Children in bars

We'd planned to go to Rusty Bucket last night--our Friday night place, but because of the holiday it wasn't open. Instead we went to Bag of Nails, our former favorite date place, located in Tremont shopping center in our old neighborhood of 35 years. Both are sort of "sports bars"--Bucket more so with multiple TV screens and a larger bar section, but Nails has two bars in two rooms. Both are family friendly, but I do hate to see people plop their children down on bar stools.

Last night I saw something at Nails I hadn't seen before. Five children ages about 8-12 years old in a booth with no adult or parent, 2 girls and 3 boys. It's possible that the oldest boy was the "babysitter." They were a little loud, but remarkably well behaved for no adult around. All had cell phones, and the activity seemed to be texting each other across the table. But something just doesn't seem right turning five children loose with lots of cash in a sports bar, even one in a neighborhood shopping center. Any thoughts?

Girls they just wanna have fun--in libraries

Can hardly believe that after almost 40 years of the current women's movement, we still need special programs to "fix" girls who chose interests other than boys. How sexist is that? It's the old "gender divide" we heard about in the early 90s.. . before these girls were born! And they still can't get teen girls to think computers are fun? Aren't they text messaging, talking on cell phones, sharing it all on FaceBook or what ever social site is popular now, downloading the latest teen music? I think they are techie enough to suit their needs. Give up and let the girls be girls.

Farmer, Lesley S.J.. "Girls and Technology: What Public Libraries Can Do" Library Hi Tech News 25(5)(June 2008) - Public libraries that have computers labs, offer free internet access, IT training programs and console games that all enjoy high usage may make the mistake of not analysing the use and effectiveness of those programs. After all, if it ain't broke (people are using the library and facilities are booked out) then why fix it (why waste time analysing success)? Farmer's article is a call to public libraries to ensure that their programs are meeting the needs of an underserved cohort of library members -- teenage girls. Farmer's assertions that "even in the twenty-first century, a gendered digital divide exists" and "libraries offer a safe learning environment for girls to explore technology" should remind public library managers, childrens' and youth services librarians and IT librarians to ensure that their IT programs and facilities include this important group of library members. An easy-to-read article backed up by statistics, an outline of principles to consider when planning IT programs, and some examples of successful public library programs.
Summary from Current Cites, August 2008

Maybe someone should suggest books to the teen girls. I hear they still like Jane Austen. It might just be innovative enough to work!

Women voters

“ . . . what factor is mostly likely to determine the winner of Colorado's nine electoral votes. His [Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado GOP] answer: Women.” Political Diary, WSJ, Aug 31, 2008 “John McCain is uniquely situated to capture the suburban female swing vote. Mr. McCain's emphasis on fiscal responsibility plays especially well with this crowd and, as "security moms," they value his leadership on foreign policy. Moreover, helping to shift the needle recently, "these voters are really moved by the energy issue" and highly supportive of Mr. McCain's call for more drilling.”

And adding Governor Palin certainly didn't hurt.

This economy

Although we hear a lot of mumbling about “this economy” (most of the people we hang out with are Democrats), it’s been a pretty good summer for my husband. He’s sold 5 paintings and 22 prints; we have no way to judge or compare with others since he’s not a full time artist--just a hobbiest. Our neighbor here at Lakeside is an auctioneer. He says he’s had a fabulous summer. “There’s money out there,” is a paraphrase that came through our porch screen. One item (consignment auction) where the base price was $800, went for $37,000. Tibetan 17th century must be in big demand. A number of neighbors are retired teachers or university faculty with far more in STRS than I have, plus they all seem to "consult" or "substitute," or "mentor," and I know it isn't about the money.

One thing I haven’t seen addressed in the “this economy” poor-mouth, media stories is how we retirees are spending our money. Remember, the boomers are now 60. They have all their “wants and needs” for big ticket consumer goods, and so they aren’t buying homes, cars and refrigerators. With a demographic that big, even without a mortgage problem brought on by shaky loan methods of zero money down and flipping houses for investments, I would think there would be a softening of the economy.

Also, many retirees know how to tighten their belts--we had years of experience when we were younger. But like us, many retirees decided to see a bit of the world before checking into the retirement home. The first 10 years of our marriage, we had no vacations at all. For the next 30 years, we primarily vacationed at Lakeside, my mother’s farm, or visited relatives while younger families went into debt for Disney World, ski vacations, or a sandy beach on either coast. However, since I retired we’ve been on an Alaskan cruise, tours to Germany and Austria, Ireland, Italy, trips to Finland and Russia, a 16 day Amtrak trip, and several architectural bus tours through the U.S. In the spring we’re going to the Holy Land and my husband is signed up for his third mission trip to Haiti (participants pay their own way). Yes, some of that money has stayed in the United States to be spread around the travel, leisure and service industries, but an awful lot has traveled out of the country starting with foreign airlines, and going to foreign hotels and restaurants and tourist sites. The U.S. exports a lot of its travel dollars.

Also, as usual, there’s a disconnect between how people see their own lives, and the general condition of others--most Americans are optimistic about their own situation, but not others’:

“But here's the bad news for the dour Democrats in Denver -- most Americans don't share their economic pessimism. That's the finding of public opinion expert Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute. "Most Americans are feeling pretty good about their jobs and their personal lives," she says after investigating the fine details of recent polls. Her report goes right to Mr. Gramm's concern about the gap between actual economic performance and the dreary negativity of politicians and the media.

She finds that 76% of Americans say they are actually optimistic about the direction of their own lives and their personal economic situations -- even though only 18% are optimistic about the country. That's the big disconnect. "These numbers haven't changed much over time," Ms. Bowman tells me. Political Diary

A joke? Or not?

Maybe I have no sense of humor. At first I thought it a really strange way to support Obama--by gleefully hoping that New Orleans would be swamped just so the Republicans' Convention would be interrupted. Then I thought, NO, not even Michael Moore would be that stupid, it must be a joke from the other side. Either way. Poor taste, guys. Then I thought back on what he's done, and . . . I don't know, what do you think? That logo does look a bit phony.

McCain and Palin have gone to Mississippi and I understand that Obama is offering to send his million volunteers with a personal text message.

Anyway, Zogby says no bounce for Obama. Usually a candidate can count on a good 5-10 points. Zip, Nada, Zilch.

"Republican John McCain's surprise announcement Friday of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate - some 16 hours after Democrat Barack Obama's historic speech accepting his party’s presidential nomination - has possibly stunted any Obama convention bump, the latest Zogby Interactive flash poll of the race shows.

The latest nationwide survey, begun Friday afternoon after the McCain announcement of Palin as running mate and completed mid-afternoon today, shows McCain/Palin at 47%, compared to 45% support for Obama/Biden.

In other words, the race is a dead heat.

The interactive online Zogby survey shows that both Obama and McCain have solidified the support among their own parties - Obama won 86% support of Democrats and McCain 89% of Republicans in a two-way head-to-head poll question not including the running mates. When Biden and Palin are added to the mix, Obama's Democratic support remains at 86%, while McCain's increases to 92%."

Update: The comment about God is apparently "real," but who said it may be up for debate. "Suspending the normal GOP convention activities for at least a day will cut the time Sen. McCain’s surrogates spend in the spotlight making the case for his election. But the potential political gain for the Republicans and Sen. McCain is much greater because it provides them the opportunity to change voters’ unfavorable view of their competence and compassion.

Moreover, it’s difficult to understand the view privately expressed by some Democrats, and stupidly vocalized by a former Democratic national chairman caught on video, saying the hurricane was proof that “God is on our side.” " seen at WSJ political blog.

Lakeside 2008 Our Quarry Tour

About once a week here at Lakeside we hear a rumble and feel the ground moving--our cottage has a crack across the kitchen ceiling that reappears each time we repair it. We live within several miles of the Marblehead Quarry. Until Friday, however, we’d never visited our neighbor, LaFarge Marblehead Quarry, one of the largest and highest volume quarries in Ohio and on the Great Lakes. Along with about 80 other Lakesiders and visitors for Senior Venture week, we attended a lecture by a 3rd generation quarry worker on the history and production of the products on Thursday, and then boarded school buses on Friday for a fascinating tour of an amazingly high tech operation. I believe the only other time you can tour is to see the Lakeside Daisy in May. It doesn't grow (naturally) in Lakeside, but flourishes in the sand piles of the quarries in Marblehead.

“Lafarge North America acquired The Standard Slag Company, owner of the Marblehead Quarries, in 1989, and began an ambitious program to revitalize the quarry operations with an investment of $12.5 million to build the current processing plant and boat loading facility.” Before Standard Slag, it was owned by Chemstone Corporation, which acquired it from Kelleys Island Lime and Transport which had taken over several small quarries operating from the early 19th century.

Loading Lakesiders at the South Gate Parking Lot

Loading blasted rock into the crusher
View of the other side of the Crusher
Tire cost for 992Cat went from $16,000 (2007) to $30,000 (2008)

Loading the freighter; most goes to Cleveland; others to ports in MI, PA and Canada
It seems we can’t even learn about local history without some political mischief rearing its head. When I was looking up Lafarge on the internet, I found this story from WaPo in December 2007, which was featuring a series on the various candidates.

"Bill Clinton is renowned today for the millions he commands as a public speaker and business consultant. But in the early 1990s when he was making $35,000 a year as the governor of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton was the family's breadwinner, earning more than $100,000 a year from her law firm salary and corporate board fees. Lafarge, a U.S. cement maker owned by a French conglomerate, was one of her largest sources of income, paying her $31,000 a year to serve on its board. Shortly before Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, Lafarge was fined $1.8 million by the Environmental Protection Agency for pollution violations at its Alabama plant. A year later, the Clinton administration reduced that fine to less than $600,000. Hillary Clinton had left the board in spring 1992 after her husband won the Democratic nomination."

Another Aging American minority

Did you know that only 8% of Americans belong to what we call mainline Protestant denominations? Surprised?

. . .the actual organizations at the center—the defining churches in each of the denominations that make up the Mainline—have fallen to insignificance. The Disciples of Christ with 750,000 members, the United Church of Christ with 1.2 million, the American Baptist Churches with 1.5 million, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) with 2.3 million, the Episcopalians with 2.3 million, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with 5 million, and the United Methodist Church with 8.1 million: That’s around 21 million people, in a nation of more than 300 million. The conservative Southern Baptist Convention alone has 16 million members in the United States. The Catholic Church has 67 million. The death of Protestant America

I'm a member of Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, an evangelical, multi-campus, believing congregation within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, one of the Mainliners sliding into insignificance, losing millions of members to more conservative groups since its last merger 20 years ago. UALC has thrived because it has a message--you are dead in your sins and need salvation through Jesus Christ. ELCA has wasted thousands of hours and dollars over seven years trying to decide whether marriage means one man and one woman. We know where it's going--liberals can kill a church, congregation or synod this way, and then our congregation along with thousands of others will leave ELCA and create something else. Mainline Protestants are leaving for conservative churches, for Catholicism, for Orthodoxy, and for sleeping in and turning off.

I grew up and was baptised in Church of the Brethren (Anabaptist) and although it doesn't get counted in these numbers because it probably only has 50,000 members, it is also mainline in theology and culture. Our churches need to have something besides a glorious past and a present of worshiping at the feet of the gods of environmentalism, feminism, pacifism and leftist social causes. Anti-Catholicism and anti-semitism are now found primarily in the Mainline churches because of leftist politics and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Mainline Protestants have the oldest average age of any religious group in America, at almost 52 years, with 28% of believers over age 65. Adding happy, clappy guitar music and praise tunes to the service will not turn this around. Down with spirituality--we need a future. Jesus.

America was Methodist, once upon a time—or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, or Episcopalian. Protestant, in other words. What can we call it today? Those churches simply don’t mean much any more. That’s a fact of some theological significance. It’s a fact of genuine sorrow, for that matter, as the aging members of the old denominations watch their congregations dwindle away: funeral after funeral, with far too few weddings and baptisms in between. But future historians, telling the story of our age, will begin with the public effect in the United States.

The audacity of hype

"Barack Obama has made his economic thinking excruciatingly clear, so it also is clear that his running mate should have been not Joe Biden, but Rumpelstiltskin. He spun straw into gold, a skill an Obama administration will need in order to fulfill its fairy-tale promises." George Will, Aug. 24, 2008, WaPo, WSJ

"Despite the incessantly repeated mantra of "change," Barack Obama's politics is as old as the New Deal and he is behind the curve when it comes to today's economy. . . Barack Obama's "change" is a recycling of the kinds of policies and rhetoric of the New Deal that prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s far beyond the duration of any depression before or since." Thomas Sowell, Aug. 30, 2008

Two similarities and one huge difference

Michael Medved has a long list of what Governor Palin brings to the ticket, and specifically addresses the experience of her and Obama, emphasizing that "ready to lead" should refer to issues, not years. He does address the charisma feature; I liked these points.

It begins to close the energy gap. The biggest problem for the GOP this year is that Obama devotees were vastly more energized than McCain supporters. Even though polling looked close, the other side was more excited about their candidate. The Palin pick will help Republicans to catch up, exciting the party’s base – particularly religious conservatives.

Palin allows Republicans to compete on the novelty front. One of Barack’s biggest advantages has been the widespread sense of wonderment he inspires: “I can’t believe we can really elect a black guy on a national ticket!” Now McCainiacs can claim a miracle of our own, as we pinch our delirious selves: “I can’t believe we can really elect a woman on a national ticket – and a conservative woman at that!”

Black voters have admitted that they never thought they'd see a black man or woman in the White House in their life time and are 97% behind him (but that's not racism according to Civil Rights leaders). But they are probably no more surprised than conservatives that a real conservative might get there! I don't think she'll attract any PUMAS, but she might draw some back from the libertarian candidates who had despaired at the McCain candidacy and in a race this close really matter.

What she doesn't bring to the ticket are heaps, loads, and swamps of white guilt. Occasionally guilt is an energizer, but mostly it's a stand in for actually doing something. Conservatives just don't feel that strongly about the gender issue. Most don't support abortion, which when women's topics are raised among Democrats, it is always at the top, and often they don't get to point 2. Occasionally feminists mention elder care since that usually falls to daughters, but eventually, abortion will take care of that too--elderly, retired career women will have no off-spring to look after their needs. They'll be able to hire government workers from government agencies with their generous government pension. Or maybe the elder care worker will be assigned. I'm not sure the Obamanation have looked that far ahead.

Like fraternity hazing

"Mrs. Palin now must clear a daunting hurdle -- first the media, then public opinion. Since the press is unfamiliar with her, she will be treated as a target for aggressive scrutiny. In the past, surprise picks like Mrs. Palin have faltered in the face of a media onslaught and never recovered. Mrs. Ferraro, though more familiar, became an albatross for Mr. Mondale. In 1988, Dan Quayle was quickly turned into a joke for late-night comics."

I've been appalled by the bizarre, crude, rude, ungratious, sexist, hateful remarks about her--not her politics--but her body, her hair (no hair plugs), her choice not to kill her baby, all by the left, that appeared within minutes of the announcement. Of course, I'm reading comments on the internet. They could be the mind of 13 year old boys stuck between the legs of a 60 year old guy. They are really scared. The Obama campaign sneered first, leading the way, then realized how stupid they looked (especially after dissing Hillary), and eventually and belatedly, Obama congratulated her.

The best blog was two photos juxtaposed--Obama wearing a helmet on a bicycle, and Palin on a Harley. Vroom, vroom. Can't wait for the debates.

Lakeside 2008--The end of summer

Golden August Sunset at Lakeside
We got here on July 5 after our lovely tour of Italy, and my brief stay in the hospital from a gastrointestinal bug which required lots of IVs and bedrest. But from that week on, we’ve had a wonderful stay at our summer home, particularly enjoying the many arts activities and seminars. Here’s a brief run down. I didn’t attend a lot of these, of course, since I needed a little time to paint, draw, read, visit friends, entertain, walk along the lake, and ride my 40 year old no-gear bike. Lakeside pulpit and programming leans a little too far toward liberal guilt (been there done that in my 30s and 40s) for my tastes--peace and justice, removal of Indians, global health--but I was still able to pick and choose some very interesting topics, especially local Ohio history. Over all, our Director of Education, Gretchen Curtis, did a fabulous job, and yesterday she reported over 9,000 in attendance at the daytime programming during the summer of 2008.

Week 1: June 23-25 Lives & Legacies of Charles & John Wesley
June 26-27 Religious Environmentalism in the U.S.

Week 2: Jun 30-July 3 Health & Wellness Week (with Nursing CE credit)

Week 3: July 7-11 U.S. Presidential Elections: Then and Now (10:30 a.m.)
Spiritual Biography (1:30 p.m.)

Week 4: July 14-18 Four Gospels with Tim Grannon (10:30 am)
The Great Lakes (1:30 pm)

Week 5: July 21-23 Historic Chautauqua
July 25 Historic Building Design and Preservation

Week 6: July 28-Aug 1 Middle East Foreign Affairs (10:30 am)
Global Health Challenges (1:30 pm)

Week 7: Aug 4-8 22nd Annual Peace with Justice Week

Week 8: Aug 11-15 Interfaith Week

Week 9: Aug 18-22 5th Annual Civil War Week

Week 10: Aug 25-27 Indian Removal from Ohio (Senior Venture Week)
Aug 28-29 Lakeside Neighbors

Thur 10:30 a.m. History of Camp Perry: 1907 to Now
SSG Josh Mann, Historian, Ohio Army National Guard
Thur 1:30 p.m. History and Operation of the Marblehead Limestone Quarry
Ted Dress, Night Supervisor, LaFarge Quarry, Marblehead OH
Fri 10:30 a.m. Bus Tour of LaFarge Quarry
Fri 1:30 p.m. Celebrating Chocolate: Sweet Ending to Lakeside’s 135th Season
Gretchen S. Curtis, Lakeside’s Director of Education

Also there were 3:30 seminars for book reviews, nutrition programs and Foreign Affairs Forum; Sunday history lectures; and week-day walking tours, tree identification walks and herb classes. Week-end events of plein air art, boat and auto shows, ice cream social, craft fair, and quilt show brought in thousands from outside the grounds.

The final week, Senior Venture Week, was open to all Lakesiders this year (in the past I think we had to pay a fee on top of our gate pass). Last week's archeological tour of Johnson's Island and this week's tour of the Marblehead Quarry were really some of the most interesting local events I've attended. A homeschooler from Port Clinton brought her 2 children for Ohio history credit. Wasn't that smart? Thursday and Friday I was very busy, and it was topped off with a delicious offering of CHOCOLATE!

Gretchen lectured on and served chocolate

The Women's Wage Myth--2004 campaign redux

Equal pay for equal work? Or equal experience? Or equal risk? Or equal degrees? Or equal professional contributions? Ah, the feminists are going after John McCain because in spite of all the laws, regulations and law suits of the last 35 years, they still complain about women's work. Here's what I wrote in 2004 during that misinformation mess by Kerry.

The Women's Wage Myth

George W. Bush has freed millions of women in Afghanistan and Iraq, although feminist groups have been pretty silent about that. And John Kerry continues to promote the myth of the gender wage gap--I think he said $.76 to $1.00, but they haven't been silent about that. Actually he's wrong. There are many reasons women earn less. I stopped working from 1968 - 1978, then worked only part time until 1986. And I was in a low-paid, female dominated profession. Any profession with a large number of women has depressed wages. And even with all the laws and law suits, we still have women putting home and family before careers.

“. . . most studies of pay discrimination don’t weigh in such factors as experience and the desire of many married women with children to work shorter hours, and even seek less demanding jobs, so they can spend more time at home with their families. Studies that do account for those factors have concluded that across the board, the pay of unmarried men and unmarried women doing the same work are just about equal.” Independent Women’s Forum*

During the 1990s two OSU librarians wrote an article that showed that male librarians really don't make more than female librarians--they publish more and relocate more often and are more likely to accept the more challenging jobs. That translates into better pay. If anything, the higher pay that male librarians are willing to go after pulls up the median. The women indirectly benefit from having more men in the field. See Bradigan, Pamela S. and Carol A. Mularski. "Evaluation of Academic Librarians' Publications for Tenure and Initial Promotion" The Journal of Academic Librarianship, v. 22 September 1996 pp. 360-365.

*Didn't link to article, try this

We report; you decide

That's what I like about Fox. It drives liberals crazy because if they don't hear their own off-key choir in their own reverb echo chamber, it's bias. However, facial expressions, voice and adjectives go a long way. And today, Fox did show an enthusiastic news corp over McCain's choice. I watched reporters on ABC and Fox discuss Sarah Palin. The ABC news dude first interviewed a Democrat (that is standard--sometimes only Democrats are interviewed), then a Republican whom he literally attacked and interrupted each time he tried to say something positive. By contrast, on Fox a female reporter who had been following the Minnesota governor closely thinking he might be the choice, was interviewed about reactions to the Palin choice. She practically bubbled with enthusiasm while reporting her "absolutely amazing personal story." The ABC guy twice demanded to know how a special needs baby was going to affect her campaigning. Then there's that NYT stalker-feminist (a brunette Ann Coulter) who has already smeared Palin, but Cokie Roberts was interviewed to balance that (on ABC) noting that her appeal wasn't her "female plumbing" as the accuser suggested, but her conservative core beliefs.

Liberal Fascism

A really unfortunate title choice for an excellent book, says Albert Mohler, who writes some of the best book reviews on the web. Liberal Fascism: the secret of the American left from Mussolini to the politics of meaning by Jonah Goldberg also contains one of the words I hate to see in a book title, "secret." But surprise! My public library, UAPL, actually owns four copies of this title, all currently in use, so perhaps I won't need to buy it! Just from the following excerpt this sounds like a title wafflers and fence sitters need to read in the months coming up to the election. It's not your grandfather's party.

An excerpt: "American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion, but not necessarily an Orwellian one. It is nice, not brutal. Nannying, not bullying. But it is definitely totalitarian -- or "holistic," if you prefer -- in that liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond political significance, from what you eat to what you smoke to what you say. Sex is political. Food is political. Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists. Liberals place their faith in priestly experts who know better, who plan, exhort, badger, and scold. They try to use science to discredit traditional notions of religion and faith, but they speak the language of pluralism and spirituality to defend "nontraditional" beliefs."

Reinvigorated Republicans

To shake things up, Sarah Palin might not have been my first choice (i.e., a black woman, or a GOP ex-senator, cabinet level) but then what do you do to counter a media-made messiah, long on glamor and short on substance and finally get some attention? So I've been browsing the columns, pundits and a few conservative bloggers to see what Sarah Palin brings to the ticket. No sense wasting time watching the news anchors, although I did last night just to raise my blood pressure (it's always low). They dug as deep as these surfacers know how, even the PBS foots-asleep folks whom I watch even less than broadcast. So I found this at Hugh Hewitt, who gives 6 reasons, but I thought this summed it up well.

"The long run of Congressional power drained a lot of the energy from the GOP when it came to the battle of ideas, and Palin is a representative of the non-Beltway GOP that wants very much to get back into that fray. Winning the war remains the first priority, and Supreme Court justices after that, but on a host of key issues Governor Palin represents the Reagan wing of the party, and that's a great thing." Hugh Hewitt Aug 29 2008

So we've got 2 old guys who've been in Washington forever, and two-forty somethings, handsome and articulate, with no Beltway ties, one of whom is so independent she has no federal or foreign experience and the other beholden to all sorts of muck-stuck pols, both the traditional Chicago back room boys and the anarchist lefties. Let's hope Sarah gives Republicans a reason to go to the polls, and that she's a really fast learner!

Sarah Palin on energy--some hope and change with specifics instead of hype.

Michael Medved on Sarah Palin's experience record

Shut up George

Charlie broke away from Sarah Palin's speech, one of the best I've heard this entire campaign, to interview George Stephana- stepa- stupa-, well you know, the former Clinton aide with all the hair. Then George S. announced that if Gustave hits NOLA, McCain should scale back the Republican convention and go to Louisiana, the "site of GWB's disaster." No, George, that was a Democratic city with a Democratic governor. With Democrat disaster plans. Republican states fared much better. The failure was theirs. And Charlie? Thanks for nothing. We had to switch to radio to hear the rest of her speech.

McCain Palin ticket

Another history making event--not a woman as a VP choice, because we’ve had that, but a parent of a special needs child. Her youngest child has Downs Syndrome; the parents knew, and chose to give him life and lots of love. Unless you are pro-life, you probably don’t know that statistically, births of Downs Syndrome babies are down. Not because fewer are conceived--the age of women giving birth is going up and that’s a serious risk factor. But prenatal testing has given parents the choice of not carrying a disabled child to term. There are also many couples who choose to adopt Downs babies.

That said, I actually believe a woman with 5 children ought to take some time off to raise them. Call me a reactionary, but that's a huge job and I think kids need their mother around, not just high paid nannies. (Please, no Queen Victoria stories.) I wouldn't vote against McCain for that reason, but I believe women have a different career track than men. You can do and have it all, but not all at the same time. The vice president, whether Biden or Palin, is a heart beat away from the oval office. She better have some outstanding executive qualities (she's Governor of Alaska) or this could be called one up(wo)manship.

Of the four running for the White House, Biden has been in Washington the longest, which makes Obama's complaints about business as usual and need for change sort of silly, and Palin is a first term Governor with many reforms to her credit, which makes McCain's criticism of Obama as inexperienced fall flat.

Well, she's still the youngest and prettiest (former beauty queen) of the four.
Update: And she gives the best speech of the four (Dayton, OH, August 29, 2008)if content counts.

Voting with Bush?

Is it really true that John McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time as a recent Obama speech claimed? Yes! After all, we do have a two party system, and they belong to the same party, although neither is particularly "conservative" on many issues. McCain portrays himself as a maverick and one who reaches across the aisle (Obama sounds like he's lifted some of McCain's phrases). In 2007 McCain voted with the President 95% of the time. Obama votes along party lines 97% of the time. So?

. . . consider that Obama's votes were in line with the president's position 40 percent of the time in 2007. That shouldn't be terribly surprising. Even the Senate's Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, voted with Bush 39 percent of the time last year, according to the way Congressional Quarterly rates the votes.

The McCain campaign points out that Obama told a local TV interviewer recently that "the only bills that I voted for, for the most part, since I've been in the Senate were introduced by Republicans with George Bush." Obama was actually wrong about that. In 2006 he voted alongside the president 49 percent of the time, and in 2005, the year before Democrats took control of the Senate, Obama voted with the president only 33 percent of the time.

Also, Obama voted in line with fellow Senate Democrats 97 percent of the time in 2007 and 2005, and 96 percent of the time in 2006, according to CQ. FactCheck.org

The future of conservative books

I've often written about my frustration with the collection policies at my public library, UAPL. It's very difficult for a conservative author to get a review in PW or LJ, and many librarians seek no other source. Like many liberals in the information and education fields, they wear blinders.

Conservatives can’t help but be flooded with “the other side” in information, essays, editorials, opinions and library shelves full of liberal and leftist views. Actually, we benefit from that exchange. We are the “liberals” in the truest sense (we also protect the weakest in society with our anti-abortion stance) because the willingness to take into consideration multiple viewpoints should be the hallmark of liberalism. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other direction. Liberals don’t read or review conservative books or magazines, watch conservative shows, and their minds suffer from lack of light and new ideas as a result. And film? Don't even go there. The media--broadcast, cable, newspapers, publishing and the public libraries’ review Bibles, Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal (owned by the same conglomerate)--are overwhelmingly left wing, but don‘t even see it, because they speak, write and read in an echo chamber. The academy, both private and tax supported, is so packed with liberals in university administrations and faculties that conservatives not only have a problems getting hired and promoted, they probably can’t find advisors for the PhD theses that will mentor and advocate for them so they can even get in the job pool.

About five years ago, some major publishers started their own conservative imprints when they saw how successful some conservative political books were put out by a small, fringe house, Regnery. These imprints such as Sentinel, Crown Forum and Threshold were dedicated to publishing conservative authors (kind of like keeping the funny uncle in a closet off-site). But their titles aren’t well promoted or reviewed and the conservative publishing houses that remained independent are still better for the conservative author than the siren call of the more established liberal houses.

But no matter what happens to those imprints, conservative publishing will certainly survive—and thrive. If liberals continue to ignore the power of conservative books, moreover, the losers will not be conservatives—who cannot help but be endlessly exposed to left-wing views through the networks and leading newspapers—but liberals themselves, complacent in their ignorance of the other side. “There’s always another side, that’s a classically liberal argument,” observes [Adam] Bellow with a laugh. “The problem for contemporary liberals is that they really don’t understand it applies to them.”

Read the whole story
The future of conservative books

Lakeside bumps on a log--mystery sculptures

The date on my photos says July 31, but I'm not really sure when I took these. That's probably close. From time to time someone creates an arrangement of stones on the lakefront. These were cute and must have required a lot of patience. The first is looking west over the dock with Mouse Island in view; the second to the east with Kelley's Island in the background; the third is a close-up.