The fault in our stars—movie

Sunday I saw a movie--rare for me. "The Fault In Our Stars" about 2 teens who have terminal cancer who fall in love after meeting at a support group. I'd never heard of the main actors, Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, but they both did a wonderful job. The book on which it is based won the 2013 Teen Book of the Year at the Children’s Choice Book Awards, and I think I saw more teens than adults in the theater (but there were only about 15 of us). Reviews are mixed.  On the one hand, some say it follows the books closely; others say Woodley was good but Elgort wasn’t (I thought he was perfect).  It’s a very sad topic; love, even teen love, doesn’t solve everything.

Hazel and Gus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous given that Hazel's other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they met and fell in love at a cancer support group. IMDb

A reviewer (not a paid critic) writes: “From the moment the title sequence starts, I was hooked straight away. Scene to scene this movie just manages to suck me into this beautiful world of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters. The chemistry between Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elsort is astounding and the performances were astonishing. Honestly, this is the best movie I have seen all year, even better than Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Godzilla which was a massive surprise. I just thought this was going to be another teenie love story and boy was I wrong. I loved this movie and recommend it to everyone across all ages”

Another wrote: “I'm always skeptical about watching the words of my favorite books transformed and materialized on the big screen... but TFIOS stayed true to the book. The movie was absolutely lovely from beginning to end. The young actors were great. The comedy hit on all the right notes, the romance made your heart smile and the tragedy pulled at your heart strings. It really was a wonderful adaptation, and I believe it stayed as true to the book as possible without many changes where there were any. The minute it was over, I wanted to watch it again. Upon leaving the theater, I looked around and there was not one dry eye. Not even the men. If you are a big fan of the book, like myself... and are skeptical about whether this stays true. Don't be. Kudos the John Green on his first film adaptation. It was an absolute success. I'd give it a 10 out of 10 if I could... but I don't believe in "perfect."

But $7.00 is still outrageous for a movie!

On the Health Wagon with Scott Pelley

What bias? Last night I watched a heart wrenching program on 60 minutes on the problems in Appalachian Virginia--no recovery from the recession, coal jobs drying up, and too poor (i.e., too rich) for Obamacare (all this on Obama's economic watch), yet at the end, it is all laid at the feet of the GOP who didn't approve the Democrat governor's Medicaid increase plan. So I looked that up--and see there's a whole other story there for CBS to look into, like how the states that take Obama's carrot, finance this expansion when it is withdrawn.

One woman interviewed said she couldn't afford the insurance offered by McDonald's where she worked. But she was a smoker (part of her health problem) which could have paid for her insurance co-pay. Even one pack a day is about $1660 a year.

This story was first covered in 2008--now the health situation is worse.

This is not the complete segment, but contains information about the background. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-the-road-with-the-health-wagon/

The revolving door in Washington

There's no reference to Bush in this Washington Post article, but then Bush didn't say while campaigning, that Americans "want real reform, and they're tired of the lobbyists standing in the way." According to Center for Responsive Politics, 326 revolving door lobbyists are part of the Barack Obama Administration. 527 revolving door lobbyist were part of the Bush Administration, compared to 358 during the Clinton Administration. I'm assuming these numbers include those going from government to business as lobbyists.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/15/there-are-65-former-lobbyists-currently-working-in-the-obama-administration/

Elegy for Eddie

 

Just finished reading Jacqueline Winspear's Elegy for Eddie, where Maisie Dobbs solves the murder of a mentally challenged man whose gift was talking to horses. So since she's the main character, I guess that would be me.

Today’s topic at Lakeside was memory

Take aways from today's health lecture on memory at Lakeside Chautauqua. Kathryn Kilpatrick, http://memoryfitnessmatters.com. Developing strategies does not reduce your ability to remember; hectic schedules will interfere with your joy; the seduction of "busyness" is the adrenaline rush; set boundaries with people or events that create stress (which interferes with memory); slow down, pause; don't use hurtful self talk if you forget--may impact your health; sharpen your liste...ning skills--reduce environmental distractions; modern technology can put you on overload; repeat, repeat, repeat, visualize, verify; spend some time just thinking about very simple things; learning jokes are good for you--practice the punch line; don't use your prime time for texting and email; multitasking results in poor listening; scatters your attention, impacts sleep and affects relationships.

Our new old couch for the cottage

We bought our 2nd home in Lakeside, Ohio (Lakeside Chautauqua) in 1988.  On the first walk through we said we’d definitely get rid of the couch which was probably about my age, sagging, and very heavy (had a pull out innerspring mattress). Well, we’ve finally done that, after 25 years!  We brought up our family room couch, purchased in 1993, which has all the colors of our cottage.  And I use the term “we” loosely, since my husband and son loaded it into my van in Columbus, and a neighbor helped unload it with a friend of his and helped my husband get it to the dump. It looks very nice, and isn’t as oversized as we thought.  In fact, it’s about 5 inches less deep.  Because it is a lighter color, the room looks larger.  Now then, at home the living room couch will go to the family room/office and we’ll have to shop for a new couch.

What could possibly go wrong?

“In mid August of 2013, the developer Extell applied for the benefits of New York City’s Inclusionary Housing Program with its 40 Riverside Boulevard residential tower, part of a residential development stretching from West 61st to 72nd Street in Manhattan. 40 Riverside is 33 stories, with 219 market-rate condominiums and 55 affordable rental units. New York City’s Inclusionary Housing program, began in 1987, provides developers who voluntarily build permanent affordable units with increased square footage (also known as FAR). These units are available to those who make 60% of the Area Median Income and have reduced rent rates, such as two-bedroom for $1,099. So, while developers may receive less rent from certain apartments, a building with 20% affordable units receives a 33% more square footage.”

Well, a “poor door” was included in the design. A special entrance for the “mixed income” segment, and it’s not that unusual in NYC.   Now they’re (don’t know who “they” are) trying to discover who is responsible for this defacto segregation by income. $1100 a month is cheap for NYC, but doesn’t sound like homeless, unless the occupants also have other transfer type payments.

This is a city regulation that allows it, but you can bet the politicians are scrambling to blaming someone, anyone else.

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2014/08/140812-Poor-Door-No-More-40-Riverside-Boulevard-Extell.asp

Walking outside the gates of Lakeside

I had my gate pass with me this morning, so I turned and walked outside the 2nd street gate at Oak Ave., and browsed around the neatly kept neighborhood.  I walked past a man sitting on a park bench, with his right arm in a sling, typing on his laptop computer.  “I bet you’re right handed,” I said as I walked by.  “You’ve got that right,” he said, going back to his one finger typing.

I looked at the lake for awhile then turned south on Park Avenue;.very nice new homes (about 10 years old) on that street.  Then I passed a “little free library.”  Take a book, return a book.  I’d seen them on the internet but had never actually stopped to look and borrow.  It had about 12 books behind a glass door, well protected from the elements.

This one is from Pinterest—I didn’t have my camera with me. But it was very simple.

I selected, The complete guide to walking for health, weight loss and fitness.  With bursitis and asthma, my walking days are probably numbered, but I thought I’d take a look.  Can’t resist a library. There were actually some pretty nice books—I saw C.S. Lewis and John Grisham, and a few others.  Lakeside has two volunteer libraries, one at the Methodist Church and one at the Women’s Club, plus there is one in Marblehead. We also have a nice bookstore with both new and used books. And of course, yard sales, like the one where I bought the 1934 Reader’s Digest.

"Mark Fenton strides right past all the fad-and-gimmick fitness books with practical, no-nonsense advice to help people of all ages, sizes and shapes start and stick with exercise."--Miriam E. Nelson, PhD., Director of the Center for Physical Fitness, Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and author of Strong Women, Strong Bones

"Mark Fenton is the master at helping people get the most from walking. His new book provides a highly motivating, step-by-step plan to take you as far as you want to go--from beginner to race-walk marathoner. Even I gained a wealth of new insights about the science and practical application of walking for better fitness." --Kathy Smith, author of Kathy Smith's Lift Weights to Lose Weight

"Having competed in walking races all around the world, it took having a baby and adding a couple of notches to my belt for me to realize the full value of Mark Fenton's structured approach to developing and maintaining a healthy daily walking program." --Carl Schueler, four-time Olympic race-walker (Amazon reviews)

Not even funny anymore

Remember this boondoggle—Cash for clunkers

Cash for clunkers" (part of Obama's 2009 stimulus) actually cost the auto industry 3 billion in less than a year, according to recent research. I wonder why no one ever calculates the cost to low income families, who if they could buy a c...ar, any car which was destroyed by this program, could get to work, the super market, family reunions, recreation, etc.? And how many moderate income family took on new debt to buy that environmentally friendly vehicle due to the carrot of a discount? It's about more than the auto industry losses. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20349

“Cash for Clunkers was a 2009 economic stimulus program aimed at increasing new vehicle spending by subsidizing the replacement of older vehicles. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show the increase in sales during the two month program was completely offset during the following seven to nine months, consistent with previous research. However, we also find the program's fuel efficiency restrictions induced households to purchase more fuel efficient but less expensive vehicles, thereby reducing industry revenues by three billion dollars over the entire nine to eleven month period. This highlights the conflict between the stimulus and environmental objectives of the policy. “

Ohio’s geology—history

The lecture on Ohio's geology by Scott Kell today at Lakeside Chautauqua was really great. It's interesting to see the gender mix when the government doesn't control it. I'd say 90% of this full house was male; a few weeks ago when the lecturer was from Garth's antiques and the subject was home furnishings of the Gilded Age, it was about 90% female. Speaker Scott Kell is a long time Lakesider and really presented a fascinating, well paced lecture. Best joke: "Western Ohio is so flat, that one man sat on his porch and watched his dog run away for 3 days." The hill ridges that run through Lakeside east to west are old shore lines of Lake Erie.

 

Thin Privilege

I’ve lost the link, but yesterday I saw an article about "Thin Privilege." That's like "White Privilege" but only for thin, white people. I'd say this to the author (female); wait a few years, honey, and you won't need to feel guilty about being thin and getting all those privileges. I know many women who were drop dead gorgeous and slender as teens and 20s, and by the time the 40th or 50th reunion rolls around, they were all comparing diets. What's next? "Nice skin privilege?" "Great teeth privilege?"

“That’s my boy.”

Those are said to be the proud words of a convicted terrorist, an Australian Muslim Khaled Sharrouf in Syria, who tweeted out a photo of his young son holding up the severed head of a slain Syrian soldier. No, I won't give you the link because there are photos (Australian newspaper). Too gruesome.

And now some fighters have dropped bombs on ISIS and Yazidis are “free” to flee to Syria.  Syria?  How safe is that?  Maybe if the president had done something two months ago when asked?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/10/world/meast/iraq-crisis/

Week 8, 2014 in Lakeside

The week begins on Saturday at Lakeside, and it was a wonderful performance by Joan Ellison and the Lakeside Symphony in a tribute to the “Music of Judy Garland.”  Ms. Ellison is a member of the voice faculty at Baldwin-Wallace and has been a guest artist at many Ohio venues. 

I attended church twice today—lakefront with pastor Jennings, and at Hoover Auditorium. Martin Marty is the guest preacher/teacher this week, and there was a wonderful quintet that played at both services, the Phoenix  Wind Project, which will also present a concert this afternoon at 3 p.m. at the Lakeside Methodist church. A flute, 2 clarinets, French horn and bassoon (I think). Wonderful sound.  Also today is a Heritage Society lecture at 2 p.m. about Lakeside “old timers.”  This week’s lecture series is, Monday and Tuesday, Ohio Geology, history, mining and fracking; and health and medicine, two on cancer, and two on memory loss. There’s a nice architectural walking tour (right in my neighborhood), but it conflicts with the geology.  I hear a lot about architecture so I opt for geology. On Tuesday I’ll need to choose between the fracking and a lecture on fashion of the Downton Abbey era, by the curator of the Kent State University Museum.

The Monday night movie in Hoover, is Meet me in St. Louis, with Judy Garland and Tom Drake.  Drake was my sister-in-law’s Uncle Buddy, brother of her mother.  My nephew looks a lot like him.  Tuesday is Lakeside Symphony with a talented young artist, Gavin George and Wednesday Don Knotts daughter, Karen, will present “Tied up in Knotts” a tribute to her dad (Barney Fife) who died in 2006. On Thursday there is acoustic folk/rock guitarist Al Stewart, with the LSO finishing the week on Friday with violinist Jinjoo Cho and cellist Ana Kim.  And finally, there’s a movie at the local theater that I’d like to see “The Fault in our Stars.”

Wednesday night we’re having guests for dinner, so I’m hoping for good weather—5 people is a tight squeeze in our tiny kitchen.  Then on Friday and Saturday James and Leah from Cleveland will be visiting with us.

If it will fit in our car, my husband may bring back our family room couch for the cottage.  The couch here is probably 70 years old, and when we bought the cottage in 1988, we decided we would get rid of it. . . my how time flies.

Focus, people

The Friday Foreign Affairs Forum at Lakeside

At yesterday's Foreign Affairs Forum one woman said, "I still support President Obama. . . yada, yada" and that in itself didn't surprise me--Lakeside is a highly educated community with progressives retired from university faculties as common as summer flowers and perch sandwiches. But I was tempted to say, "Why? Can you name anything, particularly in foreign affairs, that he has touched that has gone well?" What country where we have national interests is better off than in 2008? We were discussing Gaza, Ukraine, and ISIS. Has he shown leadership there or in Libya, Pakistan, Nigeria, or Somalia? American women get free birth control with bragging rights for the president, and middle eastern women and girls get rape, slavery and beheading. Then he wines and dines African potentates at the White House who suck up American aid for lavish life styles. But I kept quiet. I'm just telling you.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/us-africa-leaders-summit

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/08/05/photos-obama-toasts-african-leaders-at-white-house-dinner/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2014/08/05/live-watch-as-african-leaders-and-vips-arrive-at-the-white-house/

It’s not true that Obama didn’t know what was coming with ISIS

It may look like Obama was just dumb and caught flat footed when ISIS (aka ISIL or IS) overran Iraq and began killing Muslims and Christians, beheading and crucifying and raping.  But he was warned.  Many times.

“It’s simply not true that nobody saw a disaster like the fall of Mosul coming,” Ali Khedery, who served as a senior adviser at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, told The Daily Beast. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I literally predicted this in verbal warnings and in writing in 2010 that Iraq would fall apart.”

“I and a zillion other people said in 2014 that we needed to do more than the very slow and inadequate reaction,” added James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq. “If [ISIS] could move in and seize Fallujah and they were on the offensive, and they were active in Mosul and Nineweh [province] too, the army was lethargic and not doing very well, at that point there was a possibility for us to provide air strikes and advisers.”

Instead, the Obama policy meandered through a series of half-measures. . .

While the policy process in Washington was frozen, U.S. intelligence analysts still filed their warnings about major weaknesses in Iraq’s military. Both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have issued reported analysis for nearly a year warning that Iraq’s military would not be able to stand up against a sustained campaign from ISIS.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/06/why-the-white-house-ignored-all-those-warnings-about-isis.html

The cost of war

I’ve seen a lot of people try to explain what money spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have purchased in social services.  But that’s true of any war.  In the August 1934 Reader’s Digest, this small item appeared:

“The World War, all told, cost—apart from 30 million lives—400 billion dollars.  With that money we could have built a $2500 house, furnished it with $1000 worth of furniture, placed it on five acres of land worth $100 an acre and given this home to each and every family in the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Germany and Russia. We could have given to each city of 20,000 inhabitants and over, in each country named, a five million dollar library and ten million dollar university.  Out of what was left we could have set aside a sum for an army of 125,000 teachers and a like salary for another army of 125,000 nurses.” Nicholas Murray Butler

Just bombs—no boots on the ground

When the media report on Obama authorizing bombing of Islamists in Iraq yesterday before leaving for a 2 week vacation, they note that he campaigned on ending the war, without reminding us that Bush ended it.

"17 November 2008 – The US and the Iraqi Government sign the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement providing for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities by 30 June 2009 and a complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by the end of 2011."

By the time Obama was elected, the heavy lifting was over, yet the media credit him for ending it. Even at the end of the 2008 campaign, it became a non-issue.  But it wasn't over was it? ISIS aka IS, a Sunni offshoot of al-Qaeda, was growing and although Obama was warned many months before we knew, nothing was done. The leader of ISIS is far more brutal than Osama could have dreamed of. Beheadings and crucifixions are far more common than with Osama.  Although we left troops in Korea in the 1950s and Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to help with stabilization, never mind Iraq--it could wing it. Perhaps if a better solution to helping Iraq get back on its feet had been worked out, there would be thousands of Iraqi minorities and Christians and Shiia still alive.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/obama-kerry-warned-isis-paid-attention/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/world/middleeast/obama-weighs-military-strikes-to-aid-trapped-iraqis-officials-say.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-video.html

Pray for the minorities in Iraq

“Please continue to pray for the Iraqi people who have fled their homes because of religious persecution. Their situation is dire--with some reports saying thousands of people hiding in the mountains are being left with two choices 1) die at the hands of the IS militants 2) die of thirst in the mountains. Please pray!

"Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako, who heads Iraq's largest Christian denomination, said the overnight offensive had displaced 100,000 Christians.

"This is a humanitarian disaster. The churches are occupied, their crosses were taken down," he told AFP, adding that 1,500 manuscripts had been burnt."”

http://news.yahoo.com/jihadist-offensive-sparks-mass-iraq-exodus-084039459.html

Jihadist fighters moved into Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian town, and surrounding areas on Wednesday night after the withdrawal of Kurdish peshmerga troops, who are stretched thin across several fronts.

"Qaraqosh, Tal Kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh have been emptied of their original population and are now under the control of the militants," Joseph Thomas, a Chaldean Catholic archbishop in northern Iraq, told AFP.