3426 A warning about attacks against children

I don't like to post things that I haven't researched, so I'll direct you over to American Daughter and let Nancy explain how she got this very scary information.

3425 Unintended consequences

of the women's movement and drumming up support for choice thirty years ago.

". . . according to the intermediate projections of the Social Security Trustees, by 2030--by which time most of the baby boomers will have retired--the ratio of those of working age to those sixty-five and older will have fallen from five to about three. By that time, older Americans will constitute about 19 percent of the U.S. population, a greater share than of the population of Florida today." Ben Bernanke, Remarks, "The Coming Demographic Transition: Will We Treat Future Generations Fairly?" The Washington Economic Club, Washington, D.C., October 4, 2006

3424 Too young to retire?

Sheryl McCarthy in the Forum section of USA Today (1-31-07) writes about the woes of being a pushed-out, down-sized journalist living on income from part-time jobs and free lancing who wants a "real job." She writes,

". . . we're being prematurely marginalized, even though we have skills that are useful to the economy" and she wants "U.S. companies to stop discriminating against willing and qualified older workers for the jobs that are available."

No, Sheryl, your journalism skills, your network of contacts, your technological know-how, and your cultural mind-set are no longer useful to U.S. newspapers, magazines, and the publishing industry in general. Even some of the facts you supply for your article, don't support your argument, such as there are more people over 55 working full time today than a decade ago, and that the search time to find a job for 50+ is only 15 days longer than younger workers. And lack of mobility could have a lot to do with that.

You mention in your article that before age 58 you worked 17 years for the same newspaper, watching others being shown the door, then it happened to you. You've known this was coming for almost two decades, and what did you do? How long did you think the party would go on before the bar closed? You are a baby boomer. From the time you entered kindergarten, every public service, agency and church in the country from your public school, to the college and universities, to the county and state agencies to the federal government have been looking out for you, opening doors for you with new rules and regulations and adjusting projections and benefits.

When you were 35, how many younger workers, the new grads, did you mentor? How many older workers were you including in your lunch get-togethers or focus groups? Were you adding your older co-workers to task groups you chaired, or helping them in workshops, or stepping aside so they could get the career advancement at your expense? I doubt it.

Step into the shoes for 5 minutes of the HR person (whose job is also on the line daily). MPOW employs 20 people in the writing and communications department, and one person retired whose salary and benefits cost the firm $75,000. The HR reviews 3 candidates, all with strong resumes.

• 1) New college grad (2006), salary range begins about $35,000 + benefits, has huge college loans to pay, still young enough to want to pursue other goals and locales if the opportunity were to come up--maybe Mumbai or LA.
• 2) Recent college grad (ca. 2001) with four solid years of work experience, some post-graduate courses, no unexplained absenses in the work record with former employer (which could indicate health problems or lack of commitment to the career); glowing references including names known to HR person (similar age), and some web and software design experience; salary range begins at about $43,000.
• 3) 58 year old who graduated from Columbia in the early 1970s, very strong resume with reputable journals and newspaper all in the metropolitan Northeastern U.S., now all defunct; can use a laptop and PC but has few other computer skills; no recent course work or foreign assignments; wants $60,000 to even start talking, because "I'm worth it" attitude.

Well, I'd choose #2--she's not green or showing up for work still in party mode, but has useful work experience with a solid network and HR hopes she'll stick around and help the company grow. There's enough money in the piggy bank to hire her with some left over for a part-timer or free lancer who won't require benefits--maybe that #3 candidate who also applied for the job. HR gets a bonus for hiring smart.

older workers
employment discrimination
ageism

Tax cuts soak the rich

Not really, but the tax cuts on capital gains of 2003 increased tax revenues by 68%, according to the Congressional Budget Office. I've been looking for a good summary rather than the huge report for a link. But here's a graph of just how far off the CBO has been in their estimates. The forecast for 2006 was $57 billion, but actual receipts were $110 billion. Maybe they were weather forecasters in an earlier life?

So what happened? Lowering the rate, according the WSJ, provided incentive to sell, and that meant money to reinvest which meant more growth, which meant more jobs, which meant more taxes for our Congress to spend.

Even if it means more tax money, it still makes Democrats mad because they don't want anyone in the top percentage of wealth (except Kerry and Edwards) to get a break. So they're still talking about repealing the "tax break for the rich." They'll have some 'splaining to do since the rich now pay even more.

Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts—and the Facts. Check the full story at Heritage Foundation

Myth #1: Tax revenues remain low.
Fact: Tax revenues are above the historical average, even after the tax cuts.

Myth #2: The Bush tax cuts substantially reduced 2006 revenues and expanded the budget deficit.
Fact: Nearly all of the 2006 budget deficit resulted from additional spending above the baseline.

Myth #3: Supply-side economics assumes that all tax cuts immediately pay for themselves.
Fact: It assumes replenishment of some but not necessarily all lost revenues.

Myth #4: Capital gains tax cuts do not pay for themselves.
Fact: Capital gains tax revenues doubled following the 2003 tax cut.

Myth #5: The Bush tax cuts are to blame for the projected long-term budget deficits.
Fact: Projections show that entitlement costs will dwarf the projected large revenue increases.

Myth #6: Raising tax rates is the best way to raise revenue.
Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.

Myth #7: Reversing the upper-income tax cuts would raise substantial revenues.
Fact: The low-income tax cuts reduced revenues the most.

Myth #8: Tax cuts help the economy by "putting money in people's pockets."Fact: Pro-growth tax cuts support incentives for productive behavior.

Myth #9: The Bush tax cuts have not helped the economy.
Fact: The economy responded strongly to the 2003 tax cuts.

Myth #10: The Bush tax cuts were tilted toward the rich.
Fact: The rich are now shouldering even more of the income tax burden.

Can cartoons help you understand our monetary system?

The New York Federal Reserve Bank has been publishing educational cartoon booklets for 50 years. Saturday’s WSJ had an article about them, and noted that some are pretty good, and some not so. The writer thought some were suitable for younger children than the age rating. I browsed the catalog, and the prices are very reasonable--quantity for classroom use, and I think they would be great for libraries and homeschoolers. My public library doesn't own any of them, but I've sent the suggestion to their round file.

Titles in the comic book series as of the NY Fed website in 1999 included:

The Story of Banks;
The Story of Checks and Electronic Payments;"
The Story of Monetary Policy;
The Story of Money;
Too Much, Too Little, (on the origins of the Federal Reserve System);
A Penny Saved;
Once Upon A Dime;
The Story of Foreign Trade and Exchange;
The Story of the Federal Reserve System.

But more have been added at the catalog home page:

The Story of Consumer Credit,
The Story of Inflation,
Wishes and Rainbows (supplement to a film, Boston Federal Reserve)

While I was looking for these titles in the computer catalog of the PL, I again faced the frustration of its messed up alphabetic sort system--some titles that begin with "THE" sort that way--not all, just enough of them to throw off your search. "The story of banks" brings up "The world. . .", "Thea's", and "Theater." Other times you actually need the word "The" or the title doesn't appear. Also in searching "Federal Reserve" as an author, I learned that its economic periodical the library used to own is now available on-line, but the catalog doesn't provide the hot link. Any library software that can't hot link to free publications needs to upgrade.

Can't wait for the cartoon version? Read in the Jan-Feb 2007 issue of Review (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) "Understanding the Fed," by William Poole.

Educate yourself, your organization, your employees, your ethnic or religious group or your students with these resources, cited in Ben Bernanke's Testimony about Financial Literacy before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, May 2006--tours, workshops, curriculum packages, essay contests, DVD and video instruction.

Federal Reserve Banks
Federal Reserve System
monetary policy
cartoon books
financial education

3421 Good, must read summary of Iraq options and politics

Although the Wall Street Journal is rated the most liberal among MSM for its general news coverage, you can find an alternate view on the editorial page and Readers' Comments. Today has two excellent editorials, one by Bret Stephens on "Options in Iraq," and the other by Fouad Ajami on "The American Iraq."

Stephens points out the five most popular options for the war: 1) Withdraw immediately (Murtha); 2) Cap the troop levels at 140,000 and withdraw by January 2009 before she takes over as President (HR Clinton); 3) Redeploy with limited missions and seek diplomatic openings with Syria and Iran (Hagel and Biden); 4) Advocate for partititon of Iraq (Peter Galbraith); 5) Surge troop numbers in toughest areas and keep them there indefinitely (President Bush), the only strategy of the five that aims at victory, or gives the Iraqi people a chance not just for democracy, but a life.

I never hear the war protestors or the peace advocates count the cost of the Iraqi people for the first four options. Terrorists and insurgents are Muslims (Sunnis and Shia) killing each other--many women and children. Why would they stop if the US troops left? This has been going on since about the 7th century--long before George Bush looked at the Clinton administration's intelligence information for WMD and decided in Saddam's hands they were a threat. The anti-war types hide behind a phony concern for "our troops."

There are centuries of hostility between Shia and Sunni according to Ajami's article. Even if we left tomorrow, the Genie will not go back in the bottle. "The old notion that the Sunnis of Iraq were a martial race while the Shia were marked for lamentations and political grievance has been broken for good."

3420 Home Alone

Normally, I would post this at Coffee Spills, where yesterday's entry would lead you to a great site for alpaca clothing. However, this blog is my "opinion journal," so today I want to mention here what I overheard there.

I was at my usual spot at Panera's, listening to classical music, enjoying the fire and reading the Wall St. Journal. Two women I see there about once a week sat at the next table, also by the fire, our chairs nearly touching. I hear them talking, then realize one woman is talking quietly on her cell phone to her son, who is still at home waiting to be picked up by the school bus. It's dark in central Ohio at 6:30 a.m., and today is bitterly cold. She's sweetly reminding him to open the front door so the bus driver knows he is in the house, and to be sure the porch light is on. She also reminds him to turn off the TV before he leaves, and then she signs off with something lovey-dovey, and starts to chat with her friend.

I hear her tell her tablemate that she and her kids communicate better by e-mail and IM than they do face to face. Gee, I wonder why?

And I have tears in my eyes thinking about a little boy at home alone, in the dark, waiting for the school bus while Mom enjoys a cinnamon crunch bagel and coffee with a friend. Did he have breakfast? Does he need to review the spelling words? Will the dog get out? Will he "forget" to wear his gloves?

3419 The Presidential Prayer Team

Dear John: I'm more than happy to be a team member, to pray daily for our President, the Congress, SCOTUS, and all the bureaucrats. However, I'm not going to send you money. Nope. Absolutely not. I believe I've given and given and given. Not that I haven't gotten a lot back, mind you. Love those interstates, national parks, libraries, a clean Lake Erie and the refund I'll get this year for the Spanish American War phone tax. But for prayer, well, it just seems a little tacky to ask for money for something the Bible tells us to do. Sincerely, Norma

3418 Helen Shapiro

While I was preparing dinner, the TV was on in the living room and I walked in to see what the movie was--I heard a young man's voice I didn't recognize. It was (I think) a 1961 or 62 movie, but the young man was a teen-age girl. I thought it was a put on, but my husband insisted it wasn't that kind of movie. "I think she's British and she just has a deep voice." I went back to cooking and insisting that was a man's voice. When the credits scrolled I jotted down her name and looked her up on Google. I was so wrong! Helen Shapiro, in the early 60s was the top female pop artist in Britain, shared the stage with the Beatles, was on the Ed Sullivan Show and recorded "It's my party" before Leslie Gore did, but it wasn't promoted. She was a teen-age phenom, and still has a following as a jazz singer.

In 1987 she became a Christian and you can see her current material at her website Manna Music.

Helen as a teen-ager--and what a deep voice! You'll see why I was confused.

Cold, cold city, this Columbus

It's a bit nippy--23 F, wind chill 10 F. My fingers are stiff. The thermostat is a room away, and God only knows where Al Gore and his hot air bandwagon are. So the cat jumps up in my lap while I type, and for awhile I have warm thighs. . . and lots of cat hair as she settles in for a long winter's nap.


Cat hair on the keyboard
cat hair on the floor
cat hair in the vacuum
It won't hold anymore.

Cat hair on the bedspread
cat hair in the sink
cat hair on my best clothes
and not just where you'd think.

Cat hair on my shoulders
cat hair in the pears,
cat hair up the stair well
and on the dining chairs.

Cat o mine, I love you
could not do without
But keep your hair, dear heart,
and not so round about.

Monday Memories--digitized ancestors

There are not many in my immediate family interested in genealogy, but if I point, they'll look. I want to mention a wonderful source for your memories available only through your public library (if it subscribes), The HeritageQuest Online, a book collection made up of 7,922 family histories, 12,035 local histories and 258 primary sources with the 1790-1930 census images. It has been on microfilm for some years, but few libraries owned it because of the high cost. It is a ProQuest product and can be accessed at subscribing libraries (I use Upper Arlington Public Library) or by remote access using your own computer and library card. Sometimes library consortia buy it and make it available to the entire state system (I'm not sure about Ohio and whether what I access is in a consortia).

I came across this source just browsing at my library about two weeks ago. I suppose it was publicized, but I hadn't seen it or wasn't doing genealogy just then. The quality and depth is breath taking. You can search by people, place and keyword; you can browse titles with bibliographical data and links. I could easily use the indexes and find the correct pages of the on-line books within this database. Printing the right page was a bit tricky, but considering that in the past you might have had to travel hundreds of miles to examine these sources after frustrating hours of tracking them down, what's a few dollars for printing?

Also at my library, and maybe yours, is the Ancestry.com collection. It duplicates some of Heritage Quest, has some really nice browsing features, but the images aren't as good. My library doesn't allow remote access, but here is a link to the one at Columbia University just so you can see what's in it.

These sources are where I found the photocopy (not just record) of my grandfather's WWI 1918 draft card from Lee County, IL; my great grandfather's public land purchases; the Revolutionary War pension petition by the widows of my don't-know-how-many gggg grandfathers in Virginia; the address of the house where my husband's great grandmother lived in Beaver Co. PA before her husband disappeared. Folks, I've seen a lot of on-line material in my professional and personal life with libraries, and these--for the memories--just blew me away.

Because of name changes, our female family members are difficult to track, so have fun looking for your "lost mothers" in an ever growing digital universe of sources.

P.S. There are also many state archives free on the internet for which you don't need any library access.

family history, genealogical websites, public library, digitized documents, U.S. census

View More Monday Memories Participants
My visitors and those I'll visit this week are:Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie.

3415 Mathematically challenged

It's no secret. Numbers are not my field. I took algebra and geometry in high school and managed to graduate from college with zero math, getting caught in a net of new requirements when I was in my mid-30s as I decided to update my teacher's certificate (I never used it), which by then had a basic math requirement. So when I saw this week's poetry topic. . . "to think as mathematicians, to equate. While we do equate our world with words when we write poetry, I think a prompt like this, to see the world as a mathematical equation. . ." I'd already blacked out by the end of the instructions.

However, even with my math challenged brain I sensed something was wrong with the meat prices this morning. If meat is about to pass its due date for safety, it is marked down, and if you get to the counter at the right time, you can pick up some bargains. I watched the clerk with her little calculator this morning paste the mark-down stickers on the meat.

Something looked a little odd, but not being able to compute in my head I just selected the items that looked good, not noticing that 1 lb. hamburger at $2.89 was now reduced to $.90 which the label said was 40% off or $1.07/lb. I wish I'd bought several. A one pound package that costs $.90 is obviously, $.90/lb, and $1.07 isn't 40% of $2.89--so everything on the sticker was mixed up. I picked up .55 lb of boneless ribeye which was originally $13.49/lb reduced to $8.18/lb and the label said "you pay $3.60 instead of $7.42". I did buy two, because although I can't figure numbers, my heart was beating "bargain, bargain." A similar thing with the stew meat. I'm not sure what sort of calculator/label printer the meat department clerk had, but it definitely went to school with me.

If I weren't so math challenged, I would have pointed out the mistake to someone, but didn't figure it out until I got home and was putting the groceries away.

My Aristocratic Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Venerable Lady Librarian the Loquacious of Withering Glance Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I tried on several--thought this one fit best. What's your title?

HT In Season Christian Librarian

3412 Sweet Land

Tonight we went to see Sweet Land at the Grandview Drexel. That's my third movie in three weeks--twice to see Dream Girls and then this low budget indy which has been slowly building in popularity since its release in 2005. It is based on a 1989 short story by Will Weaver. "A Gravestone Made of Wheat" and is about a Norwegian immigrant farmer in southwestern Minnesota who receives a mail-order bride from Norway, only to discover she's a German who had recently moved to Norway. It is not a "Hollywood" product, and is a beautiful love story of Olaf and Inge as they struggle against the community's prejudice and the moral standards of that era.

The movie begins with Inge's death as an old woman in the 80s, reflects back to the Viet Nam era when Olaf dies, and then starts over with them as young strangers who fall in love around 1920. They encounter prejudice and suspicion in Olaf's strongly Lutheran Norwegian community (it takes place shortly after WWI) and can't marry because her papers are not in order.

Although it's an exceptionally well done film with a wonderful love story and beautiful photography depicting lush farmland and warm friendships, I can't help wondering if there will ever be a film made for commercial release that depicts Christians or even Americans in a positive light? The rural Minnesotan Lutheran congregation insists on speaking only English, even though many of them know Norwegian and the pastor can speak German. As I've come to expect in any film or TV production, everyone but the Christians exhibit Christ's love. There is one very minor character who appears at the beginning and the end whose heart is in the right place--he's of course, an outspoken Socialist.

Inge and Olaf's love story starts and ends with war--WWI and VietNam. The land struggle shows the two of them, both immigrants, harvesting acres of corn by hand, pitted against the modern age of machine farming just developing as farm markets inflated by the war collapse. Yes, and the big, bad commercial interests gobbling up the little guys--and the banker is a relative, a Lutheran sharing the pew on Sunday with the man whose farm he'll auction on Monday.

In what must be the tiniest of sub-plots, there are even two Native Americans, probably from a near-by reservation, helping the banker displace the farmer with 9 children about to be auctioned off his land. The director, Ali Selim, is of Arab parentage doing a xenophobia film when suspicion of Arabs is high, and it's a carbon neutral film (for environmentalists). Ah, the feelgoodiness of it. Oh, it's a good story, absolutely, a story of love and overcoming, and change as the community eventually comes to their aid, but sometimes I just get so tired. . .

Sweet Land
movie reviews
Ali Selim
Minnesota

3411 Gentlemen, please remove your hats

We went to a nice, not elaborate, restaurant last night for Greek cuisine instead of our usual Rusty Bucket (Sports Bar) date. Dinners $15-25, wait staff all dressed in black and well groomed. The attire was casual, but clean jeans and Christmas-present-shirt type. Almost no one in cut offs and sweats. In white slacks and a red jacket, I might have been the most over-dressed. It's a happy place with fake Greek decor--naked statues, grape leaves, that sort of stuff. The tables are filled with Friday after work comrades, widow friendships and family groups.

Does it sound sort of antiquated and old fashioned, like manners; is it too much to expect a guy to take off his baseball cap in a full service restaurant in the evening? The guy at the next table never took off his cap. I couldn't tell if he was with his mom or his date, or if his IQ was a bit low--it was sort of dark. Grow up fellas. Little League is over.

manners
men's hats
restaurant etiquette
Columbus, Ohio

3410 The 10 books no one would lie about

Why would anyone lie and say they'd read these books but didn't? I can see people lying about reading anything, but these? According to a story at 24dash.com , Brits do.

1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolkien

2. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

3. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

4. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - John Gray

5. 1984 - George Orwell

6. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - J.K Rowling

7. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

8. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

9. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

10.Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank

I read War and Peace, parts of it in Russian, and saw a couple of versions of the movie. I read the John Gray book--I think I got it for $.50 at a used book sale. This reminds me, our book club is reading Great Expectations by Dickens for February, and I haven't started it yet. No lie. And I think it will be my first Dickens book. My background in American and British literature is the pits.

HT Readers Read.

3409 Wash your hands and other good stuff

I heard on the news today that the "cruise ship virus" has hit some Columbus hospitals--both patients and staff. The recommendations are that people wash their hands when around patients, preparing food, or using the bathrooms. Duh!

Did you know there are an estimated 1.4 million salmonella infections annually in the U.S.? Most are food borne, but many are acquired from animals, particularly pet rodents, such as hamsters, mice or rats. Another reason to wash you hands after handling animals, particularly at the pet store. NEJM 356:21-8 (January 4, 2007)

Nearly 20% of automobile crashes involve driver sleepiness unrelated to alcohol, and the total direct and indirect costs of sleepiness and sleep disorders amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the U.S. An estimated 50-70 million Americans have sleep-related problems. This information was included in a review of Sleep disorders and sleep depreivation: an unmet public health problem, published in 2006 by the National Academies Press, published in NEJM 356;2, January 11, 2006. You can read the summary and chapters here. I personally think this book belongs in your public library--it's not very expensive--because the recommendations involve national issues and policies. Mine would only have to give up one cook book or one Elvis title to buy it. Hand washing won't help you sleep better, but good sleep hygiene will.

3408 You can't marry your dental hygienist

or optician, or massage therapist because current law in some states won't even let you get acquainted. Even if you change doctors, you're prohibited from any contact for two years. You can't even date her sister or brother! Read Eugene Volokh in Opinion Journal to see how far we've gone with that bugaboo term "health care provider/practitioner," and sexual harrassment. This makes Victorian manners and morals look positively decadent.

And you alternative medicine folks aren't off the hook. In Minnesota "the law applies to a wide range of alternative health care practitioners, and not just massage therapists [where a suit was brought by the former husband of a woman who married her former client under this crazy law]. In particular, it covers people who practice "(1) acupressure; (2) anthroposophy; (3) aroma therapy; (4) ayurveda; (5) cranial sacral therapy; (6) culturally traditional healing practices; (7) detoxification practices and therapies; (8) energetic healing; (9) polarity therapy; (10) folk practices; (11) healing practices utilizing food, food supplements, nutrients, and the physical forces of heat, cold, water, touch, and light; (12) Gerson therapy and colostrum therapy; (13) healing touch; (14) herbology or herbalism; (15) homeopathy; (16) nondiagnostic iridology; (17) body work, massage, and massage therapy; (18) meditation; (19) mind-body healing practices; (20) naturopathy; (21) noninvasive instrumentalities; and (22) traditional Oriental practices, such as Qi Gong energy healing."

Poetry Thursday #4

Our prompt this week is "Why I love poetry." In 153 words or less. I don't have a "poetry base;" no courses, no publications. But I love it when poetry nails it. Sometimes it's only a line or a phrase, but there's a connection. An ah-ha moment. Yesterday I read a poem about an Irish WWI airman who died in Italy (Yeats). It's today's news almost 90 years ago.

This week I was reading "The Best American Poetry, 2006," guest editor, Billy Collins. On pp. 30-33, there is a poem by Amy Gerstler, "For my niece Sidney, age six." She begins with Margaret Davy in 1542 being boiled to death for poisoning her employer, an item she came across reading the 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica. She uses it to launch a poem about what simmers in the crock-pot of her head, and moves on to speculate that her untamable, curious niece may someday like Martin Luther nail theses to a door (about which she also read that day in the encyclopedia).

I used to own 7 sets of encyclopedias. My favorite which I still enjoy browsing with a cup of coffee belonged to my grandfather--the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published in 1910 (I also own the 12th and 13th). It's printed on tissue thin paper and bound in black leather which is crumbling a bit on the spines.

In this poem, Gerstler writes about owning 5 sets of encyclopedias. . .

"That's the way I like to start my day;
drinking hot black coffee and reading
the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Its pages are tissue thin and the covers
rub off on your hands in dirt colored
crumbs (the kind a rubber eraser
makes) but the prose voice is all knowing
and incurably sure of itself. . . "

Connect!

Poetry Thursday
Poetry
Amy Gerstler
American poetry

3406 The violence around us

If you're wringing your hands about the violence in Baghdad, Babel and Baqouba open your local metropolitan newspaper. I've seen the violence statistics for California compared to Iraq. But things have been rough this past week in mild-mannered Columbus, OH, test market of the country.

Over the week-end at the movie theater about 2 miles north of here where we like to go for $1.00 admission, Delmar gunned down his wife Ernestine, killing her, after tracking her and their two daughters down. Then he put the shotgun in his mouth and killed himself. Eric from the homicide squad said, "They'd been having some problems." No! Really?

I was waiting in line at the post office yesterday (again, my neighborhood) and a woman customer told the clerk she was changing her daughter's address for mail delivery because a number of apartments on Dierker Rd. had been broken into, so her daughter was moving in with her for awhile.

There was a police chase 2 days ago from Wilmington to Columbus that finally ended at a bridge over one of our rivers. One perp jumped out of the car and over the guard rail. There's not much ice on the river, but it's terribly cold. They dragged the river for some time, and finally found him yesterday. All caught on video for the evening news, of course. The two other burglary suspects, both with records and weapons, aren't divulging their buddy's name.

A store owner, Abdel Shalash a father of two, was shot and killed by some teenagers for $150.

A school bus driver was stopped for a traffic violation yesterday and police found cocaine on the bus--he was on his way to pick up kids. I didn't know Columbus outsourced this task to private companies, but apparently he had a long record of problems. Today none of the buses are running because that company isn't sending out any of its drivers. I hope they aren't just pouting and are checking their security files.

Habitat for Humanity homeowners in central Ohio are being scammed by mortgage companies to refinance from 0% to 8.99% and take their equity for cash with closing costs of $7,000.

A 16 month old baby was beaten to death a few months ago, and they've finally charged her father's girlfriend. Parents were never married, of course.

50 year old Chris Wright got life for stabbing to death a man who rushed to the aid of a neighbor Wright was robbing.

There's a lot of sin and violence out there. Just open your paper.