Same old Ellen

I thought for once I might agree with Ellen Goodman when the headline read, "Women need to get over Palinitis." Nope. It really sticks in her craw. She used the entire column to quote all the haters and fear mongers, and then adds her own snarky, snippity, cynical, trash-talking cant to insult and demean not only Palin, but those Republicans and Hillary supporters who plan to vote for her. How does this help her candidate? If you were even considering Obama, but liked the idea of a woman that close to power who didn't get there on daddy's money or hubby's coattails, are you really going to appreciate being insulted by some snooty, back biting, feminasti columnist? Is that how Democrats expand their base? By being base?

Family Religious History Chart

At my other, other blog, Church of the Acronym, I wrote about finding the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Wheaton College. I had started out looking for a modern translation of Egeria's travel guide to Jerusalem (a fourth century Spanish nun), but you know how it is on Google--it's really a delightful surprise package. Anyway, in addition to reading assignments, quizes etc. in the course (History 483), "Christianity in North America from the colonial era to the present," there is an assigned paper (a few exceptions) in which the student develops a chart for four generations of her/his own family beginning with self, listing the religious affiliations of each family member as fully as possible and briefly noting other important religious/social data.

This would be a piece of cake for me: my parents, their parents, and their grandparents and some of their great-grandparents were all part of the Church of the Brethren (the name since 1908; earlier name was German Baptist Brethren, or Dunkards). Mother's German-Swiss ancestors and Dad's Scots-Irish ancestors were all part of the same faith family. Going back any further, things get a little murky. I know there were Mennonites and Lutherans on Mom's side, and Presbyterians and Methodists on Dad's. In the chart the student is to include important conversion or revival experience, if they were part of an acrimonious church split (the Brethren frequently split) and if they were part of an ethnic minority (wasn't everyone except the English?). Then the 2nd part of the assignment is to write a 12-15 page research paper placing some aspect of the student's religious family history in the context of broader themes in the history of American Christianity. If it were me in the class, I'd write about education, because the Brethren came later than most Protestant groups to the importance of education (it was worldly), but then squabbled about it and established printing presses, Sunday Schools, high schools and colleges. So my great-grandfather (David) learned only enough to read the Bible and do some math for his carpenter job, and his daughter (Mary) went to college--a huge jump in just a generation. His psalter was in German (he was probably 4th or 5th generation American), and she knew only English.

Can you track your family's religious journey four generations?

Peggy Noonan worries

What if neither one is up to the latest crisis?

"A fearless prediction: My beautiful election enters its dark phase.

Lots of signs of the new darkness. Mr. Obama's army is swarming, blocking lines when Obama critics show up for radio interviews. A study out Thursday said the Obama campaign has become more negative than the McCain campaign. There is the hacking—no one at this point knows by whom—of Sarah Palin's personal email account. From Mr. Obama himself, a new edge. He tells an audience in Elko, Nev., to "argue" with McCain supporters and "get in their face." Bambi is playing Chicago style. No doubt everyone around him has been saying, and for some weeks now, "Get tough." But this is not how to get tough, and it does not reflect a shrewd reading of what the moment demands. People want depth, not ferocity. We've got nerves that jingle-jangle-jingle.

And it gives Mr. McCain a beautiful opening. He can now play Oldest and Wisest, damning the new meanness more in sorrow than in anger.

There's another reason things will get more mean than meaningful. Here is the tough, sad, rather deadly assumption I see rising among our media people, our thinkers, observers and chatterers, the highly sophisticated who've seen'em come and seen'em go: It is, again: What if neither of them is the right man? What if neither of them is equal to the moment? What if neither party is equal to the moment? Article here.

Remembering the Depression

I don't and most likely neither do you, and it looks like our Administration and the two presidential candidates haven't even read a magazine article about it, let alone a history textbook or taken an economics class. Couldn't they have at least listened to their parents tell stories of the "bad old days?"

I think the older McCains were out of the country, and Obama's father and his parents were in Africa in those years, so unless his Hawaiian grandparents mentioned it to him, he probably knows nothing either. Obama's confused about money anyway and where it comes from (Biden's son was a lobbiest, Fannie, Freddie, and Hollywood have funded his campaign with bazillions and still he poor mouths about a bad economy, etc., and he never had two nickles until the Bush years, but he's had a brain freeze), so we'll give him a pass.

But I do remember this, from what my parents told me. Dad and Mom were never unemployed and they owned their own home (maybe two different ones, but I don't remember when they bought the house from my early childhood). Their college closed after a bad fire and there was no money to rebuild. There must have been scholarship money, because that's how Dad went to college. However, a college education meant nothing then; they worked in a printing plant, took in roomers, and Mom worked as a housekeeper for awhile. My maternal grandparents lost most of their wealth in the 1920s equivalent of the tech bust of the 1990s--they had over speculated in farm land during WWI. After the war ended, no one needed all those commodities and the bottom dropped out for the American farmer long before it did for Wall Street investors. Also, my grandfather was just a careless manager. Even in bad times, personal skill matters. But they still hung on to three farms through hard work.

But things didn't really go south until Franklin Roosevelt took over. The U.S. could have been spared a lot of pain and loss if the government--all of them--had acted more responsibly and infused less socialism. If you think things are a mess now, just wait until Obama tries to equalize everything.

I've been listening to the media and the Democrats hammering "this economy" since the run up to the 2004 election, so to paraphrase what I heard on a CNN special today from a reporter who belatedly has realized that just maybe her job is on the line too if the media continues to dig this hole deeper--let's all just breathe.

The distorted Gospel of liberal Christians

A member of a UCC congregation thought I was singling out her branch of Christianity in a previous post. I wish it were only UCC-ans who had the problem of following another Jesus (the community organizer Jesus), but it's mainline Protestants in general. I simply observed that you can tell Obama is a Christian because he follows the path of the UCC by imposing change and repentance from the top down instead of allowing God to work in the sinner. I won't go into all eleven pages of a sermon given at a WordAlone convention in 2007 by Rev. Prof. Karl P. Donfried, Dr. of Theology, but here's a brief summary in that presentation of what's happening in my denomination/synod, ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, with headquarters in Chicago.

“. . . the ELCA has, for all intents and purposes, jettisoned Scripture as the anchor of our faith by removing it from its creedal and confessional context and because the ELCA has allowed those who reject this Lutheran context to be among its most prominent interpreters. Instead of proclaiming a Gospel of grace and redemption that calls sinful humanity to repentance and new life, the ELCA adamantly promulgates a message based on secular humanism that is fixated on issues of racism and sexism, and that is more concerned with establishing new rostered racial justice monitors than it is with feeding and nurturing the ordained pastors of this church. This alien and distorted Gospel, no longer drawing on the deep wells of Scripture as classically interpreted, is now actualized through a political agenda of good works that is hell bent on rectifying the injustices of a selfish and violent world with superficial language about “social justice” that seems to aspire to the highest levels of naiveté. At every corner exuberant banality appears to be the order of the day."

As a way of explanation, UCC is way out in front in "good works" and revising Biblical texts to change the world (since Jesus didn't or couldn't), the latest being marriage of homosexuals, adding homosexuals to clergy rosters, and falling head first in the cesspool of modern environmentalism that will eventually destroy any hope for an improved life for third world citizens. But that's only because they are the oldest in the United States being descendants of the Puritans. The Lutherans didn't even have a hymnal in English until about 130 years ago, having come here not from England, but Germany, Scandinavia, the Baltics, etc. and eschewing "diversity" and the English for about 100 years.

The other day I took something into the church to be photocopied--a list of the beautiful paintings by Jeri Platt of mission work in Haiti (second floor, Mill Run campus). I glanced down at the staff member's desk and my eye fell on a printout that included the words, "diversity" and "social justice." Groan. Probably sponsored by a government grant like our summer lunch program, but I just didn't ask. It's too upsetting to see the church and the gospel co-opted by the "exuberant banality" of government-speak.

Will Bush follow FDR's bad legacy?

It wasn't the crash of 1929 that put this country into a 10 year Depression, it was the government policies that followed trying to correct from above. First Hoover, then Roosevelt. FDR cleaned up his legacy with WWII, but he drastically extended the Depression which preceded those years and set the ground work for a huge federal bureaucracy.

In 1933 there was a moment when the U.S. really did seem poised for recovery -- the moment of Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration. Confronting the banking crisis, President Roosevelt did what President Bush, Congress and the Treasury are likely to do in coming days: create a mechanism to sort out banks and their holdings, to separate good assets from bad. Story here at WSJ

I hope somebody in Washington has read American history. We know the direction Obama will take--any route that takes freedom away from the American people, especially people who have investments and personal assets who aren't dependent on the dole. But what about McCain? He's speaking out, but he was in Congress too. Obama was only "present," a newcomer who was basically a cut-out observer who has been running for president most of his term, but McCain actually was there. What's his record on Fannie and Fred and the Fed?

Charlie Rangel calls Palin disabled.

Even for a Democrat under investigation for tax evasion, this is the lowest of low. Keep going guys, you’re only helping the McCain-Palin ticket calling supporters and undecided “disabled,” “racists,” “clingers to religion,” and other words those among the beltway do-nothings think are pejoratives. But the “differently abled” folks aren't so thrilled with this comment either, even if they mistakenly think Democrats are their champions, you liberals of both parties who think the disabled should be eliminated before birth.

Don't give up your day job

Recently I switched my opening page from Dell(?) to Google, after trying RR for awhile. I'm happy with the Google page because it seems a bit more straightforward, not so dependent on pop culture, and it's easy to select the news source from its list. I was viewing Business Week looking for information on the recent government bailouts, but found their series of videos less than satisfactory. When the cable networks put up the talking heads, I think they've been vetted a bit, but these people need a good haircut, some decent make-up, and a little work with a voice coach. Back to reading the news for me. Let's see what Congress will do. Will the Democrats rather have the economy go to hell in a handbasket thinking they will win the election like they tried to sabotage the war effort?

Yesterday, SiteMeter was wacko again, don't know if anyone else noticed. And Blogger was posting constant error messages. I suppose some may be after affects of the storms. This threw my TTLB way off again, careening like a sunken polar bear on melting ice.

I made another pot of homemade cream of tomato soup and shared it with my son who couldn't believe I hadn't added any sugar--it's quite sweet.

Women paid less than men

The line in the Helskinki Compaint Choir that I love is, "women are still paid less than men." Yes, you're hearing this tidbit slipped into the anti-McCain campaign ads, too. It's a ploy to get women voters, although they are pretty much in the tank for Obama anyway. Yes, more appealing to the victim mentality. No wonder Sarah Palin was a breath of fresh air!

I've written more than once on this myth, even using my own experience when I went to my boss and complained, only to find out the other woman (a minority) had an additional degree, and the guy--well, he had asked for more in his job interview, which means we started out at different levels, levels on which our promotions and merit pay were built.

The September 10 issue of JAMA is all about medical education. After they get their school loans paid off, and practice loans under control, most doctors do quite well. So, how are women doctors doing? I didn't see anything about salaries, but the specialties women enter as compared to men are certainly revealing.

According to Appendix II, "Graduate Medical Education, 2007-2008" compiled by Sarah Brotherton and Sylvia Etzel, women are collecting in certain areas of medicine. A wild guess here, but these are fields that are not among the highest paid, but probably offer more flexibility in scheduling to accomodate family needs. If they start to whine in 20 years, I hope someone refers them to this article. And the male doctors need to watch out too--because if they choose a specialty dominated by women, their own incomes will go down. Sorry, folks, I didn't write the rules, I just live by them. Here's some areas of specialty where women are more than 50%. Keep in mind, some of these programs are quite small--if transplant hematology only as 3 people, and 2 are women, they have 66.7 of those slots. Also, you'll notice a preponderance of women in the areas of family and children, from OB/GYN, to peds, to geriatric.

allergy and immunology, 56.1
pediatric anesthesiology, 54.6
dermatology, 63.8
pediatric emergency medicine, 74
family medicine 54.4
geriatric medicine 58.7
endocrinology, diabetes, metabolism, 67.4
rheumatology, 58.3
transplant hematology, 66.7
medical genetics, 59.4
molecular genetic pathology, 58.3
neurodevelopmental disabilities, 87.5
obstetrics and gynecology, 76.7
blood banking/transfusion medicine, 70.3
cytopathology, 65.6
pediatric pathology, 62.5
pediatrics, 72.8
pediatric rheumatology, 75.4
pediatric rehabilitation, 75
psychiatry, 54.3
child psychiatry, 59.3
psychosomatic medicine, 66.7
a number of combined specialties included children
all with high representations by females

Also, it looks like most of tomorrow's abortion doctors will be women.

Who can clean up this financial mess?

I don't know, and neither does anyone else, but I have two observations.

1) We should stop being so hard on people who from time to time need help from the government, either because they've lost a job and didn't have savings, or because the boyfriend has walked out on a mother with three children, only two of whom are his. Stuff happens. And if it can happen to our best educated receiving king-sized paychecks and all sorts of breaks from the Government, then it can certainly happen to the little guy. These bail outs are corporate welfare.

2) McCain hasn't been too self-revealing about specific financial plans, but Obama through out his campaign has, so we know what he will do:

1. He will raise taxes, but only on the most successful, the brightest and best
   
2. It is patriotic to have your taxes raised, so quicherbitchen
   
3. He will demand more regulation, as though the financial industry doesn't have whip smart lawyers and accountants who know how to put Senators on their payroll
   
4. He will send more corporations who employ Americans rushing to set up shop overseas where regulatory climates are friendlier
   
5. He will take even more campaign money than he already has from the guys who have been causing this current mess, because TV ads and Hollywood parties are so expensive
   
6. He will set up more goon squads so that you can't hear on the radio or read on the net what he's up to, because that would be racism if his true colors were known

Now, that's just what I know from watching his campaign ads--I haven't read much of his web page except for what Daniel, a Catholic Democrat Librarian Obama-lover has posted on his own web site.

So it's time for John and Sarah to speak up. We've got the Obama message down pat. Speak up, John.

Is Washington fit for Sarah

"Forget the Tina Fey SNL mockery and all the marginalia being written about Sarah Palin now. She did four real things in Alaska that make her fit for anyone interested in a reform presidency.

She took on: her party's state chairman, her party's state attorney general, GOP Gov. Frank Murkowski's tainted gas pipeline project, and then she supported a GOP candidate who ran against Alaska's "untouchable" GOP congressional earmarker, Don Young.

One way or another, each episode involved severing the sleazy ties that bind public officials to grasping commercial interests, something even the Democratic left purports to favor.

It isn't just Washington and Juneau. You could open the nozzle on the same reform fire hose to wash the public-private slime out of the capital hallways of New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and onward.

You say Sarah Palin doesn't have enough "experience" to run Washington? Washington is barely fit to be run."

Wonderland

Storm notes

The National Weather service says that the storm that hit the central Ohio area on Sunday Sept. 14 was the most severe in the region's history. I knew it was bad--many in our area are still without power--but because we weren't affected except for some cable outages, I didn't realize that. Forty-six state roads were closed or restricted on Monday and one third of the state's traffic signals weren't working according to the community paper. You can imagine what a mess that makes on city streets with people trying to get to work.

Our Lytham Road UALC was closed, and since it has the phone service for the other locations, they couldn't get much done either. I saw a friend at Lowes who lives in Clintonville (north Columbus) yesterday and he said they hadn't had mail delivery for 3 days because of downed trees and lines. The Lane Rd. branch of the UA library was open today, but the other 2 are closed, so I was able to unload about 5 boxes of books I've been carrying around in the van to donate to the book sale.

Tremont Shopping Center in our old neighborhood is still closed (as is the school, senior center and library). There are two restaurants, a bakery and a very nice grocery store there. I heard that Mr. Huffman told his customers on Monday to take what they needed, write it down, and they'd settle up after the power came back on. I can't imagine the losses of just those four small businesses and their employees. A lot of elderly live in the area in apartments and depend on those places, especially the Chef-o-Nette Restaurant for at least one hot meal a day.

The local hotels and motels are sold out, and restaurants that are open are very busy. The Panera's where I get my coffee in the morning has lines to the parking lot by 7 a.m. and people ordering lunch with with morning coffee and bagels. This morning I chatted with 2 women, probably in their 80s, who live in the area, but about a mile apart. At least they have gas hot water heaters--our unit is all electric, so if it had been us, we'd have to find a place to shower. Another man I talked to at Panera's had 2 teen-age sons who made $350 on Monday cutting up and stacking fallen limbs and trees.

Our Busiest Abortion Mill

Capital Care Women's Center. What a pleasant sounding, gentle name. And they are non-judgmental, respectful and friendly, according to the web site. So's my beautician. So's the Muslim cashier at Meijer's when I purchase pork. So's anyone who wants my business. So?

Strange images

I would never spend money on a Newsweek, or even pick one up to read at the library, but the Aug 29 issue (Republican Convention issue) was dumped in the basket at the coffee shop with McCain Palin on the cover, so I picked it up, just to see how the writers would twist the story to Obama's advantage. Oh, here it is. Table of Contents. "McCain's Surprise Attack." Biden was a huge surprise to me since he's just another white guy with about a thousands years in Congress, but I don't have that issue to see if it was called an "attack." Then leaf through an article on Pakistan, something about open season on gays, then why drill, the "Belief Watch" book review of The Shack, a page of jokes about Palin, something on culture like play dates and guys who won't grow up, a cartoon with Mitt dressed as a woman, until finally 2 full size photos of McCain and Palin with the tops of their heads cut off (this is not unusual in portrait photography these days--my U. of I. Library alumni magazine does this too). It's the cover I find so fascinating. I thought someone had spilled something on Palin's face--a big white glare on her glasses. Even with my freebie photo fixer, I can remove glare and clean up wispy hair. And half of Palin's face is actually darker than Michelle Obama's, whose gorgeous photo on the Feb. 18 cover (it came up for some reason when I clicked on "images") had every flaw photo-shopped, the way you would expect a Hollywood movie star with something to gain from such perfection. Palin's photo added 5-10 years, Obama's subtracted about that many. Why do the Obamas need so much help from the media to look and seem to be different than they are? Hmmmm.

Summer's bounty

My son brought over a huge kettle of tomatoes and peppers today. I know what to do with some of them, but how many salads can I eat? He makes and cans salsa, but says the batch wasn't large enough to bother with. Then I remembered that my mother used to stew them, so I got out my 1966 Woman's Day Encyclopedia v. 11, and looked it up. I just made fresh cream of tomato soup, and I must say, it is fabulous. I didn't use these proportions, and I didn't have a bay leaf, but it's close

2 cups chopped ripe tomatoes
1 medium onion, sliced
1/2 bay leaf
1/2 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper
2 T. butter
2 T. all-purpose flour
2 cups milk

Simmer tomatoes (I peeled them first) with onion, bay leaf, salt, and pepper for about 10 minutes (do not use water). Strain. (I also ran the leftovers through the blender.) Melt butter and stir in flour. (I skipped this and just added the butter and flour to the milk and warmed in the microwave and added to the stewed, liquified tomatoes). 2 cups of milk. (I was low on milk so I only used one cup.)

Thanks baby boy!

How to tell Obama is definitely a Christian

He has a top down, not a bottom up plan/ scheme to change people's lives for the better. That, my readers, is mainline Christianity all the way. I don't know a lot about the Muslim faith, but somehow, I doubt that either up or down to help your fellowman is a top priority. Main line Christianity, such as that of the United Church of Christ of which he is a member, has been struggling with how to best help the poor since the early 20th century but most specifically since a merger of two totally different streams of Christianity created it in 1957. In the 18th and 19th century, the poor, the immigrant and excluded in the United States were reached by various renewals and "awakenings." That's sort of our Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal branches. Lives were changed from the bottom up--the only material help available was from your own church, which insisted that the drinking, gambling and womanizing had to go if you wanted to share in the fellowship. I know we like to believe the myth that we were somehow a more Christian nation around the time of the Revolution or War of 1812, but that's not true. For many, especially those Anabaptists in my family tree who began arriving in the 1730s, religious freedom was a component of the trip across the pond, but let's face it, they could have never owned land or even a small business in Europe with its rigid class system and rich state churches.

But those who were religious were most likely Protestant, and members of maybe 3 or 4different groups. The reason religious freedom is written into our nation's earliest documents is that these Christians couldn't get along, and each saw the other as a threat, so no one came out on top. Now that was good for our foundation, however, the splits and contentiousness have continued to this day.

The UCC is sort of the great-granddaughter of the Puritans and the German Reformed. The Puritans, or their descendants, gave us Harvard and Yale, the abolitionist movement and some terrific old time religion. They have always been about "purifying" first the church, and more recently society. There is magnificent history and tradition in that denomination. Obama's church, Trinity UCC in Chicago, added another layer to the struggle for justice and freedom, the Black Liberation Theology of Jeremiah Wright via James Cone. Unless you tune into black church radio on Sunday, it could sound quite foreign, but it's really a nice fit for the UCC for whom diversity, multiculturalism, redistribution of wealth, political debate, empowerment, victimhood, and community organizing are right up there with personal faith, the gospel, catechism, liturgy and the Eucharist in other churches.

Unfortunately for the UCC, Obama, and other mainline Christians (like ELCA), top-down change only works briefly if at all--except for the leaders and pastors, for whom it is a rich vein to mine. Mainline churches have shrunk in numbers and power, almost to insignificance. Members have fled to look for spiritual meaning elsewhere, or for none at all. Who wants to attend a worship service that sounds like an election campaign or a call to serve on a committee? In the 1950s the ecumenical movement was a big deal. Christian leaders looked around and said, Surely this isn't what Jesus wanted--that we're all squabbling and spending money on separate "good works" programming. So they merged, and merged, and merged, and fought some more, and split, and split, and after initial huge groups which closed offices in some cities and formed huge bureaucracies in other cities, they've dwindled to groups of angry demonstrators who have more in common with NGOs and government agencies than other gospel directed Christians. Because the poor and their version of "justice" has become their focus, not Jesus Christ, sin and evil is always "out there" somewhere and never their own personal responsibility and need to change. They have to be about rearranging the chairs instead of building the church.

There, doesn't that make sense? So stop spreading those rumors that Obama is a Muslim, and check out what your own church is about.

Some Hillary supporters do support McCain Palin

Although I don't think there are enough Hillary supporter cross overs to make a difference this site did surprise me a bit:

Watching the hysteria from the Democratic Party over the nomination of Sarah Palin has been deja vu all over again. The party of women is once again perpetrating a sexist onslaught!!! It is too bizarre----and twice in one year. And we are watching the Republican Party, the home of what we thought were the real sexists, stand up loudly and strongly and daily pushing back sexists attacks. Who knew they had it in them?

We Hillary supporters who have come out for McCain don't even know what to do as our fellow Democrats come after us SCREAMING about how the world will come to an end if we support this ticket with this terrible woman on it. They ask---"Are you that stupid? The Republicans have never been your friends!!" And then we get this whole litany of how the Republicans have never been friendly to women, blah, blah, blah.

Well, it's not exactly true. The Republicans actually have a pretty good track record when it comes to appointing women----remember Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice? What about Condoleeza Rice----first African American woman Secretary of State? Sec. Rice, for all that we Democrats have tried to demonize her (and I'm ashamed to say that I was as bad as any Democrat where she was concerned) was the only one who was able to moderate Pres. Bush's positions, and thank goodness for that. Things would be worse without her influence. I could list others-----female Cabinet Secretaries, members of both houses of Congress, and others who have been by all accounts quite distinguished in their accomplishments.

And don't miss the young black woman, Patsy Rogers, refute all that "you must be racist if you don't support Obama." She's good!

How a bill becomes a law

by James Taranto in today's WSJ is very interesting, and he wrote it for the Kos Kidz misinformation being spewed at the Daily Kos, a far left-kook web site. By the time he finished I think I understood more about the 1999 Graham-Leach-Bliley Act which passed the Senate on a 90-8 vote, with both Reid and Obama running mate Joe Biden casting "aye" votes. ". . . without Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which abolished the barrier between commercial and investment banking, the recent deals that saved Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch would have been impossible, since both of them involved a commercial bank acquiring a troubled investment bank." Story here.

And Obama's links to Freddie and Fannie don't sound good to me.

Top recipients of Fannie/Freddie donations:

#1 Chris Dodd
#2 John Kerry
#3 Barack Obama
#4 HIllary Clinton

How do you get to be #3 of the top 25 when you've spent so little time in the Senate? Maybe he's been text messaging them while on the road running for President the last 2 years? Sen. McCain wasn’t listed in the report.

Do you need Mollom?

Blake, who runs LISNews.com battles spam all the time, and reports that he has switched to Mollom and has been amazed at the increase in comments the site has been getting (reports news about libraries and supports librarians' blogs). Apparently, the other spam filters he'd been using had been turning down comments or frustrating users. I don't know what filter blogger.com uses, but it certainly better than what my OSU e-mail service uses. I clean off 10-20 spam a day at my bruce dot site, and only a few at my other RR e-mail. But don't forward me jokes, smear stories on Obama, or cutsy photoshoped images of Palin, because I don't want your plate of cookies, thank you.

The Helsinki Complaint Choir

We all have the same complaints, except this one, "And the Finnish language is bloody difficult to learn." I laughed out loud and loved seeing the places we visited in 2006.



The video begins and ends in the train station designed by Eliel Saarinen.