The blizzard of '08

That's what they are calling it here in central Ohio. Those of you in Illinois, Wisconsin and northern NY would probably yawn and go back to bed, but it's a lot for us, especially since it was near 70 degrees last Monday. It's 12-14" where my husband is shoveling, and the condo crew had cleaned it all off last night by 11 p.m. Our daughter lives in a south west suburb and our son lives in a south east suburb, and they both have more than we do--but it's a good reason to talk on a Saturday morning.





I shoveled a path behind my van this morning, thinking things didn't look too bad, but once I got out on a main street, I discovered that although it had been plowed by the city crews, I couldn't see anything, nor could I turn around. So I continued driving until I got to Panera's and pulled in. I struggled up to the door only to see a sign that said, Sorry, but due to the weather, we aren't opening until 8 a.m. A staffer took pity on me and let me in, turned on the fireplace, and brought me a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Wasn't that sweet? Now that is customer service! I asked him if he'd like to be my grandson. I didn't stay long, and when I went back to my van, it took about 10 minutes to scrape and clean enough to see the road I couldn't really see. Two good things. No one but me and the snow plows were out there. Also, I'd replaced my tires in the fall--and they really came through for me.

Update: 20.4 inches in 24 hours--a new record. The old record was 15" in 1910. We had more snow in 1978, but it was over several days.

Dumbing down is not the best plan for survival

Churches who have tried to go the "seeker" route have found this; those of us on government health care have found this; the trend in entertainment to the cheaper reality shows have proved this. Maybe newspapers could have been saved.

"I never thought I would see the day newspapers would dumb-down, but I’ve seen it. They argue they must do so to survive. I would humbly suggest they took the easy way out, instead of taking the time to rethink their role in society and create new revenue streams to reflect it. But what do I know? I just edited them, I didn’t own them." Djelloul Marbrook, text from a pod cast for journalism students

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I love Google, but. . .

this plan was really dumb. High tech route to terrorism and treason.

"The Pentagon has put the kibosh on Google Street View's access to military bases. The access restriction surfaced after a Google street mapping team took photos on the grounds of Fort Sam Houston in Texas and posted them to the site. U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, reportedly said the images compromised security by showing the location of guards, details about barrier operation and building portals. Google removed the images at the Department of Defense's request." Story at TechNewsWorld by Jim Offner, 3/7/08

I think that some of these companies like Facebook, AOL, Google, Yahoo, etc. who claim they are "sensitive" to privacy concerns are run by people too young to understand security--personal or national. For instance, if I wanted to, I could purchase a site tracker for my blog that could probably figure out exactly where your computer is, then what you're buying from AOL, and then through a subscription to another program where your medical records are; but there's no cost to find out what you look like, and how close the 2nd story window of your house is to an access road. I occasionally wander into a website by accident that tells me more about me and my behavior on the computer than I remember, including a comment I made on a listserv or usenet bulletin board 13 years ago and who my grandparents were! (I don't post my genealogy on the web, but others do.)

I won't even go into what I could uncover about your hospital records--I spent some time fiddling with that a few years ago and was so frightened, I just stopped. I really didn't want to know--and I was just using the limited, "free" access to find out the profit of "non-profit" hospitals. Before my husband retired (sole proprietor with me as the staff), I used our county auditor's website extensively--it saved us the time of driving to the property, taking photographs and measuring the set backs and access. What? You think criminals don't use computers?

One time I alerted our church pre-school director about how much information I could track about families of her staff in just a few minutes, using completely free things like Google mapping, on-line local newspapers, and the image feature. Most of my e-mails to the church are ignored or don't address my concerns, so I don't know if anything was done. For years I would suggest to the OSU Libraries that our SS# not be our library access number--I don't know if that has been changed, and God only knows what else it is linked to. Here's my real concern: the university runs on low paid, student labor much more knowledgeable about computers than the faculty or administrators--if it (and other universities) had to find staff that smart and at those wages, they'd have to close down (many are foreign, non-citizens, btw, and all our universities have become dependent on foreign governments to pay their tuition costs).

Just a note about Facebook--no, two notes: The creator, Mark Zuckerberg, is now 23 and has a personal worth of 3 Billion dollars, and Facebook is valued at 15 Billion, according to WSJ. He started at age 19 by illegally hacking into the university's database of student records. The second question: did either of the 2 college women whose murders have recently been saturating the cable news networks have their photos and activities on an internet social networking site, like Facebook?

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Time to set a new ticker

Didn't make my goal, but I did better than last month.




We've got 4" of fresh snow on the ground and expecting much more tomorrow, so the first day or so won't be good. Will have to make it up later.

Friday Family Photo--Spring snow 1975

Today we're supposed to have 8-12" of snow dumped on central Ohio, but because Columbus sits in a trough, our weather is always iffy, and snow and rain easily go north or south, and we stand in an inch or two with cancelled activities and a lot of salt on the roads. But not in the Spring of 1975. We'd had one of those big wet early spring snows, and the kids rushed out to make a fort before it all melted.


I don't have a date on the photo, but it's between the January and Easter 1975 photos in the album. When you look at an old photo, you see a lot you hadn't thought about in years. See the fence? My husband designed, built and painted it and talked a friend into helping with the post holes on the hottest day of the year 1970--the intention was to keep our children, particularly our little, very active, very risk taking little boy where I could see them. The city planners of Upper Arlington had decided (our street was platted around 1938) huge front yards with no sidewalks and tiny back yards would make the community look pastoral. This meant we had a very long drive-way, also very difficult to shovel after a snow storm, which we also gated. You can see if you look closely that there is a gate in that fence--that was so our babysitter, Kristy Mellum, could walk through. She and her 40-something widowed mother, Ruth, and brother Bobby lived behind us. They attended Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, which I knew nothing about and had never seen because it was so well hidden in a neighborhood north of us. Someone told me that Ruth was the first woman president (chair?) of UALC's council/board. (We have been members now since 1976.) Later, all the kids who lived on Brixton Rd. used that gate to cut through. Eventually, we removed it, and new neighbors built a huge privacy fence with no gate--they had no children, nor did most families who lived in that house.

The coats the kids are wearing were in their last season. I tried to be thrifty and get 2 seasons out of winter coats which were expensive. That meant the coats were too big the first season and too small at the end of the second season. Our boy looks taller in this photo, but that's because she is bending over. They are 12 months and 3 days apart in age, and around age 13 he passed her up and has been the biggest in the family after years as the smallest.

You can't see them, but they would have been wearing over-the-shoe boots, which meant stuffing wiggly feet into plastic bags, then into the boot, all the while straddling a squirming, struggling child who was in a hurry to get outside to the snow before it melted. You also can't see the attached garage which was on the left, but around 1979 we converted it to a family room, and built a free standing garage on the other side at the end of the drive-way, further reducing the small backyard. You also can't see all the mud and water puddling on the hall and kitchen tiles after they came inside, wet and cold, ready for snack time.

Thursday Thirteen--Our life in verse

You younger parents are learning as you go along that nature seems to have a lot more to do with your children's behavior than nurture. All the books you've read; all the programs you've tried; the special diets and home schooling; all your plans to mold and form the next generation. Then junior picks up a dolly and uses it like a toy gun, toys you've abolutely forbidden, or sissy wants frilly dresses, heels and make-up instead of the sweat pants, earth shoes and natural look you love to wear. We've all been through it, and in the long run they will grow up to be the person that popped out of the womb, formed by God, with personality, talents, physical appearance and intelligence all in place. So here's my verse of 12 things I think I know and then the 13th, for sure. There are more, but this is about doing 13 of something, right?

Nature vs. nurture
Our life in verse

On Abington we once did dwell
34 years my children will tell,
Where life’s events we did behold
Collecting memories now worth gold.

They said I was the mom most mean
that even our food was boring and lean.
I do admit I was often too strict,
but a few family values appeared to stick.

Smile, be pleasant and polite,
Don’t in public look a sight.
Be honest, the weaker one defend.
Work hard and don’t the rules you bend.

Use good grammar when you speak,
Go to an art show for a treat.
Take care of your parents and your pets
On everything else, I’ll hold my bets.

Thursday Thirteen

Luther on marriage and the parents

On February 29 I wrote about what Luther said about who was allowed to marry and what were marriage impediments. His words certainly don't have the authority of scripture, but he uses scripture in deciding questions. In another tract, probably written in 1524 he discusses the parents' role in a child's marriage.

He had pointed out that no where in Scripture is there a case where an engagement was entered into without the parents' consent, expressed or implied. He also noted that parents' didn't have the authority to forbid a child to marry, but should never force a marriage. He said that if the parents broke up two who were in love, the grief would be brief, but if they forced two who didn't love to marry, the grief would be an eternal hell and a lifetime of misery.

Luther writes that in all of Scripture "we find not a single example of two young people entering into an engagement of their own accord. Instead, it is everywhere written of the parents, "Give husbands to your daughters and wives to your sons," Jeremiah 29; and Moses says in Exodus 21, "If a father gives a wife to his son,", etc. Thus, Isaac and Jacob took wives at the behest of their parents, Genesis 24. From this the custom has spread throughout the world that weddings and the establishment of new households are celebrated publicly with festivity and rejoicing."

There are probably groups that follow this pattern today--where the parents choose or approve the mate--but I'm not familiar with them. I do hear Christians saying, "we need to have a Biblical lifestyle or world view," but I doubt they would go this far. What do churches preach and teach about marriage these days? Also, in another volume of Luther he did complain that in former times children showed more respect and obedience than today (the 1500s).

Three Word Wednesday, #76 for March 5

Today Bone has given us

Rest
Sidewalk
Twice

to think about for 3WW. This is a true story-poem. And this could be any one of the little boys who rode their trikes past my house--I used them all. Although only one sang.

When we would meet
our boundaries were Main
and Hitt Street.
We’d ride your tricycle
twice around and back again,
over the bumpy sidewalk,
you peddling and me hanging on.
Then I would peddle
bumping my knees
and you would rest,
sometimes singing me a song.
Wasn’t life simple and sweet
when we were little on Main
and Hitt Street?

The genealogy prayer list

My prayer job jar gets a lot of hits. Here's another list I've been using recently. I participate in a genealogy listserv for the Brethren--Church of the Brethren, Brethren Church, Old German Baptist Brethren, Brethren in Christ, Dunker Brethren, etc. That group is celebrating the 300th anniversary in 2008 of its founding members rebaptizing themselves (that's what anabaptist means) and coming together as a group, first going to Holland from Germany, then on to the United States. So as I do my prayer walk I go through the list in my mind:

Grandchild of my maternal great grandparents (Jacob and Nancy Weybright) and grandchild of my paternal great, great grandparents (James and Elizabeth Williford)--these ladies are 91 and 93, and still Brethren as were their parents, grandparents and great grandparents, and are members of the same church, although they aren't related to each other; one is my father's aunt (although born later), the other my mother's sister. Then I move on to the grandchildren of my paternal great grandparents--these are my father's siblings and their first cousins and their spouses and a few are Brethren. Then the grandchildren of my paternal grandparents who were Brethren and my maternal grandparents who were Brethren--that would be my siblings and my first cousins and spouses. And then the grandchildren of my parents--my nieces and nephews, my children and spouses. I think Dad's grandma had 12 children and Dad's mother had 9. I don't think there are any in the current generation (my parents' and their siblings' grandchildren) who are Brethren.

So by the time I work through the list, my time is about up!

Hillary takes Ohio

We had a big discussion at the coffee shop this morning. There would probably be law suits and disenfranchisement charges if we still had a Republican Secretary of State, but we don't. Obama wanted polling places kept open in those counties he had the strongest turn out--Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati--our big three. Weather got bad; ran out of some ballots, etc. He was turned down, and being as far behind as he was, I don't think anyone's brought out the legal beagles. But if it had been 50.5% to 49.5%? Probably still would have found a way to blame Republicans!

One coffee shop friend thought maybe Governor Strickland might be her choice for veep. I hadn't thought of that, but he'd be a good choice. Like Obama, he has no record on anything. He's a former Methodist minister. And he doesn't have any big city machine backing him.

When I was walking at the UALC Mill Run church I saw the polling results taped to the door, like a very long grocery receipt, signed by the election judges. Is that the law? Normally, at UALC we don't have bad door hygiene--which is a term for taping posters and notices on glass doors like they were bulletin boards. Bulletin boards cost $15; doors, thousands. So I looked at it. 305 Democrats voted, 170 Republicans, and 22 non-party. Hillary got 164 and McCain 87. Seems like a pretty poor turn out--I don't think that is a Democrat area, however, most Republicans figured it didn't pay to come out to vote, but there were other issues--like a bond.

Ability to generate buzz and excitement while maintaining order

And you thought librarians were dull! That's a line from a job description for a gaming librarian. This job is in River Grove, Illinois. I didn't know kids needed a librarian to show them how to do this stuff. Actually they don't. Libraries do this for the same reasons they show movies, offer concerts, have Halloween parties, and rent gardening tools. They need bodies in the building to tick off statistics so they can get money to do the things they are supposed to do like collect, preserve and circulate information.

HT Annoyed Librarian

The Chinese tooth fairy has struck

I hate loyalty schemes--don't use coupons, sweepstakes, mileage points, or a plastic loyalty card if I can help it. Staples has the only loyalty card worth bothering with--you actually can get their products or $$ off your next purchase at the copy shop. But somehow, my husband has a rewards scheme attached to his gasoline purchases. One day I found a small box under a bush in the yard--apparently it was intended for the mail box, but didn't quite get there. I forget what was in it--something really tacky in bright paper. Then a few more things started arriving like a lighted magnifying glass that doesn't even work as well as my 2003 eye glasses and a bulky 100% PVC credit card holder and wallet with a handy dandy calculator inside. All made in China. All trinkets useful only for today's consumer who thinks that we need to be rewarded for shopping. But today's prize. Well, it's really special. A genuine Orbiter Hands Free Can Opener.



Cooking hint: I was preparing a roast for supper, and ladies, pour cream of mushroom soup over a roast and it will be wonderfully tender with lots of gravy and no lumps, 2 hours at 325. So I decided to open the can with my new Orbiter. I put that baby down on the can and pressed the button. Nothing. Pressed it again. Nothing. Then again and WOW it just took off. I removed my hand (was afraid it'd get eaten) and it worked all by itself. In fact, it wouldn't quit. Around and around. I could see parts of the can we're being cut off. I picked it up and pulled it off the can, but that little sucker just kept on working, around and around, mushroom soup going everywhere. I grabbed it and punched the button on the underside, but it kept going. So I just put it down and watched it struggle, gasping, until it finally stopped.

The instructions with Orbiter say to prevent food borne illnesses I need to clean the blade after each use, and never with a solvent or detergent. But I should remove the batteries first. Then following the enclosed diagram I can remove the blade and clean it with a slightly damp cloth, dry it and replace the blade door. Now, I shouldn't leave it in sunlight, or in a hot humid place, nor should I immerse it in water or other liquids. When I'm done using it, I should remove the batteries, if it will be awhile. But I'm to keep the batteries away from children because they might swallow them. The instructions are also in Spanish and French.

I've been using the same hand-held can opener for about 30 years. Seems to work OK and occasionally I clean it when it gets really gunky. I don't think it is in any danger from this sleek, younger model.

Pieces of string too short to use

There's a story, apocryphal most likely, that when cleaning out the home of an elderly deceased woman, her family found a large ball of string labelled, "pieces of string too short to use." So here's a few pieces too short to use:

1. Hillary's "shared prosperity" theme. I doubt that she will share hers.

2. If you're overweight, are you wasting energy fretting about the chemicals in your dry cleaning? Which is more likely to hurt you over the long run?

3. The decline of the angry left? I think they are just keeping them under wraps for this campaign so they don't get a repeat of 2004.

4. Would you want your address to be on "Landfill Road." I saw one. Still, we have a Cemetery Rd nearby.

5. Google makes bundles of money for the government (taxed profits, taxed wages, taxed businesses that advertise there, taxes on new businesses that have developed) and libraries take money from the government. But Google has revolutionized how people seek, store and use information.

6. Why do the AFT and NEA hate vouchers and school choice? Why wouldn't teachers' unions want children to have the best that's out there?

7. Men trade 45% more than women when investing in stock.

8. Women pull ahead in the longevity race around age 13. At birth, the boys are numerically way ahead. God must have known. . . about risk. See #7.

9. Hundreds of thousands of sexual predators are at-large within the U.S., and law enforcement has the evidence to locate, arrest and prosecute them, but officials estimate they are able to investigate less than 2 percent of known child exploitation offenders, due to lack of resources, primarily personnel.

10. Unionized cleaning people in NYC make $20+/hour with full benefits. Think of that the next time you feel undervalued when you clean.

11. Didn't I tell you? "It's a lying, cheating, dirty business," says
Chris Balsiger who ran the nation's biggest clearinghouse of discount coupons redeemed by consumers at supermarkets.

12. John Erickson, chairman of Erickson Retirement Communities and developer of continuing care communities, is investing in Retirement Living TV, a cable network.

13. Charles Barkley, the basketball player, believes that people who express beliefs on behavior and life style different than what he believes are being judgemental, but he isn't. Must go with the name "Chuck."

14. Socially conscious Vermonters are willing to emit carbon to drive to tax-free New Hampshire to buy at WalMart and other big box stores. Same with the folks in Santa Cruz, CA who keep WalMart, Costco and Target out of their city, and raise local prices.

15. In Massachusetts, people with high deductible health insurance were forced to switch to more expensive policies to meet the state requirements.

16. Save a life. Donate to a Pregnancy Health Center.

17. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it occurs after 11 p.m.

18. HIPAA is hopeless. I called the pharmacy to get a printout of our prescription costs. They would mail our records to me, but if I picked them up, I had to bring my husband and ID.

19. Reed Elsevier buys Choice Point Inc., the largest seller of personal data, and is selling its trade magazine division, including Publisher's Weekly. What must privacy conscious librarians think?

20. How many women control anything in Hollywood? I'm guessing it is far less than in the board rooms of conservative businesses.

21. Government affirmative action programs haven't given women and minorities a long term boost. They are hired and held hostage in HR positions or promoted to positions to fill quotas they weren't qualified for and then can't move forward on merit.

22. Bailing out by the government of those facing foreclosure will just postpone the agony--especially if they had poor credit, no savings, and spent beyond their means before applying for a subprime loan. Not everyone should be a home owner.

23. Airlines are not hospitals. The relatives of an obese woman, 44 years old, with heart disease and diabetes who was treated within minutes by staff and passengers who were doctors using oxygen and defibrillators, are suing the airlines. No one wins but the lawyers.

24. Daylight Savings Time actually uses more energy, according to a recent study based on Indiana's experience.

25. Unclaimed tax refunds from the IRS totaled 2.2 billion for 2003. Too late now.

26. 84% of Americans believe that cheating on your taxes even a little is unacceptable. Isn't that about the same as the number who believe in God?

27. I saw an ad selling an Ethics/Faith Company reporting the original investors made 700% return on their investment. Does that sound ethical to you?

28. The Turkish Airlines is looking for someone to supply them with jet fuel. Submit your bid by March 11.

29. Michelle Obama had some nice educational advantages, but most importantly, she had what divides the rich and middle class African Americans from the poor. Married parents and a strong nuclear family. 70% of black children do not have a father in the home.

30. Just in time for Hillary's election campaign, Bill has apologized to the black community for rejecting the 1995 Commission on Sentencing recommendation that the 100:1 disparity for drug sentencing for crack and powder cocaine be removed. This is probably the #1 reason there are so many black men in prison--see #29.

Why our college faculties are so liberal

It may not be what it seems. Some campus faculty are 100% liberal/progressive; the least liberal might be 80%! For my field, library science, it is so out of wack we fall off the edge and make the ACLU look like the John Birch Society. A new study looks at the various strawmen that both liberals and conservatives build to explain why liberals are more likely go on for the doctorate (the license to drive on the big time campuses), than conservatives. It isn't grade point. Moderates score lower than either liberals or conservatives, who score about the same. It isn't a hostile environment on campus (that would have been my guess as the number one reason). It seems to be based on ideas and ideals based on differing personality traits.

"Instead they hypothesized that the bulk of the ideological imbalance in academia is the result of differing personality traits. And so the scholars picked four traits -- the importance placed on raising a family, making money, contributing original work to a particular field and developing a meaningful philosophy of life -- and matched them up with students' political self-definitions. "Ideology," they wisely write, "represents far more than a collection of abstract political values." Liberalism, they found, "is more closely associated with a desire for excitement, an interest in creative outlets and an aversion to a structured work environment. Conservatives express far greater interest in financial success and stronger desires to raise families."

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Conservatives keep the economy running, providing the taxes for the sandboxes of the liberals. I wonder if they've looked at the relationship between liberals' desire for risk and other harmful behaviors like gambling, drug use, promiscuity, living with diseased and dying trees in the forest rather than removing the fire hazard, building on fault lines and on coastal hurricane zones, and riding a bicycle to work on busy hi-ways. Story here; the report is for the American Enterprise Institute by Matthew Woessner of Penn State, Harrisburg (the conservative), and his wife, April Kelly-Woessner (the liberal), of Elizabethtown College -- called "Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don't Get Doctorates."

Texas and Ohio, Clinton and Obama

I just shake my head in disbelief when I see these ads. I finally told my husband he had to hit the mute button. I couldn't stand it. Why is it the President's responsibility to improve Ohio's economy? Especially when many of our jobs aren't going to China or Mexico (as the ads imply), but just going to other states? In defense of our new Democratic governor, 'taint his fault either--he hasn't been around long enough to screw things up (a former Methodist minister with a good heart and pious thoughts). But we have many large and medium sized cities in Ohio--all controlled by Democrats--Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, to name just three, with Akron, Youngstown, Dayton and Toledo following along. To watch the Hillobama ads, you'd think the steel mills closed under Bush! Here's some details from today's WSJ:

"Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat who supports Mrs. Clinton, blames his state's problems on President Bush. But Ohio's economy has been struggling for years, and most of its wounds are self-inflicted. Ohio now ranks 47th out of 50 in economic competitiveness, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Ohio politicians deplore plant closings even as they impose the third highest corporate income tax in the country (10.5%) and the sixth highest personal income tax (8.87%). A common joke is that Ohio lays out the red carpet for companies -- when they leave the state. By contrast, Texas has no income tax, a huge competitive advantage."

What do Obama and Clinton both suggest? More taxes on the rich, the source of investment, and on business. Way to go, guys. Hit us again! But Democrats fall for that every time. Every time. If the economy sucks, tax it. If it's in the death throes, tax it. If businesses are fleeing, tax them. Make it totally impossible--turn them all into lil' New Orleans helpless in the face of the winds of change and the rising tides of helplessness.

The article hints at, but doesn't nail down the problem. Unions. Stikes have killed small towns in Illinois, and big cities in Ohio. The guys at the top just move on; the little guys and the service industries and small businesses that grew up around the industry that the unions killed just have to suffer and look for hand-outs from Washington.

"Ohio's most crippling handicap may be that its politicians -- and thus its employers -- are still in the grip of such industrial unions as the United Auto Workers. Ohio is a "closed shop" state, which means workers can be forced to join a union whether they wish to or not. Many companies -- especially foreign-owned -- say they will not even consider such locations for new sites. States with "right to work" laws that make union organizing more difficult had twice the job growth of Ohio and other forced union states from 1995-2005, according to the National Institute for Labor Relations."

Hillobama rides into town on the white horse ass and the crowds part and faint and think someone will rescue them. But after they grab the vote, they'll be gone and the plants will still be closed. Short of throwing the remote at the TV, what's a voter to do?

The MCC Mailing list

It's a lot easier getting on a mailing list than getting off. After the Tsunami, I sent relief money to the Mennonites, people I figured could be trusted to run a program economically and see that it got to the places that needed it most. Years ago I'd done some research and they seemed to have the lowest overhead, with the most dollars going to the neediest. Later, I found out that their money was co-mingled with a larger church organization, one that never presents Christ as an alternative. Forget rice-Christians! There'd be no Christian propaganda handed out with their food and blankets.

But the Common Place magazine, a bi-monthly that reports on the activities of the Mennonite Central Committee, sponsored by Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churchs in Canada and the USA, just keeps coming. I suppose I could e-mail them and ask to be taken off the list--after all, I want my funds to go to people who will preach, not just demonstrate, the good news of Jesus.

The latest issue reports that MCC is planning to grow its educational sponsorship program from $1.5 million a year to $5 million a year by 2017. Why? To help "children develop a sense of identity and history and thereby enables them to engage the stories and histories of others." Isn't that odd? Not so they can earn a living, or enjoy good literature, or read the instructions on their medicine, or read the Bible, but so that can "engage the stories and histories of others." Then further gooble-de-gook--education will enable children to "uncover the questions" and will happen "where love and curiosity are present." Huh?

From that, he's on to educating girls because they stay in the community and become leaders. I worked in the agriculture library in the 1970s on a government grant and the U.S. AID believed the same thing, so they were focusing small credit grants and water projects on the women, who were the farmers and gatherers. The men just waged war, hunted and watched the women work. I'm not sure what happened to those Department of State programs I helped with 30 years ago, but Africa is still terribly poor and the only countries moving ahead are those that have been able to attract investment and create stable governments, avoiding hand-outs.

Maybe the Mennonites have another magazine for the U.S., but I didn't see a single story here about the United States. I guess we've got poverty licked with all our government programs (actually, that's close to the truth). This issue includes Yasir and Kawthar Abed in northern Iraq; Amira Slawa whose father was slain by Iraqi police in 1987; Puja Rana in Kolkata, India; Priya Bhadani and her family in Kolkata, displaced 15 years ago; Ayesha Kader who works in an MCC office in Kolkata; Ismael Ramiro Cucul Rax of Guatemala who is in a Saturday school sponsored by MCC; and then shorter blurbs about school kits, puppets, scholarships, Hurricane Felix relief, farmers in Zimbabwe, ex-offenders in Saskatoon, suffering in Colombia because of a local war, helping children in North Korea with food shipments (note: the Communist government of N. Korea has killed millions of its own citizens by starvation, and now western countries and Christian programs are bailing them out); a garage sale in Winnepeg to pay for scholarships for children in India; and a Mennonite living in a seminary owned by the Chaldean Church in Iraq.

According to Matt 25, these people are Jesus, and so it is a wonderful privilege to serve Him (them). But then who will be Jesus for them? The Beatitudes are not a list of rules and guidelines for Christians to follow concerning the poor and down trodden. They are an announcement, based on the OT book of Isaiah, of who Jesus is. I didn't see a word about Jesus Christ in the entire issue.

Sleeping with cats

Actually, I only sleep with one cat, and she has certain habits. In the evening, she will only sleep on my husband's thighs in his lounge chair. Yes, she'll move if she has to, but then she's right back. I'm not 18" away on the couch, but it has to be his legs or nothing. If he's in Haiti, she'll sleep on me, but I don't watch much TV.

Then about 11 p.m. it's my legs, on the bed spread, never under it. But if I wake up about 3 a.m. and can't sleep because she's been rattling the window blinds, I get up and go to the guest room. She follows, thinking, hoping it might be time for breakfast. I'm all settled in, the TV on quietly picking up one of the few channels I can get in that room with no cable. Then THUMP. She's in bed with me. This time, she wants to be under the covers, kneading my tummy 'til we both go to sleep. It's the only time she wants to be under the covers. As soon as I move or roll over, she jumps out.

But this morning there was a mishap. As she struggled to get out of the covers, she landed on my face. I raised my arm to protect myself and she dug in her back claws (no claws on the front which makes a cat's balance unstable). Wow, did that hurt. She got me on my lower lip which started to bleed. So it was into the bathroom to mop up. She looked embarrassed. She didn't mean it. I overslept until 5:45.

A poem for today's dilemma

From a story I heard at the coffee shop today.

Health Insurance Woes

Look at me strut
and show off my stuff.
Can you see my thong?
It's not so tough.

I can barely move--
my jeans are so tight,
And guys look at me so,
now, that just ain't right!

At the top of my grade
and the job is secure,
three kids and a guy,
my home life is sure.

Except for my shape--
He wants implants for me!
Would S-CHIP cover it?
I think I'll go see.

I thought it was a cheap shot lie

Those right wing talk show hosts--at it again, misreading or misquoting, I thought. No woman with an Ivy League college degree and big bucks income would be advising other women to go into "the helping professions," not with feminists and progressives whining about the lack of women in the board rooms of America! But there it was, in Byron York's column. Michelle Obama speaking to my fellow Ohioans, telling them not to strive, not to be proud, not to struggle, not to become wealthy or even middle class, but to become--government workers. Weeee! Then you can qualify for SCHIP and EITC--if you're really lucky, maybe you can sign up for free lunches and breakfasts for your kids! Oh, for shame, Michelle.

"A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

What she doesn’t mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office. And that does not count the money Mrs. Obama receives from serving on corporate boards. She would have been O.K. even without Jack’s magic beans.

This was apparently a carefully worded slam at Hillary's daughter, near as I can tell, because the Obamain couple certainly aren't poorly paid government workers, unless being a Senator and a veep at a hospital count.

If you want to make your life count, get that top flight job--make the 6 figure income, then take a buy out or retire at 55. Then do the service opportunity you've always dreamed of, or set up a foundation. Don't spend your best years tied up with government red tape, driving druggies to the food pantries supported by the USDA so farmers can over produce, cleaning up feces in the parks inhabited by homeless who've been turned out of their safe institutions by earlier do-gooder theories, don't put your life in danger with vile students that the school administrators have decided are safe to transfer to your classroom from an even worse school, don't become a paper shuffler with tenure and civil service protection. Work someplace that has competition and standards, that will demand the best of you, challenge your mind. Earn a decent living and if you want to live modestly, donate to a program that is entirely out of bounds for the government--like saving abandoned animals or babies about to be aborted or become a safety net for your parents.

Don't ever, ever listen to a rich woman saying you shouldn't be rich like her!

Heeding the warnings

Driving to the bank this morning after my walk, I pushed the radio buttons and got that monotonous recorded weather channel. Storm warnings. Flooding. But the sun is shining and it's a delightful spring day. Snow. Sleet. Ice. Flooding. Starting tonight. It's already in Indiana. Make appropriate preparations now for those of you in [three] Ohio counties.

I glanced in my rear view mirror and the woman driving the small red Ford truck was puffing away on her cigarette like a hungry baby at the breast. I'd just cleaned my back window on the van and I could see her pasty, pale skin, wrinkles and slack skinned face--puff, puff. Her male passenger looked worse--he was obese, with jowls hanging over his coat collar, and even more pale. In Ohio, we know what pale in March means--it's been a long, dark winter. But these folks were sickly pale, not Ohio-winter-pale. Cigarette, oxygen deprived pale. She's read the warnings; she's heard the warnings; at least one loved one, and maybe 20, have told her to quit. She's looked in the mirror and it's told her to quit. She knows the only cigarette that works is the first one--the rest are just habit.

Heeding warnings. Flooding or smoking. Who listens? "It will never happen to me" plays much louder.