Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Diversity is more than appearances

Academe, media and some woke corporations believe that diversity is a matter of skin color or biology. Not so. Sitting next to a rich Nigerian at Yale graduation isn't diversity, and hiring an Asian female retired from the National Guard should not be a check mark for government regulations.
Here's my idea of inclusion, equity and diversity (IED).
  • Spend a week or two at Walmart training a new employee who doesn't speak English and uses a wheelchair;
  • stand on your feet for 8 hours at a register in a big box store--with any ethnic group;
  • attend for a few months a Catholic mass or a Baptist revival with a colleague of that faith family if you're an atheist professor;
  • learn to work with the crew and drive one of those huge street sweepers without hitting any cars;
  • find someone on your board allergic to dogs and send her out to work at the pet rescue or pound;
  • assign your president to the library reference room for weeks to teach the elderly how to use the computer;
  • hand the CEO a set of earplugs and send him outside in the wind with the foreign workers to blow leaves for hours;
  • drive, park and unload a semi at a dollar store;
  • run on concrete floors and retrieve for immediate delivery for a full shift week at an Amazon warehouse;
  • or any job that moves you out of your comfort zone and into the real world of work. And then do it over again, and again. That IED.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Finding an old letter—metastatic breast cancer

This is probably a re-run—at least I found it on Facebook and I often double post.  I looked for it because I’ve been cleaning out my desk and found a local’ friend’s letter written from Tennessee after her daughter’s death.  Her daughter was 61 and she was 90.  She didn’t expect to bury her daughter or have to move out of state to settle her estate.  The friend died a few months ago, and although I’m not a hoarder, I did tuck her letter back in the drawer. She was so lonely when she wrote it—had read everything in the house, and couldn’t get a library card because she wasn’t a resident.  She did start the first paragraph with advice I need today. . . “If onlys can ruin your sanity.”
So here’s what I wrote September 27, 2017 in part to warn women about metastatic cancer.
Monday night we had a 90 year old friend, a widow, here for dinner. We had such a nice evening, tinged with sadness. I've told this before, and I'm telling it again because it's so important for women. Metastatic breast cancer.
She's a member of my church, had been living out of state while she settled the estate of her deceased daughter--61--nothing a woman her age would expect to be doing. I remember about 5 years ago her daughter came to Columbus to help her mom recover from a stroke. My friend's daughter had had annual mammograms for years, and nothing was found--probably due to very dense breast tissue and the location of the cancer under her arm. But she did have a lot of pain the last 5 years and was being treated for arthritis. By the time she was properly diagnosed the cancer had metastasized to both hips, her spine, liver and lymph system. This cancer is not curable, and no one dies from cancer that stays in the breast, but if she'd been properly diagnosed 5 years ago, she could possibly be alive. That's not a given, however.  
All women have been educated about detecting breast cancer and screening--in fact, the lion's share of that money you donate and raise in walks, runs, and selling pink stuff, goes for education and not research that could actually save your life. I've looked at several websites about this and personal stories, and this one is pretty clear.
Read the comments https://participatorymedicine.org/journal/perspective/narratives/2013/04/10/metastatic-breast-cancer-lessons-learned-from-my-missed-diagnosis.
The author of this article provided a checklist:
Lessons Learned Checklist:
  1. Expect mistakes from your health provider;
  2. Ask critical questions at every visit. Take a written list of questions in order of priority. If you get home and realize something is not clear, contact your doctor again;
  3. Get a friend or family member to serve as your advocate;
  4. Communication between doctors is absolutely critical. If a Radiology report indicates possible metastatic disease or something equally alarming make sure you get a definitive diagnosis. Rule out the worst-case scenarios. Make sure the doctors involved have talked;
  5. If you aren’t confident about the doctor’s diagnosis, ask your doctor to review your records with colleagues to see what might have been missed;
  6. Get a second opinion;
  7. Choose doctors who take time and listen. Ask for a copy of the doctor’s notes to ensure your issues are documented properly. This also ensures the doctor heard what you said;
  8. Ask specialists to take a “fresh look” at your case;
  9. Make use of hospital patient advocate resources without delay.

Update on our son

On October 1, 2019, our son had several seizures and was diagnosed with glioblastoma.  He has endured a lot in the last four months including side effects from the standard treatment for this disease, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and steroids to reduce brain swelling.  Thursday he had another MRI and today consulted with his doctor.  He posted the following on Facebook.

"Hi there. MRI shows tumor growth. Docs don’t know if this is actual tumor growth, or scan findings are related to swelling from treatment. I’ll continue current treatment plan for 2 months and re-evaluate. Pray my symptoms subside. Love you all.  .  ."

Post Office adventure

I went to the post office to buy stamps--only one employee, so I waited about 20 minutes. After I made my selection when I got to the counter, my credit card wouldn't work. I had just used it before I got there. The clerk rubbed it, we reinserted, and it still wouldn't work. Then the young woman behind me walked up with one package said she'd pay, and offered her credit card. I was stunned. Was this a TV show? I explained it was $27.50, not just a couple of stamps. She said, that's OK, I'll pay. Then I suggested she buy what she needed, and I'd step aside, and we'd see if the machine would take her card. She did that--for fifteen cents! She had taped the stamps to her package, so had to buy new stamps, but she had too many on the envelop so she only needed 15 cents. So then I tried my card, and the machine worked. Crazy day.

I've paid ahead at the grocery store if someone was short, but never $27.50.

One of the sheets I selected was the post office murals. . . Piggott, AR; Anadarko, OK; Florence, CO; Deming, NM; Rockville, MD. Mt. Morris, IL has a mural, but it didn't make the cut. http://www.wpamurals.com/mtmorris.htm

Another sheet was the Made of Hearts design.  According to the USPO website, “The art for this latest stamp in the LOVE series features horizontal rows of red and pink hearts on a white background.  Toward the center, red hearts in varying sizes replace pink hearts in a formation that creates one large red heart, the focal point of this graphic design.”

My third choice was the Lunar New Year—Year of the Rat.  It looks a lot like a blue cat with a gold crown and tassels on its ears.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

The old play book of the Democrats

Sound familiar? Come in at the last minute with a "witness." Kavanaugh wasn't the first, and he won't be the last. It's the Democrat play book. Demand more witnesses. Now they are desperate--have to bring Trump down before the election because they can't win by voting.

"In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. His confirmation hearings would test his character and principles in the crucible of national controversy. Like the Bork hearings in 1987, the Democrats went after Thomas’ record and his jurisprudence, especially natural law theory, but also attacked his character. When that failed, and he was on the verge of being confirmed, a former employee, Anita Hill, came forth to accuse him of sexual harassment. The next few days of televised hearings riveted the nation. Finally, defending himself against relentless attacks by the Democratic Senators on the committee, Thomas accused them of running “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.” After wall-to-wall television coverage, according to the national polls, the American people believed Thomas by more than a 2-1 margin. Yet, Thomas was confirmed by the closest margin in history, 52-48."

Saturday, January 25, 2020

A Burns Party, January 25

Tonight we attend a Burns supper. Bob will wear his Bruce kilt, and I'll wear one that's close and has more coverage.  I always have to remind him to keep his legs together.  Fortunately, we aren’t having the bad weather that some are getting—just cold and damp.

From Wikipedia: "The first supper was held in memoriam at Burns Cottage by Burns' friends, on 21 July 1801, the fifth anniversary of Robert Burns' death; it has been a regular occurrence ever since. The first still extant Burns Club was founded in Greenock in 1801 by merchants who were born in Ayrshire, some of whom had known Burns. They held the first Burns supper on what they thought was his birthday, 29 January 1802, but in 1803, they discovered the Ayr parish records that noted his date of birth was actually 25 January 1759. Since then, suppers have been held on or about 25 January.

Burns was said to have delivered this grace at a dinner given by the Earl of Selkirk.

Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

Donna is a wonderful chef and hostess.  It’s always an interesting group of people and great food.

"Here are some Scots words. You will hear them used all over Scotland. Aboot, bairn, bonnie, brae, cooncil, doun, dreich, faither, fitba, flit, glaikit, gowk, heid, hoose, ken, kirk, laddie, lang, lassie, mither, nane, poke, rare, scunner, speir, stooshie, stramash, threap, wean. People who speak Scots use these words and many other words like them." (Scots Language Centre)

Friday, January 24, 2020

Historic March for Life

Today January 24 marked the 47th annual March for Life to protest the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 legalizing abortion on demand. Republican presidents usually sent someone to represent them to the rally, and last year VP Mike Pence addressed the event in person, while Trump appeared on video. This year, it was Pence who appeared by video and Trump who attended.

Although it's Democrats who claim to support the women and minority issues, half of those who are aborted are female, and about 35% are black. So who cares more? Planned Parenthood which is the biggest killer of life in the U.S. also launders money for Democrat candidates and has pledged $45 million for the 2020 campaign; it supports the candidate and they in turn see that PP continues getting tax money. Cozy deal. The real quid pro quo.

"Last year, lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow the baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb right up until delivery. Then we had the case of the Democrat governor in the state of Virginia. … The governor stated he would execute a baby after birth” (the same guy who wants to save life by taking away 2nd amendment).  https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/01/24/trump-at-march-for-life-unborn-children-never-had-stronger-defender-in-white-house/

Hallmark’s Winter Movie series

In order to avoid anything about the DNC, Democratic National Circus, I decided to continue with Hallmark's winter season, and found "Love in Paradise." Interestingly, the male lead was Luke Perry, probably the scrawniest, inept movie cowboy you'll ever see. He died of a stroke earlier this year at 52 and was originally from Ohio. It was a good story. I'd never seen 90210 so this was the first time to see him.  As lovers go, they were really mismatched.  But she did teach him to ride a horse, drive a truck and mend a fence.

https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/love-in-paradise/cast?

We’d met before, when he was not a happy camper

I'd seen an article in the Columbus Dispatch, and decided to write a note to a doctor who was mentioned as the expert. I've been fiddling with the draft for a week or so, when finally it dawned on me his name sounded familiar. So I did one of those internet people searches where public information is collected on one site, and sure enough, I used to work for his mother. We'd actually met. I had attended his bris, the Jewish ceremony in which a baby boy is circumcised.

What not to Wear—what a fun show

I used to enjoy watching “What not to Wear” and came across it today trying to NOT watch all the impeachment coverage on Fox. Adam Schiff is such a joke; it’s DNC—Democratic National Circus. So I watched the story about Angie, a 38 year old New York City wife, mommy and business woman who had changed her life style.  She went from party girl to schlump—stopped drinking, smoking, staying out late, and lost 35 pounds.  She had no style sense, hated to shop. She loved her new physical, healthy life, but looked like she hated it.  So her husband, friends and co-workers, nominated her for a make-over, and boy did she look sharp!

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

The show ran on cable for 10 years, 2003-2013, and the theme of this reality show was two fashion stylists with a team of hair and make-up stylists ambush (since it’s a reality show,  who knows if they are actually surprised).  A person (usually a woman) is nominated to get a do over which includes ridiculing her old look and throwing most of her outlandish wardrobe in a trash barrel. At the end, the ambushee always looks fabulous. Stacy London https://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/what-not-to-wear/bios/stacy-london and Clinton Kelley are the hosts. 

It is perhaps being remade. https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/tlc-is-rebooting-what-not-to-wear-will-stacy-london-and-clinton-kelly-be-back-for-the-new-show.html/

How I became a retired librarian...from 2008

“Since I was 5 years old I've been in the information business, and before that I had a sharp eye and was taking it all in without realizing it, analyzing, puzzling and disgorging it to anyone who would listen or look at my drawings (before I could read or write). With nearly 20 years of formal education, and probably fifty required, no-credit workshops, I went on to help other people find and redistribute information--helped them find obscure details for their novels, graduate from college, locate jobs, get tenure and promotion, nail down grants to do research, find a formula for a baby gorilla rejected by its mother, and bake blackbirds in a pie. I even published my own research on agricultural publications and home libraries by examining bits and pieces of other people's research who had done likewise.

In my pursuit to dig out, disgorge and distribute information, I held hands, wiped tears, observed love affairs, translated documents, got blisters on my ear from phone calls, created web pages, compiled bibliographies, nodded off in hundreds of meetings, lectured at conferences, ruined my rotator cuff and placed shaky fingers of the elderly on keyboards. I mopped water from leaking ceilings, tore fingernails changing print cartridges, handed out tissues, woke up sleeping students, and brought blueprints home, all in the name of organizing and distributing information. In thanks for my efforts for information I received a paycheck, benefits, thank you cards, flowers, and the occasional lunch out or box of pastries. In the late summer of 2000 I had five retirement parties. Two years later when the new library I helped design opened, I never even got an invite to the open house.”

(From a blog I wrote in 2008)

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Updating my list of conservative news and talker shows

This A-List of conservative columnists, tv and radio hosts, talking heads, bloggers and guest commentators originally was published here 2.5 years old,  borrowed it from Christopher Buckley with his permission.  Now I’ve added a few names, and deleted some. You don't have to depend on the broadcast media or the MSM Trump haters. Your mileage will vary. It’s too much work to track down all the links so just Google, DuckDuckGo or Bing them.

  

Sharyl Attkinsson: Investigative Journalist. "Full Measure."
Fred Barnes: executive editor of The Weekly Standard
Glenn Beck: politics, author, producer, filmmaker, and entrepreneur
Bill Bennett: pundit, politician, political theorist, author
Brent Bozell: Founder, President Media Research Center; columnist, TV commentator
Breitbart
Tammy Bruce: nationally syndicated radio host, author, and political commentator. Lesbian.
Tucker Carlson
Bernard Chapin
Pat Condell
Ann Coulter: Lawyer, author, columnist, frequent TV guest
Steven Crowder
Monica Crowley: Columnist, talk radio, author. PhD.
Mark Dice
Matt Drudge
Dinesh D'Souza, Indian
Larry Elder, black
Eric Erikson
Nigel Farage, British
Richard Fernandez
John Fund
Mike Gallagher
Pamela Gellar: Commentator,  Activist Counter-jihad movement
Paul Gigot
Jonah Goldberg
Sebastian Gorka, British Hungarian immigrant
Joe Dan Gorman
Greg Gutfield
Sean Hannity
Daniel Hannon
Victor Davis Hanson, columnist, professor, farmer
Daniel Henninger
Hugh Hewitt
Jim Hoft
David Horowitz
Mike Huckabee
Brit Hume
Laura Ingraham: radio talk show host, book author, political commentator, guest host for O'Reilly
Janice Fiamengo
Boris Johnson
Alex Jones
Brian Kilmeade
Andrew Klavin
Bill Kristol
Michael Ledeen
Mark Levin
Dana Loesch: talk radio host, television host. Big 2A fan
Rush Limbaugh
Frank Luntz
Heather MacDonald: political commentator, journalist City Journal, author War on Cops
Andrew McCarthy
Gavin McGuinness
Michelle Malkin: political commentator, blogger, author 4 books, weekly syndicated column.
Michael Medved
Eric Metaxas, Christian, biographer
Dennis Miller
Dick Morris
Charles Murray, author, lecturer
Lionel Nation, YouTube channel
Peggy Noonan
James Okeefe
Bill O'Reilly
Candace Owens, black talk show on Prager University
Joe Pags
Jordon B. Peterson, Canadian, psychologist
John Podhoretz
Dennis Prager
AlfonZo
Michael Ramirez
Dave Ramsey, money and budget; Christian
Michael Rechtenwald
Glenn Reynolds
Rockin Mr. E
Dave Rubin
Karl Rove
Gad Saad
Michael Savage
Buck Sexton
Ben Shapiro
Thomas Sowell, black
Mark Steyn
John Stossell
Kimberley Strassel: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, weekly "Potomac Watch"
James Taranto
Stacy Washington, black
Matt Walsh
Michael Walsh
Paul Joseph Watson
Allen West, black
Bill Whittle
Geert Wilders, Dutch
Walter E. Williams, black
Kevin Williamson
Milo Yiannopoulos

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Whose problem is the homeless problem? Not the president’s

I hope the president and the federal agencies stay out of California's homeless problem. It's a state and local problem exacerbated by the green/environment/climate regulations, building codes and their tax laws which keep some costs artificially low for a few. If California were a country, it would be one of the richest in the world--the 5th largest economy--and wouldn't need our "foreign" aid if it were managed correctly and didn't have Democrat law makers.

Just as Obama took affordable older cars off the road and destroyed them with “cash for clunkers,” so state officials in collusion with builders, architects and real estate firms are destroying affordable housing calling it necessary because of climate change or healthier housing. And it's not just California. My husband's architecture magazines are cringe worthy. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-how-we-got-here-20180201-story.html

Mark Steyn and the First Amendment

Some of you, the informed ones, know who Mark Steyn is. He's an immigrant, a humorist, a wit, occasionally fills in for Rush Limbaugh, and I've seen him on Fox as a talking head. He's also being sued by an academic for not worshiping the climate gods, even after hacked documents showed him to be right.

Someone else made a joke about Michael E. Mann, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and a climate activist, and Mann sued him and Steyn for calling his hockey stick graph "fraudulent." It was an opinion that should have been covered by the first amendment and should have been resolved with facts and data, but Mann won. So now it's going to full trial, costing the National Review millions of dollars. The Supreme Court has refused to hear it.

You need to pay attention because this is a case that will come after you. Academe, media, professional organizations, non-profits and leftist politicians are all colluding to force us to accept their religion of climate change. We all know climate changes, or Ohio would be uninhabitable. But in order to squeeze more taxes out of us, we have to bow to accepting the blame for it. More important is freedom of speech--that's priceless, not just an increase in taxes.

https://www.city-journal.org/national-review-first-amendment?

Only Congress could make up such unfair rules

I was on a jury a few years back on an auto accident insurance case--it was based on the Ohio "golden turkey" law. Too complicated and absurd to explain, but it has since been repealed. However, it was shocking to me what could get a person tossed from jury selection. If your brother in law was in an auto accident 10 years ago and won his case, you could be considered prejudiced and get bumped. But when a man who was elected by 63,000,000 people is on trial for 2 non-crimes, the jury is made up of people who have been demanding his removal since before he was inaugurated in hopes of getting his job! Only Congress could make up rules like this. The rest of us live in the United States of America which has laws to protect us against these medieval methods.

Middle aged increases in binge drinking in U.S.

"The total annual number of binge drinks consumed per U.S. adult who reported binge drinking increased significantly by 12% from 2011 to 2017, including among non-Hispanic white adults and those aged ≥35 years." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6902a2-H.pdf

One is tempted to ask who was in the White House and Congress during the years of study?  I'm not making light of binge drinking, but it was during the Obama years that the hate and division really escalated--but then, so did the nastiness on social media. That said, when we see this, the federal government is quick to see $$$ in grant money for more study of socioeconomic causes, when maybe it needs to look in the mirror.

This was reported in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC and you should read carefully rather than accepting the headline version you'll see on internet news (like my source did using Yahoo instead of CDC). Just saying though, Ohio was one of the 9 states reporting a significant increase. And Wyoming? What's going on? The CDC backed up its claims with data on increase in alcohol sales.

I mention my source because it is a pet peeve that I receive “Healthbeat” in my e-mail from Ohio State University Medical Center Communications Center, and it is citing Yahoo!  Do they have no experts of their own who can read a CDC MMWR report?

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

The Impeachment smoke screen, Todd L. Thornton, guest blogger

The Democrat's Articles of Impeachment are a smoke screen of legal jargon covering up why they really want Trump impeached.

Why Trump is being Impeached:

1. Border crossings are down 73% and the Democratic Party is well aware of how preventing illegal aliens from socialist nations to enter the United States is affecting their “Illegal Voter Registration” policies, especially in sanctuary states, like California and New York where an impoverished and dependent class of citizen is crucial to their political power.

2. Despite outright corruption orchestrated by Organizing For America using the American media (NBC, CNN, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others), fake race riots, phony Russian collaboration, and pretend stories about Ukrainian influence were peddled as fact and bolstered by a corrupt leadership team at the FBI and CIA. These efforts failed to topple the President as there was no basis of fact in the allegations and Millions of dollars were wasted. In the midst of an active impeachment trial, The President has begun investigating the Democrats and where their money comes from. Americans are just beginning to learn of global money laundering schemes, pay-to-play diplomacy, and complicity in the actual crimes the President stands accused of. Billions of dollars have been traded for Democrat's families to have jobs, pedophiles and communists to take safe haven, provide for anti-American terrorist regimes, and line the pockets of phony charities like the Clinton Foundation and the myriad of Soros funded groups actively working to destroy the American political system of democracy and freedom. The Democrats must stop Trump or they risk losing the mechanisms to fund their imperial power and socialist agenda.

3. President Trump is not a politician and campaigned as such, promising to accomplish in his first term what politicians holding office for upwards of thirty years have been unable to accomplish during their tenure. His success exacerbates their failure to act. His donated paycheck contrasts with their propensity to become millionaires on a Congressmen's salary.

Below is a list off the Trump Administration's Accomplishments. These accomplishments are pro-American, pro-democracy, and citizen focused. These successes are not derived via deception, corruption, or racism despite media claims to the contrary.

• Almost 4 million jobs created since President Trump was elected.
• More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
• The Trump Administration has created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since his election.
• Manufacturing jobs growing at the fastest rate in more than thirty years.
• Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2 percent.
• New unemployment claims recently hit a 49-year low.
• Median household income has reached the highest level ever recorded.
• African-American unemployment has recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Women’s unemployment recently reached the lowest rate in 65 years.
• More women are now employed than men.
• Youth unemployment has recently hit the lowest rate in nearly half a century.
• American now has the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma.
• Under the Trump Administration, veterans’ unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly twenty years.
• Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election.
• The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans through vocational education.
• 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future—the highest ever.
• Retail sales surged last month, up another 6 percent over last year.
• President Trump signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history. After tax cuts, over $300 billion was poured back in to the U.S. in the first quarter alone.
• As a result of Trump's tax policies, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.
• The Trump Administration helped win the U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
• The Trump Administration helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada’s united bid for 2026 World Cup.
• Trump's energy policies opened ANWR and approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines to secure American oil independence and make the United States a net exporter.
• Under President Trump the United States is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
• The President's policies increased US coal exports by 60 percent while U.S. oil production recently reached an all-time high.
• President Trump cut wasteful government red-tape by eliminating a record number of regulations.
• The Trump Administration enacted regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions.
• The Obamacare individual mandate penalty was ended.
• The Trump Administration is providing more affordable healthcare options for Americans through association health plans and short-term duration plans.
• Last month, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history. And thanks to the President's efforts, many drug companies are freezing or reversing planned price increases.
• The President reformed the Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone.
• Signed Right-To-Try experimental medical procedure legislation.
• Secured $6 billion in NEW funding to fight the opioid epidemic and reduced high-dose opioid prescriptions by 16 percent during his first year in office.
• Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care for American Veterans.
• The President withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord.
• The President cancelled the illegal, anti-coal, so-called Clean Power Plan.
• Secured record $700 billion in military funding; $716 billion next year.
• The President is working to ensure American taxpayers no longer pay for the defense of national that can afford to defend themselves. As a result, NATO allies are spending $530 billion more on defense since 2016.
• To counter the militarization of space by Russia and China, The President has begun to make the Space Force the 6th branch of the Armed Forces.
• Nominated and confirmed more conservative circuit court judges than any other new administration.
• Nominated and confirmed Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
• Withdrew from United States from the one-sided Iran Deal.
• Moved U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
• Protecting Americans from terrorists with the Travel Ban, upheld by Supreme Court.
• Issued an Executive Order to keep open Guantanamo Bay.
• Passed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that will bring relief and business to the American farmer concluding a historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Deal to replace NAFTA.
• Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
• Imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to protect our national security.
• Imposed tariffs on China to level the playing field in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices.
• Net exports are on track to increase by $59 billion this year.
• Improved vetting and screening for refugees, and switched focus to overseas resettlement.
• Requiring Hospitals to publicly disclose the costs charged and paid by ALL insurance companies to ensure transparency and fair competition.
• Making animal cruelty a Federal felony, praised by the American Humane Society.
• Expanding federal civil rights protections against anti-Semitism, which was duly praised by the President of the Anti-Defamation League.

Now ask yourself, "Who would be against such things, what would motivate them, and why would they want President Trump removed for office?"

Amity Schlaes, Great Society; A New History

"Despite the Trump administration’s thriving economy, or perhaps because of it, Democratic Party progressives are calling for new welfare programs even more radical than those advocated in the 1960s by the socialist architect of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, Michael Harrington." (Edward Short, https://www.city-journal.org/history-of-1960s-welfare-programs

Remember him? I read Harrington's book when I was 25--was absolutely sucked in. I was sitting in my living room at 911 W. Charles in Champaign-Urbana, a grad student. I'm not surprised that today's snowflakes are no smarter than I was. They've actually grown up on this drivel--I didn't. I was too naive to know that the best future for a poor person was a good job, not a government program. In the renamed 2020 schemes for wealth redistribution, Democrats are recycling the failed programs of debt relief, socialized medicine, green everything, and universal guaranteed income. If trillions didn't do it, let's throw more at the problems. Please sir, I want some more (Oliver Twist) But at least in the 60s, I think we really did care--even the politicians. Today it's all about power. Government power.

Before the Great Society, black unemployment and white unemployment were the same says Schlaes.  Not wages, and not jobs, but unemployment rates.  Now when unemployment, whether 3% or 15% is given, the black rate is also shown, just so you know things aren’t fair.  One more disparity.  Looking through the graphs and charts on the internet (may need to go to a real library), I can’t see that black unemployment was even tracked until about 1965.  Schlaes perhaps had other sources:

“Black unemployment, which had been the same as that of whites in the 1950s, from the early 1960s rose above white unemployment. The gap between black and white unemployment widened. Welfare programs funded by presidents Johnson and Nixon expanded rolls to an appalling extent—appalling because welfare fostered a new sense of hopelessness and disenfranchisement among those who received it. “Boy, were we wrong about a guaranteed income!” wrote that most honest of policy makers, Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1978, looking back on a pilot program that had prolonged unemployment rather than met its goal, curtailing joblessness. The “worker versus employer” culture promoted by the unions and tolerated by the automakers suppressed creativity on the plant floor and in executive officers. Detroit built shoddy autos—the whistleblower Ralph Nader was correct when he charged that American cars were not safe. Detroit failed to come up with an automobile to compete with those made by other foreign automakers. Whereas in the 1930s American automakers’ productivity amounted to triple that of their German competitors, by the late 1960s and 1970s, German and Japanese automakers were catching up to it or pulling ahead. In the end the worker benefits that union leaders in their social democratic aspirations extracted from companies rendered the same companies so uncompetitive that employers in our industrial centers lost not merely benefits but jobs themselves. Vibrant centers of industry became “the rust belt,” something to abandon. . . . What the 1960s experiment and its 1970s results suggest is that social democratic compromise comes close enough to socialism to cause economic tragedy.”

Is patriotism right wing extremism?

"When I mentioned to my liberal wife that my next book would be dedicated to the defense of patriotism, as an antidote to growing divisiveness, she warned me that my colleagues would consider it a defense of right-wing extremism." (Amitai Etzioni) He went on to write the whole essay on how he gets that from publishers (change the title) or reviewers like NPR--that patriotism is considered right wing and he asks when did that happen and why.

My question first would be how do these two live together? And second I'd give an answer to his question. This didn't happen over night. It was long before the 1619 garbage NYT is promoting.  Since 1980 when Howard Zinn's poisoned history began to creep into the classrooms of America, first as extra reading then required textbooks, American students have been taught that our founding and our history have been racist, sexist, evil and everything that promotes the USA is racist and white supremacist. That's 40 years--a lot of heads of mush. A lot of teachers have graduated who then taught teachers who are teaching your kids and grandchildren. That's why Democrats get so enraged by MAGA. In their minds, America was never great, and by putting that on a hat, you want to bring back slavery. There are other propagandists in the classroom besides Zinn, of course--I used to run into them at OSU, but he's the one I'm the most familiar with.

I love Paul Johnson's "A history of the American people," and if I need to look something up that doesn't insult me or my ancestors (some of whom arrived in the 1600s), that's my go-to title. I also like "A history of the 20th century," 3 vol. by Martin Gilbert, because it treats Communism and Socialism with the respect those evils deserve. Both Johnson and Gilbert are British and are prolific writers.

The Federalist offers an alternative. https://thefederalist.com/…/replace-howard-zinns-communist…/ The original essay I quoted is https://www.city-journal.org/in-defense-of-patriotism. You're up against much more than the silliness and memes you see on the Internet.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Intercalate, new word

I haven’t found many new words lately, but here’s one—I knew the concept but didn’t have a word for it.

“Intercalate was formed from the Latin prefix inter-, meaning "between" or "among," and the Latin verb calāre, meaning "to proclaim" or "to announce." It was originally associated with proclaiming the addition of a day or month in a calendar. An instance of intercalation occurred in the earliest versions of the Roman calendar, which originally consisted of 304 days and 10 months and was determined by the lunar cycle (the remaining 61.25 days of winter were apparently ignored). According to some Roman legends, it was Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, who intercalated the months January and February. Eventually, the word's use broadened to include other instances of introducing new elements or layers into a preexisting system.”

Examples of INTERCALATE from Merriam-Webster web site

"The fossiliferous deposits … consist of pale pinkish-orange brown clays, brownish grey siltstones and shale, and greenish grey fine to medium grained sandstones intercalated with dark grey conglomerates…." — M. A. Khan, et al., The Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 31 Dec. 2011

"In order for a lunar calendar to keep up with the solar year and the seasons, it is necessary to intercalate a 13th lunar month every two or three years." — Sacha Stern, Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies, 2012