4104

What Bill says about Hillary

Dick Morris, who is no prize for ethics and morality himself, contradicts a few critical points in Bill Clinton's commercial for his wife's candidacy. For instance, Morris points out:

Hillary considered (threatened) running for governor of Arkansas in 1990 when Bill didn't want to, so after doing some polling, he decided to run for a 2nd term.

"Hillary's main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent. She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal."

"Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him."

There are other allegations that shouldn't be too difficult for bloggers to verify. But there's enough here to sound pretty scary. Most of this was reported by Carl Bernstein in his new book about Hillary, but Morris provides his insider take just on the dishonest commercial which paints a totally different Hillary--even has her in different places. But would Bill Clinton lie?

4103

A delightful group of young people

Christiane Anampour couldn't grasp the difference between women who dress modestly and radical muslims who force women to wear burkas and keep women out of school in her program on CNN, but the community of Saline, Michigan gets it. Last week at Lakeside we enjoyed a program of fiddlers from the high school in Saline (also included guitarists and cellists). The girls all wore swingy, fashionable skirts and collared shirts, and the boys wore neatly fitted jeans and collared shirts. No one was over weight or anorexic; no one was tattooed; no one had nose or eyebrow studs; no one wore too much make-up. What a fabulous group of young people, and Michigan should be proud.

Now in their 14th year, "The Saline Fiddlers represent the positive side of today's youth while reflecting the rural traditions of Saline and ultimately the country. The performers, all students at Saline High School, earn their places through competitive auditions based on musical ability and personal integrity. Each Fiddler balances academics, sports, school organizations, church activities, jobs and social lives with this demanding commitment to music."

4102

How to stomp out artistic talent in children

Backstory: Some teachers from our local Wickliffe Progressive Elementary school went to Harvard this summer to attend Project Zero Classroom 2007 (usually zero means worthless, but perhaps I'm behind the times). They studied with Melissa Rivard and Mara Krechevsky for a week, which the participants called "a great opportunity." Upon returning, the participants shared what they learned at an in-service day, and it was reported in our local SNP newspaper.

Here's the technique that caught my eye, and I hope the journalist got it WRONG!

"I'm excited to use the thinking routines, where children are making extensions or connections," she said.

Instead of a child creating a drawing, then explaining to the other students what the picture means, the other students will talk about what they see in the drawing.

"This leads to discussions," she said. "Instead of just telling the information, the kids are creating it by thinking about it."

Oh yuk! I suppose it depends on the age of the artist, but if Johnny has worked very hard drawing his dog and her puppies playing in the kitchen, and the other kids decide it is a cow and her calves entering a barn, I think it's the last time he'll be willing to try his hand at drawing.

None of these techniques sound new to me--my kids were getting this "let's have the children discuss their own ideas" instead of telling them things so they have meaningful content from which to draw even in the 1970s. My children graduated from high school not knowing which came first, WWII or the Vietnam War (both were ancient history by the time they finished). It wasn't popular to teach facts or time lines, but I'm sure they had fascinating discussions filled with their own fluffy ideas.

This was drawn by a 10 year old Chechnya child. It says, "Family" at the top, and Mama, I, and Papa at the bottom. It's from a war site, but I hope no one tried to get the child to draw pictures of bombs or torture. The drawing ability, balance, design and use of color are wonderful, and show that this child had some traditional art training and didn't waste her time in frivolous discussions of her classmates' drawings.

4101

Polygamy might be better than nannygamy

Polygamy will be the next change in marriage law. After the gays push through same sex legal unions, there will be no reason to limit it to two consenting adults, or three or even adults. They already have a political action group to decriminalize it.

Polygamy has some benefits, according to an ABC program I watched the other night about a community of polygamists in Arizona. Legally, the man (a school teacher) has only one wife, however, their community and church recognize both women equally. The younger one is hoping he'll take a third wife, because she needs some help. There are seven children, five by wife #1 and two by wife #2. The women are close friends and help each other; the older one helped the younger with a difficult birth. The older wife goes to work in an an office, while the younger one stays home to care for the children. She's pooped.

I saw an ad for a nanny in our local paper. Truly, it sounds like this family needs polygamy, a wife #2, not a nanny. Here's what "young professional couple" wants

• nanny to work 2-3 days full time, with possible full time
  
• prior experience with newborn (the "delightful" girl is 3 months old)
  
• pediatric CPR training
  
• First aid certificate
  
• college degree
  
• interest in child development
  
• car
  
• driver's license
  
• references
  
• must pass background check
  
• caring, experienced and energetic personality
  
• willing to do housekeeping
  
• be able to cook
  
• do the laundry
  
• run errands

My advice to mommy (or daddy--the ad doesn't say but I suppose it could be a same-sex couple) is: stay home with the baby for awhile if you are this anal about proper child care. These are the delightful years. There's no committee meeting, conference or promotion worth missing those smiles and kisses.

4100

The Atlanta Fashion Police

Did you hear that someone in Atlanta's city government wants to outlaw baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs by amending the indecency laws? This is the silliest thing I've ever heard. If men want to look stupid and ridiculous, want to cripple their legs and look fat, well, let them. They are probably looking that way because mama and the government check has been coddling them.

But what's the excuse for older women who ought to know better? Look at the cover of this catalog. If you are 5'10" and weight 100 lbs, with the figure of a hanger, you possibly can look good in this. But for most women, if your BMI is 26, it will instantly bloom to 30 if you wear these outfits. I've seen Amish women in more flattering and feminine outfits than these.

4099

We must be winning in Iraq

Based on yesterday's top toilet news stories on which the MSM focused, I've concluded that we must be winning in Iraq. Mothers who toilet train infants and a Republican senator that knows all the hand signals and footsy-wootsy stuff to pick up men in restrooms seemed to be all they could talk about. Talk about "elimination communication!"

Update: It seems Craig's shoe is a bigger story than Hillary and Obama's Hsu. Sex can work up more voter interest than corruption, apparently.

4098

The power of a web

Yesterday morning when I returned to the house from coffee (about 7:30), I noticed the garage door was up. Must have forgotten to push the down button when I looked for the eclipse, I thought. When I pulled in and pushed the down-button in the car, the door went down and right back up. Must have not pulled in far enough, I thought, and got out and looked. No, there was plenty of clearance. I went into the house and told my husband there was something wrong with the garage door. Later when I came back from running a few errands, the door was down. When I asked what the problem was, he told me there was a spider web on the bottom of the far side of the door with a leaf caught in the threads, and the leaf passed over the light beam that signals something is in the way of the door (which is very heavy and could crush a child or a bicycle). I'm amazed both at the power of the little spider (who probably rode back from the lake with us on the side mirror of the van), and the technology put in place due to injuries from garage doors.

This leads me to the thought that technology cannot always protect people, especially stupid risk takers. Within a 1/2 mile of our home yesterday, pitch black outside, I thought I saw something in the headlights of the car in front of me where the street splits to a Y, so I slowed down (I was already only at about 30 mph because of just having left the drive-way). Yes, there was a biker in dark clothing, including a hooded sweatshirt so not even his pale skin reflected light. There were no lights or reflective tape on the bike. He had apparently stopped because he'd taken the wrong leg of the Y and was waiting to change lanes. I just shook my head in disbelief. There must be an angel riding on his handle bars offering to light his way, because truly this man was a very dim bulb.

It's baaaaack

Orange and avocado. Hot colors of the late 50s and again in the 70s. Is it time again? I didn't think so, but here it is in the September 2007 Architectural Digest.





For more choices, visit Eastern Accents.

Tara Parker Pope to leave me to my own devices

I never miss Tara Parker Pope's health columns in the Wall Street Journal. They are readable, timely, and easy for the layman to understand, and most important to me, she usually leads the reader to her sources. Last week she wrote about firing up the grill and why women might want to think twice:

"Postmenopausal women who often ate grilled barbecued and smoked meats had a 47% higher risk for breast cancer than low meat eaters." From Epidemiology, May 2007

She offered these tips: 1) Microwave food about a minute before grilling; 2) eat lots of vegetables with your grilled food; 3) Use marinades; 4) flip your food often; 5) cook red meat medium or rare; 6) cook at a lower temperature whether in your oven, stove or grill. I think that's a really helpful summary of research we wouldn't ordinarily read.

But today she announced it was her last column:

"In recent weeks I have been reflecting on the power of information to improve health."

I think I know how she feels. "Information" is the most over rated value we have and as a librarian I learned that early. Information isn't wisdom; it isn't action; it doesn't come with a guarantee it won't be misused; it doesn't build relationships; and it definitely isn't power. Librarians have learned that and increasingly spend their time fiddling with IT gimmicks that will manipulate the information, parsing it into i-pods or applets or digital snipplets.

She writes movingly about her own mother's health crisis. Using her skills at manipulating information Tara was able to find their second best choice for oncologist who was a complete bust (first choice was taking no new patients), because he was rude and dismissive both about her information skills and her mother's health. A chance remark by her mother put them back with their first choice because she had been his patient years ago. They pursued together the best options for her mother, and for awhile she was cancer free, but it returned and claimed her. Pope clings to the idea that everyone has the power to take control of her own health, and that taking charge didn't save her mother's life, but made the end better. But if it hadn't been for that chance remark. . . all the information in the world and the wonders of the internet for her to search wouldn't have led them to the right doctor.

More on TPP

4095

That's why it's called risk

Sometimes it is good when Rush Limbaugh has a guest host. The guy he has on today, Mark Belling of Milwaukee, has been explaining the mess with the subprime loans better than any I've heard. He's been trying to pound it through the listeners' heads with rhetorical questions, "that's why it's called risk."

• How far do we go with government bail outs when people make the wrong decision?


• What about all those people for whom it was the right decision? Many people bought their dream homes and were able to ease into homes they might not have purchased otherwise.


• What about the banks and Wall Street companies who bought up those loans and now want a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac bailout of a bad investment?


• Are the people who borrowed the money (at a risk) really worse off than they would have been paying rent for three years (at a higher monthly cost than the loan) and getting nothing back?


• When real estate goes up, it's a huge windfall for some. What about them? They took a risk and won.


• What are the unintended consequences of the government bailing out poor credit risks?


• What if the decline is a good thing--a correction in the market?


• What if the house was over valued when they bought it? Is that my responsibility?


• This might be a terrific time for people who are savvy investors to buy a house. Prices had gone out of reach for many, and are now more reasonable again.


• Many of the people who took out 2/28 loans were also offered fixed loans for 30 years at a slightly higher monthly cost. If they had done the prudent thing, paying a little more now for more security later, they wouldn't be in this mess.


• Because new rules are being put in place, we're making it impossible for people caught in the first mess, to get out of it.


• This is a small percentage of a small percentage. We won't know for 5 years if this correction is really a tremendous opportunity for the market to correct itself. Do we want to meddle with the market before we know?

One problem I can see coming is that those who bought a home at a fixed rate with money down in a neighborhood where others bought with ARMs and no equity are going to see property values fall as banks foreclose, neighbors file for bankruptcy or owners abandon their property. Next, rents are going to start going up for everyone, because there will be former home owners out looking for a place to live.

Either way, if you haven't been putting money aside for the inevitable rainy day, your wallet is in for a surprise.

Power of the blog

About four years ago I blogged about my Fornasetti plates. That entry gets quite a few hits. The link to a gift shop no longer works. Somehow, Alice, the friend who gave them to us as a house warming gift in 1965, found the entry and has e-mailed. How nice to hear from her. Bill died about four years ago, but we remember many happy times with them in Champaign-Urbana, IL. Here's the face I was blogging about--Julia by Piero Fornasetti.

4093

Please disobey our laws

It's not only our administration that is suggesting this to illegal immigrants. Our church governments, usually made up of people who don't reflect those of us in the pew, are saying it too:

You’re driving into a major city taking in all the sights and sounds. It looks like any other major metropolitan area when suddenly you see a large sign suspended above the highway. It monstrous letters it say, "Please make every effort to ignore our laws!" You're taken back for a moment as you continue your drive into the city. Certainly they can’t mean that – but soon you find they do. Everyone you encounter is doing whatever they desire and totally ignoring all laws. Stop signs mean nothing, speed limits are ignored and people take whatever they want from local merchants without paying. You have found yourself in the city of Evangelical Lutherans. Cue theme music and closing credits.

The above scenario is no more bizarre than what happened at the recently concluded annual General Conference of the Evangelical Lutherans Church of America. On the closing day of the Conference a resolution was passed by 538-431 vote pleading with the leadership of the denomination to ignore their own church law. Oh, and this was immediately following passing another resolution upholding their church law. Confused? Welcome to the Lutheran Twilight Zone!" Bob Burney

We only need to look at history to see how this will end. Either the liberals will take over, inch by inch, vote by vote,* or the conservatives will pull out (taking most of the money**) and form another synod with other disaffected congregations or synods. ELCA is losing members and money with this fight that's been going on for eight years.

Then among those who believe marriage is God's plan for one man and one woman and that pastors should not be openly living-in-sin whether straight or gay, there are ordained women pastors in ELCA. Well, the guy-group (mostly straight, but also some gays) is still smarting over losing that battle years ago (women have been ordained in some Lutheran churches for over 50 years), so it's raising its ugly head again and that will split the conservatives. How many protestant "fellowships/ congregations/ denominations" are there? 30,000? I'm not sure this is what Martin Luther or John Calvin or Menno Simons had in mind, but there it is--testimony to the whole world that where two or three are gathered in His Name, there will be a fight over the dress code or baptism or music and a new denomination will be born.

*This was a back door, political maneuver brought up at the last minute at the Chicago Assembly, with the press alerted and waiting in the halls to report the outcome and spin it.

**ELCA national office still shows our congregation (UALC) supporting them. However, our "benevolence payments" of $662,618 goes directly to the Southern Ohio Synod, and not to the national office. It's been that way for four years. These funds, and an additional $400,000 for other mission work, do not pass through national's office. This is another way to "spin" support for non-biblical viewpoints.

Who will the Democrats go after next?

The best quote: "I strongly urge President Bush to nominate a new attorney general who will respect our laws and restore the integrity of the office." — Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. He's never met a law yet that he respected because they aren't written for his kind. They hounded Ashcroft and bayed at Gonzales. They don't fool me. They just don't have anything else to do. What scares me is the "tit for tat" [retaliation] that will go on if the Democrats elect the next president. The Republicans just might get some backbone. Scary, isn't it, that our elected officials will spend all their time combing through e-mails and old phone records, attempting to catch each other in misstatements.

The end of summer

Technically, it's not over, but we came back to Columbus today. This morning I walked along the lakefront to take a few pictures. . . and then the batteries died.





Then back to the cottage to pack up. Sigh.

Monday Memories--Thank you, Indy Barb

Last week we received a DVD with photos of my husband's class reunion prepared by Indy Barb the reunion committee. My, oh my! What a lot of work they put in on that! At least I think it was her [she says in the comments it wasn't]. By the time the disc got to my hands, it was out of the envelope. Just adding all the names to the photos must have been a huge task. Reunions are only as successful as the committees, and we both graduated with people who are willing to work hard at it. Not only did it have the reunion photos (3 days--a dinner, an alumni gathering on the campus, and a picnic), but she'd also scanned a large part of the important class photos from the yearbook. We have the '57 yearbook, but many people have lost theirs over the years, so I know they will be thrilled.

BMOC. A class officer. I think I might have been too, however, his high school was larger than my town.



My husband on the far right--credit says they were having a mock political campaign. Looks like it was Ike and Adlai.

My husband always knew he'd be an architect, and Tech was certainly the place to go! Here he is (on the left) with one of his models. I remember this one well. It used to travel around with us from apartment to apartment when we were first married incorporated into a table.

4089

I wish I watched more TV

Then I would sit in a chair and do nifty exercises with little weights for my upper arms. Yesterday I went to the antique show here at Lakeside. I was bending over to examine an "antique" that I know was from the 1960s, and I glanced down at my bent right arm. The flesh from my front upper arm had sort of fallen in little ripples into the crook of my elbow! So I immediately straightened up. But I must have hit my hand, because today I have a huge black bruise about the size of a silver dollar on the back of my right hand, just like Dad used to get--but he was old! Then this morning after church we were watching the DVD of my husband's class reunion (Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis, which I will write about tomorrow). There weren't many pictures of us, but they did catch us on the dance floor, and Oh, I thought we just looked so super, but photos don't lie. We had the same turkey wattles as everyone else.

I'm not sure TV will help my neck, but it's worth a try.

4088

Are Democrats stupid?

No, but they know the American people, and they may be right. If something doesn't work, we just keep doing it, or electing it hoping for better luck next time. The Democratic candidates for president are on the road to New Orleans, the most corrupt, the most patronage puffed, the most crime ridden city and the most bamboozled by the Democratic party (as of August 2005--Katrina Hurricane) in the United States. It will be another attempt to lay this at the feet of President Bush, which is so absurd I do wish the man would step on them with his big cowboy boots and just lay it all out about whose responsibility it was that the city was sitting on leaking levees controlled by parish boards, that its public housing was filled with poor blacks with no hope, that its government health care was the pits, that the streets were swarming with criminals and that the Mayor and the Governor never did a thing to evacuate those projects even with all the warnings they had, letting the buses drown in the flooding and the criminals take over while they evacuated their cabinets and family members.

But here comes another black, Democratic savior for the Democrat racists in NOLA--Barack Yo'mama Obama

The Gulf Coast restoration, Mr. Obama said, has been weighed down by red tape that has kept billions of dollars from reaching Louisiana communities. As president, he said, he would streamline the bureaucracy, strengthen law enforcement to curb a rise in crime and immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet in order to restore wetlands to protect against storms.

Mr. Obama also said that he would seek to lessen the influence of politics in the Federal Emergency Management Agency by giving its director a fixed term, similar to the structure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FEMA director would serve a six-year term, under Mr. Obama’s plan, and report directly to the president.

Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, and several presidential hopefuls are scheduled to arrive in Louisiana this week to highlight how New Orleans has — and has not — recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Democrats have sought to use the city as an example of what they believe was among the Bush administration’s greatest domestic failures. Jeff Zeleny, NYT, Aug. 26, 2007 Jeff, how'd you keep a straight face writing this drivel?

Over a million volunteers from every state in the nation and every imaginable religious group have headed to NOLA in the last two years to pull it out of the mud. I'm guessing they've done more than all the federal FEMA dollars and reelected-Nagin nonsense combined. And I think that is under reported.

4087

Visiting some new links

Sometime soon, when updating my template I'll be adding Lady Light, The Sandusky Library Archives, and Rev. Jesse Peterson. Rev. Peterson has a column in Worldnet Daily and writes on issues important to African Americans, families, and particularly fathers. He's a Conservative. Recently he wrote about evil using the analogy of the movie Grizzly Man, where the man who loved grizzlies is finally killed by them, because that's just what wild animals do.

"Not surprising, of course. Be as nice as you want; at the end of the day, grizzlies are grizzlies – wild animals that will kill you when it suits them.

Evil is the same way. No one needs to provoke Kennedy, Dean, Reid, or the NAACP. They serve the side of destruction. That's just what they do.

No matter what you do, no matter how nice you try to be, no matter how genuinely you try to have a dialogue, no matter how much money you give, evil will never cease to be evil. Liberals, black and white, will attack conservative white Republicans as racists regardless. Ask Bill Bennett.

Or ask President Bush. He's invested more government money in black America than Bill Clinton. He's put more black Americans in prominent leadership positions than Bill Clinton. He's been a fine moral example, unlike Bill Clinton. It doesn't matter. Evil people love Bill Clinton because he is one of them. Those who oppose President Bush hate him because he's good. They will forever oppose him for this reason. Just recently, Congressman Charles Rangel called President Bush the modern-day "Bull" Connor." Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson

Here’s a great library blog from Sandusky, Ohio--the history of the area written by the library’s archivist. We are close to Sandusky when we are at our summer home on Lake Erie, so I’ll be visiting Sandusky History frequently. According to the blog The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center has a collection of about 10,000 photographic images documenting many facets of the history of Sandusky, Erie County, the Lake Erie islands, and the Firelands region. The blog has a lively writing style and includes scans of many of these photographs as well as items from the newspapers. Like many public libraries, it began as a subscription, private organization for a literary club and was supported by a women’s group before it became a public, tax supported institution:

"The public library in Sandusky can trace its roots back to 1825 (only seven years after Sandusky was founded), when a subscription library was created, called the Portland Library. F.D. Parish, one of the city's first lawyers, was the first librarian, with about 300 books under his care. This organization was succeeded around 1840 by the Sandusky Lyceum, a literary study society; the Lyceum was in turn replaced by the Philomathesian Society in 1845. In 1855, the Young Men's Library Association took over the role of public library for Sandusky, until 1870, when the Library Association of Sandusky was founded. This organization was commonly known as the "Ladies' Library Association," because the membership of its board was composed entirely of women of the community. In 1886 the Library Building Fund Association was created to raise funds for the construction of a library building. In 1895, the Library was incorporated and became the first free public library in the community." From the first entry.

Lady Light Blog will be a new link probably listed in my Faithful bloggers group. Most in that list are Christians, but she's a Jew and the title of her blog is Tikkun Olam. She writes about her faith and Israeli politics, throws in a little humor and some good photos. Enjoy!

4086

Zit-geist: what's your favorite teen movie?

I probably won't be seeing the latest teen coming-of-age movie, Superbad, although it's not getting bad reviews. Raunchy. I can't find the title of my favorite teen movie, because I've only seen parts of it on TV, never the beginning or the ending. From the clothing, I'd guess it was made 1950-52. The plot: new teacher comes to town, rents a room, falls for young dude with hot car. When school starts she finds out the guy is a high school student. Anyone know the title? Is it on DVD?

Here's some of my favorites:

The old Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney films from the 30s and 40s are fun to watch--they were always putting on a show

Any of the moon-June-croon musicals of the 1950s

Rebel without a cause (1955)

The graduate (1967)--Benjamin's a bit beyond teen years, but close. Katherine Ross was so pretty--she's my age.

American Graffiti (1973) This can bring tears to the eyes of a 50s grad

Grease (1978) Not as good as the 50s, but cute

Karate Kid (1984) Macchio and Morita--great team

Breakfast club (1985) Trying to figure out my kids!

Back to the future (1985) Loved it; much better than the sequels

Pretty in Pink (1986) Molly had a great career, didn't she?

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)--always think of my kids cutting school

Sister Act (1992) Yikes, 15 years ago--OK, not strictly a teen movie, but takes place in a school. Whoopi and Maggie, what a team

Shattered Hearts (1998)--Made for TV. Star athlete and top student, both college bound, fall in love. He is struck down by cancer. Very sad.

Almost famous (2001)--main character is a teenager who follows a rock band

4085

What I want for my birthday

I stopped at the gift shop in Lakeside this morning to take a photo of a ring. I'm showing it to dear husband, or DH, as some of you call yours. That isn't my hand--I'm taking the photo. Now I've shown it to him, and I hope the rest is history. I don't wear much jewelry and this isn't my birthstone, but I thought this would be nice with the occasional dressy outfit. Plus, it's a size 5--just calling my ring finger's name. What do you think?