Go flag yourself

This e-mail suggests that we all comply with the President's request that we spy on each other and turn in our on-line neighbors.

All Leftists and terrorists have one thing in common: You can scream at 'em, you can argue with 'em, you can chase 'em and you can even shoot 'em. But for God's sake, just don't laugh at 'em.

Well, considering the White House's brazen request for American citizens to "flag" other American citizens by turning their HealthCare content into the White House Dissent Management Bureau via flag@whitehouse.gov, this brownshirt tactic needs to be laughed at.

How: Turn yourselves in. All of us and everyone we know. Report yourselves to the White House Dissent Management Czar - and in such volume - as to make a mockery of the entire sleazy endeavor.

Think of it as reporting yourself to the local PD for speeding. We'd all be emailing about 5 times per day. Well, every time you have a thought on HealthCare, much less write or speak about it, send the contents of the thoughts/words/conversation to flag@WhiteHouse.gov .

Operation Go Flag Yourself!

What a great idea--seen at Brutally Honest.

Update: NYT reports: “Due to privacy concerns, federal agencies since June 2000 [i.e. primarily the Bush administration] have been prohibited from using many such Web-tracking technologies, particularly persistent cookies, unless an agency head decreed a compelling need.

But the Obama administration is keen to modernize federal agency sites and . . . it sees the old cookie policy as out of date, now that cookies are mainstream and more accepted, and a barrier to adding user-friendly features, analyzing what content is most valuable to citizens and figuring out how to make improvements.

Yet, the cookie issue remains a hot-button one for many citizens and Internet-privacy advocates who believe that in a free society the state should not track citizens accessing public information. “

White House revisits cookies, Aug. 5.

Get in line, America

Republican Study Comm, July 16, 2009 (114 Republicans). Chairman Tom Price of Georgia admonishes the Democrat government-takeover of health care. He says Republicans were shut out by Pelosi from any meaningful discussion or bipartisanship.

CBS interview with Price.

Site meter jumps

My site meter that records hits jumped about 40 a day here recently. The two bigggies? HR 3200 and cottage cheese. The house bill I can understand, but cottage cheese? Has there been a big story about it recently?

Our high (herb) tea

The members of our herb class led by Jan Hilty had a wonderful tea at the hotel today. We each brought a dessert, or tea sandwiches, or nuts/candy and enjoyed a wonderful herb tea, either hot or cold. The hotel dining room isn't being used as a restaurant any more and it was really fun to be there. These days it is used primarily for receptions and events, but those of us who remember Sunday dinner there or special occasions really miss it. Some of us wore hats for the occasion.

Watercolor class with Bob Moyer

Here's last week's art class results, minus one, which has already been folded and put away and I'll use the back! One is OK for framing, one for back of the closet, and one to think about.

Polls and disinformation

Polls from National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal/NBC News, The Washington Post, Gallup, and Pew all show that the American people do not support President Barack Obama’s health care plan . . . Linda Douglass complains about "disinformation." (That's journalism-speak for lies).

"Americans deserve an honest debate about health care. President Obama, Barney Frank, and Jan Schakowsky cannot all be right. Either the President is wrong when he says his plan will not lead to government run health care, or Frank and Schakowsky are spreading disinformation when they tell their single payer advocate base that it will." Heritage Foundation, Morning Bell, Wed. Aug 5, 2009

Six months in Bible Lands by A.D. Wenger

This is one of the titles in my bag of books ($1.00) from the Women Club's Sunday. Because we recently returned from "Bible lands" I picked it up. What fun to read, and I'm still in Europe. He actually traveled for 14 months in 1899 and 1900.

Wengers are in my family tree, so I first looked up Amos Daniel Wenger on the internet, and learned through a genealogy that he is a descendant of Christian Wenger, not Hans and Hannah Wenger, my guys. Although it's not mentioned in the book, I learned that his wife of one year had died in 1898 and in January 1899 he began this around-the-world trip returning in 1900, to recover from his grief. He edited his notes with research about the areas, and published the book in 1902 (by then he had remarried and eventually had 8 children).

Today I was reading about his visit to the Cologne Cathedral. The amazing sites in Europe didn't impress him, although he mentioned them. As a Mennonite, he held to their basic values of the simple life and care for the poor and less fortunate. In England he notes the vast gap between the rich and poor in London; in Paris he is appalled by the promiscuity and fast life; in Holland (homeland of Menno Simons from whom they take their name) he is very disappointed by the Mennonite leaders he found who had been influenced by higher criticism and were living a very different life culture than those in the U.S. I know I'm making him sound like a crank, but his observations actually sound very fresh, 110 years later!

He relates the legend of the architect of Cologne Cathedral, and why no one knows his name. This gave me a chuckle because I'm researching homes here in Lakeside and no one here knows the names of the architects, builders or stone masons of 100 or 50 years ago.

"Just put your signature to this little bond," said the devil, "and the plan is yours." "Sign!" insisted satan.

When the bond was signed satan said: "Now, Mr. Architect, I have made a fair contract with you. You have sold your soul for fame,--a bauble, a worthless fancy, an immaterial substance. You are not the first fool, albeit, who has made such a barter; hell is lathed and plastered with the souls of ambitious idiots like you. Go, present your plan to the bishop; he will accept it and you will be famous."

Wenger says his name was carved on a stone that was worked in the wall. The building took from 1248 to 1880 to complete.

When I looked the legend up in Google, I found every version is different, but always the architect was frustrated with coming up with a good design, so he sold his soul to the devil! In one version, he has a church relic to fight Satan, who then declared that his punishment for going back on the agreement is to remain an unknown. In a Frank Leslie Monthly version, the grieving architect fearing hell wanders into the mountains where he meets a hermit priest who absolves him, but he has to choose between his soul and fame, so he chooses his soul.

This is a lot of book for ten cents. According to a description on the internet that matches the one in my hand (it's in very good condition), it's worth about $14.00.

Now they've changed their tune

When Obama was mobbed by adoring fans in 2008, many bussed in by ACORN and out of stater party volunteers, the Democrats were just thrilled. The media swooned. Ah. Grass roots. The little guy was finally speaking up. Wonderful ground swell of support. Oooo. Ahhhh. It just felt so good to assauge the guilt.

A year later. The American people are finding out that who you hang with is who you are. Ayers. Wright. It's the Alinsky Baedeker 2.0.

Now when people turn out to protest his health care plan, and shout down their lily livered congressional representatives, they are "mobs", and the town hall is the town "hell." They are "right-wing extremists" sent by the Republican party. They are "birthers" and racists. But many voted for him! They are finding out that what he said about destroying our health care system when he was an Illinois senator is what he still believes. These are people who seem to have actually read HR 3200! They don't like it one bit. You start denying some boomer his hip replacement because of his life expectancy or tell him to run it past a committee in Washington and he just might hit you with his cane. Or run you down with her golf cart.

Isn't it just amazing how the worm turns?

Cash for clunkers scam

First, it's for the auto industry. We now own it--so we're just pouring more tax money into a product we, the company, are pushing.

Second, it's payback for the unions, so they can keep their workers and pensioners happy.

Third, there's no way that program is out of money. There haven't been that many deals made--crunch the numbers. This is marketing hype so more people will rush to the dealer.

Fourth, the people who got stopped by the paper work or a "standard" that said their 20 year old clunker was getting 20 mpg not 18, probably stopped and looked around the showroom at a new car.

Fifth, if their car didn't qualify, they'll be pushed into a new car with a loan, because this program is taking driveable older cars off the road.

Sixth, even if you want a used car, one with better mileage, you won't be able to find one, because they are being snapped up for the next deal.

Seventh, there's very little savings in either gasoline or the environment. People with older, second or beater cars, are not using them as much as their newer, more efficient cars. How many people do you know on a limited budget hop in the car for a road trip to Texas or Alaska?

Eighth, people with less efficient SUVs are buying newer, more efficient SUVs. They are still energy hogs.

Ninth, there's a cost to buying a new car, and a cost to destroying one that is already on the road, in the garage, driveable and useful.

Tenth, many dealers are out of inventory and making no sales at all until they get the next batch. So how's that working for the employees?

Do you have grandchildren?

I don't. This one's for you.

Seniors and the viability question

The e-mails of alarm about the Obamacare intention and HR 3200 just keep coming. Baby-boomer seniors need to take a deep breath and reexamine what they really believe about life and viability, because although rationed care is a concern in this bill, and should be, many are outraged by the thought of "counseling" for end of life care. Oh, they may point out its other failures and Bogey man features, like the huge increase in the bureaucracy that will be making decisions about their lives, but that periodic counseling feature is a real stick in the craw feature. It's not a huge stretch from rotator cuff surgery at 65 so you can continue playing golf to a new heart valve at age 90 so you can continue walking around the block and enjoying the great-grand babies. But think about it. Even those who didn't vote for the most anti-life President we've ever elected, who never wrote their congressman or carried a poster at a pro-choice rally, may have gone squishy along the continuum of aborting a fetus with Down Syndrome to removing the feeding tube from Grandpa because "he wouldn't want to live this way."

Well, now it's our turn isn't it? Now we're the ones about which someone unknown and nameless is debating--our viability and life-worthiness. Doesn't feel so good, right? In case you've never thought of it, none of us is "viable" without the help and care of others--our family, our friends, our employer, our drug companies, our truckers, our farmers, our merchants, etc. We're all just as much "parasites" as that developing fetus in the womb. If for some reason you were dropped on Mouse Island on Lake Erie without clothing, food, water, matches, or tools of any kind, you'd soon find out just how "viable" you are, whether 20 years old or 80. Oh, maybe you'd survive August or September on berries or an occasional dead fish that floats past--it is after all a fresh water lake--but January and February, if you lived that long, would be a bit chilly as the Civil War prisoners on Johnson's Island discovered looking at near-by Sandusky across the bay.

Also, it's past time for a lot of seniors to remember Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, WIC etc. are socialized medicine. They are out of control precisely because they are government programs, and what the government gives it can take away at the stroke of a pen, or smack of a gavel. Seniors need to be careful what they ask for or destroy. You didn't vote for tort reform, you didn't object when the government began limiting what it would pay doctors and hospitals, you didn't cry foul over regulation of certain professions or industries that drove good people out, you didn't look through those itemized invoices in the thousands for a day or two of care that dropped in your mail box 6 months later, you didn't ask questions when technology and drug research outran the bioethics arguments, so now it's time to pay the piper. I fear the price is more than you'll want to pay.

Lakeside Cottage Architecture pt. 7

The Ross Hips, pt. 3

The Ross Hips, pt. 2
The Ross Hips, pt. 1


These homes face the lake and Perry Park (renamed on the 100th anniversary of Perry's victory in 1812) along 2nd Street and one on Elm Avenue. Most have the angled window to provide a good view.




These Ross Hips are on Cherry. For porch renovations, there are many styles on a Ross. There are four on Cherry between 2nd and 3rd.

This Ross cottage on Elm just grew and grew.

The leftist protests--where are they?

Dennis writes: "Still waiting for the endless anti-Obama protests by Code Pink, Hollywood, and mainline media pundits. As least in Iraq the world honestly thought they had WMD. No one thinks Afghanistan has WMD.

The fact is that all the anti-war protests during the Bush administration were not really anti-war. They were Leftist charades designed to discredit a President they didn't like.

Unfortunately for America, it worked."

The "economy fixes" are also a charade. It has never been his intention to put people back to work. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the left MSM to ask him any tough questions.

Chamomile Lemonade

At the herb class last week we received a recipe for chamomile lemonade so yesterday I made a pitcherful in my "new" pitcher bought last year at the antique show. Tasted pretty good.

3/4 C cane sugar (I used much less)
2 Tbs. grated lemon zest
5 Tbs. fresh or dried chamomile flowers or 6 chamomile tea bags
3/4 C lemon juice (I just squeezed the lemon)
lemon slices for garnish

Combine sugar, lemon zest, and 2 cups water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat, and add chamomile flowers. Cool.
Strain chamomile mixture into a 2-qt. pitcher, stir in lemon juice and 3 cups water.
Serve over ice with lemon slices, or store, covered, in refrigerator up to 5 days.

Plans for week 7 at Lakeside

This is "Peace and Justice" week at Lakeside--programing I usually avoid (sort of white man's burden modernized), so I have the whole week to look at other topics. This morning at 10 a.m. there is a "walking tour" of the east end. I walk there all the time, but usually don't know what I'm looking at. Then in late afternoon we're going to a social reception for a group of which my husband is a member. We wanted to see the movie this week, "My life in ruins" about a woman who is a tour guide in Greece, but that conflicts with "The closer," my husband's favorite show (watches at a neighbor's since we don't have cable here). So I'm not sure what night we'll go--maybe Wednesday. On Tuesday Gretchen is giving a talk on aprons at 1:30 at Green Gables--not sure if I have to join to hear that. Wednesday at 3:30 there's a book review of 3 cups of Tea which our book club is doing this year. There are pre-symphony talks on Tuesdays 7-8. On Wednesday afternoon also at 2:30 is our herb class tea at the hotel. There was an art class I was considering M-Th, but met at 6 p.m., so maybe I'll just stay home and practice what I learned in the last two! And then there are all those books--bagful for one dollar--I bought yesterday.

CBS covers Lakeside

Friday night someone told us Lakeside had been on the news. We missed it, but here it is.


Watch CBS Videos Online

High Calorie day at Lakeside

Sunday morning we go to the Patio Restaurant for a pancake and eggs. Most people know Brent and Heidi are famous for their donuts, but frankly, the pancakes are the best on the peninsula, or maybe the Northcoast. So what is that with dripping butter and hot syrup? 1,000 calories? Then this afternoon was the ice cream social and band concert on the hotel lawn. The day had started cool and cloudy, but by 2:30 the sun was brilliant and the sky cobalt blue (I took art class last week and relearned my colors). The servings were generous--so big in fact I ate both scoops of butter pecan ice cream but only a few bites of the chocolate cake with caramel icing. We sat in rocking chairs on the sidewalk in the sun.

All of a sudden it was 3:30 and I was getting sleepy listening to the marvelous band music, in the warm sun, with a cool lake breeze. But I remembered at the last minute the Women's Club Book Sale and headed over there with a $10 bill. Didn't need it because by then the books were going for a grocery bag for $1.00. Not much left, but I did pick up a first edition of Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I checked it on the internet and found one that pretty much matched what was in my sack:

LETTERS OF EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY
MacDougall, Allan, ed.

Harper & Bros, NY, 1952. Hard Cover. Book Condition: Fair. No Jacket. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. LC# 527291. 384pp, index. Grey paper boards, green cloth spine, gold lettering on fading spine, wear to edges and corners; foxed on lower fore-edges and small amount on front and back covers, fading at edges, initials on front end paper, slight tanning of pages.

$20.00 plus shipping

So for ten cents (average), not bad, plus it's fun to read.

"Arthur darling,

This will be one of the most unpleasant letters you ever received, and I'm sorry. But it's time I got this matter off my chest and onto yours, where it belongs. . .

Dear Lulu [Llewelyn Powys]

I am so sorry about your brother [died 1936]. I think about it, and I say to myself, "There is nothing to say". Yet perhaps there is something to say, only I don't know what it is. I am the last who could teach you how to fit into the pattern of your life the death of someone you love; I have no skill at this."

Isn't that too wonderful for words? Her prose is as good as her poetry! This book will be a charmer, even fading and foxing on the fore-edges.

Let’s not confuse summer jobs programs with “recovery”

"President Barack Obama promised green jobs to be funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and those federal stimulus dollars are the focus of a new program in Beloit that's putting young people to work and saving energy." Story from Beloit, Wisconsin.

There is nothing new in the world of politics and jobs programs. I’m sure we had them even before FDR raised them to their glory in the WPA. Perhaps it’s a family legend, but I remember stories of the “Tennessee migration" to Ogle County, Illinois, aided by my great-grandfather, Grandad Ballard, who got his friends and relatives jobs on the road crews for the county in the early 20th century.

In the 1980s I worked on a contract program funded by the JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act, which replaced a public works jobs program, CETA, 1974-1982) and the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services (or was that Unemployment? Labor?). I was a Democrat; my boss was a Republican and also my aerobics instructor; her boss was a Republican; his boss was a Democrat at the cabinet level; her boss was Governor Gilligan, a Democrat and the father of former Kansas Governor Sebilius, now head of HHS of the Obama administration. I believe the President at that time was a Republican named Reagan. The problem with all these federal jobs programs is that either they train for jobs that aren't there, or they are the actual jobs with nowhere to go. Either way, the poor usually stay poor with the government's help. This Wisconsin ARRA program is a jobs program, almost guaranteed to go nowhere. I think 5 young adults are "energy advocates." They are teaching people to do what our mothers taught us back in the 1950s.

"Members of a team of five from the Beloit area are called Energy Advocates. They are all between 18 and 24 years old, and their job is teaching others to save energy and money.

"(We remind people to) turn off their appliances when they're not using them. You're still pulling energy in just because they're plugged in," said Sharome Crawford.

Crawford uses devices like kilowatt readers, energy efficient light bulbs, low-flow shower heads and sink aerators to help residents cut costs.

"You're going to have the full capacity of water, and it's going to keep your bills low," he said, displaying the low-flow sink aerator.

The Department of Workforce Development program gives these young workers training for future careers."

In what? Nanny state community organizing? Well, some do get to the top that way.

I learned so much in that 6 mo. JTPA job--about how hard some lower level, career government employees work, and how others who do nothing were appointed because of connections and donations to the party (either). My job specifically was in a training program to get seniors (over 55) re-employed and re-trained because the recession during the Carter years was not unlike today's but with both high inflation and high unemployment. We worked through the Private Industry Councils (PIC) and the Area Agencies for Aging. Even though I was a novice at government largesse and wealth transfer, even I could see that dollars were taken from the taxpayer, filtered through a variety of huge departments in Washington like Labor, then partially returned to the states, and then to various levels within the state, and counties, each agency and official (and contract worker like me) getting a cut along the way.

Lakeside cottage architecture, pt. 6

The Ross Hips, pt. 2
The Ross Hips, pt. 1

My first experience with a Ross cottage was the one we rented our first vacation week in Lakeside in 1974, although I didn't know it until I checked the address at the archives on Saturday. Also, my friend Nancy who first told us about Lakeside lives in one on 2nd Street which her parents bought in 1946.

Our first place was 228 Plum--a four family and our rent was $45/week. This home has since been turned into a double--or maybe it was originally a double and had been changed to house more families. There was also a sleeping porch at the rear--no air conditioning or fans in the early 20th century, so sleeping porches with push out shutters to let air in were essential.

The ones on either side of 228 are not Ross Hips, but the two further down at 2nd and Plum are, one has been redesigned to have a second story gabled roof porch, not my favorite for a hip roof, however, it gives them a wonderful, open view of the park and lake.

I believe this was our rental the next summer, also a four family and was lakefront, so we had some great views when the storms rolled in. The two to the left of it are also Ross Hips, the one called Northeaster borders the tennis courts and sits where the old power site was.

Sunrise on July 18, 2009

Front page and center--NYT features soldier suicides

Isn't it nice the NYT wants to feature a suicide story front page with a 3 column wide photo about a 2007 death of Jacob Blaylock. Of course, no bias against the war or soliders on their part, right? The death of any soldier or former soldier, during combat or later from mental illness, is tragic. In WWI there were battles whose names we don't remember that wiped out 7,000 men in a few days--I'm sure the survivors had a difficult time the rest of their lives wondering "why did I live?." However, after you get past the "ain't it a shame that we're at war" theme and you get into the story, you find the featured soldier had many demons. ". . . the elements for disaster were in place long before he went to war." So it wasn't just the death of 2 in his unit or combat (he was in a transportation unit). Financial troubles, huge marital and custody battles, a sensitive nature, moody, the butt of jokes and teasing, apologetic, but musical and poetic. Into the second page, which many don't read, "Researchers of military suicide find not a single precipitating event, but many." "Soldiers who kill themselves are also likely to have a history of emotional troubles. . . "

So the reporter's mined that hole, and moves on to "screening." Why was he even in the Army? He'd been discharged once for mental health issues, but was "called back up when the Army was desperate for troops." NYT also got ahold of his VA private health records for treatment for depression--whether from someone inside or a family member, it doesn't say, but that's just a hint about privacy and health.

Then there's an itsy bitsy chart on the third page. Army suicides were well below the civilian rate up through 2004, and began to rise above the civilian rate in early 2007. Do you suppose the constant drum beat in the media and Congress-- Murtha, Pelosi, et al--against them had anything to do with their sense of mission, self-esteem and willingness to sacrifice, especially if they were fragile to begin with?