Fun to read--Men are from Mars, etc.

This came from Rusty, who has a nice jazz radio program on KAMU-fm in College Station on Friday afternoons and whom I didn't know in high school. It's probably an urban legend, but I got a big laugh.

Here's a prime example of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" offered by an English professor from the University of Colorado for an actual class assignment:

The professor told his class: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send a copy to me.

"The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending a copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth.

"Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails, and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail.

"The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:

THE STORY:

(first paragraph by Rebecca)

At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Bill)

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her.

"Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Bill)

Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.

(Rebecca)

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

(Bill)

Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.

Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F---ING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!

(Rebecca)

A$$h@le.

(Bill)

B*tch!

(Rebecca)

F*** YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!

(Bill)

In your dreams, Ho. Go drink some tea.

(TEACHER)

A+ - I really liked this one.

Religious Colleges should be allowed to follow their beliefs

even at sporting events. Goshen College, where my sister attended in the 1950s, is about 50 miles from Manchester, a Church of the Brethren college I attended. We shared a car (ca. 1951 Packard) to get back and forth to our parents' home in northern Illinois. Both colleges are picture post-card perfect, midwestern liberal arts schools. Goshen was recently in the news because a parent from a competing school athletic team complained that the Star Spangled Banner wasn't sung or played at athletic events at Goshen. I believe a compromise has been reached by using an instrumental version.

However, I was surprised to read in the paper that Goshen was still 55% Mennonite in student body. Mennonites along with the Quakers and Brethren are one of three historic peace denominations in the United States. In my family database I have many Mennonites and Brethren, and a few Quakers since they tended to hang out together in the 18th and 19th centuries. Are the rest of us really in danger of losing something if a few college students don't want to sing about an 1812 battle in a voice range that is almost impossible to reach and which celebrities regularly slaughter at base ball games?

Manchester's Brethren roots, on the other hand, are hard to find on the college web site. They are mentioned in the history section. Of the 10 or so MC web pages I searched with the "find" feature, Jesus' name appeared once. Environmentalism and religious pluralism are much bigger than Jesus at Manchester if pixels mean anything. At the About page the following values are listed: learning; faith; service; integrity; diversity; and community. It was hard to tell if there is any viable connection (other than funding support) from Church of the Brethren.

Anyway, I think little Goshen should stick to its guns--uh, um, its beliefs.

Fed Loses Secrecy Suit, Considering Options

The Federal Reserve lost an appeal March 19 in a bid to keep hidden the details of its estimated $2 trillion in bailouts to bankers around the world, prompting celebration among anti-Fed campaigners and promises of a continued fight from the banking cartel.


Read the story here

Iranian and Chinese funds support Obama

Hassan Nemazee was a prominent Democratic party fund-raiser. He pleaded guilty last Thursday to stealing hundreds of millions of dollars to buy property in Westchester County, donate to charity and give money to political campaigns. He was a national finance chairman for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign before raising more than $500,000 for Barack Obama's campaign after the Democratic National Convention in August 2008. Mr. Nemazee was charged with bank fraud on Aug. 25, 2009.

This Business Week account doesn't discuss his funding of the Obama campaign. Can you imagine this slipping through if it were Bush?

Iranian and Chinese funds support Obama, Biden, Clinton and Kerry

Conestoga Spring Soiree

Soiree. Doesn't that sound classy? Well, it was a lovely event, and I learned a lot of history. Conestoga is sort of a "friends" group of the Ohio Historical Society. We do really interesting things and once a year there is a fund raiser. This year it was at the Bricker-Doody House in Upper Arlington. I've driven past that house for 40+ years, so it was fun to get a peek inside, and to also learn the history of John Bricker, former Ohio Governor and Senator. He was Attorney General from 1933-37, Governor, 1939-1945, and in 1944 he was the Republican nominee for Vice President on Thomas E. Dewey ticket.

A reenactor performed as Senator William E. Jenner of Indiana, reminiscing about his days in the Senate with Bricker from the perspective of 1980 looking back on their careers (Bricker died in 1986, Jenner in 1985). It was fascinating. Also two of Gov. Bricker's grandchildren shared memories of staying in the house when they were children.

The home has been beautifully restored and expanded, and it was so nice of the Doody family to share it with us for a good cause.

January 21, 2009--On this day

President Obama should have hit the floor running to fix the economy. Instead we got apology tours, unspent and poorly planned ARRA funds for businesses and districts that don't exist, inexplicable loitering, dithering and floundering over military requests instead of decisive action, bailouts of auto companies to save the unions, and months and months and months of boring, repetitious campaign speeches on "fixing" health care where he lied and obfuscated through his teeth and teleprompter. This man doesn't understand basic math. Can he add 65 to 1945 and figure out the Boomers are going to be collecting Social Security? That pensions are invested in private companies? Can he do the math on what a national unemployment rate of between 9-10% (but locally much, much higher--18-19%) does to tax revenue at the state and local level, to say nothing of the federal?

So he's got less, owes more, and like a hoarder applying for another credit card from China, decides that fixing something that wasn't broken is more important than saving the economy. Why? I don't think it's "legacy." It's way beyond that. He's a marxist; wants to destroy our market economy. He needs passionately to dismantle it. It's all he knows; all he's been taught from the beginning of his sad, stunted life. We're seeing him take it down, piece by piece.

FDR abolished benefits for American veterans as an economy measure

Maybe that's why all those WWI veterans' photos and stories in Life and Look are so awful! Go to a library and see for yourself! Look what FDR did to the veterans--those guys who survived the enormous battles in France that took thousands of lives, who survived gassing and the flu pandemic. And it could happen again if you give a President too many powers like FDR had during the Depression to "restore" the economy.

Veterans Administration Created

President Hoover, in his 1929 State of the Union message, proposed consolidating agencies administering veterans benefits. The following year Congress created the Veterans Administration by uniting three bureaus - the previously independent Veterans' Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions and the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. President Hoover signed the executive order establishing the VA on July 21, 1930. Hines, who had served since 1923 as director of the Veterans' Bureau, was named the first administrator of the agency.

The new agency was responsible for medical services for war veterans; disability compensation and allowances for World War I veterans; life insurance; bonus certificates; retirement payments for emergency officers; Army and Navy pensions; and retirement payments for civilian employees. During the next decade, from 1931 to 1941, VA hospitals would increase from 64 to 91, and the number of beds would rise from 33,669 to 61,849.

In March 1933, President Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the "Economy Act." A response to the Great Depression, the measure included a repeal of all previous laws granting benefits for veterans of the Spanish-American War and all subsequent conflicts and periods of peacetime service.

It also gave the President authority to issue new veterans benefits. Roosevelt then promulgated regulations that radically reduced veterans benefits. When the President's authority to establish benefits by executive order expired in 1935, Congress reenacted most of the laws that had been in effect earlier."

You can read about this at the History of the VA.

Another fragile group FDR's new tax programs (tripled during the Depression) nearly destroyed was African Americans--one of his "new deals" threw half a million blacks out of work by raising wages above market levels and allowing union goons to organize by going after employees and employers alike with violence. Has a familiar ring, doesn't it?

Media focus is on racial slurs at tea party

Not on dirty trick tactics, bribes and pay-offs of our President and his Chicago goons. No one even knows if the slurs came from participants concerned about the slide into socialism or if they were Moveonover plants. Does it matter? Does the press ever report the obscene swearing and cussing when the left demonstrates? (BTW, weren't they having a war protest the same day? I didn't see any coverage.) The media doesn't investigate slurs when they are made against Conservatives--like when Fancy Nancy called them Astroturf or the sexual pejoratives. Or when the President the last few days of his recent campaigning threw out all the charges we've made, but didn't deny them? Racial slurs are never appropriate whether coming from the left or right. But the other side sure gets its dander up when they find minorites jumping the fence of the left-owned plantations.

I'm still looking for the men/media who can stop referring to women, even Tiger's lady friends, as bimbos, hotties, and words a real lady would never tolerate. 51.7% of us are female; 80% are white; 12.8% of us are over 65. If it's slurs you want to stop, let's spread the wealth of respect.

Country of Origin Labeling--COOL

I ALWAYS look for country of origin on packaged and fresh food. The 2009 7 CFR Part 60 and Part 65 obviously doesn't cover everything, like the "distributed by" note on the Trail's End Mix Gourmet Blend that was dropped off at my door today to promote Scouting. Not a word on the package about country of origin--raisins, cranberries, nuts, sugar. It should be my choice to purchase food grown in countries without the protections afforded us by the USDA. I never buy anything that will go on my skin or in my mouth that was made or created or grown in China--including toothpaste, hand lotion, etc. Look what the did to our pets; to their own infant formula. For other Asian nations, I'll decide on a case by case basis--like tuna or mushrooms. You really have to read the small print at Trader Joe's. Safe food is something the U.S. does well--and if the USDA would get out of the mortgage business (no money down, 100% financing) it would have more money to hire more inspectors.

Agricultural Marketing Service - Country of Origin Labeling

Sauerkraut-Raisin Drops

I saw this recipe at a defunct food blog. The writer said she'd never tried her grandmother's recipe because sauerkraut made her gag. I rushed right to the kitchen to make a batch, but discovered I was out of sauerkraut. Sigh. Maybe next week. My mouth is watering, so I ate some Girl Scout cookies instead. Not the same.

Sauerkraut-Raisin Drops

3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 8-ounce can sauerkraut, drained
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup raisins

In mixer bowl, beat the 3/4 cup butter and brown sugar till fluffy. Add egg, milk and the teaspoon of vanilla. Beat till fluffy. Rinse sauerkraut, drain. Stir sauerkraut into creamed mixture. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Mix dry ingredients into batter. Stir in the raisins. Drop from a teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool.

Do not frost.

Update: Made these on the 23rd. Really yummy. Can't taste the sauerkraut. However, it's hard to find an 8 oz. can of sauerkraut.

A peek at government health care in today's Dispatch

There's a brief article in the Dispatch today that is a peek at what we all can expect when the government controls our health care: lawsuits, people not signed up, information arrives too late to be useful, appointments are not set up, qualified recipients don't receive their medicine or services, or they are lost in the system.

Now this story involves a very small group, incarcerated mentally ill. How hard can they be to keep track of and serve with medication? It seems one in four declines post release services, but that hasn't kept advocates for nine former inmates from suing Ohio for more services. More of the mentally ill refuse post-prison help | The Columbus Dispatch

When you hear the sob stories in the MSM about Americans who die without health care (which is untrue because we have laws that require their treatment, even for the illegals and no amount of "preventive" medicine helps alcoholics, overeaters and smokers if they refuse to change), keep in mind that many people eligible for services either don't apply, or find the process so complicated and daunting they give up. There is so much red tape strangling the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the confused and the elderly, it's not surprising that millions don't use the health programs to which they are entitled. Without a family member advocate, many of the programs are useless. That won't change regardless of the trillions Obama throws at the problem. His intentions are evil; the results won't be any better because this take-over has nothing to do with health.

White House Felonies? Obamagate?

Interesting time line at American Spectator with the similarities to other backroom deals, fixers and criminals 40 years ago. The evasive Robert Gibbs is just another Ron Ziegler (Nixon's press secretary).

"These days, Charles Colson is one of humanity's good guys. He has spent decades creating a ministry called the "Prison Fellowship" in which he looks after the souls of America's prison population. But it will be remembered how Colson got to this point. Once upon a time he was the feared Nixon White House political aide who famously was said to be capable of running over his own grandmother for his president. In a pre-Watergate 1971 story, the Washington Post described Colson as one of the "original back room boys…the brokers, the guys who fix things when they break down and do the dirty work when it's necessary."

And how has the Denver Post described Obama's Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina? The man at the center of the Romanoff story and possibly the Sestak story as well? The Denver paper tellingly said Messina was "President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop."

Which is to say, Messina is Barack Obama's Chuck Colson. The fixer.

With a senior Democratic United States Senator (Arlen Specter, March 12, 2010), a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, now ever so not delicately suggesting the players in this drama could all go to jail, it would seem that perhaps Mr. Messina and his Chicago buddies in the White House have fixed things for President Obama in a fashion that was unimaginable on inauguration day in January of 2009.

On that day many of these people sat just yards from the very spot on the Capitol grounds where Richard Nixon -- seemingly invulnerable -- landed in the glow of the klieg lights to bathe in the applause of an admiring nation as he reported on the results of his diplomatic triumphs with the Soviet Union and Mao's China."

The American Spectator : Specter Opens Door on White House FeloniesUnfortunately, transforming politics as usual is not part of Obama's dreams for our country that he promised during the campaign.

Another cat story

Our current pet is our third cat, and we think she is about 11 years old--perhaps born in 1999. She had been homeless, declawed and spayed and was turned in at Cat Welfare Association. Her past on the mean streets of Columbus gave her reason to have eating issues. Poor thing. For years she would attack our garbage disposal even after a full meal. You didn't dare leave any food out. Our second cat was our loveliest--a part lynxpoint Siamese--purchased from a pet store. We thought she just had an odd personality--chewing up the underside of the furniture and racing toward water whenever she heard it running--and smart--could open the bathroom door by turning the knob with her paws. But in fact, she had bad kidneys, and died when she was four. Mystery, our first cat (1976), was our lover with sensitive ears. In those days I had an electric typewriter and when she heard it from another room she would race to me and leap into my lap and try everything to get me to turn it off. I think she saw it as competition for my affection. If I raised my voice, she would put her paw over my mouth--and if that didn't work, would nip me.

All this is to say you don't need to be a vet to see that pets are born with their personality and quirks (just like people) and can also learn bad habits (just like people). You see things the vet doesn't see.

Around the time we returned home from Lakeside last September our cat began a hacking cough and started to sneeze. I suspected she was back to her old tricks of eating inappropriate items, like twisty ties and plastic plants. I figured it would end up in the litter box. The cough would come and go. I also noticed she no longer spit up hairballs. Probably age, I thought. When I could no longer tolerate being sprayed with her sneezing every time she came near, I finally took her to the vet 2 weeks ago. Of course, she didn't display any of these symptoms for the doctor. She just did her terrorized "help me, help me, they're going to kill me" routine. The vet recommended an x-ray, because if she had a tumor, the medication she was about to prescribe wouldn't make any difference, and I knew what that meant. The x-rays were clear. Well, the antibiotic had to be compounded and the faxed order went astray (she probably had a virus, but had developed an infection the vet speculated, a virus gone dormant that she came with in 1999). So she didn't really get that until a week ago, plus some ear stuff and a nutritional supplement. All this came to over $300, but we love her, and if it's not terminal and will make her more comfortable, I can handle that.

I had vacuuming on my Monday to-do list, so Thursday I got around to it. Under the dining room table was a big pile of dried yuk. Lots of patterns in that rug, so it just blended in. I should have inspected it, but didn't, but as the quiet Panasonic ran over it I realized it was a piece of clear plastic encased in a lot of hair.

We haven't heard her cough or sneeze in a few days. Maybe it's the medication, or may it's my first guess. Or prayer--my women's group prayed for her Monday and Kendra's horse and Sharon's cat.

CBO crumbles under health workload

Unfortunately, collapsing the entire government is the final goal for Obama. That's what he meant by the "fundamental transformation" he announced in 2008. That's what this "constitutional" lawyer meant when he said our Constitution was flawed. After he exhausts us all with health hysteria (over 85% already have insurance they like and many eligible for gov't insurance haven't applied or are wading through red tape), he moves on to amnesty for illegals, and destroying the energy system with cap and trade. In his latest campaign speeches he ridiculed all the points the opposition makes without correcting a single charge or even claiming they are lies. He just swats, as though we are gnats buzzing around his head.

"The budget office is responsible for providing Congress nonpartisan analysis and cost estimates for legislation, but the CBO has been in the limelight in a much greater way as Democrats desperately try to keep the cost of the health care bill in check.

But the CBO admits that the quantity of analysis hasn’t been enough to meet the needs of Congress.

Wasserman Schultz said she was concerned that Elemendorf’s office had recently sent a scored legislative summary to a House office that later needed to be significantly amended."

Read more: CBO crumbles under health workload - Erika Lovley - POLITICO.com

Congressman Mike Rogers, "This is a travesty."

YouTube - Congressman Mike Rogers' opening statement on Health Care reform in Washington D.C.

Friday Family Photo--The bicentennial cat

This is probably a repeat--but that's what old people do. Besides, I like the photo.

Mystery our first cat was a bicentennial baby, so that would place this photo in 1976, because she is still a traumatized kitten here desperately trying to escape my children.

My husband and daughter brought Mystery (so named because she was so tiny we didn't know her sex) home from an Indian Princess camp out at Camp Akita. The little girls found kittens at a near-by farm and they all ran away, except the little black one who was too sick to run. That's the one they brought home. She lived for almost 18 years, and when she could no longer see to jump up on my lap, I carried her to the vet and said good-bye. Never let a faithful pet die alone in a strange place. Hold her and whisper sweet things.

The children are apparently playing dress-ups, because my son is wearing the jacket of one of my suits from the 60s, and has one of my belts around his neck. So they dressed up the cat too who is wearing the clothes of Sue the doll.

Message for The Narcissist in Chief

I'm sorry Mr. President, this isn't about you. It's not about the office you hold and it's not about the Speaker. This is about the American people and the health care system that they want for our country.



Boehner has never been my favorite Republican, but he nailed it this time.

In the footstep of Maude

In the 1970s, Maude was a plump, flashy, mouthy TV liberal character, married to her 4th husband, who let it all hang out--her female health problems, plastic surgery, her advocacy for better race relations, her adult daughter's love life and the tension between them. She got her start as a neighbor of the Jeffersons as I recall. Somehow, liberals (myself included since I was a Democrat then) were able to see the humor in her over-the-top extravagances. But if the shoe is ever on the other foot, the only conservative writers and producers could possibly find amusing is the straw woman--created for them to laugh at and knock down. If conservatives were presented as real people with black friends, gay sons or parents with AD, someone would jump in with more regulation and christen the show "hate speech" because real people aren't allowed on their political planet. Television's Strong Women Characters - WSJ.com

Bret, Barry and Brit--A Fox among the chickens

Taranto writes in today's column about the Baier interview: ". . .perhaps the first time Obama has ever faced a tough interview. The interviewer was Bret Baier of Fox News Channel, and the president was clearly unprepared, coming across as petulant and evasive."

MediaMatters and HuffnPuff of course went crazy that their guy looked so bad. Fox can't be a "real" news channel if it doesn't bow and scrape. I have underestimated Baier who took over for Brit Hume--haven't seen him as having the experience, or even an authoritative voice. But he definitely had Obama's number, who also had underestimated him and was unprepared. Or was it just a lack of the teleprompter?

We've lost an important political ally in the loss of the objectivity of our main stream press reporters and editors, owners and advertisers. They've been so enamored of this president and so fearful of his Chicago goon squad that they are losing viewers and readers right and left (no pun intended). Taranto observes that if the MSM had been a little tougher on him in 2008, or even honest, Obama would have been prepared for these questions. But then, he wouldn't have been president if the press hadn't constantly pitched the soft balls. Smart President, Foolish Choices - WSJ.com

Andrew Cline writes at American Spectator: "If the president were true to his campaign promises, he would immediately nix the Slaughter scheme and demand a real, fair vote on health care legislation. But everyone who went looking for those health care meetings on C-SPAN already knows he isn't true to his campaign promises." The American Spectator : Democrats Against Democracy

And Brit Hume thinks Bret did a good job, too. Hot Air » Blog Archive » Brit Hume gives his successor an attaboy on Obama interview

Tea Party Rally on Capitol Hill against Health Care Bill

Kill the Bill. Start over. If reform is worth doing, it's worth doing right. This Congress is the worst example of sleaze and corruption that I can remember in my lifetime. Obama keeps reciting the same lie--but did tell the truth in his interview on Fox. It's incremental--the take-over of one sixth of the economy won't all happen at once. Oh, that must make the take-over he admitted to, OK.

FOXNews.com - Tea Partiers Rally on Capitol Hill in Opposition to Health Care Bill