Link Log for January 30

Organized by categories: Politics, Knitting, Books, Food, Quotes, an Obituary, Rock Music, and Humanity...

Rock Music Video 

On behalf of a band called Dirty Unkuls, someone Twittered a music video to me. As luck would have it, I'm online from the Dog Sanctuary, on a computer that's pretty near to junk but can play sound as long as it's not loud enough to upset the dogs. So I tried to play it...and Twitter crashed...and after an hour, when it recovered enough to do anything, the computer declared the video "unplayable." Drat. But then Kathleen Wallace posted this link to an Aerosmith video...Do you readers like Aerosmith? (Warning: she says his tribute to Boston made her cry.)

http://katyladysjourney.blogspot.com/2015/01/katys-freebie-for-day-aerosmith-dream.html?

Quotes 

"Pray. Counsel with the Lord in all of your doings."--David Bednar

"Love often says don’t tweet. Love often says don’t write. Love often says if you must rebuke, then do so in person and with touch" AB Welby

Humanity, or Why I Really Am a Liberal, Though Not a Leftist 

When I was growing up, there was an unofficial color war on in the U.S., and if you didn't fear and hate the other color, the word for you was "liberal." (There were worse words.) Regular readers already know about my multiethnicity and the multiethnicity of my close friends. About some other things I'm pretty conservative, but about the garbage of "race" thinking I am absolutely and forever a liberal. Lloyd Marcus, otherwise a conservative, discusses his "liberal" heritage here:

http://www.lloydmarcus.com/2015/01/dad-elderly-white-woman-race-exploiters/

Obituary 

Elizabeth Barrette, a mutual e-friend, wrote this obituary poem for Patricia Wilkins (widow of Peter Haden, wife of George Elgin), the writer known to cyberspace as Ozarque and to real publishers as Suzette Haden Elgin. 

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/3556169.html

I once listed her, along with Bonnie Prudden and Grandma Bonnie Peters, as "mother-mentors" of my life and work. That might have surprised all three of them, but it's true; what I've done, and hoped to do, with my serious work and writing, is a continuation of what they've done. Hence my comment on the poem linked above. Ozarque left a lot of work for her friends and admirers to carry on.

I'll try to do an Official Memory Post on Sunday. For now, I'll share this memory: She was the pen friend cited as "the Arkansas correspondent" on the George Peters FacTape about Bill Clinton--the one that debunked several major lies about the then-President, but did not recommend voting for him. Ozarque, however, was loyal to President Clinton and described herself, during those years, as a yellow-dog Democrat (the kind who, according to an old joke, would vote for a yellow dog if all the humans in the county were Republicans). So it was pleasant to see later that, despite philosophical differences, she was equally loyal to Mike Huckabee as a fellow Arkansan and a candidate. 

She wasn't perfect; there are tiny pockets of human vanity, inconsistency, and error in her blog, as there are in any blog or diary that's kept honestly for a long time. She was nevertheless one of the toughest, smartest, and kindest women I've ever known. She will be sorely missed.

Food 

Bean soup weather, for sure. (Profound empathy to snowed-in, blacked-out Yankees if they don't have wood stoves on which to simmer beans, right about now...snow is good insulation, but nobody should have to depend completely on electric heat.)

http://marshasspot.blogspot.com/2015/01/frugal-friday-with-marsha-great.html

This is the right sort of day for collard greens, the ones that need to be simmered slowly (if you have a wood stove, they can go on the side off the firebox, beside the beans). I saw this fresh take on the classic recipe yesterday, but didn't make the time to do anything with it. Lo and behold, somebody retweeted it, so it popped up again today.

http://sheownsit.com/collard-greens-collard-greens-not-kale/

Books 

I liked Saving Fish from Drowning too; I think I've liked all of Amy Tan's books--at least all that I've read.

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/the-monday-book-saving-fish-from-drowning-by-amy-tan/

A new (nonfiction!) book by Jerry B. Jenkins I'd like to read:

http://jerry-jenkins.com/2015/01/27/the-matheny-manifesto-part-1/

And a new collection in search of publishing funds, ditto...this link is especially commended to the interest of Garrison McDavid.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/castles-in-spain

Knitting 

There's still time to knit a "spring" cardigan with rings of popcorns forming a flattering vertical line on the fronts.

http://www.pompommag.com/product/pre-order-issue-12-spring-2015-print-digital/

Politics 

Links and my comments on bills, including one in the U.S. Congress, are at http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382 .

Read bills yourself (and see how you like it!) at https://www.popvox.com/ and/or http://lis.virginia.gov/.

Virginia Legislature streaming video starts Monday. Virginians are welcome to watch it; a Delegate Twittered this link in advance, so those who find it easy to watch video can make sure their computers are set up for the show:

http://virginia-house.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=3

There are things about which I think Sarah Palin is right, and things about which she's merely right-wing. But here's one thing about which Lloyd Marcus is right. The Old Left and Old Right should have dissolved by now--I was hoping they would have done--but they persist, and their positions have not shifted to the extreme left, as left-wingnuts hope. If anything, the "moderate mainstream" position is less favorable to socialism than it was before the Berlin Wall came down. The Cold War ended. We won. Why would we take the side that didn't win, now? Far left = Bill Clinton's policies. Lunatic left = anything leftward from there. Centrist = W Bush or John McCain.

http://www.lloydmarcus.com/2015/01/sarah-palin-right-go-offense-tout-conservatism/

Morgan Griffith on the E-Mail Privacy Act

As some readers probably did, I signed one of those e-petitions that automatically send one message to the Senators and Representative for each signer's district...without checking any of those three individuals' stated position on the subject of the petition. In this case, I was automatically urging my Congressman to support a bill he co-sponsored. I take full responsibility for failing to check this and add a note of appreciation to the petition, since clicking on it was the last thing I did before leaving the computer center. Here is Congressman Morgan Griffith's reply:

"Thank you for contacting me regarding the Email Privacy Act, which I was proud to cosponsor in the 113th Congress and will be an original cosponsor when it is reintroduced this year.    I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

          Introduced by Representative Kevin Yoder, the Email Privacy Act extends to electronic communication the same protections granted to paper documents by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The bill prevents law enforcement officials from accessing private email accounts and information stored in "the cloud" without a warrant. Our email privacy laws, which have not been changed since 1986, are long overdue for an update.  

          I firmly believe that what makes America great are our freedoms and liberties.    To borrow from Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."    I believe we can protect Americans by collecting information on terrorists and other bad actors without sacrificing our fundamental freedoms.  

          The fight to protect Americans' rights and defend the Constitution and its Bill of Rights is a fight that must and will continue. Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind should I have the opportunity to vote on legislation in the House of Representatives that ensures proper constitutional protections for electronic communication.

          For more information on what is happening in Congress, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.    If I may be of further assistance to you on this, or any other issue, please feel free to contact me in my Washington, DC office at (202) 225-3861."

Book Review: The Changeling

Title: The Changeling

       
Author: Zilpha Keatley Snyder

       
Date: 1970

       
Publisher: Atheneum / Scholastic Book Services

       
ISBN: none (click here to see it on Amazon)

       
Length: 232 pages

       
Illustrations: drawings by Alton Raible

       
Quote: “[A] changeling comes when some other creatures, gnomes or witches or fairies or trolls, steal a human baby and put one of their own babies in its place...when the babies are just a few hours old...Aunt Evaline and I think I might be a wood nymph or a water sprite.”

       
Martha is the shy, quiet baby sister in a family of high achievers. Ivy is the creative, idealistic baby sister in a family of tough guys and alcoholics. The Changeling is the story of their friendship, which lasts all through their school years and culminates when the girls have to find out who really committed a crime (a mean girl in their class has accused them).

       
It’s chick-lit; what Snyder’s son categorized as a “sad story about girls” when he demanded that she write Black and Blue Magic, a funny story about a boy. It doesn’t really fit into the stereotype of what children in any particular grade ought to be reading; too slow-paced and emotional for most middle school readers, too chaste and simply told for most teenagers. (Even in grade ten, Ivy and Martha don’t seem to think their lives need any romance.) It can be read as Snyder’s reaction to the elitist bigotry of which some Americans hadn’t even become ashamed in 1970: adults think Kelly, who belongs to a “nice” middle-class family like Martha’s, would be an appropriate friend for Martha, but Kelly is thoroughly hateful; adults think Ivy would be a bad influence, but she’s as good a friend as a little girl can be.

       
It is, however, the reality-based story behind Snyder’s venture into fantasy, a few years later, in Below the Root. Some readers may find these stories interesting enough to compare and contrast and consider how Snyder had developed as a writer during the years between these two novels. In The Changeling Ivy invents, Martha co-writes, and they act out as a dance, the story of the Tree People; in Below the Root the story reappears as an independent fantasy adventure. Both novels contain embedded anti-drug messages. Which way of embedding an anti-drug message in a story works for you?

       
For me The Changeling is also useful as a study of the two healthy introverted traits that frequently appear in females. The physical traits that produce LBS and HSP personalities hadn’t been scientifically identified yet, but it’s obvious that Martha, who is neither stupid nor hypothyroid but consistently “slower” than her siblings, has a long brain stem and Ivy, who tells stories and becomes a dancer, has high sensory perceptivity. By now educational picture books about introversion are available for for preliterate children. Verbally talented introverts may still prefer to read a story about the adventures of two school-aged introverts, rather than a picture book aimed at younger children. So, although The Changeling was among Snyder’s slower-selling books and may not be easy to find, it’s still worth buying for an introverted little girl. 

       
Or for yourself, if you were once an introverted little girl (or boy) and still enjoy a simple story that’s not about adultery or murder. Like most novels aimed at child readers, The Changeling may not be complex enough to draw adults back again and again, but the plot takes enough turns to get an adult through a few hours of down time.

The Changeling has become a bit of a collector's item. What I have is the first paperback edition, in rather poor condition (likely to fall apart if you breathe on it too hard), and if local readers physically buy it I can give them a better price, but if you buy this book online the best I can do will be $10 for the book + $5 for shipping. Unfortunately, Zilpha Keatley Snyder no longer needs the $1.50 that we'd send her, or a charity of her choice, if we could still offer The Changeling as a Fair Trade Book.

Link Log for January 29

Organized! Although I spent most of my online time writing long serious things on a super-slow computer with broken keys, today I did discover: Politics, Cars, Animals, Laughs, News of the Weird...

News of the Weird 

Sociologists finally conducted a study of Christian-phobia...concluding that, though not common in the U.S., it's most common among the elite class.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/29/they-should-be-eradicated-sociologists-reveal-shocking-results-of-christianophobia-research-and-a-cautionary-warning-for-conservative-bible-believers/?

Laughs 

What's your favorite preposterously bogus tourist tip or fun fact about Washington, D.C.?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/style-invitational-week-1109-fictoids-of-columbia--tell-us-some-fake-dc-trivia/2015/01/29/8ba92fbc-a5d0-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html

Writing

Here is a well recommended checklist of things this web site needs to do if we ever start making money. Some e-friends might use it too...

http://geekfeminism-feed.dreamwidth.org/336531.html

Animals 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/rare-and-elusive-sierra-nevada-red-fox-spotted-in-yosemite-for-first-time-in-nearly-a-century/?tid=sm_tw

Cars 

There is not, never was, and never will be a digital photo to go with a Yahoo article I wrote, many years ago, called "How to Roll Your Car and Walk Away Unhurt." I did that before digital cameras were invented. The secret hasn't changed: not air bags, and not shoulder straps (especially the ones that hook through a horrible, potentially eye-smashing flange on the side wall), but good, tight seat belts. (Plus windows that crank up and down, if you want to walk away unhurt.) This is the time of year when people re-test this information, and here's a fresh new story from snowy upstate New York with a vivid digital photo, Twittered by DriveSmartVa:

http://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/police-seatbelt-protected-driver-in-crash/article_af5d0200-cfd1-5439-9331-70220538f98f.html

Politics

First of all...I'm not going to try to copy what I just Twittered, but, for those interested in politics, http://connect.freedomworks.org is the site for discussions of U.S. politics, uncluttered with ads and random fun stuff. I'm seeing tons of political comments on Twitter (the system is revealing that quite a few elected officials Twitter or pay staff to Twitter even during legislative sessions), and I'd like to remind those interested in Virginia politics that I'll actually see your comments if you post them either on my page, http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382, or on your own page (which I'll follow). I get no particular benefit, except education--no points, no money--if you use Freedomworks. But I will get educated and become a better bill reader, able to post more cogent comments on bills like http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+HB2202 .

General advice for all state legislatures and members of Congress, endorsed by me:

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/%E2%80%9Cfree%E2%80%9D-federal-money-never-free

Congressman Morgan Griffith goes to school, and I finally manage to copy a link to a photo on Twitter (I failed to do that and spent more than an hour cleaning up the cyber-mess yesterday).

"Thx for having me! MT @CheckElementary: It's not everyday a US Congressman teaches you about the Legislative Branch! pic.twitter.com/GGawUC8808"

Finally...

Lots of other people sent in lots of nice links. I didn't get to them. I'm using what has to be the most inefficient computer I've seen in this century. You can not imagine how sincerely I regret this.

Book Review: The Ann Landers Encyclopedia

Book Review: The Ann Landers Encyclopedia

       
Author: Ann Landers (E.P. Lederer)

       
Date: 1978

       
Publisher: Doubleday

       
ISBN: 0-385-12951-3

       
Length: 1182 pages with 30-page index

       
Quote: “Never in the history of the written word has an individual imposed on more busy people...in an effort to pro­duce a single volume.”

       
The columnists known as Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren (identical twins in real life) became famous for printing letters from people whose requests for advice really went beyond one writer’s opinion. Often they changed the details, printed the letters, and advised people in similar messes to get counselling. In other cases, they referred the questions to specialists...and The Ann Landers Encyclopedia consists, mostly, of advice from those specialists. This is the state of the self-help art circa 1978. There are lots of medical pieces written by doctors and psychological articles written by psychologists.

       
A random page of chapter headings from the table of contents lists these topics, all arranged alphabetically: shyness, sibling rivalry, sickle cell anemia, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, silence, sleep talking, sleepwalking, smile, smoke (secondhand), snakebite, snoring, sterilization, stomach (nervous), stress, stretch marks, strokes, stuttering, success, suicide, sunburn, sun lamps, surgery, tattoos, teenage drinking, teeth (capping), teeth (straightening), teeth (unsightly), and teething (of infants). 

       
There are, of course, several brief samples of Ann Landers’ and her correspondents’ wit. Landers shares letters from baby-sitters who felt exploited, people with tacky relatives, family members who hadn’t been on speaking terms for years, and so on. On some topics, such as “Twins,” Landers felt qualified to write the advice article herself.

       
There are, predictably, bits of advice that are out of date. The section on drugs discusses LSD and PCP, not crack or recreational Prozac. Much of the advice on disease conditions is what people still hear from their doctors today, but treatment options for several diseases have changed over the years. The section on guns claims that, even in 1978, a majority of Americans wanted to ban them; it’s now been abundantly demonstrated that this claim was based on misleading statistics.

       
The section on “school phobia” is particularly bad. By locating the problem exclusively in the child, stereotyped as a first grade or kindergarten student with “separation anxiety,” it completely fails to help parents whose children develop school phobia (at this age, or later) because there is a problem in the school such as bullying, bigotry, emotional abuse, or psychological abuse (such as misdiagnosing a child as having a disability because the school receives extra funds for disabled students). 

       
The section on homosexuality begins with a correspondent urging Landers to “take the lead in removing the stigma that has long been associated with homosexual orientation”; Landers, quoting “One per­son with courage constitutes a major­ity,” asserts that, although “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, social or vocational ability,”  it’s still “a severe personal­ity disorder.” This was indeed the majority opinion prior to the AIDS panic and blood-throwing of the 1980s, and I salute anyone who’s not caved in to what were in fact terrorist attacks on those who withheld their support from the homosexual lobby. I wonder whether, if Landers were writing today, she’d have a list of the personality disorders that turned not only sympathizers but homosexuals themselves against the lobbyists: blood throwing, defamation of character, sexual harassment of children, harassment and persecution of fellow homosexuals who didn’t kiss and tell during the years when organized groups of pedophiles were welcome in their ranks, blackmail...

       
Probably not; Abby Junior dutifully kowtows to the homosexual lobby every few weeks, and yes, it costs her credibility, because much as I disliked the homophobia of the 1970s, and sincerely as I believe that homosexuality is one of the more adaptive natural responses to overcrowding found in most animal species, I have no respect for the idea of trying to win social acceptance by committing crimes. Landers, as of 1978, was not “pro-gay” but she was fair-minded enough to include more sympathetic people’s articles about “gay rights.” If she’d generalized this fairness to include a more balanced view of issues that have provoked fewer public displays of hysteria, e.g. the problems in our public schools and the reasons why we need school choice, she would have been...well, much further ahead of her time than she was.

       
In 1978 The Ann Landers Encyclopedia might have appealed to people in search of a home reference book about medical problems. I don’t recommend this book to that audience now. The Mayo Clinic has more up-to-date medical information online. The AMA Home Medical Encyclopedia (lots of disgusting but useful photos and diagrams) is a less outdated, more useful guide to medical terms and conditions. Jethro Kloss’s Back to Eden is a somewhat technical but still helpful guide to home health care and general good health.

       
Legal advice is also found in this book...and several of the changes Landers was advocating in 1978 have been made by now, but not all of them, so I don’t recommend counting on The Ann Landers Encyclopedia for legal advice either.

       
Who should read The Ann Landers Encyclopedia? Primarily, I think, this book should now appeal to those who liked her column. A few of the column’s all-time greatest hits occurred after this book was printed, but several of them are here. There’s a dated but not outdated poem by Judith Viorst about the couple who thought about spouse-swapping, didn’t think they believed in guilt but still felt it, and “decided / To give up secret meetings.” There’s Landers’ advice on in-laws: “f I could hand every newly married couple a framed motto as a wedding gift, it would say this: ‘Your first allegiance is to each other.’” There are her rules for happy married life: “Never both be angry at once. Never yell at each other unless the house is on fire.” There are several of her all-time favorite reprinted poems, Top Ten Lists, and one-line wisecracks.

        

It's also an historical document. If you’re looking for a compendium of the folk wisdom of America’s “Greatest Generation,” The Ann Landers Encyclopedia is that.

The author known as Ann Landers has been dead for a long time, so this is not a Fair Trade Book; it's just a book I happen to have for sale. If you buy it online, it'll still cost $5 for the book + $5 shipping. You may find a better price on this book online. So as an online reader you might want to let a local reader buy the copy I physically own, which will cost that reader less than $10, and buy a Fair Trade Book and let some of the money be used to encourage a living writer. 

Link Log for January 28

Monday's Link Log was long and messy. Can today's be long and organized? (Can anything be done on a computer that's all fouled up with Spotify and Skype and similar e-garbage, that processes apparently a maximum of twenty keystrokes or clicks per minute?) At least I can sort the links by category.

War on Pets 

(Laura Ingraham tweeted): THIS IS A BIG DEAL? Your reaction pls... "GoDaddy Super Bowl 2015 TV Spot, 'Journey Home'" http://ispot.tv/a/7XXf  #ispottv #PuppyGate

My reaction: Yes, it's a big deal that the Humane Society are demanding total, monopolistic control over all domestic animals in order to allow Wayne Pacelle to keep his evil promise to the pet haters: "One more generation and they (dogs, cats, horses) are out," and, according to The Bond, he wants us all to be herded into slums where we can "learn to bond with rats and roaches" who will accelerate the "progress" toward plague. Is the extinction of cats and dogs unimaginable? So was the extinction of passenger pigeons--a nuisance species, once. What I'm seeing at lis.virginia.gov convinces me that people who like animals need to oppose the Humane Society vigorously. Backlash while we can!

Niceness 

http://wtvr.com/2015/01/28/good-samaritans-help-motorcycle-cop-struck-by-hit-and-run-driver/

Ben Carson Twittered: "Remember that it is impossible to be free if you are not brave!"

Who Knew?

...that taxi drivers put themselves at greater risk than police officers?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/28/charted-the-20-deadliest-jobs-in-america/?tid=sm_tw

Well, I Smiled...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/28/jon-stewart-friends-dont-let-friends-drone-drunk/?tid=sm_tw

Serious message, funny photo: " DRIVE SMART Virginia retweeted

1. ArlingtonCountyPD ‏@ArlingtonVaPD 2h2 hours ago

   Don't want to attend the Detention Center's #SuperBowlXLIX viewing party? Plan ahead by designating a #SoberRide home "

(I wish the picture they Tweeted would show up, and not just that logo!)

Phenology

Smog in one of the countries that are allegedly behind the demand that the U,S. outlaw wood stoves:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/smog-in-china-share-your-photos-and-experiences?CMP=twt_gu

So far my corner of the world is sunny, snow-free, and cold...in New England it's a different story...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31025776

(Why am I getting this news from the BBC first? How many readers in D.C. and northward are offline today?)

Writing

http://www.firepolemarketing.com/blog-content-strategy/

Has Don Mashak really been censored, or is he reporting a glitch as censorship in order to attract support from free-speech types? (Remember the "Bush is a male" Notepad glitch?) Let's find out.

https://donmashaksusgovernment07032014censoredposts.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/first-principles-all-people-have-free-will-and-are-not-virtuous-by-nature/

Education

John McCain, certainly not a right-winger, salutes school choice:

http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=9243d4ae-dc51-4efa-9d5a-446bf13c8791

The Cato Institute explains the theory:

http://www.cato.org/education-wiki/school-freedom-competition?

Politics

I don't think Sarah Palin is even willing to work with a national party on a national campaign, but if you still think of the Democrats as the party that's supportive of women, check out Lloyd Marcus's testimony:

http://www.reverbnation.com/c/fr5/artist_700364?eid=A700364_24558161_53315195&fsc=0de8c729817

Rand Paul's geek squad are circulating the word about his popular yet controversial bill: "Sen. Rand Paul re-introduces the "Audit the Fed" bill that would expose policy decisions to a Congressional audit - Reuters" and similar. (Retweeted.)

Ted Cruz Tweeted "kudos to FLOTUS" for refusing to wear a head scarf in Saudi Arabia. Meh. As shown at the Yahoo News story, men wear them; male relatives who were there in the Gulf War said a scarf can be useful in that climate. If I'd gone there on such a formal occasion I would definitely have wanted a head scarf. But Mrs. Obama would have more up-to-date information about these things, and if Saudi women felt supported by the First Lady's gesture, good for her.

http://news.yahoo.com/michelle-obama-navigates-limits-women-saudi-arabia-192549108.html

Virginia Legislature 

Delegates Kilgore and O'Quinn have been Twittering about the E.P.A.'s war on coal-burning power plants...it's hard to copy anything on this computer, and I've not tried, but I retweeted a few of their bons mots on this subject. They might agree with the e-friends about whom I just posted here:

http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382

...that:

"Some e-friends are calling this the most important bill of the season: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+SB1442".

Tim Kaine on Military Spending

From U.S. Senator Tim Kaine:

"\As a member of the Armed Services and Budget Committees, one of my top priorities has been replacing the across-the-board sequester cuts that are harming Virginia's economy. Last year, I successfully fought for the refueling and overhaul of the USS George Washington, which supports thousands of jobs in Hampton Roads and contributes to our nation's military readiness. Obtaining full FY2015 funding for the USS George Washington was an important step, but we still have work to do as we begin budgeting for the years ahead.

Maintaining the 11 aircraft carrier fleet is critical for our nation's ability to meet the threats of today's world and carry out humanitarian missions. In 2014 alone, the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) was critical in responding with strikes against ISIL and assisting humanitarian relief efforts on Mt. Sinjar. Meanwhile, when North Korea threatened its neighbors in July, the USS George Washington (CVN 73) responded to deter any further escalation.

In today's world, aircraft carriers are the "flexible force" that allow us to respond rapidly to crises across the globe. That's why I led the bipartisan Virginia congressional delegation in a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to express our continued support for the 11 aircraft carrier fleet in advance of the release of the President's Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal.

I'm proud to work with colleagues in both houses, on both sides of the aisle on such an important issue for Virginia's economy and our national security.

To read our letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, click here.

Sincerely,

Senator Tim Kaine"

Book Review: Silver Dawn

Title: Silver Dawn

       
Author: Margaret Sweet Johnson

Antiquarian web site with a page about this author: http://dogco.com/margaret-and-helen-johnson-collaboration/

       
Date: 1958

       
Publisher: Morrow

       
ISBN: none (Amazon page here)

       
Length: 80 pages

       
Illustrations: drawings by the author

       
Quote: “Silver Dawn came from a long line of Irish hunters and jumpers.”

       
Silver Dawn, a dapple-gray mare, bonds with Julia, the rancher’s daughter who trains her to jump. The rancher sells the mare, anyway, to a circus. After a leopard attacks Silver Dawn, she is sold again, to a farmer who rents her out as a saddle horse. After an accident with an ignorant rider, Silver Dawn becomes too nervous to be ridden by anyone but Julia. Wandering about in the woods, they come to a forest fire, and Silver Dawn saves Julia’s life.

       
There’s not much suspense in this simply told story—you know it’s going to end with the girl and her horse together forever. Neither is there enough detail to offer any novelty to those who’ve already read Black Beauty. Nor is there a great deal of information about horses; there hardly needs to be, since this book is aimed at an audience who are unlikely to be allowed to do more than pat a horse. 

Nevertheless, for a child whose interest in horses extends to drawing horse portraits, this book has some nice, lifelike images. My brother, whose school drawings were always of horses or dogs, loved this book and used it as a model from which to learn. Other horse-loving children may like the pictures, too, long after they’ve pronounced the story “babyish.” Most adults could take drawing lessons from Margaret Sweet Johnson.

Online, we'll sell this book for our standard bottom price of $5 for the book + $5 for shipping.

Book Review: Being Committed

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Being Committed

       
Author: Anna Maxted

Author's web page: http://annamaxtedbooks.squarespace.com/

Date: 2004

       
Publisher: Harper Collins

       
ISBN: 0-06-009670-5

       
Length: 372 pages

       
Quote: “I was a girl with the best gadgets, the smallest phone, the biggest TV. And yet I felt with the girl with the biggest phone, the smallest TV.”

       
When Hannah, the central character quoted above, starts narrating this novel, she’s been asked to marry a man three times. By the end, it will be four times. There are only two men in Hannah’s life, apart from work and family. Her commitment-phobic relationships with them form the plot of this romantic comedy.

       
Actually, it’s more of a psychological case study than a romantic comedy, and the psychology is not necessarily wrong, exactly, but older-fashioned than Hannah is. Hannah has a good oldfashioned Freudian complex about marriage because her parents have a bad marriage. In order to choose between her two less than thrilling young men, she has to shift her loyalties from her father to her mother, stop blaming her mother for sleeping with one of her primary school teachers and start blaming her father for sending her into the room where she caught them in flagrante delicto, and start thinking of her mother as “depressed” instead of “bad.”

       
I think what puts me, personally, off a script like this one is the historical reality that it was a script. There were a few dozen similar scripts. When I was Hannah’s age, which was probably around the time Anna Maxted was Hannah’s age, the scripts were taken very seriously. Presumably they did work for some people in real life, just as neatly as they do for Hannah in the novel. For people I actually knew, the scripts didn’t work, and instead of simply accepting that the scripts might have fitted some people’s real stories but not ours, the people who wanted our real lives to fit their scripts psycho-hexed us with creepy talk about our relatively trivial problems having deep roots that were probably destined to develop into real mental illness later on...

       
So Maxted trots Hannah through her psychological script, and it works for Hannah. I can suspend disbelief long enough to laugh at how neatly and comically it works for Hannah. If, at the end of the book, I like Hannah less than I liked her at the beginning, if I would never have accepted a second date with either of her men and if I hope no male friend or relative of mine would have asked Hannah for a second date...well, comedy is what we pay Maxted for, and comic characters are supposed to be thickwitted and have psychological blind spots a yard wide. I find myself thinking, “Hannah is awfully immature, Jason’s a bore, and Jack’s a jerk,” and then I remember how seldom fictional characters come alive even to those extents.

        

If you've read other romantic comedies by this writer and like her comedic style, you must have Being Committed. If  you like laughing at a fictional character more than with her, then you’ll probably enjoy Being Committed. There are better romantic comedies. Anna Maxted wrote some of them. But there are certainly worse ones. According to Amazon, quite a few people who normally like romances (which I don't) love Being Committed.

Fair Trade Books are books this web site is able to sell secondhand at a price from which we can send ten percent to the author. The baseline price, the one we put on nearly all Fair Trade Books, is $5 for the book + $5 for shipping. Shipping charges are consolidated for as many books as can be shipped in one package. Out of this total $10, the writer, or a charity of her/his choice, will receive $1. If you'd like to encourage Anna Maxted in this way, e-mail salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com.

Virginia Needs Laws Protecting Cats

This one is not political...it's a warning that all people who care about animals need to take action to prevent an emergency.

Cat haters want the right to kidnap, mutilate, and dump your pets!

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+HB1586

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+SB693

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+SB699

It sounds "humane"--they just want to spare those poor feral cats from the misery of having kittens--but since it requires no proof that the outdoor cats these people want to trap are in fact feral, what each of these bills really means is "If we can catch your pet and dump it out at the other end of the state, we will." 

To cat haters, this well-fed, well-groomed, contented pet is "feral" just because she's outdoors and doesn't have a collar. 

Here's the e-mail I sent to my State Senator and Delegate:

"Please count this voter in vehement opposition to HB 1586, SB 693, and SB 699. Although these bills sound humane, and I suppose it's possible that they were meant to allow people to vaccinate genuinely feral cats against diseases without trying to make pets of them, that's not what they say. By failing to establish proof that an animal is not a lost, strayed, or stolen pet and is genuinely feral, these bills would basically authorize cat haters to steal neighbors' pets and dump them hundreds of miles away.

I'm disgusted that three sponsors have been found for such unethical bills.

Anyone who's spent time in the "rat sanctuaries" that communities lacking outdoor cats quickly become, as I have, would actually support legislation making it a felony to interfere with an outdoor cat in any way. I suspect that my own cats are deliberately supplied with nuisance animals by town dwellers who trap and release rats, squirrels, raccoons, and other nuisance animals in rural neighborhoods, but I know for sure that it's not unusual for the two cats who (noticeably) hunt to bring home four or five rodents in one evening. We need to focus on the rat overpopulation problem."

Scott Lingamfelter Reports on the Legislature

From Virginia Delegate Scott Lingamfelter, edited for paste errors:

"General Assembly Update #1

It's been a very busy first full week of the General Assembly session! I'm happy to report on the progress of my key priorities, including: supporting our veterans, making college more affordable, and a budget that funds the core functions of government without raising taxes.

 

Making College More Affordable

 

It's becoming increasingly difficult to save and pay for college, with Virginia students now borrowing more than $1 billion every year to pay for school. In his State of the Union Address, President Obama outlined a tax scheme that includes targeting 529 college savings accounts for taxation, which would make it even more difficult to save. At a time when we should be making college more affordable, taxing savings plans that are designed to help families afford college doesn't make any sense.  I'm supporting legislation that makes college more affordable by capping expensive athletic fees and making it easier for small schools to cut wasteful spending, both of which I'm happy to report passed unanimously out of committee this week. You can read about some of the bills to hold down college costs at CBS6 at http://wtvr.com/2015/01/19/panel-oks-bills-aimed-at-college-affordability/ 

The Budget

 

As one of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee, I am keenly focused on our budget work.  Unlike Washington, we have to have a balanced budget requirement in Virginia; and that means when we are in a tight economy as we are now, we have to make tough choices.  We are looking at the budget stem to stern right now to make sure that we are using your money wisely on the core areas of government.  That means we need a conservative budget that funds our core priorities, like: education, public safety, and transportation while cutting wasteful spending.

 

Human Trafficking

 

While many think of it as an issue in remote parts of the world, sex trafficking is a growing problem in Virginia.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an estimated 100,000 children are trafficked for commercial sex every year and human trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal industry. I'm supporting legislation this year that would give prosecutors additional tools to combat sex trafficking in Virginia. NBC29 reported this week on our efforts.

http://www.nbc29.com/story/27906080/va-officials-fighting-for-stronger-anti-sex-t

rafficking-laws

 

Veterans

 

Virginia is home to more than 780,000 veterans. In Prince William and Fauquier alone, there are over 46,000 veterans. There is a critical need for more veterans care centers in Virginia to support them. As Del. Chris Stolle noted, "Maine has a bed in a veterans care center for every 200 veterans in the state. Virginia has a bed for every 2,000 veterans." I'm pleased to announce that the Appropriations Committee has reported legislation to the full House to fund new care centers in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads this week. These two new 230-bed centers would not only provide valuable services to veterans in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, but they would also allow the existing centers in Richmond and Salem to better meet the need in those regions.

 

Status of Your Legislation

 

I will keep you updated on my legislation as it proceeds.  I have a busy week ahead and will update you next week.

By the way, if you haven't yet, please fill out my legislative survey at http://survey.house.virginia.gov/Survey.aspx?s=41e770b2071d43ab99f6fdeda3ac1576 to share your priorities for this General Assembly Session.

 

Finally, it's an honor to represent the 31st District of Prince William and Fauquier Counties in the General Assembly.  I take my job very seriously and I need your input so I can do the best job I can.  When you take my survey it helps!  But if you have time and plan to be in Richmond, I hope you will pay me a visit.

 

Stay warm this weekend.  I plan to spend some time with my wife Shelley and from what I hear we may also see some ice and snow in northern Virginia.  So stay warm and be safe this weekend!  http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/woodbridge-va/22193/weather-forecast/9200_pc

All the Best!

Scott

WATCH: Press Conference on 2015 House Agenda - http://www.vahousegop.com/2015/01/watch-house-gop-outlines-2015-agenda/ 

House leaders highlight 2015 agenda - http://www.vahousegop.com/2015/01/house-gop-highlights-2015-agenda/

"

P.S. from P.K.: I received this e-mail because this web site is read by people in the 31st District. If you're in a different one, please focus e-mails and surveys on your own state senator and delegate. 

Book Review: The Education of Little Tree

Title: The Education of Little Tree

       
Author: Asa Carter as "Forrest Carter"

       
Date: 1976

       
Publisher: Delacorte

       
ISBN: 0-8263-0879-1

       
Length: 216 pages

       
Quote: “I came to live with Granpa and Granma when I was five years old. The kinfolks had raised some mortal fuss about it.”

       
The writer known as Forrest Carter had published some novels before he produced this alleged memoir of his early childhood. Since then I’ve read numerous claims that the story he tells in this book is not, could not be, a true autobiography...but none of these claims documents anything about the man’s real childhood. Instead they wander off on tangents about his having committed hate crimes against African-Americans as a young man. The claim is thus “He can’t ‘really’ have been three-eighths Cherokee, because he hated African-Americans." Bosh. Much as I hate to disturb stereotypes that may be working in some of my relatives’ favor, the fact is that Cherokee genes do not automatically immunize people against hate, bigotry, or even stupidity.

       
Neither does having had three wonderful, idyllic years of early childhood with loving grandparents who died, for no obvious reason, far too young. In fact, I can imagine how the loss of grandparents might have contributed to Carter's embitterment.

And, was Asa Carter three-eighths Cherokee? Consider the photo evidence here. Biracial Americans born in 1925 tended to be ambivalent about the source of the kind of DNA Carter's face shows. He might have had Native American ancestors; he might not. He would certainly have seen the uglier side of White racism...even if his reaction to White racism was to buy into it and hate Blackness and Jewishness more than the average Euro-American did, even in 1950. (I hate to say it but that was, in fact, how some biracial and Southern European types tried to prove themselves White in those strange, sad, bad days.)

       
I’m not convinced, therefore, that The Education of Little Tree may not be as factual as most of the novelized versions of writers’ childhood memories are. Memory is never perfect. Novelized memories always have to leave things out, and usually have to simplify what’s left in. I can say this much: Carter knew the Blue Ridge Mountains. If he didn’t actually live there for three years, he was very close to someone who had.

       
The story ends with the tough little orphan heading west. We know that even in North Carolina , even in the 1930s, he wouldn’t have got far. Other brushes with schools, orphanages, bigoted White kinfolks, and “politicians” lie ahead of Little Tree. Could he have been convinced that all the people like his grandparents were dead, and that, in order to fit into the dominant White culture, he had to persecute surviving people who were less White than himself? I believe the historical reality was that he could. I doubt that anyone born after 1950 can really understand the race hysteria that gripped North America and Western Europe during the first half of the twentieth century, but we have to remember that otherwise intelligent people, otherwise of good will, really were sucked into it, and sometimes the ones who were themselves multiracial were the most thoroughly demented by it...e.g. black-haired, Slavic-looking, Slav-hating Adolf Hitler.

       
Next question: How “authentic” is the education of Little Tree as a Cherokee? Actually reading the book may help correct some people’s sentimentalism about Cherokee culture...because this book is not about pure, pristine, pre-Columbian Cherokee culture. It doesn't claim to be. According to Little Tree, his Granpa is half Scotch.  Granpa’s “whisky trade” and use of words like “kin” come straight from Scotland. Perhaps the folk cultures always were more compatible than some people think; geologists find evidence that Britain may once have been physically connected to the northern Appalachian Mountains, anthropologists remind us that the early Celts were shorter and darker than the Saxons and Vikings with whom they intermarried, and historians keep digging up evidence of occasional contact between Western Europeans and Eastern North Americans before Columbus’s time. In any case, although we’re convinced that Little Tree is deeply rooted in the Blue Ridge Mountains , upon close reading we also see that he is a hybrid tree. Granpa knows only a few words of Granma’s ancestral language (which probably was not Cherokee), and neither Granpa nor Little Tree knows exactly how Granma prepares her native-plant foods and remedies. The education of Little Tree is remarkably like the education of his Scottish-and-English-American contemporaries in Jesse Stuart’s Hie to the Hunters. Granpa’s understanding of frugality is presented in Cherokee terms...but many people in North Carolina use the word “Scotch” to mean “frugal.”

       
The bottom line is that, whatever else happens in his life, the boy learns a simple, sustainable, and enjoyable way of living in harmony with the land from three thoroughly lovable older people.

       
Does the story realistically show that this lifestyle, although idyllic, has certain limitations? Yes. The story is about the time in Little Tree’s life when a child loses his baby teeth, but all Little Tree says about this life passage is that watching how a local man extracts damaged adult teeth makes him wary. Reading between the lines, we notice how prematurely all the adults in Little Tree’s life seem to be dying. We notice also that, although Little Tree’s grandparents have worked out ways to live well on a low income, they are in fact dirt-poor. 

       
Does the story preach? Well...a little. Even in their time and place, Little Tree’s grandparents are not ordinary people. Their lifestyle is not a matter of plucking the lotus and dreaming about past incarnations. It involves hard work, thrift, generosity, loyalty, and fine character...and reverence. The grandparents aren’t fully convinced by any of the Christian dogmas inferior minds debate so hotly at their nondenominational church, but they take Little Tree to church just the same. And their compassion for the inferior human beings they meet at church is well tempered with awareness that these people are, by their own choices, inferior (another thing often observed in both Scotch and Cherokee culture).

       
Were there ever people like Little Tree and his grandparents? Yes. Some of them are related to me. Some of them are still alive. I enjoy their company very much, but some people tend to find them intimidating.

       
I recommend The Education of Little Tree to everyone. There is truth in it. I’m not sure exactly whose truth. I’m quite sure that Asa Carter didn’t know any of my elders, and the directions he gives from the place he calls Clinch Mountain in the book obviously don’t refer to the Clinch Mountain I know. (In fact, the mountains in the book are higher than the Clinch Mountain I know.) Nevertheless, the truth in this book is our truth as well as Carter’s. Of all popular books about the Appalachian Mountains (northern or southern), this is the one that resonates best with my elders’ stories and my memories, and the one I recommend that people read first.

But read it with your eyes open. If you want to learn the Cherokee language, study guides are available. Note that the words Little Tree's Granma uses are not the ones they use. Neither, according to Wikipedia, did Carter's surviving relatives know who, if anyone, Carter might have remembered as having been like Little Tree's Granma. Does this make the story false? Not necessarily. A lot of people in Virginia and North Carolina had dark tan complexions and poorly documented ancestry. The Granma character may be fiction but she reflects a fact...and that fact is that some of these people, having given up hope of being accepted as White, wanted to be perceived as associated with a living (and wealthy) Native American nation rather than as being the last survivor of a small, poor group or family.

Asa Carter has been dead for a long time, so we can't offer The Education of Little Tree as a Fair Trade Book. If you buy it online, we'll have to charge $5 for the book + $5 shipping anyway. If you buy it together with another book, or books, that we can ship in the same package, you pay only $5 for the whole package and can still buy a Fair Trade Book and support some other writer who is still alive.

Book Review: I Know a Secret

Title: I Know a Secret

       
Author: Christopher Morley (1890-1957)


Author's fans' memorial quote-collection site: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/christopher_morley.html

       
Date: 1927

       
Publisher: Doubleday Page & Co.

       
ISBN: none (but click here to see it on Amazon)

       
Length: 235 pages

       
Illustrations: black-and-white drawings and 4 color plates by Jeanette Warmuth

       
Quote: “It is sad to have to tell it, but the angry squirrels made short work of that Tree.”

       
Christopher Morley was a popular writer in his time; he wrote novels, essays, verse, and a volume of one-act plays. Cuteness and whimsy were in style, so this is a cute, whimsical book of bedtime stories for young children. Perhaps some readers will get an idea of how young the children need to be when reminded that one of these stories (the fable about the modest puppy) was reprinted in Told Under the Christmas Tree.

       
Morley co-authored one book with Don Marquis; in I Know a Secret, as in Archy and Mehitabel, the animals act just like humans. So do some inanimate objects, like a Pilot Light who suffers from envy of the Main Burner on the new gas stove. My perception is that Mehitabel is a reasonably credible cat—she says things humans might say about things cats actually do—but Fourchette, the mother cat in this book, is not. On the other hand her kittens are believable.

       
I don’t find Gissing, the modest puppy whose belated request for just one toy prompts Santa Claus to leave him a dozen toys, plausible either. Nor am I particularly stirred by the character of Escargot, the snail who functions as the other animals’ literary agent.

       
The squirrels, however, I could believe were real. Morley gives them a motive for revenge on an “Unamiable Child” who always offers them empty shells instead of peanuts...but I can picture real squirrels sneaking into a house and eating all the nuts, apples, and popcorn strings hung on an oldfashioned Christmas tree.

       
Believable or not they're all amusing. It’s possible that some grandparents remember this book and would like to share it with their grandchildren.

       
Adults really need to be in the mood for this kind of book, but I chortled while reading through the reasonably well preserved first edition I found. The pictures are also very typical of their period, in exquisitely mellow pastel colors.


I Know a Secret sold so fantastically well, and was so often lovingly preserved, that it's not yet become rare, and so I can offer it for sale online for $5 for the book plus $5 for shipping. You might find a better bargain at another site...and then again you might not. 

Link Log for January 22

This helpful blog post about blogging lists online sources...how well do you readers know and trust the online sources she mentions?



http://www.sarkemedia.com/how-to-create-more-effective-content/



Fellow Virginians, HB 1287 might become important to you some day.



http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382



For new readers, U.S. citizens have always been encouraged to read and comment on proposed new laws, but few of us were able to do that before state legislatures started maintaining web sites. Here's HB 1287 at Virginia's legislature's web site:


http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+HB1287



African Queen dolls who look ready for a visit with Barbie? Why not? Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sharing:



http://www.queensofafricadolls.com/about-us.html



Arlene from Israel thanks the often controversial Congressman John Boehner:



http://noisyroom.net/blog/2015/01/22/seeking-sparks-of-light/



End of a NASCAR era: Jeff Gordon announces retirement plans.



http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/22/nascar-legend-announces-impending-retirement/?


For the football fans, Lloyd Marcus has this:


http://noisyroom.net/blog/2015/01/21/seattle-seahawks-quarterback-wilsons-message-for-tea-party/


Somebody had to try this, and the position of this web site remains: If the baker wants to lose a customer, that's her prerogative. He can hire a different baker. Though he may have a hard time finding one who's willing to put a message about God on a cake, especially one as presumptuous and judgmental as "God hates..."


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/22/baker-refused-to-make-bible-shaped-cakes-with-god-hates-gays-message-and-now-the-govt-is-investigating-her-for-religious-discrimination/?


Cute felted slippers, even if this woman doesn't actually knit them.


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/22/american-made-spotlight-sheepy-shoes/?


Word that the King of Saudi Arabia had died came in while I was working on this post, although Oliver Darcy here reports that it happened last Friday. Should this web site express condolences toward people who, even if they know how to read English, are probably banned from reading this web site?


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/22/saudi-king-is-dead-according-to-statement-read-on-state-tv/?


Over to Google +, where Jaipi Sixbear shares (good news) a firsthand report on the clunky way Common Core re-teaches arithmetic (bad news):


http://grandmashouseplus4.blogspot.com/2015/01/more-adventures-in-common-core-math.html?spref=tw


Francis D. Schaeffer left his name and publishing connections to one confused heir.


http://booktrib.com/2015/01/frank-schaeffer-and-why-i-am-an-atheist-who-believes-in-god/


One good thing about lupus...please promise you won't be the first to bring this up in conversation if you don't have lupus yourself...


http://www.lifesuccessfully.com/lupus-love/lupus-thumbs-its-nose-at-catholic-guilt


Interesting report on British pop music. If you're still blessed with a member of the Greatest Generation in your family, you might print and share it.


http://annieangel1.hubpages.com/hub/dame-vera-lynn-2


Why is this blog not more widely read? (How do I know it's not my writing? Because I've been comparing page view counts between Blogspot and Associated Content. Before Twitter I was consistently seeing about one-quarter as many daily views as I got on AC. Since Twitter it's been up to almost half as many. Lots more people know who I am now than knew when I wrote for AC; most of my e-friends e-met me through AC, where I started out with no e-friends.) One reason: it's too hard to post comments here. That's why I started Twittering--it's dead easy to post comments there! Twitterers, please tell me: Obviously diehard regular readers (Hi, Mom) don't mind the dearth of pictures on this web page. What about you?


And, how much does it matter to you that the original photos that are found only at this site are blurry images of flowers, cats, or stunningly badly photographed knitwear? Right, Tori is back in town, there's some hope of getting better photos of knitwear...in time for next fall. Apart from that, the really good pictures here come from Morguefile. How bad is that?


http://dailytwocents.com/5-reasons-posts-dont-get-views/


Speaking of dear old AC, Lyn Lomasi just recycled one of the articles AC asked us to write, years ago. I'd add that there should be no difficulty finding someone to take recycled copper pipes. There may be a slight security problem if any thieves happen to find out that you're willing to part with them.


http://www.betterplumbingdenver.com/blog/how-to-go-green-with-plumbing


This one appeared on AC years ago, too, but some people still need to read it...


http://www.articlewriterforhire.com/blog/commenting-etiquette-101-for-freelance-writers


Gardeners do not need to wait for warm weather to start planting...or harvesting...indoor kitchen herbs.


http://cheapfoodhealthyfood.blogspot.com/2015/01/budget-tip-for-one-grow-your-own-herbs.html


But we can look forward to the quiet joys of gardening. (Sometimes I think they're even more delightful during these brief winter thaws, when the sweat and insects are still far away...)


http://diaryofwildgarden.blogspot.com/2015/01/do-you-ever-stop-look-and-listen-in.html


For those who do Tsu, I plan to spend the last few minutes I'm here on Tsu...may find a few more choice tidbits there.

Book Review: Life's Little Destruction Book

A Fair Trade Book


Title: Life’s Little Destruction Book

       
Author: Charles Sherwood Dane

       
Date: 1992

       
Publisher: Stonesong Press

       
ISBN: 0-312-92927-7

       
Length: pages not numbered

       
Quote: “Call friends during the Super Bowl to talk out your problems.”

       
In the early 1990s a pocket-sized paperback book called Life’s Little Instruction Book, full of one-line pious thoughts and reminders to do good deeds, was a popular gift item. Life’s Little Destruction Book was the parody. It contains 512 one-line descriptions of behavior you can probably pat yourself on the back for not indulging in.

       
That's probably enough to tell you whether you want this book or not. Merely in order to expand this review to a reasonable length, I’ll say that only about 500 of these one-liners describe behavior I’d call Truly Obnoxious. Nobody sniffles for pleasure or profit, so “Sniffle a lot” does not quite belong on the same list with things like “Take more than ten items to the express checkout line” or “Borrow a book and dog-ear the pages.” Have an alias and the IDs to prove it” may be illegal, but it’s not obnoxious. “Leave papers in the copier” and “Step on your dance partner’s foot” are things it’s hard to imagine anyone planning to do.

       
“Open the casket for one last look” is a double-edged line. It’s a cultural thing. At least, if you don’t belong to a subculture that expects the deceased to be visible at the funeral, you’re not among the people expected to drop a last kiss on the cold dead face; count your blessings. But a casket is a little box meant to sit on a stand holding letters written by your true love’s hand. A coffin is a coffin. Calling a coffin a casket is part of the set of abuses of the English language that were created by people who couldn’t deal with the reality of death, like calling a graveyard a “memorial garden.” If you don’t belong to a subculture that expects you to misuse words in this annoying way, these misuses of words are obnoxious.

       
“Chew ice cubes” seems to me a great deal less obnoxious than either sweating into someone else’s furniture or demanding that they turn up the air conditioning (which is probably already turned up as high as it goes), or, for that matter, wasting ice cubes. Fretting about the fact that someone else can still chew ice cubes without pain, as most of us middle-aged people with tooth fillings cannot, can easily become obnoxious. As we get older we need to stifle those feelings of envy.

       
“Serve wine” is a Truly Obnoxious mannerism, all right, but it needed to be mentioned only once. No refinements make drunkenness anything but obnoxious.

       
Dane also includes “Use ‘like’ at the end of sentences, like,” which may need historical explanation. Once upon a time, when Dane and I were young, using “like” at either the end or the beginning of sentences was a fad among the “cool” crowds at some schools during some years. Some people who went to those schools also seemed to believe that they were cooler than we were. Like, okay, people I knew used “like” at the beginnings of sentences, but why is Dane showing his insecurity about this now? Even in 1992, did he know anyone who still used “like” as an interjection, and if so, didn’t that person still say “far out” and “groovy”?  With this he had a problem? Like that’s crazy, maaan...

       
Anyway, this book contains at least 500 things most of us can reasonably feel superior to people who do: “Don’t shovel snow from your side­walk.” “Forget the pooper scooper.” “Drink your roommate’s last beer.” Like, you’re not the total jerk that you might feel yourself to be after realizing how seldom you think of doing any of the little niceties in Life’s Little Instruction Book. Like that was groovy, maaaan....Or at least, if you didn’t need Life’s Little Destruction Book, someone else out there does. This is a book to pass along. Small size and short independent one-page sections make it a good choice for anyone who's in the hospital and can safely laugh out loud.


Life's Little Destruction Book is not hard to find. In real life I'd charge local shoppers less than $5; online, $5 for the book and $5 for shipping is our minimum, although we can consolidate the shipping charges (you pay only $5 for as many books or other things as we ship in one package. You may find a better price online for this almost greeting-card-sized book, but so far as I know nobody else is offering Dane one-tenth of the price for which they sell his work, which means he (or his favorite charity) gets a dollar per copy of this book you buy here.  

Link Log for January 21

First: The McDougalls now send out e-mail...but they've not worked all the bugs out yet. A triumphant e-mail showing the cover of a Woman's World feature article about the McDougall diet ("good carbs") opened in the browser window showing a Twitter button, but that Twitter button didn't work. So here's where to see the WW headline..in their trademark competing-with-tabloids style, it shrieks "LOSE 200 LBS. EATING GOOD CARBS!"(And would you? Possibly, if you had 200 pounds to lose and followed the weight-loss version of the McDougall diet for a year or two. I have to admit that all I've ever lost by rigorous "McDougalling" was fifteen or twenty pounds...but that was all I needed to lose. One does not waste away on a low-fat vegan diet. In combination with exercise, the diet can even help some young people gain weight...losing flab, building bone and muscle.)

http://www.womansworldmag.com/

Next: Bash those plagiarists, Sarah!

http://gr8.com/r/zXyB9/E/yFaG?t=

Between many cities, taking the bus is safer and cheaper than driving...even for people who own cars and don't hate driving as much as I do. Believe it or not, even Gate City, with its population just over 2000 and its three traffic lights, used to have bus service to Kingsport and Big Stone Gap. Very likely we could have bus service to those towns again if M.E.O.C. would move its big fat boondoggle out of the way.

http://www.metro-magazine.com/motorcoach/news/293190/report-intercity-motorcoach-usage-continues-to-rise

Quote from Mark Levin being batted around Twitter:

"If you look at the length of history, it's not the private sector that has slaughtered & enslaved human beings. It's government."

 

The gluten-free life...not without its perils. (Thanks to annoying John1282 at Junkscience for sharing this link. Yes, these things are true, and none of them is exactly good news for those of us who have no realistic alternative to staying gluten-free for as long as we care to stay alive. What do I do about the extra fat and sugar often found in gluten-free grain products? I rarely eat them; most of the time I eat vegetables, fruit, nuts, meat, and brown rice, instead of processed grain products.)

 

http://www.dailylocal.com/business/20150119/consumer-reports-the-truth-about-gluten-may-surprise-you

 

This explains an incident on the way to the computer center...first an older man, who looked like one of those distant relatives who all look pretty much alike to me after I've not seen them for three years, insisted on buying my drink at the convenience store down the street. And then, on the sidewalk outside the store, an older relative whom I've seen more recently and recognized distracted me from asking whether he recognized the first one by asking for a hug. That relative has a sister who got into hugging after heart surgery, but he's never been a huggybear, nor have I, and certainly not on the street...Oh, well. For local readers who might have wondered, he's my first cousin once removed; the sister was our baby-sitter. Happy "National Hug Day," Gentle Readers. Go and hug whichever of your relatives can survive the shock.

 

https://twitter.com/SenRandPaul/status/557974231233724418/photo/1

All news from Karen Bracken is good news, even an e-mail that contains a broken link. (She still signs off with the americadontforget link; when I clicked on it, what opened was a screen announcing that the domain was up for resale.) Tnacc.net (Tennessee Against Common Core) need to discuss this with Ted Como at the Kingsport Times-News. He keeps saying that Tennessee has no reason not to want to raise its academic standards to match Virginia's. He's right about that. He seems not to be aware of the expensive gadgets, and their built-in child safety hazards, involved in fully implementing Common Core. All Tennessee readers are invited to discuss these things here:

http://www.tnacc.net/

Fair disclosure: Although the position of this web site is that any fracking is too much and any earthquakes are too many, I do invite everyone to read the article linked below. And think about it. Enough of an earthquake to knock a dish off a table is enough of an earthquake to create a landslide that would bury the workers in a coal mine...just for instance. Is this the kind of thing that creates the stereotype that National Review readers don't caaare about the working peeeeople?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/396805/fracking-fracas-over-earthquakes-jillian-kay-Melchior

Cute, touching dog picture and story...

http://www.dogpawsitivetidbits.com/2015/01/dog-face-of-freedom.html

Quilt image. (Btw, if any needle crafters want to generate additional publicity for things you may be selling on E-Bay or Etsy or Zazzle or other web pages of your choice, please feel free to send JPG images to salolianigodagewi @ yahoo. I'd like to be able to pay for pretty pictures. I'm not. But I'll be delighted to share your pretty pictures, with links to your sites of course, just to boost the signal and to give the eye thinkers a bit of eye-candy.)

http://q-nonnie.blogspot.com/2015/01/first-finish-of-year-design-wall.html

Google + pages always look messy and change fast, but Google + just randomly chose to share a cool post by this German spinner/knitter...the one that showed how to use "Looper Loom" bands on your spinning wheel. I don't spin...yet. I agree that this is a cool idea. (Everything on her Google + page was showing up in English today, including a complaint that it hadn't been, yesterday.)

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BeateMieslinger/posts

Can you chart and knit those scannable square codes that show up on Best Buy sales sheets? You certainly can! Here's a knitter who worked them into a pair of mittens:

http://www.web-goddess.org/mittens.php

In southwestern Virginia we've had a wonderful January thaw. (I didn't wear a coat or sweater over my winter-weight dress today!) On Twitter people were showing photos of snow heading our way from Washington, D.C. Oh well. If the thaw hasn't lasted long enough to suit you, you might want to admire this guy's tulip picture.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+AlanShapiro/albums/5983349445410213377/6106778348834948530?pid=6106778348834948530&oid=%2BAlanShapiro

That's all for today...I've done what I came to do, checked e-mail and Google +. Won't have time to read messages on other venues today, though...it almost makes me miss the good old days when all my e-friends and e-communications took place on one web site (Associated Content, rest in peace).