Saturday, January 31, 2009

Wall-E Credits Song "Down To Earth"

Ta Da! Nominated for an Oscar this year. Worth watching. I love it!! I recommend seeing the movie, too. It sure has a bunch of social commentary for a movie with very little dialogue til the end. I love that it promotes remembering that we have a planet, and it makes our food. Too much screen time is bad!

I know, I should talk... :)

George Obama

Just had to share...



In case of Apocalypse, read here

I still don't really get why The Guardian newspaper exists in the UK, and what its equivalent is here in the States. I do know that a lot of their articles end up on www.spiritdaily.com, because it definitely is not your usual liberal daily news. Here is a rather long example of some icky things to know about how to live if, say, society changes as we know it, and doesn't look like it will recover soon. As much as I don't believe in government handouts, even I think to myself, and catch myself thinking, "Well, if that happened, I'm sure the National Guard would come save me within a week." Um... tell that to the folks who were hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. And that wasn't exactly the Apocolypse. I can see why certain religous groups take this stuff seriously, and you know? All this stuff is not really bad stuff to know anyway. I think of Wall-E and how incredibly helpless a goodly part of the world is nowadays. Only the poorest people in the world actually know how to live anymore without electricity and such. "The meek will inherit the Earth." No kidding.

Here you go, enjoy! If you are ok with bird killing and critter trapping, you'll be pretty entertained by this article. Get ready for some British terms, also.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/29/apocalypse-survival-guide-tanya-gold


Life After The Apocalypse


I am standing in a wood with a tall man and a dead pheasant. There is blood everywhere: on my shoes, my hands, my face. Why am I here? Because the man - his name is Leon Durbin - is preparing me for the apocalypse, now.

What would happen if you awoke one morning and everyone was dead? Or if, less melodramatically, the world as we know it - and our teetering financial systems - ceased to function? What if you awoke to find your bubble-wrapped, gilded life was over, and for good? Could you survive? Could I?

I am an urban girl. I have no skills except whingeing and bingeing. I can barely open a packet of Hobnobs without an explosive device. But, unlike you, doomed and dying reader, I have decided to prepare for The End, and I am prepared to share the life-saving knowledge I will accrue. This is your cut-out-and-keep guide to the apocalypse. Put it in a drawer. One day you may need it.

So you wake up; everyone is dead. For the purpose of this exercise, imagine it's like Survivors, the cheap BBC rendition of the apocalypse, where a plague wipes out humanity and then everyone is mildly annoyed that the trains are delayed. We could imagine total financial or ecological collapse leading to the failure of social structures, but let's say it's a plague. So, how long can you stay in your house?

The answer is: not long. According to the people at the National Grid, the electricity will stop. So will the water. These systems have buttons. Buttons need fingers. Fingers need people who are alive. You have a day, maybe two, of electricity. Then you will be in darkness, with no way of washing your face.

What should you do? You can steal food from supermarkets but the rotting corpses on the floor of Sainsbury's will be fetid fonts of infection. And if you try to sit out the plague in your home, you could burn or drown. After a lightning strike, fires will begin and they will not stop. And if you live in London, the Thames barrier will fail without electricity and the low-lying areas of the city will flood.

So you have to leave. But where do you go? The apocalyptic norm - see 28 Days Later and Survivors - is for survivors to sit in desirable country mansions, eat tinned tomatoes, develop post-traumatic psychosis and shoot each other. Never in any apocalyptic scenario in any movie I have seen - and I have seen them all - does anyone try to live off the land. They prefer to feed on the crumbs of the lost civilisation. It never works. How can you rebuild civilisation with tinned tomatoes? You need to grow your own food.

But where? I choose Devon. It is warm and wet and fertile, and I have been happy there. There are cows. This is where I would live off the land, but I need to learn how. This thinking has led me to Durbin and the dead bird.

Durbin is tall and tweedy. He is the sort of man who keeps firewood kindling in his pocket, just in case. He owns Wildwood Bushcraft, a company that explains how to survive if you are dropped into the wilderness with no supplies, no warning and no clue.

Durbin leads me through the spindly, sleeping trees, pointing out different kinds of branch and bush, and their uses. According to him, the wood is a shop that will give you everything you need. "Willow bark can be boiled to relieve a headache," he says. "Yew is for making long bows. Oak is for shelters. Ash is for tool handles. Have you ever had a beech-leaf sandwich?" I don't bother replying.

To be competent in bushcraft, you have to be well equipped: before you leave the city, stop for a saw, chisel, spade, axe and hunting knife. Durbin has them all. They poke out of his rucksack in a manly fashion.

We arrive at a clearing and Durbin demonstrates how to light a fire. He places a small block of wood on the ground and puts a wooden stake on it, point down. He takes a bow, made of wood and string, places it round the stake and, when he moves the bow in a sideways motion, the stake rotates very fast. Its friction with the block of wood magically creates a pile of super-hot matter. It can ignite dry hay or bark. This creates a conflagration that can light a fire.

How will I get water? Durbin runs bushcraft weekends for angry executives here, so he knows where it is. "Water," I cry, lunging at a small stream. "Careful," says Durbin. "We have to filter the water with a sock full of sand. Then we have to bring it to a rolling boil." Why a sock? He ignores me.

Food is harder. It is winter and the countryside is closed for repairs. My two main vegetarian foods, Durbin explains, will be burdock root and hazelnut. Both are high-energy. You can make chips out of burdock and you can boil, mash and dry hazelnut to produce a repulsive kind of biscuit. Durbin picks up a spade and starts digging for burdock. He finds some, but it's rotten. "Winter," he sighs. "Hmmm."

So, with a fiendish flourish, I produce a dead pheasant from my handbag. I had spent the day before negotiating with the Guardian as to the legal and moral implications of murdering a rabbit for the purposes of this article. Finally we had compromised, and I had gone to a posh butcher's in Mayfair and bought this beautiful pheasant for £3.50. Durbin looks impressed. "You have to pull off its head," he says. "Just twist it."

I close my eyes and twist. The head comes off easily; it feels like wringing out a slightly damp scarf. Then Durbin makes a hole in the pheasant's bottom and I stick my hand up and clutch everything inside. Out comes a squelchy mass of once-living flesh. Durbin grabs the heart and cuts it open. "Very nutritious," he says. I am slightly sick in my mouth. I pluck, and soon I have a pile of bloodstained feathers - and a nude bird. Durbin sticks it on a spit over the fire. When it is cooked, we eat it. It tastes slightly of excrement but I still feel strangely empowered. It was much easier than I thought it would be, to rip this bird apart.

I now have bloodlust. I ask Durbin how to trap animals. I could theoretically shoot them, but trapping is more suitable for the lazy or incompetent survivor. He looks slightly nervous. "It's illegal," he says slowly. But I prod and he tells me about different types of trap. I could try the pit trap, he says, where you dig a hole in the forest floor, line it with sharpened stakes and camouflage it. It is for large animals - deer, wild boar, parents, other journalists. There is also the deadfall trap, which is for small animals. They saunter over a trigger mechanism, and a lump of wood falls on their head. Bon appetit and ha ha.

But what would I eat if I couldn't trap? "Bugs," says Durbin happily. "Worms." There are 40 calories in a worm, apparently; this is the equivalent of two Maltesers. "Or snails," he adds. "But quarantine the snail for three days before you eat it. It may have eaten poisonous plants, and you will have to wait until it expels them."

Now you need shelter. If I had the choice, I would probably look for a small stone cottage - hardy and easy to maintain - but if I am foraging, I have to go to where the food is. So Durbin shows me how to make a survival shelter. He hurls logs up against a tree trunk, and covers them with a foot of leaves and bracken and mud. "It is waterproof," he says. I climb in and lie down. It is a hole that only a troll could love. But there they are, the four pillars of survival: food, water, fire and shelter.

The next day, I go to Pullabrook Wood in Devon to practise my skills. It was easy to survive yesterday, with Durbin standing by. Can I cope alone? Pullabrook is a lovely wood, administered by the Woodland Trust. It is full of happy Tories and happy Labradors. But now I have my own mini-apocalypse. I fail at bow drilling. I find a stream, but a happy Tory says the water is poisonous, even if filtered by sock. Why? "Because sheep droppings have contaminated it," he says. Death by Sheep is only slightly behind Death by Snail in the encyclopaedia of embarrassing ways to die.

The first shelter I build is too small for me to enter. My second shelter collapses. I decide to abandon bushcraft. I will try my hand at farming. Woman cannot live on worm alone.

So, a few days later, I am standing inside an Iron Age roundhouse at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire. Butser is a project that re-enacts Iron Age life. The roundhouse is huge and round and dim. I feel a bit as if I am standing inside a giant breast. Steve Dyer is the archaeological director. He is tall and red-faced, with a frizzy white beard.

"Roundhouses are easy to make," he says, waving his arms. He points out two animal skulls, tied to the entrance posts. Is that a cow's skull? Dyer grimaces politely. "It's a horse," he says, before proceeding to tell me how to make a roundhouse.

The ingredients are: 27 large oak trees, 60 small oak trees, 100 hazel trees, 100 ash trees, wheat straw for thatching, and animal hair, clay, manure, soil and water for the walls.

You will also need animals. Dyer escorts me to his pigpen to meet two nameless pigs. To domesticate animals, he says, you just have to enclose them in smaller and smaller areas. Provide them with what they need - food, water and attention - and they will obey you. You can then eat them, and peel them, and tan their hides for soft furnishings. But beware of sheep, he says, waving a bright red finger. "I know this guy called Si," he says. "He approached a frisky ram. It jumped up and broke his nose." I am back at Death by Sheep.

I telephone the psychologist Cecelia De Felice. I want to know if I will go insane in my new one-woman world, especially when faced with tasks such as chopping down 27 large oaks. "You will be in a state of trauma," she agrees. "You will quickly become lonely and paranoid. It is possible you will have a breakdown." And if I meet other survivors? Be cautious, she advises. "They too will be lonely and paranoid. Of course you are stronger in a group. But you do not know whether they will help you or just steal your resources. Trust no one."

I am (vaguely) confident I will not starve. But there is one other thing I am sweating over: nuclear power stations. Professor Alan Weisman wrote The World Without Us, a description of what he believes would happen to Earth if we all vanished. I call him. He says I am right to worry. Why? Because most nuclear plants are water-cooled. Water, he explains, in a dry, calm voice, needs to circulate around the reactors, or they will explode. If there were no humans to operate it, the plant would shut down automatically, and the water would be cooled with diesel fuel. For about a week. Then the heat from the reactor would evaporate and expose the core. "It will either melt down or burst into very radioactive flames," he says. So what would you do, Professor Weisman? "I would probably go to Canada," he says. "There aren't many nuclear power stations in Canada."

So, it comes to this. No matter how hard you try, Britain will probably become a nuclear wasteland. The snails that are your lunch will either die, or look very weird. So, again, what to do? My considered advice is this. You, Guardian reader, need to begin building a boat - a sailing ship, actually - to take you to - yes, Canada. Before you leave the city you should pause at a library and steal the entire boat-making and maintenance shelf. Canada may be your only hope of salvation. And that is as fitting an obituary for our civilisation as I can type. In The End, it turns out you don't just have to be the heroine of Survivors. You need to bloody well be Noah too.

Happy apocalypse.
It's not all bad: Fun things you could do after the apocalypse

• Pop into the National Gallery and take Jan Van Eyck's Portrait of a Man off the wall. (If you have no taste, take a Renoir.) The Van Eyck is hanging in the Sainsbury Wing. If you want to preserve it properly, Thomas Almeroth-Williams of the National Gallery suggests you store it in a slate mine, where the temperature and humidity levels are perfect for its conservation.

• Go to the British Library and help yourself to one of its two copies of Shakespeare's First Folio. One is in a box in a strong room under the library floor; the other is in a glass case in the Treasure Room. If you want to preserve it properly, Helen Shenton of the British Library suggests you store it in a cool, dark place, and watch it carefully for infestations by animals or fungi. Dust regularly.

• Steal the crown jewels. If you can. "There are contingency plans in place in event of a power failure," says a Royal Palaces spokesperson, "so the crown jewels should remain safe." Really? To preserve them properly, do nothing. A diamond is for ever.

• Invade the News of the World - it's in Wapping - and read all its secret files. Then break into M15. It's on Millbank. Read all its secret files too. Oh, no! She was murdered! I knew it!

• Go and stand on the stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Skip over the bodies of the dead actors. Re-enact the whole of Oliver!
The vital skills you will need

How to make bread

I type this in full because I want bread at The End, and I want you to have it too (should you survive). So, clear the land, turn the soil over to create furrows, take seed from any wheat growing wild, sow it 20cm apart and kick the soil over. Make sure that the birds don't eat the seed.

Stop browsing animals by hedging the field off and root out weeds. When the corn is ripe, thresh it by hitting it with a stick and mill it by rubbing it between large stones. Add the flour to water to make dough. Stick it in a pan on the fire. Result? Wholemeal flatbread!

How to make sanitary products and toilet paper

Find some sphagnum moss and use that. It is very spongy and it contains iodine, so it is slightly antiseptic.

How to eat snails

Always, always quarantine snails before eating them. Take the snail and put it where there is nothing for it to eat. Ignore its cries of hunger, leave for three days and then consume.

How to purify water

Collect the water from the purest source available, ideally a spring, minimising sediment and avoiding chemical contamination. Filter it through a sock full of sand. Sterilise the water by bringing it to a rolling boil for a few seconds.

How to clay bake a fish

Wrap the fish in large leaves, tying up the parcel with nettle stalk. Dig for clay in the earth. After combining the clay with water, cover the fish with a centimetre of clay, leaving no cracks. Scrape a shallow pit in the centre of the fire and lay the fish in it. Cover the fish with embers. After an hour, remove the fish and crack the outer shell open. The fish should be perfectly cooked.

How to remove the skin from a cow

You can kill a cow by strangulation apparently, although I have never met anyone who has done it. Or you can cut its throat, or spear it through the heart. Split the cow along its belly from the groin to the throat. Remove the internal organs. Hang the cow up by its hooves for several days to let the blood run out. Cows are heavy, so do not attempt to do this alone. To take the skin off, slide a blade or a sharp stone between the skin and the flesh. Once you have inserted the tool a little way, you can just peel the skin off.

How to shoot a deer with a bow and arrow

Deer are sensitive to human noise and smell. If you stomp through the wood with a bow and arrow you will never find one. Find out where the deer are going to be - they often walk the same way to the same place. Camouflage your scent, be quiet and do not move. When you see a deer, shoot it from 20m away. You ideally need a kill shot, eg in a lung. You don't want to hit it in the bottom, because it will run off and you won't get your dinner. TG

• Sources: Leon Durbin (Wildwood Bushcraft), Steve Dyer (Butser Ancient Farm) and Ben Jones (Merlin Archery Centre).



* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009




A perfect house, if only it wasn't north of here instead of south....



5920 54TH AVE NE
Marysville, WA 98270

$250,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 2.5
Sq Ft: 1,715 SQFT
Built: 1996
Lot Size: 6970 SQFT
Garage
Spaces:
3
Interior:
Garage/Other: 3
Bathroom Off Master Bedroom
Ceiling Fan(s)
Ceramic Tile Floor
Dining Room
Family Room/Great Room
Forced Air Heat
Other Floors
Utility Room
Vaulted Ceilings
Vinyl Floors
Property Features:
Deck and/or Patio
Fenced Yard
Garage
Garden Area, Designated
Other Site Feature
Architecture:
2 story
Brick Exterior
Composition Roof
Contemporary
Wood Products Exterior
School
District:
Marysville
Taxes: $2,900
Status: Active
MLS ID: 28195973



1715 sq ft 2 story hm on level .16 acres in S. Marysville w/4 bd, 2.5 ba, black onyx tile entry to lg stairway, formal liv rm w/sep din rm w/coffered ceiling, open kit w/granite counters & island eating bar, newer appl incl gas range & frig + pantry & sliding door to bkyd patio, kit opens to fam rm w/entry to laundry rm w/folding table & 3 car gar w/work bench & overhead stg, master w/priv bath & walk-in closet, lg fenced rear yd w/patio & fruit trees. Great Buy, so Come n See!
Contact your John L. Scott agent or Customer Service for more information.

Husband's schedule...

As I always tell people trying to plan around us... Don't!

DH got a wonderful job, but since it is tech in a 24 hour "shop", he sometimes gets his shift changed on him. This morning he mentioned that there is a shift that needs to be covered, and someone can volunteer, or they will take the new guys and put them on that shift. Hmmm... that gives him, um, no choice, right? Guess which shift? You got it, NIGHTS. This does result in a 10% pay increase, if he gets it.

There are some obvious downsides, like keeping kids quiet-ish while he's sleeping. He does sleep hard, which means he will have earphones and white noise in his ears, and strangely, he can sleep that way. I'm impressed. It means that I won't be able to clean our room very well, because someone will almost always be sleeping in it. It means, though, that I will have my car back!! Yay!! Which means that I could go and do things again without worrying that the car will break immediately. I know it's silly, but the last thing I want is to be stranded with all the kids on the road in our other car. I know lots of people who would come save me, but I haven't been able go outside of town to see anyone in AGES, unless it was when Francis was home, which takes away from our time on weekends. If this really happens, the freedom will be wonderful. Yes, we are still planning on buying a real commuter vehicle, but this way we may be able to put it off rather indefinitely and go back to being a one car household for the foreseeable future. I will have to keep a car around in case of further changes, which always happen. But meanwhile... That is SUPER!

This will also help us with our goal to get debt-free using the Dave Ramsey method. It's great stuff. Which reminds me, we have a DVD to watch.

What a good life we have. Thanks, God!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Book on Japanese Martyrs



This appears to be a self-published book, and I can't find it being sold anywhere. It says it was published by Cereus Publications in Burlington, KY, and it is very good. It covers a lot of history of Japanese Catholicism through the eyes of a 14 year old boy who is sort of ashamed of being Japanese and German in ancestry, and whose mom has already died. His Japanese grandmother helps him understand why his heritage is important and that his German American father really does love him. It's a little bit of a fantasy because there is time travel involved. It reminds me of "The Devil's Arithmetic" by Jane Yolen. Instead of a Jewish girl going back in time to Auschwitz, this boy goes back in time to the 26 Japanese Martyrs of Nagasaki. Then it fast-forwards through many other events, including the Japanese Internment during WWII and the bombing of Nagasaki. I think it was very well done, even if it's not going to win a Pulitzer.

The part that most struck me was the Japanese Internment. These were actual American citizens. Many had been born in the US, even a couple of generations' worth. It was very sad to think that out of fear, their country turned on them. If you haven't read up on it, do. It only happened about 60 years ago. What makes people think that can never happen again? If people forget, it's more likely to happen.

The other important part was that Catholics in Japan were in hiding for 230 years with no outside help or direction. They hid, and kept their faith alive. In the bombing of Nagasaki, and estimated 8000 Catholics were killed. I imagine that is a big part of the reason there aren't that many Catholics in Japan. By the way, the current prime minister of Japan in Catholic. That's a first. But I don't think it's in the culture to talk about that kind of thing much. He never speaks of it.

I'd be happy to loan this out if anyone wants to read. It's probably for kids over 12, especially the part about Nagasaki. Over 14 for sensitive kids. It's not too graphic, but it does not pretend about what happened. It does show the hope and love that Christ brings us as Catholics in the direst of circumstances.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Recording of Memories 1

When I read the Little House books, I realize that Laura didn't think they were necessarily anything special. They were her life. Just like my life is just my life, not really anything special. Really! But then I realize how many things have already changed, and I'm only 32. So I'm going to be very, very random, and I'm going to consider this blog a note-taking device when I'm in the mood to write something down. I'll label it "memories" and when I check the label in a year, well, maybe that will be interesting. Sometimes it will be my memories, sometimes other people I know or used to know.

My grandma Grace said I should write a book someday, and I think she said that when I was 8 or 10. I guess she thought I already had enough stories. The last time I visited her, I was in varsity crew at Gonzaga, and our Pac 10 competition was exactly one exit away from her nursing home. I was 19 years old. When I was 22, she died. I'm glad I visited her when I was 19, because after that, she never recognized me or anyone else again that I remember. I'm very glad one of my friends lived down there and drove me over. Grandma barely recognized me, but that's because I'd never come alone. I don't think she realized I was that old already.

One of my earliest memories:

My dad used to let me "drive" the 1975 F-150 Ford truck, which he still has, while he threw hay bales to the sheep and cows on our ranch in CA. He tied a bungee cord from the steering wheel to somewhere under the seat on the driver's side. I was probably five years old. Dad wasn't looking too hard one day, and I didn't think we were THAT close to falling off a cliff, so I hadn't tried to turn the wheel yet. Dad just about died of fright when he looked around and he never let me drive again. I also remember wishing I could, and one time he was on the other side of a pasture checking one of the water tanks, and I turned the key in the ignition to see if it worked. It did, he yelled, and I turned it off. Darn.

When I got my permit, Dad let me drive home, but he hates when other people drive. So when I went 50 around a corner that, yes, you CAN go around at 50, it's totally fine, and I do it all the time very safely, he just about jumped out of the car literally. He never wears a seat belt because he says it hurts his back, and also because he thinks jumping out of the car is safer than wearing something that will trap you in it. He even has a doctor's note.

That said, he's a good driver most of the time, and I know how to drive without making people carsick, so I call that a win.

Friday, January 23, 2009

A new Catholic blog to check out (plus pics!)

My friend Holly Holmes Fugate, who once shared a room with my friend Rachel and lived next to me sophomore year, has a beautiful new blog. She is super cool. People are so amazing, they do stuff that is totally unexpected. Never underestimate the power of a mommy-blogger, man. I'm going to keep checking this blog, and hope you will, too. Read the reason for her title!


http://scatteringagates.blogspot.com/



By the way, I went looking for pictures of Holly, and man, I did not realize how much fun I could have on Facebook if I just scan in a few of these lovelies. I have so much more dirt on y'all! Mostly on me, though. :) I loved college so much.



From left to right: me, Holly, Meghan and Rachel




This was that notorious year in which I meant to live next to Nicky Hartsell, but I ended up living next to Holly and Rachel. Lucky me!!!! Holly and I are both in the front row. I'm next to grinning Stepanie on the right, and Holly is on the left, between Liezl and Dianne. Marisol is in the middle.

The first thing I noticed about second floor Crimont, being an all girls dorm as opposed to the co-ed dorm of my freshman year (separated by hall and floor), is that Crimont had no barf smell in the bathroom on weekends. It reeked in my freshman year dorm. I mean wow.

Yay for Crimont!! Where I met so many of my seriously good friends. We partnered up with the second floor of the all men dorm, DeSmet, and we had a rollicking good time.

Go Gonzaga!

Grow your own organs and no extra drugs

This is HUGE! Should have been front page news. There is no need to continue using aborted fetuses to grow stem cells. We have them in our own bodies. This lady didn't even have to use anti-rejection drugs!!

Woman Gets New Windpipe Using Her Own Stem Cells
By Randy Sly
11/20/2008

Catholic Online

Both the pro-life community - who affirm the use of adult stem cells - and medical researchers are thrilled with the results.
WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - A Spanish woman made medical history recently by receiving a new windpipe which had been grown from her own stem cells. The announcement has brought tremendous excitement among the pro-life as well as medical communities. The former group cited this as additional evidence that adult stem cell research, which is in complete accord with catholic social teaching, is producing real results.

Claudia Castillo is a 30 year-old mother from Barcelona, Spain with a collapsed trachea, due to tuberculosis, that left her unable to breathe. Using a graft from a donor that was imbued with stem cells from the woman’s bone marrow, doctors were able to fashion a new organ that replaced her existing windpipe last June.

After only four months of recovery she was able to climb two flights of stairs, and even go dancing. She also is able to look after her children – another activity that were previously impossible.

By using the woman’s stem cells, Ms. Castillo becoming the first person to receive a whole organ transplant without the need for powerful immunosuppressant drugs. She still shows no signs of rejecting the new organ.

Professor Martin Birchall, of the University of Bristol, a British member of the team, told a press conference, "In 20 years' time the commonest surgical operations will be regenerative procedures to replace organs and tissues damaged by disease with autologous [self-grown] tissues and organs from the laboratory. We are on the verge of a new age in surgical care."

The procedure takes the medical community another step closer in their ability to replace damaged or worn-out organs with ones that will not be rejected. Researchers also report that this approach with personal stem cells also extends the range of organs and tissues that can be replaced.

When asked how she was doing, Ms. Castillo replied: “I was scared at the beginning because I was the first patient – but trusted the doctors. I am now enjoying life and am very happy that my illness has been cured.”

****
Randy Sly is a communications specialist. A former Archbishop of the ICCEC, he served in full time Christian ministry for years. He and his wife Sandy came into the full communion of the Catholic Church three years ago. He is an associate editor for Catholic Online

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Memories

I've decided I'm going to start writing down memories. I have a huge love of stories, especially people stories, and history, and connections between the whole thing. It's what makes my world special. I have lots of stories, as anyone who knows me could tell you. One annoying family trait we all have here at the Lane Ranch, though, is that we tend to tell the same ones over and over and over. Stop laughing, yous guys. I have no idea whether I've told someone a story or not, and sometimes it's the seventh time. Bear with me, friends, because we get worse as we get older. :)

I'm going to start this idea with a quote, because it is Inauguration Day today, after all. It is a quote from Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. For those who haven't really ever bothered with the Little House on the Prairie series, I encourage you do do so. It's historic, patriotic, wonderful reading. It reminds people what America IS. I had no idea til I started reading them to my kids. There are a lot of related books with recipes and crafts in them, too.

Anyway, in this excerpt, Almanzo (who becomes Laura's husband) is nearly ten years old. He is at the Independence Day celebration in town. Here is what his father says. Keep in mind the time has to be right around 1866 or so.

The cannons leaped backward, the air was full of flying grass and weeds. Almanzo ran with all the other boys to feel the warm muzzles of the cannons. Everybody was exclaiming about what a loud noise they had made.
"That's the noise that made the Redcoats run!" Mr. Paddock said.
"Maybe," Father said, tugging his beard. "But it was muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was axes and plows that made this country."
"That's so, come to think of it," Mr. Paddock said.
...That night when they were going to the house with milk, Almanzo asked Father:
"Father, how was it axes and plows that made this country? Didn't we fight England for it?"
"We fought for Independence, son," Father said. "But all the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the mountains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and the Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America."
"How?" Almanzo asked.
"Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms.
"This country goes three thousand miles west, now. It goes 'way out beyong Kansas, and beyond the Great American Desert, over mountains bigger than these mountains, and down to the Pacific Ocean. It's the biggest country in the world, and it was farmers who took all that country and made it America, son. Don't you ever forget that.

In Honor of Inauguration Day

Mr. Obama is now President of the United States of America. I hope things get better, but I expect they will get worse. I hate to sound so depressing, but I see the cards on the table, and they have been seen before. If you do even the slightest reading on the Great Depression and its causes, you will see stark similarities. Even children's books will tell you that much, I found out.

Mr. Obama's speech was actually very good. The one thing that was reassuring was that he obviously had read the founding fathers, had some serious history reading under his belt, and had some kind of idea of what he was getting into. I hope he was praying hard!

I agree with him on change. We do sorely need it. However, my version is not "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" which is what I think is fundamentally wrong with our government. My idea is to throw it all out and start again at the beginning, with just the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. The amendments are ok, too, of course, but now that we're here, most of them are just common knowledge, now. I am very worried that, like most democrats, he's going to add more laws, not subtract them. More government and more money spent that we don't have. Hold on for the ride, World. It's going to be a doozy.

I wonder why he said "My fellow citizens" and not "My fellow Americans"? Is American a dirty word? Just wondering. Maybe he's being global, since Mexico and Canada are "North America" too.

Good luck, Mr. President. Please leave some room for us crazy religious nut jobs, ok?

Saturday, January 17, 2009

CSPIA -- lead testing law must be repealed (Forbes article)

What follows is the best explanation I have found, thanks to The Common Room blog. Thanks, DHM, for keeping us informed.
This explains what all the broo-ha-ha is about. The main point is that storekeepers and manufacturers want to be legal, more than anything else.

The last paragraph is the MOST important.



Forbes.com


Commentary
Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
Walter Olson 01.16.09, 4:21 PM ET

If someone you know volunteers at a thrift store or crochets baby hats for the crafts site Etsy or favors handmade wooden toys as a baby shower gift, you've probably been hearing the alarms about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

Hailed almost universally on its passage last year--it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter--CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children's items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers. How could this have happened?

Congress passed CPSIA in a frenzy of self-congratulation following last year's overblown panic over Chinese toys with lead paint. Washington's consumer and environmentalist lobbies used the occasion to tack on some other long-sought legislative goals, including a ban on phthalates used to soften plastic.

The law's provisions were billed as stringent, something applauded by high-minded commentators as a way to force the Mattels and Fisher-Prices of the world to keep more careful watch on the supply chains of their Chinese factories.

Barbed with penalties that include felony prison time and fines of $100,000, the law goes into effect in stages; one key deadline is Feb. 10, when it becomes unlawful to ship goods for sale that have not been tested. Eventually, new kids' goods will all have to be subjected to more stringent "third-party" testing, and it will be unlawful to give away untested inventory even for free.

The first thing to note is that we're not just talking about toys here. With few exceptions, the law covers all products intended primarily for children under 12. That includes clothing, fabric and textile goods of all kinds: hats, shoes, diapers, hair bands, sports pennants, Scouting patches, local school-logo gear and so on.

And paper goods: books, flash cards, board games, baseball cards, kits for home schoolers, party supplies and the like. And sporting equipment, outdoor gear, bikes, backpacks and telescopes. And furnishings for kids' rooms.

And videogame cartridges and audio books. And specialized assistive and therapeutic gear used by disabled and autistic kids.

Again with relatively few exceptions, makers of these goods can't rely only on materials known to be unproblematic (natural dyed yarn, local wood) or that come from reputable local suppliers, or even ones that are certified organic.

Instead they must put a sample item from each lot of goods through testing after complete assembly, and the testing must be applied to each component. For a given hand-knitted sweater, for example, one might have to pay not just, say, $150 for the first test, but added-on charges for each component beyond the first: a button or snap, yarn of a second color, a care label, maybe a ribbon or stitching--with each color of stitching thread having to be tested separately.

Suddenly the bill is more like $1,000--and that's just to test the one style and size. The same sweater in a larger size, or with a different button or clasp, would need a new round of tests--not just on the button or clasp, but on the whole garment. The maker of a kids' telescope (with no suspected problems) was quoted a $24,000 testing estimate, on a product with only $32,000 in annual sales.

Could it get worse? Yes, it could. Contrary to some reports, thrift and secondhand stores are not exempt from the law. Although (unlike creators of new goods) they aren't obliged to test the items they stock, they are exposed to liability and fines if any goods on their shelves (or a component button, bolt, binding, etc.) are found to test above the (very low) thresholds being phased in.

Nor does it get them off the hook to say an older product's noncompliance with the new standards wasn't something they knew or should have known about (let alone to say anyone was harmed; the whole controversy from start to finish has gone on with precious little showing of real-world harm to American kids from most of the goods being banned).

Thrift store managers, often volunteers themselves, have no way to guess whether every grommet or zipper on a kids' jacket or ink on an old jigsaw puzzle box or some plastic component of Mom's old roller skates would pass muster.

"The reality is that all this stuff will be dumped in the landfill," predicted Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Among the biggest losers if that happens: poorer parents who might start having to buy kids' winter coats new at $30 rather than used at $5 or $10.

And even worse: Since the law does not exempt books, children's' sections at libraries and bookstores will, at minimum, face price hikes on newly acquired titles and, at worse, may have to rethink older holdings.

After all, no one has the slightest idea how many future violations lie hidden in the stacks and few want to play a guessing game about how seriously officialdom will view illegality. "Either they take all the children's books off the shelves," Associate Executive Director Emily Sheketoff of the American Library Association told the Boston Phoenix, "or they ban children from the library."

Antique dolls? Old model-car collections? Musical instruments? Vintage bicycles? Some will go underground in private collectors' clubs, others will be tossed on the bonfires of the new Cultural Revolution.

A traditional attraction on the heritage festival circuit is the kids' dance or performance troupe in ethnic, pioneer or frontier garb, often handcrafted with the sort of ornate detail (beads, pendants, lace inserts, etc.) that will not be practical to test.

The same goes for Native American kids' cherished moccasins, buckskins and powwow gear. Making matters worse, many foreign producers of craft and small-batch toys and clothes, chary of liability under the law, are planning to exit the American market entirely, a step already taken by three German toymakers.

In recent weeks, as thousands of crafters and retailers began to compare notes and realize that they would soon be left with stocks of unsalable merchandise, forced out of business or both, the protests have begun to mount: alarm-raising at hundreds of blogs and forums, a torrent of Twitter discussion, YouTube videos, endangered-products lists, Facebook groups and so forth.

A group called Handmade Toy Alliance is calling attention to the law's burdens in that area. Booksellers are mobilizing. Yet prominent consumer groups have continued to defend even the law's more extreme applications, and their spokespersons are dismissive of public outrage. "I haven't heard a single legitimate concern yet," Public Citizen's David Arkush wrote last month.

The consumer groups--and the congressional offices of key CPSIA backers Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif.--have blamed opposition to the law on "misinformation" and "confusion."

Defenders of the law point out, for example, that item-by-item enforcement at thrift shops is unlikely to be an enforcement priority any time soon for the Consumer Product Safety Commission's 100 field investigators.

The thing is, few librarians, eBay sellers or knitters want to be told that they're outlaws but at too small-fry a level to attract the authorities' attention. They want to be legal.

Besides, the law grants enforcement authority not only to the CPSC but to the 50 state attorneys general, which means anyone who ships nationally, small fry or not, is at the mercy of whomever turns out to be the least reasonable attorney general, a post for which there is always considerable competition.

As CPSIA opponents mobilize, the phrase "unintended consequences" is often heard. Part of the irony, after all, is that the Hasbros and Targets, with their standardization and economies of scale, can afford to adapt to such rules as part of their business plan, while the sorts of enterprises that initially looked to benefit most from the Chinese toy scare--local, organic and so forth--are also the ones who find it hardest to comply.

But the failure here runs deeper. This was not some enactment slipped through in the dead of night: It was one of the most highly publicized pieces of legislation to pass Congress last year.

And yet now it appears precious few lawmakers took the time to check what was in the bill, while precious few in the press (which ran countless let's-pass-a-law articles) cared to raise even the most basic questions about what the law was going to require.

Yes, something's being exposed as systematically defective here. But it's not the contents of our kids' toy chests. It's the way we make public policy.



Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of The Rule of Lawyers and other books. He edits Overlawyered.com.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

The smell of growing things

I've been a little obsessed with seed catalogs lately, but around 9:30pm last night, when we got home, my eldest ran the envelope with my order to the mailbox to go out today, and I am very excited. It contains an order from Rikki too, and also another friend.

Last night was very productive. In addition, a lovely person spread the word that chicken is on sale at Cash and Carry til Friday (or is it Sunday? - give them a call!) for less than $1 a pound, if you can fit 40 lbs in your freezer. Which I can, and did. It is all stuck together, which means I have to cook it all at once, but I can really find uses for that much cooked chicken, believe me! I've been meaning to do a mass cooking anyway. My grocery bill should shrink dramatically now that I have beef and chicken til at least spring if not next fall!

So, Spring! I miss spring. I realize it is not at all far away, and I just have to be patient. So I will wait. Something I've been pondering is the difference in smell I noticed last June on our RV trip from WA to CA and back. We live about 90 mins from Canada here. We traveled quite a ways, as far south as Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. I realized while there that that part of CA really does smell like HOME to me.

So here is a break down of the difference:

Western Washington smells like evergreens and moss, and wet roadways, and cold. In the summer it smells the same way, it just warms up a bit. But it doesn't really have a smell the way some other places do. In the summer you just add a wet grass and dirt smell.

Western Oregon smells a little richer than W. WA. It smells even wetter, more like dirt, and maybe more like pine, and certainly more like moss. It smells like hemlock and alder and spruce trees. Most of all it just smells wet. Not like a wet dog, though, like wet leaves, both on the ground and on the trees.

The coast and say, 50 miles inland, of central CA smells completely different. For one thing, in the same yard, you will find redwoods and palm trees. That smells very different. Also, dry grass, yellow hillsides, and DRY. Even the fog on the coast does not diminish that smell of it being much dryer. I love the smell of redwoods. The ocean smells good, too. It smells like you could grow a wider variety of things, which of course, you can. It does not really ever smell cold.

Of course, the reason for this is the general move toward the equator. The sunlight changes, too. When the sun comes out here in WA, it just is there. It's wonderful, and we don't see it often in the winter, but when we do, it's time to run outside quick before it's gone. In OR it's the same, but it seems a bit brighter when it comes out. By the time you hit the CA/OR border, it's completely different, especially that change in vegetation. And the sunlight is very bright when it shines on the dew on the grass in spring, which begins for sure in March, not May. And in CA, you will probably see the sun at least once a week, and expect that, instead of once a month up north in winter.

I miss CA. If I can ever pay off my last trip, I will happily take another down there to see my home, sweet home. My home with friends is in WA, but my heart is so happy to see CA. It's like recharging my batteries.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

20% layoffs for Planned Parenthood!

Yippee Skippee!

I remember wondering if things were going downhill this fall for Planned Parenthood, because they were often not open when the sign on the door said they would be. Yes, I'm one of those people who occasionally pray Rosaries outside the clinic. 40 Days for Life was a brilliant plan, and it brought a lot of people together.

It is very important to point out that, while I'm horrified by the loss of babies' lives through abortion, what really gets me in the heart are the mothers and their families. A miscarriage is an awful thing we have endured, twice, and I really can't imagine living with myself if I had done it on purpose.

There are also many, many reports of coerced abortions (by family or boyfriends), and many cases where men have suffered emotionally afterwards, because they had no say.

As for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, well, the leader of our local 40 Days For Life happens to be the son of a rape. He's about my dad's age, in his sixties. His mom had seizures, and she was raped, so even though it was pre-Roe vs. Wade, abortion was recommended because they did not think she could handle a baby. Instead, he was adopted at birth. He is rather happy to be alive. So there goes that argument for me. It's worth it to add, even if I supported that, only 1-3% of abortions are from those three reasons. The others are all some form of inconvenience, and it wrecks women's lives every day. Don't believe me? Go visit Project Rachel and meet some women.

Here is the best news from the Madoff scandal to date:




January 09, 2009 2:41 PM
Planned Parenthood makes staff cuts
Funding declines partly attributed to Madoff.
Print Email Comments(19) Miriam Kreinin Souccar

Hit with declines in funding from the economic crisis and the Madoff scandal, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is laying off around 20% of its staff.

Roughly 30 people were let go earlier this week, according to a source who works for the nonprofit. Executives at Planned Parenthood confirmed the layoffs, but declined to give more details.

“As with many other nonprofit organizations, Planned Parenthood has had to make staff reductions at our headquarters due to the challenging economic times facing our country,” said Maryana Iskander, chief operating officer at the agency. “While taking this action is never easy, we want to ensure the millions of women and men who rely on Planned Parenthood as a health care provider that the reductions will not impact our ability to deliver care to those in need.”

Part of Planned Parenthood’s funding declines stem from the closing of the Florida-based Picower Foundation, which shut down in December because its assets were managed by Bernard Madoff. The $1 billion foundation was one of the few major funders of reproductive rights issues.
Filed Under :

Health Care , Nonprofits

Sunday, January 11, 2009

How Many Parents Do I Have Again??

This is one of those "you had to be there" kinds of posts, but I think some people will find it funny anyway. It sure is funny to us. And it's a good thing we don't take conversations too seriously when we have them with people under age 10.

Information needed to understand what they are talking about:

1. We have four kids, ages 8,6,4 and 1.
2. We have done foster care and the six year old is adopted.
3. We have friends we see every week who are currently doing foster care, and their foster kids, ages 3 and 5, often talk about their two moms and one dad who they are genetically related to. You don't EVEN want to know the whole story at all, there are a lot more children involved than just these two. The case is almost two years old with no real end in sight. Luckily for you, I'm not allowed to tell you what I do know, and there's plenty more I do not know. Suffice it to say, my children hear a lot about "our real parents" and their names very often. The names of these parents are becoming household names in our house as well as our friends, the foster parents', house.

Our daughter, age 4, plays with their daughter, age 5, who talks about Mommmy M, Mommy J, and Daddy M. Our daughter now wants to know who HER real parents are.
We tell her, "Honey, we ARE your real parents." "NOooooooo! Who are my OTHER parents, my NORMAL parents?"

May I add that we are driving to church right now?

"Honey, you and two of your brothers only have us for parents. Your other brother has birth parents, and M and J do, too, but you only have us, just like the other two."

The adopted child then has to pipe in, "Remember when I was baptized?" and inserts the fact that they all have godparents, too, and we run down the list. I had to explain previously about three times, usually at bedtime, that she has godparents who pray and help her love God, to which she says, "I already DO love God." I say, "Oh good, it sure is a good thing they pray for you then."

So now we have godparents, birth parents, foster parents and regular old fashioned parents. I try to insert here that the usual, normal thing is to have one set of parents. Not that all the other ways are bad, but really, normal is two parents. Something has to happen to make all these other parents happen in one's life.

I was hoping this was over, until the adopted one pipes up, "I wish I was in foster care again." Keep in mind he doesn't remember being is foster care, because he was only 2.5 when the final adoption happened. He has pictures of visits though, and they involve toys and food, as well as birth parents he doesn't remember. And if you are wondering, no, we don't see them, because it isn't safe. He is free to go looking for them when he is 18. Other background: He does have a sister, and we do see her from time to time.

"You wish you were in foster care?? But then you wouldn't live with us, you'd live with strangers. Why do you want to be in foster care?"

"Because."

"Not a good answer. Why do you REALLY want to be in foster care?"

"Because there were toys."

Um... wow. "So you'd rather live with strangers so you can have more toys?"

"Yes." Commence small tantrum in the back seat as laughing from big brother kicks in, not to mention bewildered giggling from parents. Like this child has no toys... obviously, we deprive him horribly.

Me: "Dear, I'm going to chalk this one up under weird things our kids say we should not be offended by." "Good idea."

Our daughter is still having an identity crisis, but we're ok with that. Have you ever tried to convince a four year old of a Fact that she doesn't believe? It's really not worth it. So we've explained this about four times now, and I guess we'll just keep at it until it sinks in or she gives up.

Nobody ever taught us this one in foster parent training.

:)

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Calvin and Hobbes

The wisdom of these cartoons is timeless. This is not exactly a recent cartoon.

I've been thinking of lots of reasons to blog lately, but Facebook can be sooooo interesting, and it's much quicker to work with. I will get back to here, really.

Right now we are eagerly awaiting our 1/4 cow to put in the freezer. It is currently about five minutes away, with it's brother 1/4 cow being delivered to Rikki-san and family. Yippeee! I can't wait to see how much this will be in real life!

Wheeeeee!


Thursday, January 8, 2009

Birth Control Pill Inventor Slams Pill He Created! and other IMPORTANT news

Thought y'all would want to know this. Unfortunately, many people will read this and say, "What, you want me to have all kinds of babies all my life, to save the environment?" and no one will tell them about NFP! NFP works!! It's not easy, but destroying our planet through estrogen doesn't sound very selfless to me...

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=11004

Also, this is CRAZY:

The federal government passed that wonderful act that was supposed to save us all from lead poisoning from products made in China. Unfortunately, it may (or may not) close every second-hand store in the nation, not to mention all the things stored in warehouses awaiting shipment and sale as new items. There does not appear to be a grandfather clause. The person who opposed it most was forced to resign. I knew our government was corrupt, but now it's becoming extremely obvious, and people don't care enough to notice now, so they can get away with it.

If this law is enforced, every cottage industry in the nation will likely be affected, instead of factories in China. That will lead to Bad Things. Just think about it.

For a better run-down and links than I can give you, check this:

The Common Room

She continues to update this story with links from our government's own site. What you will read should scare you. I hope I'm just being alarmist, but this is totally NUTS. If your kids are running out of clothes, be prepared with back up plans (like friends with older kids).

I imagine at the last minute they'll realize what they've done and undo it somehow, but it will really hurt their credibility, which is shot anyway.

Interestingly, Ron Paul is the ONLY PERSON to vote against this. Ouch.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Money management

I know I have that little debt ticker there. I guess I have to update it, but I have no exciting news that will show up on it.
I would like to mention that we paid nearly $2200 in car repairs yesterday, and we did it in cash because of the perfect timing of paychecks from two different jobs coinciding with the break down of the car, which happily only warned us and did not leave us stranded. I learned two new things from this car break down (don't I always, and always too late). A friend of mine said she had the same thing done years ago for $300 by a muffler shop. Now she tells me. Also, if your tires are getting much too thin, the tire pressure light does go on, but sometimes it goes on slightly early in cold weather, because of air pressure changes caused by weather. If the pavement is freezing cold, as ours has been, and you are getting to the end of your tires, the light will go on only because of the weather. Good to know, because I just bought tires on that last bill, and I prefer to buy two at a time, usually. Now I know.
I wish I could know these things beforehand instead of after the fact.

Anyway, I'm proud we paid that bill without the credit card this time. We must be getting better, or else God is having mercy on my poor soul. Now that a real paycheck has arrived, I can put our savings transfer from Etrade into real savings and finally have that "pillow" I've always wanted.

We also found out that we can join legal services at my husband's company for $18/month, and have our will done. We'd like our kids to go going to the right people most of all. I'm so glad we can sign up for that, and I'll have to see what their actual small print policy is so we don't continue paying $18/month.

Finance is very interesting. Too bad no one told me that either. But now I'm finding out!

While we're on the subject of New Year's type things, I did really make it to the athletic club, and I did really work out. I was annoyed by the sheer number of tv's and what was on them, but that's ok, I'm really sore, two days later, like usual. A rowing machine is more fun if there isn't someone behind you screaming to go faster. Then again, that might help.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Funny Astronomer Trick

Funniest thing ever.

ISS Toolbag refers to the toolbag one of the astronauts accidentally let go of not long ago while she was doing a spacewalk. "Oops" and a fair amount of press was all anyone could do, for now ISS Toolbag is circling the Earth, and people can actually see it! I wish I could get the photo to come through, but really, it's just a bunch of white dots with arrows pointing to ISS Toolbag and International Space Station as they circle the Earth.
I just found it funny that it's a little game amateur astronomers are playing with each other... "Have you seen the toolbag yet?" "Oh yeah, I totally did!" "Where?!" "Oh, it's right there, can't you tell? It's different than all the other dots that are moving around the Earth really fast."
Tee hee hee.
I am pretty sure I saw the ISS once, though. It really looked different than anything else, too fast for most things, and definitely not a plane or a star.

I've never looked for a toolbag, but there is too much snow around here for me to get a chance anyway.

Funny stuff from www.spaceweather.com:


TUMBLING TOOLBAG: The space station's famous sidekick, the ISS Toolbag, is circling Earth and producing flashes of light bright enough to record using off-the-shelf digital cameras. Peter Rosén sends this report from downtown Stockholm, Sweden:

"I photographed the toolbag when it passed above the moon on Dec. 3rd. It was invisible to the naked eye, but my camera (a Canon 40D) detected it in a series of 4 second exposures. The toolbag must be rotating as the light seems to flash and disappear." (continued below)


Photo details: Canon 40D, 85mm lens, f/1.2, ISO 100, 26 x 4 sec

He combined 26 images to create this composite. "The other paths are from airplanes; the short interruptions in their lights are caused by the lag between shots." Longer "black-outs" in the path of the toolbag appear to be genuine, a result of tumbling and flashing.

Readers, the toolbag and the ISS are making a series of evening passes over Europe and North America. Check the Simple Satellite Tracker for flyby times.

MORE SIGHTINGS: On Dec. 7th, Kevin Fetter of Brockville, Ontario, video-recorded the toolbag zipping past 6th magnitude star 19 Pegasii: movie. On the same night, Ed Light of Lakewood, New Jersey, saw the toolbag through 10x50 binoculars. "It was varying
slightly and irregularly; I estimate its visual magnitude between 6.5 and 6.8."

Saturday, January 3, 2009

World News -- Odd level of violence, I think

We turned off cable a while ago, though we are always tempted to turn it back on right about now. Maybe when Gonzaga starts winning again, we will, but at this point, temptation is over.

One of the reasons we don't have it is because we can find what we want to find on the internet, including the news. But we don't have that usual, daily sit down in front of the tv and watch the day's events. So sometimes we don't get a great overview from just checking the favorite news sites.

I do check quite a few websites and blogs and find out interesting things. I think it is probably good to write them down sometimes, because sometimes things get lost in the news. What I mean is that I remember about a week or two ago, there was a big deal about the Athens violence going on, and then when Israel started bombing and now invading Gaza, well, I haven't heard a thing about Athens. And also the hotel in Mumbai that was invaded and people massacred. We had no time to digest that news before something else awful happened. Now that awful thing is all the news will cover. Isn't that a bit weird?

And before that we had all about what Mrs. Obama was wearing on election eve, and how amazing looking Obama himself looks on the beach with not much on. Why is our news so darned DUMB? I don't care what the Obama's are wearing, for crying out loud! And I don't care that Britney Spears is doing so much better, either. I would like to see some historical references and real news pieces on ongoing events. The only place I get anything like real news is NPR, and they are slanted, too. But at least they cover more territory, and they tend to interview very interesting people.

I'm not sure what my point is here, except that it is awfully hard to keep track of history and the connections between events if no one will report on them because the news has such a short attention span. I'd like to have intellectual news for a change, and if I want to read People magazine type news, I will read it at the dentist's office.

Rant over.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

The 12 Days of Christmas Song for Large Families

I got this on a yahoo group.

Omigoodness, I have heard all of these so many times, and I only have four. If you have less than four, would you please delete all these lines from your vocabulary and encourage your friends to do so as well!?

You think they are funny the first few times, then you wonder why in the world perfect strangers ask you these things and think they are original.

The second you get past two kids, this starts every time you go out in public.

And now you know why we don't bring them all with us to Costco very often! We're all in hiding!!

The 12 Days of Christmas in a large homeschooling family.

Happy New Year!

In honor of the end of 2008, here is a fun spin on an infamous year.

Thank you, Dave Barry!


May your new year be blessed beyond anything you would have wished for yourself and your families. After all, God knows what he's doing better than any of us!