The Senate is poised to pass S. 2611 this week, the giant amnesty bill that would change the demographics of our country and start us on the slide into rampant crime, drug culture, and third world poverty. Every thinking American is needed at this moment to phone, fax, or visit their United States Senators and oppose this legislation."

She links to the phone numbers.

Numbers USA provides these 10 years estimates:
20 million — Frist's bill (S. 2454)
25 million — McCain/Kennedy bill (S. 1033)
31 million — Senate Judiciary bill (no #)
32 million — S. 2611 (now on Senate floor, based on the Hagel/Martinez bill)

Remember the CIRA (S.2611) is conservatively 103 million immigrants in 20 years, according to Heritage Foundation research. Only about 20% of those will be "guest workers" the rest are their relatives and children. And they are stealing our Social Security with the blessings of the Congress!

Monday Memories of summer camp

Have I ever told you about summer camp?

Americans have had a long love affair with the camping experience, both the organized and informal types. My mother told stories of camping as a little girl with her parents in the 1920s. They packed their cooking utensils and tents and strapped the dog's carrier to the running board and headed for Nebraska where they owned property. The family also attended a summer camp in northern Indiana, Winona Lake.

When I was a child, my parents never camped or even took family vacations. However, our little town, Forreston, where we lived until I was in 6th grade, offered "summer recreation" about which I have extremely fond memories. Today it would be called a day camp. The school and grounds (there was only one building for both elementary and high school) were open for crafts, sports and games. We played volley ball and bat mitten in the gym, and soft ball and running games outside. We made those necklaces and bracelets from colorful plastic coated strings, wood burning projects, weaving, and pottery. There were team sports, but summers were pretty hot, so I remember also sitting in a circle under a shade tree for quiet games. I think I only walked 2 blocks to get there, and spent most of the day with my friends. It was all supervised by adults and I don't remember them being at all intrusive or controlling--they just organized things and walked around with clip boards (in my memory). For the 1940s, I think it was a pretty progressive way for the town to look after the children (and we all had mothers in the home since few women were employed, so that wasn't the purpose).

Our house at the star, school at the square
But the absolute best event was rolling our swim suits in a towel, boarding the school bus at the school and driving the 30 miles to Sterling (singing the whole way) which had an outdoor pool. I couldn't swim but I loved splashing around and screaming. Then on the way back, when we were all famished and reeking of chlorine, the driver would stop at a road side ice cream stand and all the wet, bedraggled children would stream out of the bus and get in line for a Sugar Daddy or an ice cream bar. Since I never got these treats at home, I probably thought this was the best part of summer camp!

But we children also went to summer church camp at Camp Emmaus east of Mt. Morris, IL. In 1950, when it had only been open a few years, the costs were about $11 a week and I blogged about it two years ago. My older sisters must have attended as soon as it was opened. We had campfire, singing, vespers, Bible study, crafts, and great food. Not only was I a camper there, but I was also later a junior counselor and a junior cook. The camp looks very much the same today, and is managed by Bill Hare, who was a camper when I was. My brother was the camp manager when he was in his mid-20s.

From my scrapbook, 1950, with both my name and town incorrect
Camp Emmaus 1953, Sara and me (on left)

When I was in high school, maybe about 15 years old, I attended a School of Missions camp on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin with a few other girls from my community. It was interdenominational and more study oriented, although there were water sports. In the photo of our cabin I recognize me, my sister Carol (back row left), her friend Dottie (they were 2 years older), and my classmate Priscilla. We apparently brought dresses along to wear for church. That's me in the front with the hoop and white 2" heels (fun to wear on gravel streets). The other photo is Priscilla and me, dressed for typical camping activities.

My husband attended Boy Scout camp for several years when he was in elementary school. He doesn't remember its name (when he was little he thought his mother's name was "Mom" too), but knows it was near Indianapolis. His parents, always a bit ahead of the curve, bought a cabin in Brown County, Indiana, when he was about 14 years old, so from that point, the outdoor camping experience was to help with the Christmas trees and the family cabin.

This is getting a bit long, so I'll have to write about my childrens' camp experiences at another time.

Banner photography by Donald Kinney.

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Camp Emmaus
summer camp
Forreston, Illinois
Mt. Morris, Illinois

2495 For peace and quiet

build your home next to a cemetery--an old cemetery--according to this Canadian story. New cemeteries aren't particularly pretty, and you might find some digging going on.

"Our" cemetery is having a 200th anniversary celebration remembrance in June. We bought our spots a few months back and I blogged about that here. The invitation says that many of the 70,000 people memorialized at Union fought for our nation in the Revolutionary War and wars since; other established businesses we use every day; some were famous athletes or government of civic leaders. Our friend Jack Park is going to tell some stories about Woody Hayes, Fred Taylor and others. And there will be some historial re-enactors and barbershop quartet.

When I was researching the Forreston part of my Monday Memories, I found this photo of a cemetery that was very close to our house where we children used to play. The girl scout troop was cleaning and weeding as a community service project.

2494 Senate Would Allow 100 Million New Legal Immigrants over the Next 20 Years

The Happy Carpenter doesn't think that's such a hot idea and has the following suggestions on immigration. I think they look pretty good after the first 2 which sound a bit impractical. If you stop by there be sure to scroll up and read the comment of his nephew.

2493 Syphilis is on the increase

Is there any way they can blame President Bush? It has happened on his watch. From 2001-2004 the rate increased to 2.7 cases per 100,000 population, up from 2.1 in 2000. The CDC say this is a result of more gay sex, and the rate is increasing particularly among blacks. For whatever reason, the medical world calls this MSM--"men having sex with men." Since most people think MSM means Main Stream Media, I think they should find a new acronym, or just stick with gay sex. Syphilis is actually going down among women, and often they are getting the disease from bi-sexual men. Bi-sexuals are called "non-gay-identified-MSM who have female partners," or NGI MSM in this article. No pun, but that's a mouthful. Perhaps the rate is going down among women because more men are not pretending to be straight and thus not leaving women with their little gifts.
The article also said physicians under report syphilis and even when it is reported there is a "challenge of locating sex partners about whom limited information is known." In the real world, we call that casual sex or extreme promiscuity. Also, according to the CDC, syphilis and AIDS are often linked and the internet is contributing to the problem. (JAMA, April 26, 2006, taken from MMWR 2006:55:269-273)

"Over the past several years, increases in syphilis among MSM have been reported in various cities and areas, including Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California, Miami, and New York City. In the recent outbreaks, high rates of HIV co-infection were documented, ranging from 20 percent to 70 percent. While the health problems caused by syphilis in adults are serious in their own right, it is now known that the genital sores caused by syphilis in adults also make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV infection sexually." Triad Health Project

syphilis
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
gay sex
CDC

2492 Libraries probably aren't allowed to report this

A librarian is asked about finding the sexual offender site on the library computer. Here's what happened:

"A young woman approached LHL to access the database. She was guided to a computer and into the database. LHL discreetly retired to the desk.

The young woman came back. "I can’t find him in this thing. He said he was in there!"

LHL said, "Well, let's check if he is in the general offender database."

"He'd better be," she said. "He SAID he was in the computer."

LHL found him and pulled up the entry. The young woman went berserk. She pulled her little boy over to see the screen, pointing at it and hollering, "Look, there he is on the computer! That's his name! See?" She was laughing and hugging her son, obviously happy to have found him.

Her next stop was to find an arson charge for the same man. This seemed to be even more exciting because it had a mug shot. More laughing and hugging.

LHL was stunned. I was stunned when she told me. It was as though her boyfriend was a celebrity because he was "in the computer".

See? This is why saying that parents need to decide what's good for their children in libraries (like my public library) is a can of worms. What do you do when the parents are totally irresponsible?

This odd case is reported at Feel-good librarian.

2491 What's Cindy Sheehan up to these days?

Making money off her dead son and dishonoring his memory, some think. Fighting against the war that took his life, others say. Read this website devoted to her and her personal appearances and see what you think.

An interesting subtext to this website is the "aging left" archive. Meeting with Cindy must bring back the memories of another war protest when they were young and virile (and of the millions of Vietnamese we abandoned and left to die or be "reeducated.")

Cindy Sheehan