The more things change. . .

This morning while waiting for my husband to finish his meeting, I opened the Wall St. Journal before using it to wrap the pizza to help keep it cold for the trip home from Lakeside. The articles included

soaring gasoline prices

food price inflation

consensus of 55 economists for gloomy report

Olympic athlete training was helped by new technology

newly started security firm in Iraq was struggling to find enough employees

Hollywood celebrities, joined at the hip with the Democrats, were reliving 1968 glory days in this election cycle

But wait! The date on the paper which I'd pulled out of the kitchen cabinet was August 13, 2004!

Gas prices and leisure activities

We're heading for Lake Erie today--yard work and spring house cleaning are on the agenda for our summer home. Gasoline is about 75 cents higher than the last time I went, and it takes about 10 gallons, so that's an additional $7.50 just this year, and maybe $10.00 more than last year at this time. That's about the cost of half a medium pizza in Columbus (if we were going to order one, which we won't), or a pack and a half of cigarettes (if we were smokers, but we're not), or 1/3 of our Friday night date at the Bucket (which we'll not be doing), or a little more than the cost of a new first issue for my hobby (of which there aren't many right now), or 1/3 the cost of a new best seller at the book store (wait for the library copy), or two Starbuck lattes (which we don't drink). I'll easily make up the difference if I just stay out of the Port Clinton Wal-Mart, or buy only the item I need (that wonderful Watkins skin product that I can only find there). So, it's not hard to make up the difference.

Here's the rub. For every item, meal or book we don't buy to make up for gasoline, that difference impacts the bus boy at the restaurant we don't go to, or the clerk in the coffee shop who didn't serve us, or the shelf stocker at the super market because we didn't select. We are a consumer society, and so when we stop buying to save money, which everyone can do, someone is hurt further down the line.

When you change the buying habits of a nation, the world has to change also. It's the reason why the price of rice, which is not a biofuel, goes up when environmentalists push the federal government to promote corn in our gas tanks instead of our processed food. It's a boon for farmers and Con-Agra, but causes food riots in Haiti and Egypt. People who would be buying wheat or corn, now grown on acreage that use to grow wheat, switch to rice, and the price of rice soars.

How do they find these financial wizards?

WaPo, in alerting us all to higher prices, lists the dire circumstances of people who must have flunked high school consumer ed.

Tracy and her partner also stopped buying the cereals they like in favor of whatever was on sale; stopped picking up convenient single-size packs of juice, water or crackers; and, in order to save gas, stopped going to multiple stores. "I find the whole thing a huge hassle, but I've reached a tipping point," said Tracy, a government human resources specialist who is pregnant with her second child. "Clearly, I'm not unable to feed my family. But I just can't feed my family the way I'd like to feed them." via Taranto who quoted WaPo

1. She's pregnant with her second child, but has a "partner" not a husband. Statistically, children raised by women who haven't married the child's father have a much greater chance of being poor.

2. She's been driving around to multiple stores rather than shopping in one place. Shopping was something to do rather than having a purpose.

3. She's been purchasing single serving items rather than managing her time and resources and doing some of the labor herself.

And Tracy, this government worker--who supposedly is high enough up to be called a "specialist," whines that this is the way she really wants to feed her family--by providing them the most expensive, empty calories she can find. Her preferred methods have never been good ways to shop--pick up any magazine sold at the check out and they explain it.

Food in the United States is still a tremendous bargain--it's been artificially low due to welfare--welfare for farmers. You don't need 23 types of crackers--maybe you don't need crackers at all. You don't need a strawberry latte--you can probably make it through the day with a plain, old cup of coffee at a fraction the cost and calories. You certainly don't save money in the long run by clipping coupons! You can get 10 lbs of potatoes for under $5 instead of buying 6 oz. of desiccated, dried and cheesed potatoes for $2.50 + a 50 cents off coupon. Shop the walls; buy fresh and add your own labor. Buying organic is nice, but considering all the really bad stuff your kid will eat when he can make his own choices, it's a bit over the top when prices are high. Eat out just once a week instead of 3 or 4, which is the average for working women.

I've served people at the Food Pantry that seem to know more about nutrition and how to feed a family than Tracy, interviewed for WaPo's clipping and scrimping story.

Minimum wage and unemployment

Both are up. We knew that would happen because the history of minimum wage shows that employers, especially the smaller ones, will eliminate positions filled by the marginally useful employee in order to pay for the increase for the more useful employee. Besides, it was a safe campaign promise in 2006. Only about 10 states weren't paying more than the federally mandated minimum. The minimum wage now is $5.85, but in Alaska it's $7.15, in San Francisco $9.36, in Ohio $7.00, and in Washington, $8.07.

Read what Amy has to say about the relationship.

What minimum wage buys is more votes. First, tell low income people that your party is their only hope; then when they buy into that, make sure they stay poor.

4810

Hot on the trail of grant money

“The future of humanity and the quality of our daily lives necessitate a deeper understanding of Earth’s climate system, which sustains all life and is now threatened and compromised by human activities (population growth, economic development and unsustainable resource use).” Executive Summary Proposal for a $12 million Climate, Water and Carbon Program (CWC) at Ohio State University (dated 2006, but now approved and funded). On the web page, it says they want to find out why there is “rapid” climate change, so maybe they threw that word WHY in there to cover all their bases just in case it's the sun or weather patterns. Could there be a possibility that humans aren’t causing it? And if so, how would you get money for funding a new program if you didn’t comply with scientific orthodoxy that already has a “consensus” on the cause and effect of the problem? I thought it strange that the research is going to be on Mt. Kilimanjaro, when most of Ohio used to be under a glacier, and some of Ohio's climate changed quite rapidly, as did Europe's and Greenland's. And imagine the carbon footprint those faculty and grad students will make flying back and forth to Africa!

Click over to “Is it Hot In Here?” to watch the lecture of Dr. Jay W. Richards of the Acton Institute on April 17, 2008. He explores the biblical foundations for our stewardship over the environment and its importance in the debate on Global Warming. He also discusses the mainstream views on Global Warming and answers four of the main questions concerning global climate change:

1. Is the earth warming?
   
2. Are we causing it?
   
3. If the earth is warming and we are causing it, is that bad?
   
4. Would the advised policies make any difference?

Dr. Richards notes that if all the countries could manage to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, the reduction in temperature would be so small as to be unmeasurable, and would cost $50 trillion--to accomplish nothing. He poses the question--is there a better way to serve the poor and mankind with that money? Clean water, perhaps? He reminds us that the climate has been warming since 1850 (cooling since 1998), but not since 1000, and for awhile in the 1970s there was a consensus on global cooling. He agrees that concentrations of C02 is going up, but we don't know why--it increases as the temperature increases, but temps go up first. He also ponders: Do we know what the optimum climate is? Why do we think what we've experienced in our lifetimes is what is best in the future, when it wasn't that way in the past? Since the CWC appears to actually be concerned about water quality (I'm glad someone is), perhaps they need to also take on a few economists--I didn't see any on the list of cooperating faculty looking for grant money, but they could be there.

And what about President Bush's new goals for 2050? According to Steven Hayward in Monday's WSJ, "the average residence in the U.S. uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity and emits 11.4 tons of CO2 per year. [To meet the adjusted goals,] the average household emissions will have to fall to no more than 1.5 tons per year. In our current electricity infrastructure, this would mean using no more than about 2,500 KwH per year." This is not enough to run the computers and lights for the CWC program at Ohio State. "The clear implication is that we shall have to replace virtually the entire fossil fuel electricity infrastructure over the next four decades with CO2-free sources – a multitrillion dollar proposition, if it can be done at all."

Oh yes, Dr. Richards says that predicitions of global disasters are always wrong, and if I heard him correctly, he also includes in that various predicitions of end-times by Christians.

4809 Digging for Danners

My Ohio State e-mail account is currently a magnet for spam on gambling and Russian spam. Does everyone get Russian language spam or am I just one of the lucky ones? I never got it before the new "secure" system OSU OIT instituted awhile back. It can almost make one yearn for cheap ink cartridges, mortgages, and virgin lesbians, which used to be the content of my spam. Yesterday I had about 500 items in those categories.

After figuring out how to trash 20 at a time, but scanning for those I didn't want to lose, I found an older one I had not deleted but held to read later. And it was from the Brethren genealogy listserv on Samuel Danner, grandson of Michael Danner, Sr., who immigrated in 1727. I'm a descendant of Henry Danner, not Jacob, Samuel's father, but I copied and pasted into my Family Tree Maker notes to be figured out later. I'm a descendant of Henry's daughter, Rachel. Merle Rummel, who contributed this information to the listserv on April 16 had an interesting item about the location of a Sauer Bible in the Danner family. The first Bible printed in America in a European language was not in English, but in German and Christopher Sauer of Philadelphia published it:

"Brethren Roots and Branches (predecessor of our current Brethren Roots) of 1987 (Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter) had two discussions on the Sauer Bible owned by Samuel Danner Sr (son of Jacob Danner - grandson of Michael Danner), father of the minister Samuel Danner. This was the family records of the birth and marriages of Samuel SR Family (did not include deaths). The second presentation included the children and spouses of Samuel JR - and a partial list of grandchildren. The Bible is at the Duggan Library, Hanover College, Hanover IN. The records are in German -from the sequence of names - the Bible was passed down for 3 generations.

Jeremiah Wright is not the issue!

If I hear one more cable news or talk show host broadcasting the lies of Jeremiah Wright, I think I'll--change channels. White, mainstream liberal Protestant congregations have been hearing a just-as-damaging, more quiet, less call-and-response version of liberation theology since the early 1960s. Catholic Leftists Priests started it in South America in the 1950s, and bored Protestants who didn't think Marxism could be evil, picked up the theme for their various movements. They've always been sympathetic to Castro, to radical labor movements, and La Raza and the sanctuary movement. Wake up O'Reilly and Hannity--we've been hearing this for fifty years!

James Cone developed and refined liberation theology further with his book calling it black liberation theology in 1969. The feminists picked it up in the 1970s, and the environmentalists, vegans, animal rightists and America-for-illegals folks within the church also have used it as a spring board for organizing and action.

It would seem that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the "Good News," God's plan for redemption of the world, one sinner at a time as the message of faith is created by the Holy Spirit in the believer, is just not flashy enough to make the news! But the ground work had been laid a hundred years before in the seminaries, first in Europe and then the United States. We Americans had "the social gospel" which shifted the burden of individual sin to the shoulders of social, institutional or corporate evil. You might say the preaching of the "gap gospel" that is pervasive in political speeches, tax plans, and protestant pulpits got its start right here in Columbus with Washington Gladden (1836-1918) at the First Congregational Church (forerunner denomination of UCC, Rev. Wright's group). Gladden taught that the teachings of Jesus were about the right ordering of society. Really, he could be Wright's mentor. The various liberal social movements and redefining of whole passages of Scripture gave rise to the Fundamentalists, and then the Evangelicals, attempting to correct or balance it. But even some of them, like Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life, Purpose Drive Church) have gone looking for an ambulance at the bottom instead of a fence at the top of the cliff in the late 20th century, abandoning the clear meaning of salvation for a less confining social gospel.

Feminists don't like the "oppressive patriarchal language" of the God-head, so in Protestant gatherings (conservatives stay home) we get nonsense like this from Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori saying Jesus isn't the only way to heaven because, she believes it would "put God in an awfully small box," and that "human beings come to relationship with God largely through their experience of holiness in other human beings." The Presbyterian Church USA’s 2006 General Assembly approved a document, "The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing," which offered words for the Trinity such as "Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb." The document only specifies the use of God-—Father, Son and
Holy Spirit—-in the baptismal formula, but I'm sure that will be tossed too within the decade. I've been hearing this bastardization of Scripture at Lakeside from the summer Methodist programs for years, praying to Mother-Father God and Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom--so much so I don't even attend their gatherings in the auditorium on Sundays anymore. It's not worth the spike in my blood pressure (which is usually 118/65).

When liberation theology knocked on the door of the seminaries in the 1950s and 1960s asking for a hand-out from the plate of humanism and the cup of social gospel, it soon ate their lunch. In my Lutheran denomination, ELCA (headquarters in Chicago), they can beat up the English language surpassing even Bill Clinton in not being able to determine "what the meaning of IS is." They have repackaged Galatians and Genesis both, redefining the Law and Gospel as well as marriage.

"One of the tasks of black theology, says [James] Cone, is to analyze the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ in light of the experience of oppressed blacks. For Cone, no theology is Christian theology unless it arises from oppressed communities and interprets Jesus' work as that of liberation. Christian theology is understood in terms of systemic and structural relationships between two main groups: victims (the oppressed) and victimizers (oppressors). In Cone's context, writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the great event of Christ's liberation was freeing African Americans from the centuries-old tyranny of white racism and white oppression." The Marxist roots of Black Liberation Theology

Truly, Jeremiah Wright is a prophet in reverse--he's reminding us again and again, how far we have fallen in our seminaries and churches, and what it will take to climb out of the pit. I do not doubt his salvation, but I do question his friendship with Barack Obama, who can't help but be hurt by his eagerness to be in the spot light.

A perfect score

on geeky buzzwords at the Wired site.

"Wired has a history of sniffing out trends and launching them into the mainstream. Take our vocab quiz to see how many you know: Match the meme on the left with its definition on the right."

I subscribed to Wired for years and years--but haven't seen it for awhile. It was a solid bargain--$10 for a year. I also have the premiere issue in my collection.

HT Bruce Gee

My plan isn't working

Snacks don't bother my husband. And he doesn't bother them. I can buy him a 3-stack box of Ritz Crackers and he will carefully eat maybe 5 of them a few times a week, carefully spread with peanut butter and no-sugar jelly. One box lasts and lasts. That is, unless I get the munchies. My weakness is salty, crunchy snacks, and since our trip to Ireland in September I've taken on a few pounds that just don't want to leave. So if I buy him snacks, I usually have him hide them. Except. If I purchase the individually wrapped crackers, then I tend to leave them alone.

But today I bought him an 8 pack of Lance Captain's Wafers, Grilled Cheese flavor. I had a late breakfast/lunch because I had a 10:30 doctor's appointment. So I was sort of grazing--recovering my strenth from being poked and hooked up to a machine wearing one of those barely there gowns and freezing to death. Hmmm. Comfort food. Wonder what a grilled cheese flavored cracker snack tastes like? So I opened one. My goodness, that was yummy! Who in the world spent hours in the food lab taste testing cheese flavors so it would taste just a bit like your mother's slightly charred grilled cheese on a cast iron skillet smeared with a little margarine or Crisco? Can I get that job?

Are they good for me? Not as bad as you might think, except for the fat and sodium. At least there's no cottonseed oil. Look at the ingredients.

Ingredients:
Enriched Wheat Flour (Containing Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil (Contains one or more of the following Vegetable Oils: Canola Oil, Corn Oil, Palm Oil, Soybean Oil), Dairy Whey, American and Cheddar Cheeses (Cultured Milk, Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Maltodextrin, Salt, Reduced Lactose Whey, Malt Syrup, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Butter, Buttermilk Powder, Nonfat Dry Milk, Whey Protein Concentrate, Sodium Phosphate, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Soy Lecithin, Cream, Artificial colors (Contains FD&C Yellow #5 and FD&C Yellow #6), Lactic Acid, Peanuts. CONTAINS: WHEAT, MILK, SOY, PEANUTS. 200 calories, 90 from fat. But it does have calcium and iron and 4g of protein.

Lip smacking, snacking good! And I do feel so loved--nothing like something from the kitchen.

Would you be confused?

Me neither.

"Virginia-based Smithfield Foods is being sued by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for allegedly infringing the foundation’s “Race for the Cure” trademark, the Washington Post reports. The lawsuit came after the company filed a trademark application for “Deli of the Cure,” which it plans to feature on packaging to emphasize its corporate donations for breast cancer research. The foundation argues the slogan will confuse consumers."Seen at Capital Research Center Foundation Watch

Which consumers are confused? Consumers of deli products, or consumers of advertising for races? The national organization of all the races, marathons and walkathons take a huge cut of the proceeds for letting the locals use their name, advertising flyers, etc.

Frankly, save me from the colors pink and green. Curing breast cancer is about more than being aware or getting a mammogram; and saving the planet is more about respect for God's creation than thinking you're a big green deal with screwy light bulbs and crossover or hybrid cars. I'm all for businesses being "responsible," but there's way too much coziness between drug companies, food companies, clothing designers, etc. and these various causes, whether it's cancer, diabetes or MS. The Komen Foundation not only takes a cut from the local races, but gets money from huge corporate sponsors and its investments. It has bragging rights on something like raising $1 Billion--and that's great if it all went for research, but it doesn't. It goes to administer the foundation, to sponser races, and to raise awareness. A neoplasm found early doesn't mean it won't kill 10 or 15 years down the road--you just know about it sooner. Besides, it's been in business for 25 years. Is $1 billion that great? And if someone else makes a sandwich and says "it's for the cure," how are they hurt? Unless of course, Smithfield wasn't funneling their contribution through Komen.

Yearning for a Spudnut

If there's something from the 1950s that causes the heart to pitter a pat more than a 55 Chevy, it's got to be a Spudnut--a yeast do-nut made with potato flour. I've blogged about them several times here, here and here, and George Young sent me some additional information he found in the South Arkansas Historical Journal, VOL 5,FALL 2005 (Published by the South Arkansas Historical Society) "SpudNuts: A South Arkansas Breakfast Legend" By Joan Hershberger. The store (in 2004) was still open under original management and had quite a history since the 1940s in El Dorado, AR, with the manager being trained in the mysteries of the SpudNut by the Pelton Brothers, who invented them.

"The shop’s continued success and recognition as a locally owned family business originates in part from the loyalty of the shop’s first, and only manager, Bud McCann, according to Nancy Varnell, second generation co-owner of the shop. Varnell’s mother, Daisy Stringfellow, original owner of the local shop, discovered Spudnuts during a trip to visit relatives in Salem, Ore. En route, she stopped and ate at one of the original Spudnut Shops in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was impressed with the taste and the fact that Spudnuts were sold door-to-door in the city every morning."

"Currently, there are only 37 Spudnut Stores in existence. All exist because they maintained their own original recipes – owners can no longer buy from the Pelton Brothers. The Peltons dissolved their corporation and the Spudnut Franchise was sold at their retirement to a company which proved unable to reliably provide the mix and supplies. It is impossible to purchase a Spudnut Franchise.

At one time, Varnell knew of Spudnut Shops in Texarkana, Pine Bluff, Magnolia and Bastrop, Louisiana. Only the Magnolia and El Dorado shops remain in business in this area."

George sent a link to some additional information on how to find a SpudNut with some addresses http://ruthvenphotos.com/files/spudnuts.html

Lice and locusts, but no butterflies

In the mornings I'm inside our church at Mill Run and see the paraments and banners depicting butterflies. They appear after Easter and probably are taken down after Pentecost. Although I know they are used as symbols of renewal and rebirth, they are not a biblical image. Butterflies as a spiritual symbol predate Christianity, and I don't recall seeing them used much until the 1960s and 1970s. (Although I really wasn't paying much attention.) The most frequently named bugs from the Bible are: Locust: 24, Moth: 11, Grasshopper: 10, Scorpion: 10, Caterpillar: 9, and Bee: 4. Lots of animals in the Bible. Eagles soaring; Lambs sacrificed; Fish caught; Goats separated; Bees swarming; Storks migrating; Lions killing; Deer leaping; Horses of war, famine, pestilence and wild beasts racing; Hens gathering a brood, yes. But no butterflies in the Bible that I can find.

Butterflies have a life cycle that involves a complete metamorphosis; locusts have what is called an incomplete metamorphosis--they just keep moulting and changing until they are mature. When Jesus comes back and the dead rise and we all get our new bodies--maybe then the butterfly will be a good symbol because there will be a complete metamorphosis--but until then, I think a locust might be a better symbol. They keep very busy during all their changes to the next level and really reproduce their numbers.

And I really don't expect to see one daintily embroidered into satin for a parament.

Lake Wenatchee Washington

This must be about the prettiest state park in Washington--and we've never been there but I think I'll add it to the list of places I'd like to see. Bonita, a blogger who takes wonderful photographs of food, family and fun things to do, gave permission to use her photo as a reference for my husband's painting. He started it yesterday and finished around noon today. I think it turned out pretty good.

Caring for Aunt Ann

Michelle and I have known each other for several years, but during Advent we were both on the same communion team and chatted a bit while waiting for others to arrive. She told me about her aunt, and the frustration she was experiencing with nursing home staff. I asked her if she'd like to be my guest blogger, and she agreed. In the few months since we talked, her aunt died.

My aunt died January 4 after her last urinary tract infection led to the kidney failure, to hospital treatment, to hospice and three weeks waiting for her wish to be fulfilled - to join her family in heaven.

For the past five years, I had to be a strong advocate for her, fighting for what I consider good treatment. You need to understand, Ann was in a "good" nursing home. But she and many other patients who could not get about by themselves, were wheeled to their rooms and left there without an attempt to give them their push cords to call for assistance. Staff or volunteers would wheel a cart by and put ice and water in their pitchers. That was good, but many couldn't lift the pitcher after it was filled. I never saw anyone put any water in a cup that the resident could take by himself/herself. I asked several to do it and, while they didn't say, "That's not my job," I never saw them do it in other rooms where they were filling pitchers. Often the pitchers were on the tables and way out of reach of the residents. (Lack of water increases potential for urinary tract infections and kidney failure with change in mental status.)

When busy, staff would put Ann on the toilet where she could sit for more than a half hour at times. Ann would sit there scratching previously inaccessible areas but the staff would haul them off the toilet, wipe their bottoms, restore them to their wheelchairs and bring back out into the room. I would protest that Ann's hands needed washed, and they said "We wiped her." I explained about her scratching and showed them her fingernails and the dead skin, etc., under them. Staff would wheel her back in bathroom and help her wash. That gradually became wheeling her to the sink and leaving her there to care for someone else -- but Ann couldn't reach the faucet or handles from her wheelchair.

I discovered that oral care (tooth brushing) was asking "Do you want to brush your teeth?" (not asked nightly) at the end of the day. So longing for their beds, the elderly would say "no." Weeks would go by that no toothbrush would be used. I tested once by bringing in my own toothbrush to use on Ann and winding a couple of Ann's hairs in the tooth brush. After two weeks unchanged, I reported it to the director and head nurse.

I went on rampage after rampage in the winter when the heat was up and I would walk through the halls, stopping in various rooms where I had made friends and offering water. No one refused and no one drank less than 6 ounces of water. Most drank at least 12 ounces. When I told the facility I had offered to find a new place for Ann to live but she told me "No, I have friends here. And the other place will be the same or worse" - it got the director out of her office daily to walk the halls and survey who didn't have their call cords in their hands, offering water to patients, checking to see if water was available for those who couldn't pour. She did this for nearly two months during the heating season -- and guess what?? People were healthier when appropriately hydrated, were less listless and more interactive per my observations However, when the director stopped her daily walks, things went back to the way they were before.

Ann had numerous urinary tract infections (UTI) over the years, sometimes two or three in a row before they were conquered. She also contracted an MRSA (methacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infection and had to be moved from her nursing home to a sister facility to share a room with someone else with MRSA. This is highly contagious and challenging to treat. However, with any infection and the elderly, using a new, powerful antibiotic is very hard on their systems, often resulting in yeast infections, stomach irritation and other side effects.

Keep watch and an open ear to your loved one's condition -- seek to discover if they are feeling unwell while under antibiotic treatment. Good aides will notify the nurses. Good nurses will respond quickly to the aides comments about a change in condition (stomach upset, not wanting to eat, yeast discoloration, redness in genital area). Sorry to say, not all aides and nurses respond appropriately or quickly. If you are able and the resident is willing, ask to see the condition yourself.

During those years, as I struggled to get attention for many of the nursing home residents and did some of the things they needed done on my own. I had a phone conversation with a doctor who cared for Ann there. He told me that my expectations for what the aides could provide in care was "unrealistic." (i.e., forget keeping their teeth clean, forget them getting body lotion immediately after a shower, offering water when they entered her room to serve her). He explained that during an eight hour shift, with the number of patients an aide had, the charting, showering, serving food, assisting in needs, it was his thought that I could not expect any more than 30 minutes of care per shift by an aide for my loved one. If I were lucky, or her need was more severe than other patients, perhaps 45 minutes. I was stunned into silence with that. But I did tell him, I would not be able to accept that what he was proposing was an acceptable level of care for any of the patients. And, you can probably guess that cantankerous and challenging patients that don't offer warm fuzzies with staff have a slightly decreased opportunity for his/her "number of minutes."

Knowing the suffering that Ann had endured over 5-6 years (Ann still had her mental capacity to protect herself and demand certain care, but also hesitated to do too much in fear of making staff angry with her. Those with dementia may not always be able to seek appropriate care.

While Ann wanted to "go home to the Lord" for some 10 years before her death, Ann was so amazingly happy to "be back home" after a hospital stay, it shocked me. She rejoiced in our visits, but did acknowledge that the times in between weren't so great for her, but I would watch her interact with staff, and the staff and Ann would each tell me their versions of stories when they shared fun and happiness together. I saw that interaction as being moments of quality that she appreciated. I found this contrasting with the desire to be done with her life on earth and sometimes challenging to reconcile.

Hospice nurses have told me that pneumonia can be a gentle opportunity to escape from life. So, there is an option that can be written and added to health directives:
1) that a patient who is debilitated can ask not to be treated for pneumonia.
2) That should breathing difficulties and pneumonia symptoms appear, patient and family can request NO transfer to the hospital for treatment and implement hospice treatment (care centers or specialty hospice groups can provide that.)
3) It is my understanding that the pneumonia process gradually lessens the patient's responsiveness and she succumbs to death reasonably easily.
4) This peaceful death is with pain medication appropriate for condition.
5) Ann might have been granted release from nursing home a few years earlier had she and I implemented this plan together. It's not an easy choice, but one that deserves conversation.

Thank you, Michelle--this is better than I could have hoped for, and I'm so thankful that Ann had a loving, Christian niece to help her through difficult times. In part 2, Michelle will share her experience with a 90 year old neighbor who needed emergency care.

Death on a Spring night

We've been having beautiful weather--we've been eating dinner on the deck, watching the birds and bees, enjoying the breezes wafting through the open windows in the evenings. Last night shortly after dark we began to hear sirens and then the helicopter going around and around our area. We decided there must have been an accident and maybe the helicopter was going to life-flight someone to the near-by hospital. Then it stopped. On the 10 o'clock news and again at 11 we learned that two young men had stolen a Mustang, had led the police from the west side, around the free-ways and into Arlington going about 70 mph on the city streets, and crashed about 1/2 mile from our home. The police closed the intersection. About 11 p.m. when we were in bed our phone rang. Our daughter had seen the report too, recognized the address, and then panicked when they said the fleeing thieves had hit an elderly couple in a gray van which is what had spun them out of control and into the pole. The couple walked to the ambulance; the 2 men were dead at the scene, the car barely recognizable.

Update: According to the Columbus Dispatch, April 26, the men were identified as Brian R. Faler, 33, and James E. Bush, 43, of Canal Winchester. Both men had spent much of the past 10 years in prison for some very serious crimes, and were subjects of arrest warrants.

Volcanoes, climate change and politics

A child born in Europe in 765 AD would have lived to the ripe old age of 55 without experiencing a single severe winter to threaten his food supply and economic system. A child born in 763 might not have made it through the first winter. A child born in 820 AD would have five such crisis winters to live through. Volcanoes which brought on rapid climate change which brought on famines and eventually the "little ice age" are the topic of this interesting study in a recent issue of Speculum, the journal of the Medieval Academy, "Volcanoes and the Climate Forcing of Carolingian Europe, A.D. 750-950," By Michael McCormick, Paul Edward Dutton and Paul A. Mayewski.

So what happens when there is a lot of volcanic activity, as there was after a lull in the first 500 years of the Christian era?

Microscopic particles, if lifted into the stratosphere as an aerosol—solid or liquid particles suspended in a gas, in this case, the atmosphere (e.g., a cloud)—may diminish the global temperature by blocking solar radiation. This in turn will work various and complex effects on atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Furthermore, volcanic aerosols increase nucleation sites for water. The resultant cloud condensation nuclei can produce precipitation. Volcanic emissions are typically rich in sulfur dioxide (SO2), which is converted to sulfuric acid (H2SO4). In addition to reflecting solar radiation back into space and thereby cooling the earth, the aerosols also fall to the earth. The resultant sulfate (SO4) particles are preserved in the millennial record of atmospheric deposits—snow—in the great Greenland glaciers, and, through mass spectroscopy, the particles can be measured in parts per billion (ppb) in the annual layers of ice.

The authors suggest that Charlemagne may have been more lucky than smart, and his son just got dealt a bad hand by the weather. "His act of public penance would have little effect on the volcanic aerosol that produced yet another terrible winter, famine, and disruption but a year later." Obviously, politics and weather went hand and glove even 1300 years ago--Kyoto and the UN fiddling isn't new.

The thought occurred to me that maybe God was at work getting the church established by quieting down the volcanoes in the early years of the church; and now natural and atmospheric events have been loosed--but former and current presidents want to believe otherwise.

What to wear in Italy

Cannes, the site of the film festival, isn't in Italy, but it's close enough. I saw an article on what to wear in Cannes (for the festival and site seeing), so I thought it would be a good hanger for my travel wardrobe in early summer when we visit Italy.

Daytime--women
designer jeans
colorful tight top or
wrapped dress in bold print
trimmings of diamonds, flashy handbag and expensive sun glasses

Evening--women
bleached teeth
designer gown
a tan

Sight-seeing
good flats or expensive sandals (absolutely no athletic shoes)
you can also use the sunglasses, jeans, tight shirt and white teeth

Men--Daytime
tight jeans
fitted white shirt or
rocker t-shirt
expensive shoes
gold Rolex

Men--evening
Tuxedo

I'm not sure my on-sale Talbot's jeans with sparkles and flowers qualify; even so, I do hate to see women "dressed up" in jeans--especially tight jeans. Ladies, I think the gay designers are after our men, because most of us just don't look that terrific after age 16 in tight jeans. Muffin tops, saddle bags, cellulite, sausage links--you know the routine. What we look like in that 3-way mirror in the store is exactly what someone walking behind our behinds sees.

So here's my plan--black, white and taupe, with a little color thrown in for evening. I now have two new pair of black sandals, and one pair of black walking shoes--tie oxfords. I agree with the writer--athletic shoes for strolling around ancient ruins and art museums look a bit tacky. But so do tight jeans on plump or saggy Americans.

It's the Greenies

Just in time for Earth Day 2008, in a very short period of time, the Greens have returned the world to the brink of starvation for millions, from which it had been rescued (not very effectively) in the 1970s through better agricultural methods and massive government aid from Europe and North America.

It wasn't over population.
It wasn't drought.
It wasn't lack of infrastructure.
It wasn't civil war.
It wasn't terrorism.
It wasn't landfills overflowing with garbage.
It wasn't bankers conspiring to steal land.
It wasn't melting glaciers flooding the cities, with polar bears washing up on the beach.
It wasn't loss of the rainforest or lack of fairly traded coffee and tea.
It wasn't native crops disappearing under pressure from hybrids and pesticides.
It wasn't species disappearing from overuse by humans.

None of those things we were warned about for 35 years brought on today's global food crisis. The people who were going to save the earth for their children and grandchildren, are driving people to starvation and rioting. How?

By denying to the world new sources of coal, gas and oil;
by refusing permits for new refineries;
by caring more about snails and rats than people.
by hyping a problem (warming temperatures) and
saying people could control it through laws and regulations;
by giving tax breaks to companies who produce biofuels;
by encouraging farmers to convert acreage that used to grow wheat and soybeans to corn and other crops to burn as fuel;
by driving out entreprenuers and venture capital through punitive taxes and regulation.

Now we have "rice riots," and no one seemed to see it coming--but they can predict global temperatures a hundred years from now. It's supply and demand. When people can't get other grains and legumes, they buy up the rice. Then the richer people hoard it to make money.

Thank you, environmentalist greenies. You are sure saving the world.

Your dog or your wife

We have a cat. When we've been gone for awhile, she will roll on the floor and show her tummy, spreading cat hair everywhere, and then later climb daintly in my lap and wipe her wet nose (it runs when she's emotional) all over my hands. If we had a dog, say a chocolate lab or a fawn Chihuahua, she would jump on me, knock me down, and lick my face.

This morning on my morning walk I passed a neighbor's place being remodeled. Extensively. Workers' trucks, vans, cars and trash bins everywhere. When a young carpenter jumped out of his Volvo and opened the trunk, I stopped and told him this joke. "If you put your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car for three hours, when you open it, your dog will be happy to see you, your wife won't." He didn't crack a smile, just said, "That's a funny joke." Maybe he's tried that.

What's in that soap?

My daughter was watching NBC Dateline on toxic chemicals in common ingredients and asked me to print off the list--never could find the list, but I decided to look at my own common, people products. She was particularly concerned about "moisturizers," products that keep your skin and hair soft, and I'm guessing she uses more of these products than I do (even though she's always been much prettier, even without help). Usually these are scare stories and I'm betting a lab rat would die if you washed him too many brownies and milk, too. So I'm just picking a few things one thing up at random:

Meijer moisturizing liquid soap, Milk & Honey. The label says, "contains light moisturizers to help leave your hands soft . . . great for the entire family. Warnings: For external use only; avoid eyes; keep out of reach of children [scratch that "family" part, I guess]
water
sodium laureth sulfate
sodium chloride
sodium lauryl sulfate
cocamidopropyl betaine
glycol stearate
fragrance
cocamide mea
DMDM Hydantoin
polyquaternium-7
glycerin
tetrasodium EDTA
citric acid
Aloe Barbadensis gel
MEL (honey) lactose
milk protein
silk peptide
hydrolized silk protein
D&C yellow no. 10
FD&C red no. 40

You don't need to go to a health web site, you can go directly to a toxic substance list by the government, but one that's broken down by cosmetic ingredients is useful. So here's the first chemical ingredient, sodium laureth sulfate

Used in car washes, garage floor cleaners and engine degreasers - and in 90% of products that foam. [That sounds a bit harsh for a foaming ingredient that is widely used in cosmetics also. Do you suppose they've left something out or misled you?]

Animals exposed to SLS and ALS experience eye damage, central nervous system depression, laboured breathing, diarrhoea, severe skin irritation, and even death. ["Exposed." Does that mean full strenth into the eyes, not mixed in tiny amounts with other ingredients, then mixed with water when it's on your skin for a few seconds?]

Young eyes may not develop properly if exposed to SLS and ALS because proteins are dissolved. SLS and ALS may also damage the skin's immune system by causing layers to separate and inflame. It is frequently disguised in semi-natural cosmetics with the explanation "comes from coconut".[So, does it come from coconut or not? What's with the scare quotation marks. How young is young, and whose eyes? How much is on the skin to cause it to separate and inflame?]

Hmm. Doesn't sound too good--or it's an anti-industry site. Let's look for another site.

Keeping in mind that hardly any group--retired bloggers, housewives, mothers or health care staff--is washing their hands often enough or even getting close to guidelines.. Alcohol rub is probably the best for disinfecting--you need about 2-3 minutes of sudsing and scrubbing with a non-medicated soap to remove even some of the microflora on your hands, and if you didn't have these various agents in your soap, you'd probably have very raw knuckles very quickly, and develop an infection from that. (BTW, doctors are less careful than nurses, did you know that?)

So then I checked Snopes.com for this ingredient, but it is only looking at a circulating e-mail on SLS and cancer, not the NBC story. He says it is a foaming agent in shampoos, soaps, toothpastes and cleaning agents, provides links to various sites, FDA, OSHA, NTP and IARC, and says they all say it is non-carcinogenic. I try those sites and either find articles so technical that I can't read them, or I find "no results."

Here's what I found on sodium laureth sulfate at an Australian government site about dermal irritation--nothing close to these quantities appears in soap, shampoo or moisturizer products, and multiple applications were needed to induce an irritation. Huge quantities taken orally did kill lab rats, but generally we don't drink our shampoo and liquid soap.

"Sodium laureth sulfate: A large number of studies were performed with a variety of concentrations under occlusive patch for 24 – 48 hours. Applications produced no irritation at 5 – 5.6%, mild erythema and oedema at 6 – 10%, 17.5% and 26%. Severe irritation occurred at 15, 25, 28 and 30%. Severe irritation was produced in 3 applications of a 15% solution on consecutive days but similar studies with 17.5% produced only mild irritation. Single applications of 26 and 28% produced mild and moderate irritation, respectively, and an application of 58% produced no irritation. Three studies using 30% applications for 3 days produced severe irritation. Effects on the skin and hair cycles were investigated by application of the chemical daily for 65 days. A 60% concentration caused inflammatory changes, epidermal hyperplasia, epidermoid cyst formation and diffuse hair loss. A 30% concentration caused similar but less severe changes and 9% caused no changes.

Keep in mind that the reason cancer is at the top of the death list today is that we are an aging population, and if you live long enough, you'll get it. But also, through various medical advancements and miracles, the reasons people died young 100 years ago, have been eliminated. The big killer of babies and children in 3rd world countries is diarrhea--bad water. Another killer of children in those countries is malaria (with the help of environmentalists who got DDT removed). We don't have those diseases in the U.S. We are killing ourselves young with behavior related health problems--lack of exercise, too many calories, sexual promiscuity, and nicotine.

I think we probably have a lot of SLS and SLES on our skin because it's in so many products, but we're not going get rashes, die or develop cancer--unless maybe it's part of our diet, or we smoke it, or use it during sex, or stay inside and wash our hair rather than going outside to walk.

Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Sodium Laureth Sulfate and Ammonium Laureth Sulfate. J Am Coll Toxicol. 2: 1 – 34 (1983).
Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate. J Am Coll Toxicol. 2: 127 – 181 (1983).