Forgetting

There's an old country song that goes something like, I've forgotten more about him than you'll ever know. At my age, forgetting (the past) and forgetfulness (in the present) are problems. The memory tapes are full, and to my knowledge there's no way to jettison the old stuff to make room for the new, and in order to even keep the past, you do need to occasionally revisit it. This morning I was reading something dated November 17. "That's Patrick's birthday," popped into my mind. Then I began to doubt. No, it was November 14; or was it the 18th? Patrick died 44 years ago, but he was my baby--we had such a brief time together, and you'd think I'd never forget his birth date, but apparently I have. It wouldn't be hard to look it up, but messy files isn't my topic today; forgetting is.

The past is forgotten primarily by the passage of time, but happy times also start to replace the unhappy memories like a difficult pregnancy and loss of a child in order to build new memories. Both my adult children have November birthdays so I think Patrick's date would come and go and eventually, I paid no attention to it. Alcohol also destroys the memory, as does dementia--those aren't my problem.

Time doesn't always do it if you refurbish and polish the memory like prayer beads. Years ago we "fixed up" a widower we knew with a delightful, handsome divorcee whom I knew through work. I think she was in her late 50s or early 60s, and he was about 70. Both had been single many years and had grown children--I think his wife had died of cancer about 25 years earlier. During dinner I began to spot the problem--he wouldn't stop talking about his deceased wife. It was embarrassing. I talked to my co-worker the next day and she said it continued even when he took her home and she invited him in. He had allowed neither time nor happy memories to chip away at the painful memories of his wife's death. I also considered the possibility that he used this to assure he'd never need to follow up on a social contact!

Some of the happiest second and third marriages I've known are cases where the two bereaved spouses were friends before their loss--each knew the others joys, sorrows, illnesses, children--they had shared memories. I also know a few where this didn't work out at all--resulting in a quick divorce or annulment. Memories are wonderful props for living, but sometimes you need a brick or two replaced, or some new mortar, or maybe a whole foundation.

Librarians are bossy

The younger, 2.0 librarians are quite proud that they don't "shush," can wear trendy clothes and tattoos, and have Wii and e-books streaming out the wazoo in their libraries. But they are still just as bossy as my generation and the generation who were my supervisors and revisers (in the old days of the 1960s, everything you did was revised or inspected by someone above you in seniority and position). Here are some rules to participate in an electronic list by a group called Web4Lib. Note: each statement could stand alone and be perfectly understood, but in true librarian fashion each has to be expanded and explained, some with parentheses. (Librarians love parentheses.) A version of these rules appear everywhere that people are sharing information on the web, but I'm betting that a librarian is somewhere way back in the family tree of every listserv and Usenet BB. Don't let those IT or OT folks pull your leg. They are really librarian wannabees who had better math grades. In fact, I think Moses was the first librarian--at least he was good at making lists and organizing information.

Guidelines for Appropriate List Behavior
The following guidelines are offered as advice for how to best participate in this discussion in a manner that will both contribute to the experience of all readers and also reflect well on you.

Say something substantial. Simply saying "I agree" (in so many words) or "I disagree" (in so many words) does not meet this guideline. Specific technical questions are, however, quite appropriate, as are brief answers to such questions.

Say something new. Mere redundancy will not convince an opponent of their error. Explaining the same argument differently in an attempt to make them see the light has not been proven to be an effective strategy.

"Getting the last word" is for children. [Yikes--how condescending is that!] We're all beyond the age when we should be concerned with being the one to end the argument. Just because you are the last to speak doesn't mean you won the argument.

Agree to disagree. The likelihood of convincing someone to change a strongly held opinion is nil. State your case, but give up on the idea of converting the heathen.

Take "conversations" off the list. When list interaction becomes two-sided (two individuals trading comments or arguments) it is a sign that you should take the discussion off the list and correspond with that person directly. If the discussion was of interest to the general membership you will see others posting on the topic as well.

Remember that you are being judged by the quality of your contributions. No matter whether you are employed or not, or a certain age, or have a certain education, you can create a good professional reputation by how you contribute to a large electronic discussion like Web4Lib. On the other hand, you can ruin your reputation even faster and easier.

NEVER send email in anger. [Isn't that in the Bible? I know I've heard it at church.] Go ahead and compose a message in anger, since that may help you work through what you're angry about, but don't send it. Sleep on it. You will nearly always decide to not send it or to recompose it. There's a reason for that.

Be civil. Treat others how you wish to be treated. No matter how insulting someone is to you, you will always look better to the bystanders (of which there are many, I hasten to remind you) by responding politely.

Respect the rights of others. An electronic discussion is a commons. Your right to post ends at the right of others to not be insulted, badgered, or to have their time needlessly wasted.

There are worse things than modest women with long hair

Bonita's wonderful craft

I've been reading Bonita's blog for several years and have admired her artistic photographs and informative posts. She says she has an old camera and an old computer, but she certainly has an eye for beauty and composition and a knack for story telling, whether about her Baha'i faith, her family, or her wonderful mountain and lake sojourns in Washington. I especially enjoy her food entries--always artistic, photographed during preparation, explained and displayed for the final reveal with a lovely background, plate, napkin or plants. Hawaiian lasagna, dilly bread, Salmon slaw--oh, yummy. Do go for a visit--after dinner. Even her campfire recipes are incredible.

Can't imagine what it found

Either I mentioned I believed in God and the meter was running, or it caught Mr. Jake or Mr. Chuck on one of their rampages.


Created by OnePlusYou

Friday Follow-up

Here's a Friday Family Photo--taken about 2 weeks ago at our little family gathering to celebrate my husband's birthday.



Taxes were due this week. In 1919, P.G. Wodehouse observed: "The only difference between the United States government and the ordinary practitioner in a black mask was that the latter occasionally left his victim carfare.

John of the Cross, after his ordination (in the 1500s), traveled nearly 18,000 miles all over Spain, mainly on foot.

"When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's finance minister, quoted Monday in the Wall St. Journal. Not to be out done, the Turkish finance minister said, "The use of food for biofuels is appalling."

Richard at 3 score and 10 blogged about why it is important for men to learn to put the toilet seat down. At the coffee shop I see that women runners come in to use the restroom about 10 times more often than men (or maybe there are more of them at 7 a.m.) In the medical literature, this is called urodynamics.

The fourth reason to vote for Senator McCain is that he says (now) that he will keep the Bush tax cuts. Sen. Obama needs to go back to math or economics class. He says he will cut taxes for the middle class (earning less than $200,000), but his plan (according to WSJ today) will actually raise middle class taxes because 47% of all tax returns reporting capital gains were from households with income below $50,000 (that'd be us), and 79% came from households with incomes below $100,000. He wants to raise the capital gains tax even though it brings in less money because "it's fair." Not being a boomer, perhaps he hasn't noticed how many will need to be living off their investments.

"People of all colors and income levels don't hate the rich. They want to get rich." Jack Kemp, WSJ 4-17-08

Randi Rhodes is the foul-mouthed, ranting profane anti-Hillary talker on AirAmerica. She's 49. Give her a break. She's probably having hot flashes. Anyway, she was fired for her "comedy" routine on her own time. That doesn't seem fair, and I know liberals are all about fairness. Also, I think she was the only show on that sorry network that had listeners. Liberals love trash talking, especially from women. She probably thought she was safe since an Obama supporter, Charlie Kireker, bought controlling interest.

"Jesus is a liberal" and "Grandmothers for peace," are two bumper stickers I saw on a flashy convertible. Rich Democrat Anabaptist?

Joe Rosebrook, 33, is in the Logan County jail charged with conspiracy to commit murder. His father, also named Joe Rosebrook, is currently serving a sentence on the same charge. Little Joe has droopy eyes, long hair, and a scruffy face--Big Joe may look a bit better if the prison has standards.

Sunset Cemetery west of Columbus has a large grave stone in the shape of a loaf of bread. It memorializes the life of a man, called the Bread Man, who took food to the poor on his own dime and effort--not the USDA's (our tax money).

Today I'm having lunch at Spageddies Kitchen in Hilliard. I've browsed their menu, selected what I want to order, checked out the map, and read about the benefits they offer employees (really good!). I needed a log-in to read the annual report. I have also e-mailed the corporate office and suggested they give their web designer a raise, because it's beautiful, clear, easy to navigate and librarians could learn a lot from them.

Everyone afraid of temperatures who thinks global warming is to blame for too much cold or too much water needs to read Patrick Michaels' article in WSJ today. Did you know that one of the reasons we have an uptick in temperature, and it's very small, is because the IPCC revised the numbers from the 1950s and 1960s downward well after the fact? There's a lot more in it, like what's happening, or not happening in Greenland. You'll sleep better after reading it, but I don't think it will stop the stampede for government grants or investments of the rich folk in phony carbon credit schemes.

The new 2009 Dodge Journey crossover has half the cargo space as my 2002 Dodge minivan, will hold 2 fewer people, has a larger engine, gets poorer gas mileage and costs a few dollars more. I think I'll pass.

By whose standard is this controversial?

My latest LAS News p. 24, Winter 2008 [University of Illinois] reports on the research of Richard Akresh about fostering children among Africans. It seems that poor African families often send a child to live with wealthier relatives who agree to feed, house and educate them in exchange for their labor. Akresh did surveys, accumulating 600 pounds of paper. Yes, he did find some abuse, but in 15 randomly selected villages 600 households were surveyed tracking 300 foster children. They found that the fostered children were better off than their biological siblings in education and health. So the system, developed through the wisdom of the people, did work. And yes, the children did work, and they weren't as well treated as the children of the host family, but I'm guessing even the better off relatives weren't wealthy.

Maybe it was the headline that irritated me: "The fostering dilemma: Controversial practice benefits some African children." It sounds to me that families were developing their own methods and giving their children the best possible opportunities. Checking the author's homepage, I see this is not his title.

This practice was common in the United States and Europe--there were informal child care arrangements, whether you call them fostering, adoption via orphan train, poor farms or child labor. There is still informal fostering arrangements in this country, particularly in black communities. The HBO movie Lackawana Blues starring S. Epatha Merkerson tells of a woman in the 50s and 60s who took in not only children, but other down and outers. A few years ago I was reading an old journal of my great great grandfather who was a farmer/ teamster/ doctor in Ohio before the Civil War. One of the entries in his log (in German and English) was about a niece taken into the family in exchange for her labor, and when she reached maturity, she would receive certain items of furniture and clothing. When I was doing research on 19th century serials, I found ads in religious magazines placed by mothers looking for families to take their children for awhile.

But considering some of the odd stories we hear today, I wonder who really has the more strange customs. I heard one this morning from an adoption attorney that just curled my toes. No servitude was involved, but the child AND the two sets of would be adoptive parents were treated callously and cruelly by the state agency which was holding them all hostage. Only families with a lot of wealth could have hired lawyers to work out the mess that social workers and state bureaucrats had created "in the best interests of the child."

The history of peace

"Writing the history of peaceful endeavor is much harder than writing the history of titans of war. . . The history of peace does not excite the emotions or does it cause the heart to pound. Even the most desk bound intellectuals can relish the account of the siege, which serves as a metaphor for their own lives under siege by personal traumas, social pressures, or technological changes." Paul A. Blaum, "From Steppe to Empire: the Turkmens in Iraq," International Journal of Kurdish Studies, v. 21, no. 1-2, 2007, p. 57

Some articles of this very interesting journal are on line through Access my Library, but not this one. It focuses on Kurds regardless of the country in which they live--Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Sweden, U.S. or other.

Is it too late to draft Al Gore?

He's not a Marxist, he's not a Socialist, he's a patriot, he's a Christian; he's just a bit tetched in the head from his own hot air, but I think I could live with that. When Obama finally admits what we all knew--that tax increase isn't about the revenue, it isn't about health care or the needy, it's about "fairness," (i.e., punishing the rich for success), the gloves are off, as are the bets. If Gore's home state would have supported him, or Bill Clinton hadn't sandbagged him in 2000, he probably would have been the one to take us into Afghanistan and Iraq, because all the Clinton years we heard about WMD, and the 9/11 still would have happened.

Is it too late? Please! I really don't like John McCain, although I've got 4 reasons now to vote for him. I think I could vote for old Algore as a place holder until the Republicans could field someone. As long as we have 3 Democrats to chose from, couldn't one of them be Al Gore?

The Hillobama speechifying

When this whole Democrat battle boiled down to two candidates, I thought Obama was the better speaker. After listening to countless sound bites, interviews, debates and off-the-cuff remarks from both, I have to say, Hillary is much better. Once you get Obama off the no-content message of hope and change, he has nothing else to say and he says even that badly. He's even worse on off-the-cuff remarks than John Edwards, who's really a stammerer with a southern accent. Obama's as clear as John Kerry, who's really murky.

Hillary might lie a lot, but at least she's articulate and believes her own lies.

He's probably a Democrat

Les Moonves' salary in 2006 was $5.6 million, plus a bonus of $15 million for a total package of $28.6 million, according to the week-end WSJ. He got a 29% increase for 2007, for a package valued at $36.8 million. Guessing from what CBS offers us in entertainment, I'm betting he votes Democrat and is supporting Mrs. Clinton.

My 2007 pension was under $20,000, and I'm a Republican even though they also spend money like a drunken Kennedy. Still, I believe he should answer to the stockholders and not liberals who want to put a cap on the compensation of CEOs and executives of corporations.

Despite the trash, fluff and fodder, the Rathers and Courics who get enormous salaries to read the news, they should get what they pay for. . . and they are. And when you read Rather's remarks about Couric, you realize how many words that man uses to say, Yes, No, or Maybe.

Maher and the Muslims

Don't you wonder how long Maher's head would stay on his scrawny neck (either on earth or on the air) if he were as insulting to Muslims as he was to the Pope and Catholics? I've never watched even 3 minutes of him. He's a twirp made of diseased sputum and fecal matter, of such filth that I'd be afraid to even step near his piles and splatters. But I do think subscribers to HBO should let the owners, producers, and stockholders know just how insulting he is to Catholics in particular, and all Christians in general. I would never say he shouldn't have a right to be an idiot or slanderer or scumbag, but I'd hit him and his owners where it hurts--his wallet. I mean, it's not like the entertainment industry protects the best interests of children by protecting porn and every imaginable filth for the big bucks.

"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult," Maher told his audience. "Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."

Advice for boomer retirees

Readers jumped all over those whiners that the WSJ wrote about on April 1. I blogged about them, too. Usually, in letters-to-the editor the WSJ tries to offer a cross section, but I guess no one feels too sorry for a 57 year who had a 6 figure salary and can't retire early at their accustomed standard of living because the economy burps. Here's a summary of comments in yesterday's paper

Save

Live modestly

Learn to understand risk

Learn from past bubbles, whether it's technology or real estate

Take responsibility for your own actions

Locate that document that guarantees you will never experience problems [that was my personal favorite]

Use a little hindsight--like what was your property worth 2 years ago compared to 5 years ago

Not a single sympathizer in the boatload.

You want how many cookies?

Twenty nine thousand, give or take a few dozen. Our Upper Arlington Lutheran Kairos Prison Team will be going to the Marion Correctional Institution April 24-27 for a Christian Renewal Week-end, and each team brings their own cookies--28,800. Usually, we need only 10,000-12,000, but we have so many members on the team for this week-end, we need a lot of cookies. So I'm baking--which is pretty unusual for me. I've made eight twelve dozen brownies (with a little help from Duncan Hines), some with chocolate chips, because there's nothing like chocolate to say, "love." And that's what the cookies are for--tangible evidence of God's love for a sinner in a batch of homemade cookies or brownies. The freezers at the church are probably full--it's hard to find room for that many cookies. A team member is using our garage refrigerator.

To learn more about the program go to www.ualc.org/cookies

Many of the men reached by Kairos Renewal will never be released into society, but many will--and our UALC men are committed to work with them then too, to ease them back into employment and their families.

"Faith-based programs that start in prison and continue after sentences have been served can produce meaningful outcomes when they offer the mentoring, guidance, and hope needed to face a future often marked by social exclusion and fear of the unknown." also, "Working with prisoners before they are released can increase the chances of successful reentry." http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cb_51.htm

The paperless society

This morning I moved a mature IRA from one bank to another, because the first bank was charging me $30 a year just to use my money! Do you know that by the time I got home from those two transactions about a mile apart, I had 26 pieces of paper, or 27 pieces if I counted the check, 25 of them 8.5 x 11. Both banks used to be called something else--or at least one was, and the other was started by officers of a former savings and loan. I can remember the days when they rolled the certificate into a typewriter and I signed a little card for the beneficiaries which stayed there. In those days, I thought it took a long time, but now with computers it is much longer. Plus, the computers don't even update your account until the next day, so on one sheet I had to write in the new amount. But the staff are always pleasant, handsome and cheerful, so it's nice to go to a bank and enjoy the comfy furniture and have a chat. Just make sure you have plenty of time. Plus it is a beautiful, sunny day in central Ohio. My artificial flowers are doing fabulously even in the cold snap.

Rather like a story we've read before

I have no interest in Hip Hop and the shooting death of Tupac Shakur, but I do care about what happens to our media, journalists and Truth. Read the sad, sad story at Smoking Gun about how a high esteemed reporter from the LA Times, Chuck Philips (who incidentally hasn't been fired and is still active) fell for phony FBI documents created by a convict who also lived in a fantasy world about what a big shot he was on the Hip Hop scene.

I'm no hot shot, award winning journalist, but if a 31 year old, white convict who has spent most of his adult life in prison told me in 2008 that in 1994 he was wheeling and dealing with black hip hop artists--with deals that would go back to when he was even younger, I think I could have subtracted 14 from 31 and guessed that performers worth millions probably weren't linking up with 17 year old teen-agers. Come on!

Fat children keep many people employed

Last week the results of an important two year study on obese children were published in the April 2008 Pediatrics, "A Policy-Based School Intervention to Prevent Overweight and Obesity." According to Sandy Szwarc who writes Junkfood Science

"This is a critically important news story because there is a lot riding on proving these childhood obesity initiatives are effective — for literally thousands of organizations, special interest groups and government agencies across the country working to prevent childhood obesity and promote their ‘healthy’ eating and physical activity programs, as well as billions of dollars in government money at stake. [The CDC’s budget for its healthy eating and physical activities, alone, has grown 2,000% since 1999.] And, most at stake is the welfare of our children.

Since every school-based childhood obesity intervention to date has failed to show lasting improvements in children’s diets, activity levels or health outcomes, or in reducing obesity, this study has added importance. As the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and even the Institutes of Medicine have concluded after reviewing 6,900 studies and abstracts, there is no quality evidence to support these childhood obesity interventions. And the government’s own statistics even negate the need for them, as there have been no significant increases in the numbers of children considered “overweight” since 1999-2000 and children are healthier and expected to live longer than at any other time in our history." Complete article here with percentages, percentiles, and risks

According to Ms. Szwarc, the intervention was ineffective, although this is not how it was reported. There was no difference between the intervention group and the control group, and in healthy eating there was evidence that the intervention group actually went backward. They had been eating 5.64 servings of fruit and vegetables a day and that decreased to 4.17, plus the intervention group were eating fewer calories but not losing weight. "Clearly, the School Nutrition Policy Initiative failed to reduce overweight or obesity in the children," she says.

Last week I wrote about a delinquency prevention study of 4 years duration done here in Columbus with 6th graders back in the 1970s. After 4 years of intervention and special attention to improve the children's self-esteem and self-concept, the intervention group had just as many contacts with the law as the control group. Like the School Nutrition program discussed above which integrated good nutrition into the curriculum, the delinquency group had healthy self concept integrated into all their classes. Social and peer pressure were also used both in the nutrition and the delinquency behavior modification programs. The failure to prevent delinquency by building self concept didn't stop the "self esteem" drive of the 70s and 80s as the cure for whatever ailed Johnny, probably because so many academics and sociologists had invested their lives and careers in the concept. So I'm guessing there are already too many programs, initiatives, salaries and grants riding on obese children to stop the train now, even though Ms. Szwarc points out obesity in children hasn't changed since 2000.

The ACK Stacks

The main library (Thompson) on the Ohio State University campus has been closed for over a year for remodeling. Hard hat tours are now available to see its 1970s and 1980s cocoon of bastard designs and add-ons removed to reveal the original butterfly of the early 20th century. I'm sure it will be lovely, similar to when I first saw it in 1967. But that means many OSU students will never be in the library--not Thompson, and not the temporary one on Ackerman Road (they have to take a bus). I really enjoy the temp facility--it is close to my home, the parking is great, and I usually have the whole place to myself, because I think students have forgotten about it. The books are easy to find and the people aren't. OSCAR, the online catalog, is now pretty subservient to a behemoth that brings up everything in WorldCat and OhioLink when you do a search, with OSU as just one of the locations. So you need to learn how to limit and do advance searches or you'll be overwhelmed with books located in Atlanta and New York, and smidgens in articles and microfiche--maybe 350 matches when you were expecting 10. It's like walking down the snack aisle of a major supermarket looking for plain old Ritz crackers.



The ACK Stacks

Near the railroad tracks
on Ackerman Road
are the ACK Stacks
tucked away for me,
the vast collection
of the OSU library.

Foreign and Esoteric,
Religious and Oversize,
it’s hard for me to stick
to the task at hand.
Now other libraries
seem so bland.

A mile or two away
lies OSU main campus.
Some librarians say
a generation or so
of students and grads
to the library never go.

The Obamas and po' folk

What is it with Michelle and Barry? Are they just big city slickers who are clueless about how to talk to down state (i.e., outside Chicago) bumpkins and the fly over hoi polloi? Michelle Obama whines to an Ohio working women focus group (incomes below the state median in a county where few have attended college) about her burden of student loans from Princeton and Harvard Law School, loans that have enabled her to have a dream position making a bundle on a hospital board. But, golly, with private lessons for the girls for piano and dance, and private schools costs, and summer camps, etc., it's just so darn tough to pay back those loans!

Barack Obama's comment in California has people gasping in disbelief--I heard Christians who are normally apolitical just outraged

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

But his enemies twisted his words and all he meant to say, according to this pooper-scooper quote was

"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country."

Then what's the excuse of rich Democrats who own guns, make movies featuring gun violence, go to church, love their families, and don't want to be overrun by illegals sucking up benefits meant for Americans? Wasn't all the outrage about the illegals in 2007 way before the current real estate melt down, and actually against President Bush and Republican legislators for letting down conservatives; and isn't all this trade protectionism both here and abroad in part responsible for the food riots on the global scene; and who's been voting on guns since Hillobama started running (or limping) for the White House? Do you suppose he ought to think about how gun owners might perceive their rights if Hillobama is elected? What country does he want to run? Cuba?

"The sheer breadth of the stereotype, which would send Team Obama screaming from the rooftops if a white politician drew a similarly sweeping caricature of blacks? The crude quasi-Marxist reductionism of his analysis, which he first introduced in his speech on race vis-a-vis the root causes of whites’ “resentment” — namely, exploitation by the bourgeoisie in the form of corporations and D.C. lobbyists? Or is it the shocking inclusion of religion, of all things, in the litany of sins he recites? What on earth is that doing there, given His Holiness’s repeated invocations of the virtues of faith on the trail? Note the choice of verb, too. Why not just go the whole nine yards and call it the opiate of the masses?" Hot Air

Whole Foods has a word or two for you

Janeen alerted me to this--Whole Foods website has pod cast/ MP3 audio on a healthy body for you. The February, part 1, was on the role of inflammation, antioxidants, free radicals, etc., "Straight to your Heart."

Take-aways:

Nourish your heart with healthy eating
Control inflammation--good fats, antioxidants
Reduce stress, allergies, excess weight