Cutting costs at church

It adds up. Closing 2 days of the week, and eliminating donut holes. But what if. . .

Thank you, Emily, for that reminder!

What would we do without our friendly government or academic reminding us of what we already know, but somehow like petulant children, refuse to use.

“Pace yourself. Eating slowly can help reduce overall intake over time,” said Emily Lisciandro, a clinical dietician [my spell check says dietitian, but the dictionary says this spelling is OK] at the Ohio State University Medical Center. “Also, gauge your eating habits and if you find you have overindulged, eat sensibly in the days that follow.”

Before going to a party, a healthy snack can curb your appetite and help you avoid less healthy options, say Lisciandro. Avoid the temptations of overeating by sipping on a beverage or chewing a piece of gum and don’t use dieting after the holidays as an excuse to eat more, she advises.

There are still many healthy, seasonal food options such as turkey, fruits and vegetables, and the following minor changes will help you enjoy your favorite foods:
•Have a piece of pumpkin pie topped with fat-free whipped topping or a piece of angel food cake, which is better than eating a half-batch of iced cut-out cookies.

•Watch out for beverages loaded with calories. Choose hot cider instead of eggnog.

•Check cooking magazines for lighter versions of your favorite recipes.

•Substitute egg whites for whole eggs, use skim evaporated milk instead of heavy cream and look for fat-free or lighter versions of whipped toppings, cream cheese and other foods.

Lisciandro also suggests focusing on other fun holiday activities -- besides eating. “To burn extra calories, chop wood for a fire, take the stairs instead of the elevator, park further away when going to the mall, or participate in seasonal activities such as sledding, ice skating or skiing.”

After we got back home on Thursday loaded with left overs from my daughter's fabulous meal, my husband took two walks and I took one. Noticing that my favorite slacks didn't fit, I actually stepped on the scale. I'm not even eating the pumpkin pie and cherry pie and honey baked ham she sent home. But I will also avoid chopping wood, sledding and ice skating. (Wonder where Emily lives? Between Cleveland and Buffalo?)

Story from OSU Press Release.
Burning calories after dinner

Michael Vick's dogs

Twenty two dogs confiscated from convicted felon and former NFL quarterback Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels now live at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah and have their portraits on wine labels. And 92% of Down Syndrome babies are aborted, and Planned Parenthood is promoting gift certificates to do it.

This is rich

Obama has noticed the rich farmers getting government subsidies. Duh! Line by line he's going through the budget. Maybe he'll notice how much of the food support for the "hungry people" is actually welfare for farmers and the food industry?

"President Bush actually sought a $200,000 annual income cap on subsidy payments, but Congress couldn't bring itself to vote on anything below $750,000. And even that got killed by the likes of Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, who as it happens helped Mr. Orszag get his current job running the Congressional Budget Office. The Members ended up passing a $300 billion bill in which nearly every crop, from corn to sugar, won subsidy increases. Mr. Bush vetoed it in May but was overridden.

The vote in the Senate was 82 to 13. Mr. Obama missed the roll call, issuing a campaign statement saying that the bill was "far from perfect" and would have preferred "tighter payment limits." However, he added that "with so much at stake, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good." And he then went on to rake Mr. Bush and John McCain (who opposed the bill) for "saying no to America's farmers and ranchers, no to energy independence, no to the environment, and no to millions of hungry people." In other words, given the chance to support cuts in farm subsidies for the rich, Mr. Obama chose instead to attack his Republican opponents for doing precisely that." WSJ Nov. 26

Now that he's going to be president, he'll have to leave that empty suit in the closet and show up for votes.

Why the non-profits are watching Team-O very carefully

Their jobs are on the line. The government uses non-profits* to outsource their programs--i.e., the government is really much, much larger than it looks. President Bush believed in "partnerships with private industry and non-profits." This is not the Obama plan.

For instance, the AAHSA (American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging) we read:

AAHSA [according 2002 testimony by Thomas W. Slemmer, NCR president] represents more than 5,600 mission-driven, not-for-profit members, senior housing, nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities, assisted living, and community services organizations. Every day, our members serve more than one million older persons across the country. AAHSA is committed to advancing the vision of healthy, affordable, ethical long-term care for America. Housing is a critical part of the long-term care continuum. Our members own and manage more than 300,000 units of federally assisted and market rate housing, including the largest number of sponsors of Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly.

Representing close to 6,000 members, all not-for-profit and many faith-based, AAHSA does a lot of testifying on Capitol Hill. Looking through the various press releases during the campaign, it was extremely careful not to take sides or rattle any cages. That's a lot of careers, jobs, salaries, benefits, regulations, consumers (the elderly) and their families. And that's billions in government grants. Here's what Obama said in October in a letter to HUD:

Because of the fiscal mess left behind by the current Administration, we will need to look carefully at all departments and programs. We plan specifically to look at work that is being contracted out to ensure that it is fiscally responsible and effective. It is dishonest to claim real savings by reducing the number of HUD employees overseeing a program but increase the real cost of the program by transferring oversight to contractors. I pledge to reverse this poor management practice.

Let's put aside the fact that a member Congress, which has oversite for the "fiscal mess" including the Barney Frank and Chris Dodd dog and pony show which precipitated our melt down, attributes the blame to Bush, he the Great O-Hope, next president, is going to fix it. How? By taking all those contracts away from the not-for-profits and faith-based organizations. He will Katrinasize the Old Age Industry in the U.S., one of the fastest growing demographics in the country. He'll Amtrak it into chaos and bankruptcy by returning these programs to the ever more inefficient federal government.

I personally think the oversite for these grants is outrageously lax, I could probably start a non-profit using calico cats to fight dementia in the elderly and wouldn't need to report how inefficient I was unless I spent more than X-amount of $$. But I wouldn't expect better from HUD if it had its sticky fingers in the pie directly from the beltway to Beaverton. Even if he doesn't return all the jobs to HUD, HHS and USDA, he'll so over regulate them that they might as well become government agencies in name if not in fact. I do not expect to see his favorites on the Left like ACORN lose their funding (hundreds of entangled in every imaginable non-profit from nutrition to housing to health), but if you're working in a faith-based agency, you ought to be very, very scared.

Many of the experts on government like Karl Rove, are applauding his "moderate choices" and retreads which will insulate him from his "change and hope" no-program ideas, but I'm not convinced. Sorry Karl, I think you're wrong on this one. I think the radical left is just waiting for all these billions currently out sourced to the faith-based and conservative/benign not-for-profits.

*Non-profit and not-for-profit are often used interchangeably, but the first seems to be an agency and the second an organization, for instance, Lutheran Social Services would be a non-profit but it might be a member of a not-for-profit like AAHSA.

** Photo from Cat Woman who rescues and finds homes for cats.

My secret fat

Today I got a warning in my e-mail, and an offer to buy a book promoting the secret to weight loss, telling me that we’re getting fat because of “MSG and other excitotoxins.” That’s not my problem, but I'm sure it will sell some books. This morning I stepped on the scale and it announced the bad, bad news. Since our trip to Italy this summer (6 months ago) I’ve put on 10 lbs. And that’s why my favorite, all wool, beautifully made, brown tweed Pendleton pants suit doesn’t fit as cold weather slips into Ohio. Now, there may be MSG in my food, but my problem is MGS, not MSG. More Gratuitous Snacking. Boxes of crackers have mysteriously made their way into my grocery cart, as have blocks of sharp cheddar cheese. I discovered an oreo cookie knock-off made with peanut butter for the filling. Three or four of those in the middle of the afternoon have given me just the MGS lift I needed. And let’s not forget my healthy breakfast of a sliced apple and ¼ cup of walnuts. The ¼ cup has grown to ¾ cup. And where in the world did those huge asiago bagels come from that I individually packaged and froze? They sure knocked out some plans to eat only 3 or 4 vegetables for lunch.

No, buying a book of diet secrets won’t be part of my plan.

Backstory: In September 2006 upon returning from my sister-in-law's wedding in California, I determined to lose 20 lbs by February 1, 2007 and I did. In the processes of giving up some favorite things (see my Thursday Thirteen), I also stopped snoring, had fewer back strains, and fewer colds (although that may be a coincidence). Just to make the personal political, let me remind you that the billions of dollars of your tax money the federal government is currently spending on programs and research to get the overweight poor and low-income quintiles to change their diets are destined to enrich only the USDA and HHS government workers if my experience changing my own habits and tastes is anecdotal evidence worth noting.

Over the river and past the golf course

We began the day with a lovely service at church with pastor Eric Waters preaching. I hope it's on the church web site, because it was certainly fabulous and worth listening to again. Our son and our son-in-law's father attended with us. Lots of wonderful hymns and seeing many faces from our scattered 9 services. Then it was off to our daughter's for a fabulous meal, two naps (turkey overload), and lots of left overs to bring home. A lovely table set with her Lenox wedding china and crystal.

Honey baked ham
roast (to perfection) turkey
baked and browned squash
fresh green beans
fresh beets
mashed potatoes
home made cranberry sauce
home made applesauce
wild rice and mushrooms
traditional stuffing
turkey gravy
rolls, deviled eggs, pickles, olives, etc.
several red wines
pumpkin pie
cherry pieWe just sort of rolled in the door when we got home. Tomorrow I'm back to the veggies and sensible eating. I couldn't get into my favorite pants suit before we went, and it will certainly be impossible now!

Praying for Obama

Of course, I will. The Bible tells me so. But today I was reading a blog about a Socialist Spanish Senator who converted to Catholicism and changed her views on abortion and is now pro-life. Wow. What would it take. . . I wondered. Then I found another blog called Obama Hears A Who.

Obama Hears A Who! is an inquiry into the possibility of persuading Barack Obama to change his mind on the abortion issue and become pro-life.

Many pro-lifers will consider this to be an exercise in tilting at windmills. (And Obama himself said in a speech to Planned Parenthood that "I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield!")

But I beg to disagree, not only because of believing in a God of surprises who swoops in with Black Swans, but also because of the fact that Barack Obama is made in the image and likeness of God and we have a responsibility to try and persuade him because of that. . .

The blog has only been around about two months but is interesting. The reference to Black Swans is unexpected events that totally change direction of a presidency burying the campaign promises--9/11 for George Bush, a man who had plans for his domestic policy but not jihad terrorists, and the September financial meltdown for Barack Obama, who was anti-war and pro-social programs, but will need to rebuild not just a national economy, but a global economy.

[Nassim] Taleb is fascinated by the rare but pivotal events that characterize life in the power-law world. He calls them Black Swans, after the philosopher Karl Popper's observation that only a single black swan is required to falsify the theory that "all swans are white" even when there are thousands of white swans in evidence. Provocatively, Mr. Taleb defines Black Swans as events (such as the rise of the Internet or the fall of LTCM) that are not only rare and consequential but also predictable only in retrospect. We never see them coming, but we have no trouble concocting post hoc explanations for why they should have been obvious. Surely, Mr. Taleb taunts, we won't get fooled again. But of course we will. WSJ

As we gather to enjoy Thanksgiving

Let's remember one of the popular myths from our history--The Great Depression. Myth #4, Where the market had failed, the government stepped in to protect ordinary people.

"Hoover's disastrous agricultural policies involved the know-it-all Hoover acting as his own agriculture secretary and in fact writing the original Agricultural Marketing Act that evolved into Smoot-Hawley. While exports accounted for 7% of U.S. GDP in 1929, trade accounted for about one-third of U.S. farm income. The loss of export markets caused by Smoot-Hawley devastated the agricultural sector. Following in Hoover's footsteps, FDR concentrated on trying to raise farm income by such tactics as setting quotas on production and paying farmers to remove acreage from production -- even though this meant higher prices for hard-pressed consumers and had the effect of both lowering productivity and driving farmers off their land."

It was the poor who were hurt the most by the government's policies during the depression. We did not get out of it through benign, enlightened federal programs, taxing the people with one hand, and handing a little back with the other. Don't be fooled again!

Yes, do contribute to your local food pantry--there really are hungry people, and in keeping with a long tradition in the USA, conservative Christians will be contributing the lion's share. But keep in mind how poverty figures are juggled by bureaucrats so that it is never eleminated (they would lose their jobs). These figures do not take into consideration the huge transfer of wealth in the form of health care (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP), food programs (food stamps, school nutriton, etc.), housing programs (vouchers, affordable housing trusts, etc), Social Security and tax right offs, so that the 95% of us who were to get a tax break under Obama can't, because so many people don't pay federal income tax. Also, about 50 million of our 300 million people aren't citizens and probably need to go home and live on the kindness of their own governments. That would considerably reduce our expenses. If women would marry the father of their children, that could also reduce some government spending. The proportion of children living in female-headed households doubled between 1970 and 2003, rising from 11.6 percent in 1970 to 23.6 in 2003. There are a lot of women living with men who should be kicked out of the house simply for not contributing to expenses! Also, poverty figures include people who are only in that group briefly, such as college students or people just starting out, or the elderly who have wealth, but not income.

Indeed, there will always be a gap between the rich and poor, even if the bottom makes $200,000 a year and the top $200,000,000; and it is the gap and not the actual income or benefits that determines the philosophy of the party about to take over the $400 billion or 12% of our GDP we're currently spending on low-income and poor people.

How feminists in the church killed the pronoun

When feminists write about Rahab or Sarah or Mary Magdalene, I don't know if they allow themselves the luxury of using the feminine pronouns, her and she, or if they just keep repeating their job description or name. This is what they do to our Father God and his son, our Lord Jesus Christ and the person and work of the Holy Spirit. It's possible, given all the hymns, liturgies, committee and commission reports, feminists (male and female) may eventually kill as many masculine pronouns as they have female babies (in many cultures, even our own, male children are preferred). The following statement, now almost 20 years old, is from "The Oxford Declaration on Christianity and Economics," which was issued as a broad consensus following the Second Oxford Conference on January 4-9, 1990, which resulted from a 3 year study beginning at the January 1987 gathering at Oxford (I'm assuming it was called the First*). Notice anything missing? Anything repeated? Masculine pronouns.

[Preamble]

A. Creation and Stewardship

God the Creator

1. From God and through God and to God are all things (Romans 11:36). In the freedom of God's eternal love, by the word of God's omnipotent power, and through the Creator Spirit, the Triune God gave being to the world and to human beings which live in it. God pronounced the whole creation good. For its continuing existence creation is dependent on God. The same God who created it is present in it, sustaining it, and giving it bountiful life (Psalm 104:29). In Christ, "all things were created . . . and all things hold together" (Colossians 1:15-20). Though creation owes its being to God, it is itself not divine. The greatness of creation-both human and non-human-exists to glorify its Creator. The divine origin of the creation, its continued existence through God, redemption through Christ, and its purpose to-glorify God are fundamental truths which must guide all Christian reflection on creation and stewardship.

Appears as a Word document at http://esa-online.org/Display.asp?Page=HistDocs

Even the passage from Romans 11 has been changed (and probably reflects modern English translations to please feminists on the committees):

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
This is why modern Christian vernacular, at least in English, sounds so clumsy and repetitious--so political. Why many leave the liberal denominations or just leave church all together. This paragraph just begs for a pronoun:

15. For Christians, work acquires a new dimension. God calls all Christians to employ through work the various gifts that God has given them. God calls people to enter the kingdom of God and to live a life in accordance with its demands. When people respond to the call of God, God enables them to bear the fruit of the Spirit and endows them individually with multiple gifts of the Spirit. As those who are gifted by the Spirit and whose actions are guided by the demands of love, Christians should do their work in the service of God and humanity.

Although this won't explain the loss of masculine pronouns, I think we all know the source of hatred behind that, it is interesting that this document on Christianity and Economics cites the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which does not mention the name of God (I did a "find" command) or even the idea of God, but the U.S. Declaration of Independence uses God in the first sentence, followed by Creator, Supreme Judge, Divine Providence. The U.N. document is a declaration of rights, as is our Declaration of Independence. Our Constitution doesn't use the word God, but the word "God" or "Supreme Ruler" appears in most of the state Constitutions, and ours is a nation of states.

If you're reciting something in church and it just doesn't sound right--it's cumbersome or ugly or awkward--look for a committee trying to be inclusive to the degree that humans become omnipotent, and God an afterthought.

------------
* Stewardship Journal, Winter 1991, has a special section on the Oxford Declaration with responses.

Update: How much hate from feminists? "Students at an Ottawa university are pulling out of a Canada-wide fundraiser that provides close to $1 million a year for cystic fibrosis research and treatment, arguing that the disease "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" — something experts say is untrue." CBC News
I guess that policy will leave out gay white men with AIDS. Actually, the only people I've known with CF were women.

Dingle Dangle Dingell

The letter from Henry I. Miller was buried in the letters column--would have been better as an op-ed, but is still available on-line. Miller writes about (D-Michigan) Rep. John Dingle's Inquisition Politics, saying that his defense of the auto industry was the least of his faults.

"Mr. Dingell was a master of the politics of personal destruction. In acrimonious hearings, he made vile and untrue accusations against prominent scientists, university administrators and business executives, relying on his congressional immunity to avoid being sued for slander.

In performing his committee's oversight role over the FDA, Mr. Dingell acted as a kind of self-appointed grand inquisitor. He and his staff often summoned agency officials to humiliating and abusive hearings and demanded that they produce mountains of documents on unrealistically short deadlines. His investigators even helped themselves to FDA files that contained confidential business information, a clear violation of federal law.

Mr. Dingell lost track of the constitutional division of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. His actions were often grossly inappropriate."

Why do we have so many Dingells of both parties in Congress? This behavior is certainly not limited to him. A prize example of why we need term limits.

Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D., is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where his research focuses on public policy toward science and technology, including pharmaceutical development, the new biotechnology, models for regulatory reform, and the emergence of new viral diseases. He headed the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Biotechnology from 1989 to 1993.Link. Twenty five cents of every consumer dollar goes to a product regulated by the FDA, an agency he says is dysfunctional, a swamp in need of draining, according to a recent article he wrote for the Washington Times.

The Bible or the Bard?

Take the quiz and see how you score. I didn't do so good.

The Bible or The Bard?

Score: 70% (7 out of 10)

I care, I really do

Just not enough to print out 23 pages, and it's much too complicated to read on screen. Here it is: "A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED: LIBRARIES AND THE GOOGLE LIBRARY PROJECT SETTLEMENT" Link to ALA/ARL paper. Besides, it's time for a nap, and all the medical studies seem to agree that naps are good for you. Although, I'd do it anyway.

The Science of Prevention

It's not getting more lab tests, as reported in today's WSJ--at least not at my age. Recently a relative broke her foot. In helping her into the ER, her husband broke his finger. Last week I made my husband promise that he wouldn't get on a ladder to clean the gutters at our summer home. Men his age die falling off ladders. I chatted yesterday with a woman whose arm was in a sling and she said she injured herself pulling out the hose to water her plants before winter. A friend of a friend fell down the stairs carrying things in both hands and broke his left wrist and his right ankle--and then tried to drive himself to the emergency room. And yet if you were to read the medical news or watch the TV health stories, you would think all you needed to do at my age was eat fruits and vegetables, never microwave anything in plastic, hide the salt shaker, and lower your cholesterol by eating boring stuff (my lunch today was 5 vegetables and 2 brownies--all the colors, just like mom said ;-) ).

I suggest you all go read Sandy, my blogging friend and nutrition writer, Junk Food Science. She doesn't write about junk food, she writes about junk science about food. Today she's writing about where you get your medical news. JAMA is one of my favorite magazines, but if I remove the slick, thick advertising pages, it's quite skinny.

Meanwhile, I'll just remind you that you can't beat good genes. That's still the number one factor in good health and a long life, and you didn't have a thing to do with it. If you're still alive tomorrow, give thanks for your parents and grandparents who gave you a good start. My mother died in her 88th year, her brother at 99, her father at 94, and her sister is still going at 92. Dad died at 89, his father at 92, and his grandfather was 88 in 1950 when he died, and one of his daughters is still going at 92. Second, don't smoke; third, drink alcohol only in moderation, and if you think a 6 pack after work is moderation, you need to relearn the meaning of the word; fourth, reduce your calories; and fifth, get some regular exercise.

Here's a photo of OSU's President Gordon Gee leading some university employees on laps around the Oval. It looks to me that most of the folks falling in line here are already fairly trim. I've noticed that at the Senior Center dance class too--all the ladies dancing, from late 70s into early 90s are quite trim. I have no idea, and neither do the researchers, which came first--the fitness, or the activity.

Sew Homemade

When I was a little girl, my mother made a lot of my clothes--the rest were "hand-me-downs" from my two older sisters. With the left over fabric she made clothes for our dollies. She even made our underwear! But it never looked like this.

She also made clothing for my brother--these coveralls were sewn from my dad's WWII camouflage.


Today I upgraded my Memory Patterns blog, which was completed several years ago but has a lot of old photos of sewing projects. In checking some of the old links, I found the above pattern.

Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post

That Iowahawk is such a kidder, but still . . . it surely looks that way. Those of you afraid of a Bush third term with McCain, are you happy about the Clinton third term?

WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.

"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet."

Idea for transferring your wealth to Washington

Here's an idea for those of you who want to be patriotic (Joe Biden's term), to share/spread your wealth (Obama's philosophy), and get universal health care off the ground (Hillary's plan from the 90s). I read this week that $16 billion is spent annually on tailgating! That would fund the CDC for more than two years. So all you Obama supporters just have to give up your fall tailgates, send the money to President elect Obama, and he'll be able to share the bounty with government salaried workers. Neat idea, huh?

Whether your Buckeye is a Republican or Democrat, Jack Park's new book will be a welcome sight under the Christmas tree.

Almost 50 years ago

"On January 25, 1959, at the Roman Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls, Pope John XXIII announced his intention of convoking a council of the church to open its windows, as he put it, to let in fresh air. The ultimate goal of the council was to be Christian unity. After nearly four years of extensive preparation, the council met in four sessions from October 11, 1962 to December 8, 1965 and was a momentous event not only for the Roman Church but for all of Western Christianity. . .

. . .the Second Vatican Council . . showed the Church of Rome to be not the monolithic monarchy many thought it to be but rather a living body capable of remarkable change, renewal, and renovation--a model for the rest of Christianity. Moreover, the churches of the Reformation, and Lutherans especially, saw in the working and the documents of the council an acceptance of basic principles of the sixteenth-century Reformation:

• the primacy of grace,
• the centrality of Scripture,
• the understanding of the church as the people of God,
• the use of the vernacular language.

It was as if the Lutheran Reformation had made its point at long last. Indeed, some Lutherans observed that the place in the modern world where the principles of the Reformers were most clearly at work was the Roman Church. . ."
Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship; Lutheran liturgy in its ecumenical context, by Philip H. Pfatteicher, (Augsburg Fortress, 1990) p. 1

Yes, it certainly was an optimistic time, since even today 50 years later many Lutherans will not worship together or share in Holy Communion with another synod. And there are some of us old time transfers (1976) from other denominations (Church of the Brethren and Presbyterian in our case) who wish someone would close the windows or maybe lower them for a year or two--at least in terms of tinkering with our Sunday service. We were just getting the hang of the LBW (or as we non-liturgical types call it, the green book, which replaced the red book, Service book and hymnal) when the mid-week informal/contemporary service at UALC migrated to a spot on Sunday morning back in the 80s, and now has pretty much taken over. Only a few stubborn old timers who enjoy complex theology in their hymns, a real choir, confession of sins, and creeds show up for the two traditional services (out of 9). However, if you read Pfatteicher's book, LBW really isn't so traditional after all but reflects constant change over two thousand years, beginning with a bunch of rag-tag, frightened Jewish Christians gathering after Jesus' resurrection to follow his instructions, "Take and eat; this is my body given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

Guided imagery and the Christian

The Ohio State University Faculty and Staff Assistance Program offers two online videos to help faculty and staff manage the stress and financial pressures that many are experiencing in these difficult economic times. There are two: a 13-minute “Walk, Talk & Breathe: Learning to Manage Stress in Difficult Times” and the 23-minute “Relieving Financial Stress.” I only watched a few minutes, and I might have giggled at the poor quality and nasal voices, if I hadn't recognized immediately that the University is perilously close to pushing religion on its employees when it gets started on guided imagery to relieve stress. But aside from the spiritual nature of it, I think I would have hired a professional to do the voice overs or actors, instead of squirmy, self-consious university staff, because we are just all accustomed to seeing pros on screen.

Yes, exercise and breathing correctly can probably help stress levels--walk briskly or jump rope and you'll feel the stress go; but so can cutting up your credit card, listening to some quiet music, and kneading a batch of home made bread. None of those require reaching down into your inner being and pulling out a plum--your very own god-likeness. Guided imagery is just a form of "new age" religion, based on the very, very old age forms of eastern religions and mysticism.

Here's what the voice of Lisa will do, according to the blurb (in my opinion, Lisa doesn't have the voice for this): "With gentleness and vision, Lisa guides us to the shore of our inner wisdom, and helps us to remember that if we consistently bridge back to it, it will never fail us." And here's what Christianity teaches about that "divine center"--your inner wisdom or core that Lisa's going to help you find--it is the source of sin and rebellion and false gods. You may think you experience God (I doubt she says that but I only listened to a few minutes), that same God which is a universal consciousness, residing within everyone, guiding them on the path to some sort of peace or perfection, but it's a lie. That makes us all little gods. That's the oldest story in Genesis. This denies everything Christians know about reality, about sin, and about solutions.

If you are feeling stressed about finances, open your Bible--don't turn to the university or the government. I think finances and wealth may be the #1 topic--and centers on this verse, "The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Ps 24:1

See The empty promise

Journal abuse

If a student or faculty member abused a library journal as badly as staff approved procedures, they'd probably lose their library privileges. Look at the cover of this journal



When the journal (Cultural Critique, No. 3, American Representations of Vietnam (Spring, 1986), was "checked in" after being received in the mail, it was smacked with a black ink date stamp, showing it was received January 2, 1987 at Ohio State University Library. Must be an old stamp, because the official name is The Ohio State University Libraries. Then the check-in-clerk marked it with a grease pencil. MAI in the upper right means that it was destined for the Main Library at Ohio State University, one of maybe 20 locations within the system. Then she scribbled the call number, volume and year across the cover. The brown stuff at the bottom looks like someone spilled coffee with cream on it--perhaps a user, but might have happened at check-in. The back cover, presumably by the same photographer, John Carlos Rowe, has a date due slip pasted over it, blocking about 1/3 of the picture. But the defacing didn't stop there. Before this journal was bound permanently (in 2006 according to a pasted stamp on the inside), it was "strap bound," with holes punched into the margins to keep several issues strapped together inside homemade cardboard covers, so when you open this volume, every page has four holes.

Eventually as things became more automated, grease pencils were discontinued and small stickers with call number and date received replaced the scribbling; I'm not sure about the temporary bindings since I haven't worked there in over 8 years. But I am still surprised when I see this sort of disregard not only for the artist, writers, publishers, but also the reader who may have found something useful in the cover. And publishers continue to include information on the cover or book jacket that may be no where else in the piece, and some libraries toss the book jacket, and paper covers may be removed if the book or journal is rebound.

I had no interest in resurrecting the Vietnam War, which is what this issue of Cultural Critique did, however, no author or group should have its work taken so lightly by those who say they preserve and protect information for future generations.