There's a reason my parents left the farm

Barbara Kingsolver, author of Animal, vegetable, miracle (HarperCollins, 2007) our March book selection for book club is an excellent writer. But I could do without the preachy lectures. I've known for years, and so have our churches and government, that there is more than enough food grown in the world for everyone to be not just nourished, but fat! Growing it isn't the problem--it's the political systems that control and distribute it that fail. That was well publicized 40-50 years ago. And our own USA government through the U.S. Department of Agriculture has some pretty misguided regulations and policies itself.

So, despite her interesting experiment as Tiger Mom of the homestead, our personal food choices really don't make much difference, except for our own health. If I were to choose to eat 24/7 at McDonald's it doesn't change a Haitian dictator's behavior. Today I was reading an article from a Lutheran magazine from 1991, 20 years ago, about Haiti, and I might as well have been reading today's newspaper. The American food industry and our personal food choices (the only part of this we do control) will not give the Somalians a viable representative government, nor stop the Chinese government's policy of one child. We could ban petroleum products and industries tomorrow, and it would not feed one starving African child or free one Thai child prostitute. This is the 21st version of "clean your plate there are starving children in China" which some of us heard as children.

Kingsolver says it was a family decision to take a food sabbatical, to eat deliberately, to shop the local food landscape of Southern Appalachians. My first thought was, "they grow wheat and oats in southern Appalachia? And why should she be able to freeze her rhubarb to eat in the winter, if I can't buy pay some one to grow and freeze it commercially to eat in the winter?

If you"put the kitchen back in the center of the American diet," you put women back in the kitchen too. They won't be medical researchers, or astronauts, or academicians, or retail clerks, or factory assembly line workers, or restaurant chefs, or plumbers, or accountants if they are spending 2 hours a day finding and delivering fresh, locally grown food, and another 2 hours preparing it--milling, grinding, setting aside to rise, peeling, stewing, sanitizing, preserving--and then maybe mulching or plowing or sowing or harvesting in the hours left. But that's what women did for thousands of years while the men went out and slaughtered animals for meat or each other to protect the fields and families at home. I'm only at about page 60, but not sure I have the time (a week) to devote to this.

I'd already decided to skip the parts by Steven L. Hopp, but at p. 54 I found "profit driven, mechanized food industry," and wondered if Mrs. Kingsolver had hand copied her manuscripts, bound them in calf leather from her farm and distributed them in pony driven carts for only a dozen or so people to read.

Why it's called the Massacre River

My husband is still hoping for a mission trip to Haiti this year--now probably postponed to April. The Massacre River separates Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Why the unusual name? In today's letter, Pam Mann, a missionary/teacher in Ouanaminthe from Upper Arlington Lutheran Church writes:

". . . Why the river's name was changed to Massacre. Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the indigenous Taino and Arawak people called the river Guatapana. However, in 1936, the centuries-old name was changed. Dominican Dictator Trujillo ordered the genocide of all blacks living in the DR who could not pronounce the Spanish verb, pereir, “to perish”. Spanish r's are tricky for Haitians as are English r's. In a few days time, an estimated 25,000 were slaughtered by machete, knives or bullets. Haitians fleeing to their homeland were tracked down and butchered by machetes when the bullets ran out. The waters of the Guatapana River ran red with Haitian blood and a horrified nation renamed it.

False claim of hurting the middle class

Stimulus money was used to pay off the public unions’ benefit packages in many states to balance the budget and kicked the problem down the road to Walker of Wisconsin and Kasich of Ohio and other Republicans who ran on this issue. There is no stimulus money left (can I say we told you so?) and states can't print money like Washington. So what do the unions do? They trot out that dog and pony show about hurting the middle class. Today's Columbus Dispatch says:

"Not only are the public-sector workers affected by Senate Bill 5 not representative of the majority of Ohio's middle class, but the comfortable wages, automatic raises, benefits, pensions, job protections, sick-day payouts and negotiating power enjoyed by many of these public-sector workers comes at the expense of the vast majority of Ohio's middle-class taxpayers. Most of these taxpayers have nothing remotely like these benefits nor the economic security that the public sector takes for granted and regards as a right."

Editorial: False claim | The Columbus Dispatch

Not only that, but we (not-in-the-unions) are your bosses, Mr. Fat Cat Union Boss! Let's get rid of public unions. All of them.

I recommend this blogger--May Rant and Rave

This one about Fancy Nancy revising her own commendation by the DNC is really good. You perhaps thought I was single focused and tough--hey--I'm a napping pussycat compared to Mayrant.

Why we call them union thugs

In your face, know your place in Wisconsin harassing Walker supporters.

HT May Rant and Rave

Is there Fast Food in Iraq?

MMWR report in JAMA

Of the resettled Iraqi refugees (San Diego) over 18, 24.6% were classified as obese, and 64.3% of those over 65 were hypertensive.

You'll need aerobic exercise to benefit your brain

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, "scientists started with 120 elderly volunteers who were relatively inactive but did not have dementia. Half were randomly assigned to begin walking 40 minutes a day, three days a week for a year while the remainder only stretched and performed toning exercises for the same time period. After 12 months, the group that walked showed an average 2% growth in the hippocampus compared with when they began, while the control groups suffered a more than 1% shrinkage in the same region compared with when the study started.

“If you estimate the change at an individual level,” says study co-author Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois, “a yearlong exercise program can turn back the clock about two years with respect to the volume of the hippocampus.” "

"Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory, "
PNAS 2011 108 (7) 3017-3022; published ahead of print January 31, 2011

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/31/want-to-improve-your-memory-take-a-walk/#ixzz1Euftky36

Expensive lunch, but interesting Christian missionaries

Today I attended a luncheon and information session sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Faculty and Staff at the Faculty Club on the Ohio State campus. The topic was human trafficking, aka slavery. Yes, it's still a big business--bigger than the transatlantic slave trade of the 18th century . . . estimates run to 12.7 million people, and some figures are higher. It's very lucrative--humans can be resold many times. And about two million of them are children. 46% of "johns" (male customers) would knowingly buy sex from a minor according to a survey of perverts. That's why, I suppose, the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics don't report their underage clients--they're in on it, as undercover videos have shown.

The speakers were Joe Chongsiriwatana, a former software engineer, who will be representing ZOE International Ministries in Thailand. Joe and his wife Yumi met and married at Ohio State, recently lived in San Francisco raising their 3 children, and have been called by God to minister to children in Chiang Mai, Thailand, children either who have been sold into prostitution and have been picked up by the police and brought to the facility, or those about to be sold by their parents.

The other speaker was Connie Anderson, Director of Justice Ministries, for the Great Lakes area of Intervarsity. She talked about a few local programs and ministries for victims of prostitution and trafficking, like Price of Life, DOMA International and Gracehaven Shelter and CORRC. She commented that the problem is so huge you don't know where to start, so she suggested (with a slide of a snow covered mountain) that we kick a few rocks to start an avalanche.

IJM - Reality of Human Trafficking from International Justice Mission on Vimeo.

But what irritates me is what I had to pay for parking. $5 for a salad bar isn't excessive, but $6.00 for 2.5 hours of parking is. All the parking lots and garages on the OSU campus have changed in recent years--I can't even remember the last time I was there. When I got to the gate I saw the sign "no key cards until 4 p.m." and the price sign I saw was $2 for 3 hours, but that apparently was for evening. So it was an $11.00 salad.

No wonder "children" are insured to age 26

Poor things. Look how they dress!

Blogrolling is gone

I'd noticed my blogrolling lists windows had been blank for some time, so I went in to look at it and discovered the service no longer exists. It apparently became infected with malware and the owner decided to take it down. So I've deleted. It was a useful aggregator. I was on Over 50 Bloggers, State of Ohio Bloggers and Bear Flag League (California) bloggers. Unfortunately, I had removed the direct links to the bloggers I really liked. Unintended consequences to getting too techie.

Why should we believe him on other health and life issues?

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama consistently misrepresented his position on the "born alive" abortion issue. That he is strongly pro-choice was never an issue. He's in the bag with Democrats on that one. All of George Bush's protections for unborn life and embryonic stem cell research (my reason for changing my party affiliation in 2000) have pretty much been rolled back. But Obama was so far over the cliff on the born alive issue (a baby born alive is killed outside the womb), that even strong pro-choicers like Catholic Nancy Pelosi couldn't support that method. Then he lied about it. It was two and a half years ago, but as health care issues keep coming up, and he needs to clarify his position on everything from Muslim countries' riots to war in Afghanistan, to prisoners at Gitmo, to unions destroying state budgets, I have to ask, why should we believe anything he says?

One of these things is not like the others

Didn't Sesame Street have a song like that?

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

The CDC calls the following 5 items, "high-value prevention services" which can save 100,000 lives each year.

1. Smoking cessation assistance
   
2. colorectal cancer screening
   
3. breast cancer screening
   
4. annual influenza immunization
   
5. daily aspirin to prevent heart disease.

Three quarters of former smokers quit on their own. And I don't know anyone who successfully, permanently stopped smoking with a government sponsored workshop, phone call counseling, nasal spray or a drug patch. Do you? The studies only have a few months or a year follow-up, but somehow the drug companies have got that one included in many government programs.

But I have heard of other uses for the nicotine patch I might consider--like improving memory in older persons. Now that I could get into.

Only the aspirin and the immunization are actually preventative. Two of these are screening for what you already have or will have. Breast cancer screening can find a lump--but doesn't prevent it. Colonoscopies can spot trouble spots that will become cancer but aren't there yet.

Kline: Morrison thwarted his abortion clinic case

Because Phillip Kline is/was a Republican pro-life attorney general, I suspect he will be found guilty of ethics charges. This is a tangled case, but we do know 164 girls under the age of 15 (78 in one year) had abortions with Planned Parenthood owned clinics and Dr. Tiller, the Kansas Killer of the pre-born, clinics. Paul Morrison is the Democrat (link to 2005 story) who replaced Kline and the charges of child rape went away (near as I can tell). If you interpret this story and testimony differently, please comment. If you want to argue the merits of abortion or underage sex, don't bother. You'll be deleted if you try to put that trash on my blog.

Kline: Morrison thwarted his abortion clinic case | CJOnline.com

Doctors who wrote "passes for teachers skipping classes," will probably not see any charges. Ethics violations are sweet at the feet of the DNC and Obama's reelection committee.

More Civility by Obama minions

"On Feb. 13, just the other side of the news cycle, a post on "Organizing for America," the website for the president's campaign arm, urged progressives to protest a proposal from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to reform public-employee benefits and limit collective-bargaining rights. The message, from Organizing for America's regional director for Wisconsin, began this way: "We've got a fight on our hands and it's personal."

Stephen Hayes: So Much for a 'More Civil' Public Discourse - WSJ.com

Redecorating is not for the timid

Or the old. Actually, it isn't even redecorating. When the Miller Brothers (614-203-4997) were here in January 2002, we decided not to paint out the gray and black trim that worked rather nicely with the floor colors. We just had the orange dining room, the brown living room, and the red hall and family room painted, leaving some of the trim that was in good shape not repainted. But over time, and with the ceiling repair needing a fresh coat of paint, we decided to finish the paint job we started in 2002. Whew! That's a lot of trim! It included 10 doors, all cross and Bible, all but one both sides. Crown molding in the entry and in the stairwell, requiring a tall ladder, and a very large 5-shelf built in bookcase on the upper level that I think was designed to be a closet, because it is so deep and includes a laundry chute. Today Paul told me it could be 30 days before the paint would "set" enough to put back heavy books and magazines, but he would read the can label to be sure. Right now the books (many of which belonged to my parents, grandparents and great grandparents) are sitting on a bed in the guest room, and the magazines (my collection of first and premiere issues) are on the floor and in one of the laundry baskets.

You can see the gray and black trim in the entry hall. The hall walls will now be light and the trim the khaki color that is on the living room trim. Makes the area much lighter.

Parents Upset With Teachers' Viagra Lawsuit - Milwaukee News Story - WISN Milwaukee

Milwaukee Public School teachers are fighting to get Viagra in their drug plan--costing the district another $800,000. I wonder if that helps with educating Wisconsin's children? Wonder what else the district could do with that money? The demonstrations at the state house is costing about $3 million a day. Now that's some serious change.

Parents Upset With Teachers' Viagra Lawsuit - Milwaukee News Story - WISN Milwaukee

The Showdown Over Public Union Power

By fleeing the state and their jobs, the Democrats of Wisconsin have shown the nation how seriously they are indebted to the unions, which support only Democrats. This shows the primary reason we should not have government workers unionized. It corrupts the government with payola, favoritism, cronyism, influence and in the case of teachers, it doesn't do much for the education of children to have the union bosses more concerned about their own power rather than education, which the state has decided is one of its jobs. Businesses do it too, you say? No. They split their donations, and in recent years, especially on environmental issues, the Democrats are the biggest recipients of big business donors because more regulation drives out their competition, and Democrats just love regulation.

"Public unions are also among the biggest players in national politics. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme) has been the third-biggest contributor to federal campaigns over the past 20 years, having given $43 million. The National Education Association is number eight with $31 million in contributions, while the SEIU—half of whose 2.2 million members are government workers—is No. 10, with $29 million in campaign donations.

Unlike businesses and industry groups that are also big givers but tend to split their donations between the parties, some 95% of government workers' donations has gone to the Democratic Party, whose members are far more likely to favor raising taxes and boosting spending than are members of the Republican Party.

Steven Malanga: The Showdown Over Public Union Power - WSJ.com

Doctors signing "sick" notes in Wisconsin for mental health

If doctors really were signing notes for absences for those at the union riots in Wisconsin, that would be an ethics violation and probably HIPAA too, so I'm sure Obama's Justice Department will want to investigate. . . yeah, that'll happen. On the other hand, if those were imposters (aka actors) playing "doctor" for the TV cameras and the demonstrators, they are probably in violation of the Screen Actors Guild code.

Quite a demonstration for school children, who now see how it is done and can copy. If you don't like what's going on, then lie, cheat, or steal (from the other taxpayers who are paying your bills). Also, be rude, loud and hostile to prevent others from speaking.

One recipient said she wasn't advised about mental health issues by the "doctor" but about her civil rights and what to say to her employer. When is the last time a doctor discussed that with you--on a street corner?

Story by McIver News Service

Still in Hiding. Could Union Bill Be Passed Separately Tuesday?

Illinois is enjoying a brief influx of tourist dollars as the Wisconsin Democrats hole up in the Best Western Clock Tower Inn in Rockford. They have abdicated. Should be replaced, in my opinion. An AP report at WTMJ says:

"Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says his chamber of the Wisconsin legislature will convene to pass non-spending bills and act on appointments on Tuesday even if minority Democrats remain out of state in an effort to block a vote on Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill. Could one of those bills be the union aspect of the budget bill, in a separate vote on Tuesday? Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach told The Associated Press on Monday that Republicans could attempt to attach the part of the proposal taking away collective bargaining rights to an unrelated bill and pass it Tuesday."

Read the rest here. Capitol Chaos: Could Union Bill Be Passed Separately Tuesday? | Today's TMJ4 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin News, Weather, Sports, WTMJ | Local News

Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Come Up Short

You have to read to the midsection or botton to see why: many boomers started too late with too little. Vanguard now recommends 15% be set aside for retirement.

Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Come Up Short - WSJ.com

Also, I'm not sure who came up with that idea that retirement requires less than your working life. It's very expensive to do the things you waited all your life to do--or in my case, didn't know you wanted to do until you got there. And no, you can't retire early if you are paying off your kids' college loans (or your own), got a divorce in mid-life, still have a mortgage, want a second home, or you want to go out to eat a lot and travel more.

Gen-Xers will have to learn from the Boomers' mistakes: Increase your savings, decrease your want list. Also, real estate is only an investment if you buy it to rent it. If you live in it, it is your home. If it is your home, all those nice things or decor are something to enjoy now, instead of later when you are 65 or 70. If that matters to you, don't complain when the bill collector (disguised as Father Time) comes around.