The vilification of Pat Robertson

When the 700 Club Host referred to an old story that Haitians had made a pact with the devil 200 years ago for help in driving out the French and therefore had suffered greatly over the years, Christians and non-Christians, liberals and conservatives reacted in horror. This was a bit surprising to me. Western literature, music and folklore is filled with this story. Why should the Haitians have not known the story? Their masters were Europeans; their religion was Christian mixed with elements of African pantheism. This story was not original with Robertson--was this black Haitian preacher also vilified for telling the myth and then unpacking it biblically? What sort of reverse racism, and anti-western thought is this? Or, conversely, why is it that poor descendants of slaves can't get as caught up in this story as sophisticated, educated Westerners?

The idea of making a pact with the devil is deeply ingrained in our culture--Theophilus, Solomon, Virgil, Simon Magnus, the Faust legend and the literature, music and poetry that surrounds it, and of course, the real Doctor Faustus, who was a contemporary of Martin Luther and Melanchton. And let's not forget Louisa May Alcott, Pushkin, Liszt and Berlioz. And what about Hollywood? Isn't much of that or any modern entertainment just a pact to postpone death in a never ending quest for youth, money or fame?

Lunch out today

Usually on Fridays we go to the Rusty Bucket, but I'm eating lunch out today, and in an effort not to go up yet another size, I'll stick with that as my adventure of the day. Lunch with retired librarians. Yes, I know--you yawn--but really, that's a lot of smarts sitting around nibbling sandwiches or pie sipping decaf. And today it's at the MCL at Kingsdale, what the kids in the 70s and 80s (or maybe today) called the Medicare Lounge. I am one of the lesser stars in this constellation--most of them have a lot more education than I do and participate in many more activities. Adrienne, for instance, searches out organ concerts and special music events--and actually attends them! Susan, as I recall, is a master gardener or at least a wannabee. Chuck and his wife bicycle around the country, or at least the county. Eleanor is always on a cruise to interesting places. Jim is an expert on pottery and writes for archeology journals. Ruey has an advanced degree in piano, although I've never heard her play. Hardly anyone I know says at age 6, "I want to grow up to be a librarian." I told people I was going to be a missionary-doctor. Later I said I'd be a veterinarian. I think I know why. Most of the people you see behind a desk in the library, aren't librarians. The other day I got a complaint about a grumpy unhelpful librarian at Ohio State from a total stranger. I actually knew this guy, so I set him straight--that's not a librarian, but he was indeed the crabby face of the library.

It would also be a big help if the profession would settle on a name. I vote for "librarian."

Update: Our snowstorm rolled in about 9:30 a.m. The view from my office is now a delight of beautiful fat flakes--to watch, but not for driving. So lunch has been cancelled.

The Addiction Report

Here's an odd site to stumble into--The Addiction Report, with Tiger getting almost a perfect score. I was following a different lead--why 40 years after the current women's movement began major news stories are all about men especially athletes (9 headlines) when I came across this one on addiction, featuring Tiger Woods. Pretty interesting. If you've known any addicts or attended any 12 step programs, you've heard about the cross addictions, risk taking behavior and rage incidents.

"Read and learn through real life Runners Up for Stories of the Month from Doug Thorburn's January-February 2010 Thorburn Addiction Report, which can also be accessed at http://www.preventragedy.com

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods, involved in a 2 a.m. accident that seemed inexplicable, until the world learned of:

(1) his serial adultery with more than a dozen women (sexually compulsive; borrowing the methodology from Drunks, Drugs & Debits, 50% odds of alcoholism),

(2) the fact that he seems to have met most of these women in nightclubs and that most if not all of the women appear to be "party" girls (addicts often hang out with addicts; by itself probably 20%, but add 20% of the remaining 50%, or 10%; see "enablers of the month" below for the luscious details),

(3) that with at least two of the women he not only didn't use condoms, but didn't even ask if the women were using birth control (signs of a sense of invincibility and unnecessarily reckless behaviors; 50% by itself, but, sticking to the methodology, add 50% of the remaining 40%, or 20%),

(4) reported tantrums on the golf course (rage; by itself, 50%, but we can't go over 80% without proof of addictive use; so this simply provides more evidence that the odds of addiction are at least 80%),

(5) a report that he "had been drinking alcohol" before the incident (evidence of addictive use when combined with a misbehavior such as possible DUI; we've now exceeded 80% odds), and

(6) prescriptions to Ambien and Vicodin (which puts the odds of addiction at well over 90%). The fact that one of his mistresses reported he likes to have "Ambien sex" suggests he combines drugs, which with serial unethical behaviors ups the odds of psychotropic drug addiction and, therefore, an explanation (but emphatically not an excuse) for his extra-marital misbehaviors, to nearly 100%--or close enough to make runner-up for top story rather than merely "under watch" (whose denizens display behaviors suggesting 80% odds of addiction, but no greater due to the absence of proof of addictive use)."

But like the aide who covered for John Edwards' spooky behavior and make-believe liberalism, you do have to wonder about what was wrong with all the other golfers and hangers-on, friends, trainers and coaches, sports writers, doctors and club owners who watched all this and kept quiet. But having enablers around them, is also part of the scenario, and if you throw in a huge pot of money and a sense of power, you've got a very toxic mix more addictive and explosive than any drink ever could be.

And by the way, one of those nine stories actually was a woman--the death of Casey Johnson, daughter of Jets owner and heiress of the Johnson and Johnson fortune--a sad conclusion that the news is still all about men and sports.

217 Democrats committing suicide

When I got back from church tonight, I checked my site meter, and my blog about the Morgenthau quote had suddenly gone off the charts, so I back tracked through referrals and found I'd been cited by Roger L. Simon.

. . . the substance is true. The New Deal made the Depression worse – and we are doing it again, only with bigger numbers and more zeros. Furthermore, now the Chinese own us. We enact this nonsensical budget and we might as well give them the whole thing – the Statue of Liberty, McDonald’s and Apple Computer. No backsies. They can have Steve Jobs’ next iPad extravaganza in Shanghai. They build everything over there already anyway.

But unfortunately this is no joke. The passing of this budget is a straight out act of economic insanity. Everyone knows it. The 217 Democrats who passed it surely know it too. Only they are too corrupt to face it honestly. Shame on them. Shame on them. Shame on them.

Gays in the military and other hot, hot issues

Some of my views aren't shared with other Conservatives; that's because we don't have to march lock step like the Liberals. For instance, I think Ohio's drug sentencing laws are too harsh; I think there is an advantage to medical marijuana over more harmful "legal" drugs and it should be legally prescribed by doctors; and I think gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. But the rules will need to be just as strict for men who sexually and verbally harass men as they are for men who harass women. If a gay soldier causes a problem within the unit in which he/she serves, he's history. If a straight soldier can't accept that a gay guy will be watching his back, he's history. And none of that nonsense about victim perception. Let's not have careers and reputations ruined by hearsay and innuendo. The idea that today's young adults can't serve together in the military despite differences in sexual orientation when they've been taught nothing else but acceptance and kum-ba-yah since pre-school would mean an absolute failure of our school system. I may have my doubts about the reading and 'rithmatic, but they usually get the warm fuzzies right.

Brown, Becker and Card-check

“By being sworn in today, a week earlier than planned, Senator-elect Scott Brown has put himself in a position to help fellow Republicans scuttle a hotly disputed Obama administration nomination to the National Labor Relations Board next week.

A vote to appoint the prominent [SEIU, AFL-CIO] lawyer, Craig Becker, appears to be the only one in coming days in which Brown’s early arrival could make a crucial difference by giving Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate, allowing them to deploy the filibuster to block the nomination.” Boston Globe.

“Critics fear Becker would come to the board with a mission to implement the Employee Free Choice Act, using the board's regulatory powers to achieve in what Congress has not been able to do through legislation.

Unions favor the Employee Free Choice Act, which would substitute a "card check" procedure for secret balloting on union representation. Opponents say the card check approach would make it easier for union organizers to coerce employees into voting for union representation because the open process of checking to see if employees have signed union cards would replace voting in secret.

The U.S. Chamber of Congress, which represents more than three million businesses, had urged the Senate committee to reject Becker. The recommendation is only the third time in more than 30 years that the Chamber has opposed a nominee to the NLRB.” Dow Jones

"In a letter to key senators, the Society for Human Resource Management and 22 other organizations ask legislators to reject the nomination of Craig Becker for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Becker was nominated by President Barack Obama to the five-member board in 2009 and again in early 2010, after the Senate rejected the nomination. He has been criticized by some business and employer organizations because of writings that suggest that he would take an active role in increasing the power of labor unions on the NLRB, possibly bypassing the legislative process. Becker serves as counsel to two organized labor groups—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO—and has taught and practiced labor law for more than two decades. He helped draft the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the choice of how they would want to vote for union representation—by a card-check process or a secret-ballot election." SHRM

Rush, Rahm and the R-word

Media Matters and lefty journalists fall for Rush's phony outrage every time! I think it's just a way for all concerned to boost their ratings and then they all go out for a beer and chuckle at all their listeners/readers who flush and rage.

Yesterday Rush had a longer than necessary monologue about Rahm Emanuel calling members of his own party F-ing Retards. Well, as you can imagine, this didn't go over well with people who look out for our citizens with special needs--people who have a bully pulpit and a personal interest like Sarah Palin who's youngest child has Down's Syndrome. But, as usual, Rush just couldn't let it go and went on and on, using the R-word, stopping to say it was Rahm's term, not his. Nevertheless, now the lefties say Palin should smack Rush around for using "retard" even though he was clearly referring to Rahm. So today, he's on it again, this time with the number of times "retarded" is used in the current health care legislation (I'd wondered about that myself) and Obama's use of the word in his autobiography. For some reason, Rahm promised he will get the offending word removed from all legislation.

I don't know how old Emanuel is, but I first noticed "retard" being used casually as a joking pejorative and put down in the early 80s. Kids have been saying it for years. And I agree with Governor Palin, that no public official would be shouting "nigger" at people he disagreed with, and it's time for Emanuel to clean up his language. Also, I've long believed that men that scream "fuck" as a verb, adjective and adverb, are doing so to intimidate women, not men. Nothing about the F bomb though in the media outrage. That's apparently OK.

Rahm Emanuel is known as having the biggest, meanest, filthiest garbage mouth in government. Someone should wash his mouth out with soap and not just for being out of step with current acceptable language.

How to talk good while navel gazing and finger wagging

Be sure to read the comments. Link.

Champions for Life

101,603 people were in attendance at the SuperBowl game in 1987 and it is estimated that another 87.1 million watched. Maybe you were one of them.

Champions For Life from American Life League on Vimeo.

NFL Stars and Athletes For Life Mark Bavaro, George Martin, Phil McConkey, Phil Simms, Chris Godfrey, and Jim Burt are true champions in promoting the Culture of Life.

Footage from Superbowl 21
Date Played: January 25, 1987
Teams: New York Giants vs. Denver Broncos
Winner: GIANTS
Final Score: 39-20
Location: Pasadena, California

You lie--again

Organizing for Obama has changed its name. It's now Organizing for America. Since it is an organization to re-elect the President, I don't understand the name change. This isn't for America; that's a lie. He launched his presidency going after socializing health care, cap and trade, and major butt and cheek kissing and bowing, instead of rolling up his sleeves and restoring the economy the only way that works--letting business get down to the business of America--capitalism. Instead, he grew the government. He's increased government jobs more in one year than Bush did in eight--and Bush was the all-time big spender on social programs until he turned the White House over to Obama.

"Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering communities across the country to bring about our agenda of change."

I'm sure children will be suckered into "volunteering" for America through this organization.

Evolving online business, from books to writing

Today I stopped by an online book selling business blog (the blog was about the business which was at another site) that I sort of enjoyed, and discovered the owner had discontinued that effort, but is now writing for other online businesses. She'd become successful enough at finding and selling books, that she had begun to outsource, which cut into her profits and her fun. Story here. Now she's created a new site for her new business as a copywriter.

Are you looking at retirement homes?

We're not, but we thoroughly enjoyed visiting the new Willow Brook at Delaware Run in Delaware, Ohio yesterday. If you or your parents are at a stage where you're starting to think about this, I'd certainly schedule a visit. We visited our former neighbors, had a personal tour with them, and ate in the lovely dining room, The Water's Edge Restaurant, which incidentally has a French chef and is open to the public. The food was as good or better than any restaurant I've enjoyed recently.

Although this is not my favorite architectural style, nothing has been overlooked on the inside for tasteful decor and comfort of the residents. This facility just opened, so these owners/residents got to pick cabinet finishes, and extra features. A number of residents already had plans for the Erickson facility in Hilliard that went into bankruptcy, so there were some last minutes changes, and fortunately they got their money back. As I understand the plans, the area you see in this photo will eventually have buildings all around the little lake. Our friends' apartment faces the highway and a residential neighborhood (not all that close), which they just love because there is so much to look at from their large windows or balcony. They have an alcove in the living room which accomodates their grand piano--so you can see these are not small units.

At this time Willow Brook has 1 and 2 bedroom apartments and twin singles, and our friends also had a study so they were using the 2nd bedroom as a TV room. On the 3rd floor they have vaulted ceilings with gives a nice feeling of openess. There is an assisted care wing and a "memory care" wing on the first floor. There's a lovely library in the balcony area over the lobby, and we stopped by and chatted with the volunteers who were working to get the shelves stocked under the supervision of a retired librarian. There's an artists' workshop, an underground garage, exercise facilities with the latest in equipment, a chapel (not much there yet except chairs despite all the retired preachers), and a very large activity/banquet room.

We met a number of the pleasant staff including Larry Harris, CEO, and the chef, and some of the residents, many retired pastors and professors and business people. Willow Brook is part of Christian Communities (Church of Christ). There is also a Willow Brook Christian Village (about 20 years old) and Willow Brook Christian Home (skilled nursing and rehab).

So if you're starting to look, or you have a parent thinking of moving closer to the children, this facility is about a 45 minute drive from Arlington if you use Rt 33 and about 35 using Rt 315 (we tried both). Delaware is a college town with a nice business district--however, I'm sure there are so many activities planned for the residents they don't have much time to take in the local sights. We heard only two very mild complaints from two couples we know there--they haven't found a local church and haven't changed doctors, dentists, hair dressers, etc., and are still driving back to Columbus.

Added a new widget--a Google search for my blogs

Trying to remember what is where in my twelve blogs is a bit of a challenge. Each blog has a little search window at the top, and that is useful, and I can go into edit and look at all my subject headings (tags). However, while poking around the widgets I found I could the Google search. At first, I couldn't figure out what it would do, but I added it anyway (it shows at the bottom of this page). With this search feature, I can search any topic I may have written about, for instance "Lutheran" that I may have posted here or at one of my other blogs. Try it with "Mt. Morris" and quite a bit comes up.

Sally Jenkins on the Tebow Super Bowl Ad

It's easier to just provide a link rather than copy the whole thing (which is probably in violation of copyright). But Sally Jenkins, Sports writer for WaPo, is one tough dude!

"I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't. . . If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem." Read the whole thing.

Remember the Sears catalog in the outhouse?

It's back!

The mighty queens of Freeville

Our bookclub meets tonight and we will be enjoying together a great read--The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson. Amy replaced Ann Landers as "Ask Amy"--and after giving advice to others based on experience and small town values, she collected the snippets and pieces of her own life and put them in this delightful book. Although each chapter has a theme and could stand alone, Amy wanders in and out of her marriage, divorce, her parents' divorce, child rearing, location, age, church, house and career but manages to hold it all together. It's an adventure just following her train of thought.

I just clicked over and looked at her Feb. 1 "Ask Amy" column. Yup. Women are still dumb, after all these years. And I don't mean Amy. They still move in with a boyfriend when they have a primary responsibility to a child; they still can't come up with a put down for a fresh, married man. Don't want to lose the friendship. Duh! Doubt that is his concern.

Read the book. I recommend it. You don't have to be divorced or a single parent to get a lot out of it, but if you are, you'll love it even more.

Herb Garden Ciabatta

Click to enlarge so you can read the recipe.
From the article, "Bread for the soul" by Lisa Kingsley and Wanda J. Ventling, Lily; beautiful living through faith, Spring 2006, pp.86-93.

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35 (NIV)

Notice the Italian parsley has the symbol of the Trinity, unlike the more familiar curly parsley.

Looking for Lily

It seems that Lily never made it, poor thing. Lily; beautiful living through faith is a magazine in my premiere issues collection. For some reason, I didn't code the template of that blog to alert me when there were comments. Maybe I figured no one would comment? Anyway, that entry has had more comments than any other because people are looking for it. Because I need to start cleaning out (I should write a Thursday Thirteen meme on my odd ball collections, some of which have only 2 pieces)--and my first issue hobby which used to fit in the back of a closet until the mid-80s, is totally out of control. So the most persistent one will get it. She e-mailed and left a Facebook comment, plus a comment at the blog. The problem with sorting and arranging them either by size or topic is I always open one up and start to read.

Knowing it would be leaving me soon, I decided to reread Lily (I usually don't read my first issues, just examine them for bibliographic data and research the provenance a bit). There's a very nice story about Laurie Smith, one of the TLC channel decorators. So I blogged about that at my faith blog, Church of the Acronym. She compares the goal of home decorating with that of maintaining and enhancing the soul. There's a yummy bread recipe I might copy, too.

Ellie Light meet H. L. Harris

Ellie Light (I first heard this on radio and thought it was "L.A. Light") is now claiming to be a Californian--a guy--who sent letters to the editors of many major newspapers in the U.S. supporting Obamacare--42 newspapers in 18 states, as well as Politico. Here's the Cleveland Plain Dealer story. Who knows. Maybe this guy is just trying to cash in on Ellie's fame and mystery. However, it happened 100 years ago too, according to the Jan. 6 issue of JAMA, which always has a "JAMA 100 Years Ago" feature in each issue.

"Many and devious are the ways by which those who would "doctor" our food attempt to create public sentiment in favor of chemical preservatives. During the last few months a harmless looking letter signed "H.L. Harris" has appeared in the newspapers of those cities and towns in which deaths from ptomain poisoning have recently been chronicled. This letter--we use the singular advisedly--does not vary in its wording in different papers, except for the opening sentnence. . . Not only in the form of letters do we find these much-reiterated sentiments of Mr. Harris. Overworked editors occasionally use them en bloc to fill a gaping void on the editorial page." (Reports an incident in the Alliance, Ohio Review, Dec. 4, 1909.)

It seems that H.L. Harris was an advocate of using boron compounds as food preservatives, and it turned out he worked for the Pacific Coast Borax Company and sometimes used the name H.H. Langdon. He referred to himself as a food expert, but seemed to have only one topic--attacking pure-food legislation. Harris-Langdon differed from Ellie Light in that he focused on and fooled smaller town newspaper editors. 100 years ago there was no way for small town editors to check these things. Not so today. With Google, there's no excuse for editors, with their leftist bias and custom of carrying Obama no matter what, to not do a bit of checking when something seems "too good to be true." I do it with viral messages sent to me, and I'm just a blogger. Give those unpaid college interns something to do.

If you play you pay--Infections of Leisure

When I was a librarian at Ohio State's Veterinary Medicine library, I would buy textbooks for our reserve collection. Many academic libraries don't--in some fields like education or history that could break the bank. However, there's nothing like a good, solid, frequently revised and updated textbook to save you hours of time both in research and reading. What you'll find in chapter bibliographies, notes and illustrations could save you hours of searching on-line databases or poking around in Google, plus there's been expert editorial review for quality. Let's face it, most of us aren't writing or reading for publication but for information.

I won't request the 4th ed. of Infections of Leisure from my public library--I know what the response will be--you have an OSU address, get it from them. Well, no library in OhioLink has a copy; OSU has the 3rd (2004), parts of which have been digitized. Maybe it's in the pipeline, or maybe it's just the old librarian's prejudice against textbooks in their collections. But read this MD reviewer in the Jan. 6, 2010 JAMA:

"As one who has completed an infectious diseases followship, I was astounded by the amount of new material I learned from this book--even gleaning one particularly salient fact from a table comparing infections acquired from hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs."

So what are infections of leisure? For a huge number of us that means our pets--dogs, cats, birds, horses, rodents. Or even our neighbors' pets who are burying their feces in our garden, or dropping them where birds can help spread the problem. For others it is combining the ancient practice of tattooing and body piercing with 21st century pathogens or cruise ship travel. Titles of the 19 chapters are:

At the shore / Mark A Clemence and Richard L Guerrant
Freshwater : from lakes to hot tubs / Bertha S Ayi and David Dworzack
The camper's uninvited guests / Gordon E Schutze and Richard F Jacobs
Infections in the garden / Burke A Cunha and Diane H Johnson
With man's best friend / Julie M Collins and Bennett Lorber
Around cats / Ellie J C Goldstein and Craig E Greene
Feathered friends / Matthew E Levison
Less common house pets / Bruno B Chomel
With man's worst friend : the rat / James G Fox
Closed due to rabies / Jesse D Blanton and John W Krebs
Sports : the infectious hazards / Arezou Minooee, Leland S Rickman, and Geeta Gupta
Traveling abroad / Martin S Wolfe
From boudoir to bordello : sexually transmitted diseases and travel / Jonathan M Zenilman
Infections from body piercing and tattoos / Mukesh Patel and C Glenn Cobbs
Infectious diseases at high altitude / Buddha Basnyat, Thomas A Cumbo, and Robert Edelman
Infectious risks of air travel / Alexandra Mangili and Mark Gendreau
Perils of the petting zoo / John R Dunn and Frederick J Angulo
Infections on cruise ships / Vivek Kak
Exotic and trendy cuisine / Jeffrey K Griffiths

Humans are surprisingly smug about being able to control the planet or finding miniscule dangerous amounts of a chemical in processed food. Yet they can't control their own dangerous personal behaviors like oral/anal sex or cleaning up after their pets. We'd rather pass legislation costing billions but remain ignorant of many novel pathogens that jump from animal to man which we encounter every day--an area we could control. Maybe the library could buy one less book on global warming.

If you're interested, I've seen book sites selling this book for anything from $66 to $150. So shop around.