Do as I say, not as I do

Bahram Arkadi built Lifetime Fitness (about 130 locations) where I have a Silver Sneakers membership and is a multimillionaire. Recently in the magazine "Experiencing Life" he pointed out the root causes of threats to biodiversity: overpopulation and overconsumption. He personally wants for nothing. Has his family and his millions, and he's lecturing the rest of us on birth control and materialism like someone running for president? The U.S. population is already below replacement rate, and his business was built on a never ending hunger and quest to look and feel better that will always sell.

One way to help the environment is to pick up trash on your walks—and you don’t do that in a gym.

A rant about NPR from long time listener

“National Public Radio covers, in the absence of covering the case of the opposite side adequately, and supports the causes of abortion, homosexual, and transgender “rights.” Its editors directly instruct on-air staff how to speak about matters of abortion: reference to “babies” or the “unborn” in the wombs of pregnant women is verboten. As one commentator noted, NPR’s linguistic policing has nothing to do with objectivity; it’s all about shifting public opinion. NPR shoves same-sex “marriage” in our faces, but it lets traditional marriage and other forms of moral restraint fend for themselves. . .

National Public Radio’s coverage of the recent rash of mass murders tends to a mechanical and simplistic “solution”: ban guns. It made a hero of high-school anti-gun activist David Hogg because he agrees with this position. But NPR tells us basically nothing about the familial and sociological backgrounds of the murderers or of those persons and factors directly abetting the murderers: police, school officials, family members and other relations, as shown at times via personal expression on the media.”

Read the whole article in the New Oxford Review. https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/why-ive-tuned-out-national-public-radio/#

The Imposter Syndrome

Is there no end to attempts to make women victims? A recent issue of JAMA (August 6, 2019) had an op-ed on "imposter syndrome." I didn't know it had a name, but it's that fear that some very successful people have of being exposed as a fraud--that they shouldn't really be a success despite all the evidence--money, fame, top position, etc. They attribute it to "luck," or timing, or even that they've duped others.

And according to the authors (I think female, although can't tell from the names), this syndrome affects more women in medicine than men, and rather than the person seeking help with their self worth, the world needs to change so women don't perpetuate a cycle of minimizing their ambition and salary expectations. The answer is for health organizations to be more proactive in promoting women and minorities, and rooting out causes of #impostersyndrome because it is only a symptom of the inequality that women and minorities experience.

SMH.

The little Constitution, guest blogger Maryann Leboffe Pinelli

“I carry the Constitution with me, in my car and it’s on my IPAD ... 
I’m a Real Estate Agent. A few years ago I had a younger client looking for a home. In conversation he brought up the 2nd Amendment, there were “No hunting” signs in the area. Now I try and avoid political conversations in business as there’s no way I can deny my beliefs, although am short and polite, so I never start the conversation. Turned out he was a legal gun owner. I go in my car and get out my little booklet, 4”x 6” 36 pages, and this kid was like, wow, that’s it? He had never read it, thought it had to be thousands of pages, with language he’d never be able to get thru. I told him he could have it, but he said no thank you and that was it.

A few months later, at his closing, when we’re walking out, he thanks me, for helping him find his new home, but even more for introducing him the simple but beautiful Written words of the Constitution...said he bought his own and now carry’s it with him, in his car.

It never ceases to amaze me, the simplicity of our Constitution. That Our founding fathers, a group of what today would be “millennials”, from various economic, educational and cultural backgrounds, conceived and wrote such a perfect document for Freedom and human God given rights.

And it never ceases to infuriate me how we have allowed corrupt politicians, justices, judges and liberal academia, chip away at it.
No longer will we survive with sell out career politicians who are weak, easily bought and paid for by the highest bidder, and who do not believe in the Constitution as written.

This was and is President Donald J. Trump’s time to be President. To bring our country back to the core beliefs of our Founding Fathers. I didn’t vote for a “Presidential” puppet, a chameleon who becomes whatever the media and fake polls demand he/she be. I voted For someone who would be fearless, tireless and not intimidated. For someone whose intelligence, instinct and shear determination would be used do what’s right to fight for America and her people. Period.

I was at his inauguration, listening to his speech brought tears to my eyes, as I thought, Finally. Two and a half years in, I can’t believe all he has accomplished, while under 24/7 attack and 90% on his own, with no help from Congress.

Bringing our country back from decades of corruption will not be easy. It will take more than his re-election. It will take “Trumpian” like candidates for us to send to Washington to help him, and will take a 2024 candidate that can be as determined, and strong as him, as possible.”

Overuse of the word CRISIS

What if media, politicians, academics and marketers couldn't use the word "crisis?"  It must be like the word “sale,” because it seems to work.

• "Air quality is quickly becoming a global health crisis, especially in highly urbanized areas."
• " Every year, Ohio’s drug crisis grows."
• "Obesity crisis: 2 billion people now overweight. . ."
• "We don’t have a “gun” crisis in America. We have a crisis of angry, young men."
• "Refugee education in crisis."
• "10 facts about Africa's education crisis."
• "The ocean plastic crisis."
• "Domestic violence crisis text line."
• "Crisis of the nones in church."
• "The American fashion industry is in crisis."
• "At a moment of architectural crisis, Trent university . . . "
• "The [water] crisis in Flint is a result of a failure at all levels of government. "
• "Democrats face identity crisis."
• "Are you ready for the financial crisis of 2019?"
• "Adolescent girls in crisis."
• "There is a gluten crisis hanging over the baking industry as several factors converge in a slow and insidious manner."
• "Crisis management plan for your wedding."
• "There's a global banana crisis."
• "Are we handling the bee crisis wrong?"
• "The coal crisis has hit Powder River Basin."
• "Facebook is facing an existential crisis"
• "The crisis of the Democrats is becoming more evident each week."
• "The border crisis is fracturing the Democrat party."

In lieu of flowers . . .

I did not know this lovely, 100-year old woman, but noticed this in her obituary, and thought it worth sharing: "In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that you “don’t postpone pleasure.” Spend undistracted time with your children, take a walk in the woods with your loved ones, send a birthday card or bake a pie for someone who needs it, and make a toast to enduring friendships, lifelong and beyond. That is what our mom would wish for you."

Another interesting thing about this obituary is that early in her life she lived on Lake Webster in Indiana, and met her first husband in 1949 on the "Dixie," a paddleboat. My husband learned to love vacationing on the lake at Lake Webster where his grandparents had a cottage, and he'd been on the Dixie many times. Who knows, maybe he saw her! 6 degrees of separation?

That pesky male female gap

The Pew Research Center found that 2019 will be the first year in which women will comprise the majority of the college-educated labor force in the United States. Women first received more than half of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in the 1981-82 academic year—almost 40 years ago.  Today they earn about 57% of bachelor’s degrees. The number of college-educated women in the adult population (ages 25 and older) surpassed the number of college-educated men in 2007. Does anyone fret about that imbalance created by loans, scholarships, affirmative action and unfair regulations?

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/20/u-s-women-near-milestone-in-the-college-educated-labor-force/ft_19-06-20_womenlaborforce_women-now-half-of-us-college-educated-labor-force-2/

So why are we still hearing about the “gap,” especially since for about 4 decades the college enrollment rate for females has exceeded males and for the younger demographic there is no gap given the same starting place and position? 

There’s a lot of mischief in gap statistics.  Especially college degrees.  Women, even in the same fields as men, may select different specialties—pediatrics instead of neuroscience, family law instead of corporate law, bibliographer instead of library director, or they may want to be an artist instead of a plumber or electrician. Women may decide to raise their own children and “stop-out” for 5-10 years, reentering the labor market with reduced value to employers.  Married women with husbands of equal education and financial status often have the luxury to leave the medical or law fields to start a business in a completely different direction such as interior design or selling craft items. 

Unfortunately, these “justice” studies rarely compare women with women—female doctors with female pre-school directors, or female TV hosts with female owners of bed and breakfasts, or female chefs with female dishwashers, female traffic court judges with female circuit court judges. Why not compare single women who are heads of household with married women who have no children?  In the universe of women employees there are gaps with men, but there are overlaps also, with low end of the bell curve  the men who clean the offices of  wealthy women politicians like Pelosi and Warren who are sitting at the high end of the bell curve.

What is concerning to me is that college educated women increasingly vote for Democrats, seeing themselves still as needing additional help from the government to manage their lives.

Philomena the movie, HIV and Reagan

This week at Lakeside we have a foreign film series, but these are all in English and two are about international adoptions, Philomena (British) and Lion (Australian).  I’d seen Philomena starring Judi Dench years ago and had forgotten most of it, particularly the sub-plot about the journalist who had lost his career and was more or less forced into writing a “human interest” non-fiction story which later became the book and then the movie. That it’s anti-Catholic is probably no surprise—the Roman Catholic church may be the largest and oldest target for both religious issues and social issues. Atheists, agnostics, and Protestants can all find something to criticize.    It is not just a Christian church—it is the largest social service agency in the world, and has about 26 different branches under its name all over the world each with unique language and culture. In the end, it is Philomena (the woman) who understands forgiveness, not the nuns and certainly not the journalist/author.

But Philomena the movie is also anti-Republican and anti-President Reagan, and that’s par for the course for the Brits who think we should have been happy to remain under the Union Jack.   Philomena’s birth son was adopted by an affluent American couple and grows up to become a valuable member of both the Reagan and Bush I administrations. He dies of AIDS in 1995.  However, he was gay during a time when there was almost no hope for remission from HIV (and 30 years later—it was identified in 1981—there is still no vaccine or cure), so Reagan is blamed for not pushing the federal funding more vigorously in 1986.  That’s absurd.

The U.S. was emerging from the boomer, free-sex and legalized abortion movements of the 1960s and 1970s,  people were demanding privacy in all things sexual and personal, the gay lifestyle was increasingly being recognized for “loving and caring” relationships particularly in literature and the arts, healthy lifestyles and personal responsibility for health advocacy groups were growing.  On top of all that, in the medical field researchers and university faculty were practically assuring us that the era and threat of infectious diseases was over.  STDs were going to be held at bay not by responsible monogamous life styles, but with penicillin. I remember that from the medical journals I was handling in the library.  Infectious disease journals were gathering dust.

President Reagan was blamed for the “gay disease” charge about HIV-AIDS in this movie.  And yet if you read any CDC fact sheet today, virtually all new cases (83%) of HIV are among “men who have sex with men” and that includes bi-sexual men who then infect women.
The recommendations by the USPSTF on screening are in order of importance:

1) Male-to-male sex (every 3 to 6 months screened)
And any risky life style comes next.
2) injection drug use
3) anal intercourse without a condom
4) more than one partner whose HIV status is unknown
5) transactional sex (exchanging sex for drugs)
6) commercial sex trade (prostitution)

So you see, in many cases it is still behavior and personal responsibility, not the federal government, which is your best protection from any sexual disease from syphilis to gonorrhea to AIDS. Don’t get advice on serious health matters from a movie with a political agenda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG3QP8foCvg  Trailer

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690288/
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/philomena_and_the_magical_sodomite_archetype.html
https://www.thebalance.com/who-funds-biomedical-research-2663193
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/

Lakeside 2019, winding down, week 11

The Labor Day fireworks will be on Saturday, so we won’t miss them, since we’re usually not here on Labor Day.  There are lots of social activities this week as people who are left wind down from a busy summer. We went to a nice neighborhood brunch on Sunday after dockside service—great waffles made on two very ancient waffle irons topped with real maple syrup and fresh fruit.   I went out for breakfast and lunch on Tuesday. Breakfast with Joan at the Patio Restaurant and lunch at the Lakeside Women’s Club which was a noon potluck of just salads and desserts.  Tonight we’ve invited our neighbor Tom for dinner—pork roast, pea salad, roasted butternut squash, and fresh fruit, then going to another neighbor’s for dessert. Bob has his last Guy’s Club lunch today—they always travel by motor boat to a local restaurant. Thursday is dinner with two other neighbors on Oak Ave.

This week is called Lakeside University with all the hosts/lecturers being Lakeside people or a town near-by.  We had a lecture on Monday by the great granddaughter and her husband of R.E. Olds, of Oldsmobile and yachting fame. They have a cottage here.  Another lecture on Tuesday was by the founder of our sailing club. There is an afternoon foreign films series, and the first two were on adoption themes, Philomena (English) and The Lion (Australian).  Both are outstanding—if you have a chance, be sure to see them. Today I mentioned the films to my neighbor as we walked to the morning program, and she mentioned that she is adopted, and within the last year she found (or was found by) a half-brother.  She said she had a wonderful life with her parents and had never been interested in searching (both films were about the search).

Top Hat the movie with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was the evening Hoover show on Tuesday—so much more fun with an audience.  Another foreign film today, but I sat through about 30 minutes, and it seemed to be about the frailties of aging, dementia and government bureaucracy when he tries to build a house  (Still Mine), so that didn’t seem entertaining and I left.

Today’s morning lecture was on the American Songbook by our wonderful musical director and vice president for programming, Michael Shirtz.  At Hoover tonight there will be an actual performance by him—he sings and plays piano. 

The lake was wild, windy and nasty on Sunday, but Monday and Tuesday was quite and calm. Monday night’s program, a piano player (boogie woogie) was moved from the gazebo to Hoover due to the weather, and he was very good.

And to top things off, we’re having the carpet cleaned on Friday.  We’ve never done that but since it was installed in 1989, it’s time.

Thoughts on Mother and mothering

Sunday, August 25, was the 85th anniversary of my parents’ wedding. They died in 2000 and 2002, having celebrated together 65 years during the previous August wedding of my sister in 1999.  My dad wasn’t one to keep a diary, but he did jot things down in a little spiral bound notebook later in life, and he noted that on their anniversary in 2000 he took Mother’s ashes on a ride in the country on their 66th.  He never tired of driving the country roads even though he had done that most of his life to earn a living. After they’d both retired, he and Mom would sometimes take Sunday drives around Ogle and Lee counties just recalling the past, or enjoying the changes of seasons, or how the crops were doing, or which farms were being kept up. In fact, even when I was a child, Sunday afternoon “entertainment” might be driving to Iowa to look around. That certainly wouldn't have been my choice with 4 children in the car.

I’d also been thinking about Mom because a very old memory had popped to the surface during one of our Lakeside 2019 classes by Chef Stacy.  It was on home made pasta.  We didn’t eat a lot of pasta when I was growing up—our spaghetti came out of a can and would be for lunch--never dinner. I didn’t learn to appreciate pasta until meeting Bob’s mother, who made fabulous homemade spaghetti, with tossed salad and garlic bread.   But Mom was also trying out new things, and she must have seen an article on making noodles, because we went through a phase when we lived in Forreston of her testing out this new skill.  I remember watching her make it—the recipe is very simple, just flour, water and eggs.  She did her best, but the beef roast and noodles dish was usually a gooey mess.  Dad might have said something about it, and she dropped that experiment forever to disappear from her menus.  Stacy made it look so easy, I may try it, and dedicate the gooey mess to Mom’s memory.

In today’s meditation I read a letter from Concepcion Cabrera de Armida to her son Pancho (nickname for Francisco).  She died in 1937, and was a wife, mother, and writer in Mexico.  She apparently wrote about 65,000 of these little messages.  It reminds me a lot of what my mother would say to her children.

• Avoid the least quarrel and do not stop at any sacrifice to have peace in your home.
• It is better to bend than to break.
• With prudence, education and certain common sense, many troubles can be avoided.
• Oh, my son! Never forget that everything you are, all that you have and the happiness you now enjoy, you owe to the good Jesus who has loved you with such tenderness! From how many dangers he has delivered you!
• Be grateful, my son: recognize with gratitude the fatherly tenderness of God over you and demonstrate your gratitude by your actions, and never be ashamed of being a good Christian.
• Be dignified with everyone but never haughty.
• Keep on being honest under every circumstance.
• Do not soil your soul with business deals that extort your fellowmen.
• May your soul be always clean—poverty does not soil or shame one—and you will be happy.
• May your home, dear Pancho, be a model of Christian homes where the Lord reigns and a worldly atmosphere does not enter; where the peace and happiness that are born from the accomplishment of one’s duty, be settled there.
• Never spend more than you have, not even all that you earn; thrift helps marriages avoid a lot of trouble.
• But do not be avaricious; aim for a happy medium maintaining a decent and fitting social standing, not living in luxury, even if you become rich.
• Let the poor be considered one of your ordinary expenses, and God will not fail you.
• Don’t limit your piety to exterior observance but rather practice the virtues, being patient in adversity, resigned to the adverse events of life, because if we receive from the Lord so many goods, why should we not also receive the sufferings he desires to send us? (Magnificat, vol. 21, no. 6 p. 387-388.)

Loneliness is the worst poverty

The guest pastor this morning quoted Mother Teresa on loneliness being the worst kind of poverty, but when I checked I think he must have paraphrased because I couldn't find the exact one. But I may have found one even better.

"During a speech in 1994 at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., she said, “I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an institution and forgotten them – maybe. I saw that in that home these old people had everything – good food, comfortable place, television, everything, but everyone was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on the face. I turned to Sister and I asked: “Why do these people who have every comfort here, why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?” I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people, even the dying ones’ smile. And Sister said: ‘This is the way it is nearly every day. They are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten.’ And see, this neglect to love brings spiritual poverty… When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person who has been thrown out of society – that spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome.” "

The 2020 election will be stolen

"We won't beat Trump by blaming others and boasting about our own supposed virtue." "We liberals need self-criticism," Ioannis Gatsiounis, WSJ, Aug. 22.

I'm not so sure. I've been watching this virtue signaling (under various names) for 25-30 years, beginning when I was on the faculty   at OSU. Blame and self-righteousness goes a long way in politics. I've yet to hear one word about policy from the opposition that wasn't first built on hate for Trump, then charges of racism or misogyny. Even Jill Biden is campaigning for Joe on that.

• Democrats have created a new race--"people of color" often applied to those of 100% European ancestry with a Spanish surname.
• We've still got think tanks protected by their 501c3 status comparing the salaries of female part time day care workers with male electrical engineers and declaring a gender wage gap and then giving candidates talking points.
• There isn't a shred of scientific evidence that men can become women, but the LGBTQ agenda has been able to undo Title IX and get backing from major corporation who are reluctant to fight back if profit is involved.
• Words have become weaponized to create white supremacism where none exists.
• No one is punished or brought up on hate crime charges for maligning or destroying the businesses of Americans whose ancestors came from Europe.

Democrats plan to steal the 2020 election--probably could save a lot of money in campaigning. And they will do it with the Constitution which allows states to figure out their own electoral votes. Usually Democrats don't like the Constitution when it comes to rights of the unborn, or 2nd amendment or religion, but they'll love it for stealing this election. Not only do Democrat controlled states have an advantage in non-citizen population (which determines the count for the House), but when they control the state, they control how the Electoral College will vote.

Lakeside 2019, Week 10, and Virtual Reality

Friday is a light day for programming at Lakeside; we had a class on organization (clutter) and cooking tips by Stacy Maple, a chef, on alternate Fridays earlier in the season, but today was the Wellness Fair.

I poked around at a few displays—the Methodists are having an apple dumpling fund raiser (have no idea why this is health related, except it’s fine fellowship and we all need friends and service); Magruder Hospital had a display on the danger of falls, but the ladies didn’t know how to keep my husband off the roof; and there were various “eastern” or meditative or movement programs that I don’t do.

I did, however, discover a new health related business by a woman entrepreneur which can assist hospice patients, shut-ins or nursing home residents reduce their pain, recall pleasant memories, and facilitate conversations with loved ones.  It’s called “Immersive cure; virtual reality solutions.”  Using virtual reality therapy it’s a non-pharmacological way to reduce stress, anxiety, depression and pain with a Gear VR Headset. Originally VR was used primarily for entertainment purposes, but in the last decade medical research has proven it effective for other uses.

As I sat in a chair waiting for the headset to be placed I learned that the CEO, Jessica Benson, of Medina, Ohio, had moved around a bit due to her husband’s career and then through a volunteer position at a hospital came up with this idea to provide personalized virtual experiences for people who are facility bound or too frail to travel.  The option (right now I believe there are 6 one of which is veteran travel to monuments) I used was the “Lakeside experience.” With the gentle sounds of Lake Erie and nature sounds I was transported to the front lawn near the Celtic cross and fountain at Hotel Lakeside looking up, down and around, enjoying lake views and watching people strolling, and some plein air artists (filmed in July).

The kit which Ms. Benson provides includes the headset with controller, a smart phone, headphones, an infection control kit, and case for the equipment. She will educate the staff of the organization that purchases her services. She can also personalize this service for other areas and events that would be familiar for the shut-in.

For more information and comments by users, see Immersivecure.com

"Virtual reality and pain management: current trends and future directions"  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138477/ 

Sickle cell disease. https://www.healio.com/hematology-oncology/hematology/news/online/%7B5ab0e2a2-6198-4b7e-9420-8dcbff9d958b%7D/virtual-reality-helps-reduce-pain-among-patients-with-sickle-cell-disease

 https://interestingengineering.com/virtual-reality-can-help-relieve-severe-pain-in-patients-study-finds

https://www.gamerevolution.com/tech/417593-vr-labor-pain-study-samsung

Lakeside, 2019 Week 10, RV video

https://youtu.be/H69oPSYABDA

This is a lovely video made by a couple who have an RV channel on YouTube.  They did a great story about Lakeside and were here during the Marilyn McCoo-Billy Davis Show.  Street scenes are less populated since most families have gone home for the school year.  More emphasis on the camp ground than most things I see—it’s not easy to get space there.  About 17 minutes.

The worm has turned. Piers Morgan.

PIERS MORGAN: "Populism is rising because liberals have become unbearable. In my core, I'm probably more liberal than not although fundamentally I see myself as a journalist and I like to see both sides and I can argue both sides of all these things, but what's the point of calling yourself a liberal if you don't allow anyone else to have a different view? This snowflake culture that we now operate in, the victimhood culture, the everyone has to think in a certain way, behave a certain way. Everyone has to have a bleeding heart and tell you 20 things that are wrong with them. I just think it is all completely skewed to an environment where everyone is offended by everything and no one is allowed to say a joke.

If you said a joke ten years ago that offended somebody, you can never host the Oscars. So now there's no host for anything. The Emmy's now just said they're not gonna host either, so hosts have gone, and soon, every award winner will go because everyone's a human being and we're all flawed, so no one can win awards anymore because there will be no platform before they even get on the podium, so then no hosts, no stars. Then no one can make any movies because we're all flawed, so no actors, so suddenly, where are we?

The liberals get what they want, which is a humorless void where nothing happens, no one dares do anything or laugh about anything or behave in any way that doesn't suit their rigid way of leading a life. No thanks. So what's happening around the world? Populism is rising because people are fed up with the PC culture. They're fed up with snowflakery, they're fed up with people being offended by everything and they're gravitating towards forceful personalities who go: "This is all nonsense!"

Which, by the way, it is in most cases. So why are we surprised? I'm not surprised. It doesn't mean to say I agree with all of it, but it means I can understand it, and I understand why the liberals, my side, if you like, are getting it so horribly wrong. They just wanna tell people, not just how to lead their lives, but if you don't lead it the way I tell you to it's a kind of version of fascism. If you don't lead the life the way I'm telling you to then I'm going to ruin your life. I'm gonna scream abuse at you. I'm gonna get you fired from your job. I'm gonna get you hounded by your family and friends. I'm gonna make you the most disgusting human being in the world."

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/08/20/piers_morgan_the_left_have_become_unbearable.html

August 20 sunset

Happy Birthday, Stan. 78.

Beth Sibbring photo

    

Lakeside 2019, Week 9, the rest of the story

Before starting on Week 10, first I have to say good-bye to Week 9.  Wonderful closing performance of the Lakeside Symphony Orchestra on Friday, August 16 with Angelin Chang performing Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor by Camille Saint-Saens.  Then after intermission, the LSO performed Symphony no. 1 in C minor by Brahms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhkuad0gLM4

Friday morning we had our last class on clutter (Organization 101).  One of the best stories was told by one in the audience who had collected elephants and needed to “let it go.”  He had 3,000 of them.  So he took a statue of 4—2 adults, an adolescent and a baby, all connected trunk to tail.  It weighed 1,000 pounds.  He decided to have it made into his grave marker and found a company that would do it!  In life the instructor suggested we all need to learn “Let it Go” whether that be material accumulation or personal grievances.

In the afternoon Gretchen Curtis reviewed Marilla of Green Gables which is a prequel to Anne of Green Gables.  I’d never read the Anne series, but Gretchen always does such a nice job, it didn’t really matter.  Sat with my neighbor Dorothy.

There were several friends from UALC at Lakeside during Week 9, and for the Wednesday night picnic we all gathered at Perry park (east end), along with our neighbors Scott and Carol, to share a huge table.  Shout out to Mary, Carol, Kelly and David, plus 2 of their friends from Westerville.  It was a fun evening of hot dogs, chips, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon and cookies.

I found the morning lectures somewhat disappointing for Week 9.  The speaker was Jack Barlow of Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa.(Church of the Brethren college).  His conservative  vita looked good, Claremont Graduate School and Carleton College, but he definitely leaned left. He didn't call our Constitution "evolving" or "plastic," but that was the sense I had.  After the Tuesday lecture during the Q & A I raised that issue, and asked him if his students would feel free to disagree (virtually all institutions of high learning weed out conservatives so now there are very few among ranks of faculty, even in religious private institutions). He didn't deny being liberal, but assured the audience it didn't affect his students.  That's odd.  I picked up on it immediately, and if I were a student, I think I'd know how to frame my papers or answers to please a professor.  Anyway, after the lecture there were 5 or 6 people who came up to me an whispered they were so happy I spoke up.  The fact they had to whisper is indicative of the anti-Trump and anti-conservative bias we face here. Then as I headed home, a man caught up with me on Walnut and said he admired me for saying something.  He was not a "Lakesider" as we think of it, and was only in town two days, being a regular at Chautauqua, NY.  He and his wife talked to me for about 10 minutes, saying they were from West Virginia and had been on a very interesting trip including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc., and decided to stop in Lakeside since they'd never heard of it before this trip. He too had lost long time friends and family for being a conservative and voting for Trump.

Monday night we thoroughly enjoyed the silent movie selection "The Kid Brother," (1927) with Harold Lloyd.  The organist was Clark Wilson, and he gave an intro and provided a wonderful background  for the movie.  Tuesday night was the program Bob had been looking forward to--a classical guitarist playing with the Symphony Orchestra--Colin Davin.
https://www.youtube.com/user/colindavinguitar

The opening of Week 9 (Saturday August 10) was Brian Regan, a comedian, and we'd never heard of him, but he's apparently popular on late night TV, because the place was packed with an overflow crowd standing in the back of Hoover.  Very clean, no rough language.  Nothing political.  A great show.

Steve Kings remark on rape and incest

Democrat media are trying to portray Steve King's comment on family trees as excusing rape and incest. Not at all. It's just a fact. History, not emotion, and Democrats hate that. He's simply saying those children are a part of the human race, part of us, regardless of the sins of their mothers and fathers. If you chopped off all those branches in your family tree, you'd have a stump. The current craze for DNA family searches has shown that many people do not have the fathers (usually) or family they imagined. Many family genealogies have "aunts" who were actually the mother, or an uncle, grandfather or cousin who were the father. But there it is--in the census and the insert in the Bible record. I used to be part of an e-mail genealogy group, and was amazed at the stories I read of old family secrets before the DNA tests. . . one I recall was a man impregnating his wife's younger sister and her being hidden, then married off and whisked out of state then languishing in a mental institution and the child given away. Democrats see that as immoral, but not aborting a person who might grow up to be a very ordinary citizen, or a very exceptional scientist is OK.

Civilian populations, particularly women, suffered greatly in wars going back centuries, and in Latin class we translated the "Rape of the Sabine Women." You can call it "abduction," but they helped populate Rome. American Indians did the same thing.  Muslims tried and almost succeeded in taking over Christian Europe, but over time turned whole populations Muslim. Africans were exported all over the world mostly to South America (only 6% came to North America) to be slaves. Or more recently in this century, when many of the young Nigerian Christian school girls were freed from Boko Haram--many were pregnant or carrying toddlers.

Just because we have Planned Parenthood clinics down the street or across town in a black or low income neighborhood, doesn't mean we're free of this. Democrats are the ones saying only certain lives matter--the ones in our party, our victims--not your party or your victims. They are the ones pushing eugenics and selling body parts. Democrats for decades have said most children conceived outside and some inside marriage are not worthy if they are inconvenient, a source of shame or disabled.

Look back a few years, decades or centuries, and you'll find this in your own family tree.

Elizabeth Warren and her wealth, as reported in Wall St. Journal

“Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) likes to talk a lot about an affordability crisis in higher education. Fortunately for Ms. Warren and her husband, there’s no crisis at all for the people who work there.

This week Forbes magazine estimates the net worth of various 2020 presidential candidates. While it’s no surprise that a number of former business and finance executives come to the campaign with sizable fortunes, what’s remarkable is how much wealth is now attainable for those in the allegedly non-profit sector of the U.S economy.

Dan Alexander, Chase Peterson-Withorn and Michela Tindera of Forbes estimate that Sen. Warren and her husband enjoy a net worth of $12 million. According to Forbes:

Teachers aren’t paid so poorly after all—at least not Harvard professors. Warren and her husband, Bruce Mann, both longtime instructors at the university, have built up a small fortune through years of teaching, writing and consulting. Their largest holdings include TIAA and CREF accounts—available to educators and nonprofit employees—worth more than $4 million. One of their best investments has been their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, purchased in 1995 for $447,000. It’s now worth an estimated $3 million.

The couple purchased the home around the time that Ms. Warren stopped listing herself as a “minority” in the Association of American Law Schools directory. By that time she had won a contested tenure vote from the Harvard Law School faculty and as far as this column can tell she never again called herself “American Indian” in registering with a state bar association. In the years that followed Ms. Warren and her husband achieved healthy levels of wealth and income. According to Forbes, it’s possible that the Warren/Mann household is now worth even more than $12 million:

No one, not even the Democrats who spend the most time bashing Trump for his financial dealings, were willing to release full tax returns, file financial disclosures and answer all of Forbes’ questions about their personal finances. Elizabeth Warren, for example... wouldn’t give guidance on the true value of her husband’s investments, listed on her disclosures with a vague value of “over $1 million.” “

Denigrating one’s own race/culture pays well

White liberal academics can earn more in a day lecturing about their own “white privilege” than the median black household makes in three months, public records obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation and U.S. Census data show.

I noticed this "cottage industry" back in the 1990s. Little workshops, discussion groups, "brown bag lunches" and optional classes making the rounds of college campuses and Christian churches (some of those disguised as attacking poverty). Now it's a massive industry with its own non-profits, bureaucracies, tangled associations for local, state and nation, CEOs, college careers, and required classes. Follow the money. It's the logical and financial outcome of the black studies, women studies, and now gender studies curricula. There was no place/jobs for those graduates, so one was created.

https://themichiganstar.com/2019/07/31/lecturers-earn-6000-per-hour-pushing-white-privilege-to-students/