2747 For Democrats to win in 2006

"If Democrats could take even half the voters who consider Iraq a significant but not a “vote-deciding” issue and convert them into antiwar zealots, they would win the 2006 midterm elections by a comfortable margin. With an ongoing, bloody insurgency that is costing hundreds of American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars, it is not difficult to imagine this strategy being quite successful."

Convert them into "antiwar zealots". . .isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase. Just to win an election. That's the conclusion of Amy Gershkoff at the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Report, dated August 8. Let the Iraqis die the way our abandoned allies in VietNam did in the 1970s when we cut and ran. Just to win an election. It used to be that "democide" meant death by government for political control--like the Maoists and Stalinists who killed millions of their own people to achieve their power. Now it could mean death by Democratic converted anti-war zealots. Just to win an election. Never mind the Democrats who voted for it. Including Kedwards. Of course, on August 8 she said Americans were concerned about terrorism but not homeland security so much.

No wonder the U.S. left wing bloggers are screaming that England colluded with Bush and puffed up this latest terrorism alert. They need more mind-numbed converts to one issue. Just to win a mid-term election. They don't care spit about "lost American lives," only their political careers.

2746 Uncle Sam as a step-father

After citing his grandmother's legacy for raising five strong, competent, college educated daughters, Paul Reyes calls for government aid to help today's teen Latinas, who seem to be floundering. Story here. Uncle Sam makes a poor step-father, and his daughters raised with his money go on to a legacy of welfare and poverty, so maybe Reyes needs to be talking to the men in his community instead of federal and state agencies.

2745 Send Nagin and Blanco to China

If we can believe their news sources any more than our own, Chinese officials evacuated 1.5 million people from their southeast coast Thursday in the face of a powerful typhoon. Story. Why couldn't Mayor Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco rally their first responders (the state and local administrations' responsibility) like that for Hurricane Katrina? Let's get them a government grant to fly to China to see how it's done. Florida would be too close, and besides, Jeb is in charge there.


typhoons
Hurricane Katrina
Ray Nagin
Kathleen Blanco
Typhoon Saomai

2744 Let's made blood tests admissible in court

In Ohio, hospitals aren't required to make blood tests in alcohol and drug related accidents available to put away people who drive drunk and kill others. I think Kelly Volpe might go free because the hospital which treated her after the accident which killed her 6 year old daughter never sought certification for this. Most hospitals don't because they don't want their employees tied up in court cases. I'm sure the lawyers will find a way to throw out testimony of the eye witnesses.

Common Pleas Judge Angela P. White’s ruling yesterday was no surprise, prosecutors said. White said the blood drawn by Riverside Methodist Hospital personnel to treat Mrs. Volpe for her injuries was inadmissible because of a 2005 Ohio Supreme Court ruling.

That ruling said a hospital must have a special state certification in order to test blood for law-enforcement purposes. Like most hospitals in the state, Riverside has been reluctant to seek that certification. (Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 11, 2006)

How much would it cost to have one or two employees on hand who do this? It could put away multiple offenders like Ms. Volpe whose arrests for DUI go back to her teen years.

2743 Racial profiling, claims lawyer

You've probably read that two young Lebanese American men from Dearborn, MI, Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sobhi Abulhassan, have been arrested for suspicious behavior in central Ohio. Dispatch story here. "If their names were Joe Smith. . ." whined their lawyer. Give me a break! If any of my 10th generation American, fair-haired grandsons of my sister or cousins are picked up with drugs in the car, $11,000 in cash, a dozen cell phones, a list of passengers and baggage information from a mid-eastern airline and information about U.S. airports, I certainly hope the police will detain them! I promise not to come to the courtroom with scrapbooks of their athletic accomplishments in high school and moan about racial profiling and claim they are just good American boys earning money for college.

Let's get a grip. We are at war.

2742 Muslims first, Brits second?

News reports are focusing on this idea because of the plane plots. What's the big deal? Most Christians I know would (or should) say "Christians first, Americans second." It's Biblical. Most religions promote a higher calling than the geography of your birth.

2741 Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen Medical Studies

Medical trials have writing groups, steering committees, policy committees, safety boards, statisticians, coordinators, and investigators. But what do they call the committee or group who comes up with a snappy name for the Trial, a name that can be spelled and pronounced? A name that can go down in history? I don’t know! But here’s some recent trials reported in the medical literature. They are not in alphabetical order, which is unusual for me, but in the order in which I noticed them.

1) International Study of Salt and Blood Pressure (INTERSALT)

2) Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT)

3) Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering treatment to prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT)

4) ALiskiren Observation of heart Failure Treatment: (ALOFT)

5) Valsartan In Acute Myocardial Infarction Trial (VALIANT)

6) TRial Of Preventing HYpertension (TROPHY)

7) Telithromycin, Chlamydophila and Asthma Trial (TELICAST)

8) Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE)

9) Rescue Angioplasty After Thrombolysis (REACT)

10) Medical, Epidemiological and Social Aspects of Aging (MESA)

11) Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification (POP-Q)

12) Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR)

13) Metaanalysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE)

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Trip Tale: Kalinka, Kalinka

A Russian chorus and folk dance troupe performed in our hotel's theater in St. Petersburg. Our tour guide had offered to set something up for us, but Gloria spotted a notice that one would perform in our hotel. Seven buses brought cruise ship tourists, but the hall wasn't filled. The performance was lovely, and we didn't even have to leave the building. After dinner in the hotel dining room at 7 p.m., we just walked up a flight and enjoyed the fabulous talent of this group with a live orchestra.


Калинка, калинка, калинка моя,
В саду ягода малинка, малинка моя,

Под сосною под зеленою
Спать положите вы меня.

Ах! Сосенушка ты зеленая,
Не шуми же надо мной!

Ах! Красавица, душа девица,
Полюби же ты меня!

folk singers
St. Petersburg, Russia

2739 Old Joe

The Democrats have lost the heart and soul of the party to the radicals. They will listen to the lies of the rich, white, anti-Jewish left in the party and dump old Joe, who is right with them on just about everything except defense. He is a supporter of Israel, increasingly a no-no on the left. I guess the Jews in the party don't read history, if they go with the party first and their heritage second. Jews in Germany and Russia learned the hard way.

I personally like to have some decent Democrats in office--they keep the offensive right wing nuts in check. Joe brought in a lot of votes for Gore in 2000--they would have lost by many more votes if he hadn't been on the ticket. Of course, those were the days when the Dems also believed, and preached, the danger of terrorists and WMD. They weren't rushing to support McKinney in Georgia, who is articulate, black and just as kooky as they are.

If a super-rich white guy with no political experience were running on the Republican ticket, the press would be all over him like flies on sweet corn cobs at a summer picnic. But WaPo described him as "little known entrepreneur." Yeah, a one issue candidate with the isolationist stance right out of the 1930s.

We can only hope that all the smart, patriotic Democrats and Independents were on vacation for the August primaries and they know how to vote at the polls when it really counts.

Joe Lieberman

2738 Back to Columbus

Usually I don't do the driving, but today I'll return to Columbus to pick up our cat who has, of course, been pining away for me while we were in Michigan.

We had a terrific time, staying with our friends who have a summer home in Boyne City, MI, and then drove us around to the various sites. Such a beautiful area. We were very impressed with Bay View, which looks much more like an architectural museum than Lakeside does. Beautifully preserved and restored homes from the 1870s-1915 era with a central campus.

With Jerry and Joan at the Bay View Inn where we had lunch.

Example of a restored home in Bay View. I couldn't possibly post all the photos my husband took, but this one is in the book, Cottages, which includes one of my husband's designs.

This is the street along the marina in Boyne City--a really lovely town with great appeal for both summer and winter (skiing).

We had a gorgeous trip to Charlevoix in our hosts' boat.

Lake Charlevoix
Boyne City, Michigan
Bay View, Michigan

2737 Off to Bay View, Michigan

Today we're off to Bay View, MI, to visit another Chautauqua community. I'm having a terrible time with my wireless connections--may not be doing much.

Monday Memory, a Trip Tale: July 21 Hvitträsk

I'll cheat a little here, because this memory is only about 2 weeks old. Our last full day in Finland (having returned the day before from Russia), we drove west out of Helsinki, past Espoo and visited Hvitträsk, the Finnish home of the Saarinens, architects who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s. It was the working space, and now a museum, of three young architects 100 years ago, Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), Herman Gesellius (1874-1916), and Armos Lindgren (1874-1929). Gesellius died young and Lindgren returned to Helsinki after a few years, so the Saarinens lived there with their children. Eliel Saarinen was designer of the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki (1902-1911) and the Railway Stations of Helsinki (1904-1919), from which we travelled to Russia, and Vyborg (1904-1913) where we stopped to have our passports checked.

The style of the complex is called National-Romantic, but to my eye it appears very similar to the early arts and crafts movement which influenced Frank Lloyd Wright and many others in the arts like the Roycrofters (Elbert Hubbard), which we visited on our trip to East Aurora, NY two years ago.

The main building of Hvitträsk is now a museum and includes furniture designed by the elder Saarinen and fabrics by his wife. His son, Eero (1910-1961) also became a famous architect. Both father and son are represented in Columbus, IN which we were visiting the following Friday. One of the restored houses in the complex contained a nice restaurant where we enjoyed a nice brunch/buffet for 12 euros on a glassed in patio. It was a wonderful place to visit, especially for the three architects--reduced ticket price for them, but Riitta and I thought it was terrific too.





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2735 Pot calling the kettle black

Geoffrey Nunberg is on C-SPAN discussing his theme that our social and political language is pulling to the right, having written Talking Right. He runs political speeches through speech analyzers, and is concerned that the Republicans can produce a coherent, but bland, standard speech from an archive, but Democrats' speech is gibberish (my word), implying I suppose that there is variety, but no message. But I noticed he uses the word "right" exclusively for conservatives, but the word "liberal" or "Democrat" and never "left," i.e., "At that moment, the right began to brand liberals as. . ." He also refers to Democratic politicians by their full name, i.e., Geraldine Ferraro, Spiro Agnew, and Republicans by surname only, Reagan, Limbaugh, with a little spittle. I don't think he reads the NYT, WaPo, or listens to CNN.

2734 Save a word

My friend Carol from grade school, sent me a list of words and phrases we rarely hear anymore--we being people young in the 1950s. I liked this line: "Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most "supper." Now everybody says "dinner." Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts." Yes, and serve some "oleo." This year, "Bible School" went on the endangered list at our church--seems it scares away some folks so it was changed to "Adventure Week."

2733 The Purple Martin House

At the end of our street we have 4 Purple Martin houses. They eat a lot of bugs and need to be encouraged to stay. My favorite is the one that was built to look like the Lakeside movie theater, Orchestra Hall.





My brother-in-law has written a book about them.

Lakeside, Ohio
Purple Martin
birdhouses

2732 Hand dryers vs. paper towels

One thing I liked about public restrooms in Finland (didn't like paying 1 euro to use them) was the "old fashioned" cloth towels on a roller. But I'll take paper towels if I can get them and sometimes take them with me. I'm thrilled that more and more restaurants and public buildings are at least offering us a choice. Jenna has the 13 perfect comebacks for the lies they tell us about those machines that blow feces and urine around public restrooms and spread germs through damp hands on door handles.

2731 Plaskolite

When you open your cell phone and look at the screen you're seeing this product, whose headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio and which has recently opened a huge plant in Zanesville, Ohio. The vice president of marketing owns the coffee shop Coffee and Cream where I enjoy my first cup of the day.

Trip Tale: Our tour group, The G-6

It's not clear what happened to the rest of them, but by the time we got on the Sibelius train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, there were only six left of the original tour group. The G-8 had caused some shuffling of hotels and tourist sites, so I suppose the others decided to go another time. The six of us had a terrific time and were great companions. Both of the other couples had been touring Scandinavia, although not together, and like us, decided they'd rather have a little help with Russia. We called ourselves the G-6 since the G-8 was meeting in the city at the same time. This way we could all have a window seat in the van, and could all hear our guide. The other two couples, Betty Lou and Barry from Seattle and Gloria and Doug from Cape Cod, had much more travel experience than we did, but we were all novices in Russia!

At the Hermitage

In our hotel dining room

Nordic Saga Tours

2729 It wasn't political, just silly

WaPo's editorial on the House hearings on energy was not political, just silly, off the mark and clueless, says Amy. She suggests that editorial writers at least look up the webcasts of the hearings if no one can attend.

You know, I'm so old that I can remember when heat waves weren't the President's fault. Like 1988 when we had a drought in Ohio, and in 1953 when they closed the schools in my home town (northern Illinois) in September because it was too hot. I can even remember when 92 year olds died in July and they didn't blame global warming.

2728 Demand and Minimum wage

". . . I’ve met no one who, upon finding that he cannot sell his house at his current asking price of $250,000, reasons that he will attract more potential buyers if he raises his asking price to $260,000. I’ve never heard of a supermarket that seeks to clear out excessively large inventories of canned peas or laundry detergent by raising the prices it charges for these items. I’ve never heard of a construction contractor who believes that the higher the price he asks to do a job the more likely he is to be awarded the contract for that job. I’ve never encountered a car salesman who, upon my rejecting the price he asks for a car that I just test drove, says “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to my manager and ask if he’ll accept an even higher price for this baby.” I don’t encounter advertisements by merchants bragging that their prices are the absolute highest in town -- guaranteed!

Do any of you, Dear Readers, know of such behaviors? More importantly, do you know people who are generally more likely to purchase something as its price rises? If you do, surely you are by now a person of enormous wealth.

What is it about unskilled- and low-skilled labor that makes many people fancy that the law of demand does not apply to it? Are the greedy, profit-lusting employers of this labor so foolish that they’ll just dish out more money for the same output as before, without economizing further on labor – say, by buying less of it or by extracting more work from each man-hour hired? Or are low-skilled workers so daft or dysfunctional that they consistently refuse to respond to pre-minimum-wage-hike differences in wages and work conditions?" Don Boudreaux