What counts?

Way up north in Dixie

Our speakers today at Lakeside were Howard and Judith Sacks of the American Folklore Society (Columbus) who told us the real story about the song Dixie. In their book, "Way up north in Dixie," they tell the story of a Maryland slave, Ellen Cooper, who went west to Ohio as a free woman and later had a popular family band, The Snowdens. The words and music were hers, but the song is credited to Dan B. Emmett who lived in the same town and performed in minstrel shows. http://africanaheritage.com/Way_Up_North_In_Dixie.asp

These are two of Ellen Cooper Snowden’s sons who played in the family band.

The Truth about the Hobby Lobby decision

The vitriolic and blatant politicization of the Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby, as evidenced in the left wing media and social media, is nothing short of astonishing. They would lead you to believe that:

-Women’s right to birth control products has been taken away or severely impacted by the decision.
-That big business is trying to dictate women’s birth control rights and choices
-That this is all just a Republican plot to furt...her the (fictitious) “war on women”

None of that is true. Actually the only thing that has severely limited women’s health care choices is Obamacare.. .(if you like your plan you can keep it….if you like your doctor you can keep him…you’ll have more affordable choices for your healthcare)
The simple fact is no one is being denied birth control. The only thing Hobby Lobby's lawsuit eliminates is Hobby Lobby paying for any of the four drugs that are de facto abortion pills. The other sixteen drugs are covered by Hobby Lobby insurance. And the four abortion drugs are also available, you just have to pay for it yourself, or you c an get them free from Planned Parenthood. NO choices have been eliminated or severely impacted. All that’s happened is that all Americans rights to religious freedom have been protected.

It's startling how ill informed, or just plain susceptible to the deceptive propaganda the left is trying to use to divide the country for their own political gain. I've seen so much really pathetic, ignorant rhetoric on this topic today. C'mon get yourself informed and think for yourself. . Americans are smarter than that.

Written by Charles Rowland.

I agree, but Charlie, unfortunately, many Americans are NOT smarter than that.

A terrible tragedy

Sunday an Iowa mother of 15 died in an auto accident.  She was a blogger, a Christian, and an adoptive parent of special needs children.

http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2014/06/esthers-mom.html

https://sites.google.com/a/windandfire.org/jennygroothuis/

Memorial fund website.

How sensitive do doctors need to be to the needs of transgendered?

According to the Williams Institute review conducted in April 2011, approximately 3.80 % of American adults identify themselves being in the LGBT community; wherein, (1.70%) identify as lesbian or gay, (1.80%) bisexual, and (0.30%) transgender, which corresponds to approximately 9 million adult^[1] Americans as of the 2010 census. (Wikipedia)

If our future doctors know more about the emotional needs and problems of the transgendered than how to help patients cope with depression, dementia or terminal diseases, here's an example from a med school ethics class. Also a good look at the discrimination and bullying of Christians in medical school. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/transgender-christian-doctor/

“This week in my medical school we began the ethics portion of my medical school’s curriculum.  This week, the main learning points were on Human Sexuality, Emotional Intelligence (Empathy), and Memory and Learning (How to deal with patients with dementia, learning disabilities, autism etc.). You might be interested to know that the only required classes were on Human Sexuality, with one of them being a Transgender panel. All the other classes were optional attendance; they covered topics such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and how to empathize with your patients. CBT is a very common helpful tool that can be used to treat everything from depression and anxiety to bipolar disorder. However, despite the importance of emotional intelligence and memory and learning, over half of the material was about human sexuality — and over half of the human sexuality content was about how to treat LGBT patients.”

Workplace awards for performance

Are you proud your contributions are being used for abortions? Ever wonder how a counselor at Aurora “exceeds” abortion visits? Do you think she’s suggesting other options?  Discussing the health hazards? Suggesting that abstinence might be an option?  That the client need not submit to the boyfriend’s demand that she abort? If the client is underage, do you suppose this will be reported to the police?  If she doesn’t speak English and brings in an “interpreter, do you suppose Aurora's staffer will suspect she’s been trafficked from another country and needs to quickly abort to get back on the pimp’s payroll? If the client seems conflicted, do you really think Aurora counselors will refer the client to an adoption service? Will she notice the teen has a pushy Mom insisting on abortion or she’ll be put on the street? Will the client tell the counselor about the abuse of her step-father, or will she just get signed up for a quicky abortion and sent home home alone to pass a bloody mess in the toilet?

Why we have an income gap in the U.S.--marriage

The Census figures income by "household." The top 2% of households has an income of $250,000+.  But those households are racially different.  The wealthiest households in the U.S. are Asian (they also have the largest households). 4.2% of Asian households are in the $250,000+ group; 2.1% of white households; .9% of Hispanics; and .6% of blacks. What else isn't equal?  Married couple households. Asian households are 63.2% married; whites 58.1%; Hispanics 55.1%; and 34.8% blacks. It's probably basic math, but two workers make more than one. 64% of college graduates are married, compared to 48% of high school graduates; in 1960 the difference was 76% and 72%. But it’s also apparent that there are some very wealthy, unmarried, single households not sharing their wealth with anyone.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0693.pdf

Also, whites have the lowest college enrollment of all ethnic groups in the U.S. The number of female Americans enrolled in college was significantly higher than the number of males (11.3 million versus 8.6 million). That was not only due to higher population figures for females: 7.4% of the 3+ female population was enrolled in college, compared to 5.9% of the 3+ male population.

Black Americans demonstrated higher-than-average college enrollment rates, at 8% of the 3+ population – equaling just over 3 million enrolled. Female black Americans had a substantially higher enrollment rate (9.2% of the 3+ population) than their male counterparts (6.5%).

Non-Hispanic whites had the lowest enrollment rates. 6.2% of the 3+ group was enrolled in college last year, with females outpacing males (6.8% vs. 5.5%). A total of 11.65 million were enrolled in college.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/traditional/us-college-student-demographics-in-2012-36555/

Y’all come, President Obama

When they heard in Central America that the United States had a "dream act" they decided to send the kids to enroll. This massive swamping of our border has nothing to do with violence in their own countries. They are fleeing from, they are fleeing to. I'm sure someone outside the administration will be blamed, and Americans who object will be called cruel and heartless.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/dream-act-i-saw-it-sure-doesnt-look-ellis-island

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/06/10/Issa-Childern-Will-Die-Because-of-Obamas-Executive-Order

Don’t blame President Obama!

Don't blame President Obama!
1.  The law schools were adrift before he was born.  Jurists were substituting opinion and passion for knowledge and precedent before he was an implanted embryo in his unmarried teenager mother.  Whether it’s the 9th circuit or the Supremes, don’t blame the President for the mess lawyers have made.  He’s a “constitutional lawyer” who’s been taught only what his professors knew.

2.  Don’t blame Obama or any of the Presidents since Wilson for the failures of American education. John Dewey who pioneered social outcome, progressive education was born over 100 years before Obama.  Progressive education was incubated and thrived at America’s universities, and then was passed on into the general education system to meet social and political goals.  That social goals are more important than math or science or even western civilization can‘t even be put at the feet of Presidents Bush, Clinton or Carter, who created the Department of Education, not even Eisenhower who ordered the schools desegregated, so don‘t lay that expensive, overfed turkey on Obama‘s plate.

3.  Don’t blame the President for moral and ethical failures of the church and family. The churches began buying into 19th century scholars at seminaries and universities challenging the truth, history and moral teachings of the Bible well over 100 years before his grandparents who raised him became agnostics and Jim Wallis‘ grandparents were probably still Bible thumpers.  And those academicians and theologians were pointing back to theories and challenges centuries before them cooked up by Germans.

Collecting my Thoughts, January 26, 2012

Does Netflix take the place of TV?

I was surprised this week to hear one of our speakers at Lakeside say she doesn't have a television. She subscribes to Netflix (online video rental). So that means she doesn't know about the IRS scandal (but neither do millions of others who watch broadcast news). She doesn't know that our administration's policies have encouraged parents in Central America to send their minor children on a very dangerous journey and now they are in camps spread around the U.S. at the states...' expense (but TV broadcast news has told viewers they are fleeing violence, instead of looking for a free college education). She doesn't know her president of 5.5 years is still blaming his predecessor for his inability to cobble together a defined foreign policy, a safe exit from Iraq, and a flailing economy (but if she were watching the news this week she would know about celebrities' babies and hair styles, the World Cup, and that the climate is changing and it's all our fault). She also didn't know about a huge story in her field that broke that day--until her audience told her.

Marriage equality? Then why are so many not getting married?

I know a lot of men and women who live together, some in my age group,  who don't believe "marriage equality" works for them. (There are over 1300 laws concerning marriage--benefits, rights and protections.) Why? Usually it's money. She has alimony, or he has his deceased wife's pension. Or one is still married to someone else with whom they own property and they don't want to give lawyers a third of it. I've even known couples where the "new unit" is taking care of the disabled or demented spouse of one of them, but there is no divorce, only death in the future (although that too might be financial--remember Terry Schaivo?). Or they are covered by insurance from the previous spouse.

The second reason is probably children--the adult children. Rather than settle for being a step-mom, she'd rather be his "partner," and avoid the family squabbles. The third reason is they've been "burned" by the laws 2, 3, or 4 times, and won't risk marriage again--sometimes that's financial.

Fourth, is lack of commitment--living together is OK, but marriage is just too far out and restrictive to be considered. One of Obama's more famous avoiders of marriage in his administration is Cass Sunstein, who dumped his live-in Chicago lawyer girl friend of many years who helped his career and who believed his drivel that marriage wasn't for him to marry and procreate with the half-his-age, sexy babe Samantha Power who held out for a ring and a date.

I thought of one more--but have only heard this excuse once. I met him at the coffee shop.  His parents divorced when he was a child and both have remarried numerous times, so he isn't marrying his long time girlfriend, ever.

“the loose arrangements can result in messy legal problems if the couple splits or one partner dies suddenly. Lawyers tell stories of couples who lived together for years in a property owned by one partner. When the owner died, children claimed the property and evicted the survivor.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/your-money/welcoming-love-at-an-older-age-but-not-necessarily-marriage.html?_r=0

http://marriage.about.com/cs/cohabitation/a/cohabseniors.htm

Children in poverty

Guess what determines poverty for children? You know what I'm going to say. Marriage--or the lack of it. Look at this chart. Poverty rates for children of married couples is the flat line at the bottom; essentially it hasn't changed for whites in 35 years and has decreased for blacks. Also it is almost the same for married black couples and married white couples--2 lines meet in 2000 and 2008. If you eyeball the chart and figure out where 2009 is, you'll see poverty among children has increased in all groups with Obama in charge of the economy. (Recession ended in 2009) http://childstats.gov/americaschildren/eco1a.asp

 

 

The latest buzz words from the President are "word gap." That was the subject of the June 24 presidential message. In short, parents need to talk to their children because poor and low income children hear half as many words as the children of better educated parents who are earning more. And the federal government is giving a boost to none other than Hillary Clinton in the public-private partnership called Too small to Fail. The partner is the Bill Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Reading to children is a super idea--but the parent also needs to enjoy reading (not just know how), spending time with the child, and has to turn off the phone and TV as a start. If you read the lyrics of popular songs, that probably won't improve vocabulary (singing is another suggestion to close the "word gap"). http://toosmall.org/

Dad--you can read the sports section of any newspaper to your child (they don't really care if they know you are interested in it).  It has the highest grade level of words.  Also lots of idioms and pictures and good writing. This is not in the research--it's my advice. One day in the coffee shop I saw a dad reading to his infant and I think it was Dickens. The child never took his eyes off dad's face.

When rivers catch on fire

On Wednesday at Lakeside, John Hartig told us about rivers that catch on fire--the Cuyahoga, Buffalo, Rouge and Chicago. The Chicago River caught on fire so often it was a tourist attraction in the 19th century. The only one I'd heard about was the Cuyahoga since it happened in 1969. But what surprised me was he said there were no photos of this fire--it was not considered unusual at the time, and the photos usually shown to illustrate it are from a fire in the 1950s. Can you imagine that happening today--there'd be so many phone photos and videos of it there would be no problem documenting it. http://www.environmentalcouncil.org/priorities/article.php?x=264

It is wonderful to see the recovery of these 4 rivers, and learn about the people, sometimes just one, who stepped up to save them. However, as lovely as the wetlands, parks, birds and fishing areas are that have replaced the factories, they will never create the jobs and middle class wealth that the much maligned industrial era did.

The damaging effects of sexualizing children

Today's presentation at Lakeside on modern slavery was really gross--the sexualization of children by TV, gaming, popular music, social media. Everything from children's Halloween costumes that represents pimps and prostitutes to little girls acting out Beyoncé's Single ladies (If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it), to things that really should be illegal. But it made me wonder why the federal government would go after the trademark of an athletic team that represents a stereotype of bravery and strength of less than 1% of the population, while allowing those that insult and demean 50% of the population as "freedom of speech." The war on women (and little girls).

Bratz prostitute dolls.  As if being owned for sex and sold to truckers was a fun thing for little girls to imagine.

 

 

Big Daddy pimp costume

 

And one for a little boy so he can pretend.

Dear IRS, sorry. . .

Good fences make good neighbors—Robert Frost

Obama’s unaccompanied minors problem/scandal

Occasionally I still see liberals lashing GW Bush for the failures of Louisiana's Democratic governor and New Orleans' Democratic mayor after the Katrina hurricane. Until the present administration, the federal government wasn't allowed to barge in without invitation. Also, in the recovery, Louisiana had so many arcane and restrictive regulations to protect their local businesses, it was virtually impossible for private contractors to get across state lines with aid quickly. However, apply that to the complete FAIL of the federal government to take care of the unaccompanied children from Central America streaming across the boarder at the President's invitation. The government actually advertised for service providers 6 months before the crisis, and still couldn't keep vulnerable children out of crowded camps and is dumping them on unprepared state and local governments.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/23/border-children-fuel-debate-in-gop-race-for-arizon/

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/23/DHS-to-Parents-Sending-Unaccompanied-Children-to-USA-There-Are-No-Free-Passes

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/officials-struggle-to-house-children-flocking-across-border/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/20/fact-sheet-unaccompanied-children-central-america  Details the money the U.S. will be sending Central American countries to “solve” this problem.

Smack down of NYT anti-Walmart story

To the claim that Walmart is "a net drain on taxpayers," [David]Tovar answers: "We are the largest taxpayer in America. Can we see your math?" He adds that "we see more associates move off of public assistance as a result of their jobs at Walmart" and links to a corporate video touting one such case. (The point of comparison for Tovar's reference to "more associates" is unclear.)

Regarding the food donation drive, he writes: "To clarify, associates were helping associates during unexpected hard times (fires, divorce, loss of life, etc.). And a noble cause, no doubt. As for the Wisconsin claim, Tovar notes that PolitiFact, the left-leaning "fact checking" outfit, rated it "mostly false." Tovar also disputes some of Egan's factual claims, not quoted above, about Walmart's pay levels.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/wal-marts-scathing-response-york-170243214.html

Immigrants want a conservative America

Why do people cross our borders risking life and limb, leaving families behind, and even participating in smuggling activities? Really, are we so great they just can't wait to get to Toledo or Peoria? No, it's because they want what conservatives offer, not the government heavy-handed control and bias of the liberals which they just escaped. They want a life without police control; without high crime; they want a chance to create a business; they want religious freedom; they want to voice their concerns without going to jail or having their taxes investigated; they want a good education for their children free of propaganda and historical revisionism. Liberals try to destroy what immigrants are trying to achieve and insist immigrants must vote for them. It's conservatism--free markets, smaller government, freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights--that brings them here--someone should tell them. Maybe you?

A beautiful Sunday evening in the park at Lakeside

Nestled in a grove of trees at Lakeside with a great view of the lake and sail boats, there’s a darling gazebo (Steele Memorial Bandstand) wired for sound and lights with a half moon seating of old fashioned, uncomfortable park benches with plenty of room to spread a blanket for a picnic while keeping an eye on the kiddoes playing on the swings. Many weddings are held here, but most importantly, the Sunday evening programs using  local Ohio groups with a more spiritual bent than the usual fare.  Last night was a group of Mennonites (or it began that way), and it may have been my only chance to hear a band play and sing about going  to the Mennonite church on Sunday.  But they were a fun group with a lot of original songs and some cover, and all seemed be be talented musicians—school teachers by trade.  They explained their name, Honeytown, but I don’t recall it now.  They organized in 2007 after performing for a Mennonite Teachers’ Conference, adding a few instruments and developed a nice folk-bluegrass sound, then adding some original rock songs and a cappella.  If you need a fun group to play at your conference, wedding or other event, and you live in the Midwest, contact them. http://www.honeytownmusic.com/