3646

Di-Fi flap fails to faze Dems

The hardest thing to get used to as a Republican is how they immediately cave in on everything. Like the firing of political appointees for being political. Why do those guys think they got the job? You’d never find a Democrat running from controversy! It’s just a smoke screen to cover the tail between their legs as they cut and run in Iraq. I’ll stay Republican so I can vote in the primaries, but these folks are just so wimpy I go crazy. And they really aren’t strong on pro-life anymore, and will probably collapse on stem-cell if a Democrat celebrity with a disease says BOO. God knows, the Republicans spend money like Democrats--and I didn’t like that even 10 years ago.

So now that Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has resigned as chair of the Military Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) after six years of running it with a conflict of interest because of her husband's war contracts (Richard C. Blum's companies) and oversight for funding for wounded soldiers, I'm pretty sure there won't be calls for her to close her office and quit (except from the farleft who see her as an evil Republican). Democrats seem to lead a charmed life when it comes to ethics and conflicts of interest. They don't even mind that George Soros, who supports all sorts of left wing causes, gets richer daily with Halliburton stock. (BTW, I see that Halliburton is 6th in government contracts, but University of California system is 7th--oops, the top 5 are also in California.

"As of December 2006, according to SEC filings and www.fedspending.org, three corporations in which Blum's financial entities own a total of $1 billion in stock won considerable favor from the budgets of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs:

Boston Scientific Corporation: $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies; 85 percent of contracts awarded without benefit of competition.

Kinetic Concepts Inc.: $12 million, medical equipment and supplies; 28 percent noncompetitively awarded.

CB Richard Ellis: The Blum-controlled international real estate firm holds congressionally funded contracts to lease office space to the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also is involved in redeveloping military bases turned over to the private sector."

Disclosure: Everything I've read about this seems to point back to this source, and I know little about it except it covers California's celebrity scene.

Update: Here in central Ohio, a sheriff in a nearby county has been disgraced and had to leave office for directing a contract worth $1300 to his son-in-law. He has pled guilty, apologized, and said he was ignorant of the law, but because of his position of trust, that's no excuse. Now there's a man who knows what to do when you're caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Di-Fi should be so brave.

COWS

Not Holsteins. Not Brown Swiss. Not Belted Galloways. COWS is the acronym for Central Ohio Watercolor Society, and Saturday we hung their Spring Show at The Church at Mill Run, 3500 Mill Run Drive, Hilliard OH 43026. The show will run April 1 - May 10 and you can see it between 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and Sunday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.





COWS was established in 1965 and holds steadfastly to true transparent watercolor. It sponsors worshops and paint-outs and holds two juried exhibitions per year. This year Stan Pierce is the president. New member applications are accepted in November.

3644

Have you ever had one of those weeks

where it seemed to be non-stop eating? I've written here several times since September about weight loss, and I've been successful and am right where I want to be for the last 60 days. Last Tuesday I noticed I was a bit under. Well, not to worry, it was a rather social week. Pie on Thursday. Pie on Friday. Cake on Saturday. Nibbles and brownies with frosting on Sunday afternoon. Nibbles and some sort of cream dessert in a graham cracker crust on Sunday evening. This morning I feel like I've been run over by a truck. I think this is a carb hang-over.

3643

Korean War Vet proposes duct tape solution

When Sen. Joe Biden was stumping a very small audience in Sumter,SC, he asked them for Iraq solutions. A 79 year old Korean War veteran suggested duct tape:

"But when Biden turned to the audience for questions, John Stevens, a 79-year-old Air Force disabled veteran of Korea and Vietnam, told Biden he had a better solution.

The war's being lost in Congress by the people who give aid and comfort to the enemies that are killing our troops," he said.

Stevens then said he had his own plan: "I call it the duct tape solution. You take a roll of duct tape and you put it over the mouths of the people that are criticizing our troops and also causing the enemy to continue attacking our troops and blowing them up."

Story at Myrtile Beach Online, noticed at Don Surber's site.

This could be an April Fool!

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Some mountains are very real; some, not so much. Be sure you know the difference!

3641

Travel by walking

I must be missing something. Researchers have determined that 6th grade girls who walk to and from school (called "travel by walking" in the published study) have more minutes of physical activity than non-walkers. Eight people with a doctorate and one with an MS participated in designing and publishing this study. http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/161/2/153 The next thing you know someone will want to study the cutting edge concept that pop, potato chips and candy bars contribute to childhood obesity.

The night Research went on a joy ride

In my Thursday Thirteen I'd mentioned working on a poem. It may not stay exactly in this form. April is poetry month--write or read a poem.

The night Research went on a joy ride
by Norma Bruce
March 31, 2007

Surprise and his best friend Serendipity
picked up the good-looking Research.
As they left the house that night
her mother, Discipline, was nagging and
her dad, Questioning, looking for a fight.

So they sent along her younger brothers
Assumption, Guess and Hunch
who rode along in the back seat
to throw spit balls in the stacks
and trip Librarians they would meet.

Along the way they picked up
Strategy and Documentation
who kept them from caution tossing
to the wind as the lovers parked
on Mount Concept Glossing.

When they stopped to refuel they hailed
Curiosity and Argument waiting for a ride,
noticing Challenges and Debates smoking
language and meaning in the dark
where Inquiry and Paradox were groping.

It was a wild ride that night,
with passionate struggles and heavy breathing.
And now poor Research is pregnant.
Will she birth a fat Report, short Novel
or just a Sweet Little Memory segment?

3639

Ask your doctor about

low dose aspirin. Especially if you are a woman.

Story from Medscape.com, as reported in the March 26 Archives of Internal Medicine

"In this prospective, nested, case-control study, 79,439 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study who had no history of cardiovascular disease or cancer provided data on medication use biennially since 1980. Relative risk (RR) of death according to aspirin use was determined before diagnosis of incident cardiovascular disease or cancer and during the corresponding period for each control subject.

During 24 years, there were 9477 deaths documented from all causes. Compared with women who never used aspirin regularly, women who reported current aspirin use had a multivariate RR of death from all causes of 0.75 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71 - 0.81). Risk reduction was more evident for death from cardiovascular disease (RR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.55 - 0.71) than for death from cancer (RR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.81 - 0.96).

Aspirin use for 1 to 5 years was associated with a significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality (RR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.61 - 0.92), whereas a significant reduction in risk for cancer deaths was not observed until after 10 years of aspirin use (P for linear trend = .005). The benefit associated with aspirin was confined to low and moderate doses, and it was greater in older women (P for interaction < .001) and in women with more cardiac risk factors (P for interaction = .02).

"In women, low to moderate doses of aspirin are associated with significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality, particularly in older women and those with cardiac risk factors," the authors write. "A significant benefit is evident within 5 years for cardiovascular disease, whereas a modest benefit for cancer is not apparent until after 10 years of use." "

I have a very conservative doctor, and have been on low dose aspirin probably 7 or 8 years.

3638

Slum Lords

Ellen DeGeneres is selling listing her home for 52% more than she paid for it about a year ago. I forgot to write down how many million--noticed it in the WSJ. She owns others. Don't know if she ever actually lived there. Here's an item by John Updike that appeared in the Autumn 1998 American Scholar.

The superrich make lousy neighbors–
they buy a house and tear it down
and build another, twice as big, and leave.
They're never there; they own so many
other houses, each demands a visit.
Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,
bustling with servants and masters, such as
Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,
are districts now like Wall Street after dark
or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.
The essence of the superrich is absence.
They're always demonstrating they can afford
to be somewhere else. Don't let them in.
Their money is a kind of poverty.
– John Updike, Slum Lords

There was also an item in the WSJ today about a wealthy Japanese-Hawaiian who is letting homeless people live in his properties in expensive neighborhoods. Supposedly, amassed his wealth by being a slum lord. Now people are just a bit suspicious that he's doing this to drive property values down so he can buy out his neighbors. Makes sense doesn't it? Do bad by doing good. You probably aren't happy when the county buys property in your neighborhood for housing vouchers for the poor.

3638

Are you owned by a cat or dog?

You'll enjoy Pepek's story. And she's got a great photo of her dog, too. Check this out.

3637

If this had happened in Iraq

or to gay men in San Francisco or blacks in New York, there would be a full fledged congressional investigation to see why the President hasn't done something. There has been a substantial increase in unintentional poisoning mortality. Actually, it's way beyond substantial. Poisoning mortality rates in the U.S. rose 62.5% during the 5-year period 1999 to 2004. 20,950 deaths in 2004 alone, up from 12,186 in 1999.

And the increase has happened mostly to white women. The largest increases were among females (103.%), whites (75.8%), persons living in the southern U.S. (113.6%), and persons aged 15-24 years (113.3%). Among all sex and racial/ethnic groups, the largest increase (136.5%) was among non-Hispanic white females. So what's included? Overdoses of illegal drugs and legal drugs taken for nonmedical reasons (think Anna Nicole Smith), legal drugs taken in error or at the wrong dose, and poisoning from other substances (alcohol, pesticides or carbon monoxide). Deaths from proper doses are not included.

Where's the outrage? Where's Barbara Walters and Katie Couric and their deep analysis?

Story in JAMA, March 28, 2007, and MMWR, 2007:56

Friday Family Photo

My father's high school graduation photograph for Polo, IL High School was probably taken in a borrowed suit. If it was in the fall he was 16, but I really don't know the time of year in those days that photos were prepared for the yearbook. When people remember my dad, they don't usually comment on his good points--like hard working, honest, loyal son, good looks, etc.--no, it's more likely to be, tough, intimidating or tenacious.

My father never learned to be laid back or keep his opinions to himself until he was maybe 75-80. Like me, (or me like him) he had an opinion on everything, and was quite well read and followed the news. He was a Republican (married to a Democrat), a small businessman, veteran of WWII and the oldest of nine children.

I remember my father's opinions on schools and education. Children, his own or relatives or yours and mine, who had problems in school had one of three problems (or all three): they were 1) lazy, or 2) dumb, or 3) delinquent. With so many siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, children and grandchildren, most of them well educated and living nearby, he learned eventually to keep his unpopular opinions to himself, or leave the house if education came up for discussion. But if you had asked, that would be the answer. He didn't believe in pathologizing bad behavior or sin, and the only acronyms that would have passed his lips were BS and SOB.

Dad was an observant man and may have learned this in his own family. Although Dad went on to college, his brother 17 months younger didn't finish high school. If family lore can be believed, this kid was a problem from the beginning--definitely "oppositional defiant disorder." He had to be "encouraged" to attend the local country school by my grandfather walking him there with an occasional swat and nudge with the boot. But one of Dad's little sisters was reading the newspaper to her blind mother at age 4, and they weren't quite sure how she learned to read so she started school at that age. The brother grew up to be bigger than my dad with a mean, rebellious streak which kept him alive in many dangerous missions in WWII. There's a place for everyone, and apparently it isn't always school.

3635

Thursday Thirteen

Although I don't usually make to-do lists, TT is really useful for that, don't you think? Don't want to forget anything, so here goes.

1. Meet Chuck and Louise for dinner. Don't usually go out on Thursday night but they are briefly in town and it will be good to see them. Done.
2. Get over my pout that they didn't tell us they moved to Texas in December. OK. I'm over it. Cross this one off.
3. Make a sugar-free sour cream apple pie for dessert for Friday. It was yummy.
4. Meet Sue and Wes for dinner on Friday night. Great fun.
5. Show them my husband's photos from Haiti. They loved it.
6. Should clean up my office since those are on my office computer. Lick and a promise, but checked off.
7. Hmmm. Better do a quick check of the bathrooms, too. Swipe.
8. Work on the poem that's been rattling around in my head. Finished; See above.
9. Write the VAM minutes. Visual Arts Ministry--done; next meeting 2 weeks.
10. Create small explanation cards for Luann's basket exhibit at the church. I've viewed them to check on size.
11. Return magazines and DVDs to the library. Yes, and threw in a walk in the park.
12. Take at least a 2 mile walk because I'm in that Lenten walking group. See #11.
13. Check on the TT-ers whom I haven't visited in ages because I've been doing Poetry Thursday. Visited maybe 6 or 7.

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

Poetry Thursday #13

This week's challenge is ekphrasis, "a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art." The painting I have chosen for this week’s completely optional idea is "The Marriage License," painted for the June 11, 1955 Saturday Evening Post by Norman Rockwell, who did 322 covers and died in 1978. No one mastered in art the American life, events and values better than he. Now if you are an artist purist and don't think Rockwell be one, check out this painting of a bride by Domenico Ghirlandaio (15th century) and you'll see the same attention to fabrics, hair, position of the faces, locale and eyes gazing into the past.

There is nothing in this painting that isn’t absolutely authentic or essential, from the dangling light bulb repeating the shape of the upper window needed for heat or light, to the rumpled forgotten flag or bunting possibly from WWII that lays unceremoniously atop the book shelves filled with dusty legal volumes, to the bride and groom who knew this was a special occasion requiring the very best clothes. The items in the painting that are completely out-of-step with the 50s, like the stove and spittoon, are critical elements in the story it tells. We all know the hopes and dreams of that couple, because they are us in another time and place, so I've chosen to write about the civil servant slumped in his chair.

At the County Courthouse
by Norma Bruce
March 28, 2007

Dreaming of fishing again, aren't you, old man?
Your rumpled coat and hat hang near by,
just waiting for your escape.

The red geranium blooms in the open window alone,
scrawny but surviving the weather whims,
seeking light and warmth.

Now that the wife has died, the stray kitten
eyeing the cigarette litter on the floor
is your only source of joy.

Your arthritic fingers interlace, worn elbows rest
on the arms of the old wooden chair,
your bones beating the cushion down.

Ah, those weary bones, you squirm and shift,
oh, so tired. Slumped, you're forgetting
the stories, oh, the stories.

Who are these eager people, in sunny yellow cotton
and Sunday suit with hat, signing on for years
of windows, weather, and weariness?

Like the bride on tip toes and her tender groom,
we want their hope and love, so we turn away
from the old man's defeat and pessimism.

3633

Spring cleaning feels good

I just deleted about 1,000 messages from my spam dump; only 6,000 to go.

3632

On this day in 1883

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote from Dublin to his old university friend Alexander Baillie (British politican): "It is a great help to have someone. . . that will answer my letters, and it supplies some sort of intellectual stimulus. I sadly need that and a general stimulus to being, so dull and yet harassed is my life." [from today's selection in "A Poem a Day," ed. Karen McCosker and Nicholas Albery]

Do you need to write a letter today? Thought so.

3631

GAPping the public on climate change

There is a whistleblower organization (way left of center) called GAP, Government Accountability Project, that has issued a report for the Democrats called "Redacting the Science of Climate Change." I was expecting to read some whoop-dee-doo-doo about what terrible things the administration was doing to cover up the effects of global warming, but it is 139 pages of inferences, inuendos and idiocies written by someone named Tarek Maassarani. The summary clearly states the investigation found nothing, zip, nada--but the media was sensing that information was restricted on scientific research on climate change. What! That's all we hear or read! So they're just making this stuff up because they don't get the straight scoop from the government? Every news story I hear is presented as though humans control the sun, moon, stars, oceans, hurricanes and carbon dioxide, and that Al Gore is the only chief priest who can give us absolution and forgiveness. I read plenty of science journals and web sites; the people being shut out are those of the view point that science has been politicized. GAP says it began invesitgating this misuse of government authority (i.e. not communicating properly with the media) because 2 GAP employees complained. It reports that it interviewed about 40 government employees then reported there are over 2,000 concerned in some way in a number of difference agencies

Stop setting goals!!

I was positive I had this book review on my blog somewhere, but with 10 blogs, you do lose track. So here it is again. It is about a book I read right after I retired, that I sure could have used earlier, both in my family life and career. I'm reposting here, because I've got more than a few readers who need to sort through the difference between problem solving and goal setting.

The book I'd been waiting for my whole life I didn't read until the first official day of my retirement (Oct. 1, 2000). Its title grabbed me and I knew it was written for me: "STOP SETTING GOALS" by Bob Biehl (Nashville: Moorings, 1995).

The premise is that some people are energized by achieving goals they have set, and others (a higher percentage) are energized by identifying and solving problems. And it isn't semantics. To ask problem solvers to set goals puts knots in their stomachs and interferes with their natural gifts. To ask goal setters to work on a problem puts them in a foul mood because they think "negative" when they hear "problem."

Problem solvers see goal setters as sort of pie-in-the sky, never-finish-anything types, and goal setters see problem solvers as negative nay-sayers. Bigotry, in both directions.

I'm willing to bet that most librarians are problem solvers and that's why they chose the field. I used to be in Slavic Studies. In my own mind, I thought the Soviet Union collapsed from pathologically terminal five year plans--too much goal setting and not enough problem solving.

Biehl poses an interesting question that works for both groups. "What three things can we do in the next 90 days to make a 50% difference (by the end of this year, by the end of the decade, by the end of my life). It makes no difference if you say, "what three goals can we reach" or "what three problems can we solve," because either personality can get a handle on this question.

I was challenged during my last year at work to stop using the word "problem" and replace it with "challenge" or "opportunity." It was a good time to retire. It took away all motivation for showing up at work for a darn good problem solver.

3630

New assaults on Administration for deaths of U.S. civilians

USA Today ran an article today on the sad situation for U.S. civilians who are employees of companies who are working in Iraq. KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, figures prominently in the story, because the media know that will bring up mental images of Dick Cheney without ever mentioning his name. George Soros owns a lot of stock in Halliburton, according to what I've read, and Cheney doesn't, but the media isn't about to say "the left is making money from this war." KBR has had construction contracts for the U.S. military for over a half century, and bankrolled LBJ for his presidential bids. But, let's not confuse quacks and frauds. Nor should we ask why a man or woman, who could be doing something much safer and signs up for bonuses and huge paychecks to go into a dangerous war zone, should expect their families to be entitled to more than other construction workers on any other job if they are injured or killed on the job.

The story in today's paper (or you can google "Halliburton civilian workers in Iraq" and see this has been covered many times but right now is a pile-on) mentioned relatives who want extended COBRA, funeral expenses, cleaned up dead bodies returned to them, and new government regulations for the contractors. And of course, this: "Critics of the war are pressing the Bush Administration to disclose more details on injuries and deaths among private contractors."

3629

Planning our Ireland trip

You wouldn't think a librarian would make such a mistake, but for our 2005 trip in Germany-Austria river cruise, and our 2006 trip to Finland and Russia, I devalued of my travel dollar by not reading! Yes, I virtually ignored the material our tour planners sent us (never did like assigned reading), read only a few things on the internet, and didn't even take a Russian-English dictionary with me (I did read up a little on Finnish architecture, thank goodness, because we did a lot of site tours). That was true stupidity. You might think a dictionary wouldn't be that tough to pick up in a foreign country, but think again. When your tour van is stuck in St. Petersburg traffic where the Russians in huge black SUVs drive like maniacs on drugs, it is not the time to hop out and run into a bookstore!

So I was pleased to see the first book on the bibliography sent to us by the University of Illinois Alumni Tours was How the Irish Saved Civilization. Excellent book. I've already read it and it totally changed my views of not only European history and the so-called "dark ages," but church history. And this week I checked out the Jan/Feb. 2007 issue of Everton's Genealogy without even glancing at the cover, because it always is jammed with interesting material, particularly carefully explained websites (they do a much better job than most librarians). Super, super article on "The Conquest of Ireland," by Charles D. FitzGerald. How anyone traces his ancestry back to the 1100s I have no idea--I feel fortunate to at least make it back to the ships that brought my families, both the German-Swiss and the Scots-Irish to our eastern ports. Anyway, this guy traces his family to Gerald de Barri who wrote Expugnatio Hibernica (The Conquest of Ireland), so using that source and The Song of Dermot and the Earl (a poem, authorship unknown) he puts together a fascinating tale of how Henry II of England took over Ireland in 1170. (Gerald sounds a lot like some bloggers--seemed to record just about everything.) Now I have many interesting avenues to pursue, as I make up for some lost time and regrets on earlier travel adventures.