My new computer

Yes, today I hate computers, speaking of hate. I hated them yesterday, too. I hired a college student to connect my new computer--the one I bought in December. I need the guest room, so I had no choice. It just had to get out of the box, off the bed and on to my desk. But I hate it. I hate Vista. I hate Microsoft, I even hate Bill Gates today. It started to transfer, then would quit, so we'd start over. When I opened My Pictures, I had 4 of everything. His face went white when he saw how many people, mostly dead (nearly 4,000), were in my Family Tree Maker. Vista tries to make data pretty; give me smart any day and save the space. We were just about finished when I logged in to get my McAfee from Ohio State. Seems I've downloaded it too often, and I was given a phone number to call. Of course, I've used it too often. My @#$%^&*( laptop fails about every 2 months, and I have to reload everything. I hate computers. They have turned us all into slaves. Then I got a recording that this had happened to the OSU Communications network. I swear, it wasn't me. Wish I'd thought of it, though.

Why isn't it a hate crime

when a man kills a woman; when a husband kills his wife, mother of his children, or his girlfriend, or a prostitute? Remember the Akron policeman who killed his pregnant girlfriend, mother of his toddler son? When a woman kills her husband I'd say hate had something to do with it, but I've never seen it called a hate crime. Why does someone have to be gay or black or some other ethnicity for it to be hate? Probably 99% of blacks are killed by other blacks. Same with gay men--it's usually a lover's quarrel. Call it whatever, but love, respect or camaraderie wasn't the motivation. Not even more freedom or money, because those things are pretty easy to come by these days. The word games we play! I'm thinking about Carol Evans, a white retired school teacher/principal whose white husband hired three white people to kill her. The paper called it "a crime of greed," because the little weasels took money, but he's the one who did the planning and paying. They'll get time; he'll probably get the death penalty. You can play scrabble with the words, but I'm betting he hated her. I'm guessing he didn't get any Father's Day card today.

First week on the job

How would you like to face this? An historic flood.

NEW YORK In just his first four days on the job, Editor Steve Buttry of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is overseeing what may be the most demanding story he will ever encounter at the paper.

. Story at Editor and Publisher

Since abstinence doesn't seem to work

maybe two weeks of applying a cream will.

June 11, 2008, The Alchemist newsletter: "An application of topical estrogen to the penis over a two-week period could inhibit the spread of HIV by thickening the natural keratin layer on the skin. The epithelium of the human penis is richly supplied with estrogen receptors, explains Andrew Pask of the University of Melbourne, suggesting it could respond to topical estrogen, but unlike the vagina has only a very thin protective keratin layer. Pask suggests that in countries and cultures where circumcision is uncommon thickening this keratin layer could reduce the ability of HIV to penetrate the epidermis of the foreskin. HIV is one of the greatest health crises the world has ever seen, and affects over 40 million people worldwide. "We now have found a new avenue to possibly prevent HIV infection of the penis," says Pask."

If a guy doesn't have the patience or foresight to use a condom, or the morals and good sense to be celibate, I sort of doubt he'll think 2 weeks of cream is a good idea.

A cold drink on a hot day

This is so easy, nutritious and cheap, you'll wonder why you never fixed it before.

Use a 15 oz glass
fill about 1/3 with ice cubes
then about 1/2 with orange juice from the carton (I like lots of pulp and calcium)
then fill the rest with water
sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon of Splenda
Stir and drink

I don't care for carbonation, and don't particularly like "juice drinks" but this is really refreshing.

Our weather yesterday was in the 90s, and huge storms rolled through in the evening. We hustled out of our Friday night date* at Rusty Bucket last night with an eye on the sky, and big drops began to fall. By the time we were in the car, it was a downpour, with massive lightening. We've had nothing like Iowa and Illinois and Wisconsin, but some areas of Columbus were under water. My husband called from Lakeside (where he's mowing the lawn) and said it is gorgeous up there.

*We've been married 48 years and rarely miss our date night.

South Side Farmers Market, Columbus

If it weren't for the involvement of Children's Hunger Alliance, I'd be all in favor of supporting a farmer's market selling locally produced fruits and vegetables. See my list of red flag words. The big push right now, and the two topics increasingly are merging, are obesity and some version of sustainable (this means environment, which means more government control). There's apparently a lot of obesity in the ZIP code because they don't get enough fruits and vegetables--locally grown and accessible. Hmmm. That's really strange. I see an awful lot of obesity in Upper Arlington, Dublin, Grandview, Worthington, Bexley and north Columbus ZIP codes.

Right now in Ohio you can buy locally grown strawberries, radishes and leaf lettuce. Not to worry poor, fat, and dumb South Siders. That's certainly a diet that will take the pounds off! There will be home made pastries for sale too. No word on whether local wheat flour, shortening, apples, pumpkins, dairy products, etc. went into those products.

I don't understand why these people can drive to a farmers market to buy real food if they can't get to Kroger's or Giant Eagle or Marc's, all of which have organic and natural foods and some great food brands that have Ohio addresses. OSU economists have issued a press release that shoppers are willing to pay MORE for locally grown produce.

Librarian leaves a million to Columbus libraries

Carol Sue Snowden, 57, a Whitehall librarian, died of ovarian cancer. Friends, co-workers and family were stunned to find out she left over half a million dollars to the Whitehall branch of Columbus Metropolitan Library, and $70,000 each to seven local school libraries. How did a woman who is in one of the historically lowest paid professions that requires a college education ever accumulate that amount? Thrift. Investments. Works every time. On her salary, she must have been invested in health care and energy funds. But imagine being that smart about money in a profession that is 223:1 liberal to conservative?

With a master's degree and 3 or 4 years experience, a librarian MIGHT be able to land a job for $30,000 a year, and have to work a few nights and week-ends. But if she's really smart, she'll consistently save and invest, and leave her liberal buddies in the dust to complain that they are unappreciated.

Neil Cavuto, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other radio talkers will tell you that there is still great opportunity in a capitalist system, but there is someone coming down the the political pike who will try to stop that message. Get them off the air because they don't buy the line that you are helpless and hopeless without some new piece of pork fat riddled government program. Barry, Harry and Nancy will work hard to get that "fairness" doctrine out there to shut them up.

Incidentally, this is called a "windfall," because the Columbus library system did absolutely nothing to acquire this. Unlike the oil companies, who do the heavy lifting so you can fill up your SUV this week-end and therefore don't have "windfalls." Because I was twice the recipient of a "windfall" from two retired veterinarians when I was at Ohio State (Dr. Segall, Dr. Hodeson), I want to assure the people of Whitehall and those seven schools that they will most likely never see any change in their collection or services, despite the windfall of a million dollars. No, it just wouldn't be fair, and besides the administrative costs will eat up a huge portion of it. Her donation is designated 90% for print, which means some other library will get what would have gone to Whitehall anyway. Also, without money designated for staff in purchasing, processing, preserving and shelving (all of whom must be paid a living wage plus benefits), the major cost of putting a book out there, plus building maintenance and utilities, book funds don't go far. And with scanned e-books, I'm sure there's a clever way to get around that wording.

Obama's new smear site

Why would he need this? He's already got all the main stream media, plus Media Matters and MoveOn in his pocket. He's looking less like a pouty little boy and more like a dictator, and he hasn't even been elected yet! Does George Soros have nothing else to spend his fortune on other than ensconcing Obama in the White House? Will someone please find a shipload of condoms and a steamer full of pesticide soaked bed nets for Mr. Soros? Why create another media source to keep track of his enemies? This reminds me of Nixon's enemies list--or was that Friends of Bill? Actually, the rumors about the tape produced by his church originated with the Clinton camp, not the talk shows or Fox. I saw it first on a Hillary site. If his wife hadn't said such outrageous things on the campaign trail about our country, no one would have even considered such a tape could exist. If the Clintons hadn't had such a reputation for playing dirty, no one would have suspected they had the tape.

“The Obama campaign isn’t going to let dishonest smears spread across the Internet unanswered,” Mr. Vietor said in a statement. “Whenever challenged with these lies, we will aggressively push back with the truth and help our supporters debunk the false rumors floating around the Internet.”

Good. Maybe the truth about him will leak out in the process--this hostile web site being a prime example. If not, it will be talk radio first, then bloggers, then YouTube and its derivatives, then social networking sites. All must bow to the mighty one, and the sooner the better. Lots of people are already under the bus and they were his friends! Remember--rich hip hopsters can say "Baby Daddy," "nappy headed," "Ho" and use the N-word while making fortunes, but no one else. Michelle O used "Baby Daddy," but Michelle M gets in trouble for a crawl she had no control over because some hyper-vigilant leftist doesn't know it's in the main stream language?

Imagine if George Bush went after all the elitists, progressives, Marxists and Democrats who called him names, (insisting someone else was in charge because he was too dumb) and insulted Laura (librarians were boycotting her speech at the ALA). It would have kept him too busy to free the women of Afghanistan and Iraq and save all those unborn Americans.

My contribution

Like the heterosexual AIDS epidemic that didn't happen, the pediatric obesity epidemic has recently been proven to be a full blown media scare (I know, looking around you'd not think so). Recent studies reported in JAMA found no trends in BMI for children, plus the statistics they did have meant little since the BMI of children isn't stable due to age and growth spurts. The only thing that doesn't vary is media hype, causing you parents to rush to modify children's diets, sometimes eliminating important nutrients, or making the kids phobic about food. They probably need to push back from the computer, not the table, and go outside to play.

So based on my blog of June 11, I've created a poster which I'm offering to CDC, NIH, USDA, FDA, etc. etc., and all the churches, foundations, think tanks and social agencies eating large from this trough of government money for a disease that never came to dinner. See Junk Food Science for a much better analysis of what's going on in childhood obesity.

Clintons4McCain

"Recent polls have shown Obama with a small lead over McCain. But numerous polls have shown that one in five Clinton supporters plan to cross over and vote for McCain in November." Now if he could just line up some Republican conservatives, he just might win. Story here. Yesterday's Supreme Court usurpation of power of the Executive Branch is a good reason to vote for McCain, but even then you'd have to assume he'd become a conservative once in office, and that's a big stretch.

Obama on Abortion

"Following a July 17, 2007 speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Obama was asked what he would do at the federal level, not only to ensure access to abortion but to make sure that the judicial nominees he might pick "are true to the core tenets of Roe v. Wade?"

"Well, the first thing I'd do as president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," Obama said. "That's the first thing I'd do." Story here.

I wonder if he wants abortion for his grandchildren, or just yours?

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward.

Changing behavior

I was running (driving) a few errands this morning and noticed a few things: 1) absolutely everyone was driving the speed limit--that meant traffic moved more smoothly; 2) I didn't see a single Hummer either in the parking lots or on the roads, and they used to be every where; 3) I saw relatively few light trucks and large SUVs--used to be many; 4) I saw a middle age, bald man in a white shirt and tie on a rather smallish motorcycle--he looked a bit tense like he was just learning the ropes--heading for OSU; and one more thing that had nothing to do with the gas crisis, but I saw a young man at the shopping center delivering flyers wearing a coat and knit hat--it's about 90 degrees today.

Red Flag Words in your Grocery Bag

These words will not help your grocery bill or your health. They are liberally sprinkled by both the USDA and various anti-corporate agriculture groups (these days it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins). Keep your eyes open for

Food Security
Environment (-alism, -al)
Sustainable
Justice
Organic
Natural
Community
Local
Accountability
Green
Access
Empower
Coalition
Grassroots
Facilitate
Self-reliance

Here's an example so loaded with misinformation and propaganda, I hardly know where to start.

"In many communities it is difficult to exercise healthy food choices due to the lack of affordable, available, and accessible healthy food sources, which may result in higher than average rates of overweight."

No it's not--difficult. We have a huge number of choices available, even if the only place you have to shop is the local 7-Eleven type gasoline store, because I've gone in and looked. I could buy milk, bread, eggs, apples, oranges, bananas, and a limited number of canned vegetables and fruit. Affordable, available, and accessible. Yes m'am, I would have to by-pass many more choices of chips, snacks, cookies, pop, gum, and beer. But that's the choice a consumer makes in a land where people choose to put their time in playing computer games, going to bars, hanging out with friends, watching TV or sleeping rather than going to the store, purchasing real food, and bringing it home to cook it. Even if they wanted to buy prepared food they could still have a very healthy and adequate diet. Today's paper reported that only 47% of homecooked meals contain a fresh item such as a vegetable. Do you really think that's because vegetables are not accessible or affordable? Have you priced a 5 lb bag of onions or potatoes? They are dirt cheap. Considering the level of income and education of most American households, this 47% figure is outrageous, but it has nothing to do with "justice," or "accountability," and it certainly isn't the government's fault, or Hollywood's fault, or the food corporations' problem.

Today I've had an apple, a carrot, a handful of grapes, a 1/2 cup of walnuts, (breakfast) and grilled broccoli with onion in olive oil for lunch, and because I've got a hankering for something crunchy, two chocolate graham crackers. I'm guessing not a single item was local (probably 70% was from California), or sustainable, or community grown, or environmentally friendly. I'm betting all was grown with fertilizers and pesticides at some point. And no one has ever died or been made sick from modern agricultural methods. I live in Ohio, and about 9 months out of the year, all our produce has to be brought here by truck, train or plane. And for the moment, our tomatoes have not been pulled from the market.

Watch out for nannyism and alarmism by the government and the growing power of environmental organizations in the form of "healthier eating." There are only two things that cause obesity, 1) the genes you inherited from your parents, 2) eating more calories than your body needs. You have control over one of these two things. Get busy on it.

Thursday Thirteen--13 recipes to consider or not

Last Saturday morning we were at Lakeside (our second home community on Lake Erie--see link on the left) and my husband had a Design Review Board meeting. While waiting for him to return I pulled a recipe collection, Taste of Home Annual (2002), off the shelf and looked through it. Here are 13 recipes that looked interesting, 7 I'd never fix on a bet, and 6 that I'm betting I'll try this summer.

The probably never, no way seven

Venison stromboli (Bambi?)
Dandy corn dogs (husband hates corn)
Sunday gumbo (too much like left overs)
Black bean tart (rhymes with. . .) actually the ingredients sound similar to home made taco salad--pictured in TT banner
Lamb with apricots (couldn't eat a lamb)
Cheesy veal pie (same with baby bulls)
Pumpkin pancakes with hot cider syrup (too yummy)

The very likely to be served six

Salmon fettuccine
Baked halibut
Cheddar cabbage casserole (high fat content--best to take this to a pitch-in dinner)
Sweet and tangy freezer pickles
Creamy garden spaghetti
Rhubarb muffins
Pineapple chicken

I'm guessing most of these can be googled if you see one that interests you--put the recipe in quotes, then add the magazine name.

Visiting the lower forty eight

Tundra Medicine has some interesting observations on visiting the lower 48 and returning home to the wide open spaces of Alaska.

"Trips to the lower 48 are a huge culture shock to me. I wrote about it last year after my trip to Alabama. This year felt much the same. There is such an incredible density of people everywhere; parking lots are crowded, freeways are packed with (mostly new) cars, restaurants are full, and everyone seems to be in such a hurry. Billboards are everywhere, yelling consume! Consume! Consume! And people are rushing to do it at a breathtaking rate.

There is so little wilderness anywhere. Even driving through the countryside, the land is fenced, tilled, cultivated. Roads are paved, lawns are manicured, everything is just so. The evidence of human occupation is practically inescapable, and that is what feels so different from Alaska.

Here we have pockets of civilization amid a gazillion miles of untouched wilderness. Here I don’t feel constantly squeezed by the joint pressures of population and consumer culture. Life down there feels to me like living in a pressure cooker. If you’ve never known anything else, then it seems normal, but the longer you’re away from it, the harder it is to go back into it."

I've felt that similar "consume" message whenever we've visited California, and then in a year or two, we have it all here. I remember walking through shopping centers in California in 1976 staring like I was a visitor from another country, but we soon had all the same stuff in the midwest. Alaska is different and I'm sure a resident would miss the wide open spaces (you feel like a gnat in the ocean), but when we were in Fairbanks, we didn't think it was that different, except for the flowers everywhere and it was quite warm.

Gas pump ambush interview

Don't you love it when the local news folk interview people at the gas pumps? Oh, the stories you hear. Two days ago, the story was about "stacations," or staying close to home, but with a twist. The father of four being interviewed said that because of the gas prices, he couldn't take his children to King's Island this summer. What? The admission price for a family of 6 must be about $160, parking $10, then the food and drinks could easily rack up another $60-75. King's Island is about 200 miles round trip from here, and gas is about $1 more per gallon than last summer. He had a full-size van at the pump. Do the math, Dad. The price of gas over and above what you paid for last year's trip is the cheap part. You're building memories.

Today in Columbus, gas is $3.86 (Speedway, Mill Run).

Pandering to the voters--The Windfall Profits Tax

Don't be fooled by Obama's threats. And I can't say McCain's doing much better on this issue (how does a gallon of beer compare in cost to a gallon of gas?). Or those Republicans who fell in place with their Democrat buddies in Congress. We the people own the oil companies.

Here's what Robert J. Shapiro (Clinton Secretary of Commerce) had to say about the ownership of 98.5% of oil company shares: "The data show that ownership of industry shares is broadly middle class, with the majority of industry shares held by institutional investors, often on behalf of millions of Americans through mutual funds, pension funds and individual retirement accounts."

"Almost 43 percent of oil and natural gas company shares are owned by mutual funds and asset management companies that have mutual funds. Mutual funds manage accounts for 55 million U.S. households with a median income of $68,700.

Twenty seven percent of shares are owned by other institutional investors like pension funds. In 2004, more than 2,600 pension funds run by federal, state and local governments held almost $64 billion in shares of U.S. oil and natural gas companies. These funds represent the major retirement security for the nation's current and retired soldiers, teachers, and police and fire personnel at every level of government.

Fourteen percent of shares are held in IRA and other personal retirement accounts. Forty five million U.S. households have IRA and other personal retirement accounts, with an average account value of just over $22,000." From Neal Boortz column, June 11

Health care scams and scares

What happens when medical science conquers a serious, deadly disease--like eliminating small pox or polio through vaccination, or TB through sanitation, or malaria through DDT (although it's now back again due to environmentalists)? People live longer. And they develop chronic diseases that don't kill them quickly, but just linger and require constant treatment.

But you would think all the treatment and drugs for chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes and hypertension were bad.

"The prevalence of chronic illnesses in the United States is projected to increase, from 133 million persons in 2005 to 171 million in 2030. Health care spending accounts for 16% of GDP and may rise to 25% by 2025." (JAMA May 28, 2008 p. 2437).

This is followed by a lengthy, gloomy list of how chronic illness is eroding corporate profits, threatening Medicare, state budgets, pensions, health insurance, etc. So did they think when they saved a child from a fatal illness through screening at birth that he wouldn't grow up to use more health care than if he died? The man who loses a lung to cancer, may just live to die of heart disease. Duh? What were they thinking?

Do you know what they propose? Well, currently chronic diseases consume 75% of health care expenditures, so we'll go after the risk factors--the big four being smoking, diet, exercise and alcohol--and then up the screening, and, and. . .I guess no one ever dies of old age or kidney or heart failure or AIDS or Alzheimer's or cancer (which most people get eventually even if they don't smoke and run marathons til they're 90). With only one or two workers per retiree paying into social security, and Obama running corporations out of the country with higher taxes, it ought to be fun at the other end.

There are good-to-great reasons to behave responsibly and live healthy--you'll enjoy life much more and be of greater service to your fellow man. But having the government and "independent" regulatory agencies invading every cavity and organ of my body and life, sticking nutrition statistics in my face at McDonald's, obsessing over BMIs of toddlers, running wellness campaigns that no one pays attention to? No thanks.

Buy real food; fix it at home; then go for a walk and breathe some fresh air. Toss the cigarettes; limit your alcohol and listen to the friends who are concerned. Take that money and open a savings account. Honor the marriage bed. Laugh at yourself. Listen to some good music that isn't too loud. Take in an art show once a month. Go to church. Tithe your income. Own a pet.

There. We can probably get that all on one 8 x 10 poster. If the government would just listen to me, I could save our country billions.

Read what Junk Food Science has to say on childhood obesity private and public dollars and programs.

Post election blues in 2004

Looking back at the mourning on November 4, 2004, I wrote:

"This morning CNN is covering at great length the absurd coverage of far left newspapers in Britain, like the Guardian which tried to influence the vote in Clark County, Ohio and called (jokingly, they said) for Bush's assassination. One paper pondered how 60,000,000 people (51% of the voters) could be so dumb. I think I can see through CNN's little game here. And they practically have a catch in their collective throats when they rerun Kerry's concession speech. Now the news babe (looks like a model) is whining that the media get blamed, when all she wants to do is give us information--this after she expressed her own disbelief at the number who said they thought Bush could unite the country (a CNN poll)."

Thank goodness Kerry didn't turn into a Gore, although we've still got Kucinich, perhaps the biggest and sorest loser of all time.

4950 Debt Soaked Economic Slump

is the phrase used in the WSJ article today about debt management groups, from 12 step programs to websites, to church classes. The problem I have with that phrase is all the people in the article were in deep trouble with debt long before the current slump. In fact, their problem with debt--spiritual and psychological--fed on the boom times we've just been through. It's the bubbles and booms that often lead people to debt, not the low times. Like Shawanda Green, 26. Her income is $82,000 a year, but she liked to buy $400 boots and she had a parasitic boyfriend who ate up all her food. He like quality and quantity. Richard Rice, 37, with an income of $70,000 has a credit card debt of $20,000. Michael Wagner at 34 had a silver BMW and $25,000 in credit card debt. He started to do better, then got a new girlfriend who was a spender, and went right back in the hole. They didn't get into this mess because of high gas prices and a mortgage crisis. Listen carefully to how financial sob stories are presented. Do they really have anything to do with the state of the economy?

So the solutions presented were: eat at home; dump the spend thrift boyfriend/girlfriend; don't file for bankruptcy--pay your debts; establish a savings account; cut up your credit cards. I'm guessing their mom or dad told them the same thing, but sometimes you need group support or a web site to do the right thing.