Derek Jeter is boring

he says in an interview for Players Club magazine, my newest premiere issue featured at my hobby bloggy In the Beginning. He stays home and watches movies, and he'd like to get married and start a family. You may never read this article--it's a niche publication--intended only for athletes. Also, the magazine will have a shorter than usual life span. Lenny Dykstra, the founder of the magazine intended to help athletes with their wealth, is suing and being sued by his publisher, Doubledown Media.

Mandates driving up health insurance costs

As a state senator in Illinois, Barack Obama "voted to require that dental anesthesia be covered by every health plan for difficult medical cases. Today, the requirement is one of 43 mandates imposed by Illinois on health insurance, according to the Illinois Division of Insurance. Other mandates require coverage of infertility treatments, drug rehab, "personal injuries" incurred while intoxicated, and other forms of care.

By my count, during Mr. Obama's tenure in the state Senate, 18 different laws came up for a vote and passed that imposed new mandates on private health insurance. Mr. Obama voted for all of them." “Obama's Health Care Record” By Scott Gottlieb

Some bloggers

really have the touch. I was glancing through "Stuff White People Like," or something like that, and found some really interesting. . . stuff. Like 200-500 commenters on posts that don't say much, but are well written. I have no idea who writes it--white, black or brown, team or individual, male, female or transitioned, employed, on-the-dole or retired, rural, ex-pat or urban. The posts I read where intelligent, witty, observant, well constructed and illustrated. Whoever does it has a good eye, sharp wit, and writing skills that should demand a good salary. The website, however, can't handle traffic. I went upstairs, sorted the laundry, then went to the basement and loaded the washing machine; I fiddled with the dial on the radio to get Rush; reheated my coffee; made some notes on paper; all while waiting for the "about" page to load. No thanks. That's why I'm not linking.

Spring 2008 at Lakeside

Lakeside was a hopping place this past week-end--must have been a lot of boards and committees meeting, despite the heavy rains. We bought gas in Bucyrus at $3.46, compared to $3.65 in Columbus, and I picked up my Saturday coffee on the way in saving a 15 mile round trip and $.50 on the coffee. But our best way to make up for the higher cost of this trip over Spring 2007 was enjoying our first dinner at Evelyn's, spending about $14 less than our usual Friday night date in Columbus. That's the new name of the Abigail Tea Room, a Lakeside gathering place for over 50 years. Apparently everyone else had the same idea, because by 6 p.m. on Friday there was a line standing on the porch waiting to get in. What fabulous food! We started the season with perch sandwiches, not unusual for a restaurant on Lake Erie, but there were many wonderful items. We particularly enjoyed the warm, fresh baked potato chips, and the salads with crisp fresh ingredients, and the freshly baked, warm bread and rolls. Yes, the prices are a bit higher, but everything was so fresh and delicious. The new owners are Mary Martin and Peg Walsh, and if I heard the story correctly, they fell in love with Lakeside on their first visit, and Abigail's had just gone up for sale. According to their flyer, their mom, mother of 10, was a terrific cook, so some of the items I'm guessing reflect that love and interest. The adjoined cottages that make up the restaurant will remain this season, but I believe there are plans to separate them, using the one on the north as a residence, and rebuilding the other for the restaurant.

Other changes I noticed: the house across the street from Evelyn's, which I think used to be called Knight's Rest or something like that, is now a shrimp/coral color instead of white. I see there is an efficiency for rent for $395 a week. Couldn't read the price on the larger apartment. I think it is owner occupied, with two rental spaces. There was no shortage of cottages being fixed up. Jan's on Oak Avenue and Second is finally almost finished (huge problems with her first contractor), but painted a surprise robin egg blue--at least a surprise to my husband (her architect) who had selected a very different color scheme.

I stopped on Second to say Hello to Marilyn at her new location for Marilyn's Too. Last year she lost her lease, and had combined her two stores. This one has sweaters and carpets, some angels, Christian gifts, stationery. I stepped over the carpenter tools and new front door and took a peek inside. This shop is next door to Coffee and Cream.

And Third Street will certainly be more pleasant now that the couple who own Toys on Third and Home on Third have purchased the huge lodging at the corner of Third and Maple that had all the porches closed in to create more rooms, and it looked like an ugly box filled with old couches. It is being beautifully restored working from old photographs.

The Greening of the Rich

Andie MacDowell (movie star, 50) is taking a page from the home and gardening handbook of Al Gore and John Edwards, trading her 2.5 acre lot in the Blue Ridge Mountains (354 homesites) for one 3.5 acres. This way she can have a pasture and barn and more sq. ft. than she can possibly use. Of course, it wouldn't be Hollywood if it weren't eco-friendly. . . with riding trails and a golf course designed by Arnold Palmer. Seen at "Private Properties" in WSJ, but is also at Ecorazzi which seems to track this behavior by celebrities.

My great grandfather used to own land in the Smokies area (Dandridge), but sold it for a chance to make a living for his large family in Illinois. Back then (very early 20th century) it was just a hard scrabble living trying to farm on the sides of mountains. The story I was told, which might be apocryphal, was that he knew someone in Texas and someone in Illinois, but the train to Illinois came first.

The browning of green

"Kyoto has emerged as the single biggest threat to the global environment. Thanks to Kyoto, we are seeing a revival of megadams that threaten to destroy many of the world’s remaining river valleys, we are seeing a renaissance of nuclear power, which remains a costly and dangerous technology, we are seeing our foodlands turned into fuel lands, and people in the Third World rioting because they can’t afford the doubling of grain prices that has resulted."

Many scientists "who didn’t toe the government line lost their funding, were drummed out of their jobs, found it impossible to publish in crucial journals, discovered that they were pariahs in their academic departments, or were exposed to furious criticism in the press of a sort most research scientists will never encounter, including being compared to Holocaust Deniers by quite mainstream-media figures like Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes. That is certainly quite enough persecution to have a chilling effect on debate." Read the rest of the interview with the author of The Deniers.

Ohio's Attorney General is

Disgusting! His behavior, his apology, and his refusal to resign! This guy is unbelievable--or worse--maybe he's too believable. He's a man of the day--the rules are for everyone else, but not him, especially politicians. Marc Dann, it's time to get out of Dodge and let our former-pastor-Governor who ran on Christian values 2006, appoint someone who knows what an oath and vow mean, to say nothing of the laws about sex with your staff.

Is it only the Republican gay public servants who are held accountable? This is a heck of a lot more serious than text messaging house pages or a wide stance in the men's rest room! His office is described as a regular "animal house" by state employees.

Dispatch editorial: Scram Dann

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.