1379 The neutrality of this article is disputed

Well, I should hope so! If it were any more biased in choice of words [invasion, officially-stated purpose, justified, fruitless missions, etc.] it would be on Moveon.org's site with Cindy Sheehan. And although I haven't read the details, I'm guessing the anti-Bush folks don't think this wikipedia article is anti-enough, and they are probably the ones disputing its neutrality.

1378 Internet access and schools

You probably saw the photo story two days ago about the "riot" in Richmond VA as 5,500 people showed up to purchase phased out, used laptops from Henrico County schools. USAToday described the stampede as causing 17 injuries with 4 hospitalizations.

On the front page of that issue was a little "snapshot" chart that showed in 1995 only 3% of schools with a 50% or more minority enrollment had internet access; now 89% of those schools do. Ten years is a lifetime in cyberspace. But what about those children in the schools. Has the internet made any difference in educating them?

Do these children have fathers in the home; mothers supervising homework; are they in church on Sunday; are their neighbors watching out for their welfare?

Now, that would be a net to get excited about!

1377 Gas prices

My husband sold another painting--now we can buy gas to get home. What's it in your area? We paid $2.45 a gallon to fill up Tuesday morning [Bucyrus], but it is around $2.65 here on the peninsula. I don't have a scanner here so I can't show you any of his. But he has sold four this summer. Of course, I could get out the instruction book and fire up the digital camera.

1376 I'm good

Nathan Bierma in the Tribune writes about the expression, "I'm good."

"If you want to download Google Earth, a computer program that uses satellite images to give driving directions, Google warns that not all computers can run the application. To get past the list of the kinds of computers that won't work, you have to click on a button that says, "I'm good."

Google isn't asking visitors to flatter themselves. ("I sure am a good person!") Google is just picking up on one of the latest meanings of a very versatile adjective, "good." This sense of "I'm good" means "I'm all set," or "I'm adequately equipped to proceed." "

1375 Daughters of women

Vox Lauri noted this OSU study about daughters of women who shack up are more likely to follow mommy's model. Here.

"Research showed that young adult women whose mothers reported cohabitation were 57 percent more likely than other women to report cohabitation themselves. In addition, daughters of cohabiting mothers tended to cohabit at earlier ages than others."

This sounds like a no brainer, but I suspect there are a few other factors. For instance, at some point in the late 1970s, most girls moving in with boyfriends had mothers who didn't cohabitate. In fact, their mothers ranted and raved and told them not to do it, and the daughters blew them off. So what about them? What was their role model? To figure this out, the researchers need to be looking at the women of the 21st century who have some pride, independence and standards and find out what in society (besides parents) made the difference. Was it confidence? Education? Moral core? Religion? Allergies to his pets?

"“As more people enter into cohabiting relationships and have children, we have to recognize that this could have long-term effects on these children as they enter adulthood,” Qian said." Gee, they crucified Dan Quayle for saying that.

Oh, and guess what? "Black women were 90 percent less likely to have cohabited than their white counterparts."

1374 Good news from the back seat

In 1996 federal auto safety officials recommended that all children younger than 13 be seated in the back of automobiles to keep them from harm's way if an air bag deployed. This simple recommendation has cut the death toll in that age group by 20%. USAToday story.

Imagine the lives we could save if we would re-instate the 55 mph speed limit, stop using cell phones while driving, and apply our make-up and eat breakfast at home.

1373 Corn on the Cob tip

Susan and Jim were surprised two weeks ago to learn my husband hates corn on the cob, therefore I only serve it if we have company. Heating up water for one little ear seems, well, peculiar, for lack of a better word. She said if I dunk it in water while still in the husks then microwave it for 2 minutes, I'll have a wonderful treat. So I tried it, and thank you Susan, you are absolutely correct.

This morning I fixed an ear of corn for breakfast in the microwave. Hmmm. Scrumptious. I compared it to the corn flakes, which I bought for our house guests last week but no one opened. Here's the corn flakes:

degermed yellow corn meal, sugar, salt, malt extract, vitamins C, A, D and several Bs, and folic acid. With 1/2 cup skim milk it has 170 calories and about 25-30% of most of the major nutrients you need plus 270 mg sodium and a little protein. Not bad for processed food.

Then I looked up corn on the cob. I'm not sure I had white or yellow--seemed to be a mix, but there is a huge difference in Vitamin A. Yellow has much more. I guess it's true that the deeper the color the more dense the nutrients. I had 59 calories, + another 27 for the margarine; 1.8 g fiber, 146 IU Vit. A, 3 mlg Vit. C, 158 mlg potassium and 20 mg folate. Now I'll add some blueberries and get smarter. All this thinking is exhausting. Actually, I've just been looking for a reason to use this photo of Susan.


Susan and crew on the Scioto River

1372 A Working Poet and Realer Art

Ted Kooser, as I’ve noted before, is the current poet laureate of the United States. Brad Leithauser’s review of his Flying at Night; Poems 1965-1985 (University of Pittsburgh Press) fairly drips with eastern snobbery in the August 7 New York Times Book Review (even though Leithauser was born and raised in Detroit).

He says it is the work of a retired businessman, “moving reflectively into middle age” writing poems that are focused and imposing few serious demands on the reader. He has a gift for simile and metaphor, the professor says, not complexity, pretentiousness, obfuscation and self-indulgence and he is rooted in one place, the Great Plains.

So I looked up Mr. Leithauser on Google. My knowledge of poets is darn lean--most are, well, too pretentious and self-indulgent. Found a poem about a car idling at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Looks, smells and sounds like a suicide to me. Of course, I live in fly over country so I might be too dumb to figure it out. And as Leithauser says, “There’s something heartening about those poets . . whose lives reflect some vital integration of the “real world” and the realer world of art.” Do tell.

I didn't give a hoot about what happened to Leithauser's woman in June 1953 who'd filled the gas tank. Whereas Kooser's simple poem about a death of a child and her grieving parents brought tears.

The Last Odd Thing She Did by Brad Leithauser.

"A Child's Grave Marker"
by Ted Kooser

A small block of granite
engraved with her name and the dates
just wasn't quite pretty enough
for this lost little girl
or her parents, who added a lamb
cast in plaster of paris,
using the same kind of cake mold
my grandmother had--iron,
heavy and black as a skillet.
The lamb came out coconut-white,
and seventy years have proven it
soft in the rain. On this hill,
overlooking a river in Iowa,
it melts in its own sweet time.

Many thanks to Lynne who sent me the article.

1371 We've been Gorelicked

"[Jamie] Gorelick sat on the [9-11] Commission and said nothing about the second White memo [D o J]. Like so much other evidence -- Able Danger, the Heidelberg arrests of two Iraqi spies, the 1996 State Department warnings -- the second White memo appears nowhere in the Commission's final report. One cannot help but draw the conclusion, especially in this case, that the Commission deliberately excluded it from their report. Gorelick, at least, had firsthand knowledge of it."

Captain's Quarters commenting on Able Danger

Her ability to serve on the commission was questioned early on.

1370 Berger Beer

Big crime spree in Tiffin, Ohio--young kid imitates Sandy Berger and gets 30 days. It seems that 19 year old Daniel Aiello, Jr. posed as a U.S. soldier on his way to Iraq, thus qualifying for free beer from a local bar. He was found in the rest room stuffing bottles of beer in his camouflage pants and boots. The Judge, outraged by his imitating a soldier, gave him 30 days and 2 years probation. I wonder how much time Berger got?

And Aiello even gave up the goods--he vomited the evidence, which apparently smelled like beer.

Seen in today's Toledo Blade.

1369 Eighteenth Century Politics

As I mentioned before, I'm dragging the 800+ page Alexander Hamilton down to the lakefront and the hotel porch for my "beach reading." [Just as an aside, people are pondering why the President is reading such difficult historical books on vacation--he may be the only one in the country with such obscure titles on his must read list. Isn't that odd for a guy who's dumb as a rock, according to a rolling stone?]

The author, Ron Chernow, wrote an excellent piece for the NYT, reprinted at the History News Network, last year on the 200th anniversary of the Burr Hamilton duel, which killed the man who invented the U.S. government and disgraced a vice president. Our political scandals are tame today compared to the 18th century

This will be a "must read" overview for our September book group (in case anyone is reading this).

1368 I'm an ecological disaster

And so are you. Recently I took one of those internet quizes about consuming resources, and it turns out if everyone used nonrenewable resources as I do, we'd need 7.5 earths to support the current population! And I'm careful.

When was the first Earth Day? 35 years ago--1970? Sounds about right. I was a Democrat and a member of a large, non-denominational liberal church where the Sunday School lessons featured purple Martians instead of Bible stories (wouldn't want to frighten the kids, right?). We certainly talked a good line on saving the earth as Christians. So I'm looking around wondering what's changed since I was so excited about "saving the planet" 35 years ago.

In 1970 we owned one house (with the bank) built in 1939. We thought we'd died and gone to heaven it was so lovely, so far beyond what we'd ever expected to own. The house had no AC, wood siding, no insulation, new furnace, original kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. When we sold it in 2001, it had two more rooms, was wrapped in vinyl siding, had a new 2-car garage (i.e., less land), new furnace with AC, and had three fewer trees (one died, one grew too close to the foundation as it aged, and one was removed to make room for the garage). Ours was still the most modest in the neighborhood; our definition of modest had changed however. The current owner knocked out walls and added a fancy kitchen--probably spending $75,000.
It just creeps up on you, doesn't it? I even recycle and reuse and wear clothes 10 years out of fashion (actually, being a librarian I can't tell the difference).

We still don't eat a lot of processed foods, but all the "fresh" stuff comes more highly packaged than anything I could've imagined in 1970. The supermarkets, even Trader Joe's, look like palaces compared to where we shopped then. And as an educated woman, I really don't want to raise, slaughter, pluck and gut chickens, so I do buy them at the store and pay some southern white woman a good wage to do the dirty work.

We've never been people to drink much "liquid to go," but plastic bottled water? We'd have hooted at that idea 35 years ago. And pop sold only in 12 packs? Who'd a thunk it. I haven't even seen a paper sack in several years.

My kids were finally out of diapers by 1970--cloth diapers--and we were already reading alarming stories about the garbage dumps filling up with disposable diapers. They were going to cover the United States with poopy diapers. I'd used maybe a dozen disposable diapers between two kids, all for travel.

We had only one car in 1970, and one TV. This past week-end, my sister-in-law said she thought they had 10 TVs for 2 people (she has a mobile home and 2 trailers). I think we have 7 if we count the one here. In 1970 we laughed at the idea that people would have computers in their homes--to track finances and recipes and write letters. What a hoot (I heard a sermon on this in 1970). In 2003 I had three.

We do have only one cell phone. It is 5 years old. I took it into Verizon and the clerk had to find an older person (about 30) to wait on me.

1367 Apologies for World War II

The Chinese demanding apologies from Japan for deaths and torture during WWII strikes me as a bit odd. Now that its the anniversary of the end of the war, we're reading about it again. Japan was probably responsible for about 10,000,000 deaths in China during the war. Certainly nothing to be discounted.



But Mao Zedong and his democide committed in the Hundred Flowers Movement, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, all in the last 55 years can take the credit for over 40,000,000 deaths. I'm no math whiz, but the Chinese people, particularly the educated class, would have been better off under Japan than under Mao.

Also, I've noticed that when the American left wing compares US prisoner camps they bring up Hitler and Stalin, but not Mao. Why is that do you suppose? Mao made them look like beginners. He hated his own people and culture, as well as other ethnic groups.

I used these war stats because of the references so they can be checked.

1366 My collection of dead links

Every once in awhile I run my blog through one of those link checkers. I think I've found 5 or 6 "dead" bloggers, and know there are quite a few who haven't posted for weeks. Months. Oxblog is losing Josh. Actually, I didn't link directly to him, but did read him from time to time. He says: "Perhaps my memory is clouded by nostalgia, but it seems to me that when I started blogging, the blogosphere was a nicer place."

Actually, bloggers don't like what blogging does to them personally, if the truth be told. It isn't the other guy that bothers me. I've got my favorites; occasionally they make me think, laugh, or weep, or just click off and vow never to read them again. Or I read the blog and can't think of a thing to say. Or worse. I can think of something to say and it's outrageous and completely out of line to say that to someone I don't know in face time.

But Josh is right about bloggers preaching to the choir. Sometimes I can go through 8 or 10 clicks and they are all quoting each other, or have one liners with 4 hot links to here and here and here and here. I really would read left wing bloggers if they weren't always one note Bush bashers. I'd sort of like to know what they believe. I used to be a humanist and a Democrat and I like to think I made sense in those days. After all, I always say I wouldn't own a home on Lake Erie if I'd waited for the Republicans to make a fuss.

1365 Observer on abuse at Gitmo

"While we observed absolutely no evidence of torture of prisoners at Gitmo, it is clear that the daily atmosphere is rife with harsh abuse: The prisoners are constantly assaulting the guards."

Story here.

1364 Librarian Make-over

Yesterday I caught a re-run of a Life and Style show that was featuring make-overs. The first segment was two geeky guys, one of the t-shirt type and the other the bland tweedy sport coat and tie variety. Wow--the staff turned them into stud muffins. Then they took on the challenge of. . . a librarian.

Sharon Rawlins, Piscataway Public Library young adult librarian used the segment to do a really terrific PR job for librarians in general--one of the best I've heard. I thought she was attractive as is--long, wavy waist length dark hair and stylish glasses. But folks, I just got to tell you, what passes for a pretty librarian usually doesn't make it in the real world. She was dressed for the vagaries of library HVACs--sort of heavily layered. The thermostats you see in a library are just for show--they don't really work.

The make-over Bully said she'd never in all her days of transforming geeks (she didn't say that word) seen such a change. And Sharon was really stunning. Except for the boots. That just looked silly with the lovely dress. Now sometimes you need boots to wade through stuff where I worked (vet library), but probably not public libraries, unless you're talking about the stories you hear about losing books.

Check here for Sharon's version of the story and why she agreed to it.

1363 Remembering the anniversary

Esther was on the subway when the power went out two years ago yesterday across the upper eastern U.S. She tells a great story. When I walked over one block with my cup of coffee looking for a functioning microwave yesterday morning, my neighbor reminded me what day it was.

1362 Ladies, Can we talk?

Ladies, when the guys put down female pols they always attack their looks--legs, waist, breasts, wrinkles, hair. Remember how they attacked that Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, in the Florida 2000 election? Let's elevate this a bit. If you are ridiculing Hillary Clinton for anything other than her core beliefs, take it down. Got a monkey photo on your page? Take it down. It's a guy thing. Look at her Senate record. If you don't like her policies, if you think her stands will hurt the country, then explain, educate us, make your case. Don't grovel down in the mud with the little boys. It's beneath you. [pun intended]

1361 Sweet Sour Mick

Sung to the tune(?) of "Sweet Neo Con"

Sweet Sour Mick
Rocking in the chair,
at the retirement home.
Well, you're full of hot air
When you call yourself a Stone.



Originally this was more timely--sat in draft form for a few days, and I just found it as 1350. He's probably retired by now. Somewhere I read that tickets to his performance were $10? Gosh, he'll be at Lakeside next year--older than most of the audience, but those has-been Brits are big here.

1360 Congratulations, Ladies

Library Guy reprints an article about what the Jewish settlers have been able to accomplish in Gaza since 1967, and how it's about all to end.

"It's no surprise that women are treated like property in these countries as that's the only way Muslim men can feed their egos, to dominate others rather than ever actually produce something. What a victory for these people that their terrorism has paid off, with Western intellectuals cheering them on. You can only wonder how many youth who have been brainwashed from birth in the madrassas and draped in their culture of bomb-worship and martyrdom will join the global jihad as it now appears they actually have a chance to win. While our soldiers at Guantanamo have to wear rubber gloves when handing out Korans, it's pretty reasonable for them to conclude that the West is ready to fall and the global caliphate is a real possibility. Israel's retreat from Gaza will certainly do wonders for their recruiting."

The mild mannered librarian concludes: "We'd like to offer congratulations to all the liberal, progressive humanitarian women's rights environmentalist anti-war protesters who have made ending the 'occupation' of Gaza a top priority. What was an oasis of life is now to become a zone of death." Conan, the Librarian