His money outlived him

I've heard or read the name "John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation" tacked on to many stories, particularly on public radio, but never knew who they were. . . or what an unpleasant, mean old snot John D. was. Here's an interesting story about a "reluctant philanthropist" who set up a foundation, now with assets over $6 billion, who probably didn't have a friend in the world and was disliked even by family members.

He was such a penny pincher, he hired dwarves to work in the low ceiling basement of one of his income properties so as to make use of all the space. And there's more.

Leadership and girls

Last night at dinner we talked about how we would advise a young woman going into our career field. One woman was a lawyer; one an elementary suburban school teacher; and one a high school teacher of special needs students in an urban system. My own advice would be to participate more in committee and leadership opportunities even if you hate it (like me), because for now, that's how you establish a network and climb the ladder (at least in library science).

I noticed that at career journal.com Sue Shellenbarger notes

There's evidence children and teens aren't getting as much practice at leadership as in the past. Only 1.5% of today's young college graduates have ever worked on a political campaign, based on a study of 40,000 recent grads by Robert Zemsky, a University of Pennsylvania professor, and Peterson's, a learning-resource unit of Thomson Corp., Toronto.

With today's huge high schools, the opportunities for young people to practice leadership roles in a small, familiar setting have dwindled. "There can only be one president of the senior class," and with 3,500 kids in a high school, that leaves out a lot of kids, says Barbara Schneider, a University of Chicago professor and author of "The Ambitious Generation."

That surprised me a bit, so I looked back--and the opportunities were there for me, particularly in high school, I just didn't like it. I was in 4-H and performed "demonstrations" even as young as 11 or 12; I was my church youth group (CBYF) president; I attended leadership workshops and seminars offered by my church's district; I was on the student council in high school; I think (but can't actually remember) that other organization I belonged to like band, Pepsters, and yearbook staff, probably had assigned offices. I was a camp counselor, and after high school got on a bus, travelled to California, and worked for a summer in a settlement house situation. I can't imagine that those opportunities aren't still out there, even at large high schools. However, when I got to college, I participated very little in extra curricular activities. For one thing, the competition had ratcheted up! To be an officer, or even a committee member meant long hours, and much more competition, and I just hated anything competitive. I suspect that like grades, there is today much more competition for positions of leadership. No, I have no one but myself to blame for not becoming a leader--I didn't like it. I much preferred the one-on-one with the students, the small group teaching, getting into research and publication, and supervising a staff of one or two people.

Every place of employment has opportunities for networking, and for lack of a better word, empire building. Yes, everything is political. Get over it! That usually means paying your dues with committee work or putting in time on task forces. Breathe deep. Exhale. Pray for direction. Sign up. Feel the power.

Kiss a librarian, hug a book?

Adoptees begin with Chapter 2

This was Rapper DMC's testimony in January about the need for changes in the the New Jersey law that prevents adult adoptees from access to their original birth certificate. Two days ago the USAToday featured a story about a Maine Senator who was instrumental in getting her state's laws changed, and then discovered that two of her nephews were serving in the state legislature--and each had been on opposite sides of the issue. After she learned the names and town of her birth parents she discovered that she was born when they were near 50 and she had been placed for adoption--they were the grandparents of men she was serving with.

Ohio's records are still closed, but that will eventually fall, as more and more states bring these archaic and counter productive laws in line with modern thinking about civil rights. No one can deny a Native American his right to know his parental and tribal heritage, but for people of African American or European or Hispanic background, it is considered just fine to slam the door on their access to medical and personal history. Who knows if it was just the current thinking of social workers, or the workings of legislators representing men who didn't want to be found. I tend to follow the money.

No one can force a birth parent or adult offspring to meet, socialize and establish a relationship regardless of a law or adoption registry. My grandmother's great grand daughter lives on the east side of Columbus. Although we share a common heritage, exchange Christmas cards, were born in the same state, and know many people in common, we do not get together.

Open records IS NOT open adoption--these are two entirely different issues. Open records is about adults. Open adoption is about children. I think the jury is still out on the long term affects of open adoptions, but for open records, there can be no question in my mind that adults should have full rights to accurate and complete records, if they exist.

For the Records: Restoring a legal right for adult adoptees (November 2007)

My Valentine Dinner Party

Last night I hosted a dinner for three friends and I just finished the wonderful Godiva chocolates one brought as a hostess gift. Yum! I served broccoli soup, a boneless pork roast with a BBQ sauce, potato salad, baked butternut squash, fresh fruit bowl (blue berries, cantaloupe, grapes, pineapple and strawberries), wheat rolls, and peanut butter chocolate pie. To go with my color theme I made a drink of 1/3 pineapple juice mixed with red raspberry sugar-free soda. This was my first time to use the bowls I bought in July to go with my good china. My china is Syracuse, Countess pattern, purchased in the 1960s and now discontinued, with bowls going for about $50-60 on e-bay. I found an almost-match at the Discovery Shop of King's Court, Wedding Band pattern, for $4 each. At night, under the dining room light, I couldn't see any difference, but in the daylight, you can see a very slight color difference. Anyway, I was very pleased with my find, and finally being able to serve a soup with dinner!

My guests stayed until after 10 p.m., and we talked of many things--our faith, our careers, laws and regulations (usually pertaining to our specialties), and "past lives." One topic was, "what advice would you give a young woman, post-college, just beginning in your career field." It was a great evening. Every woman should have a "ladies only" dinner at least once--we even dressed up.

Great one-liners

Elizabeth Wurtzel, a democrat who says she hasn't decided yet, got off some great one-liners in today's WSJ article, "Hillary Agonistes."

In less time than it takes to get through a single session of psychotherapy, Mr. Obama can cure me--an open mind, a free spirit, a loving heart--even thin thighs.

No one with a job takes advice from someone with a chef."

". . . first flush of Obamarama. . ."

"If candidates were reading material, Obama would be pornography--he's got everyone aroused."

"Once upon a life time ago, Hillary clinton could have been Barack Obama."

"She's been called the anti-Christ, but right now she's the anti-Obama."

"Mr. Obama is what the future looks like--a biracial child of divorce, abandoned by his father, a party hardy Harvard Law School graduate."

"One of these years Hillary is going to the White House--if she has to take hostages she'll do it--she may even cry."

Now that's writing.

Friday Family Photo--Big Hair

Remember the big hair of the 80s? This photo was probably taken on Easter, 1988, when we all had hair--lots of it. To balance the load on our head, we women had to wear huge floral prints with even bigger shoulder pads!



Thirty years ago

Thursday Thirteen--13 principles of life

1. A clear conscience should never be confused with a bad memory.

2. Sweeping the room with a glance doesn't qualify as house cleaning.

3. Don't let it all hang out or you might not be able to tuck it back in.

4. Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

5. Worry is like a rocking chair--it gives you something to do but gets you nowhere.

6. Whine doesn't improve with age.

7. Experience is what enables you to recognize a mistake when you do it again.

8. I don't know the secret to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

9. Just when you start to win the rat race, someone develops a bigger, faster rat.

10. Jumping to conclusions, running your mouth, and ducking responsibility don't count as exercise.

11. It is better to light one little candle than to be seen with no makeup under fluorescent lighting.

12. You can't see the big picture if your nose is pressed against it.

13. Talent is like an arm or a leg--use it or lose it.

I've heard them all somewhere, but most recently read them in various selections from God's Little Devotional Journal for Teens, Honor Books, 2001.

Another special Valentine

Vic Grace has a wonderful "love the second time around" story over at her blog. Bring a hankie.

A special valentine for you

I don't think I could say it any better than Emerald Eyes has--a list of favorite love songs, mature thoughts about love, and memories of grandparents. Go for it.

And then from me, a scan of one of my mother's valentines, from Billy Smith, a school mate at Pine View School, I assume. This is probably from the early 1920s and was embossed paper with cut edges, "Whitney Made Worcester, Mass." The inside message with a line drawing of a little boy swinging on a fence reads:

I love you little
Valentine,
But I am very shy,
And if you think
you could be kind,
Please smile as you
pass by.

Pineview School, Lee County, Illinois, Mother is 2nd from the left, front row
The little girl third from the right in the back row is Arlene Beachley David, one of my mother's closest friends. I just looked her up and saw on the Manchester College website that she died January 2, 2006. She married later in life and never had children (I attended her wedding), but I talked to her on the phone maybe in 2003, and she was living with her deceased husband's niece.

Three word Wednesday, 73

The 3 words today are

girlfriend
imagined
slight.

This should almost write itself. I always think of Suze Orman's TV financial show, when I hear, "Girlfriend. . . " and you just know the news won't be good and the advice will be tough.

Girlfriend, Suze said,
while you imagined love
there's a slight chance
you missed the bounced checks,
school loans, credit cards,
child support and gambling debts,
a mortgage about to reset,
a house that hasn't flipped,
and his mother who has.

Bone has added a blogroll if you'd like to join. Three words appear on Wednesday with which you write a poem, essay, or story.

Limbaugh on Obama

Rush said, "Obama says nothing better than anyone in my life time." The next caller claimed to be a 33 year old Republican who said that he'd rather vote for Obama than McCain because Obama, although he says nothing and is a socialist, is inspiring. Rush walked him through it, statement by statement--but the caller stood his ground. So yes, the left wing media critics are right; mush brains do listen to Limbaugh. Rush went on to say that Obama "owns" this method, so McCain and Clinton better not try it--they also aren't as good looking, he admitted.

Some of us need to move

The U.S. is divided into 3,100 counties. Of the top 30 counties that have received billions in disaster aid, 22 of them are either in Florida (13) or Oklahoma (9). Caddo County, Oklahoma has been declared a disaster area 13 times in the last decade, according to a story in USAToday yesterday. And it isn't just tornadoes, like you might think--that county has had a little of everything. If the rest of us are going to pay, either in taxes or insurance, for rebuilding after the hurricanes, brush fires, and flash flooding, then rich folk shouldn't be building their McMansions on hillsides in California or summer homes with coastal ocean and bay views, or on stilts with decks over river vistas in Ohio. Federal aid is a disincentive for insurance companies to insure, or for home owners to build in safer areas. I don't have a solution, and obviously our Congress doesn't either. They only talk about it when they aren't worrying about athletes on steroids, what Rush Limbaugh said, or alar on apples. But here's a thought.

Heath Ledger, Accidental poisoning?

Unless it's your pet Lab that will enthusiastically eat the wall board with a pillow for dessert, no one accidentally takes oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, tempazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine, all found in the system of Heath Ledger. Heath made choices along the way to anesthetize his brain and emotions.

I had a comment yesterday from someone who read an entry of mine about marijuana. He/she insisted that after using 20 years, it simply had no impact on his mind, and wasn't a gateway drug. Of course, he mentioned that the Iraq War had been running for 8 years, so it had impaired his math ability a bit, because that would mean President Clinton lead us into it--which he did sort of with all the hype about WMD, but that's another blog. He also had forgotten how to use capital letters. How hard can it be to use the shift key?

Most of these deaths aren't happening to star struck actors, they are happening to young white women. Poisoning mortality rates in the U.S. rose 62.5% during the 5-year period 1999 to 2004. 20,950 deaths in 2004 alone, up from 12,186 in 1999. The largest increases were among females (103.%), whites (75.8%), persons living in the southern U.S. (113.6%), and persons aged 15-24 years (113.3%). Among all sex and racial/ethnic groups, the largest increase (136.5%) was among non-Hispanic white females. So what's that include? Overdoses of illegal drugs and legal drugs taken for nonmedical reasons, legal drugs taken in error or at the wrong dose, and poisoning from other substances (alcohol, pesticides or carbon monoxide).

You can't slowly poison your brain cells with alcohol, marijuana or pain meds, and expect it to then indefinitely make the correct decisions on other drugs that become available, maybe because you lied to the doctor or the pharmacist to get a bigger high or low.

Gay black men have disproportionate rates of HIV

A recent article in JAMA (Jan 23, 2008) tries to sort through the puzzling statistics of HIV among gay black men. Try as she might, Ms. Voelker can't link poverty or lack of health care, although she tries. Like most of the other health problems among Americans, it's behavior.

"Studies Illuminate HIV’s Inequalities," Rebecca Voelker, JAMA. 2008;299(3):269-275.

Here's my take away from reading the article:

1) They have unprotected sex with men, as do many gay men, and report less than other groups since 1990--before that it was much higher.
2) They are more likely to have sex with other black men who are also likely to be infected. This could result in co-infections.
3) They have numerous sex partners, although this is common for gay men in general, so is not an unusual trait for their race, and they report fewer than other groups.
4) They "don't disclose their sexual orientation [to researchers]", i.e. they lie about being gay (called down low), or don't consider themselves gay even if having sex with men. I would think this could affect the results of #1 and #3.
5) Because they don't think they are gay, they don't seek antiretroviral treatment, which means they have high levels of the virus in their blood, and if having sex with other black men, are more likely to transmit it.
6) More likely to have other current STDs which lowers their immunity--gonorrhea incidence among HIV-positive men is soaring and there is an ongoing syphilis epidemic among gay men.

The presenter of the statistics, Greg Millett, MPH, a CDC behavioral scientist, will probably get into trouble for pointing out these racial differences. Or, maybe he'll just get more grant money to study the behavior more closely. But for every dollar spent focusing on social problems like race and income, that's one less dollar focusing on the virus.

The only reason to even report on HIV/AIDS is because of the attention it gets from the media, the President (see the outrage over the 2009 budget that he didn't fund it at higher levels), the ex-President and Bill Gates. Only about 5% to 7% of male adults and adolescents in the United States identify themselves as men who have sex with men, but they have 71% of the AIDS/HIV. One of the unintended consequences of improved treatment has been a growing carelessness about protection and casual sex.

Auto accidents are still far and away the big killer of young people and we could save thousands and thousands of lives of our children just by raising the legal driving age to 18. No one has been able to figure out a poverty, gender or race angle for this common sense move, so we'd rather shower research dollars on a behavior we can't control.

Monday Memories--Berkeley, whose side are you on?

I'm a California ex-pat, according to the Bear Flag League bloggers (see my links). Sometimes they invite me for blogging lunch, but I have to say no, living in central Ohio. My dad was stationed in California during WWII before being shipped out. He was a Marine. Mom and my aunt Muriel packed us all into the car and away we went, driving from northern Illinois to Alameda, California in 1944. Things didn't look good for the war effort towards the end. The war easily could have gone the other way; our losses were huge. We probably lost more men in training accidents than we've lost since 2003 in Iraq. But Baby boomlets don't read history--probably isn't required in public schools of California. Now the city of Berkeley wants to chase out the Marines. A librarian (surprise!) has called it a knee jerk reaction. No, lady, it isn't. Your state is huge and your economy larger than that of many countries. Your entertainment industry has virtually ruined our culture, and now you want to sabotage more of it. We are the UNITED STATES, and you're undercutting our government and military. Shame, shame, shame. How did California accumulate so many kooks? We've got a lot of family living in Southern Cal, and not a one of them or their friends are weird. But then, none lived or went to school in Berkeley. I've written to the mayor, mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us. They need some guidance and help out there.

Some women

understand glamor. Thank you Beyonce. 2008 Grammy awards
And congratulations to one of my favorite groups, The Band, for their life time achievement award. Four Canadians and an American, they're the best (some deceased). Story here, in a Canadian newspaper.

4622

Dead tree or cyber winged budgets?

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post is not so thrilled that the 2009 budget is digital instead of paper--even if 480 trees were saved. Considering that I can't even access some of my own publications that were on the "disk" version of 1999, I wish the American public and future researchers good luck in accessing important documents that trendy lawmakers have decided need to get on the digital bandwagon. Let's hope there are always a few paper copies kept in secure libraries and archives.

"Honestly, I am still using the paper books, as is most of my staff," Tom Kahn, the staff director of the House Budget Committee, told me by e-mail. "Online is much harder to use. It makes the information less accessible and harder to ferret out. Frankly, it is no fun staring for hours at a computer screen to find obscure spend-out rates. You can't underline, can't make a note on a page, and who wants to read a computer in bed?"

I love being able to get snippets, or even whole chapters, on-line--like Ruth's article. But I don't want to give up the 3 newspapers I read everyday--in paper with my coffee. I particularly enjoy being able to get archived older articles--and I sure hope the digitizers can keep up with ways for us to read them. But when I have to read closely, I print it off. I hate trying to scroll across the page to figure out columns for years and amounts and quantities.

4621

Temporary and contract workers--their health

Is it the regulations or the personal behavior that cause "contingent" workers to be less healthy and have more accidents? It's a government funded report in the January 30, 2008 issue of JAMA (NIOSH and CDC), so without even reading the article, "Contingent workers and contingent health; risks of a modern economy," you just know it's going to be the fault of the federal government for not covering certain workers--usually part-timers who work for smaller firms or private contractor/self-employed. Otherwise, how would these ladies fund their positions?

I have a little experience with "involuntary" worker status. (In bureaucratic jargon that doesn't mean I was a slave or indentured, it means I would have preferred a permanent position some of those years, therefore my status of "involuntary.") One of my earliest part-time academic positions for which I received no benefits except a tuition waiver was translating medical newspapers from Russian into English. Later when I was a library grad student I had a hazardous 20 hour a week position keeping a PL480 shelving area clean and tidy and lifting heavy boxes of books upon which being cataloged no one would open, yea these 42 years. It was really dirty and I'm sure my lungs suffered from dirt, dust mites and chemical fumes from cheap Soviet paper. Also I experienced dangerous paper cuts from the ubiquitous LC cards we carried from room to room while cataloging, all the while risking ankle and arch damage wearing high heels on polished floors. "Real" workers (degreed librarians) didn't do those jobs--just we lowly peons. From 1978 to 1986 I had a series of temporary, contract positions ranging from 3 months to 3 years, and I thank God for them. I loved the start up, the risks, the poking my nose into places it didn't belong, meeting interesting people, being home with my kids after 3 p.m. and during summers, and not being required to attend faculty meetings or be on committees like my colleagues. And although I didn't know it then, I was being prepared in the school of experience and hard knocks for the best job of my life, Head of the Veterinary Medicine Library at the Ohio State University. My most memorable work-related injuries were all during full-time, faculty employment: rotator cuff problems from lifting heavy journals, and a fall outside a lab when water leaked into the hall. But I digress.

The authors of the article admit to two problems--most studies on the health of contingent workers have been done in Europe, and those studies and the few in the U.S. show that temporary workers tend to have a set of behavior and personal deficiencies that most regular workers don't. And it's most likely those deficiencies that impact their health. They are

• more alcohol-related deaths
  
• more smoking related cancers
  
• more psychological problems
  
• more musculoskeletal disorders
  
• more likely to be in high risk jobs
  
• less experience
  
• fewer hours of safety training
  
• more likely to be using equipment for which they hadn't trained
  
• more likely to have language deficiencies (illegals)
  
• self-employed, independent contractor not covered by current laws on health and safety

But not to worry, the authors plow ahead with plans to answer "the many questions that remain," and to "collect information on contingent status" which might now not be fully captured to explain workers' illnesses and injuries. No doubt they will recommend changing the current laws (last 40 years) which mostly exempt employers with <15 or <20 workers (age discrimination 1967, occupational safety 1970, health and retirement standards 1974; disabilities 1990; family leave 1993). This will be more of the ongoing destruction of the small businessman with more federal regulations, and the self-employed/ private contractor, creating a demand for more government services, a larger bureaucracy and universal, low quality health care for everyone except the politicians.

"Contingent Workers and Contingent Health Risks of a Modern Economy," Kristin J. Cummings, MD, MPH; Kathleen Kreiss, MD, JAMA. 2008;299(4):448-450.

Cats can learn new behavior

My cat ignores the cat and dog commercials on TV. They apparently don't sound real to her. But the other day I came across a blog that had a kitty widget (movable cartoon-like character embedded in the page). With the cursor passing over the kitty's head, she would meow, and over her chest she would purr. My cat was sitting in my lap at the time, and immediately tried to investigate when she heard the meow and purring. Not wanting her to mess up what I was doing, I changed pages. But she is still much more interested in the screen than she was before, and it's been several days. She seems to be looking for that kitty that is hiding somewhere in my office.

Saturday she was preparing to leap up to my lap and I wasn't paying attention. My left hand was there, and as she jumped she dug in her back claws. Ooo, that hurt. She must have felt the difference too as I slipped my hand away. I didn't yell or scold, because it isn't her fault that someone ripped out her front claws before we got her (Cat Welfare), and for balance she has to dig as firmly as she can with her back paws when she jumps two or three times her height. But I did start rubbing my hand and when I saw the blood, I set her on the floor, and immediately went to the restroom to scrub and put on an alcohol rub. Perhaps it's my imagination, but she's been waiting longer to get my attention and gurgles a half-meow before she jumps up now. You can bet she's trained me to pay more attention!