Checking out YouTube for our Scotland tour

20 things to do in Edinburgh with Samuel and Audrey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssNOAnuK0g

Whiskey
Nips and Tatties
Food places
Haggis
Holyrood Palace, Abbey and gardens (residence of queen)
Edinburgh Castle
Crown jewels
National Museum, go to 7th floor for the view
Princess Street Gardens (green spaces)
Dean Village
Calton Hill
Scot Monument
Royal Mile
New Town
Royal Botanic Garden (1670)
Food Tour
Tiny Closes (alleys)
St. Charles Cathedral
Scottish National Gallery
Night life


What I've learned on these short visits to a country or cities (Austria, Germany, Turkey, Ireland, Russia, Italy, Estonia, Egypt etc.)  is that going to "green spaces" or parks is not a good use of my time and money. There are breathtaking parks and nature preserved in Ohio.  If I had a week or two in the city, it would be great.  Also, after a few trips, the cathedrals that are in shambles and falling down, well, you only need one or two.  Especially if you have bursitis or arthritis.

Also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhtg9XgVwuM by Expedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk5f-WMic9s Video travel guide  
This one begins in Edinburgh.

Looking for alternatives to MSM--The Rubin Report, Tommy Sotomayor, Jesse Lee Peterson

The Rubin Report looks interesting.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFrLpk5OXfU  David Rubin says he's a gay man married to a man, he's pro-choice, anti-war, but is pro-2nd amendment, and he thinks there's more intolerance from the left than the right, more people on the left who will drop a friend or spouse or relative due to political differences. Amen, brother!

On the Rubin Report I came across Tommy Sotomayor, a black radio/blog host who moved to YouTube and Twitter who discusses issues in the black community. He particularly discusses the damage in the families--particularly women!  "Biggest problem for blacks is fatherless homes and white guilt." "Black men think that the only things that matter are something big and shiny and sleeping with a bunch of chicks. And it's black women who taught them that." Wow. That will get you shut down in a hurry.  He’s been banned from social media, even his funding page. His daughter and mother have been attacked  (Black Lives Matter did that to him).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAq-rwaOqs . There are sure a lot of viewpoints out there that don't get covered by cable and broadcast.

I've only watched one show (Tommy Sotomayor interview) on http://thefallenstate.tv/fallenstate/ but at least it's an alternative to the same old, same old, racist, sexist, homophobe memes of the mainstream. Host is Jesse Lee Peterson. Peterson is a Christian and talks a lot about forgiveness, and often brings the conversation around to spiritual matters.

It is without question. . .

So don't you dare question me (or them)--you'll get that if you question "man made climate change." A belief system.  It's a religion.  The climate has been changing for eons; but today people are such navel gazers, they think they control the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzlN8SMlLjQ

Lionel Nation is one of the talkers I'm using as I push Fox out of my office (it's gone liberal). That's not his real name, but he began calling talk shows while a law student, and now he has his own show.

 

Dennis Prager and his PragerU is always and excellent choice. Global warming/climate change it is money in new grants for academics and tax money of politicians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqIy8Ikv-c 

There is no fast food gap--everyone likes it

Apparently, everyone likes fast food. "About 80 percent of those in the lowest 10 percent of income ate at least once at a fast-food restaurant, compared to about 85 percent of those who were ranked near the middle (40 to 50 percent) in terms of income. Of the richest 10 percent, about 75 percent reported eating at least one fast-food meal." Now what will the gap people write about? https://news.osu.edu/news/2017/05/04/eat-fast-food/

The growth and dominance of conservative talk radio

Talk radio is about 30 years old, and the conservatives own it because liberal talk shows are boring, repetitive and represent a failed economic system, so it's hard to get sponsors. But that’s only possible because the “fairness doctrine” which is actually intended to limit speech and opinion to pure government think died when Reagan booted it. The media, according to Hugh Hewitt, which at one time had standards went left very quickly during the VietNam War and have never recovered their balance. Until 1989 when Rush Limbaugh came on the scene, the left owned the airways--TV, radio and entertainment shows. Now there are hundreds of local and national talk shows. Many of these hosts like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, etc. also write best selling books (which your public library may ignore), make personal tours and appear as knowledgeable guests on national shows. Many of the conservative hosts also regularly have liberals on their show just to prove it can be done. 

The success of talk radio laid the ground work for the most popular cable New channel in 1996, Fox News and all their opinion shows and panels at the other slots. It was fabulous successful, with ratings killing the other cable and network shows.  Now the Fox Formula is being dismantled, and today if you turn it on, you might hear a timid commentator waiting for the axe to drop speak about an important issue, but the producers will show only clips and filters of the opposition. They are killing the golden goose, but perhaps Soros is underwriting the shift.

Expect them to attempt to take down talk radio next, then any conservative social media sites.

A comment to Fox

I e-mailed a comment to Fox: "I'm going through my subscription list to conservative YouTube channels because the Fox news coverage and opinion shows have degenerated into pale reflections of the other news channels. I’ll just have to piece my own programming together. It was a good run, Fox, and I don't know why you are changing unless bought off by Soros, but I don't know any Conservatives who will bother turning you on today."

It's annoying to try to scrape together information, but it's certainly more challenging mentally.  The YouTube channels usually present topics that are 8-10 minutes long and don't have cat videos.

For news I'm using EWTN, Judicial Watch, Western Journalism, Common Sense TV, Michael Massie, PragerU, The Burning Red, Daily Liberty, and so forth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNVlOMGIeyY

Monday Memories--Medical Library Association, May 1998

May 22-28, 1998, I was in Philadelphia for the Medical Library Association annual meeting.  We had beautiful weather--I think it rained only one day.  I arrived on Friday, got settled, registered and went out to eat with two of my roommates, Carolyn and Gretchen, and a few librarians from California.  On Saturday I did a morning "historic" tour which was very interesting.  Pennsylvania is next door to Ohio, but our histories are very different, since they were a "commonwealth" long before the union was formed.  We toured Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, a shell of a house where Ben Franklin lived, and a print shop and Betsy Ross's home.  By Saturday afternoon I found my friend Jerry Stuenkel from Detroit who later lived and worked on St. Maartin's Island in the Caribbean and now lives in Florida.  We went to the grand opening "birthday party" of MLA (it was 100 years old that year) and then to the opening of the exhibits.  The party had "mummers" which I guess is a big thing in Philadelphia--guys dressed up in wild costumes (reminds me of Mardi Gras) and playing instruments and dancing

On Sunday, Majors (book distributors) sponsored their walk through the city and a breakfast.  They give us all matching T-shirts.  Jerry and I walked with a retired librarian named Priscilla who was 80 years old and didn't look a day over 65.   After the walk I changed clothes and went to a lovely Catholic church about a block from the hotel with Gretchen.  The priest and the cantor were just outstanding and the building was beautifully restored with lots of soaring arches and stained glass windows.  Catholics now sing hymns to Protestant tunes, but at about half the tempo.  They need to pep it up a little.  The sermon was on Christian Unity, and as I shook the priest's hand as I was leaving I told him I was Lutheran, and hoped some day we might be able to take communion together.  He laughed and said that sort of unity would be nice.

I met Jerry and her friend Patty who is a hospital librarian in Detroit (so young and cute you just want to hate her, but she was too sweet) for lunch and then we went to the first plenary session (outside speakers), a program on electronic journals and then to an art museum where Patty had tickets from an exhibitor for dinner.  We ate and looked at paintings--most of which were 18th or 19th century art relating to Pennsylvania history in some way--and then walked back to the Marriot.

Monday was our big day--our Veterinary Medical Library Section had a breakfast hosted by CAB (British indexing company), then we went to the University of Pennsylvania campus for a program on a canine genetic disorders database.  After lunch we had our business meeting, and then our program, for which I was one of the speakers.  I had practiced my speech many times, and feel it went quite well.  Most people seemed to remember two points, which is pretty good.  Also, every one got a copy of the full speech, so they can always read it.  Then for dinner we went to a lovely Chinese restaurant.  Tuesday was the second plenary session and I attended a meeting on evidence based medicine (hard to explain, but it means you diagnose based on what has been found to be sound practice in published studies).  Then Jerry and I said our good-byes for another year or two (she was not at the 1996 or 1997 meetings) and I helped Kathrine of Texas A & M put up our poster exhibit of our section's history.  About 3 p.m. I left for the airport and got picked up by Bob about 6 p.m.

(The notes for this memory were from a letter to my college roommate and childhood friend, JoElla, whose married name is the same as my grandmother's, and I also discussed some genealogy because her husband's grandmother and my grandmother called each other "cousin" in their letters and I had mailed a batch of them to her.)

Our Scotland Trip

 


We've had this trip in mind for several years, although when I got so sick on two overseas flights, one of which put me into the hospital, I said no more.  Then in 2015 we went to Spain and I didn't die, so we began looking at Scotland through the University of Illinois Alumni Tours.  That conflicted with a commitment we'd already made, so we settled on a Globus Tour.



Overnights: Two nights in Glascow, one night in Isle of Skye, one night in Dundee, two nights in Edinburgh

Day 1 GLASGOW-Arrive 11:15 a.m. Glascow International Airport check in; Free afternoon; Welcome dinner; orientation drive; meet guide and other travelers. (Dinner)

Day 2 GLENGOYNE - Guided tour of the whisky distillery; STIRLING - Visit Stirling Castle symbol of Scottish independence; BANNOCKBURN - Visit the innovative visitor centre commemorating Robert the Bruce’s victory, June 1314; back to Glasgow (Breakfast)

Day 3 GLASCOW to LOCH LOMOND - Take photographs of this stunning beauty spot; Glen Coe; FORT WILLIAM to GLENFINNAN - Take pictures of the monument and the Harry Potter viaduct; MALLAIG–ARMADALE - Cross the Sound of Sleat by ferry to Isle of Skye (Breakfast, dinner) Optional excursion to Eilean Donan Castle

Day 4 – Return to mainland. CULLODEN MOOR Visit the battle site’s visitor center (Hanoverian victory) HIGHLANDS - Enjoy a fascinating sheepdog display at Leault Farm; Cairngorms National Park; Victorian resort of PITLOCHRY overnight at Dundee (Breakfast, Dinner)

Day 5 – Drive to ST. ANDREWS, Practice at the Golf Center (1754); to Perth, SCONE PALACE for coffee, shortbread, and a private guided tour of the Earl and Countess of Mansfield’s stately home, hear about. Macbeth and Robert the Bruce. To Edinburgh and optional Scottish evening with Highland dancers, bagpipers and Ceremony of the Haggis (Breakfast)

Day 6 – EDINBURGH – Guided sightseeing, visit Edinburgh Castle, visit the former Royal Yacht Britannia and enjoy dinner at a local restaurant (breakfast, dinner)

Day 7 – EDINBURGH - tour ends with breakfast. Flight 11 a.m. Edinburgh Airport

Since we won't have the advantage of the educational component of U. of I., I'll need to start checking out some YouTube videos on what we'll be seeing. 

Our new TV--again

Tuesday evening the TV wouldn't turn on.  It was fine Monday evening. Not a hint anything was wrong.  We really don't use the living room during the day, so it hadn't been turned off incorrectly and after calling our provider, Spectrum, we determined it was nothing from their end. Poof.  Gone.  So I back tracked through my blogs to see when we bought it.  December 18, 2009.  Seemed like yesterday, but it was 7.5 years. Right on target. The "fat" TV it replaced was 1994, and the one in the family room was 1985 (it has since been replaced also with a 32" flat screen RCA with a DVD slot and gets much more use).

"We looked at all of them and selected the Sony Bravio 32L5000 and bought the 4 year extended warranty, which usually we don't. However, the life expectancy of today's models aren't even close to our old "fat" models--we have 3 TVs of various sizes from the 1980s, and one from the early 90s. The clerk said 6-8 years for this one"

So we put our daughter on the search, just as she'd done in 2009.  She checked Best Buy and came up with this:  Samsung - 40" Class (39-1/2" Diag.) - LED - 1080p - HDTV - Black.  This is not a smart TV. It doesn't connect to wifi. But we can connect with ROKU to some stuff (I have no idea what that is, taking her word for it).

So after work on Friday she stopped by and she and Bob went shopping.  I think it only took them an hour, they dropped off the humongous box in the living room and the three of us went out for dinner.  Then we came back and she set it all up for us.  It's larger than our 32" flat screen Sony, but not so much that you'd notice.  The Sony had the screen framed with about 2" of plastic, and this one doesn't have that. We've noticed a difference in the sound since the speakers seem to be in a different location.

Then I asked her to do a bit of tweaking on my two computers.  Sure!  And after about 2 hours she was pooped and went home.  Good sport and super smart!  My favorite security program has been discontinued, so I'd added AVG, but couldn't dismantle Security Essentials so it would stop reminding me it wasn't working.  She took care of that.  One of  the former computer repairmen had added "Logmein" which is a program that allowed him to access my computer from his location.  That was years ago, and I didn't like having it, and didn't know how to get rid of it or if it was still working.  I have some basic skills, but the little packages of commands were spread through out the computer in numerous files.  After a number of tries, she finally got it removed, piece by piece.  Reminded me of Obamacare--buried everywhere in our system of government, even the state governments. A nasty thing to remove.

Health insurance lies

We had five government health care plans before Obama. Medicare, S-CHIP, Medicaid, VA and Indian. But Obama needed a legacy and that wasn't enough. He wanted everyone to have the level of health of the native Americans on reservations. About 13% of the citizens didn't have health insurance--they did have access. Some were young--didn't sign up for employer insurance (had a choice then). Some wouldn't bother to sign up for Medicaid. A lot were single men, unemployed--it was just too much trouble, going to ER was easier and cheaper. Some "refusniks" were so wealthy they didn't want insurance--paid cash and it was cheaper. Democrats designed it to infest every department and law of the government to make it virtually impossible to untangle (planned by ex-con Robert Creamer who also organized anti-Trump protests for Clinton). Now about half of those without insurance in 2009 do have health insurance but no doctors, no access, no hospitals and punishing costs. Will Democrats never get tired of whining about losing this disaster? Really, folks, the ignorance is appalling.

It's full court press on the lies. "According to a new POLITICO/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll, Americans remain divided over how to move forward on healthcare." Not really. Anyone who's seen her rates and deductibles go sky high or had experienced his insurance carrier leaving the state or lost coverage during a serious illness wants something better than the federal government take-over of 1/5 of the economy with jail and fine threats and no competition to keep rates down. I see it on social media, on Fox, on broadcast--all lies. Democrat politicians continue to throw out scare tactics even though Obamacare was the worst thing in insurance we'd ever seen. So many lies. So many.

Liberal librarians aren't enough; must be radical

Do you need a template for every ridiculous thing radicals and anarchists are against? How about the Little Free Library, those cute little cubby holes that allow you to trade books and pick one you like? They hold maybe 10-15 books and can be seen in a variety of neighborhoods. Radical librarians don't like them because they represent the corporatization of non-profits, and other twaddle to obscure to repeat.

 https://journal.radicallibrarianship.org/index.php/journal/article/view/17/32

"LFL® does not seek to determine how many people have actually improved their literacy or increased their access to books of interest. Building a box of books is one thing. Ensuring that the contents are maintained, relevant to the population being served and consistently stocked is quite another."

Having a public library branch a mile away is also no guarantee there will be anything I want to read even if well maintained and filled with TV movies, cook books and soft porn fiction.

Switching to summer clothes

We had some warm weather last week and I guess I got excited. I took my white LL Bean 100% cotton jeans out of storage, and found a huge black stain on one leg. Not sure where it came from--maybe from hanging in the car. So I tried about 4 things to get it out, finally resorting to Clorox right out of the bottle when there was just a faint blue 2" spot. That did it. But they've been washed so many times now I can barely get them zipped. I'm breathing, almost. . .

It would not be a big sacrifice if I had to give them up.  I think they cost me $1.00 at Volunteers of America.  Very nice quality.

Friday Family Photo and Mom's story repeat

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2010/01/friday-family-photo-and-memory.html

An entitlement repealed

A government entitlement repealed. Wow. Small businesses can grow again. Maybe there will be health insurance with deductibles people can afford, and there will be counties with at least one provider.  I didn't know I'd have anything to celebrate, but for dinner we're having beef roast, baked potatoes, fresh salad, strawberries, and chocolate pie.

Reflections on health and the economy

This winter/spring in treatment for shingles (face and eye) I've had a lot of medical appointments. Some days it was my only time out of the house. Today I sat in the parking lot to read because I was a little early, and I counted the health related buildings around my ophthalmologist's location. Ten. I'm not sure I'd ever been in that area of our suburb before 2 months ago, and we've lived here 50 years.  The buildings all appeared to be 10-20 years old--health is a booming business.  I was reading Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal." Buy it for your children.  You need to know about illness, hospitals, hospice and death, and how much it costs.

The evening before surgery the father and daughter talked. She was a palliative care specialist, but it's hard to talk to your own parent and she realized they'd never had that "what if" conversation. It's like the "where babies come from" talk with your kids, only more complicated.  His neurosurgeon told him if they didn't remove the mass he had a 100% chance of being a quadriplegic; if they did remove it, a 20% chance. What makes being alive tolerable, the daughter asked. "If I'm able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV then I'm willing to stay alive," was the shocking answer of this professor emeritus. She had no idea he even watched football. For the rest of the story, p. 184-185.

Dr. Gawande's book was published in 2014. He reported changes in health care and said 1/2 to 2/3 of the global population would be middle class by 2030 and they would be facing (or already are) many of the same problems as the West. So I checked that (he gave no citation). I was surprised to see in a Brookings Report that figure had already been surpassed by 2016. Max Roser reports in 1820 the share of the global population living in poverty was 94 percent while 84 percent lived in "extreme" poverty. By 1992, the poverty rate had dropped to 51 percent, while the "extreme" poverty rate had dropped to 24 percent. Using a different measure of international poverty, the rate has dropped from 53 percent in 1981 to 17 percent in 2011 – representing the most rapid reduction in poverty in world history. 

Why? Capitalism. And that's why the black clad antifa and anti-American rioters who are burning buildings and harassing police are so scared. Without poverty or the threat of it for leverage they have no power. If children are educated and learn the truth about socialist economies, the anarchists lose their hold on them. They must destroy and lie.

 https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/global_20170228_global-middle-class.pdf

 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/amazing-chart-shows-thanks-to-capitalism-global-poverty-is-at-its-lowest-rate-in-history/article/2562224

Religious freedom being restored by Trump?

Is that the Johnson rule? The one that Senator Lyndon Johnson rammed through in order to keep his Senate seat? Back in the 40s? The one that atheists and liberal Christians have used to silence those groups they fear? The one that never shut down a black church but left others cowering in fear of . . . what?

Lots of lefties are confused or miseducated by our public schools poor teaching of history. "Separation" of church and state isn't in the Bill of Rights, but the prohibition of the Congress making laws respecting an establishment of religion or its free exercise is. The British colonies were religion specific--some Puritan, some Lutheran, or Quaker or Baptist, Anglican and mixtures. But we do have a Bill of Rights that demands the government get out of the pew, stay away from the altar and pulpit, leave our religious schools, nursing homes and hospitals alone. Over the years with threats of the IRS, the federal and state governments have increasingly made demands on religious groups--one state threatening to close churches if they didn't provide transgender bathrooms. 

Where the atheists and liberal Christians have protection is our country with at least 35,000 denominations and "Bible only" churches agree on very little. For that reason, no government interference is necessary. Where 2 or 3 are gathered, a new denomination will arise. In fact, stopping government interference is one of the few things (abortion being another) Christian churches have ever agreed on.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/04/trump-marks-national-day-prayer-signs-executive-order-on-religious-freedom.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/02/donald-trump-religious-liberty-executive-order-237888

Federal welfare costs

There's a scary "Anonymous" poster going around the pages of liberals on Facebook showing how terrible the U.S. is in its priorities. Oh, how we must hate the poor and needy, the elderly, the homeless, the Indians and those with HIV. Used it to stir up the riots on Communist Day, I'll bet.

That's not what the Committee on the Budget in the Senate says. CRS identified 83 overlapping federal welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011 — more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense. The total amount spent on these 83 federal welfare programs amounts to roughly $1.03 trillion. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount expended on just 10 of the largest of these programs has increased by 378 percent over the last 30 years. That's why a good job is the best program for the poor and low income, not another government program to fatten the bureaucracy. 

So that was $1.03 Trillion on welfare in 2011. Wonder what it was for 2016? For a list of the 83 programs:
Senate Budget Committee

Repeal and replace

The Democrats are going berserk over the proposed insurance bill. You'd almost, if you'd been asleep for 8 years, think anything had improved for the poor and low income during the Obama reign. The poverty rate in 1983 was 12.8% and in 2015 was 13.5%. We have 123 wealth transfer programs, 83 of which overlap. The ACA was collapsing in 2016 so Democrats could reach their goal--make way for single payer, so the federal government could control more of our lives. Meanwhile millions went without any insurance or lost theirs. The ACA took away peoples' choices for doctors and networks and encouraged others to just pay a fine until they needed it, which if you were poor, would be the smart thing to do.

Book Club titles for 2017-2018

Yesterday our book club (originally formed by a group of young mothers in Clintonville over 30 years ago and I joined in 2000 when I retired) selected titles for the 2017-2018 year. I’m partial to non-fiction, so I’m excited about this list. All will meet at Bethel Rd. Presbyterian except where noted.

September: Hero of the Empire; The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. This will be at Peggy's

October: Being Mortal; medicine and what matters in the end by Atul Gawande. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDdtAiTrwt4

November: Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

December: Hidden figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, now a movie.  Meets at Carolyn's.

January: Worst hard time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

February: Leopard at the door (novel) by Jennifer McVeigh

March: Bad ass librarians of Timbuktu And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer

April: Hillbilly Elegy; A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (he now lives in Columbus)

May: Cod a biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAmVU2WL7bY He wrote a book about Salt, and if it’s anywhere near as good, I’m looking forward to this one.

If you watch Fox News, what will you do now?

What do you plan to do for news that isn't Soros run or a DNCast to get "the rest of the story" now that the sons have taken Fox under (fired the guy who made it great). Do we really need another CNN? Or MSNBC? Those of us who watch Fox know the difference between news and opinion shows.  For opinions you can watch anything on broadcast or CNN or MSNBC that goes by the name of News. It all starts with the selection which reflects the owners, the advertisers and the producers. On Fox all the panel shows commenting on the days events had a good mix of conservative, liberals, contrarians and libertarians drawn from the various media. In the last 2 months the schedule has been rearranged so often, you'd get whiplash.  Tucker Carlson isn't a news show, but he's been in 3 time slots--first Greta's, then Megyn's then O'Reillly's, and if they muzzle him as they've done the others, he'll be no fun to watch.

There are the talk shows on radio (Hewitt, Prager, Medved), but they only reflect snippets of AP, the NYT or WaPo or what's been filtered by the producers and writers. Patrick Madrid talk radio (Immaculate Heart) has a 3 hour morning show (we only get 1 hour) discussing contemporary events, but I wouldn't call it news exactly.  EWTN has an excellent evening news, but it doesn't come on until 9 p.m. Sensible, reasonable. Thorough. And it doesn't slam Christians.

I suppose we could resubscribe to Glenn Beck which we did for about 3 years. We got tired of his survivalist and religious wanderings (a former Catholic now a Mormon, but with little resemblance to either), and at least in the early years of his show he'd have good news coverage. Not sure what he has going on now, but we got bored with the eclecticism and praying on air.