3344 Those who write for a living also work for minimum wage

or less. "It's a great story but hard to do. Everyone had an agenda and hardly anyone, I thought, completely told me the truth. Worst of all the story took me longer to research and write than any other story I've ever written. A teenage dropout flipping burgers at McDonalds wouldn't accept my hourly wage on this story." Read the whole story, Murder on the Last Turn. He blogs about writing it here.

3343 My baby has her first cavity!

After 15 years of avoiding dentists, my daughter finally went to one she picked out of the yellow pages for her husband, who had a broken crown. She had noticed a tiny black spot on a molar a few weeks ago. The dentist, after she recovered from the shock of seeing an adult mouth with no fillings, told her that because she had not had a cleaning in 15 years, they would need to do it in stages because of plaque build-up. Plaque is the sticky white stuff that forms on teeth and can cause tooth loss from gum disease--even a tooth with no cavities can be lost from poor dental care.

But when the dentist looked closer, there was also no plaque. My daughter brushes twice a day and flosses regularly. However, she also had thyroid cancer about 9 years ago (thyroid was removed), and has some dry mouth, so lack of saliva apparently cuts down on the plaque build up. Whatever the reason--good dental hygiene, good genetics or good luck, the dentist said she'd never seen a mouth like that. And the black spot? Neither the x-rays nor the dentist could find it, so my daughter had to tell them where it was--and yes, it was a cavity.


My baby's first cavity! She'll be 40 this year.

dental hygiene
dentist
gum disease

3342 The Frozen Chosen

I've been following a discussion at another blog about the way WaPo messed up a story about the Falls Church and Truro Episcopal congregations (Fairfax, VA) worship and leaving the denomination. To say the reporter attempted to portray the believers (some prominent Republicans) as weirdo kooks would be mild hyperbole, but close enough. The comments have been as interesting as the original article, and it seems that Lutherans and Episcopalians also use the term "frozen chosen" which originally was a derogatory term for Calvinists, particularly Presbyterians. Anyway, I saw this joke in the comments and laughed out loud.

A young boy was shocked to find that his neighborhood playmates had never been baptized. Thinking quickly, he led them all to the nearest church.

A janitor, the only person there at the time, opened the door and let them in. Upon hearing what they wanted, he led them into the bathroom, where he proceeded to sprinkle each of them with water from a toilet.

Walking home, the boys began to wonder what demonination they had joined.

"Well we can't be baptists," one boy said, "because they dunk you all the way in."

"Well, we can't be Catholics," another boy said. "They pour water over your head and light candles."

After further discussion, another boy finally interrupted in disgust. "Come on, guys, didn't you smell that water? We're 'piscopalians!"

3341 Common errors in English

Oh, I'm in heaven. I could spend all day at this site. I've already learned you shouldn't say make a "360 degree turn" because then you'd be right back where you started. Instead, it's 180 degrees that gets you in an opposite spot--if you're making new year's resolutions, or something.

I saw this at Now Norma Knits another fabulous knitting site. I think knitting blogs are some of the most attractive and interesting in the blogosphere. And here's another Norma with strong opinions. It must go with the name.

And yes, I did make a New Year's resolution, and maybe 2 are still percolating as possibilities. I announced this at my other blog (2nd blog, but I have 10), but I'll reveal it here, since it is now day 6 and I've kept it this long. I am reading the One Year Bible (NIV translation). Each day you get an Old Testament and New Testament passage, a Psalm passage, and some verses from Proverbs.

3340 Today's atheists lack charm

In today's Wall Street Journal there was an editorial that had a very familiar ring. Sam Schulman says today's atheists are no match for their forebearers like George Eliot, Carlyle, Hardy, Darwin, H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. They have no arguments you didn't hear in college and lack charm. He says atheists think religious people like me are stupid, full of superstitions, unsafe for children, full of fables and indefensible. Mr. Schulman goes on to say atheists don't focus on Islamic extremists who openly spew hate and kill apostates. It's people who attend church and actually believe something that upset them. He concludes that atheists are shallow, peevish, unsympathetic whiners who are rigid and preachy. Amen to that.

Now I know what the problem was with an editorial I read in the Upper Arlington News by Richard Ades this week. It was so garbled and poorly written including everything from the 9/11 attack to Merry Christmas attacks that I was hard pressed to make sense of it. But Sam Schulman has shed some light on it. Mr. Ades has been reading Richard Dawkins and watching too much PBS.

I sent a letter to the SNP/UA News. Let's see if they'll publish criticism of one of their own.

3339 White female in charge?

Calm down, Nancy Pelosi. Eighty percent of librarians are female and 89% are white. No one's beating a path to our door. Librarianship is the lowest paid profession that requires an advanced degree. Garbage collectors (usually men) make more. So don't get a swelled head about this position.

"But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling."

Marble ceiling, indeed! Lots of libraries have marble ceilings, and floors, and walls. If you want to make a difference in marble buildings, Ms. Pelosi, maybe the Librarian of Congress could be a librarian?

3338 Death of a friend

John Neff, 72, a former teacher at Upper Arlington High School passed away New Year's Eve of Alzheimer's Disease. His wife and I were in a Bible study group "Harried Housewives," many years ago, and in the 1970s, we occasionally went out together as couples. I saw her at the coffee shop this morning and she told me of his merciful passing. According to the obituary published in the Columbus Dispatch, "John enjoyed his teaching career at Upper Arlington High School, where he taught Sophomore English, Psychology, and Humanities, and was the Alcohol/Drug Educator for the district the last seven years of his career. While at UAHS, he developed a course "The Bible as Lit" . . . He was very active at the Hilltop Church of God, where he taught a young adult Sunday school class and was active in the State Board of Christian Education for that church. Since 1983, he had been actively involved at First Community Church, where he taught adult education classes, served on the Adult Education Council, and Spiritual Searcher Committee, serving as Chair at different times of each, and was a member of the Board of Church and Ministry for the Central Southeast District of the U.C.C. For 22 years, he was a member of the First Community Church Chancel Choir which was a deep joy in his life. Following his teaching career, he did some light catering and was quite the gourmet cook. He was a man of many talents and was very widely read. . . The last job he had before his illness robbed him of his health was as manager of the Utzinger Memorial Garden at the Farm Science Review, a job he loved very much. He spent many hours in his own green house planting seeds to be replanted into his own garden and yard."

Services were held at FCC on January 3, 2007 with Rev. James Long officiating.

Alcohol in breast milk and child abuse

Whatever you think about the morality, pleasure or efficacy of drinking alcohol, you can't honestly say it tastes good. With flavorings, possibly some drinks taste less awful than others. I have never tasted beer because it smells like rotten grain, and I think that's why God gave us a sense of smell.

So if you are pregnant or nursing, are you telling me you can't avoid a bad tasting, mood altering drug for 15 months? (9 months + the 6 average for nursing) Come on, ladies--toughen up. The terrible twos and the teen years are coming at you fast. Get a spine. Put down that bottle of beer or glass of Chardonnay. You can wait three hours 'til your breast milk is safe for someone who weighs 8 lbs and is totally dependent on you.

alcohol
breast milk

3336 My letter to Glenn Beck

Hey, I'm on a roll. Just can't seem to stop writing letters.
.

Dear Glenn,

I wrote to WTVN protesting the programming change. Letter here.

Now I'm wondering. I just heard you insult me and President Ford by joking about his funeral. You said no station but WTVN carried it because they were looking for a reason to avoid carrying you (paraphrase, so don't get picky on me). I listened to it on WTVN radio. It was very moving, and I loved the hymns and the eulogies. My husband, sister (Illinois--way out of range for WTVN) and many friends, and some of my blog readers who e-mailed me, also either watched or listened.

Grow up, Glenn. Not everything is about you. There are times you're ahead--you should just shut up while you're there.

Norma Bruce
(you're on here, but I've switched to Cincinnati for today)

3335 And you think you've got thank you notes to write

Look at all the folks Jordan Richards will need to thank!

3334 The minimum wage smoke screen

I suppose I shouldn't complain that the Democrats will try to make hay with this. But it irritates me no end. In Ohio, the voters were dumb enough to add it to the Constitution through an amendment in November! So nationally, we couldn't get that bad.

A tiny fraction of people in this country (520,000 in 2004, mostly teen-agers, most in leisure and hospitality industry) work for minimum wage, and most of them are part timers on their way up to the next wage level who are not the sole support of their family. No fast food restaurant or motel around Franklin Co. Ohio is hiring at minimum--they are probably paying $7 or more to even get someone to finish filling out the application. Even our illegals are getting about $15/hour in the so-called "jobs that Americans don't want." In 1983 I worked for the Ohio Department of Aging on a grant from JTPA--Job Training Partnership Act. (Yes, I was on the dole--but I was a Democrat then.) I remember attending a conference on low income workers. At that time, 24 years ago, we were told that in order to offer a woman what she could get on welfare [Washington DC], she would have to have a job at $10.50/hour to make up for comparable housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical, free tuition, transportation, and pay for babysitting so she could work, taxes and insurance. That was 1983 money. So how ridiculous is it to look like your political party is a saviour of the low wage earner by raising minimum wage?

Every time Nancy Pelosi was on the news today, I changed channels, and finally put in a DVD of Boston Legal.

George Will's suggestion--let the market decide.

Sit down, shut up, and pay attention

I was listening to the local (Cincinnati) talk show in the car this morning and the host Mike McConnell was talking about how over protected children are today. His plan, if he were in charge of the U.S. Dept. of Education, would be, "Sit down, shut up, and pay attention," and it wouldn't cost the tax payers a penny. This made me think of one of my high school teachers, Warren Burstrom, and I think those were his exact words to Glenn Orr and Marv Miller in Chemistry class. We all loved him and learned a lot. Murray sent me these memories of the "good old days" when we were in school. He was class of 1956. I, of course, am much younger.

Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.

1956 Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.

2006 School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.

1956 Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.

2006 Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.

1956 Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.

2006 Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father's car and his Dad gives him a whipping.

1956 Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2006 Billy's Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy's sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.

1956 Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.

2006 Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Mary turns up pregnant.

1973 5 High School Boys leave town. Mary does her senior year at a special school for expectant mothers.

2006 Middle School Counselor calls Planned Parenthood, who notifies the ACLU. Mary is driven to the next state over and gets an abortion without her parent's consent or knowledge. Mary given condoms and told to be more careful next time.

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.

1973: Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.

2006: Pedro's cause is taken up. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he can't speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.

1956 Ants die.

2006 BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary, hugs him to comfort him.

1956 - In a short time Johnny feels better and goes on playing.

2006 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison.


Gimme 1956 back please!

3332 My letter to Oprah

My husband suggested I turn on the Oprah show--she was doing a program on "class." I watched a few minutes (it was a rerun of an April show), but couldn't handle the twaddle of Robert Reich, Clinton's former Secretary of Labor. Her web site summarizes his thoughts:

Reich "says that a family's ability to provide their children with a quality education, health care and access to other resources determines one's class. "A lot of kids who are poor or working class are not getting the schools that they need and are not having the connections and the models of success that they need."

He notes three indicators of class: "weight, teeth and dialect. In terms of appearance, people who are overweight or have poor teeth are generally regarded as lower class."

I didn’t see the part about teeth but did hear him saying they (lower class and poor) aren't getting good schools. That's been proven false by putting lower class district children into stunning new schools with incredible technology. New bricks don't turn out new scholars. Old values and concerned parents do. Poor families who take the initiative to get their kids into charter schools benefit in the long run. Immigrant Vietnamese and other Asians and even some immigrant Mexicans have managed to move their families into the middle class by hard work and strong family values, not good teeth and good schools.

Here’s my letter to Oprah.

I was disappointed in your "class" show because of the misinformation Robert Reich presented.

The growing gap is not between classes, but between families of married couples and unmarried women with children. Women can virtually eliminate poverty by 1) finishing high school, 2) not having babies as teen-agers, and 3) marrying the father of their children. If her husband takes a job, any job and keeps it, he will almost guarantee their success.

There is still plenty of opportunity in this country--illegals who flood over our borders seeking it is proof of that. But young women need to get smart and stop listening to musicians and boyfriends who call them "Ho" and "bitch" and get down to the business of saving their future children with some backbone and pride.

Maybe you could also open a school for girls here in the U.S.

Source update: William Galston, a Democratic strategist and former domestic affairs adviser to President Clinton is usually acknowledged as the source of the statistics on the relationship between poverty, education and marriage. See James Q. Wilson, City Journal, Why we don't marry. The original Galston source doesn’t seem to be on-line, but every one quotes him. You can look through his bibliography--may be co-authored with Kamarck.

Source update: Kansas City--money and school performance, Cato Policy Analysis . "The lessons of the Kansas City experiment should stand as a warning to those who would use massive funding and gold-plated buildings to encourage integration and improve education."

Robert Reich
Oprah show
poverty
marriage

3331 What I had for lunch

As I noted in September, I decided to lose weight (my 20 blogging pounds) by paying attention to food triggers that made me more hungry. I've lost 17 lbs. and lots of inches where I blog. I've learned to eat to love some foods I'd almost never eaten before, like greens and peppers. Collard greens, turnip greens, bell peppers--red, yellow and orange, and lots of onions. The greens are high in anti-oxidants which help fight all kinds of degenerative diseases and contains trace minerals and calcium. Collard greens (1 cup) have 118.9% of the daily value for vitamin A and 57.6% of vitamin C. But turnip greens are even better with 158.3% of vitamin A and 65.8% of vitamin C. If you have thyroid or gallbladder problems (which I don't) you might want to be cautious about greens, according to The World's Healthiest Foods.

It's awfully hard for one person to eat a bunch of greens before they would go bad, so here's my trick: I lightly saute them with onions in a small amount of olive oil and put them in small individual packages for lunch and freeze them. I don't like those dull, limp, gray blobs you see on steam tables, so these stay bright green.

Today I quickly grilled with a touch of olive oil about 1/2 cup of frozen organic sweet corn with one of my packages of turnip greens and onions, and about a fourth of a red pepper--maybe 1/4 cup. The corn adds a touch of sweetness to the turnip greens which aren't as mild as the collard greens. The mild peppers add color and crunch, and are also excellent sources of C and A. If I were eating a cup, it would be even higher than the greens. My, it was so colorful. Just a pleasure to eat with my book.

With lunch, I was reading The Trouble with Africa, by Robert Calderisi, a Canadian who has worked in Africa since 1975. Africa has received some $600 billion in aid since 1960, yet it has actually gotten poorer since then. It's no longer useful to point fingers at colonialism or slavery, the Africans themselves are making a mess of things, and foreign aid seems to be part of the problem.

For dessert I had fresh pineapple. . . and a Christmas cookie.

3330 So you want to be a writer

A snippet from a poem by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), who published his first book of poetry when he was 39. To support his writing, I think he must have worked every job except library clerk.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.

unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

I think this applies to bloggers too, although he was writing about poetry. I've seen a lot of blogs with only 4 or 5 entries over months and years. Bukowski went on to write more than 45 books. I like to write; hate to publish.

Tomorrow I will start working on Poetry Thursday and won't do Thursday Thirteen for awhile. I'm about out of lists.

thursday thirteen
Poetry thursday
Charles Bukowski
writing
poetry

3329 WSJ features two stories about libraries

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured librarianship in its Career Journal section. Gee, most of this good news should have been withheld or the profession will never get the new blood. Must have been a woman writer (see my previous article here).

The writer opines (parentheses are my comments):
1) An aging profession (therefore, there must be opportunity--and haven't we been hearing that since the 1960s when I was in grad school?).
2) Low salaries (you don't want to know how bad they are).
3) Limited opportunities in desirable areas (in rural areas it's $25,000/year and all the snow you can shovel).
4) Expensive advanced degree requirements--ca. $20,000 at a top school like my alma mater. (It's not unusual to find librarians with 2 or 3 advanced degrees because they keep going to school while job hunting.)
5) 80% of the profession is female. (This always depresses salaries and causes a problem in a field that increasingly is computer dependent, a field dominated by men).
6) 89% of the profession is white. (It's not called welfare for the middle class for nothing!)
7) The better salaries are in the private sector (i.e., corporate, but the profession tends to be anti-capitalism).

Then today there was a lengthy opinion piece in the WSJ by someone named John J. Miller, who suggests that libraries should hang on to Hemingway, Proust, and Solzhenitsyn even if it means crowding out the latest John Grisham and David Baldacci. He uses the Fairfax Co. VA system which apparently has installed a circulation system that will flag books for withdrawal (that's the librarian's sexy term for "dump it") when it hasn't circulated (librarian's term for check-out a book) for two years. He thinks libraries should be cultural repositories because they can't compete in today's world of Amazon.com, i-Pod and MP3.

". . .librarians should. . .discriminate between the good and bad, the timeless and the ephemeral . . . as teachers, advisers and guardians. [They shouldn't be] clerks and stock boys at grocery stores."

Oh dear! Sometimes it is hard to know if someone is writing tongue in cheek. He apparently doesn't realize that librarians already are acting as guardians of the public welfare. They are more liberal than the ACLU or Barbra Streisand and Tim Robbins combined. Just go look at the issues and forums on the web page for the American Library Association and read the Bush bashing.

E.S. Browning pitches like a girl

Several times I've written posts about the differences in writing style between men and women. Most of my examples come from the Wall Street Journal. Women staff writers of this publication use fewer idioms, less colorful language, and usually include more direct quotes. Their articles also contain a "yes, but. . ." lead if they are presenting anything positive about the economy or culture. Or they hate to commit. The good news will be placed near the bottom, if you persevere through their stodgy style. Let me offer some examples by writers whose names clearly indicate their sex.

First the guys in yesterday's paper:

"The hedge-fund locomotive ran into some impossible obstacles but for the most part kept chugging ahead in 2006." Gregory Zuckerman

"Latin American stocks surged to a 4th straight year of double-digit increases, their longest streak in at least 19 years, as global investors increased bets that big economies such as Mexico and Brazil have bid "adios" to a rocky past of one crisis after another." John Lyons

"The deal-making world can hardly suppress its glee about 2006, which will go down as the best year to date. Business has been so good that some are gritting their teeth, afraid their luck may somehow run out." Dennis K. Berman

And now the ladies:

"Bond investors enter 2007 divided about the prospects for the U.S. economy. They will find out in the coming months which camp has it right." Serena Ng

"Asian stocks logged another year of gains, but it wasn't an easy ride for investors." Laura Santini

"As the air rushed in and out of the crude-oil market in 2006, the breathless rise and surprising fall dominated discussion of whether the commodity boom could last." Ann Davis

Notice the next time you read WSJ, Forbes or Business Week: The men who write about business, politics and economics heavily use gambling, sports, technological, automotive and agricultural idioms, anecdotes, methaphors and analogies. They play games with words and tease the reader just a bit--using double meanings, puns and ambiguities. They coin new words, invent proverbs, use slang, and get sloppy with foreign words, like using "adios" in my second example (for Brazil it should be Portuguese, not Spanish).

The women, on the other hand, are more literal, timid and bland. If they do use figurative language, the phrase is probably so commonplace, we don't even notice, i.e. they are as dull as dishwater but hit the nail on the head. They tend toward touchy-feely and weakly emotional words to humanize the markets--"disappointing performance," "hoping it starts strongly," "outlook is cloudy," "could fizzle," etc.

So all this leads me to E. S. Browning. He writes like a woman. The exception that proves my rule. In fact, because of his use of initials (his friends call him Jim according to one article I Googled), I'd always figured he was a female--that and his straight-forward, gloomy, no-nonsense writing style. He's a 27 year staff writer veteran for the Journal and is the writers' union representative, according to articles that quote him.

"Investors are approaching 2007 with a high degree of optimism--perhaps too high, some skeptics worry." E. S. Browning

3327 Today is the day

to send thank you notes for the gifts you received, the parties you enjoyed, and to the people who were a bit less fortunate, losing a loved one over the holidays or experiencing a reversal in good health or personal life. And I don't mean e-mail. E-mail just doesn't cut it for special occasions, sympathy, or sincere thank yous. Open the desk drawer, pull out a card, find a pen and a stamp. Then you can lie awake at night solving the world's problems without these details popping up. If you're a Democrat, write a note to remind your congressperson about all the promises made. If you're a Republican, drop a note to those who are still in the game about why the others were voted out. Those guys don't need paper and stamps--send e-mail--it will all go in the circular file anyway.

Oh yes, and take down your outside lights.

3326 Losing weight isn't rocket science

says Tara Parker-Pope, the health writer for the Wall St. Journal. Make tiny changes she says, and see some amazing results. If you love a daily Starbucks Grande Latte (260 calories) on your drive to work, switch to coffee three times a week, and you'll save 21,840 calories, or 6 lbs a year. Skipping shredded cheese on your lunch salad is 10,000 calories a year, or another three pounds. There--you've got a good start on the next holiday season.

3325 Correcting the myth of DDT

Steven Milloy of Junk Science.com had a letter in the WSJ last week correcting the myth of thinning bird eggs that had appeared in one of their articles.

I can't find the letter online, but he essentially provides the same argument in this Canadian publication, "Bald-eagle DDT myth still flying high."

As early as 1921, the journal Ecology reported that bald eagles were threatened with extinction – 22 years before DDT production even began. According to a report in the National Museum Bulletin, the bald eagle reportedly had vanished from New England by 1937 – 10 years before widespread use of the pesticide.

A 1984 National Wildlife Federation publication listed hunting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot as the leading causes of eagle deaths. In addition to these reports, numerous scientific studies and experiments vindicate DDT.

So millions in Third World countries needed to die and continue to die for lack of DDT, and birds' eggs weren't even thinning. Where are the bleeding heart liberals when the poor and brown of the world need them? Probably off somewhere supporting Castro and grieving for Saddam.