Kids are swearing more

Now, where do you suppose they learned it? Timothy Jay says teenagers use 80-90 swear words a day. I saw Melanie Glover's Sacramento Bee article in the Columbus Dispatch. I didn't swear as a child; still don't. My parents didn't; my friends didn't. My own kids learn to swear and cuss on the playground in grade school.

From the blogs I read by women, I'm guessing that today children are learning to cuss and swear from their mommies, if she gets off her cell phone long enough to yell at them in the back seat of the SUV. Even Christian moms seem to think that "being real" is a better witness than being modest or well-spoken.

The inequality myth

Wall Street Journal's Carol Hymowitz again trots out the old saw that women with the same level of education earn 20-25% less than a man and the glass ceiling is turning to steel. Here. I know from our stock annual reports that there are darn few women on the boards of major corporations. But ask yourself, is it diversity if they are just smaller or darker versions of the good old boys who are already on the board? When they get to that point in power, prestige and income, just what would they be bringing to the table that would benefit women and minorities on their way up--people who went to college with a GED or after military service or who attended a junior college and lived at home before transferring? Now that would be true diversity. If they aren't representing me, the investor, then why would they be on the board? What did an expensive Ivy League education get Mama Obama? She's raising her kids and supporting her husband's career! What woman in her right mind would give up that to sell plastics or mine coal from the office board room?

But Hymowitz's statistics (supplied I think by Catalyst) lie anyway, the value of diversity aside. They are not adjusting for the right variables. Thirty five years ago claiming "same education" might have made sense; today it doesn't. They need to be looking at women who

first and foremost are married, because most top male executives are--today marriage is the big divider between getting by and doing well

have a spouse who manages the home, the nanny and the housekeeper

have a spouse willing to chauffer the children to sports and activities, take the pets to the vet, serve on the school committees, meet with the teachers, make all the appointments for doctor, dentist and hair cuts, hire and supervise the lawn service, oversee the nutritional needs of the household, and help out mom and dad at the retirement home

who are willing to work 60-80 hours a week

who spend hundreds of hours a year on the Bluetooth while sitting in airports, sleeping in first class on airplanes

who are willing to have no personal relationships with other women, or maybe occasional casual sex with lower ranked male colleagues

who are willing to endure the long commute from the fashionable suburban McMansion

who can, and this is critical, show that they have never bumped anyone better qualified out of line because of affirmative action or need for diversity in the company (which brings huge resentment with networking colleagues whether or not they admit it)

I'm at risk

of sounding like Mama Obama, but I'm not proud of my country when I experience our entertainment industry, which seems to define us around the world--TV and film and popular music. I walked through the living room in time to hear Jon Stewart making Hitler jokes at the Academy Awards last night, and left in disgust. My husband and I disagree on how to waste time. I went back to reading blogs. Molly Willow of the Columbus Dispatch didn't mention it--just said he was better than last year. That must have been excrutiating or her decency meter is screwed up.

Three of the best ensemble casts you'll ever see are found on the sets and story-lines of Ugly Betty, House, and Boston Legal. However, they are so anti-Christian and left leaning, I've stopped watching them. The assaults on sexual morality in Ugly Betty became very predictable even while clever and "fresh," gay jokes having been pushed aside for transexual. On Boston Legal, only the partner with dementia is allowed to make a conservative or sensible, practical comment. And B.L. isn't even subtle about bimbo women lawyers. I've lost track (haven't watched in about 2 years) of the female actors, each with fabulous looks and ever more plunging blouses and unbuttoned shirts--they were furniture designed to enhance the male leads.

Dr. House? He thinks people who talk to God are religious, but those who hear God's voice are crazy. As though Hugh Laurie would know God if he stepped out from behind a burning bush. Yes, Michelle, there are times we aren't proud of our country either.

Why is she always late? Monday Memories

It's Monday--the schedule shows lots of meetings. You're tapping your fingers watching the second hand of the clock, wishing the chair would get this show on the road. But they're waiting for the late comers. Why is that? I answered this puzzling question here.

Monday Memories

The lawyers are lining up as you read

Newt warned of this in a WSJ column a while back, and here's another from Feb. 11. Not that the Dems would listen, but Newt urged them to let Michigan and Florida have their say (they were smacked down and thrown out of the selection process for flexing too much independence) to avoid this possible fight. The nightmare of "super-delegates," one of whom is Bill Clinton, and other powerful rich Dems wiping out the little guy, is not a pretty picture. I hope that security patrol around Obama is pretty secure--messing with the Clinton machine has been dangerous for life, limb, career and reputation since their Arkansas days.

"For over seven years the Democratic Party has fulminated against the Electoral College system that gave George W. Bush the presidency over popular-vote winner Al Gore in 2000. But they have designed a Rube Goldberg nominating process that could easily produce a result much like the Electoral College result in 2000: a winner of the delegate count, and thus the nominee, over the candidate favored by a majority of the party's primary voters. . .

Would the U.S. Supreme Court even take the case after having been excoriated for years by liberals for daring to restore order in the Florida vote-counting in 2000? And, would Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, the dissenters in Bush v. Gore, feel as strongly about not intervening if Sen. Obama was fighting against an effort to change a presidential election by changing the rules after the fact? Will there be a brief filed by Floridians who didn't vote in their state's primary because the party had decided, and the candidates had agreed, that the results wouldn't count?" -- Theodore B. (Ted) Olson

(HT Doyle)

Also, the two drawings of the candidates in the WSJ article are the ones used most frequently, however, don't you think Hillary looks much younger--maybe by 20 years--and Barack looks much darker and older, maybe by 10 years and one additional black grandparent? Is this Wall Street Journal's way to influence the selection/election, and just who will be influenced by this subtle tweaking of features? Women? Blacks? Republicans? Artistic readers?

Obama

One other reason to vote for McCain

That makes two. National security is number one. Anyone come up with three?

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters says: "At least two Supreme Court justices will likely leave in the next four years, both of them from the Left, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The election will determine whether the court continues to turn in a more constructionist direction, forcing policy back to Congress where it belongs, or whether activists can outlast the constructionists. Jurists nominated by Obama or Hillary will have a much different idea of the Supreme Court's role than those nominated by McCain."

I'm still of the opinion that the Supreme Court shouldn't be making law. That's how the left sneaks around the will of the people, but we elect Representatives and Senators to make law, not just so they have a playground to go out and run for President.

Campaign rhetoric and the Bible

In office, politicians have their hands in your pocket; but during the campaign, those hands are in the Bible, picking and choosing verses for just the right moment. Once in office, politicians all pretty much do the same--ask for more money. Methods differ--JFK, Reagan, and Bush all brought more money into the government coffers by cutting taxes of the wealthiest; our current crop of campaigners, want to raise taxes of the wealthiest, because it isn't income, but gaps that concern them.

Standing on scripture, they all have a good foundation--wealth and money is one of the most common topics in the Bible, ranging from not worshiping it, giving the government what it asks for, and sharing it with the less fortunate. It is fertile ground for the seeds of political campaigns, particularly with an electorate that claims a high percentage of belief in God--at least when polled. (Nearly 70% in 2007 according to Barna Research).

The conservatives preach a hope found in the individual. This message of hope tells us we can do anything we want, achieve any goal by our own effort and builds our pride in a nation that allows this because it is rooted in Biblical principles.

The liberals preach a hope found in a compassionate bureaucracy and code of laws, ever changing to meet the needs of the moment. This message of hope tells us we aren't there yet, but in our collective weakness there will eventually be strength to defeat all the forces of hunger, disease and personal unhappiness, even that brought on by our own behavior.

Both conservatives and liberals use either Moses leading people to the promise land (Old Testament) or the city on the hill (New Testament) to rally the crowds, to promote a bill, or filabuster a colleague's plan.

The conservatives during political campaigns urge us to remove the scaffolding that has been built up around our Constitution, a maze of court decisions, layers of codes, and reams of bills and laws, choking off access to the original structure.

The liberals during political campaigns urge us to see the structure as still crumbling and unfinished, in need of more scaffolding, not less, more carpenters, brick layers, hod carriers, right down to the tiniest nail and brad.

Over time, it has been easier to believe that a government is kind, benign and well-intentioned than to trust and believe in the goodness and decency of our neighbor, or even ourselves. After all, we don't even live up to our own standards, we'd better slap on another layer of government to make sure we do and say the right things.

Although I'm a Christian, I'm not a Dispensationalist--I don't pour over biblical texts to piece together a theory of end times and use that as a reason to believe. But no matter who is preaching that theme, my high school classmate Dave who sends out via e-mail teachings exhorting us to believe, or the TV/radio preacher, or the pastor in your church, I've noticed that the United States doesn't seem to be remotely included in any of those texts.

And that does worry me. Do you suppose we should stop standing on the Bible and start believing it?

Orphans of the Revolution

Carlos Eire, a Yale professor and author of "Waiting for Snow in Havana," talks about his life as one of Castro’s orphans, a Cuban tragedy from the 1960s. He was sent by his parents to the U.S. when he was 11 to protect him from Castro and communism. Even as a young child within a year after the revolution he noticed in school the group think and the fear of speaking out. His father died in 1976--he never saw him again. Here's a story that wouldn't sell in Hollywood. Those folks love Castro.

From the Wall Street Journal Online

Party on for the party

According to the NYT which was sniffing out how campaigns were spending their money, for Hillary

"Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising."

That's got to make the little party faithfuls who've been sending in their checks from Social Security of $25 or $30 feel a bit sick. $11,000 for pizza in just January?

And then I read. . .what made the big donors angry. I know they've got money to burn, but they want results.

The firm that includes Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton's chief strategist and pollster, and his team collected $3.8 million for fees and expenses in January; in total, including what the campaign still owes, the firm has billed more than $10 million for consulting, direct mail and other services, an amount other Democratic strategists who are not affiliated with either campaign called stunning.

Rich pols in both parties just have no concept of how the rest of us live, do they? Think of that next time she gets teary over the plight of the working family.

Story link.

County seats of Ohio

When you don't grow up in a state, these things don't come naturally. So here is a map of the counties with their county seats. I've been here 40 years now, it's time for me to know that Port Clinton is the county seat of Ottawa County where we have a second home, and that Sandusky isn't in Sandusky County, nor is Upper Sandusky, Ottawa isn't in Ottawa County, and Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County (I wonder if homesick Ohioans settled in central Illinois?). Now that I've joined the State of Ohio Blogger Alliance, I'd better know some of these county issues.

TB--Technology Burnout

I think I have it. Last night I reloaded the software on my HP laptop for the 4th or 5th time in a year--I've learned not to keep valuable files on it. But the cd burner works, which doesn't on my old PC. My new PC is in the guest room still boxed up--I bought it before Christmas. Not only will I have to learn Vista, but some of my favorite programs will not work, because they are generations old as software counts its age. My A-fib kicks in just contemplating moving from my old Family Tree Maker to the new version. What if I lose a great great grandparent in the transition? That cute little photo printer I wrote about last July? Still in the box.

My husband wants to show his photos of Haiti to the children at Highland school where he helps in the math/science class. This preciptated the great CD hunt for the photos from last year; then looking at the disc someone else made because that's all we could find; which meant a hunt for our old DVD player (got a new one at Christmas from our daughter), thinking our disc might be in it; and sorting through various untitled discs in my office; and finding the new mouse that doesn't work with anything. Once I got the laptop up and running, we inserted various discs and I taught him how to look at those files and tediously move 167 photos into a new folder I'd created on the laptop--truly you don't want to subject 4th graders to 700 photos, some (many) badly composed. Whoever had made the disc we were viewing had folders within folders within folders, plus had misspelled Ouanaminthe on everything (used a Q in stead of an O, and it doesn't really matter, it's just annoying--and I often misspell it too--think "Juana").

All this leads up to Walt's 100th edition of Cites & Insights. Although he is writing for the library crowd, both the IT people and librarians (he's IT), he covers a lot of territory that I think is useful for people like me--teetering on the edge of insanity over technology changes and frustrations. His style of writing is so much like mine I often resolve to change after I read an issue--adverbosity, side bars, parentheticals, interesting asides, philosophical insights, etc., but he is left of center and I am right of center. He pretty much stays out of politics in his professional writing, so that part doesn't matter much. Being a reformed liberal, I notice it, however. Even after reading his assessment on the paper/print costs of various printers, I printed the whole issue and plan to enjoy it this morning at the coffee shop. If I can get there. We had an ice storm last night. Thanks, Walt, and congratulations on your 100th issue. I need you more every day!

Change: coins of a low denomination

Democratic Debate. Austin, Feb. 21, 2008

unified to bring about changes in this country.

we now have an opportunity to potentially change the relationship between the United States and Cuba after over half a century.

solid agenda for moving change forward in the next presidency.

And it is my strong belief that the changes are only going to come about if we're able to form a working coalition for change

And that's a policy that I'm going to change when I'm president of the United States. [outreach to Mexico]

I do think there is a fundamental difference between us [Clinton and Obama] in terms of how change comes about

I've been talking about making sure that we change our tax code so that working families actually get relief.

and so my plan was pretty good. It's not as good now, but my plan hasn't changed. The politics have changed a little bit.

the American people have to be involved and educated about how this change is going to be brought about.

but if we don't change how the politics is working in Washington,

and that's what I intend to change when I am president of the United States of America.

Channeling FDR

The U.S. could have been out of the Great Depression by 1933, saving our parents and grandparents much grief. When you look at our recovery compared to Canada’s or some of the European nations, you see how FDR’s diddling and fiddling, setting up an alphabet soup of agencies to bring business under the heavy hand of the federal government, practically destroyed the country. The war didn't save us economically--we were pulling out of the FDR quagmire by 1941--but it took his eye off the ball, and he had to put his energies elsewhere. The rhetoric I hear today from Hillabama sounds like they’ve been channeling his speeches and ideas from the 1930s.

“Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, removed from the presidency an enormously shrewd and resourceful leader who had for the past decade expressed a hostility bordering on hatred for investors as a class. Many business people, among others, had feared that FDR harbored dictatorial ambition; some believed that he ultimately did exercise arbitrary power in some if not all areas—for instance, his unconstitutional “destroyer deal” of 1940 in which, without congressional approval, he gave away fifty warships of the U.S. Navy to a foreign power. His demise must have enhanced the confidence many investors felt in the future security of their remaining private property rights.”

"Regime uncertainty: Why the Great Depression lasted so long and why prosperity resumed after the War,” by Robert Higgs, Independent Review, vol. 1, no. 4, Spring 1997, pp. 561-590. Here.

Obama

A warehouse full of abandoned hope

If you don't like Bush's NCLB, maybe you'll prefer what the Democrats have done in Detroit? This story about education in Detroit at Sweet Juniper (HT Blake at LIS.com) turned my stomach. Somebody's taxes paid for this. Yours and mine.

"This is a building where our deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day apparently walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste. The interior has been ravaged by fires and the supplies that haven't burned have been subjected to 20 years of Michigan weather. To walk around this building transcends the sort of typical ruin-fetishism and "sadness" some get from a beautiful abandoned building. This city's school district is so impoverished that students are not allowed to take their textbooks home to do homework, and many of its administrators are so corrupt that every few months the newspapers have a field day with their scandals, sweetheart-deals, and expensive trips made at the expense of a population of children who can no longer rely on a public education to help lift them from the cycle of violence and poverty that has made Detroit the most dangerous city in America. To walk through this ruin, more than any other, I think, is to obliquely experience the real tragedy of this city; not some sentimental tragedy of brick and plaster, but one of people.

Pallet after pallet of mid-1980s Houghton-Mifflin textbooks, still unwrapped in their original packaging, seem more telling of our failures than any vacant edifice. The floor is littered with flash cards, workbooks, art paper, pencils, scissors, maps, deflated footballs and frozen tennis balls, reel-to-reel tapes. Almost anything you can think of used in the education of a child during the 1980s is there, much of it charred or rotted beyond recognition. Mushrooms thrive in the damp ashes of workbooks. Ailanthus altissima, the "ghetto palm" grows in a soil made by thousands of books that have burned, and in the pulp of rotted English Textbooks. Everything of any real value has been looted. All that's left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential. It is almost impossible not to see all this and make some connection between the needless waste of all these educational supplies and the needless loss of so many lives in this city to poverty and violence, though the reality of why these supplies were never used is unclear. In some breathtakingly-beautiful expression of hope, an anonymous graffiti artist has painted a phoenix-like book rising from the ashes of the third floor."

The writer claims not to know why these supplies were never used. Isn't that odd? Pork is pork, whether it's New Orleans levees or Detroit's schools or a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, and somewhere on a dusty shelf there is a book with a list of the guilty who promised the children of Detroit they'd bring home the bacon. The writer seems to have made it out alive with excellent communications skills, so let's hope there were others. You just won't believe the photographs.

If there's a huge, crumbling American city with corrupt government and do-nothing state reps in DC that is controlled by the Republican machine, I have forgotten the name. But maybe in Detroit they "have hope" for "a change" sometime in "the future." Maybe they're swooning over Obama if they've forgotten their history.

Someone thinks an MLS matters

While browsing through the University of Illinois Library School (not called that anymore--maybe never was) announcements I noticed that on Feb. 27 there would be a talk by Rya Ben-Shir, MLS, Senior Manager, Intelligencenter, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc. Deerfield, Illinois on why she and Takeda Pharmaceuticals insist on MLS/MLIS prepared librarians for all of their librarian positions. How novel. Illinois didn't choose an MLS trained librarian as their Dean, John Unsworth,--they went for high tech--and Ohio State's Library Director, Joe Branin, is moving that direction by proposing the MLS be removed as a requirement for professional positions. I think we could see the writing on the wall when a number of years ago, they added “be willing to obtain an MLS within two years” so they could attract some skills or ethnic groups to round out the technical and affirmative action requirements. Often that was stop gap, with the new hires moving on quickly, because then they had both the MLS and the desired status that other institutions were wanting. ALA is no help. It pokes its leftist nose into every little cranny of political and navel gazing movement, leaving librarians to struggle on their own with low salaries, failing bond issues, and a professional leadership always chasing the talent brass ring of other professions. It wouldn't surprise me if ALA takes pride in the fact that beginning librarians, with advanced degrees, probably qualify for government earned income relief, government health insurance for their children and school lunch programs.

When two college kids invented a better way a mere decade ago to find and serve up information (Google), and librarians oo'd and ah'd, dithered and quivered over digital rights, and then went on with business as usual to save the world through socialist politics and local lyceums, our fate was sealed. And they, idealist entrepreneurs, became millionaires many times over. We should have stuck with our knitting.

Meet our newest pastor

Eric Waters. Here's his first sermon at the X-Alt service at Lytham Rd., UALC (Upper Arlington Lutheran Church which has 3 campuses) and it's on God's wrath. http://tech.ualc.org/mp3/audio/080217EWLRX.mp3 Listen carefully as he reads God's word to the Romans. He's not reading. He speaks the scripture from memory, and it makes a huge difference as you watch him, because he's also performing it with facial expression and hand movements. But before you get the good news, you need the bad news. So it's a good introduction not only to him, but to the gospel. His speech pattern, you'll notice, is not midwestern--he's come to us from Fargo, ND but grew up in New York state. However, he was a Russian major in college, worked for awhile in Siberia, and I think I detect that in the up and down, the flow, the staccato. See what you think.

Isn't this backwards?

According to a story at The Kept Up Librarian

The University of Oklahoma is hoping to keep more high-achieving upperclassmen living on campus by giving them cash rebates for good grades. President David Boren said OU would be the first in the Big 12 to reward on-campus students for high grade-point averages. The initiative, called the OU Academic Success Rebate Program, will reward upper-class and graduate students living in OU Traditions Square or the residence halls beginning this fall. Read more at:
http://newsok.com/article/3204456/1202968564

I thought you got the best results by rewarding the low achievers, taking the money from the high achievers by raising their fees and driving them off campus, or better yet, out of state. That's how the Hillabama Democrats would do it.

The Democrats and taxing the rich

The campaign ads display Hillabama pulling out all the old, old class rhetoric from the 60s--I guess they don't realize all those spoiled, struggling boomers the lefties romanced back then are now well-heeled 60 year olds. They were in control of Congress for so many years, I wonder why all of society's problems weren't fixed? Yes, they will stop those tax breaks for the rich. Drum roll. Women faint. Men swoon. Businesses and corporations leave for friendlier climes.

The Democrats created the Alternative Minimum Tax in 1969, but due to bipartisan neglect neither party has fixed it. It's a mess of unintended consequences--known as the "stealth tax." It was originally set up to punish 19,000 very successful, wealthy Americans who weren't paying taxes (millions at the bottom don't pay taxes because people at the top pay for them, but that's OK--that's fair). The AMT was not set up to account for inflation, so now it scams many who are not even close to wealthy by today's standards, and if you're subject to it, you can't deduct your state and local taxes. The AMT wasn't even set up to get revenue--it was some bureaucrat's idea of "fair," and it never even achieved that! It's a boon for the tax preparers, though; that's one industry our government constantly helps out--compliance costs the US taxpayer millions and millions and many hours that could be used productively in something else. Now with the bipartisan ennui, they are raking in so much money, they're afraid to drop it, so they make temporary fixes and patches. Twenty six million Americans will be snagged by the AMT for 2008 according to today's paper*, up from 4 million for 2007 and 2006.

And how about that wonderful, bipartisan stimulus package? Those who contribute the most to the economy and pay the most taxes will get nothing back. The $112 billion in "stimulus" is phased out for individuals paying taxes on incomes over $75,000, or jointly on $150,000. How's that for fair?

Nor will there be "debt relief" for those who were sensible and played by the sound rules of 20% down, fixed rate mortgages, and a budgeted percentage of their income for housing. They'll be bailing out the neighbors who went for no money down, false documents and the adjusted rates, which if they had read the contract, always go up. They have no choice but to send more money to Washington, because if they don't, the neighborhood will go. What Suckers! But Hillabama to the rescue. They'll fix it--by making the honest guy pay.

*Although I don't have a link to the article I read on the AMT, here is one very similar.

obama

Three Word Wednesday

Bone has posted for 3WW

Punch
T-shirt
Unravel

for us to play with this week. Before I checked the clues, I was sorting laundry, and again thinking about how I could turn the old t-shirts from VBS, traveling, library conferences and organizations into a quilt. My mom used to cut t-shirts into strips and crochet the fabric into rugs, but quilting them saves the event or organization, and thus your memories. I've got San Antonio, Seattle and Shedd's Museum. I've got a "I heart my library," and Walk with Majors. I've got a Lakeside Ohio tour of my husband's projects. I've got dogs, horses and kitties. So here's my little poem. The photo is from Goose tracks and she will quilt t-shirts supplied by you for a fee, if you're not crafty or don't have the time.

Punch up the memories,
unravel the past,
cut up those t-shirts,
the first and the last

Arrange the design
and a contrasting thread,
make a new coverlet
to place on the bed.

Men's fashion

At the coffee shop this morning I consulted with one of the regulars, a man who formerly managed a men's store, about this photo. I'm not up on floral ties--at least not since I used to make neckties for my husband back in the early 1970s. And I think he took a few resembling this with him on the Haiti mission and left them there.

This photo is in the March 2008 Architectural Digest in a double page layout featuring a yellow sports car in front of a stone mansion (or it could be that stone house in Attica, Ohio). This photo nips off the top of the model's head a little. My consultant shook his head and said, "No, blue with a small print would work." I went all through the Lauren web page looking for this photo, finding instead the same model in the same suit with a blue tie. Finally, I located it in a style guide. The model has a nose like a hockey player, and that makes his face interesting and less effeminate. The slickered hair and large lapels give him a sense of history--1930s or 40s. He's the most featured model at that web site. And I don't think the point of the right lapel sticking up above the shoulder line is an oversight. . . it seems to be purposeful to draw your eye there to linger for awhile. And yet, the leaf of the flower is perfectly centered in the knot of the tie. The model's eyes repeat the color scheme and the horizontal white chair back peeking over his left shoulder is repeated in the white hanky.

A man dressed like this . . .well, anyway, it is a very purposeful, artistic composition.