3800

Book club selections for 2007-2008

In May our book club meets at Barb's lovely home. It has never looked more lovely that last night--almost like a park with trimmed beds and lovely perennials and potted flowers. Our final and fun selection for our book year was Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray, who published her first novel when she was 60. Then with one minute to lobby our choices, the members offered suggestions for next year's reading, with the absentees sending theirs with another. Here's what we'll be reading, although all of the suggestions sounded terrific.

September: Learning to Bow by Bruce Feiler. My caution would be that this is based on his teaching experience in Japan in 1987-88--20 years ago, and was published in 1991. We probably wouldn't want our culture evaluated by a just-out-of-college, one year visitor's first book.

October: Field work by Mischa Berlinski. A first novel by another American visiting a foreign country. A trained classicist, Berlinski worked as a journalist in Thailand where this story of two clashing American cultures--anthropologist and missionary--takes place.

November: 1776 by David McCullough. This is the title I threw into the mix. McCullough's use of diaries and letters and his ability to weave in the stories of the little people we never heard in our history texts is just awesome. George Washington managed to write almost 950 letters in that year, while running the war campaign.

December: Inside the Kingdom by Carmen Bin Ladin, Osama's sister-in-law (half brothers whose father had 22 wives), affords a peek into her life in Saudi Arabia. From the book jacket cover I thought she might use Michael Jackson's surgeon. Do you see a resemblance?

January: A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith is a 1943 classic that was made into a movie. It will be an interesting comparison with the immigrant life today.

February: We'll be doing something Shakespearean with a special guest, who actually taught my children when they were in elementary school.

March: Digging to America by Anne Tyler is a story about two families who adopt Korean children. Tyler is an excellent writer, popular with women, and I'm sure there will be enough stereotypes to go around.

April: Amazing Grace by Steve Turner, a pop/rock journalist, is the book [or part of it] about the hymn on which the movie was based.

May: I'm proud of you by Tim Madigan, yet another journalist, the story of Mr. Rogers.

Also suggested (but we only choose 9) was Unknown world by E. J. Edwards, Snow falling on Cedars by David Guterson, For the Glory of God by Rodney Stark, and Religious literacy by Stephen Prothero. I scored 100% on .Prothero's quiz, and 71% scored 80 or above

Monday Memories--The Stereopticon

There are so many memories in this photo I almost don't know where to begin. The room is the north living room of what had been my grandmother's house, but which was the house of my daughter's grandmother in 1973, my mother. It is my recollection that my great-grandfather purchased this property when another farmer lost it to debt, maybe in one of the late 19th century panics. He and his son Ira farmed a lot of land in the Franklin Grove-Ashton area of Lee County, Illinois. Ira died from an infected cut finger in 1908 at the Ashton farm. Around that time my grandparents who were living in Wichita, KS, lost their little baby, Oliver, at birth. Grandfather David offered them this farm if they would come back and help--he being about 80. At least that's what I have in my head. Around the same time he made significant gifts to the Brethren Church in Wichita where my grandparents worshiped.

It was an unspectacular, 8 room, boxy farm house. Grandma had it remodeled adding a huge gracious dining room, a second staircase to a lovely bedroom with a canopied balcony, a big airy kitchen with "modern" features like a built in corn cob storage for the blue and black cookstove, manual dishwasher, table with flour bins, a walk-in pantry/storage room, an upstairs servant's bedroom, plus two bathrooms, a dumbwaiter, a generator and a sink at the back door for washing up before entering the house.

By the late 1960s the house had fallen on very hard times and was almost unliveable, and when my grandparents died, my mother went to work to transform it to the house it actually had never been, and it became a family and religious retreat center. One item you can see through the windows are the grape arbors my mother rebuilt and coaxed grapes into growing again. Thus my little family traveled from Ohio and took a week's vacation there for about 10 years.

My daughter is five years old in this July 1973 photo and totally engrossed in the stereopticon my mother and her siblings had used, and which my siblings and cousins had enjoyed on the slow Sunday afternoons we had visited in the 1940s and 1950s. She's lying on the couch that my Grandma bought in the 1950s to update the look--the arms were so wide you didn't even need TV trays (there also was no TV)--with her head on the pillows her grandma made.

The little girl in the photo would still jump into my arms and sit on my hip with her long brown legs almost touching the ground. She has a band-aid on her foot from running barefoot all day, and her golden brown hair had not yet seen a scissors. She's wearing a little green and yellow nightgown I remember well, so I think it was twilight--my kids didn't run around in the morning in night clothes. From the looks of the dirt on her feet, we had probably skipped bathtime, and I'm guessing that under all that thick curly hair was a sweaty, sweet smelling, damp neck--the windows behind her are open to bring in a little air.

Ah, the Monday memories. As I was finishing this, my daughter rushed in the door to use the computer. "Oh mom, do you have a band-aid?"

All aboard the gravey train

I noticed this in the BOMA Newsletter [Building Owners and Managers Association]. This is going to be a very high priced ticket to nowhere:

"Whether or not you trust in the science of global warming and mankind's ability to reverse it, policymakers from both political parties at all levels of government are looking at how to "green" their communities and reduce carbon footprints.

Early in the 110th Congress, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made it clear that the issue of global warming would be a legislative priority. "Scientific evidence suggests that, to prevent the most severe effects of global warming, we will need to cut global greenhouse-gas emissions roughly in half from today's levels by 2050," Pelosi stated in her opening remarks at a February hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee. Speaker Pelosi went on to say that the committees with jurisdiction over energy, environment, and technology policy have been asked to report legislation on these issues by June in hopes of having "legislation that will be a starting point on global warming and energy independence through the committees by July 4 so that, this year, Independence Day is also Energy Independence Day."

To accomplish this task, Speaker Pelosi has created a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which will develop policy and strategy recommendations. Already, several bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, and several more are anticipated, including ones by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell (D-MI) and Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

One of the issues that BOMA Intl. will closely watch is whether a carbon "cap and trade" program will be included in any legislation that is enacted. This approach, which would cap greenhouse-gas emissions and permit emitters - such as utilities and industrial customers - to trade carbon allowances, is strongly supported by many Democrats in Congress, but not by President Bush. However, support for this type of approach has gained some followers from business. In January, 10 major corporations and four environmental groups came together to form the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). The groups, which include DuPont, PG&E, BP America Corp., and the World Resources Institute, are calling for mandatory carbon reductions from major emitters, including commercial buildings."

Note: that is "grave" as in tomb, not the sauce.

3797

France's new leader

My horse didn't win in the Derby (Street Scene won), and I wasn't even thinking of offering an opinion on France's race. I'm mean, I didn't want the leftist lady to win, but secretly I thought she would. Often countries do vote themselves into total loss of freedom. Anyway, Sarkozy won. I'll say this, France can put forward some good looking candidates. Both.

I know you knew that, but this is a log so I need to keep up. Seems he wants to save France for the French. What a concept.

3796

Training ground for biased big media?

The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper is one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of struggling free circs, those piles of newsprint and skinny magazines you see in the lobbies of coffee shops, shopping centers and libraries. Technically, they offer an alternative, but if they become successful, a bigger paper usually buys them. I hear they pay well, and the slant is, well, very, very one way or the other. The Stranger is left, although I've only read one article. It's anti-religious right. Yawn. That's like an elephant being afraid of a mouse. There is not a single leftist program proposed since FDR that hasn't succeeded. Conservatives, at best, toss an occasional banana peel, and a baby might make it out alive in the Dakotas that otherwise would have been thrown in a trash can.

The article that was sent to me is "Cross Purposes" by Erica C. Barnett. For some reason she thinks it is sad that Seattle's old line, dying liberal churches are shrinking and becoming irrelevant. When we joined UALC [it's a conservative congregation within a liberal denomination] in 1976 our pastor had formerly been a Lutheran pastor in the northwest--can't remember if it was Oregon or Washington. But I remember him saying that the mountains were white capped from all the letters of transfer that never made it. That means, for you non-Christian readers, when people headed west, they left their relgion back in the east or midwest and started worshiping Mother Nature. If they needed a little familiarity for a wedding and cozy pot lucks, they could always join the Unitarians. So I don't know where Erica's been hanging out, but it ain't church.

So she writes a lengthy story about the "new conservatives." But she has a very odd hitch in her gitalong. Seems to really focus on externals, hoping I think, to turn off . . . who, exactly? In describing the people she's afraid of (i.e. conservative Christians) seen at two different gatherings, tiny Church on the Hill, and big Mars Hill:

T-shirts and jeans
overalls and sweats
casual sportswear
bearded guy in sweats
blond man in sneakers and faded blue jeans
brown long-sleeved t-shirt
thrown-together, house-party-ish scene
heavily gelled hair [preacher]
sloppy, untucked dress shirt
wooden bead necklace
trendy wide-strapped brown leather watch
girls in glittering half-sweaters
sloppy emo boys with tattooed arms
disheveled hair
pregnant women in stylishly expensive maternity jeans
loud and a bit slovenly [preacher]
Jimmy Kimmel-esque comedian [preacher]

I haven't seen that much fashion description except in my own complaints about what people wear to church these days.

When describing the liberal Mainline Methodists in Ballard, WA she says. . . not much about their appearance, but does cite their criticisms of the new kids on the church block, and they have a serious case of edifice envy.

"Very much your father's conservatism"
"women are the nurturers who should go home and have babies"
"negative, almost misogynistic view of women"
"emergent or emerging" [these are 2 different terms, but she doesn't distinguish]
"They've built a show that attracts masses of people. That legitimates it"
"it's possible they are simply not paying attention"
"an astonishing number believe in reincarnation, which is not a Christian doctrine"
"we're in a time when people pick and choose what they want from their religious experience"
"appeal to people who think we live in apocalyptic times"
"creates a system where people can have a feeling of control"
"they see themselves as cutting edge, whereas mainline churches are struggling to keep their doors open"
"theology of fear"
"they're cool and they can go out into the world"
"they'll outgrow it"

Oddly (or, not so odd since she wants a job with a "real" paper), Erica sees the mainline church goers (most with gray hair and canes), as more tolerant and diverse because there is a sprinkling of gay couples, and some female pastors. She thinks it is quite OK for the Methodist pastor to be preaching on the "evil empire" the U.S. is becoming with obscene tax-cutting, but not OK for the Mars Hill guy who's preaching that the suburbs have just as much evil as the city. She calls the conservatives intolerant with retrograde political leanings (she only sites homosexuality and women as evidence of "retrograde"), and apocalyptic, rebelling against the pop culture while appropriating its language and styles.

Yes, Erica's looking for a job with a playa.

Who makes Don Imus look like a choir boy?

Michael McGee Sr. Oh please, Lord, let him be a race, nationality, religion and party we've never heard of. We've got enough problems in the media.

Word inflation

Or is it word deflation? I like Staples. Shop there for my paper and computer needs. Yesterday I needed ink. Took in my little cartridges for the discount. Folded inside my receipt (which I just looked at) is an ad that says, "Salvation from PC frustration. See an associate for assistance." That's a stronger altar call than we get at church!

My candidate has a plan

All the others want is a vacation.

[from Taranto's column] The Associated press asked the candidates for president what they would most like to have if stranded on a desert island. Here are the responses:

Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Duncan Hunter and Mitt Romney said they'd bring their wives. (Notably, Hillary Clinton did not say she'd bring her husband.)

Mrs. Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama and John McCain all said books. Rudy Giuliani said "books and music."

Chris Dodd said "coffee with cream and sugar."

Sam Brownback said a tarp.

Mike Huckabee said a "laptop with satellite reception."

Tom Tancredo said a boat.

Bill Richardson said "BlackBerry and a Davidoff cigar."

Buy Jinky's book

Here's a photo of Jinky and his "mom." First he had a blog, now a book. It's a bit racy for me--after all he's a Hollywood dog--but some of my readers, especially dog lovers who want to help a good cause, will love it.



My other blogs about Jinky.

3790

The spread of poverty

I've often said that the way middle class families lived in the 60s and 70s would be considered poverty today--one car, 1.5 baths, 3 bedrooms, no AC, no dishwasher, one TV--and of course, no cable, no cellphones, no computers, etc. But I didn't expect the Census Bureau to agree with me.

"Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

Eighty two percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 35 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions; Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception; Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher."

Instead of broadening the base of poverty (to induce guilt, get more votes and more taxes), it would be better to focus on the really destitute. TCS Daily article.

3789

It's a horserace

Tiago
Among the Republican field I will support Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney or Tom Tancredo. I have no interest in McCain, Rudy or Newt; they haven't treated their wives and ex-wives well. Maybe that's why they play it fast and loose on abortion? Some of the candidates I've never heard of.

For the 133rd Derby, I think at Donna and David's party Saturday night I'll go for Tiago, 15:1. He won at the Santa Anita Derby. His jockey rode Giacomo to victory, and John Shirreffs is the trainer. He is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Moss. There are no good stories this year--no female jockeys, no blind or deaf horses, no murky backgrounds among the owners--or if there are, it's so common the reporters are ignoring it. I had to find the list on page 6 of the sports section this morning.

Would you like a cute Chihuahua?

No, not my grand-puppy, but one at this Chi Rescue. Look at that talented pup who walks on his two front legs. Jinky, the Hollywood dog, is out advertising his book, making a case for rescued dogs. He's led a pretty fabulous life, first blogging which is how I met him, and now as a celebrity author. You'll fall in love with the Lambster, an abused Bichon, that Jinky writes about.

New stories at the reunion blog

The ladies' breakfast

Center School in Trot Town

Town hang-outs

My first document in Zoho.  I stopped by Aunt Lora's blog, from which I clicked on a blog by a father of an autistic child from which I got to Zoho.  It is an online word processor that I can access from anywhere--I think. 

Ooh.  I like the background color feature and the type font.

--------------->

OK. Now I'm back in the blogger.com posting template. I'm not exactly sure when or where I would use this Zoho. I always type in the "edit html" feature of blogger, except occasionally I switch to "compose" when I want to add some color or change the font. I can get into blogger.com from any computer. Does anyone know why I need Zoho Writer? I haven't tried the other features. Maybe I'm not techie enough to know what a jewel it is--the reviewers raved about it. Easy sign up.

Friday Family Photo--another cousin

This is a photo of my cousin Gayle when she was the queen of May at Manchester College in North Manchester, IN. That's her roommate taking a photo of her. I think Gayle told me her roomie made the dress which Gayle later used as her wedding dress. Isn't she pretty? I found the photo at an MC site.

3784

Please scratch that itch at home

While refilling my coffee cup the other day at Panera's, I saw a very large woman with her hand down the inside front of her capri pants. Later I looked up from my blogging notebook to see a man at the counter with his hand inside the back of his knee length jersey shorts scratching his bottom. And it wasn't even casual Friday!

Speaking of notebooks, I start a new one today. The one I'm using was started Mar. 22, and is a Kathryn White design represented by Art in Motion of Vancouver, BC. I found an interesting blog called Notebookism which features not only interesting notebooks for a variety of purposes (most too expensive for me), but also stories about notebooks of various artists, writers and poets. I like stiff covers and a spiral bind, because the sewn or glued pages often don't hold up to writing on the verso.

Thursday Thirteen--We're painting the master bedroom

Banner by EmilyThat's a "royal we." I don't paint. I just wring my hands, give advice and worry. But this time, my husband isn't painting either, although until we moved here, he always did for 40 years. Two years ago I decided I could at least strip wallpaper to save money, and before the painters came to do my office, I nearly killed myself and had a sore back for months. Don't do that. Here's some tips learned and relearned along the way.

1. We decided to flip the colors from the guest room painted two years ago. This idea worked really well with the dining room and living room.
2. We discovered we didn't have a drop of the wall color left--not even a stir stick.
3. This painter uses a different brand, and even with two of us eyeballing those little paint strips and both being artists, do you think we could find an exact match? My advice is, always keep a little paint even if you have to buy an extra quart you don't use.
4. It takes two people (one of them preferably another man--your son-in-law) to move a queen size mattress and box springs into the hall.
5. No matter where you decide to move things, something will be in the way. With the mattresses being in the hall, all the paintings and art work had to be moved, and most space was already taken with the paintings from the room to be painted.
6. Faux glaze has a texture and requires sanding and a special primer to cover. That increases your cost and the dust factor, so cover everything in the closets.
7. If your dressers were on hard wood floors in the last house, you've probably forgotten that there are levelers on the legs, and they will snag the carpet in the new place.
8. Mirrors on dressers are much heavier than you remember (and you are much older) when you try to remove them.
9. Always have the carpenter come before the painters. Somehow I missed that by having my husband make all the arrangements for putting a soffit in the bathroom. That is going to be oodles of touch up, plus if I remember this guy, he doesn't show up when scheduled.
10. If possible, don't schedule a meeting at your house while you're painting. We messed up on that, too. I just may have to close some doors, since we've moved a lot of stuff to where ever we have space. I think Thursdays are bad too, because if they don't finish, and have a Monday conflict, you're stuck until the following Tuesday.
11. Cover the cable connection/outlet with tape. We found it had been painted over in the guest room when we moved our TV this week.
12. When we removed one of our paintings, we found the intercom system. We'd forgotten there was one. Nothing works in an intercom that is 30 years old. Don't even install one. Just shout or use your cell phone.
13. Try to agree before all the tools have been put away what exactly is being removed from the walls. "Why didn't you take down the lamps?" "What? You want the lamps (with about 10 screws each) removed?"

So I'm down here in my office blogging like it's just another day, trying not to think of another 13 things I can add next Thursday.

3782

Before you screw

in that new energy efficient CFL lightbulb, maybe you'd better wait until they figure out how we're going to safely dispose of them when the incandescents are no longer available. They contain mercury. You might need to call the hazmat folks if you break one, and that could up the cost just a bit. National post story.

Also, they are all made in China, where the factories are coal fired. So think about the black smoke you're belching out on their country side. I've bought a few, but for now, I think I'll stick with the old, less efficient ones until the Gang Green settles down a bit.

HT Amateur Economist

3781

I am not alarmed

"The U.S. economy is expected to add 1.5 million IT jobs by 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Labor statistics. At the same time, research firm Gartner Inc. predicts that by 2012, 40% of women now in the IT workforce will have moved away from technical career paths to pursue more flexible business, functional, and research and development careers."

Not all men want this career track, why should the same percentage of women want it? I'm not at all alarmed, except by the alarmists who drum women out of the home, teaching, nursing, and retail where they are comfortable, and insist we must be little drones who work 16 hours days, move around the country, smooze at bars and on golf courses, and become "one of the guys." I have a girl friend who entered the computer field full-time right out of college. At about the age I retired, she has gone back to college to become a nurse.Story about this "alarming scenario" in Computer World.

3780

Last words--let them be Thank You

Robert E. Johnson, a practicing anesthesiologist for 35 years, treating thousands of patients, has these comments on "last words" in JAMA, April 12, 2006, p. 1624.

"Few plan their last words. They usually speak them unknowingly. And I hope I'm not hearing them. I've learned to say some appropriate lines of explanation and comfort for trachael intubations though, and then pause. Patients usually respond, "Thank you." If they survive, nothing is lost, if they die something is gained. The light of their final gratitude can shine on memories of them forever."

And while I'm thinking of it, when you say "Thank You," wouldn't you rather hear, "You're welcome," rather than, "No problem," or "Bakatcha?"