3757

Smoking bans

Ireland was the first country to implement a true smoking ban. Not very many states have a ban, but Ohio is one of them. Unfortunately, the legislation is poorly worded, so there will probably be lawsuits. Like if a cross country trucker is driving through Ohio, is it illegal for him to smoke in his cab. Huge parts of Canada are smoke free (although that's sort of to be expected since it is much more socialistic than the U.S.), New Zealand has a full country ban and most of Australia.

I heard two guys on a morning drive/talk radio show discussing this as a loss of freedom. Saying only the restaurant owner should decide, and then determine if he needed smoke-free sections. That view totally ignores the needs of the wait staff, kitchen and janitorial staff, the band and musicians. And as a non-smoker, I could never get away from it even in the non-smoking section of restaurants. I can remember when clerks in stores smoked at the cash register, when librarians smoked in their offices and at public desks, and people smoked inside our church in the classrooms and fellowship hall. It wasn't pleasant. Everyone stunk smelled bad.

Clean air is good for the tax payer (lower health costs which we hope will offset the decrease in tobacco taxes), good for the worker, and good for the brain. So on this issue, I definitely side with the liberals, who are the folks against personal freedom, because the freedom of others matters too. If you have a partial ban now in your city, state or country, eventually it will be total. There's absolutely nothing positive about poisoning yourself and the air around you. Get over it, and get on with living.

3756

Why older Democrats left the party

This looked like a pretty balanced explanation of what has happened to the Democratic Party since the early 1960s. The author is wondering why there aren't Moslem Methodists, i.e., mainstream. If you've watched the flap about PBS using our tax money to create a film on moderate Moslems, then refusing to show it, this explanation starts to expose some of the bizarre behavior of liberals. Still, it was written in September 2005, and since then the Democrats in Congress have gone completely over the edge, groveling before their New Left, socialist party leaders.

"The biggest problem in analogizing Democrats to Moslems is that the former did have other voices surrounding them, voices that were pointing out the radical nature of those organizations [Matt] Barr mentioned (NOW, the unions, and the teaching establishment): first, the Republicans, of course; in our republic, the critiques from the GOP could not be entirely shut out, even back in the 60s and 70s.

But second and more important, we need to bear in mind what Barr himself noted: Democratic leaders and organizations were not always so insane. The switchover (I'm using Judge Bork's timeline here from, I think, Slouching Towards Gomorrah) was when the New Left began to arise following the Port Huron Statement, released by the SDS in 1962 (the Students for a Democratic Society was the group from which the radical faction the Weathermen later spun off).

Most older Democrats never particularly embraced the New Left -- which was radicalized, hard-core, and Stalinist, inexplicably combined with feverishly anti-science, anti-technology, Luddite "environmentalism" -- and the New Left didn't take over the Democratic Party until, to be blunt, the older generation died off.

Thus, there has been reasoned resistance to the radicalization of the Democratic Party from the very beginning, coming from sources with unassailable liberal credentials, such as Hubert Humphrey and Pat Moynihan. Many Democrats retained their basic love of America... and unfortunately for the new radicalized Democratic Party (but fortunately for the country), that meant a lot of people left the Democrats and joined the Republicans, bringing the two parties into rough parity (during World War II, I would guess the Democrats enjoyed at least a 2-1 advantage over the GOP)." Big Lizards Blog, Where are all the Moslem Methodists?

Decides to remain seized of the matter

If you ever wanted proof that United Nations Resolutions are hole cloth worth not even one square of toilet paper per toilet use, just scroll to the bottom of the U.S. Treasury Sanctions Program Summary on Sudan for the list of their resolutions on Sudan going back to 1995. Each resolution about Sudan in the last 12 years ends with the phrase, "Decides to remain seized of the matter," whatever that bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo means. And the 1996 Resolution 1044 lists all the letters and condemnations that came before then.

If you google that phrase you get about 34,000 hits, and it seems to mean, "It's not going away, but we're not doing anything about it, now or ever" so keep sending money.

No matter how you seize it, the war in Sudan has always been about Arab Moslems killing black Africans, until 1997 it was African Christians, more recently African Moslems.

Thursday Thirteen

13 things I've learned this week or forgot and had to relearn

1. Always take your slacks off when sewing a button on the waist band.
2. Don't eyeball where you think the button should go if you have trifocals.
3. If you add about l/2 pumpkin puree to your favorite peanut butter pie filling, it tastes and looks about the same and has a lot fewer calories (in my recipe).
4. If your garage door goes back up after you've pushed the down button when you've pulled the car in, don't push it again; you didn't get the car in far enough.
5. Home made mashed potatoes taste 50% better than packaged, even with lumps, and at a fraction of the cost.
6. After a tragedy, the talking heads don't know as much as the investigators and police, so hold off on judgement.
7. If you weigh exactly what you did 25 years ago, the distribution is very different.
8. When you volunteer at the food pantry, you'll see some of the same people you saw three months ago. See Matt. 25.
9. Friday date night at the Bucket is more fun when shared with another couple or two.
10. When something goes wrong, whether it is pet food, home mortgages or a mentally ill college student, the proposed legislation and regulations done in the heat of the moment will probably be worse, cost more and lay the ground work for future problems.
11. Loyalty and reward cards whether offered by airlines, retailers, or supermarkets, are like an additional tax--very few benefit, but everyone pays.
12. If you contact someone in charge of a web page, a library, a church, a network, a party, or a government office, concerning something very urgent and important, you will hear nothing, or get an "I'm out of the office today" reply, or a canned response.
13. If you drop a line to just let them know, "I'm here and like what you're doing," you'll be their best friend and forever on their mailing list.
    

3753

Minorities hit hard by subprime loans

is the headline of USAToday's latest article on how the poor and minorities are victimized in the U.S.A. It really makes you wonder if the journalists learned anything else in college! A closer look at the middle paragraphs:

• Minority home buyers helped fuel the housing boom--49% of the increase between 1995-2005. [Note that this trend of "empowering" minorities by burdening them with impossible debt began under Clinton, and any attempt to reverse it has brought condemnation on Bush.]
• 73% of high income ($92,000-$152,000) blacks and 70% of high income Hispanics had subprime loans, compared to 17% whites.
• Lenders were supported by politicians and "community leaders" eager to promote minority home ownership.
• When Illinois (Cook Co.) tried to establish credit counseling programs for new minority buyers by targeting ZIP codes, the program was pulled as being "racist".
• Access became a buzz word at the expense of sound lending policies.
• Buyers/borrowers with poor credit or low salaries who wanted a cheap deal is a large part of the problem.
• Investigation by a counseling group found 9% of those in trouble were victims of fraud; the rest was poor judgement and poor financial skills.
• Rather than focus on the borrowers' poor financial skills, it appears that new regulations and programs will pounce on predatory lenders.
• Government investigations of charges even before the current problem came to light showed a "good chunk" [not my term] of higher loan cost is attributed to borrower's income, not to race or ethnicity.

But this is America, where nothing happens if it isn't about poverty, race, gender or disability.

No one wants to be reminded, but here's what it took in 1968 to get a home mortgage (our third home): the monthly PMI didn't exceed one-third of the husband's income; there were married parents/in-laws to chip in on the down payment to help a young couple; most mortgages were for 20 years; typical mortgage rate was around 6.5%; the average home and what owners expected was smaller and less grand; a typical applicant for a mortgage wasn't also paying for a leased a car, or a cable bill, monthly broadband, or a cell phone bill, nor did they eat out 2 or 3 times a week and take vacations at resort spots.

Yes, I know it sounds terribly fusty and old fashioned back in the old days when the state and federal governments weren't our foster parents, overseers and field bosses, but that's just how it was.

3752

David Sarnoff Library damaged

When I read a lengthy description of the damage to the valuable archives caused by the storm in the northeast about 10 days ago, (at the listserv of archivists) the first thing I asked myself was why any library anywhere with a valuable historic collection would store items in the basement. Especially since the companies that do this kind of rescue work from mopping up to freezing paper items to stop the rot will be stretched to the max because everyone in the area probably has damage. True, a tornado can take the top floors, but even a sewer backup can take your basement storage. Story in Philadelphia Inquirer

"Just outside Princeton, the building housing the David Sarnoff Library took nearly two feet of water in its basement, a level the staff had never expected. The water damaged a collection of laboratory notebooks, technical reports, manuals and manuscripts from the early days of radio, television and electronics.

The library rushed to hire a document-repair company to try to dry them out and save them.

"We saved these files in the first place because of their importance in documenting the birth of modern communications, from broadcast microphones to color TV picture tubes, from satellite communications to the microchips that surround us in cars, computers, and cell phones," library director Alexander Magoun wrote in an e-mail seeking donations to offset the cost of the emergency repair work."

I probably ought to check my own basement. For 34 years we lived in a house without a basement, but it's really easy to slip back into old habits.

It's not your father's marijuana

"The marijuana being sold across the United States is stronger than ever, which could explain a growing number of medical emergencies that involve the drug, government drug experts on Wednesday.

Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, the White House and National Institute for Drug Abuse said.

They cited data from the University of Mississippi's Marijuana Potency Project showing the average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in the products rose from 7 percent in 2003 to 8.5 percent in 2006." Reuters

And the druggie bloggers are out in full force denying any problem, but they did that 35 years ago (without blogs, of course).

3750

Rosie's anti-Catholic, anti-Christian tirades

She's gone from The View (although probably not from view), but I don't think her virulently anti-Christian, bigoted remarks are the reason. A new columnist for the St. Louis Dispatch, commented on the long term affects of the Catholic compromise beginning with JFK in her February 2007 piece. So I doubt that they really bombarded Barbara Walters and Disney with their anger:

"What role should a Catholic politician's faith play in his governing decisions? After dominating U.S. headlines during the 2004 presidential contest between Catholic Senator John Kerry and Methodist President George W. Bush, the question has emerged again. The midterm elections of 2006 swept pro-choice Catholic Senator Nancy Pelosi into the third-highest position in the U.S. government, cost the pro-life movement more than a dozen House and Senate seats, and found Catholic voters migrating back to the Democratic Party despite its staunch support for legal abortion. Pro-choice Catholic and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has informally launched a presidential bid, as has pro-life Catholic Senator Sam Brownback. And the U.S. bishops recently released a statement affirming that Catholics must uphold Church teaching in public life if they wish to receive Communion." Collen Carroll Campbell

If there's a group wimpier than Republicans, it has to be Christians. The PC chat that a Lutheran pastor gave at the VA Tech memorial clearly demonstrates that.

Is this like that?

While browsing through some "Rachel Carson is our hero" blogs, I noticed a carbon neutral festival. I didn't click on it because it seemed to be serious. But it would be a great put up/down, wouldn't it? "What if we gave a festival and nobody came?". Just ask the folks to mail their ticket money and stay home. That would be carbon neutral. No cars driven from the neighboring city, no food stands burning fuel, no fast-food-consuming people wandering the booths expelling CO2, no trash to clean up, no garbage to bag, no Sheryl-porta-potties. I love it.

3748

Crow droppings #3

Sheryl Crow now says it was a joke, but at least it got people talking about global warming. When I first heard it, I thought she was joking. Then I realized liberals have no sense of humor, no irony, nor does it bother them to set rules and standards for others which they never intend to follow (Barbra Striesand's SUVs, Rosie O'Donnell's potty mouth discussing appropriate behavior or gun control, et al) because they have wealth and employ a lot of people who tend to their every personal and transportation need.

I think Sheryl's joke backfired. It did get everyone talking, yes, even other liberals, but about how silly some of the global warming advocates are. Now if we could just get people to wise up about lightbulbs, bio-fuel, and weather patterns over time maybe we won't have to suffer from more disastrous outcomes like the Carson-induced malaria deaths.

3747 Homeowner fights back, gets his way

Amy Ridenour reports on a man in Atlanta who was turned down on his request for a porch by a local historic commission, so he painted his house lime green with purple spots. Eventually, he got his way. This was reported in the 5th edition of her book Shattered Dreams: One Hundred Storiesabout government abuse. However, I know this quote just isn't so:

"Randall Carlson, a builder who has done work in Avondale Estates, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the city's preservation officials should have their power curtailed: "Most people are not going to do anything that would detract from the value of their home. I think the [commission] should be a last resort, only if people do something way out of line." "

We own property in an historic community--people buy there because they love the nostalgia and ambiance, and when the ink on the contract is dry they immediately try to add a 21st century design addition to a 19th century house, or add a huge storage shed that blocks a neighbor's view of the lake, or create a huge footprint to add a garage in an area where many of the lots are only 33' wide. My husband is an architect who probably has had 30+ jobs in that community that make it more beautiful. Now that he is virtually retired, he is part of the design review board. He has seen the problem from three angles--as a home owner who wants to protect his property values, as an architect who wants the best interests and best design for his client, and as a board member with a larger view looking out for historic preservation. The home owner is much more likely to be the problem than the association or the design board.

At our condo we have the same problem. Everyone who has ever visited here remarks on the beauty--if it were to be built today, there would be double the number of units and it would have an army base look with row on row of garages or porches. We have quite a selection of colors available to the individual unit owners, and variety in landscaping, but there are rules. Often it is the wealthiest owners, or those who spend part of the year somewhere else who think the rules are for everyone else and ignore the owner's handbook.

3746

Jazz vs. Rock

At the public library the other day I was browsing the CDs in the music collection. If I wanted Contemporary Christian I'd have a pretty small selection (it all sounds like secular music to me), but since I don't know much about choral or orchestral, the collection suits my needs. Something seemed a bit odd. There were 17 drawers of jazz and 13 drawers of rock. So I asked a musician friend of mine about this. "Isn't rock a much larger, more popular genre of music than jazz?" She thought for a moment, and then said, "It probably reflects the taste of someone on the staff." Then she followed that with, "Well, jazz lovers are probably more likely to use the library, and people who like rock are using a different source--either purchasing or downloading or sharing." I didn't look for the break-out of rap or hip-hop, so I don't know how that is cataloged. I'll have to look the next time.

I'm so glad my library allows journals to circulate. Some libraries don't. And good parking! I was talking to a Worthington Public Library user the other day and she said she likes to use ours just because the parking is so much better. Our new drive through drop off was a huge waste of money, however, as is the proposed coffee shop inside the library (at least I haven't heard that it has been removed from the proposed levy renewal) and the salary of a marketing director.

3745

Crow Droppings, #2

The Sheryl Crow absurd story did inspire me. Did you know the bacteria count on women's desks and keyboards is much higher than on men's? Yes, it's because of make-up and keeping food to nibble. So imagine what is going on in our bathrooms? The toilets are probably cleaner than the medicine cabinet or cosmetic shelf.

Yes, I do eat sometimes at this messy desk. Janeen takes photos of her projects. Here's mine.
So today I decided to do a thorough check of the bathrooms and pitch samples and half-used things. Believe it or not, I threw out a can of Avon bathpower from the mid-50s. Yes, I know people collect that stuff, and I wouldn't have dreamed of using it, but it just felt a little creepy that I would still have something I got from my sister when she sold Avon products (I think she was a sophomore or junior in high school and did quite well at it).

You'd think with all this help I'd be prettier--or at least smarter, since some of these bottles are at least a decade old. Most of this was thrown out.
While I was doing it, I spread out to the upstairs closets and my husband's bathroom. So the whole area is in total chaos, and I've come downstairs for a cup of coffee and a little blog reading.

It's really strange to be inspired to clean by crow droppings.

Update: Now she says she was kidding. A little slow there.

3744

Crow droppings

Have you ever lived in an area where the sky turns black on a sunny day and the grackles or blackbirds or crows descend and roost in the trees dropping a white slimy goo on everything? I remember visiting someone in Annandale, VA and it literally was not safe to breathe the air outside her condo. Dried droppings everywhere, driveway, sidewalks, patio, lawn furniture, flowers, shrubs under the trees; and where it wasn't dry, it was wet, smearing the windshields, covering the lawn, disfiguring the trees, a threat to human health and driving away native song birds.

That's what Sheryl Crow wants for us with her one square of toilet paper per visit to the rest room idea, and special sleeves for nose blowing and mouth wiping. Not for her of course, she has people. To wait on her. Do her laundry. Mop up the floors her bathrooms.

Then in some residential areas, the pest control comes out and tries to scare away the birds with loud noises, gun shots, firecrackers or music. They try to dislodge the birds and make them go elsewhere, to become someone else's problem.

Sheryl Crow needs pest control.

3743

Chemo Brain

Sheryl Crow has reportedly said that we should use less toilet paper. Maybe 1 square per visit to the rest room. I hope this is an urban legend, a misquote, and joke on the conservative bloggers who try to find ways to make fun of the fundy evironmentalists. Perhaps she and her girl friend are whooping it up at the fuss they stirred. Because if it isn't one of those, it's chemo brain, the impaired mental function of some cancer survivors.

"Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required." [Washington Post blog]

They already use this method at the St. Petersburg, Russia top tourist spots. We were well acquainted with the lack of toilet paper last summer. If you didn't take some tissue or paper towels into the rest room, you were out of luck.

Even with adequate toilet paper, women (I don't know about men) have both urine and fecal residue on their hands with every use of a toilet--at home or public restroom--and toilet paper is getting thinner and weaker, especially in public restrooms. Serious implications for women with long or artificial fingernails. This stuff is found in the open sample dishes in restaurants, for goodness sake. How do you think it got there? On hands! They transfer the matter and bacteria to their clothing, their purse, their wrist and hand jewelry, cell phones, the flush knob on the toilet, the door clasp of the stall, the faucet at the sink, and anything else they touch in the rest room. The hand blow dryers just move it all around the rest of your clothing. Then it's back to the children, the car, the restaurant, or shaking someone's hand. (Maybe Sheryl just doesn't want her fans to touch her?)

But who will ever see it?

I asked when I discovered my husband had ordered a mirror for his bathroom from the Frank Lloyd Wright Studio in Oak Park, IL. "I will. Every morning. And I'll love it," he replied matter of factly.



Lots of popcorn packing

The cat had to inspect everything

3741

Short Librarians?

In 1966 I finished "library school" (master's degree program) at the University of Illinois. I didn't have to look for a job because I'd worked in the Slavic Languages department of the library both as an undergrad and a graduate student. Those were the cold war years--today someone with a slavic specialty might have to do something else. Those who entered library work in 1965 were told in a conference with Dean Downs at the University of Illinois there was a shortage and a great future. Those who entered in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today are told the same thing. We were all pretty much told the same thing--the librarians of the 30s and 40s were retiring--technology was changing the face of the profession. Yet, every year library schools closed limiting regional choices. There is no shortage of librarians. There might be a shortage of students to sit in the classroom or dial in for on-line courses and pay the salaries of professors and deans in the library schools that are left, but there is no shortage. There may be a shortage of librarians willing to work for $25,000 a year after years in graduate school and huge school debt, but there is no shortage of highly qualified people with masters degrees willing to design systems, manage libraries, supervise paraprofessional staff, work with decent budgets, and publish in the professional journals. The big lie. Don't let our Congress build another bridge to nowhere.

3740

The lonesome blog

The lost cause. Unfortunately. The crazy dems and the wimpy republicans killed it. But I blame mostly the Republicans.

3739

Monday Memories--looking back on an employment issue

This memory is taken directly from a letter I wrote to my mother in 1991--16 years ago. We were both Democrats (I no longer am) so it wasn't unusual for me to ramble on about political things, just the way I do now with my blog. I had to give a report at my department's faculty meeting and wasn't too enthusiastic about the topic or recommendations. But given what happened last week with the Supreme Court decision about partial birth abortion, I thought I'd resurrect the letter.

"I have to report to the library faculty on Thursday on a rule change for tenure. It is to allow an extension of time for babies, child care, care of an ill person or personal illness. I was not enthusiastic about the rule, but my committee voted me down, so I have to report anyway.

Why is it I get so suspicious about all these rules that are suppose to help women when things don't get any better? Safe legal abortions were to give women a choice--well, we've aborted 25 million babies and 54% of women with children under 6 are in the labor force. In 1950, only 12% of women with children under 6 were working. There is more violence against women, more child abuse, and recently I read that the surplus of women in all age groups is shrinking, not because men are living longer, but because women are dying at a faster rate than they used to. Meanwhile, I think we inched up about 5 percentage points on closing the income gap.

The reason I wasn't enthusiastic about the rule change is because tenure is already a much too long, grueling process--this is just a band-aid on a big wound. But without acknowledging it, they are saying that Yes, all those services women supplied in the home for families in the past are important and do have to be accounted for (the rule applies to both men and women, although I don't think the men are rushing home to take care of the children.)"

Hmmm. Sixteen years. Aren't women still asking for special exceptions and exemptions on the job for family needs?

You do the math

Which presidential appointee has given orders that killed more Americans? Attorney General Janet Reno (Clinton) or Attorney General Albert Gonzales (Bush)?

Which organization has promoted legislation and law suits which have killed more babies able to live outside the womb? The NRA or NOW?

Which are vilified more in the media?