3046 People who shouldn't vote

There are a few people who you hope won't show up at the polls today, but I'm sure some Democrat will offer them a ride, or say they were disenfranchised. That's not true. They are too dumb to vote. I was listening to Glenn Beck on Friday while I was ironing. I really don't like his "Moron Trivia" routine because I just hate learning how stupid people are. In this routine, he calls up people who are in NFL cities who work at convenience stores as "shelf replenishment engineers." There's a football connection, but sports bore me, so I won't get into that. Last Friday it was between Baltimore and Cincinnati. I think he talked to five women and one man with four questions. The women sounded to me like they were over 50 and heavy smokers. You know the sound, that deep throaty rattle that women get when they've damaged their vocal chords from years of looking sophisticated.

Anyway, the first question was which politician had embarrassed himself that week trying to tell a joke that had backfired. The women didn't know; so he asked them the next question, "Who is John Kerry?" None of them knew--not even with prompting from Glenn. One of the questions was which party won the November elections (this was 4 days before the election.) My sex went down in such a stunning defeat in both cities, I don't even remember the rest of the questions. But the one male, who had a slight Hispanic accent, got every question right!

Glenn Beck, voters

3045 Wonder where the money went

Ibrahim and Mohamed are buying up expensive houses in the Columbus suburbs and paying way more than the asking price. Such a deal! The Columbus Dispatch revealed this week that 14 such deals worth more than $11 million have closed since Spring. The money is borrowed with no downpayment, the seller gives back to the buyer the difference between what he asked and what he got, and some giant houses are standing empty in some fancy neighborhoods. Nationalities are not known for sure, but they are middle easterners, apparently Jordanian and Egyptian. Ethical real estate professionals and the local BIA are advising home sellers to not take the offers. So the buyers are creating their own companies. One agent who lost his license several years ago has been involved in four of the sales.

"It’s been a growing problem nationally for lenders and neighborhoods. The FBI says banks reported losing $1 billion to mortgage fraud last year, more than double the previous year.

Reports of suspected mortgage fraud jumped 35 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2005, according to a report released Friday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Under various scams, the buyer can be either a victim of manipulative middlemen who skim cash from mortgages in convoluted transactions, or a co-conspirator "straw borrower" who fronts for sham loans.

Ohio has been hit particularly hard by foreclosures and mortgage fraud, banking and lawenforcement officials say."

Inflated appraisals and mortgages use to be common in inner-city neighborhoods--now they are going upscale.

3044 A letter to Kerry

A Sergeant stationed in Iraq has written a letter to John Kerry. His wife submitted it to American Daughter where you can read the whole thing:

"I am a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. I am currently on my second tour in Iraq, a tour which I volunteered for. I speak Arabic and Spanish and I plan to tackle Persian Farsi soon. I have a Bachelors and an Associates Degree and between deployments I am pursuing an M.B.A. In college I was a member of several academic honor societies, including the Golden Key Honor Society. I am not unique among the enlisted troops. Many of my enlisted colleagues include lawyers, teachers, mechanics, engineers, musicians and artists just to name a few. You say that your comments were directed towards the President and not us. If we were stupid, Senator Kerry, we might have believed you."

He reminds the Senator that they know what he has said about them in the past, and if he thinks people misunderstand him, it's because he can't communicate clearly.

3043 As you go to the polls

keep in mind that the Democrats do not want to keep the current tax cuts which have lifted our economy. They want to penalize you for doing well, because the lower rates have actually brought in more revenue to the government. Also ask yourself, didn't I already give? Why do they want more? Both parties are guilty of the gimmees.

• Federal income tax
  
• State income tax
  
• city income tax
  
• county income tax
  
• sales taxes--state and local--Ohio doesn't tax food, but some states do
  
• Intangible taxes (on your investments)
  
• Use taxes--gasoline, airports
  
• excise taxes--cigarettes, gasoline--federal and state. About 82% of what consumers pay for a pack of cigarettes (average cost $4.12) ends up going to the government in taxes and other payments rather than for the cigarettes.
  
• estate taxes--also known as the death tax--federal and state
  
• inheritance taxes--state and local
  
• gift taxes--also called transfer taxes
  
• personal property taxes--local taxes imposed on your car, furniture, boat, etc. and other items you already own but are taxed for year after year (we don't have this in Ohio, but we did when we lived in Illinois and Indiana)
  
• real estate taxes--usually your county hits you up for this--reevaluates your home's worth, raises the taxes, then also raises the millage
  
• Social Security taxes--also known as FICA, Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or payroll taxes
  
• Medicare taxes
  
• hospitality and entertainment taxes--like hotels, motels--usually a city tax
  
• utilities taxes
  
• telephone taxes, state, federal and local (surcharges and fees are not taxes) The Spanish American War (1898) tax was just lifted this year.
  
• licenses--driver's, hunting/fishing, business, amusement, etc.
  

If you live in these states, you have the highest local/state taxes in addition to what you pay the federal government; Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho, New York, Maine, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Texas.

federal taxes
state taxes
estate taxes
death tax
telephone taxes
Medicare
Social Security

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you about our slumber parties in the 50s?

I posted this photo at the class reunion blog, but thought it was sort of cute and decided to also post it here for Monday Memories.


I'm not in the photograph because I'm taking the picture with my Brownie Hawkeye, and it appears to be taken in the morning. But that's our living room on Hannah Avenue, before my Mom redecorated with new wallpaper in a gentle beige and brown stripe. She also took out the pocket doors and wall where I was standing to take the photo. It looks like we were using a card table for gifts.

There are many things here that identify this as the 50s besides the Brownie Hawkeye: pin curls tied up with a scarf around the head (no one had hair dryers); bermuda shorts with knee socks; hard sided over night cases; scarves tied under the collar of a neatly pressed white blouse; big print wall paper in the living room; book club novels in the bookcase; hair cuts by Mom; and home permanents we gave each other.

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My visitors and those I'll visit this week are:Ma, Viamarie, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Debbie, Lazy Daisy, Lady Bug, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Michelle, Anna, ChelleY. Jen, Melli Becki, Paul, Friday's Child, Irish Church Lady,Cozy Reader

1950s
teenagers
slumber parties
nostalgia

3041 Couldn't agree more

with this commenter over at the Right Coast. I guess everyone needs a place to hang their spiritual hat, and global warming beliefs do fill a need to believe that humans are all-powerful and worthy of worship.

"Global Warming is one of several religions people have gravitated to after being denied their need for relevance in socialism and other schemes. No need to confuse them with the facts on "warming", because it hasn't worked before. Chicken Little has dressed in the Kings Clothes, and so cannot afford to tolerate those who would point and laugh."

Mike Rappaport had sighed: "The consensus [on global warming] appears to be produced by intimidation and pressure from various ideological and special interest groups. Letters from Congress referring to opponents of the global warming consensus as "deniers" (as in Holocaust deniers) are just the tip of the iceberg."

We see the same stubborn, lemming like behavior in other research that gets politicized. If the government were passing out grants for expanded stem cell research, I'm guessing you would have to struggle to get an innovative, fresh idea for another direction published anywhere. The venture capital would be there if there were a bright future in stem cell, which is definitely legal, but not productive or ethical.

Why was Charles Davis, Jr. on parole

It infuriates me that the press and public can go bonkers over consentual gay sex (if the story is about a Republican or a pastor) but virtually ignore the horrific crimes against women and girls (that don't happen in Aruba or California). This week in the Columbus papers it was reported that Charles S. Davis,Jr. "could get" 89.5 years for raping and terrorizing a teen age girl he kidnapped on her way to a high school game. But he was on parole for a similar crime committed in 1997! Who are the judges, lawyers and members of the parole board who let this creep out to do the same crime again? Why aren't those legal nitwits being investigated on national TV?

"Davis was on parole for the 1997 rape of a Columbus teenager when he abducted a 15-year-old Columbus girl in January and raped her repeatedly in the basement of an apartment complex on Chesterfield Court.

He cut the girl with a broken bottle but begged her to be his girlfriend, prosecutors said. The rape followed the same pattern as the 1997 attack.

Davis was sentenced to seven years in prison for that crime. After he was released in 2004, he was in and out of jail for failing to live where he was registered, on Bay Run Drive on the West Side." [Columbus Dispatch, Nov. 1]

And then there's the unhappy husband from Columbus, Mike Henslee, who lied about his wife's disappearance (reported by her family, not him) and finally admitted he killed her and led authorities to her body this week in Dayton, about 100 miles away. But he got his 10 minutes of fame in a public press conference where he accused her of being unfaithful and said he had an "anger management problem." Her friends said she was the classic battered wife. She had filed for protection against him in August. The violence against her increased when she decided to go back to college, according to her family. "The charges against [Harry Michael "Mike"] Henslee carry a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life." Whoopee--15 years for terrorizing her for years, murdering her, and hiding the body in Dayton. [ONN story via Dispatch, and we'll probably never hear of it again] Also reported at a Domestic Violence blog.

Media bias--the Wall Street Journal

According to a study done in December 2005 by a political scientist at UCLA, the Wall Street Journal is more liberal than the New York Times, LA times, CBS and the rest. See article in UCLA News. Surprised? Well, look at today's news stories:

CONSUMER PRICES FALL, BUT. . .

WHY IT TAKES A DOCTORATE TO BEAT INFLATION.

E BAY PROFIT RISES, BUT. . .

UPHILL HIKE FOR REPUBLICANS

OIL PRICE DROP CHALLENGES OPEC UNITY

SUPPORT FOR CONGRESS SLIDES FURTHER

HOW H-P KEPT TABS ON A WSJ REPORTER

WAL-MART SLOW-DOWN

DOW HITS 12000 FOR FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, BUT FELL SHORT AT CLOSING

INSURERS BASK IN SUN AND PROFITS AFTER NO HURRICANES

MORE HOME LOANS GO SOUR

IRS IS CRACKING DOWN ON POPULAR DEFERRAL STRATEGY

ELI LILY HAD A HAND IN DRUG GUIDELINES

I always enjoy reading this paper, but its social science slant in the basic news stories really bugs me. There is never good economic news for the ordinary citizen, the middle class American. The investor in a pension plan. No. Only the grubby, greedy rich. And poor? The sob stories the WSJ social workers journalists write. Oh my gosh, it must be the reason Americans are rushing over the border to work and seek benefits in Mexico and Canada and taking boats to Cuba. I suppose they can't help it--after all, all journalists are graduates of our U.S. journalism schools, products of our tenured radicals of the 1970s, and if they had time to think about how biased they are, they'd probably quit.

Their anti-Wal-Mart stories are frequent. Today's superimposed a rectangle over the map of Manhattan to show that Wal-Mart covers 17.88 sq. miles of floor space with 3,289 stores (not counting Sam's Club), and that its 1.3 million employees could fill every major league stadium. Is this even relevant? Does this graph mean anything to someone outside NYC? George Wills, on the other hand, says it a bit differently: Wal-Mart is the most prodigious job creator in history; by lowering consumer prices, it adds 100 jobs for every 50 competitors lose; Wal-Mart saves consumers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing food stamps and earned income tax credits; and of course, Chicago didn't want Wal-Mart inside the city, so the suburbs are getting the business taxes and the employees' jobs.

Pro-business could be pro-American, unless you work for the Wall Street Journal. It's called biting the hand that feeds you.

Wall Street Journal
media bias
Wal-Mart

3039 I'm so popular!

You are too, I'll bet. Yesterday, President Bush and Pat Boone called me! Yes, me! So I put down the iron and put my feet up and just listened. I've been getting other phone calls from the Pryce and Kilroy campaigns (Congress--my district), and just now I just hung up on the Democratic National Committee, and sometimes the callers get so impatient I say, "Hello, hello?" But they've already moved on.

3038 Close, but no cigar.

A WSJ reader, writing about what ails married people commented this week, "Alcoholism and domestic violence, not gay marriage, not pre-nuptial agreements, not no-fault divorce, not co-habitation are the real threats facing families in this country." [Anthony Smith, Arlington, VA] I didn't read the article he was referring to, but just based on his letter, I'd have to disagree. Alcoholism and violence may be a problem for some, but of the marriages I've seen dissolve in the last 40 years, none were for those reasons. In fact, I've seen some incredibly "stable" marriages that are quite pickled in alcohol because of the dependency thing. What I see breaking up marriages is infidelity, greed, materialism and lust for power. The things he says are not a problem are just those problems with new faces.

Friday Family Photo

The Bruce home in Elwood, Indiana



C.L. Bruce's father had disappeared when he was very young. He originally come to Elwood, IN to look for him and worked in the glass factory as a glass blower. He answered an ad for a room in the Heffner household, and met his future wife, Abbie. His future father-in-law who owned a sawmill liked him and gave him a job in the Elwood office. Soon he was in charge of the mill and coal office. He ran for Mayor of Elwood and promised street lights, but lost the election (making his wife quite happy). Abbie inherited money and property from her father, but C.L. was sort of a visionary and added an auto dealership to the sawmill and coal business.

The family first lived in a home owned by Abbie parents, then they had this big house in the photo at 902 South Anderson, opposite Abbie's parents. Abbie died of diabetes when my husband's father, the youngest of 9, was about 4 years old. After C.L. lost his business during the Depression, the family moved back to the smaller home on D Street. To earn a living he went on the road selling fruit, and the 3 younger children were left alone, the youngest my husband's father. They lived for awhile in Marion, IN, with their father and then the two youngest moved to Indianapolis to live with an older sister and finish high school. So my husband and his father attended the same high school, Arsenal Technical High School.

About 10 years ago we drove to Elwood to see if we could find this house. We had only a photograph and a street name. We found a beautifully restored early 20th century home and the owner came out when she saw us taking photographs. She invited us in, and we were just amazed by the beauty and woodwork, and how she had decorated it so authentically for the period. However, at some point she mentioned that there had never been children in this home which is why most of the appointments (elaborate carvings) were still in tact. We realized we were in the wrong house, because C.L. and Abbie had 9 children. We drove further on the street and found it--cut up into many apartments, wrapped in wide, fading aluminum siding, and the porch filled in. It was enough to make you cry.

Adding some Color to my diet, pt. 3

Tomatoes! Pizza is one of my triggers that I wrote about at Thursday Thirteen which I'm avoiding. However, if you read up on tomatoes, pizza is practically a health food! They are great in the summer, and I love it when our son brings over tomatoes fresh from his garden, but they are also terrific when processed, particularly in juice or tomato paste.

Photo used with permission of SusanV who writes a vegan blog
I've always included tomatoes in things like chili, stew, and fresh salads, so I'm not sure this is a new addition as much as an increase. I'm drinking 6 oz. of tomato juice every day. I buy the small cans, because I don't like to drink it cold. I discovered that one of the reasons I always got a stomach ache from tomato juice was that I was drinking it chilled. It tastes much better at room temperature.

Lycopene is the hot word in tomato research. This carotenoid is found in tomatoes and is one of those antioxidents, running around battling those bad things that cause prostate, breast, pancreatic and intestinal cancers. Even catsup is good for you (that's a tomato product I rarely eat). I'm having a colonoscopy at the end of the month (the only test you can take that will actually prevent cancer), and studies show that blood levels of lycopene were 35% lower in people with polyps (the little growths that are removed before they become cancerous).

Tomatoes have lots of other good things--like vitamin C and vitamin A. My 6 oz. of juice has 90% of the C for the day. They are also a good source of potassium, niacin, vitamin B6 and folate, good for cholesterol levels, blood pressure and keeping your blood vessels healthy. There's a lot of research out there showing tomatoes' cardiovascular benefits. Tomato juice helps reduce blood clots, and there's some good studies going on for benefits for diabetics.

This article at World's healthiest foods lists the journal sources if you'd like to check the research yourself. Even if you can't read all the big words, you can look at the summaries and conclusions and see how often the research is cited by others.

So, go out and have a pizza tonight.

Part 1, bell peppers
Part 2, grapes

carotenoids
lycopene
tomatoes
diet
Healthy Living

3035 Teenagers and high risk behavior

Although we were all shaking our heads around here when an Ohio State freshman was killed trying to exit an elevator in which 24 young bodies were packed (a 6' x 7' space), we sort of knew what was going through their heads when each followed the other on the way to that young man's death. Kids that age don't seem to understand consequences, and that's what Sharon Begley was writing about in her Health column today in the WSJ. She says there is new evidence that teens underestimate risk--of STDs, pregnancy, drunk driving, etc. She wrote:

"Young people are especially bad at resisting risk when they are with their peers and when they make decisions on the spur of the moment--the emotional brain hijacks the logical one, so knowing the numberical risk of driving drunk won't stop them. That information is suppressed." So apparently is the knowledge about weight loads in elevators, even though it's posted in every elevator I've ever been on. So apparently is experience, since many of these kids had probably been in that same elevator when it balked between floors with fewer passengers.

I was reading her article and watching the people coming in to Panera's (bakery, deli specializing in fresh and creative meals) for the Friday Follies--that's where someone from the office buys a huge shopping bag full of goodies to take in to work--brownies, huge bagels (about 450 calories) with packets of cream cheese, sweet rolls, bear claws, etc. I'm guessing 90% of the people I saw in line were overweight, and about 10% were grossly obese. All were adults.

If education, experience, pain, poor health, medical warnings, peer pressure and controlled impulsivity mean anything, Ms. Begely, why are adults not using these in making day-to-day food decisions?

3034 Adding some color, pt. 2

Yesterday I wrote about adding bell peppers, red, yellow, orange and green to my diet. Today I read that the green peppers are a bit more bitter, so I'll try to use more of the other colors. Also, I didn't know that pimento and papricka were made from bell peppers. One site described them as the "Christmas ornaments of the vegetable world."

But today I'll mention black seedless grapes. I bought a bunch yesterday, washed them and put them on the kitchen table; they are almost gone. So yummy. Grapes contain flavonoids and that's what give them their vibrant purple color, which you find in grape juice or red wine. The stronger the color, the more flavonoids.

This week the Wall Street Journal and NYT have been running articles on resveratrol, which some venture capitalists are betting has a future as an anti-aging drug. AP highlights here. Resveratrol and Quercitin, two compounds in grapes, appear to decrease degenerative diseases we associate with aging, such as cancer, dementia, diabetes, vascular disease (heart attack and stroke), macular degeneration and arthritis. People like the French who consume high fat diets but also drink red wine, have a low risk for heart disease.

Besides just tasting good (and I liked these black grapes better than red or white), they

• increase levels of nitric oxide, which helps reduce clot formation
  
• decrease blood clotting by red blood cells
  
• increase levels of alpha-tocopherol and antioxidant activity
  
• protect LDL cholesterol from oxidation
  
• inhibit protein tyrosine kinases
  
• inhibit the production of the blood vessel constrictor, endothelin-1, key contributing agent in heart disease
  
• directly affect (through resveratrol) the heart muscle cells, by inhibiting angiotensin II, which reduces the heart's ability to pump efficiently
  
• through resveratrol, cardiac fibroblasts are prevented from changing into myofibroblasts
  
• grape skins contain saponins which bind to and prevent the absorption of cholesterol
  
• red wines have more saponins than white wines
  
• grapes also contain pterostilbene, which is known to fight cancer and may help lower cholesterol--it is also found in cranberries and blueberries
  
• grape juice, not just red wine, has cardiovascular benefits too without the risks of alcohol consumption, or migraines which sometimes occurs because of additives. Six glasses of grape juice are about the same as 2 glasses of red wine in reducing platelet aggregation.
  
• Resveratrol has been identified as a possible cancer preventive agent, and provides protection against benzopyrene
  
• resveratrol has anti-inflammatory properties and is an activator of an enzyme (Sir2) seen in extended life span studies

Information taken from The world's Healthiest Foods

Another advantage of drinking a glass of red wine at dinner is the socialbility factor. We wouldn't sit and discuss the possibilities of the Ohio State vs. Illinois football game Saturday over a glass of tomato juice or grape juice. Somehow, with a glass of Shiraz, it is almost tolerable and interesting.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things about finances women need to think about

I jotted these ideas down from several different articles I've seen in the last month. With boomers starting to retire, there's a lot out there about women and finances, because the push to get women in the workplace and out of the home began around 1970.

1. Today, women are much more likely to have a successful career than their mothers or grandmothers.

2. They are also more likely to inherit wealth.

3. They will work fewer years than men because of time out to raise children.

4. They are more likely to be getting their health care through their husband’s job.

5. They have higher divorce rates than my generation, which affect their pensions and health insurance.

6. The average age of widowhood in America is 55.

7. Women are more likely to be focused on the present, and tend to postpone important decisions that will affect them 20 years from now. It's a lot more fun to plan a birthday party than read the business section of the paper.

8. Fewer than 1/2 of women have a retirement plan. That would be me until about 20 years ago.

9. Women actually prefer a female financial advisor, but there aren’t very many. No comment. I like our guy and he's younger than us.

10. Gen-Y women are often too busy paying off student loans, credit card debt and leisure expenses to worry about retirement. Gen-X hasn’t done much better. I did no retirement stuff until I was in my 40s, then I started putting the maximum allowed in my 403-b, so it is possible to catch up. But we are savers by nature and have never had a penny of credit card debt--you’re a different generation.

11. 45% of 65 year old women will live to be 90. Women should be saving $5,000 a year starting at age 25 to maintain a middle class lifestyle when they are retired. It’s called the miracle of compounding interest (and the impossible dream, in my opinion).

12. The poverty rate for elderly women is nearly twice that of elderly men (13. 1%) and they live an average of 6 years longer. Most of these women were comfortable when their husbands were still alive. Elderly widowers are more likely to remarry (someone younger) which keeps them out of nursing homes, and they have a chauffer, cook and companion. Because I have a teacher’s pension, I am not eligible for my husband’s social security--so you need to know the law when planning.

13. Uncle Sam is a poor step-father for your children, and an even worse live-in boyfriend when you're older. He’ll keep you poor and begging for life if you start depending on him. Marriage and the extended family is still the best financial and health safety net you can have--but take care of yourself.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave a comment and I'll add your name and URL. View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Visitors and visited:
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3032 What it costs to smoke

How do I count the ways? My heart and hopes are with my 38 year old son who has been smoking half his life. When the morning cough and the expense ($8/day--almost $3,000/year) became alarming, he made another resolve to quit. He's made some really good progress this week, and is down to 5 from 45 cigarettes a day.

My husband grew up in a home with smoking parents. His mother who was very fair and blond lost about 5 inches of height in her later years and had a lung tumor (non-operable). Smoking is much harder on women than men. She quit smoking about 5 years before her death (I think she forgot she smoked), and actually recovered some brain function. When I met my husband nearly 50 years ago, he coughed every morning but he wasn't a smoker. We think he probably coughed at least an hour or two each morning when he worked in an office where smoking was allowed. I can remember in 1967 when I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois and he drove me to class, he would cough all the way from our house to the drop off on campus--probably a 20 minute drive. When he went to work for a downtown firm in Columbus in the mid 70s in an older, poorly ventilated office, he told them he would quit if they couldn't get him away from the smokers, so they stopped letting the employees smoke in the office. Over time, smoking has been eliminated in most public places, even stadiums, but I remember when the library employees smoked behind the circulation desk--patrons didn't, but staff areas were OK. And in retail stores--the clerks were all smoking at the registers. You couldn't get away from it. It was bizarre.

I heard Rush Limbaugh complaining today about the liberal conspiracy behind the smoking initiatives in various states. Rush may be right that the backers are liberals, but I hope we can stop issue 4, which will again allow smoking in bars and restaurants, and pass issue 5 which will stop it. Apparently, Rush hasn't noticed how many people earn their living working as waitresses, bar tenders, bussers and kitchen help in restaurants. A public non-smoking law was passed in Scotland this year, and within a month, when they tested the employees of restaurants, there was a huge improvement in their lung function (reported in JAMA).

Vote NO on #4, the amendment to the Ohio Constitution, called euphemistically, "Smoke Less Ohio," which will bring smoke back to our restaurants, hotels, nursing homes, etc.

smoking laws
anti-smoking laws
smoking ban
smokers
Ohio
Politics
Smoke Less Ohio

3031 Go Martha!

USA Today noted that "more than 18 months after Martha Stewart was released from prison, the company she founded continues to show signs of recovery. Advertising revenue for her magazines rose 75%.

Seems that college tuition is up almost 290% in the last 20 years, and hospital services are up 280%. The Consumer Price Index is up 84.3%. That means housing, fuel, food and beverages, electricity, new cars and apparel rose more slowly than 20 years ago. I suppose it depends on where you're spending your money. Tuition averages $5,836 at a public university today, or $12,796 when all expenses are considered.

Blacks seem to be leaving the plantation. USA Today highlighted 6 African American candidates for Senate and Governor today. Three were Republicans and three were Democrats, although the one who got the most inches was Democrat of course.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last Wednesday in a 4-3 decision that publicly funded, privately operated charters schools are constitutional. I know the unions won't give up and it will come back at us again. Judge Alice Robie Resnick wrote a dissenting opinion. She's our Supreme Court Judge who's had 2 drunk driving convictions in less than a year. She says she'll resign next January, but I wonder why she thinks she can do her job on the bench if she doesn't have enough brain cells left to know she should stay off the roads while under the influence.

We're still squabbling here in Ohio about voter ID. I pity the poll workers. My absentee ballot hasn't arrived yet, although my husband's came yesterday. I 'm sure all this confusion will cause the Dems to cry foul, if they lose. Did you read that dead Democrats are outvoting dead Republicans 4 to 1? Saw that in the Poughkeepsie Journal.

3030 It's not an apology

if you say, "I'm sorry you were offended." Not to your wife, or best friend, or the Army and Marines. Someone let Kerry know so he can try it again. He could choose:

• "I regret what I said. It was rude and untrue."
  
• "I'm so sorry I denigrated our service men and women serving in Iraq. They are the smartest and best we've ever had. Above the national average."
  
• "I'm such a klutz--I tried to insult the President, but insulted you guys instead, and I am sorry. Then I kept making it worse. What a doofus."
  
• "If I'd been a better student myself, maybe I wouldn't keep making these dumb, haughty mistakes. Forgive me?"

John F. Kerry
How to apologize

3029 Adding some color to my life

Once I eliminated all the food triggers from my diet, life at lunch got a bit boring. Not that a sandwich and chips are so beautiful, but I liked the crunch. So I've been trying foods I rarely, or never ate, either because they don't agree with me, or I just didn't like the taste. One thing I'm eating a little of each day, to ease myself into liking, then loving (hopefully), is chopped bell peppers. In the past I've used them in my paintings, but I don't think I ate these.

Summer's Bounty
They are pretty on a salad--red, yellow green, and Meijer's sells small cartons already chopped, so I don't have to buy several and throw half a soft bell pepper away if I don't eat it. Also, they do have a distinct flavor that truly doesn't trigger my taste buds to ask for more!

According to the World's Healthiest Foods website, they are a wonderful addition to my diet, and will protect me from free radicals. I'm not positive what a free radical is, but I think they are like the political radicals, running around with placards shouting deceptive ideas hoping we'll lose the war against heart disease, diabetes and cataracts. In their little red, yellow and green antioxidant uniforms, peppers police the pro-disease rallies of the radicals and throw them out of the parade, tying them up with fiber and hauling the dirty rotten scoundrels off to jail for trial as traitors to our systems.

Red peppers contain lycopene which might help with cancers of the cervix, bladder and pancreas. Peppers contain a lot of vitamin C, beta-carotene, and folic acid, and their consumption is associated with reduced risk of colon cancer. So we've got below the waist covered, right? What about above the waist and neck? If I were a smoker (thank God I'm not) the vitamin A in peppers might help protect me against lung inflammation and emphysema. Long lived smokers have probably been eating peppers! But there are people who get lung cancer who don't smoke, so eating foods in the red-to-yellow family, like bell peppers, pumpkin, papaya, tangerines, oranges, peaches and corn, offer some protection. Some day if I have to have cataract surgery, the red bell peppers will reduce that risk.They're tasting better already!

Bell peppers are in the nightshade family along with eggplant, tomatoes and white potatoes.

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Technorati's search by authority

In checking what questions brought people to my site today, I noticed a technorati search on "politics," and was surprised to see that when those thousands and thousands of blogs were sorted by the "authority" limiter, I was number 2. It seems to select by the number of blogs that link here, which for that service was 815. The first on the list had 816. I don't know how this if figured because TTLB says I have about 560 links coming in. I'd never used the authority filter for those large searches. Looks like something I need to look into.

These searches recorded by my site meter are funny. Today someone's question was "my step son wants to be a nudist," so it found the blog I wrote about 2 years ago which mentioned my great grandmother cared for her daughter's retarded stepson and that my dad had recently arranged for his funeral. Blogs that pass in the night.

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