Forget Maytag

When we moved here in 2002 I bought a matching washer and dryer--I'd never had a matched set. My older models used to last 15-20 years, but they'd wear out on a different schedule. I'm about to go back to a mismatch. My Maytag dryer, which has been a constant frustration for seven years because it balls the clothes instead of fluff, needs a new motor, according to the repair man, to whom I gave $35 just to come and look at it. We thought it was the timer-switch, and even that was going to be about $150 with labor, but the motor is much more expensive, both in parts and labor. What a piece of crap. The repairman said he bought a rebuilt Maytag about 15 years ago, and now at 30, it's still going strong, but the new ones aren't worth piddle.

Anyone have a recent model (not Maytag) they'd recommend? The washer squeals when stopping after spin cycle, so maybe I should just start over with one of those efficient models. I have a CD coming due, and that's certainly not worth reinvesting, so maybe that's the route to go.


I'm not sure of the date of this photo, but I think it's about 1953, and my mother had her first automatic washer and dryer. Before that she used a wringer washer and we either hung the clothes in the basement (which I've been doing this week), or outside if the weather was good. These were in the downstairs 1/2 bath which in an earlier era, was a porch to the back yard, so this bathroom had four doors, one to the kitchen, one to Dad's office, one to the outside, and one to the basement. My mother was about 40-41 in the photo.

Do leftists know people are employed in the food industry?

The food industry--agribusiness, processors, packagers, designers, marketers, chemistists, nutritionists, magazine writers, etc.--will continue to be under attack by the left as we inch our way through the health care mess. Diabetes, cardiovascular problems--it's all the fault of evil capitalism, not our genes, not our personal choices.

Here's an item from today's paper that will thrill Michael Pollan. Even by suggesting in his editorial that the food industry is the next target of the Obama surrogates, he's probably killed investment.

"Marzetti Pfeiffer foods plant is to close in western New York putting 150 people out of work." Link

Oh look. The announcement came on 9/11--maybe the President could find volunteer jobs for all those people in Wilson, NY.

Back to the gardens and kitchens ladies! Drop those brief cases and get out the aprons. It's your patriotic duty.

Dear Ted Celeste

You are a nice guy. I think you are one of the few democrats I voted for. But really, today's editorial on civility was a bit one sided. One Republican yelled out in a fit of righteous anger, "You Lie," to a President who was lying to Congress and the American people, and you just fall apart. The only items you listed were failings of the Republicans. That's odd. Listen to these NO's and Boo's during Bush's important (and truthful) speech on Social Security, when Democrats were the minority party, before 2006 when they set in concrete really rude behavior--like Barney Frank's imitation of Joe McCarthy, or confirming tax cheats like Timothy Geithner and wackos like Cass Sunstein who perform as Obama surrogates.

You suggest people look in the mirror, and Ted, that's an excellent idea, especially for Democrats with a poor memory, and those who worry about "birthers" on the right but ignore "truthers" on the left, even appointing them to influential offices within government where they can continue their paranoid hate in comfort.

Bag Lady in suburbia

Bag lady you gone hurt your back
Draggin all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you

One day all them bags gone get in
You way (x4)

So pack light (x4)
Bag Lady sung by Erykah Badu


I saw a young, slender attractive "bag lady" in the coffee shop--don't know what else to call her. She had 4 or 5 large bags outside next to the window so she could keep and eye on them, and inside she was sorting compulsively through smaller bags, wallets, boxes, etc. She was dressed for cool weather. I remember seeing her about 5 or 6 years ago at Caribou when unemployment in Ohio was under 5%, so I don't think the current Obama economy is the cause of her condition. She's probably eligible for numerous programs, especially if she's disabled because of mental illness, but perhaps in her mind the social workers just want to entrap her. Or maybe she just lives in the neighborhood and enjoys carrying her worldly possessions with her. Over the years, I've seen several mentally ill regulars at local coffee shops. Once I saw one attack the manager, and he was even with his care taker, so when I see him I usually go to a different store.

Where's the splashy headlines about this killing?

On A6 of the Columbus Dispatch I read about the murder of a Michigan man--an abortion protester. The killer, according to the news account, didn't like the activist holding a sign with graphic images of a fetus in front of students. So he shot the guy in front of the students--I suppose in his twisted mind, that wouldn't disturb them. The killer then went to a business and shot another man, and was on his way to kill a third, when he was shot by the police. Apparently he wasn't a minority, because there was no mention of an investigation of the police killing an armed and dangerous man. But also, the press and the president haven't taken much notice. Remember back in May?

"The killing of abortion doctor George Tiller, who was fatally shot in his Kansas church Sunday morning, drew a flood of denunciations from President Obama along with liberal and conservative lawmakers and abortion rights groups and abortion foes. The murder occupied front pages and led news broadcasts for nearly three days."

At the same time an army recruiter William Long was killed and Quinton Ezeagwula wounded by a Muslim terrorist (homegrown) but Obama, the men's Commander in Chief, didn't even blink. Attorney General Eric Holder called for protection of abortion clinics, but ignored the killing of a U.S. soldier and ignores the attacks against U.S. military facilities since 9/11.

Some lives, matter, some don't. Abortionists and terrorists get a pass during this administration.

Julia and Michael

Recently at Lakeside's Orchestra Hall (only movie theater in Ottawa County) I enjoyed Julie and Julia, which is not just about cooking, but also marriage and blogging. It's rare you'll ever see a movie about happily married people, but this be one! So it also launched Michael Pollan, who wants the government in your kitchen, pantry and shopping list, to comment on what overstuffed pigs we all are and why after Obama takes over 1/6 of the economy with his healthcare grab he should start in on the food industry. His book was also featured in the Public Library of Cincinnati moving slide feature (which moves way too fast for my reading level).

"The imminent release of Julie & Julia has so far launched about 5,000 articles, and this weekend, Michael Pollan will bring us one more. The film has inspired Pollan to pen over 8,000 words in The New York Times Magazine about, among other thing, the rise of cooking as a spectator sport, the decline of home-cooked meals, the evils of the processed food industry, and the brilliance of Meryl Streep.

As for whether Americans can reverse the trend that's taken us away from the kitchen and towards permanent posterior indentations on the couch, one food-marketing researcher Pollan interviews isn't optimistic: "We're all looking for someone else to cook for us. The next American cook is going to be the supermarket. Takeout from the supermarket, that's the future. All we need now is the drive-through supermarket."" The village voice

I just love being able to walk two blocks at Lakeside to the Farmer's Market, but I've read enough of 19th and early 20th c. women's magazines to know that eventually the greenies and the feminists are going to be butting heads. No one embraced the processed food industry more than the women who had sweated in the sun digging potatoes, drowning bugs, canning tomatoes and meat from the butchered stock, (I gag even remembering the texture and taste of home canned meat) and selling their eggs to put junior through school. Yes, we certainly don't need 14 versions of the Ritz cracker, nor do we need the federal government telling us what to eat.

The health care bill is just the first step says Pollan who lives and performs in Berkeley. You can expect more government control after this one is done.

"All of which suggests that passing a health care reform bill, no matter how ambitious, is only the first step in solving our health care crisis. To keep from bankrupting ourselves, we will then have to get to work on improving our health — which means going to work on the American way of eating." His NYT op ed

It is always the dream of the liberal to find that next big thing--like purifying water which totally changed life expectancy in this country, or spraying mosquitoes with DDT which rid us of the scourge of malaria, or small pox vaccines, or the polio vaccine (needed because we cleaned up the water supply), or TB screening tests. I don't think changing our diets will be that, but they'll try any way, some in good faith, others for the power over our lives.

Mary Jo (my rep), asleep at the switch

Stammering cliches, garbled platitudes, lies about wellness savings. Is this what the rest of you are getting from your representatives?

OSU Library renovation declared Stupendous

It's considered a success. Link with photos. I haven't seen it yet.

New magazine, Cesar's Way

Today I bought a copy of Cesar’s Way, a first issue journal, for my collection. It promotes the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, a program I’ve watched a few times on cable. Until I glanced through it, I didn’t realize he had such a love affair with pit pulls. They are everywhere in this magazine. The photo that really disturbed me was on p. 19: Halle Berry in Miami Beach playing with a neighbor’s dog--a pit bull. The toddler in the photo appears to be her daughter, but children shouldn’t be encouraged to play with strange dogs. ALL DOGS WILL BITE--they especially will bite children whose actions they don’t understand or which appear threatening to them. If Cesar has pit bulls and trusts them, fine, but this magazine encourages their selection as pets for families, and that's dangerous for your neighborhood.

According to the Examiner.com, only Ohio has a breed specific dog law singling out pit bulls, and it is considering legislation (H.B. 79) that would keep them from being labeled inherently vicious. But in Lucas County (Toledo) where Ohio State Representative Barbara Sears, who is from suburban Toledo, introduced the bill, over 1350 pit bulls were picked up in 2007.

According to DVM360.com, other states are considering breed specific bills. In Montana, House Bill 191 seeks to prohibit the ownership, harboring, or keeping of dogs described as pit bulls. The legislation considers pit bulls to include Staffordshire Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and "any dog that has the physical characteristics of a pit bull.

In Oregon, H.B. 2852, introduced in March, would require pit bull owners to have $1 million in insurance to cover any economic or non-economic damages that result from physical injury or any damage their dog causes to personal or real property. Of course, what insurance company would do that?

Hawaii Senate Bill 79 would prohibit the ownership, possession or sale of pit bulls in the state.

A New Mexico bill introduced in February would have automatically labeled pit bulls and Rottweilers as dangerous. Under current law there, any owner of a dog deemed to be dangerous must be spayed or neutered, microchipped and registered each year.

Many dog shelters are overrun with pit bulls. Nice pit bulls exist, says Sharon Harmon, Oregon Humane Society executive director, but "you can't escape the fact that it's a dog bred to kill."

They called Bush a liar and terrorized our soldiers with rumors

So will they stand up and apologize on the floor? No, of course not, because the biggest hypocrites in the world are the Democrats in Congress. They want Joe Wilson to apologize again for saying, "You lie." Obama was lying practically every other sentence. Who's going to make him apologize to the people? And hasn't the President used this as a wonderful teachable moment--blaming all the vitriol on the other side and not himself?

"Mr. Obama then turned to use Wilson as something of an example – making this a teachable moment, perhaps – saying that “we have to get to the point where we can have a conversation about big, important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol, without name- . . ."

Oh gag! Hot Air said it best

"That’s why you farm out the rhetoric about “evil-mongers” and “political terrorists” to halfwits like Harry Reid and Democrats in the House instead of dirtying those dainty hands of yours. But as painful as the vitriol might be to your tender Hopenchangey heart, you never open your mouth to specifically rebuke your own side, do you? A wise man once had something to say about presidents who don’t keep their surrogates in line, but never mind, I guess. Enjoy the lecture from Captain Civility."

I've been pulling weeds today on my walk. There are many, but I've selected just one--don't know its name. Small single root, with tiny leaves, and it branches out and spreads like crazy, killing everything around it; and loves the heat of the curbs. If you can find the root and give it a yank, the whole thing--about 2' in circumference--comes up. I've christened it "Obamacare."

The Wisdom of Sarah Palin

"Ezekiel Emanuel is upset. The president's health care czar sees the growing resistance to his vision, to his brave new world of government-run "communitarian" health care in which politicians and bureaucrats control one-sixth of the economy and 100% of our bodies. He doesn't quite understand how it all came apart on him, but he does know who started the unraveling: Sarah Palin. . .

Sarah Palin had done the unthinkable. She had read the health care bill. Mainstream journalists hadn't read the bill. Congress hadn't read its own bill. But Sarah Palin did. Sarah Palin! He has a medical degree and doctorate in political philosophy from Harvard. The only Harvard she's knows is the chunk of ice off Prince William Sound, Harvard Glacier.

Then she writes something on Facebook -- Facebook, for Obama's sake! -- and suddenly the president, congress, the media, and everyone who is anyone inside the beltway is scurrying for cover. Palin wrote that she wanted nothing to do with Obama's "death panel," the collection of bureaucrats who Zeke was so proudly putting together to assess the "level of productivity" that would determine individual access to medical care. . .

No, Zeke believes that those who know better, who understand morality, should make decisions for those less able to do so. Like Sarah Palin. Like Trig. Like your grandma. And this is because he cares. Just ask him." Read the whole article; this woman makes me proud!

HT Pat in North Carolina, another senior blogger paying attention

What we can learn from the plight of Pakistan’s Hindus

Will Obama be honoring them on one of their holy days?

Hugh’s comments on Jihad Watch

The percentage of Pakistan's population that is Hindu has gone from 15% at partition to 1.5% today. The percentage of Bangladesh's population that is Hindu has gone since partition from 35% to 8%. Meanwhile, the percentage of Muslims in the population of India has gone steadily up. The same kind of thing can be seen everywhere where significant non-Muslim minorities have existed. The percentage of Christians -- Copts, Maronites, Assyrians and Chaldenas, in the total population of Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq -- has gone steadily down. The same is true in North Africa, where after the French left, the screws were turned on the Christians who remained. As for the Jews, they were subject to so many attacks that the Arab lands emptied out of them, and in Iran, when the Shah fell, and under Khomeini Islam returned with a vengeance and legal (and informal) protections for Jews as for Baha'is and Christians ended, the Jewish population went way down It is the same everywhere in the Muslim-ruled lands.

Meanwhile, in Western Europe, every European country opened itself to Muslim immigrants, offered them every conceivable benefit generous welfare states could offer, and whose non-Muslim taxpayers funded. Free medical care at the Western level, free education, free or heavily subsidized housing, family allowances (and Muslims have large families), and so on, and by now there may be 20 million Muslims in Western Europe, the historic victim of Muslim attacks (in East and in West, from Poitiers to Vienna), either by armies, or by ships with Muslim raiders who for many centuries ravaged the coasts of the non-Muslim lands, even going so far as Ireland and, once, Iceland. About 1.25 million non-Muslims were kidnapped by Muslims from Western Europe. In the East, among the Circassians and Georgians, and the Slavs, there were similar Muslim raids, and seizure and then enslavement of men, women, children.

Is there nothing to be learned from this? Does the Western world, or those in it who presume to protect us, not have a duty to know this history, both in the distant and in the recent past, and to draw some conclusions from it?

Phyllis Chesler writes

“. . . the fact that I support America and Israel and oppose Islamic jihad and Islamic gender and religious apartheid means that my reputation as a feminist–and the work done by conservatives on behalf of women–must be either demonized or disappeared.”

Read her views on Muslims, women, sex slavery, battered women, religion, Israel and conservatism at Pajamas Media, Chesler Chronicles.

Medical news Obama can use to ration or change health care

Nearly 50,000 older adults are treated for injuries related to falls involving a walker or cane each year in the USA.

Cancer drugs that produce only a marginal survival benefit are much too expensive. The NIH and the NCI are urging limits on the use and pricing of such drugs.

There have been reports of impaired renal function in people taking a once-yearly infusion of zoledronic acid for the treatment of osteoporosis and Paget disease.

Removal of organs from the dead donor is the norm in the West, but internationally, that's not the case.

Diet and exercise intervention in older, long-term survivors of colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer can reduce functional decline.

"Obama has to provide strong reasons for the average individual in our society for wanting to embrace health reform," said MSU Medical Ethics Professor Dr. Leonard M. Fleck. Fleck advocates in his writings the theories of John Rawls (Karl Marx lite).

Every year in the USA tens of millions of prescriptions are dispensed and billions are spent for antithrombotic medications and acid-suppressing drugs. Elderly patients can be at risk from prolonged use.

Past use of hormone therapy with estrogen plus progestin increases the risk of dying from non-small cell lung cancer for women who develop the disease. Especially for smokers.

Thousands of veterans may have been exposed to contaminated endoscopic equipment (hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV).

Three health insurance companies CEOs were grilled by Congress about rescission if the information supplied at application is inaccurate or misleading (cancelling coverage of policyholders). The committee noted it is legal, but unfair, so they smacked them anyway.

Bottled water and tap water are regulated by 2 different government entities. Requirements for bottled water (FDA) are less stringent than tap (EPA).

There are 2.8 million new cases of chlamydia each year, about half in females aged 15-25. The solution seems to be more screening, not responsible behavior or education. Certainly not chastity pledges!

The Mediterranean-type diet has been associated with healthful outcomes including reduced risk of cariovascular disease, cancer, and mortality, and more recently with cognition. Mid-life obesity, diabetes and hypertension are risk factors for late-life dementia and influenced by diet.

The most common reason for referral to adult protective services by "first responders" required through Title XX of the Social Security Act, is self-neglect, not abuse by a care giver (4 to 1). Society and the health care system have failed the most vulnerable older adults. While we look for evidence and solutions, we must act NOW!

Women physicians who travelled to Chad (Africa) heard stories of women living in Farchana Camp (UN) of rape, torture, beatings and stigma after fleeing genocide in Darfur at the hands of the Sudanese Army and Janjaweed militiamen (Arab Muslim against black Muslim). The American researchers themselves were in great danger during their time in Africa.

The increase in drug-related homicides in Mexico (400 a month) is a result of the Mexican government's crackdown on drug trafficking organizations, but it's really the fault of the demand in the US, not the supply in Mexico.

Although they can't find any evidence of health benefits for "intimate partner violence" screening, it should be implemented and rigorously tested anyway. It's the thought that counts. And the grant money.

All stories taken from JAMA August 2009 issues.

The Madison Miracle

As you probably know if you live in the midwest, Madison, Wisconsin is our most left leaning city. Detractors sometimes called it the "People's Republic of Madison," or "The left coast of the midwest" and it is the home of "The Progressive." I've only been there once or twice, and so I'm just passing along rumors about its reputation. Personal observation here. A recent issue of JAMA had an interesting CDC study on Dane County (Madison) on the the Infant Mortality Gap. JAMA itself is editorially a very liberal journal (with almost all the advertising from pharmaceutical companies), so it's important to remember that "gap" is the key word here--it's what liberals care most about--especially academicians and researchers paid by government grants. Never the individual, or even the group, but the GAP. It doesn't matter one bit if a second generation Hispanic family lives in a home with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3 color TV sets, and a 2 car garage, because if a 5th generation white family has 6 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 4 HDTV sets, and a 3 car garage, you have a terrible gap problem that only demonstrates the evils of free market capitalism.

Well, somehow, the Infant Mortality Gap has disappeared in Dane County, and they can't figure out why--obviously, someone has miscalculated, because this just can't happen, not even in liberal Madison. I was a little puzzled too, reading through the stats

Of a population of 472,000 in 2007, only 4.8% is black

black women giving birth in Dane County have a median household income of $28,103 compared to white women giving birth with a household income of $50,927

77% of the black women giving birth are unmarried, compared to 19% of the white women (That ought to clear up the household income problem, right? Two incomes instead of one--duh!)

71% of the black women giving birth in Dane County have a high school diploma or less versus 21% of the white women (This is a very awkward way to say the white women are more likely to be college educated--the University of Wisconsin is located there.)

and

62% of the black mothers are on Medicaid, but only 13% of the white mothers in Dane County.

Despite poverty ($28,103 is called poverty in this study), out of wedlock births, and incomplete education, the gap has disappeared. So they're looking for all sorts of possibilities since 2002, the first year of the decline--increase in graduation rate, reduction in smoking, improved prenatal care, better record keeping, broader health insurance coverage, targeted public health programs, better neighborhood safety, advocacy for black women and their families and other variables. For now it will remain a mystery, because anything good that happened during the Bush Administration will have to be debunked, especially in Madison.

Personality development in adulthood

Most of this research sounds like common sense. I remember my pediatrician reminding me that children are born with their personalities, same as eye color, intelligence, athleticism, etc. Check the webpage of Brent W. Roberts, University of Illinois, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, who was featured in the last U of I LAS News.

Highlights of Recent Findings of Brent W. Roberts

Personality traits predict mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment as well as, if not better than socioeconomic status and cognitive ability (Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, in press).

Personality traits continue to change in middle and old age (Roberts, Helson, & Klohnen, 2002; Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006). Specifically, people become more socially dominant, conscientious, and emotionally stable as they age.

People who are engage in counterproductive work behaviors (e.g., fighting, stealing, malingering) become more more alienated and less controlled than people who do not engage in counterproductive work behaviors (Roberts, Bogg, Walton, & Caspi, 2006).

People who become more involved in work and stay in stable marriages increase on measures of conscientiousness over time (Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2003; Roberts & Bogg, 2004).

People change their perception of their environment more than they change their self-perceptions over time (Harms, Roberts & Winter, 2006).

Goals for investments in work and marriage are related to increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness in college (Roberts, O'Donnell, & Robins, 2004)

People who are more conscientious avoid most of the risky behaviors that lead to premature mortality and participate in the positive health behaviors associated with longevity (Bogg & Roberts, 2004).

Glenn Beck and ACORN

Yesterday on both the radio and TV shows, Glenn Beck played a tape of an interview at a Baltimore ACORN program that assists people applying for government subsidies for mortgages, helps with tax problems, and other assorted problems. A tour of the beautifully designed ACORN-ilk websites which lured unqualified people into sub-prime mortgages with government kick-back loans, to then running foreclosure workshops (all with government grants), or to borrowing government money to fix up the damaged home they helped them buy are disgusting. ACORN takes their cut at every level. Membership fees isn't how ACORN makes its money or pays its staff.

Yes, the Beck information was shocking, but not more important than the health care scam or cap and trade or automobile take over or the McCarthy-worthy interrogation that Barney Frank put on a few months ago.

Whether you love or hate ACORN, every smarmy act by the Baltimore ACORN staff could be explained.

For those who love ACORN, it could be (and the one you'll hear the most), 1) it's just one bad apple, these people do fine work; 2) it was all staged; 3) legally a prostitute only has to report the income, and all the ACORN tax advice was correct; 4) the ACORN workers were not being judgemental and that's the most important value in today's world (work in a phrase from the Bible here if possible); 5) and then ACORN apologists will segue to Christian, Jewish or other faith based organizations who have made similar "mistakes." They'll for sure bring up scandals they've read about priests. Maybe some witch burning in American history--that's always good. Or homosexual evangelical pastors visiting male prostitutes, etc. It's key to remember that for the left, hypocrisy (not sex slavery of children, not laundered money, not lying), is the most evil of all sin. And that part about the illegal, under-age prostitution ring the mortgage applicants were going to use the house for? Well, that's all open to interpretation, and Media watch dogs and fact checkers on the left will parse that tape to shreds, and close their eyes and ears.

And if you think ACORN is evil, the spawn of Satan, and this tape just proves it, you'd better look at the "laundered" government grant money your own organization gets, because the federal government has been taking more and more power from the local level through laws and regulations for decades, then to support those programs it taxes us, then it turns around and passes that money back to the local jurisdictions, states, non-profits, universities, think-tanks, foundations, churches, and political groups like ACORN, to do the "work of the people." (There's a sidewalk going in on our street and I'm betting it's your stimulus money.)

President Bush's administration was extremely careless with oversite of outsourced government programs, and fertilized the dirt in which the little acorn has grown to a huge tree with deep roots and wide branches. Remember, before Obama, no president had spent more on social engineering programs than Dubya, especially in education. Obama has left him in the dust with his trillions compared to Bush's billions.

The crime Beck exposed (although it wasn't his tape or his investigation) isn't the corruption, like he claimed. There were plenty of YouTube videos of ACORN stealing votes and bussing voters across Ohio's state lines during the 2008 campaign, and we just let that go. ACORN helped elect Obama, so nothing will come of this tape. It's the routine usurption of our rights and stealing our money that has been going on for decades through many administrations that is the big crime.

If conservatives try to make ACORN the whipping boy for problems that go back to Wilson and Roosevelt and probably before, this mess will never be cleaned up and we should never, never again go into a foreign war to aid a 2nd or 3rd world country in becoming a democracy, because we don't do so great at representative government ourselves.

Check out these verbs! What bias?

Here's the USA Today's account of the 9/12 March on Washington:

Tea Party Patriots are storming the Potomac.The conservative activists who staged taxpayer tea parties last spring and packed town-hall-style meetings to rail against “Obama care” this summer plan to march here Saturday to protest what they call out-of-control government spending.

Encouraged by conservative commentators such as Fox’s Glenn Beck [obviously we old doddering fools couldn't find our way on our own] and organized virtually on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, the march will constitute “the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives ever,” says Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks. The advocacy group led by former House majority leader Dick Armey is planning the event, although other organizers say theirs is an unprompted movement.

And here's my guest blogger, pensioner Murray, from Illinois

"Tomorrow [Thursday] I leave for Washington DC. Why am I going? Well, I figure since my senators refuse to communicate with me about how they want to further infringe upon our freedoms, (or anything else) I will go to them and join thousands of other grass-roots people in hopes that we will make a difference. We have no other avenue! In case you don't know who the grass-roots people are, they are the crazy, misinformed old people who consist of Nazis, idiots, racists and people like you and me. The March On Washington promises to be the largest civil protest against the Federal Government ever. Yet, so far the media (with the exception of Fox News) has given the event zero exposure along with our legislators. But our legislators know we're out here cause most were afraid to face us as they cowered during their break and refused to meet with us. If you want to see any of this demonstration on 9/12 do not count on NBC, CBS, or ABC. You will have to tune to Fox News around 11:30 a.m. eastern time.

This protest March is about healthcare and the reckless spending that has guaranteed the recession to last for years to come and financially cripple our grand children. Obama says that we grassroots people have attempted to derail HIS health plan with lies and myths but have no plan of our own. Well, that's a lie. There are plenty of suggestions out there like tort reform, eliminating illegals from free care, letting Medicare negotiate the price of drugs and allowing insurance companies to cross state lines. These suggestion cost NOTHING but they aren't even in Obama's plan nor does he want to hear them. The reason is simple....these remedies go against the special interests groups pure and simple! If our legislators would have read the plan before they attempted to explain it to their constituents, they could have dispelled any myths or lies. But they obviously didn't know what was in the plan. Obama says he's gonna pay for it by taxing the insurance companies and taking 500 billion from Medicare which in turn implies that it won't cost you and I anything. Who the hell does he think has to replace the Medicare dollars and where will the insurance companies get the tax money? You see, every time our government gives away our tax dollars, we then get taxed not only enough to maintain the current bloated budget but also put back the money we gave away. The illegals and non-contributors say "Gracious Mucho" and us grass-root taxpayers say "OUCH" Obama says the special interests are cringing at the thought of this plan going through. Gee, that's not a lie?? As far as I know there hasn't been a major piece of legislation that has passed in years that hasn't been favorable to special interests. The prescription Drug Plan is the easiest example. That dog was written by special interests and is still barking plus all our legislators know it. That's one of the main problems with any bill that they pass, no matter how good or bad, we have to live with it forever.

Anyway, I'll be the good looking guy in the protest March carrying a sign that says "Put "WE THE PEOPLE" back in government". The reverse side will say " Where is ABC CBS NBC?" I put this on the back because I'm sure they won't be there covering the event but they will surely be there tonight when Obama tries to sell HIS plan.

Has anyone asked the question "Why is everyone waiting to hear what Obama wants?" What about what you and I want? Aren't we "WE the People"?

18,000 demonstrate on Sept 5 near Cincinnati, Ohio

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The Winter catalogues

Oh NO! And it's 80 degrees. Talbots and L.L. Bean are already here. However, glancing through both (What? a $99 "hoodie" are you crazy?) I noticed blazers seemed to be having a comeback. So this morning, I wore my tan jeans (Lazurus, birthday 2004) and my navy linen/rayon blazer ( Chadwicks ca. 1997) with a white shirt to the coffee shop. Then I read the article in WSJ--something about a jeans jacket over a mini-dress over pants, or something. And I'd just put the 80s in the back of the closet, and here they are again. Back to the drawing board. I'll just never be a fashionista. I used to say I looked better than a lot of women who planned to go to work, but I've noticed with the down economy, people are sprucing up a bit.

Yesterday I saw a woman who appeared to be of middle eastern origin wearing bright fuscia leggings, under a shear black mini-dress with a lot of jewelry and 3" high heels. At a 3 store shopping area in Upper Arlington. Did I miss a fad while I was gone for the summer?