Is she kidding?

Ellen Goodman claims the Democrats are suffering from an embarrassment of riches, and the Republicans just an embarrassment.

I know she's a liberal, but blind, deaf and dumb, too? How does this woman survive with so many talented pundits trying to get her job? [She's not in this magazine--I just liked the cover.] The Republican roster, even including the ones I don't care for, like Rudy and McCain (mainly because of their messy personal lives), so far outshine the troika of Hillary, Obama and Johnny there's just no match. Hillary claims "change and experience." She's a has been before she gets to the gate. Who wants to go back to Bill running things and calling it a change? Edwards keeps whining about 2 Americas trying to paddle that canoe in the Great Society swamp, and Obama can't quite get the black folks to believe he's one of them (for very good reason).

Was I this silly when I was a liberal? Don't think so. I probably held my nose when voting for Bill.

Global Warming; the origin of the consensus

Let's look back a few years--to 1992. I'm not sure I was even aware of global warming in 1992--I probably was still under the influence of the global cooling theories. 1988 was the hottest summer I can remember, but then I wasn't around in the 1930s, although my parents could tell the stories of the dust bowl and the ghastly hot summers. I had watched Lake Erie rising and had seen the huge boulders they were bringing in to keep it from destroying the lawns that led down to the flat rocks. I could see from the old photographs of Lakeside that the lake was much higher in the 1970s than it was in the 1950s or the 1920s. Of course, all that has changed now--the lake is low again, and would be even lower if it weren't for the other Great Lakes draining into it. The boulders look a bit silly and lonesome now.

Check out what Richard S. Lindzen said about the origins of the "consensus" in 1992, and then what he said in 2006. Then browse a bit of history--like how cold it was in Europe in the late middle ages--how people froze from the cold, or starved because the growing seasons were so short after experiencing a balmy period in the 11th and 12th centuries. Then ask yourself, why should the world always be only the way I remember it? (Of course, Ohio used to be covered with a glacier, so I know it is getting warmer, and I'm so glad it did.)

And then pause to remember the Chinese, yes, the billions and billions of Chinese, who are just on the cusp of wanting what we in America and western Europe already have. They could sign 10 Kyotos, and it won't make a snippet of difference (following a contract is not in their tradition), while Al Gore and friends try to shut down the American economy in hopes of cooling the planet. Yes, think about China as you screw in your energy-saving, mercury filled bulbs made in coal fired factories in China and congratulate yourself for being so careful with fragile, elderly Mother Earth.

JAM says he could take global warming more seriously if only the people warning us about it were acting out their concern or behaving respectfully toward the environment in their daily lives. He's a bit more generous. I might take it more seriously if they weren't the same folks who say it took millions and millions of years for humans to develop a brain and walk up right, owls to learn to eat field mice, and terns to learn to navigate to their nesting area over thousands of miles, but now we're going to hell in a handbasket in just a couple of hundred years. How did evolution ever succeed without Al and his oversight committee of the IPCC?

Do your part to save the planet:

lose weight,
stop smoking,
pick up trash along the road side,
conserve resources,
plant a garden,
pick up after your dog poops in someone else's yard,
keep your cat in the house,
don't put out bird seed or throw bread to the ducks,
don't take down the fence rows on the farms,
put up a purple martin house,
don't drive like a drugged jack rabbit,
and be nice--reduce hot air by using your common sense.

Wild turkeys

couldn't keep me away from browsing "deepwoods" photos over at Weather Underground photo blogs.



She writes (but I can't find a place to comment and tell her how much I've enjoyed her photographs): "I am a lady who is now a stay at home homemaker. I live in the woods on the rocky coast of Maine. There are many opportunities to snap some great nature and wildlife scenes, as well as whatever else catches my eye as being interesting or a little different. I also love to bake, and do bake all our bread. Reading is one of my favorite pasttimes, non-fiction only. I am working on a book about my dog, Ridge, who also appears in many of my photos, as he is my constant companion...my hiking buddy, and my best friend. My firm belief and hope is that everyone will one day make a visit to the great state of Maine....it's not called "Vacationland" for nothing!" Sounds like a great life, doesn't it? I spent a summer session at a college in Maine, and we went there to see some fall color in the late 1970s. It is truly a gorgeous state. And winter doesn't look too shabby either!

Don't you need a kitty to love?

Capital Area Humane Society is looking for you. 3015 Scioto-Darby Executive Court, Hilliard, OH 43026 (614) 777-7387 FAX (614) 777-8449.

Where do you display your Christmas cards?

A survey at USAToday reported 46% on a table, 22% on the fireplace mantel, and 17% on a bookshelf. It's the 15th of December. My credenza is full; we need to find a new spot. In our other house, we wrapped red ribbon around the hall closet door, and taped the back side of the card to the ribbon so it sort of became a bulletin board.



See the photo of the boys on the far right side of the mirror? I nearly cried when I saw them. Could not believe how grown up they are. They now live in Texas, but their parents lived here when they were pre-schoolers--they are now 17 and 20 and the younger one is taller than the older. Our guys met on a job interview; architecture was so slow in Texas, but my husband's firm was unable to hire this promising, young Tejano architect. We invited them to church and became friends. When they moved back to Texas two years later when the economy improved, we were sorry to see them go.

This year birds are the winners--probably 4 cardinals in the snow cards with several other species, then kittins, then lion and lamb, maybe two dogs. Only a few snowmen, and really not very many baby Jesus cards either.

The weather outside is. . .

Snowing in central Ohio. Grab a camera. I've just been browsing Weather Underground and the superb photos posted there. I think you join, and post weather related photos. The horse photo was posted after the December 13 ice storm, and the barn in Missouri earlier by idzrvit (I have no idea who that is, but I just liked the photos). In the search window enter, "ice storm." With some 300,000 people without power don't talk to these folks about global warming.

How Google can help clean your bathroom

The Internet isn't a library, but like library stacks, it can be a lot of fun to browse. Ten or twelve years ago when I would attend a professional conference, we'd hear comments like "The Internet is like having a key to someone else's garage," or "The Internet is like a library with everything on the floor." It's come a long way with incredible finding tools, especially Google. But I still love serendipity and browsing, the same thing I do in libraries. Here's this morning's trip and I started with a book:

For morning devotions I've been reading "Keep a quiet heart" by Elisabeth Elliot. Flipping through the back I noticed the 266 essays are actually culled from Elliot's newsletter, "The Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter" published 6 times a year, for $7.00/year. I flip to the front and see that my paperback copy was published in 1995, so I figure it's unlikely the newsletter is still in publication. I've actually met her when she gave a talk at our church many years ago on finding God's will for your life. But I get up from my comfortable chair and sit down at the computer--for two hours!

When I Google "Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter" I find a website for AA, Alcoholics Anonymous bibliography, that had quoted her newsletter's mention of Gertrude Behanna, who is apparently a well-known star among speakers on alcoholism, and I stop to read her autobiography, "God is not dead." It's really super, and I strongly recommend it if you have an alcoholic or druggie in your life.

I see that her life story was made into a movie starring Anne Baxter, The Late Liz, but skip over that tucking it away to check our library's excellent video collection (assuming it hasn't been rejected because of spiritual content).

But I got interested in her sons (of different marriages)--one a recovering alcoholic who is not a Christian and the other a priest who isn't an alcoholic, so I Google "son of Gert Behanna" since she didn't mention their names. This just brings up more references to the movie, but does link to the 27 page pdf list of videos by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. This looks like something our church librarian might like, so I print it in draft, and the printer spits the 27 pages all over my office while I'm in the basement putting a load in the washer.

The last page I pick up is p.1, since it prints backwards, and my librarian's obsessive spirit asks, "Well, just how difficult could it be to check a few of these titles on the Internet to see if they are available for purchase?" The first title is "The gift of the creed," by Dr. Timothy F. Lull and Rev. Patricia J. Lull, presented to the 1993 Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA (our synod). Although I find a reference to it, I don’t see availability, so I then Google “ELCA DVD” browse its list of available video products and decide it’s either too old, or was a very limited production only sent to churches.

Then I Google “Timothy F. Lull” and find out he died in 2003 after surgery. However, he was such a popular teacher at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, some of his students put together his lectures on Luther and Lutheranism and published it on Lulu.com at “The Press of the Society of the Three Trees” dedicated to the study of the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions. This press has published 5 titles, plus a journal, Christus Lux.

Because I collect first issues of journals, I decide to Google Christus Lux to see if it might be worth buying Vol. 1, no. 1. (It’s $15--a bit out of my range).

I notice another book by this press titled, “What’s wrong with sin,” by Derek R. Nelson--and I wonder if our church library might want this so I google the author, and find out he is now at Thiel College in Pennsylvania, a college with Lutheran ties I’ve never heard of. So of course I have to check out its web page, stopping at its library to look at an art show by a Kenyan. I stop to e-mail the author to ask if he thinks it is appropriate for a parish library of a very evangelical Lutheran church.

Then I notice it is about 6:45, so I take my printed and reassembled pdf list of the videos of the Eastern Synod of Canada and go to Caribou. While drinking coffee, I note many other videos I think would be good, like The joy of Bach (Gateway Films), The Great Mr. Handel (Gateway Films) and an interesting video on the art of choral directing by Lloyd Pfautsch of Southern Methodist University produced by Augsburg Fortress in 1988.

When I get home, I carry the laundry up to the bedroom where my husband is getting dressed. I recount to him all the fabulous things I found on the Internet this morning starting with Elisabeth Elliot’s book. His eyes glaze over.

While I’m hanging up his towels, I see the bathroom needs a good scrubbing.

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Why marriage matters

If marriage weren't so important to the survival of society, it wouldn't be worth saving. We are not a society of rich and poor; we're married and unmarried.

"There is a reason that all cultures treat marriage as a matter of public concern and even recognize it in law and regulate it. The family is the fundamental unit of society. Governments rely on families to produce something that governments need—but, on their own, they could not possibly produce: upright, decent people who make honest, law-abiding, public-spirited citizens. And marriage is the indispensable foundation of the family. Although all marriages in all cultures have their imperfections, children flourish in an environment where they benefit from the love and care of both mother and father, and from the committed and exclusive love of their parents for each other.

Anyone who believes in limited government should strongly back government support for the family. Does this sound paradoxical? In the absence of a strong marriage culture, families fail to form, and when they do form they are often unstable. Absentee fathers become a serious problem, out-of-wedlock births are common, and a train of social pathologies follows. With families failing to perform their health, education, and welfare functions, the demand for government grows, whether in the form of greater policing or as a provider of other social services. Bureaucracies must be created, and they inexorably expand—indeed they become powerful lobbyists for their own preservation and expansion. Everyone suffers, with the poorest and most vulnerable suffering most."

And much more here.

What liberal bias?

Seen at a library digitization publication, Digital Document Delivery:

A 2005 cartoon by Pat Oliphant depicts God working at a drawing board, with a bearded angel looking over His shoulder, and ascribes to God the words,

“I’ve been trying to perfect some kind of intelligent design, but all I keep coming up with is a bunch of simple-minded, right-wing, fundamentalist, religious fanatics. I think I’ll just let the whole thing evolve.”

They don't mind insulting millions of Christians and Jews who think evolution is a pile of horse pucky, but they are careful to note that they are not reproducing the cartoon out of fear of copyright violation.

Two out of three isn't bad

Yesterday I had lunch with a home-schooled eleven year old. After our Advent services at church we serve lunch, and when I was finished, I sat at a table with Mom, her son, and her male friend. The young man was so articulate and well-behaved I was amazed. He held his own offering opinions on a law suit about a gas line issue here in Columbus. His mom told me that every day she drives him to the east side so he can participate on a swim team. Obviously, she turns off her cell phone and connects with her kid during the 30 minute drive time.

I also met one of our new part-time pastors on our care team. He visits the sick, elderly and shut-ins and helps out in other areas as needed. He has relatives here, so he had actually been visiting our church for years before his retirement. We served communion together, with me giving him a few tips on how we do it, because I don't think he'd served before in our Lutheran church. He is a Southern Baptist.

Then in the evening our Visual Arts Ministry spent an hour or so shifting our supplies and equipment from a first floor phone closet, to a larger storage area on the upper floor near our hanging space. We chatted briefly with the security guard, a handsome young man named Muhammed. I'm still digesting that one.

>

Dear Mr. Hotz

I noticed your science column today in the Wall Street Journal--your faith in global warmists is admirable, if misplaced. I'm certainly no scientist, and don't have your credentials. However, if I were going to measure CO2 I probably would not be doing it above the world's largest volcano, as you report. I'd also assume that equipment for measuring it in 2007 was a bit more sophisticated and sensitive than it was in 1958, when it was started, therefore certainly showing big increases. I watch the nightly weather reports, and I'm surprised that even in 1958 when there were no records, that people predicted backwards coming up with a model that just fit their need for grants and publication. Why just last night, I watched today's prediction change from what it had been 12 hours before.

And hundreds of sensors? Where would that be exactly? In countries that can't maintain a government or a road, and where women are covered head to toe and they haven't figured out why AIDS is on the increase?

Sorry, Mr. Hotz, you're not even warm on this. We don't control the earth, the sun or the moon. We gave up trying to figure out what to do with abandoned TV sets, disposable diapers, and old tires, so we decided to change the climate. Now, isn't that a bit silly?

This is your gravy train, so keep it up. Excuse me if some of us aren't buying into it.

Librarians and privacy

What were librarians, the guardians of privacy when it comes to the Patriot Act and pornographers on the internet, saying about Facebook, the social networking site. Well, if you google "librarians Facebook privacy" you'll find they were practically wetting themselves in their eagerness to be relevant.

In today's Wall Street Journal Randall Rothenberg calls the news of the shutdown of Facebook's Beacon program, a victory for "market forces."

Within the space of a month or so, Facebook launched and then shut down an advertising program called Beacon that alerted users to purchases and other activities their "friends" made outside Facebook. The episode has been called many things: "annoying," "upsetting," "creepy," a "nightmare," a "privacy hairball." I call it proof that when it comes to the evolution of the Internet, market forces work.

Apparently, Facebook subscribers didn't like their friends being exploited, even if they didn't think of it in privacy terms. When the internet users respond quickly, and massively, it saves us all from more government regulations, says Rothenberg.

The internet is not free. It's supported by advertising. The advertisers using interactive technology is estimated by Rothenberg to be at $20 billion in 2007, growing to $62 billion by 2011. But they overreached, and alert subscribers said NO.

Still, I've got to wonder where were all those librarians who wanted to keep terrorists' library patterns private and fought the Patriot Act, and not put filters on library computers to protect children because it might interfer with "information gathering." Interesting concerns, these liberals.

It's all the same players

Usually I'm a big fan of the entrepreneurial spirit, the cottage industry that takes off, the bootstrapper who makes it big. Not in this case. They are part of the scam industry of the ages. Along with alcohol, tobacco, electric chairs and viaticals, I'm telling Dave, my investment guy, I want nothing to do with these companies. They are the new snakeoil salesmen. Are you emitting something dirty into the air. Just call your good old "green and clean" representative and they can make it all go away--on paper. Of course, it will cost you.

Green Exchange

Global Change Associates

Nymex Holdings

Evolution Markets

European Climate Exchange

Chicago Climate Exchange

CME Group Globex

It's already a $60 billion dollar business from the folks who brought us the subprime mortgage meltdown. Yes, it's the same players.

Let it snow!

Snow is in the forecast to begin tomorrow around noon. Columbus usually gets less than predicted, Cleveland more. Yesterday I was listening to 700 a.m. (Cincinnati) and Mike was gleeful at the prospect of 4". I think that has been downgraded to about 1" or rain. But over at A Gentleman's Domain, a Floridian who has lived in Canada, comments about snow. It's pretty funny--a month's diary of snow. Our daughter stopped by last night and the 3 of us were remembering getting stranded at different times by the weather between Indianapolis and Columbus. It's just not amusing being trapped by a plow on a rest stop access road when he's coming from the other direction pushing mounds 7-8' high. But it makes for a good story 15 years later.

Faulty weather data

Would you drink water that was as contaminated as the climate change/global warming data?

data from weather satellites
data from weather balloons
equipment changes
poor countries with sparse weather-stations
fewer than 1/3 of the 1970s weather stations are in operation
urban center bias
time changes for measuring
different countries use different models
ignore counter-evidence
slanted language in reporting

"This is no mere tiff among duelling experts. The IPCC has a monopoly on scientific advising to governments concerning climate change. Governments who never think to conduct due diligence on IPCC reports send delegates to plenary meetings at which they formally "accept" the conclusions of IPCC reports. Thereafter they are unable -- legally and politically -- to dissent from its conclusions. In the years ahead, people around the world, including here in Canada, could bear costs of climate policies running to hundreds of billions of dollars, based on these conclusions. And the conclusions are based on data that the IPCC lead authors concede exhibits a contamination pattern that undermines their interpretation of it, a problem they concealed with untrue claims."

Read the report and graph

Thirteen Reasons I'm not stressed at Christmas

There seems to be a lot of stress in the air this time of year. Here's 13 reasons I'm not part of it.

1) I'm volunteering at the weekly (noon) Advent services at our church. This allows me a mid-week opportunity to reflect on what this season is about. If they were at night, I'd probably stay home.

2) Because of my career, I didn't do much of the hands-on work like serving lunch or helping in the kitchen. Although working in the kitchen is out of my comfort zone, it is a pleasure to mingle with the saints who can now take a bit of a rest. Wonderful music by our fabulous church organist, and great food and fellowship.

3) Then I slip on my robe and help with communion. Nothing says what it is all about like placing a piece of bread in the hand of a person who has struggled to come to the communion rail to be refreshed by the body and blood of our Lord.

4) My husband painted a watercolor of a wonderful scene with a man and child walking through the snow with a cut tree for our annual Christmas card. This relieves me of any pressure to go to a store or look through a catalog. He even sorts, stamps and puts the return address label on the envelop.

5) I write the letter that goes in the envelop with the card. This gives me an opportunity to sift through the year's events and decide what's worth keeping and what gets thrown out. I enjoy thinking about the family and many friends--some we haven't seen since the early 1960s, and this is the only time of year we're in touch. I keep a scrapbook of all the old photos and have been watching their children grow up, now their grandchildren.

6) Although I sighed when the computer crashed right as I was getting ready to run address labels, handwriting the envelopes wasn't that bad--did about 25-30 at a time and then would do something else.

7) In late November I decided to have a simple open house on the last Sunday afternoon in December. Close church friends, easy menu. Plenty of time to clean and prepare. Maybe the carpet will be cleaned in January, so I won't even look down at what gets tracked in (white carpet). If you keep the menu simple, you have more time to enjoy your guests.

8) I'm running recipes through my head and counting plates--decided not to use paper. Will polish the silver soon while listening to Christmas carols. While I do this I think about the joys of friendship and other Christmases, like when Daddy came home after the end of WWII (and Mom went all out and got us children a sled and a doll house, to be shared by four).

9) I spent a few minutes thinking about some awful Christmases, too--like 1963 and 1964 and 1986 and 1987. If you don't give the bad times their due, they might try to knock on the door and slip in to spoil the day. Now they've been examined and packed away.

10) We'll have the opportunity to spend the week-end before Christmas with my husband's family in Indianapolis. The calendar only cooperates on certain years, since they have this gathering the Saturday before Christmas. So unless Christmas is Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it usually interfers with our Columbus at-home activities. All we do in the way of preparation is buy and wrap 2 exchange gifts, bring a dish to pass and show up at a niece's home.

11) I bought a new Handel CD which I'm playing during the day, and I'm reading a new (to me) book by Elisabeth Elliot, "Keep a Quiet Heart," for morning devotions.

12) We've had just about the right number of invitations for the Christmas-New Year season. We had a dinner at friends' home 2 weeks ago, a few restaurant dates with other couples, followed by dessert at their homes, and an invite to a New Year's Eve gathering. Nothing frantic, but we don't feel left out, either.

13) We talked about a budget for Christmas in November and won't be hit with big bills in January. My husband's gift was ordered from a catalog and should be arriving any day. Of course, there's the new computer and tires for the van, but we can't call those Christmas related even if the bills show up in January.

So that's my stress-free Christmas. How's yours going?

Big thank you to Amanda for the pretty Christmas banner.

Shelby Steele on Barack Obama

Shelby Steele's new book, "A bound man; why we are excited about Obama and why he can't win," suggests that black voters may reject him, not whites. I think you might want to buy the book because like the "Dewey defeats Truman" headlines in 1948, Steele might be wrong.

". . . Today we blacks have two great masks that we wear for advantage in the American mainstream: bargaining and challenging.

Bargainers make a deal with white Americans that gives whites the benefit of the doubt: I will not rub America's history of racism in your face, if you will not hold my race against me. Especially in our era of political correctness, whites are inevitably grateful for this bargain that spares them the shame of America's racist past. They respond to bargainers with gratitude, warmth, and even affection. This "gratitude factor" can bring the black bargainer great popularity. Oprah Winfrey is the most visible bargainer in America today.

Challengers never give whites the benefit of the doubt. They assume whites are racist until they prove otherwise. And whites are never taken off the hook until they (institutions more than individuals) give some form of racial preference to the challenger. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are today's best known challengers. Of course, most blacks can and do go both ways, but generally we tend to lean one way or another.

Barack Obama is a plausible presidential candidate today because he is a natural born bargainer. Obama--like Oprah--is an opportunity for whites to think well of themselves, to give themselves one of the most self-flattering feelings a modern white can have: that they are not racist." Steele, The identity card

Review by Jason Riley here.

Christians who expect the government to do their job

Chuck Baldwin writes about Christians who want the government to do the heavy lifting.

The idea that James Madison and the other authors of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights intended to prohibit children from praying in school, or state and local governments from posting the Ten Commandments and from erecting Nativity scenes is the invention of modern-age humanists, whose real goal is to eviscerate America's Christian heritage. Such reasoning is a complete inversion of the real meaning of the First Amendment. All the First Amendment was designed to do was recognize religious liberty, something Americans enjoyed until the infamous Supreme Court decisions in 1962 and '63.

That said, it is equally apparent that many Christians and ministers today have developed the attitude that somehow the federal government is supposed to enforce by law what only the Spirit of God can enforce through grace. Let's be plain: the federal government cannot do the church's job.

I suspect Baldwin is a libertarian by politics, because he states that although the government has the right to regulate pornography, prostitution and drugs, it shouldn't be in the business of legislating morality. I wouldn't go that far, because I see much of that as a mental pollution linked heavily to organized crime. But if he's talking about Christians who support it with crossed fingers hoping no one will find out, he's right. These businesses would probably collapse if all the Christians withdrew both their investments in these businesses and their patronage. Christianity Today a few years ago did a report on the millions of Christians addicted to pornography and gambling. Unbelievers like to think that Christians are smugly pointing fingers, but if they are, it isn't in my church, where in 30+ years I've never heard a sermon on any form of public or private morality.

Baldwin goes on to relate this to the upcoming election. And I do agree with him. You can't wedge a piece of dental floss between the theology of Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee--they are all Baptists and believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. I don't doubt their faith for a minute. If I don't meet them in this life, I know I will in the next. How they will translate their personal and political beliefs into policy, however, is very different. Gore and Clinton technically aren't on the ballot, but Clinton's persona, fake and flip-flopping as it may be, is very much a part of the campaign; and Gore's wingnut beliefs are invading every follicle and hair of our lives. Don't let the MSM frighten you about Romney or Huckabee. Look at policy and issues:

Therefore, instead of looking to presidential candidates who will use the federal government to accomplish everything we want done (even the good things we want done), we should support only those candidates who recognize the proper role of the federal government as being limited and narrowly defined (by the Constitution). And then, it behooves us to look to ourselves to be the parents we should be to our own children at home, and to look for pastors and churches that are not trying to be popular, but that are courageous and faithful custodians of the truth.

Greenspan bursts some bubbles

Demand driven by expection I think is a fancy phrase for greed

"I do not doubt that a low U.S. federal-funds rate in response to the dot-com crash, and especially the 1% rate set in mid-2003 to counter potential deflation, lowered interest rates on adjustable-rate mortgages and may have contributed to the rise in U.S. home prices. In my judgment, however, the impact on demand for homes financed with ARMs was not major.

Demand in those days was driven by the expectation of rising prices--the dynamic that fuels most asset-price bubbles. If low adjustable-rate financing had not been available, most of the demand would have been financed with fixed rate, long-term mortgages. In fact, home prices continued to rise for two years subsequent to the peak of ARM originations (seasonally adjusted)." in Today's Wall Street Journal

4427

When is an increase a decline?

When journalists look at job figures and the economy. My friend A.Z. and I were reminiscing about housing prices this week. We're old. We don't remember the Great Depression, however, so we can't tell the stories our parents told us. But like our parents, we wish our children had some perspective. She remembered when they sold their home in south Arlington in 1980 the interest rates were 17%. I recalled paying 10% in 1988 when we bought our summer home in Lakeside, and we were happy to get it. Thirty years ago the unemployment rate was around 7.8%; today it is 4.7%. No matter. It is always gloom and doom when the media get ahold of the figures. Sort of makes me happy I didn't read the economic news in the 1970s.

Kelly Evans at the WSJ reported "little cheer" in the job report for November. Employment ROSE by 94,000 in November (it was 44,000 in September), and unemployment stayed at 4.7% for the 3rd consecurive month. And consumer expectations have "slipped" according to a Reuters/University of Michigan survey (can't imagine a worse state for economic news if that's where the survey was taken). Its index of current economic conditions rose in December to 92.1 from 91.5 in November, but consumers (who have to listen to a constant roar of negative news from the MSM) found higher gasoline prices and are not happy (let's reduce taxes on gasoline and make the consumer smile). Evans' article also mentioned low inflation, and the fact that the average hourly wage earnings jumped to $17.63, up JUST 3.8% from a year ago, and a resilient labor market. Oh woe is me. Can you stand the pain?