Collecting My Thoughts

Thursday, May 15, 2008

On the Home Front

When you have a kitty, you've got to expect a little clean up. Not as bad as dogs, but some. For some reason, she feels the urge to urp a hair ball after using the litter box, but doesn't want to use the box. Usually, supper comes with. So she looks for a pile of laundry. (The box is in the laundry room.) This morning she managed to deposit last night's supper in the change pocket of my husband's work jeans.

Yesterday my husband came in the kitchen when my hands were in a mess of meatball mix. He saw the Quick Cooking magazine (recipes) on the counter. A flicker of hope flashed across his face as in, Oh wouldn't a new recipe at our age be fun? But no, I was just fixing my favorite Sweet Sour Meatballs (clipped from the paper in 2000), and the magazine was for my hobby bloggy on premiere issues, In the Beginning.

I've started the audio book "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks about an Australian rare-book expert who has the opportunity to restore and preserve the Sarajevo Haggadah in 1996. I had planned to read this book for book club suggestion for 2008-2009, but there was only one copy with 12 saves at UAPL when I first inquired, and then it slipped my mind. So maybe for next year. The audio performer--Edwina Wren--is excellent with all the accents.

My husband has a cold so I've moved into the guest room. I woke up about 3 a.m. and flipped on the little TV and got to watch Secrets of the Dead on WOSU, "The Fall of the Minoans."

Five thousand years ago, the Minoans, Europe’s first great civilization, flourished on the island of Crete. The sophisticated inhabitants, named after the legendary King Minos, were the first Europeans to use a written language, known as Linear A, and the first to construct paved roads. They were an advanced society of highly-cultivated artisans and extremely skilled civic engineers. The Minoans were excellent ship builders and sailors, and their maritime empire was so vast, it rivaled that of the ancient Egyptians. They were an enigmatic people, worshiping snake priestesses and engaging in human sacrifice with origins not linked to Europe as expected, but to ancient Iran, which may explain why they were so different from the Greeks who rose to power after them.It would be nice to see the art, but that's not on our itinerary this Spring. It was so interesting, I didn't go back to sleep. The civilization disappeared apparently after an enormous tsunami following a volcano eruption.

Tomorrow the retired OSUL librarians are meeting for lunch. There are so many of us now that I'm surprised the place can function without us! Not really. I had a lot of special contract positions and various appointments in my library career and I learned years ago that no one is indispensable.

Speaking of sleep, a member of my family who was told her aches, pains and restlessness at night might be fibromyalgia, bought a sleep number bed. She said the first night felt a little strange, but since then it's been the sleep of the dead. When the alarm rings in the morning, she thinks she just fell asleep. Also, no stiffness or pain in the morning. Maybe I'll have to try that. I think our mattress is about 11 or 12 years old.

Terri and Gerry mow the lawn

Terri is a columnist for the WSJ (Fiscally Fit) and yesterday posted her "how we're dealing with the gas crisis" obligatory article. It seems that a few years back she and her husband were having regular battles about upkeep of the lawn--he enjoyed doing it but just found better things to do with his leisure time. Finally, they agreed on a lawn/edging service, but the husband continued to do the weed and seed part. Each year the service went up about $5, but this year, due to gas prices it went up $10 (apparently Terri and Gerry's incomes didn't go up during the same time period to cover increases in cost of living--or did it?). Enough of this, said Gerry, I'll do it myself, and began looking at $2500 riding mowers. Terri panicked and went online and found one for $1750. So now Gerry and their 8 year old are bonding on the mower ($11.50 for 3 gallons of gasoline to run it.)

Call me crazy, but this doesn't strike me as a sound financial idea if you factor in trips to the ER. It's not a safe way to bond with a small child; it's eating up time they could be doing something else; we all know Terri will end up mowing the lawn when the novelty wears off the new pet. Terri needs to click over to the left and check out my posts on finances. We're obviously different generations. Letting an 8 year old mow the lawn with a power mower isn't a good idea. Let them sort laundry or run the vacuum cleaner.

That's not Terri in the photo; that's Sandra of Tedandsandra.com. But you can hardly tell the difference, right?

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

4853 New twist on an old myth

When I was a little girl, children were told to clean up their plates because there were starving children in China (or India or Africa depending on where your church had missions). Most of us were skinny and baffled how that would help other kids--but guilt never makes much sense. Today I heard some expert say that if Americans would just eat less, Indians would have more. The reason people don't have enough food has nothing to do with available calories in their own country. Since the 1970s all countries, even the poorest, have been self-sufficient in food. The problem is corrupt governments that let it rot, or who steal it, trade it or control people with it, or don't build roads so poor, rural people can get to it. When the Irish were starving in the 19th century, Britain was exporting their food. When the Ukrainians were starving in the early 20th century, they were living in the bread basket of the world. Those were political, not agricultural, famines. Right now people are starving in Burma after a natural disaster, but they were probably awfully thin going into it; U.S. and U.N. food aid has been stolen by the military-communist controlled government. There are calls for the U.N. to DO SOMETHING besides form a committee and write a report!

Burning food stuffs to run cars does change the balance of trade and supply, and even if it never got to Burma, wouldn't you feel better if you weren't burning it?

SAM is carbon neutral

SAM means Sustainable Asset Management. I didn't know these folks, who manage other people's assets, even had a carbon footprint; they have no product. But I suppose they have to turn on a light every now and then, feed the monkeys in the back room peddling to keep the computers running, give a bowl of rice to the slave girls fanning them (in place of air conditioning), or even occasionally send their CEOs someplace beyond the Alps via pack animals. They can trade their emissions from funny looking, low energy lightbulbs from China (highly recommended by John McCain) and be neutral. Isn't that nice? From their webpage.

SAM – TACKLING CLIMATING CHANGE

As a forerunner in creating and managing sustainable asset management products and services, SAM also strives to ensure that its day-to-day management and operations are sustainable. Having witnessed the great challenges arising from global climate change, SAM has adopted a clear climate change policy in 2000. In line with Switzerland's Kyoto Protocol commitment, SAM has set its target to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) by 8% per employee by 2008 (compared to the base year 2001). Moreover, beyond the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, SAM commits to neutralise its nonreducible GHG emissions. To achieve these goals, SAM adopted the following measures:

1. avoid greenhouse gas production;
2. reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and
3. neutralize all remaining greenhouse gas emissions through investments in alternative energy technology or clean development projects.

Who said it's not easy being green? Kermit?

KISS: The rules of supply and demand

Yesterday gasoline jumped twenty five cents between the time my husband filled up in Bucyrus, and when he came back through 3 hours later. Thomas Segal says no blog he's ever written generated more comment than the one he did on the ethanol hoax. His is not a blog I regularly read; someone sent it to me. His follow up to those who say he's clueless is about what we all know

Our bold and brave Democratic Congress stand between us and the gasoline pumps. Tell them to move over.

Will the New Green just be a shade of Cabrini Green?

When city planners, social workers, developers and architects start eyeing the neighborhood and deciding that they know best how Americans should live, hang on to your wallet. You might get the Cabrini Greens of the mid-20th century, or the paradigm-shift-responsible-growth green designs of the 21st century. What we've got going up on Tremont Road here in Upper Arlington isn't exactly a Cabrini Green, but it's ugly as hell and is euphemistically called "mixed-use development." That means the developer was allowed to tear down four family units inhabited by modest income elderly and young couples, and put up four story, half million dollar condo units sitting on top of a Walgreen's or Starbucks.

Cabrini Green for those of you who didn't grow up near Chicago is the infamous public housing complex that was going to fix slum housing and crime through regulation and relocation of the poor. When I was a teen and we would drive past those shiny new developments, I probably believed that new bricks made new people. I was so open minded you could have driven a loaded dump truck through my brain. Even though I could hear my dad grumbling in the background about what a waste it was and how it'd be a slum within a decade. He was right (he was a Republican and my mother a Democrat and they regularly cancelled each others' votes on election day). Didn't work. Stacking 15-20,000 poor people and welfare families into high rises creates a high rise slum. Imagine! In fact, it probably contributed to more gang violence and white flight than anything else social scientists have pushed Americans in to over the years from their protected ivory towers and government buildings made of pork. Then when they decided to tear it all down 40 years later because it was so unsafe and unsightly (not to mention sitting on increasingly valuable land), the poor had to be uprooted again, just a different generation and a different ethnic mix.

The Green Alphabet Soup

Here's the green alphabet soup of code words for the New Green, minus the Cabrini. Keep in mind that asbestos in insulation and lead in paint were the best ideas of the smartest people of an earlier generation. A generation from now your grandchildren might be ripping out extruded-polystyrene foam and collector panels with glycol. And if you thought your local zoning board was tough, just wait till you encounter the green czars of building regulatory agencies.

You may think you have the right to vote, that we have a representative form of government, and that there are courts to whom you can take your case as an American citizen, but regulatory agencies and groups can snatch that away from you faster than you can say "endangered species."

Here are the non-acronym code words and phrases that I see in all my husband's magazines and newsletters. Some can be mixed and matched, not that I'd suggest that just to take it to your community's zoning board.

How to have an award winning home

Here's how to have an award winning design that will get past your regulatory and zoning commissions and get your home into the latest building magazines.

1. Buy a lot that is near public transportation, a bike path, and within 1/2 mile of the nearest store--even if you'd never shop there. But look out for places like Ohio State where the bike path ends for 100 ft. under a bridge and the city and university can't agree on whose responsibility it is.

2. Use photovoltaic panels on the roof. Have a battery back-up if you live in a low sun area like Columbus (37% sunshine) or Seattle.

3. Collect rain water and heat it with solar panels. Keep an eye on the mold problem.

4. Use paint that has one of the approved, seal of perfection from one of the above groups. No one knows how long this stuff will last or what the long term affects are to your health, so be forewarned.

5. Make-up for the cramped square footage by having high ceilings (steep roof helps those panels). Spiders love it.

6. Don't attach your garage to the house so you can avoid all those environmental codes about fumes. Live in North Dakota? Tough.

7. Use less wood by not using headers of traditional framing and pray for no tornados in your life time. Or, don't build in tornado alley.

8. Site the house on the lot to take advantage of the sun, even if you're facing the free-way or the landfill and missing the forest, the view for which you bought the lot.

9. Don't build on a compacted landfill like just off Trabue Road in Columbus, Ohio. Something might ooze up later. (I watched them create that.)

10. Choose a climate for your lot where you won't need air conditioning. Like Huntington Beach, California or Bainbridge Island, Washington.

If you had to do all this, when would you do the rest of your job?

Dicentes enim se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt

Darwinistas
Global Alarmists
Pantheistic Feminists
Gay Marriage Gestapo
Emergent Pastors
Liberation Theologians
Postmodernist Panderers
Diversity Distortionists
Technology Utopians
Just-Us Justice
Culture Supremacists
Thought police
Abortionistas
(Romans 1:22)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Now this is low

Seen at the home page of the Order of Discalced Carmelites

Information pirates have recently robbed e-mail addresses, especially those who use the server gmail.com. They either create new addresses in the name of a friar or sister and, pretending to be in difficulty, ask for financial help. NEVER BELIEVE IN these messages, and never send the money they asked for or give your own bank account details.

Looks pretty normal to me

Last night my husband called me into the living to see the video that's going around the internet that was shown on and commented about during O'Reilly. I looked at the fuzzy video which seemed to be two kids stretched out on the floor having an epileptic seizure. "Looks pretty normal to me," I said. "Dancing has always been about imitating the movements of sexual intercourse." He was not pleased. He loves to dance. But even the waltz was once considered an outrage by the old timers watching the young people dipping and doing. And the jitterbug? Oh. My. Goodness. And have you ever seen old footage of Soul Train--say about 30-35 years ago. Lawdy, Lawdy Miss Clawdy (1952, 1941). It's hot. And the old Elvis Presley footage on the Ed Sullivan show. Parents and grandparents were screaming--and so were kids, although for different reasons. Nope, I didn't see anything new. Not the kids. Not the outrage. I tried to locate the video to provide a link, but the old computer just ~~froze and burped~~ overheated.

The health and wealth justice scam

Lance Armstrong has an opinion piece in the WSJ today. To promote his foundation he gives a nod to the current health justice line, which is really an insult to common sense. Which is going to help the poor more, leveling out and dumbing down all the health care services, or basic research which benefits everyone?

A leading cancer specialist, Dr. Harold Freeman, says there's a disconnect between what we know and what we do. On many levels, we know how to defeat cancer; we just don't do it. Funding for cancer research. Investment in prevention programs. Access to screening. Early detection and effective treatment for everyone. Support for people living with cancer. Personal commitment to healthier living. These are the priorities we must pursue.Social programs, prevention, screening and education, those are the elements of the walks, runs, and marathons, but yet all we hear is that we're losing the battle. Obviously, siphoning more off for social goals isn't going to keep anyone alive, is it?

When I count the members of my own family who have had cancer--my daughter, my mother, my father, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles and one sibling--I can't find a single one who didn't have access to the best in whatever medical care was available at the time their illness was diagnosed. And with the exception of my daughter and my mother, all are on my paternal side of the family genealogy. Of the three who were still smoking when they were diagnosed (the only ones who actually died from cancer), you can't tell me they didn't know! These were bright people. It was the diagnosis, not education or screening, that stopped that behavior.

Before we let the liberals, progressives and marxists dismantle the research, academic and commercial powerhouses which will provide the basic research and technology we need to fight cancer, let's really look at all these media "gap" stories coming at us from all sides, whether in education, health care, legal system, housing, or nutrition. Let's stop turning health care into a big political battle that ignores that there are issues other than income that determine the state of our health.

I'm waiting for the research team brave enough to play the race card, to compare the health statistics of say, a lauded socialized system like Norway, with the health statistics of the American scrambled and cobbled together system for Norwegian Americans who have not married outside their ethnic heritage. Of course, they'd be unlikely to get a grant, and then probably couldn't get JAMA or NEJM to publish it.

Welcome to vacation land

In today's USATody a Brit complains that his Florida property taxes in Palm Beach have risen from $4,500 to $20,000 in 4 years. A "homesteader" Floridian pays $3,000 for the same unit next door.

Yes, Mr. Rich European, we've experienced that at our second home, too, although Danbury Township would sock it to us even if we lived there 6 or 7 months of the year. Lakeside, Ohio, is the golden goose in that taxing district, and it makes no difference that we send almost no children to the schools--the fact is, we can't vote. This is the rub in all 2nd home communities. Celebs like the McCains, Kerrys and Clintons who have multiple homes have enough money that it doesn't matter. It really is taxation without representation. The children of Marblehead, Ohio should be using gold plated computers and swimming in diamond studded natatoriums courtesy of the vacationers who don't live permanently in the area. I could move 100 ft. to the west and lower my taxes. If the children who attend Danbury schools aren't excelling in every academic area, leading the state in testing and contests, then it's a sure sign that money isn't what makes a good school.

Dear Carly

Thank you for your "Dear Friend" Victory 2008 letter dated simply "Tuesday Morning." Nice, personal touch.

I filled out your CRITICAL ISSUES SURVEY, although I hate those kind of "when did you stop beating your spouse" questions whether done by Republicans, Democrats or Libertarians. However, I didn't enclose any money, the purpose behind the survey (when a politician asks for my opinion, I know the next question will be about money). We gave during the primaries--which were not apparently decided by conservatives, but by RINOS and Democrats in cahoots with the media. Right now we have a RINO/Democrat, a Socialist, and a Marxist (and now a Libertarian who will drain votes from both the final 2 candidates) running for the White House. Your survey did indicate that McCain has learned to mouth the global alarmist rhetoric, and that he is ignoring the serious border security problems funneling drugs, disease and dysfunctional racists into our country. When you send out some literature explaining how he will help our energy situation by using the vast resources we already have, and how he'll respect the sovereignty of the nation, issues important to conservatives, maybe I'll open my wallet.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Recycle your greeting cards

Here's another way to put fuel in the gas tank without burning corn and creating food riots. Recycle your greeting cards and spend that $4-5.00 on gasoline! On Saturday I got the box of cards out from under the bed and my husband had a selection of 20-30 Mother's Day cards, and he picked one from 1990, which of course, I didn't remember and enjoyed just as much as if he'd gone to the card store. In 1990 this card was $2.00, so I figure it would have been about $4.00 in 2008.

It gave us an opportunity to remember our own mothers, who were both alive in 1990, and also how he used to tape (VCR) the Blondie movies (although we had a break-in in 1986 and our VCR and tapes were stolen). Our son-in-law was just a future dream at that time, and my husband hadn't started his own business, and I probably didn't have tenure yet at OSU. I think Mystery our first cat was 14 and still alive and our Lynxpoint not yet born. I was driving my first Chrysler product van and loving it--now I'm on my third.

We enjoyed church with our children, and many stopped to admire my Mother's Day gardenia corsage--not too common these days at a service where many of the women are in jeans or slacks (contemporary service, 9:45). Then we came back to the house for a wonderful dinner prepared by our daughter (lasagna and lemon pie) and son (salad and Texas toast). She had purchased a pasta maker so this was really a fresh item. I think this is much better than going to a restaurant. I don't mind providing the tableware if everyone else brings the food. The tornado warnings sent them all home to check on their pets.

Also on the week-end I think I put about 50 miles on my car just running back and forth across the river to the Mill Run Church where we hung the Spring Show for the Upper Arlington Art League. That's actually what gave me the idea that we could recycle a card. UALC members on this side of the river could probably save gas just by switching back to Lytham. The grandchildren will survive, which is usually the excuse given for those who live a mile from Lytham driving over there.

Although, to tell the truth, the expensive part of the art show wasn't the gasoline, but seeing a piece of art by Jeanie Auseon that we agreed to buy. I don't think I could explain the medium because it is some type of photographic print on fabric stitched with a silver thread. If you see the show I think it is #45.

The Upper Arlington Art League spring show was judged by Tracy Steinbrook who is an instructor at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus. The UAAL is one of the oldest community art groups in the NW area. The show runs until June 12 and can be viewed at The Church at Mill Run, 3500 Mill Run Drive, Hilliard, Ohio 43026. The show is sponsored by the Visual Arts Ministry of Upper Arlington Lutheran Church. Come out and support your neighbors.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Be a good neighbor, screen your trash containers

Since noticing that Upper Arlington Lutheran's Mill Run Campus has an Abitibi* recyclables green and yellow trash container in its front yard instead of at the back of the SW parking lot where it would be screened by trees, I've been looking at other commercial and church buildings in our area.

Our UALC campus on Lytham Road screens (or hides) its regular brown dumpster from view by location and landscaping at its service drive (you'd have to be looking for it to see it), but has the green and yellow dumpster across the street in an open parking lot, quite visible from Lytham Rd, and even Middlesex, on the east side, rather than in a corner on the west side where the vans are parked. The Christian Church on Haviland, two blocks away, has only the brown dumpster, and it sits in the parking lot not screened by anything. It's visible from the street and from every adjoining property.

St. Andrew's Catholic Church on McCoy has its regular dumpsters unscreened on two sides, but they are snuggled in close to its utilities building at the edge of the south end of the McCoy parking lot which is a similar color. They sort of blend into their environment. The green and yellow dumpster at St. Andrew's is barely visible from the street because of its location at the west side of the McCoy parking lot, but it does greet the parishioners as they come for worship. The neighbor's trees and landscaping screen it from their view.

Advent Lutheran on Kenny Road doesn't screen either its brown dumpster or the green and yellow dumpster, but puts them as far away from the church as possible on the SE side. That puts the green and yellow one, unscreened, next to their apartment complex neighbors. However, the almost spectacular, prominent position of Advent Lutheran at that intersection makes both visible at the Tremont/Kenny intersection.

Commercial and municipal neighbors take much greater care of the visual environment than churches. It's not clear to me if churches have different zoning codes because of the way they are (not) taxed, or if they don't have the same sense of propriety that businesses have. There are two shopping centers at Fishinger and Rt. 33. Some of the fast food firms are free standing, like Arby's and McDonald's and I'd give them both a A for being good, hide-the-trash neighbors.

They've built special enclosures and painted them to be unobtrusive. The owners of these small shopping centers which lease to a variety of businesses--coffee shops, pizzarias, restaurants, pet food store, dry cleaners, gift stores, etc.--have provided screens for all the dumpsters, and they are all placed in the back where the customers and the passing traffic don't see them. Then there is additional screening either by privacy fencing, a brick wall or landscaping so they aren't displayed to the residences next door. I am wondering if the green and yellow guys aren't allowed in commercial spaces. That probably has a history that goes back 30 years or so, because I've seen news stories about problems in recyclable drop off areas that weren't maintained properly.

NIMFY
* (From their web site) The Abitibi-Consolidated Paper Retriever® Program promotes recycling by placing Paper Retriever bins, at no-cost, in highly visible areas at schools, churches and other non-profit organizations in the greater metro areas . . .

Update: Meijer's between Bethel and 161 has three Abitibi containers parked along side their brown dumpsters, all nestled at the south end of the parking lot under a screen of trees. They are good neighbors--they also have a container as you go in to leave plastic bags, provide alcohol handwipes beside the grocery carts, and employ handicapped. They also have friendly, well-trained staff, so if their values and prices meet your needs, drop off your newspapers and stop to shop.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

More ways to save for your gas tank

I've been making little suggestions (eat at Evelyn's at Lakeside instead of Rusty Bucket in Columbus) on how to save money so it can go in your gas tank, or how to spend it so you don't mind (drive to Chicago to the Art Institute). Now as a public service, I'm going to send you over to Deborah, who is a quilting librarian, a very crafty, talented gal, and she will save you money by reviewing the movie The Messengers, which she saw via Netflix. Not only creepy, but dumb and predictable she says; but a very well written review. Librarians are such a talented group!

On Wednesday I saw gasoline for $3.47/gal at a Speedway on Rt. 33 (Upper Arlington). Across the bridge about a mile (Hilliard), I passed another Speedway and it was $3.79/gal. I don't know if the guy on Rt. 33 was asleep or what, but a $.32 difference in one mile seems a bit over the top even for the day before the prices always go up.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Happy Birthday, Minnesota

It must have been a fairly low key celebration--150 years old on May 8, 2008. They're pretty liberal up there and a bit embarrassed. Lars Walker, a Lutheran and writer of Christian fantasy, a genre I've never read, and who writes at the blog for Brandywine Books, wrote this poem reflecting how things have changed in his life time (I'm guessing he's in his mid-50s).

I’m from Minnesota.
Where brave Paul Wellstone took a stand.
We stole it from the Native Americans,
Except for that little pointy chunk at the top,
which we stole from Canuckistan.

He thinks he might have stolen some ideas from James Lileks, and I think I'm not supposed to post the whole literary masterpiece here, but go and look at his stuff--looks like he's a great writer.

Lars says that the only reason they don't all crawl back to Europe (he's Norwegian American) ". . . is because nobody would know what to do with the Hmong and the Somalis." Ohio had its bicentennial in 2003; I don't remember if anyone tried to give it back to the Indians or not. Mainly, I remember the barn paintings.

"Ohio, my own state, "The Buckeye," you know
The only State starting and ending in O.
It's hi in the middle and round on each end;
The State of Ohio I do recommend."
Nellie Dennis Root

4838

Gas costs squeeze daily life

USAToday headlines on May 9. But only for some. I'm retired, so gasoline price increases affect my leisure, hobbies, relationships and service opportunities, and increasingly my food costs, energy costs and anything that's moved by truck drivers. But not so much my cost to get my check, which is a fixed amount. Indirectly, it is reflected on my investments which I will need later on.

Some retirees know what's important--and that an extra dollar per gallon is worth it to. . . see art. It would be more painful not to have art in your life than to have high gasoline prices.

On Monday our friend, a member of several local art activities here in Columbus, noticed he was running out of time to see the Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper exhibits at the Chicago Institute of Art. His wife is a cancer survivor and they've recently lost a dear friend of 50 years--so in a sense, I think they feel that time is short in many ways. So he and his wife drove to Chicago (300 miles). On Tuesday they took in the Robie House and all the great walking tour stuff (Oak Park) of Frank Lloyd Wright, and on Wednesday they stood in line at the Art Institute to get in to the exhibit, and spent another four hours touring. On Thursday they drove back to Columbus. Counting the tickets, housing and food, I'm sure the gasoline was a minor cost.

But oh, I wish I'd thought of that!

Mine is bigger than yours

My instruction manual, that is.

Read about it here, although it won't answer the question why one woman would have eleven blogs.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Put those scissors down, babe!

Clipping coupons will not put money in your gas tank. But that's what I heard on a TV feature last night. Even in tough economic times, it's hard to convince Americans that food companies, health and beauty industries and super markets, to say nothing of the airlines, are not in business to SAVE you money, but to get you to SPEND money. Coupons, loyalty cards, sweepstakes, green stamps and wooden nickles are just flip sides of the same pancake--marketing. What is the purpose of marketing? Right. To get you to spend money to support a business and its stockholders or investors. It's not evil at all. In fact, in the long run, marketing is a good thing. But right now, until someone comes up with a decent energy plan that allows new refineries or drilling for oil (we've got plenty) or cutting regulatory red tape, you may have to let go of some favorite shibboleths. Here are the basics.

1. Before leaving the house to shop, check your refrigerator or pantry. Make a list if you're a list maker (I'm not), but have an idea what you NEED. A NEED is not a WANT. Repeat that several times as you enter the store.

2. Go to one store where you know the layout, the quality and the staff.

3. Pick up the weekly flyer on the way in, look at the loss leaders, but buy them only if you've done #1.

4. Do not buy in quantity (for more than 2 or 3 weeks) unless you live 50 miles from the store and need to save on gasoline. Most people who regularly buy in quantity also have a weight problem. Your extra pounds will add to the gas bill and health costs. There are psychological reasons people buy in quantity that have nothing to do with saving money, but it's a good excuse.

5. Shop the walls, although this is harder to do than it used to be (creative design and moving merchandise to make you wander around is one method used to separate you and your money). Buy fresh if you can; if you're cooking for one or two, sometimes frozen is more nutritious because fresh will lose its nutrients sitting around waiting for you to get an inspiration.

6. Don't use a coupon unless it is attached to the item, or you ALWAYS buy that product. For instance, I just love Era laundry detergent and I buy it whether or not it is on sale. But I would use a $.50 off coupon, realizing that it means the price is going up and this is to ease the pain.

7. Stay out of the snack food section. There's not a single item in there you or your family need. Snacks are all empty calories, high sodium, high fat, delicious and guaranteed to make you want more and spend more. Just don't go there. Don't even accept a sample! In some stores this will cause several detours (but exercise is good). I've been shopping at Marc's recently, and you can't get to the real food without going past the snack aisles which are huge, or detouring through cheapy remaindered stuff, which is as addictive as snacks, at least for this shopper.

8. Make your own low fat items by adding water to the jar and shaking. That doesn't work with cookies or pudding, but you get my drift. Low fat almost always means the first ingredient is water.

9. At home use 6 or 8 oz. glasses instead of 12 or 16. You'll never notice the difference or miss the calories. It's not so much the size of the container you buy as it is the portions you put on the table that save you money.

10. Shop on Monday if you can. Lots of markdowns for meat that haven't passed the due date for freshness and safety.

11. Shop early in the day.

12. Don't go to the store hungry. A fist of coupons and no breakfast is a recipe for disaster.

13. Keep in mind that coupons and loyalty cards are supporting a huge industry--and those workers might suffer as you cut back--it involves investors, executives, middle management, designers, office staff, ink suppliers, paper goods, newspaper and magazine companies, the people in 3rd world economies who make their living counting them, and even the stores who may have to hire an extra part timer to account for the slow down of the other staff who have to pause and examine your coupon or card. But be firm--right now it's your family or theirs. Stand tall and put down those scissors.

Have you ever wondered about all those negative health stories in the news?

"Is it possible that the constant drumbeat of negative news stories — the dire state of our healthcare system and need for a massive overhawl, the epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases in need of "disease" management by a third party, errors in need of a nationalized electronic database to improve safety, and the crisis of uninsured necessitating mandates requiring everyone to purchase health insurance — might not be entirely objective, accurate portrayals and that certain interests might, instead, be working very hard to convince us of all this? Can we trust that their new healthcare delivery system will deliver care that's in our best interests, or their's?" Read Sandy's take on the "Medical Home" concept.