Amvets WWII Film Project

For the history buffs, here's a new documentary project from Lt. Col. Richard Cole, with fundraising link:

"
I'm one of the 80 men you might know as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders. We are the men that did the unthinkable — we launched Army bombers from an aircraft carrier over enemy territory to show the Imperial Japanese military they were not invincible. Just four months after Pearl Harbor, no one ever thought this was possible. I heard someone say it was similar in today's world to flying a B-2 bomber off an aircraft carrier.

Most of us crash landed or bailed out of our planes in China or along the coast. One plane landed in Russia, where its crew was interned for two years before escaping. Three Raiders were killed while bailing from their planes. Eight were captured by the Japanese — three were later executed, while another died in captivity.

I'm 99 years old as I write this email and I'm one of only three surviving Raiders. I'm worried about how history will remember our mission, but I'm more worried about how few Americans will remember my fellow Raiders and the impact that their lives had on the rest of the world.

The general story of the Doolittle Raid has been told in books and movies, but nothing has been told about the men themselves: what they did as young men, how they lived their lives, and how the momentous event impacted them. The American Veterans Center came to me to put together a documentary to tell the Raiders' story and I was thrilled that someone would finally tell this story!

The documentary will briefly retell the story of the planning, carrying-out, and the aftermath of the Raid. It is important to remind viewers why striking the Japanese Home Islands was so important to our national morale and to the battle in the Pacific.

This documentary, however, is mostly about the men as individuals. It's about their personal experiences on the day of the Raid and in the days and the years after. This is also about life after the war, including the relationship that we shared and the circumstances that tied us together forever.

The American Veterans Center is partnering with Emmy-winning producer Tim Gray to create this documentary and has filmed interviews with me and the few surviving Raiders. The AVC is footing the bill for the film, but it's going to cost nearly $10,000 to finish editing the program.

I hope you consider sending a gift for $25 or $42 (the year of the Raid). If you send $150 or more, I'll send you a collectors print that I personally signed.

I don't know how many years I have on God's green Earth, but I do know that I want to watch this documentary just once with my children and grandchildren to show them the impact that those Raiders had on me and on the rest of the country. I hope that the families of the other Raiders who are no longer with us will watch the film and see just how important their fathers and grandfathers were to this nation.

The American Veterans Center hopes to have the film completed by this summer. If you send $42 or more, I will ask them to send you an advanced copy of the DVD as soon as it is ready.

This is so important to me and I believe it is important for all Americans to see. I hope you will consider helping. "

Dave Brat Feels Rejected

Another precinct heard from...U.S. Representative Dave Brat (R-VA-7) e-mails to ask fiscal conservatives for support. This web site has no votes in the Seventh District. I don't know whether we have readers in that district. We will, however, share Congressman Brat's message...once. We can't do this every time an elected official seeks reelection, but we suspect that this message may become a valuable historical document.

Dave Brat wrote:

"
I refused to support Barack Obama's illegal amnesty in Congress – and now I'm under attack.

On amnesty, the Republican leadership and political elites in Washington DC are throwing our principles and the Constitution out the door – and now they're throwing me under the bus.

Not only has the GOP House leadership failed to live up to its promise to fight tooth-and-nail against Barack Obama's outrageous, unconstitutional overreach – they're actually directly attacking members like me who wouldn't go along with their capitulation.

You read that right. In retribution for refusing to accept the GOP surrender to President Obama's illegal amnesty scheme, I'm being blasted by $400,000 worth of media attack ads and telephone campaigns – by establishment groups run by former leadership staff!

I was elected to Congress by the people of Virginia's 7th District precisely because they oppose just this kind of arrogant dismissal of their wishes by Washington's political elite – and I will continue to do so – but I need your help.

Will you help me stand up to the immense pressure being directed at me by making an urgent contribution of $25, $50, or even $100 today?

There's more than just amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants at stake here – we're talking about the rule of law.

The Constitution of the United States grants the Congress the right of making laws. Republican capitulation to Barack Obama's "executive action" to subvert the Constitution will only embolden him further.

In fact, the President's Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, has already declared that Obama is "very interested" in using executive action to raise taxes.

If we don't draw the line against the undermining of the Constitution for political advantage now, the Congress might as well close for business – and that's why I so desperately need your support – so please stand with me today. "

Book Review: Are You Anybody?

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Are You Anybody?

        
Author: Marilyn Funt

        
Date: 1979

        
Publisher: Dial

        
ISBN: none, but click here to see it on Amazon

        
Length: 339 pages with many photos

        
Quote: “What is it like to be the wife of a very famous man? As the wife of Allen Funt, I should have known.”

        
Hmm. I guess he was more famous then...Allen Funt was involved with the old “Candid Camera” TV show. While divorcing him, his wife passed her time interviewing: Veronica, Mrs. Muhammad Ali; Sandy, Mrs. Tony Bennett; Ruth, Mrs. Milton Berle; Dorothy, Mrs. Lloyd Bridges; Alicia, Mrs. Red Buttons; Joanna, Mrs. Johnny  Carson; Kari, Mrs. Dick Clark; Emmy, Mrs. Howard Cosell; Altovise, Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr.; Anne, Mrs. Kirk Douglas; Shera Danese, Mrs. Peter Falk; Ruth Bell, Mrs. Billy Graham; Lydia, Mrs. Charlton Heston; Jeanette, Mrs. Alan King; Lynn, Mrs. Michel Landon; Patti,Mrs.Jerry Lewis; Kate, Mrs. Zero Mostel; Nancy, Mrs. Carroll O’Connor; Marcy, Mrs. William Shatner; and Joyce Davidson, Mrs. David Susskind.

        
If you’re old enough to remember the husbands, you probably recognized some of the wives’ names too...but not many. Pathetically few, the feminists of 1979 would have fumed; hadn’t they all grown up on the story of how even Roberto Rossellini didn’t feel secure enough to “be Mr. Ingrid Bergman” for long, and why should women be expected to do something men apparently couldn’t, etc., etc.

        
If you were a slightly more levelheaded woman, you remembered that not everyone wants to be a household word, that in fact Jane Wyman left Ronald Reagan because she didn’t want to be a political wife. You might have wondered whether any of the unknown wives of famous husbands wanted to be famous. And if you had been well known in the TV community, in your own right, as Mrs. Funt happened to be, you might have had a chance to ask them.

        
Even then you might have encountered some difficulty. Muhammad Ali didn’t want Mrs. Funt talking to his wife, and finally consented only if he could be there during the interview, and only after asking a question he knew would be considered rude: “Your bosses are going to make a lot of money—why should she talk for nothing? She’s a lady, she wouldn’t ask.” Nevertheless, although America’s greatest boxer didn’t want his wife giving interviews or doing anything un-Islamic, he affirmed that he did want his much younger wife to finish her degree: “I told her to go to college and get some knowledge. Stay there until you are through. If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread they sure can make something out of you.”

        
One wonders whether the interviews were actually done in the order they were written, and whether either the husbands or the wives had access to previous interviews. By the next interview in the book, in which Mrs. Tony Bennett was overgeneralizing that “being married to an Italian was very difficult” and then putting the blame back where it belonged, “Anything I do is stressful,” readers should feel a little more empathy toward wary husbands.

        
However, most of the wives didn’t share Mrs. Funt’s sense of being oppressed by a needy, neurotic, ego-tripping husband. Mrs. Buttons had more serious concerns than ego competition; she outed herself as a cancer survivor. Ruth Bell Graham also felt a need to prepare for widowhood; reading this book during Billy Graham’s years of widowhood gave a strange overtone to his wife’s description of how, long before she died, “we have to take separate bedrooms because [my coughing] would just keep both of us up.”

        
Some wives, like Mrs. Howard Cosell, revealed things about their men that didn’t show up on TV: “He is a worrier, very overprotec­tive...He is reasonable.” Mrs. Peter Falk, on the other hand, revealed that her husband “says he is very liberal, but he isn’t.” And Charlton Heston played defiant “angry young men” well, but his wife said that “he’s the fetcher” in contrast to actors who were spoiled by others’ stepping and fetching for them, and “I think [he] is [the] more openly affectionate [spouse].”

        
Marilyn Funt concluded that “my unhappi­ness was not typical of...being a celebrity wife...more a personal problem between my husband and myself.” If Allen Funt had fans of his own, as distinct from fans of an idea that made clever and comic TV, he probably lost a few when this book was published.

        
However this book is a significant piece of Women’s History, over and beyond the celebrity gossip that made it interesting for my generation. During the 1970s many women emerged from “consciousness-raising groups” with a confused, excited impression that experiences they’d shared with a carefully selected, planned, and organized small group of demographically matched neighbors must be experiences all women were having. To some extent this was made possible by a tendency to identify women like Joyce Davidson or like Joyce Brothers, or Margaret Atwood, Erma Bombeck, Raquel Welch, Rosalynn Carter, or even most of these celebrity wives, as “part of the problem”...not even because they were conservative (the celebrities named weren’t) but because left-wing organizers didn’t want the experience of individual self-empowerment, in any substantial way, to “become divisive” in consciousness-raising groups, to separate the women from the girls. Only unhappy middle-aged girls, e.g. Mrs. Funt, were likely to agree on the need for leftward political movement as a solution to these problems.

        
Mrs. Funt wasn’t typical. She went out and did the legwork, talked to women who didn’t fit in with the consciousness-raising groups, and reported, honestly, that although her problems were not unrelated to the sexist attitudes society then tolerated, they were not part of a syndrome automatically produced by the conditions of her marriage.

According to IMDB.com, Marilyn Funt is still alive, so we can offer Are You Anybody as a Fair Trade Book: when you send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 for shipping, or $10 altogether, we will send Mrs. Funt or a charity of her choice $1. 

Fleece My Sheep

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on May 10, 2014. Image from BlondieB at Morguefile: http://mrg.bz/aGC8cM )

Years ago, a minister for whom I never had much respect introduced my family to Mennonite school choice activist Stanley Brubaker, for whom I do have some respect. I was thinking of the minister (now dead) when I wrote this verse to go with the tune of Brubaker's song, “Lord Give Us Christian Schools.” 

Lord, give me a Christian flock

That easily fleeced will be;

Give to my books innocent looks,

Semblance of purity.

Followers who doubt me not,

Never suspect my plot—

Not like the ones I’ve got!

Lord, give such a flock to me.

Robert Hurt on Privacy Issues at Healthcare.Gov

From U.S. Representative Robert Hurt: 

"Hearing from those living and working in Virginia’s Fifth District has always been, and continues to be, my greatest resource as I serve you. Your input has brought to light problems created by some of the big government programs coming out of Washington.

Last year, a constituent contacted our office to express concern over the fact that he was unable to delete his profile from HealthCare.gov. Even though he decided not to sign up for healthcare coverage through the federal online marketplace, he was unable to remove his profile from the site. When he called the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he was told that his personal information simply could not be removed.

After investigating the issue, we discovered that others were experiencing the same problem and that HHS had no justification for this policy. After HHS refused to fulfill my request to change this policy, it became clear that legislative action would be necessary to ensure that Americans have the ability to protect their personal information. That is why I recently introduced the Healthcare Consumer Privacy Act, H.R. 1446, with my Democratic colleague, Congressman Collin Peterson of Minnesota. This bill will enable individuals to remove their profiles and personal information from the federal healthcare website if they decline to purchase a plan through the site.

This issue is critically important given all the reports over the past year and a half regarding the security vulnerabilities of HealthCare.gov. In July, HealthCare.gov was hacked, and HHS did not even discover the malicious software embedded in the site for weeks. In September, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study pointing out that several privacy and security risks from the site’s launch months earlier had not yet been fixed. The GAO report expressed concerns that serious risks of unauthorized access, disclosure, and modification of all information collected and maintained by this website still persist.

To make matters worse, in January, the Associated Press reported that private companies that specialize in advertising and analyzing Internet data were obtaining consumers’ personal data from HealthCare.gov. This Administration was so focused on getting the federal online marketplace to function at a basic level that it did not take sufficient action to ensure that users’ personal information will be protected. Given the outrageous amount of money the Administration has spent building the website - more than $2 billion according to a Bloomberg report - it is astonishing that these major digital vulnerabilities persist, jeopardizing the personal information of millions of Americans.

While I remain focused on repealing the President’s healthcare law and replacing it with real healthcare reform based upon market-oriented principles, the Healthcare Consumer Privacy Act is a critical step in the interim to protect individuals’ personal information. It is my hope this commonsense, bipartisan bill moves swiftly through the legislative process. Congress must also remained focused on its oversight role and continue pressing the administration to secure HealthCare.gov. I look forward to working with Representative Peterson and my colleagues to ensure that individual privacy is protected.

If you need any additional information or if we may be of assistance to you, please visit my website at hurt.house.gov or call my Washington office: (202) 225-4711, Charlottesville office: (434) 973-9631, Danville office: (434) 791-2596, or Farmville office: (434) 395-0120.

Robert visited with Brandy Henderson, Constance Henderson Covington, and their daughter, Ayanna Henderson of Danville (pictured from left to right). Ayanna was the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials’ poster contest winner this year for her piece entitled: “What Home Means to Me.”

Robert met with Robert Vaughan, Maggie Guggenheimer, and Barbara Fried of Charlottesville’s Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Founding (pictured from left to right). "

Link Log for March 24

Categories: Animals, Art, Books, Celebrity Gossip, Crafts, Frugal, Funny, Health, Music, Pain, Phenology, Piracy/Plagiarism, Poetry, Politics, Recycling, Social Issues, Writing...this post is long enough; I'm not going to call this post "#1," but I'm not ruling out the possibility of a "#2."

Animals 

The African moon moth looks a great deal like the American luna moth...but the differences go beyond one being yellow and one pale green. The African moon moth can become a pest species. Liz Klimas reports about an individual moth who found a more individual way to be a pest.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/24/what-a-moth-did-to-a-reporters-ear-during-live-shot-left-him-saying-yuck/?

More exotic animals from +Angel Sharum :

http://www.personapaper.com/article/27657-chattanooga-zoo-video

One of the ducks my husband and I used to watch in Maryland. This one would have been migrating and would have either skipped the parks near Washington, or passed them by altogether; we didn't see a lot of scaup there. The "share photo" option on my Google + page doesn't show the bird in its beauty or the photo in its fortuity. Click here:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+RayHennessy/albums/6129404264580802129/6129404264392092898?pid=6129404264392092898&oid=115977797497263198843

I should've posted this long comment here, rather than at Google +:

"Last December, I walked past the trailer house where the five teenagers, four dogs, and several cats used to be crowded together. Now the big boys are gone, so who's left to walk with the big dog? The big dog came out and barked at me. (He looked a lot like the one in the picture, maybe bigger--80-90 pounds of muscle.) I shouted "Go in! Go home!" as usual, and instead of going into his home, he bounded up and grabbed my arm. And Iknow all he meant to "say" was something like "Come and play with me," because if that dog had meant any harm he would've left a lot more than three little surface wounds on my arm. And I called the dogcatcher, anyway...because the boys were never able to provide a healthy environment for that dog, because that dog was a neighborhood nuisance at best, and now that the boys are gone the parents and younger kids aren't even trying."

It was a comment on +Sandy Segur 's post, where she summarized the situation as sad. Very. Here's the post again, in case anyone missed it:

http://myloveofanimalsdogs.blogspot.com/2015/03/dogs-running-at-large-are-dangerous.html

For some people, not sitting down in a home where the dogs and cats roam is a matter of ritual purity, part of some people's Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu practice. I've been thankful that my whole-Bible Christian practice is more practical, less ritualistic...but sanitary living with members of different species really does call for a lot of work. Don't we wish that adorable LOL Dog picture could've been real?

http://www.livewagbark.com/life-with-dogs/how-to-keep-your-home-clean-with-multiple-dogs/

Cute photo essay, serious warning:

http://border-collies-in-the-burbs.blogspot.com/2015/03/tim-border-collie-gets-into-mischief.html

Fans of Valentino, can any of you spare a few dollars? I can't; I got into a Major Bind last week when a client kept postponing a recurring odd job, and I wasn't able to cash out a Paypal payout for online work, so I ran completely out of food and money. I had a snack, not a complete meal, on Wednesday, and then a snack again on Monday morning and a meal Monday night. And I shared that meal with the cats, because they ran out of kibble on Sunday. Yes, you can support this blog, too. (If the "Support My Blog" button isn't showing or working at the top of this page, e-mail salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com.) Anyway +Ruth Cox and her handsome hound have to move, and e-friends are trying to help them raise the money. If you want to help this dog and his human, here's the link:

https://fundrazr.com/stories/69F982/gp/61I2Q0

Art 

Peek at Park Rae Hyun:

http://themillionhair.tumblr.com/post/114421288474/park-rae-hyun-south-korean-female-painter

Books 

Wendy Welch reviews another book that I've not read, but her review contains a helpful hint for fiction writers:

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/the-monday-book-the-grace-that-keeps-this-world-by-tom-bailey/

Online writers of the world, do you need covers for your e-books? +Angel Sharum can make a beautiful one...

http://www.personapaper.com/article/27678-book-cover-deisgn

Celebrity Gossip 

Angelina Jolie shares directly with her fans...via a site that I think is becoming less browser-hostile than it used to be...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/opinion/angelina-jolie-pitt-diary-of-a-surgery.html?smid=tw-share&_r=2

Crafts 

Where Jil Eaton hangs out in real life:

http://jileaton.blogspot.com/2015/03/knit-simple.html

Have you ever tried using laundry markers to enhance the possibilities of Easter egg colors? Sharpies come in a range of colors; Dawn Rae demonstrates how they work.

http://reviewthispersonalreviews.blogspot.com/2015/03/sharpies-great-way-to-personalize.html

Frugal 

+kathleen wallace describes the way frugality is supposed to work. I can't say it's worked for me in the past ten years. But it used to work.

http://katyladysjourney.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-i-do-frugal-i-do-and-rich-i-want-to.html?

Funny Stories 

Tsu friend Taylor Swift complained that a standardized test misquoted one of her song lyrics as an example of bad grammar. Somebody actually pronounced that "Somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them" is not bad grammar. Well, neither that nor the misquoted "you got to believe them" is bad in the sense of preventing English-speaking people from understanding the sentence, but I knew better than to hand in either version to a teacher by...oh, grade five at least. (In grade four I liked the way the translation of Anne Frank's Diary retained European-style commas instead of semicolons between related independent clauses. In grade five I learned that, in English, that type of punctuation is marked "wrong." Or in my school days it was. It should be "Somebody tells you she or he loves you; you're likely to believe that person." Of course, C.S. Lewis had told us that in his school days it should have been "If someone tells you that he or she loves you, you are likely to believe that person"--no contractions. Never mind. It's a song.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/24/princeton-review-knocks-taylor-swift-for-grammar-in-sat-practice-test-theres-just-one-problem/?

Health (Physical & Mental) 

It's Huffington Post (which seems to work a little better in Chrome than in Explorer, but this web site understands that Gates Foundation computers are programmed to work only with Explorer). And I don't even agree with Maysoon Zayid's belief that responding to trolls helps them; if you enjoy a good flamewar, responding to trolls may amuse you, but I think it actually encourages the trolls. So why recommend this? Because our American cultural mania with "face reading" and eyeball-to-eyeball as substitutes for saying what we mean is hard enough on people with astigmatism, like me, or people with myopia, like Hillary Rodham Clinton...but it's insanely vicious toward people whose cerebral palsy happens to affect their face. The writer known as Shalecka Boone could hardly ever go to a restaurant, concert, movie, even a church meeting in peace, without having to be an activist, and guess what, spastic facial muscles don't make it easy to speak so strangers can understand your words, either. My husband had a student who probably had extensive brain damage, but, like Ruth Sienkiewicz, was always believed to have much more serious brain damage than she had; we had to work to convince people that she could see and hear. So I've seen some of the garbage Maysoon Zayid has had to live with, and I salute her for talking about it and clowning about it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/23/maysoon-zayid-cyber-bullying_n_6912984.html

Nothing else looks as good as being healthy, but some people have always had to learn the hard way...

http://www.velveteenbeauty.com/2015/03/fatal-attraction-terrifying-beauty.html

Music 

Nancy Hardin remembers Billie Holiday:

http://nancywriteseverything.blogspot.com/2015/03/billie-holiday-voice-of-genius.html

Pain 

Just as this document sinks off the front page, into the archive of "Older Posts"...

http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2015/03/priscilla-king-on-painkiller-addiction.html

...an e-acquaintance shares some bad news. Obviously Patrick Nielsen Hayden is going to need to type less, and unless "Dragon" (voice recognition) software has become a lot easier to "train" than it was when a friend got it, he'll have to blog less. This web site joins the thousands of readers of Making Light who regret this, and hope PNH recovers soon.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016176.html

Phenology (with a Mini-Rant)

Big Stone Gap...apparently they got far enough from town that they can still see a sky full of stars like that. I wish I could. I used to look up and see views like that, on nights like last night. Last night I walked out around the house, about 3 a.m., and all I saw was disgusting city-street-type lights, not yet hidden from view by trees. And a dull grey sky with just a scattering of stars. Personally I still find it much easier and safer to let my eyes adapt to starlight than to pollute the night with artificial lights. Walking at night, I may miss some things I want to see, but I can see where I'm stepping--until some idjit motorist drives past with nasty headlights casting weird shadows that distort the view. I cover my eyes, even when the headlights aren't excessively bright, because I can see where I'm walking better without the artificial light. Homeowners need to be reminded: a flashlight can help you find things at night, and a lamp indoors can help you read, but by and large the natural darkness is your friend. (Artificial light indoors helps control some kinds of mold, but outdoors it's the burglars' friend.)

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/how-soon-unaccountable/

In the daytime I've enjoyed the March Thaw, and yes, my crocuses are in bloom, and in town the daffodils on the south sides of people's lawns are blooming too.

At the Cat Sanctuary this has been the froggiest year I can remember. Many frog and toad species are endangered, although Spring Peepers aren't, so some localities are posting signs to try to remind people to protect their natural insect control. You can actually see the "Frog Crossing" sign on the Google+ page; I can't see it on Bubblews:

http://www.bubblews.com/news/9904477-frog-crossing

Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sharing the link, and Zirconium for these spring flower pictures from Nashville, Tennessee:

http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/102440.html

Of course, the nature of the March Thaw is to give way rather quickly to Redbud Winter, which tends to move from north to south:

http://protectoshell.blogspot.com/2015/03/cool-post.html

Piracy/Plagiarism 

Elizabeth Barrette's take on the latest intellectual property piracy issues...very interesting. Oh how I wish this web site's odd assortment of readers were as generous as her niche audience apparently is.

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/3605745.html

Poetry 

Alice Walker shares three new poems, free of charge, to celebrate spring. My favorite is the one about the sweetpotatoes. American farms produce "irregular" fruits and veg, just like Mexican farms. If you live on the farm, those "irregulars" are what you eat, and they are delicious and nutritious, and nothing you find in a store will ever be quite as good. If it's a factory farm, the "irregulars" are likely to be wasted; whoever picks and sorts the harvest will be told to leave them on the ground to rot. But on a small family farm, the "irregulars" you eat are always fresher, therefore tastier and more nutritious, than the "perfect" fruits and veg in the store.

http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2015/03/poems-to-welcome-spring/

Audrey Howitt on the permanence of words:

http://audreyhowittpoetry.blogspot.com/2014/06/words-and-anomaly-of-time-or-words-make.html

Politics 

Arlene from Israel reports on the election there:

http://noisyroom.net/blog/2015/03/23/overwrought/

Here in the U.S., do we need "surveillance reform"? This link offers an overview...and this web site recommends that, before making a commitment to anything in the U.S. Congress, you go to Popvox and make a real effort to read the whole thing. The benefit of reading legislation pending in Congress at Popvox is that, if you understand it after reading it, you can vote and comment on it there.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0324/Opinion-Meaningful-surveillance-reform-must-prioritize-civil-liberties

Recycling 

A few years ago, this web site responded to a proposal to extend town sewer lines into a suburb with a discussion of water-free toilets and roaches. That gross-out post became the all-time most profitable post ever to appear on this web site. Now, with due apologies, this web site will share Liz Klimas' gross-out post...not only on The Blaze but with an icky graphic, explaining exactly why some of us might some day shift from charring our nightsoil into harmless soil, to selling it for actual money. (The link as it appears here has been edited.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/23?

And, while on this theme, she also found someone recycling styrofoam:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/23/finally-another-use-for-those-annoying-packing-peanuts/?

Social Issues 

Mei Liang Hoe shared Ashton Kutcher's complaint first...he's right, of course. All public restrooms should contain a place to change a diaper. And a way to make that place sanitary enough for a precious baby to touch. Women have been complaining that many restrooms designated for our use don't meet these criteria, either, for a long time.

http://themillionhair.tumblr.com/post/114482983879/hella-nootella-micdotcom-sometimes-gender-roles

Oliver Darcy reports on people who are and aren't proud to be American. (Suggestion: If they're not, maybe they should try being something else. We have plenty of people here.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/23/fox-news-asks-people-on-the-street-if-theyre-proud-to-be-american-its-safe-to-say-some-arent/?

"Gift economies" are like communism. Are, in fact, a form of small-scale communism. As systems enforced upon a whole country they'd be unsustainable. As systems developed and practiced by small groups of friends, they're wonderful. More people should open themselves to this delightful experience.

http://www.ic.org/the-richness-of-giving/

Was this middle school bully's punishment too harsh? I've posted the question on my Google + page for those whose browsers can't handle The Blaze. 95% of Blaze readers think the punishment described on the sign the boy is holding up in the picture was just about the right sort of thing to do if your child is a bully.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/23/after-this-dad-found-out-his-son-was-a-bully-he-decided-to-teach-him-a-lesson-he-wont-ever-forget/?

If a celebrity visited your home, how would you treat him or her? All very well to say, as Arthur Chappell does, that you'd treat the celebrity just like anyone else. Some celebrities might enjoy simple entertainment, but you'd have to find room, and offer some entertainment, for the entourage as well.

http://www.personapaper.com/article/27630-fit-for-a-king

Writing 

Lots of reviews...including my review of the classic Easter Egg story.

http://marshasspot.blogspot.com/2015/03/super-sunday-reviews-linky-week-of-32215.html

Tim Kaine on Current Veterans' Medical Issues

From U.S. Senator Tim Kaine:

"I wanted to make sure you know that the McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond is hosting a town hall on Thursday, March 26 from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. This will be an open forum for veterans and their families to ask questions about their health care and share any concerns they may have.

The McGuire VA serves the following counties: Amelia, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Dinwiddie, Essex, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, King and Queen, King William, Lancaster, New Kent, Middlesex, Powhatan, Prince George, Richmond and Surry.  The McGuire VA also serves the following cities: Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg and Richmond.

McGuire VA Medical Center, Room 2K-113
1201 Broad Rock Boulevard
Richmond, VA 23249

If you need assistance obtaining information about services available to veterans or communicating with a federal agency in regard to veterans' issues, my office can help. Click here for more information on how to request constituent services."

Morgan Griffith on Burning the Constitution

From Congressman Morgan Griffith's E-Newsletter:

"EPA: “Burning the Constitution”

Last week at an Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing, I was honored to hear testimony regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) so-called “Clean Power Plan” from legal experts including Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe.  Tribe is a liberal, environmental, legal rock star.  In fact, the POLITICO inside-the-beltway news journal describes Tribe as a "liberal legal lion.”  Interestingly, Tribe taught constitutional law to President Obama, and served as a judicial adviser to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.  He is no conservative.  But apparently he is a patriot and a defender of the U.S. Constitution.

Don’t let his relationship with the President fool you.  Tribe’s testimony slammed the Administration’s “Clean Power Plan,” saying:

“EPA is attempting an unconstitutional trifecta: usurping the prerogatives of the States, Congress, and the Federal Courts – all at once.  Much is up for grabs in this complex area.  But burning the Constitution of the United States – about which I care deeply – cannot be part of our national energy policy…”

Wow!

And this is despite the fact that Tribe instructed the first environmental law class in the United States and supports “countless” environmental causes.  Tribe may agree with the EPA’s end goal, but he doesn’t think the agency has the authority to accomplish it in this manner.

While a President or Members of Congress may wish for a certain policy to take effect, we have an obligation first to the Constitution.  As Tribe noted in his testimony:

          “EPA possesses only the authority granted to it by Congress.”

As he also noted in a December 2014 Wall Street Journal article:

“The brute fact is that the Obama Administration failed to get climate legislation through Congress.  Yet the EPA is acting as though it has the legislative authority anyway to re-engineer the nation’s electric generating system and power grid.  It does not.”

Wow!

But Tribe isn’t the only constitutional law scholar and Obama supporter to say this Administration is going too far.

Jonathan Turley, a respected George Washington University law professor who has confirmed that he voted for President Obama, said in 2012:

“In many ways, President Obama has fulfilled the dream of an imperial presidency that Richard Nixon strived for.  On everything from [DOMA] to the gaming laws, this is a President who is now functioning as a super legislator.  He is effectively negating parts of the criminal code because he disagrees with them.  That does go beyond the pale.”

Wow!

Turley has spoken out a number of times regarding this Administration’s apparent affinity for executive action and overreach, and had been tasked by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) with handling the House of Representatives’ lawsuit against the President regarding certain Administration actions relating to the Obamacare health care law.

Further, Bruce Ackerman, a Yale Law School professor described by the Washington Post as a “famous liberal constitutional law scholar” wrote in a 2014 Wall Street Journal opinion piece in regard to action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) without congressional authority:

“[President George W.] Bush gained explicit congressional consent for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  In contrast, the Obama administration has not even published a legal opinion attempting to justify the president’s assertion of unilateral war-making authority.  This is because no serious opinion can be written.”

And these three gentlemen are not the only liberal critics of this Administration’s overreach.  Among others, in a recent teletown hall, a self-described Democrat constituent indicated the only thing he agreed with me on was trying to check this Administration’s overreach.

Like the constituent, I believe that first as Americans, we must agree to defend the Constitution.  Then we have the freedom to disagree about all the other issues.

Benjamin Franklin, emerging from the Constitutional Convention, is said to have been asked what sort of government had been created.  As the story goes, Franklin responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

I will fight the so-called “burning of the Constitution” to ensure our Republic survives.  I pray you will do the same.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office.  You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671.  To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.  Also on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives."

Book Review: Mind Joggers

Title: Mind Joggers

        
Author: Susan S. Petreshene

        
Date: 1985

        
Publisher: Center for Applied Research in Education

        
ISBN: 0-87628-583-3

        
Length: 208 pages of mind joggers, 14 pages of introduction

        
Quote: “For most teachers unplanned-for extra minutes occur from time to time...not enough for a formal lesson but...sufficient for a worthwhile activity...that requires no preparation.”

        
For most students, even in elementary school, these activities probably won’t make them “think.” “Think,” without emphasis, perhaps. Some cerebral activity is involved in making a list of things that are hot, explaining why “peach” is different from “carrot, potato, green bean,” or what category something fits into (“A bus is a type of transportation”)...but it’s not intense, or prolonged, or creative, or likely to be joyous thought.

        
Especially not if it’s supervised by a humor-challenged, imagination-deficient teacher: “A student once said that a broom could be used to break a window. This appeared to be nothing more than a silly response. However, when asked to explain, she said, ‘If there were a fire you could use a broom to break the window to get out.’” We all know the sequel, although Petreshene doesn’t type it out: “And then, because the other students were bored and confined, and because the teacher had called attention to Brooke’s response, they all started teasing Brooke about having given a goofy answer. And Brooke, who was mature and precocious enough to see that nobody actually wanted a good answer that was different from their own lame and stale answers, didn’t volunteer another answer in another class until her junior year at university.”

        
Anyway, this book can be used to fill in extra minutes at school, but it’s likely to get even more use if parents use it to start car games. Although these activities aren’t likely to be terribly new or stimulating for the six-to-twelve-year-old set, they probably will make four-year-olds “think,” and they will, in any case,give kids something to do besides bickering.

In the absence of conclusive evidence as to whether Petreshene is still alive, we can't offer Mind Joggers as a Fair Trade Book. However, if you send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com $5 for the book + $5 for shipping, and you also purchase a Fair Trade Book, you will pay only one shipping charge for as many books as fit into one package, and the living writer or his or her favorite charity will receive the full 10% of the full payment.

How Little Children See Fantasy and Reality

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on April 28, 2014. Image credit: FidlerJan at Morguefile: http://cdn.morguefile.com/imageData/public/files/f/FidlerJan/01/l/142254712953aq5.jpg.)

Right...on Chatabout I promised to share a story about little children's sense of reality. The question was how to get little children to tell the truth. People had replied to that question in the sense of how to get them not to tell stories they've made up as truth. The received psychological explanation for this behavior is that little children "don't separate fantasy from reality." I've never been sure that that's the correct explanation though.

When I was a little child, I knew the difference between what I made up all by myself, what I read in books, and what I saw in real life, as well as I do now. What I didn't know was whether other people would know the difference.

And a little child I baby-sat, as a teenager, said something that convinced me that what she didn't know was whether other people knew the difference. Older children in the family were talking about their day at school. Both mentioned their official school friends and enemies. 

The youngest child waited, semi-patiently, for about an hour of this and then said something like, "And then I went up in the woods and visited my friend Suzy Strawberryful, and we went for a ride on her horse Brownie Hayful, and we visited her cousin Tracy Cakeful and played parchesi..."

"Bosh," said one of the older children, semi-patiently. "We know you stayed home all day, right? We know nobody has a name like Strawberryful. If you didn't do anything real, you shouldn't pretend you did."

The youngest child's face turned red, her face crumpled, her lip came out, and she retorted, "Suzy Strawberryful is just as real as your old Mrs. Pertaters" (one sibling's teacher had a name like Tate or Tatum) "or your Smelly Kelly or any of those people you're always talking about!" 

I learned something about the mind of a child that afternoon. If you are four or five years old, you probably have to spend a lot of time listening to other people's stories about things, places, and people that you never see. How do you know that those stories are true? Why can't you make up stories and tell them as if you were reporting facts, too, just like everyone else does?

Book Review: 10-20-30 Minutes to Sew

A Fair Trade Book

Title: 10-20-30 Minutes to Sew

        
Author: Nancy Zieman

Author's web site: http://www.nancyzieman.com/blog/

        
Date: 1992

        
Publisher: Oxmoor House

        
ISBN: 0848711181

        
Length: 144 pages including graphics; many full-color photos

        
Quote: “Who uses minutes has hours to use; who loses minutes whole years must lose.”

         
Time-saving tips and simple techniques give those who love to sew time to test the truth of this clever saying. Of course, some of the tips involve buying sewing notions, as it might be from Nancy’s Notions, Ltd...then again, those notions might prove useful. Do you need to see things, not hide them in drawers, yet want them contained in a bin where they won’t fall all over the floor as you lift one thing out? Maybe everyone knows that transparent plastic storage bins are available, now, but did everyone know that in 1992?

        
Tips that don’t involve buying things are pretty predictable too—plan and measure first, keep those scissors sharp, cut multiple layers when possible. However, there are some tips in this book that my grandmother didn’t know, like this valuable information on page 17: “ink marks” (from marking pens) “may reappear many years later...Also, the heat of an iron will set the marks.” Have those new air-soluble pens been around for enough years for anyone to know whether their stains may reappear, too, or is this a problem only with regular felt-tips?

         
Some of the sewing tips are likely to be appreciated by anyone for whom you sew, like a quick trick to curb the tendency of a rounded collar to roll upward. Others may be less appreciated. Don’t bother with that “speedy sport pocket,” and cut those all-in-one side pockets at least twice as deep below the side opening as the diagram suggests, if you want to make a garment for a person who actually uses pockets. (Don’t skip the pockets, either, if you’re sewing for a person like me; I classify anything that doesn’t have good, deep, secure pockets as Pajamas.) Those zippy zipper tricks and wash-out buttonhole patterns, on the other hand, might be perfect shortcuts to garments people can actually enjoy wearing.

        
There’s also a section on making clothing with a serger as “the ultimate time-saver.” Sergers are strange, futuristic machines designed to join fabrics by something more like knitting or crochet than like ordinary straight seams. The results can be decorative; the book shows examples of how lines of contrast-color serging can be used like embroidery. I must confess I’ve never actually seen anyone use a serger, although I’ve seen factory-made garments with serged seams.

        
Special tips are offered for sewing with knitted fabrics and inserting (or replacing) elastic. One super-brilliant trick is to insert one (or more) tucks of elastic into a waistband, so people whose size is subject to change, especially pregnant women, can let in and take out the elastic without your needing to replace it. Another chapter offers special tips that involve extra accessories, special needles and presser-feet that you can snap into the machine for special effects.

        
Information for raw beginners appears, rather awkwardly, after all the tricks for serious hobbyists. How to read a pattern (always save the envelope), how to pin fabric together, how to press seams...it’s true that knowing these things saves a lot of wasted sewing time, but shouldn’t they have been placed at the beginning? Oh, we reviewers always have to find something to gripe about.

        
Since this book is 17 years old, you might wonder about the accuracy of the information that you can order any or all of these gadgets, and/or catalogues of new ones, from Nancy’s Notions at 1-800-833-0690. I did. I dialled. Not only is the store still open, but some poor lady with a flawless U.S. accent was still answering the phone at 8:30 p.m. (I’d been sure I’d get a recording.) When I explained that I’d seen the number in an old book, she quickly offered, “Would you like to order a new book?” The store now exists at Zieman's blog, linked above, as well. Book and store are recommended to all who like to sew.

10-20-30 Minutes to Sew has been out there for a while and is not particularly rare. We can offer it as a Fair Trade Book: $5 for the book + $5 for shipping to salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com, we will send $1 to Zieman or a charity of her choice. We also recommend browsing her web site; Zieman has indeed written some new books that you can order directly from her to show respect. 

Adopting U.S. Children

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on February 7, 2014. Image credit: Puravida at Morguefile, http://cdn.morguefile.com/imageData/public/files/p/puravida/preview/fldr_2008_11_11/file000932944015.jpg.)

Yet another post inspired by going back through my old web site...the discussion there of why some overseas adoptions hadn't worked is sort of out of date, after more than a year. No apologies: news stories turn into old news. (And nobody pays me if you read them.) But then an ad displayed on Bubblews prompted me to share a current thought on the same theme.

Middle-aged people who don't have children, or whose children have grown up and left home, often want to adopt children. Why do so many of them complain about this being so hard to do? Possibly because some of them are obsessed with adopting the kind of child who is discussed, often very coldbloodedly, as the commodity called a "White Newborn." 

The supply of White Newborns is limited, such that from time to time, in communities with a lot of low-income White people like mine, people actually advertise encouragement for more young White women to have more babies they can't afford to keep. The ads are always meant to suggest that they were placed by a nice older couple who want to adopt a child themselves. Upon examination these ads may have been placed by a couple, but even if they were, the couple are agents who will be placing the child with some other family, for a profit. The difference between giving a child up to them and selling the child outright is that the needy young mother gets less money from the agents. 

Meanwhile a lot of children in need of foster or adoptive families are languishing in state-run shelters, basically being brought up by social workers, because they're not White Newborns. Seriously: that's considered a heavy stroke against them in the adoption-placement industry. They've lived long enough to have developed personalities...sometimes wonderful personalities. And some people have a problem with that...with being able to get to know a child before you try to be his or her parent. ? ???

Actually, it's easier to adopt a child who you know, and the state can assure others, will fit into your home nicely. The easiest way to make sure adoptive parents and children are compatible is for them to try living together as a foster family first. 

Any social worker who'd allowed me to adopt any child when I was 22 should have lost her or his job...but since I only helped someone else foster the child known to cyberspace as my adoptive sister, it worked out well. Now I have two sisters. They're about the same age (nine or ten years younger than I am) and size (both were bigger than I am at age 11). One's biracial like me, so far as we know; one's triracial. One's cheerful like me; one's depressive. I feel much, much closer to the one who's cheerful...I try to love all of The Nephews impartially, each in his or her own way. 

If you, too, would like to find a congenial child who needs a home, here's the link to a site I saw in a Bubblews ad, investigated, and found informative: www.adoptuskids.org/ . State regulations for foster and adoptive parents vary but this site tries to provide an overview. You don't have to be wealthy. You may or may not need to have a certain level of income, size of house, and/or motor vehicle. You may or may not be required to sit through "classes" or attend counselling sessions. You do need to love children and bond with the child or children you adopt or foster.

Thriftshopping in Big Stone Gap, Virginia

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where it appeared on July 30, 2013. Image credit: Cheriedurbin at Morguefile: http://cdn.morguefile.com/imageData/public/files/c/cheriedurbin/11/l/1385416194vgww5.jpg)

Fair disclosure: I don't think anyone goes to Big Stone Gap just for the thriftshopping experience. I didn't; I actually went there in order to buy something useful that wasn't even pre-owned (a camera). In the shopping plaza where I bought the useful item was a Goodwill store. I like shopping on behalf of charities, when possible, so I went inside to check for bargains.

Of course, the way charity stores work is that you never know in advance what the store will have. Big cities have huge charity stores where it's possible to be 95% sure that, if you want something commonplace, like a pair of 32x30 blue jeans, you'll probably find it. Smaller towns and stores do not offer even this assurance to the shopper. Maybe they have a plain white medium-size T-shirt without paint stains on it, maybe they don't. If you call and ask whether they have one, someone else might buy it before you get to the store. This is actually what makes thriftshopping addictive. You go into the store with a mental list of things you'd consider buying if the store had them for a certain price. If you want to buy one specific thing and nothing else, you might have to buy it new, at the regular retail price...or not.

The Goodwill store in Big Stone Gap had several racks of clothes. I didn't take the time to look at clothes, since I own plenty. A display of unworn canvas shoes donated by a retail store caught my eye, but since (as usually happens with this kind of thing) all the shoes on the rack were size 10 or larger and I wear a size 7, I didn't spend time in that corner of the store either. I noticed that the store had racks of toys, dishes--lots of coffee mugs, in case anyone out there collects mugs--and miscellaneous household items, but didn't really shop for those either. 

What I look for in thrift stores are books and knitting yarn. The selections change from day to day. Maybe if I'd gone in last week I would have found an armload of interesting books in the Goodwill store. Today the only books that looked remotely interesting were duplicates of books I already own, and the shelves were jammed with paperback romances. For those who think a story about a red-haired girl called Suzie meeting a guy, liking him, quarrelling with him, making up with him, and smiling sweetly at him on the last page is different from a story about a blonde called Sherry meeting a guy, liking him, etc., etc., the Goodwill store in Big Stone Gap is currently the happy hunting ground, but I hunt more elusive bargains.

I did find some yarn. Some acceptable yarn. Maybe in some parts of the country a storekeeper would think there couldn't possibly be a market for twelve ounces of orange acrylic yarn, and would be right. I happen to live near the Tennessee border, where there is a market for anything in U.T. Volunteers orange. Some people in Tennessee will even wear clothes in that shade of orange.

A sign on the front door advertised that a tag sale was going on. Many charity stores use tag sales to keep merchandise moving. If the store uses up a batch of red price tags, then purple, then blue, and so on, then before breaking out another batch of red tags they can put the previous batch of red-tagged items on sale for half price, and get rid of them. The price on the bundle of yarn was acceptable, but yes, it was color-coded for the half-price sale! Hurrah! 

Just before laying the yarn on the checkout counter, I saw a display of back-to-school items. Not being in school, I left plenty of these items for students at Mountain Empire Community College to discover. (The college is across the hill, behind the shopping center.) I do use lots of folders, and what a bargain-hunting thrill to discover lots of brand-new folders spread out on the display. I bought only five dollars' worth of folders. If you use colorful cardboard folders to organize work or school papers, run don't walk.

Will I go back to this store? Not for a while. Some charity stores like to employ the unemployable. One thing that qualifies as making some people unemployable is disrespect for customers. This Goodwill store had unfortunately hired one of the cashiers who need to be told that anything that plops out of their mouths other than "The total price is..." and "Thank you, Sir/Ma'am" amounts to disrespect for customers. Maybe making friendly conversation with a store employee is an invitation, these days, for the employee to blat out rude, vulgar language, so maybe I was at fault for giving the woman an opportunity to chatter...in any case, I don't feel any need to support a charity that is represented by obnoxious employees.Too bad. Goodwill is a legitimate charity and this is, otherwise, a decent little store.

Book Review: A Companion Project Book for Texture with Textiles

Title: A Companion Project Book for Texture with Textiles

        
Author: Linda McGehee

Author's web site: http://www.ghees.com/

        
Date: not shown

        
Publisher: Ghee’s

        
ISBN: 09637160-1-8

        
Length: not numbered

        
Quote: “This project book is designed as an accessory to Texture with Textiles and More Texture with Textiles.”

        
Some of the techniques discussed in this book were explained in those books. Others are explained in other books, such as The Machine Embroidery Handbook. However, you will need special sewing machine accessories to use these technological tricks, whether they’re explained here, or elsewhere, or already familiar to you. (Most of them are familiar to hand embroiderers, which is how it's possible for people to use and resell this book.)

        
Techniques discussed in this book include couching, cording, fringing, pintucking, tape appliqué, ordinary appliqué, cutwork (with buttonhole stitch around the cut-outs), quilt piecing and patching. The book also contains a pattern for an elaborate machine-sewn handbag.

        
Not one of your glamorous full-color craft books, this one is printed in black and white on just one side of each sheet of ordinary printer paper, then spiral-bound at the top. Usually chosen primarily to reduce printing costs, this bookbinding technique does have its uses for craft books; you can make notes and sketches on the back of every page, and photocopying just one or two pages to carry around is easy.

A Companion Project Book to Textures with Textiles is a Fair Trade Book. To buy it here, you send $5 for the book + $5 shipping to salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com, and we send $1 to Linda McGehee or a charity of her choice. You pay only one shipping charge for as many books as ship in one package, and this is a slim book.