Character Assassination 2009

Glenn Greenwald's column in today's Salon speaks to the despicable strategies persons devoted to the right wing are using in their efforts to block highly qualified persons from--what? even being CONSIDERED by President Obama for the Supreme Court? It's all very unfair and very disheartening.

Here's a good part of the article:

Friday May 8, 2009 06:08 EDT
Puzzle: to whom might the NYT be referring in its Editorial?

(Updated below - Update II )

In an Editorial today on Obama's selection to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, The New York Times writes:

It’s never too early, it appears, to start the character assassination, especially against one possible candidate, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. . . .

Supreme Court vacancies have long been political fights, sometimes intense ones, but generally, they begin when a candidate is picked. This time, the attacks have already begun, many aimed at Judge Sotomayor and beyond the pale of reasonable debate. She is being called insufficiently intellectual despite her stellar academic credentials. Her temperament is being assailed, generally by anonymous detractors. . . .

When President Obama makes his decision, he should ignore the uninformed and mean-spirited chattering and select the best person for the job.

Congratulations to Jeffrey Rosen, TNR and Rosen's Eminent Legal Scholar friends for their uncredited appearance in today's NYT Editorial. The mini-scandal over the Rosen/TNR assault on Sotomayor is packed with ironies, most prominently the fact that Rosen's criticisms of her work were characterized by extreme intellectual sloth and even deep confusion over simple legal issues (as even his own fellow law professors pointed out in unusually stinging critiques), all as Rosen proudly held himself out as the crusader on behalf of so-called "concerns" over Sotomayer's intellectual abilities.

But today's NYT Editorial underscores another glaring and significant irony. Consider one of the prime complaints from people who snidely dismiss online commentary, as Rosen obviously does (as I noted yesterday, he can't deign to name any critics to whom he's responding; he strangely refers to those who wrote criticisms of his article as "readers"; he subtly mocks the criticisms which he provoked as "an enthusiastic response in the blogosphere"). From that condescending circle, it is frequently heard that online and blog commentary is "unreliable" and even harmful because it has no standards, because the online rabble can say anything they want, because anonymity permits reckless attacks and breeds mean-spirited gossip. Apparently, though, if that exact same anonymous, standards-less, malicious, fact-free chatter is placed under the banner of The New Republic (or the NYT or The Washington Post or NBC News) and endowed with the byline of a Serious journalist, then it's magically transformed into "reporting."

Thus we have The New York Times today condemning "character assassinations beyond the pale of reasonable debate" and "uninformed and mean-spirited chattering" by "anonymous detractors," and they're not referring to anything coming from blogs. Instead, all of that came from one of the leading lights of the Respectable Intellectual Center, in an establishment journal, purporting to carry out the dirty work of Eminent Legal Scholars while calling it "journalism." Note, by meaningful contrast, that those who generated the so-called "enthusiastic response in the blogosphere" to Rosen's smears actually attached their names to what they said -- and used verifiable facts and documented evidence when doing so. For all the hand-wringing about the harmful effects of anonymity and fact-free, unaccountable gossip from blogs, such things are actually found far more often in the very establishment venues where those complaints are so self-righteously voiced, decorated with the label of "reporting."

* * * * *

On a related note: I received the following email last night from Berkeley Law Professor Melissa Murray:

Dear Glenn,

As a former Sotomayor clerk, I just wanted to thank you for your responses to Jeffrey Rosen's recent "article" about the judge. My year clerking for her was one of the most challenging and exhilarating experiences of my career. Her intellect, professionalism, and diligence were remarkable and inspiring. In researching a case, she never left a stone unturned, nor did she allow us to take shortcuts in our work. It's too bad Jeffrey Rosen never benefited from her example.

Since when.....

Have they started to put VINEGAR in French onion soup? Why not catsup or hot sauce? I had a bowl of French onion soup today, and the vinegar was the most pronounced taste. I'm sorry, but I don't like SOUR French onion soup. And I don't care if it's balsamic vinegar. I think it's time for me to revisit Paris where I can get non-sour F.O.S. any time.



(and no, this is not Sancerre on rue des Abbesses.....it's the loover!)

Ooops....there's more!

Big Guy's and my pal Mary Z from the CA wine country sent the following rebuttal to the preceding post from Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

8th grade education - could you pass this 5 hour exam from 1895?

Got this today from the Big Guy* (below with another notable fellow):

*Jimmy Feeney, SHS '54

This is pretty sobering, and as noted at the end, gives meaning to those with "only" an 8th grade education back in the "good old days" when my mother and father were born.

The five tests covered five subjects, were approx. an hour long each, with 8 to 10 questions :

Grammar

Arithmetic

U S History

Orthography (???)

Geography

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.



*_8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895_*



*Grammar (Time, one hour)

**1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
**2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.**
**3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.**
**4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of "lie,""play," and "run."**
**5. Define case; illustrate each case.**
**6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.**
**7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.***



*Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)*


**1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.***
**2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?**
**3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?**
**4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?**
**5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.**
**6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.**
**7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per meter?**
**8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.**
**9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?**
**10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt***



*U.S.** History (Time, 45 minutes)*



**1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.***
**2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.**
**3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.**
**4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.**
**5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.**
**6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.**
**7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?**
**8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.***



*Orthography (Time, one hour)*

*[Do we even know what this is??]*


**1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?***
**2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?**
**3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.**
**4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'**
**5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.**
**6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.**
**7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.***
**8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that
indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.**
**9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.**
**10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.***



*Geography (Time, one hour)*



**1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?***
**2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?**
**3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?**
**4. Describe the mountains of North America.**
**5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall, and Orinoco.**
**6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.**
**7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.**
**8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?**
**9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.**
**10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.**

*Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.*

*Gives the saying "she only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning, doesn't it?!*

El Sistema

It's been a while since I've posted a TED Talk on here, and the following has moved me to tears:

Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra: A musical sensation from Venezuela




The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra contains the best high school musicians from Venezuela's life-changing music program, El Sistema. Led here by Gustavo Dudamel, they play Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez' Danzón No. 2.

Gustavo Dudamel, himself a… Full bio and more links

I hope you will explore all the links and learn everything you can about this fabulous program and its founder, Dr. Jose Abreu. Here's a quote from the El Sistema link:

33 years ago in a parking garage in Caracas, Dr. José Antonio Abreu gathered together 11 children to play music. El Sistema was born. It now teaches music to 300,000 of Venezuela’s poorest children, demonstrating the power of ensemble music to dramatically change the life trajectory of hundreds of thousands of a nation’s youth while transforming the communities around them.

the REAL swine flu!

Well, thanks a lot, Mr. President and Congress! The greedy swine (yes, that word) on Wall St. and in Detroit get billions to help them out of problems of their own making, but word has reached me that there will be NO SOCIAL SECURITY COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENTS (raises) for 2010 AND 2011.

Is this the best America can do for those living on their pitiful SS checks? I'm sure the Repuglicans and the Dumbocrats (the ones that vote with the Repugs) approve heartily. I can just hear Boner or Nucklehead Nelson saying "They'd do just fine if they didn't blow it all on gin and groceries"!

Champagne for Wall Street and Detroit, no COLA for seniors for two years!!

It's enough to make you sick....and there doesn't seem to be any vaccine for this, either.

First Woman and Openly Gay Poet Laureate of Britain!!

After 341 years of exclusively male poet laureates, Britain finally named a WOMAN--Carol Ann Duffy! You go, girl!!

The Mirror.UK.Com printed this previous unpublished poem by Duffy:

The Words Of Poems

The words of poems are nails which tack the wind to a page, so that the gone hour when your kite pulled you over the field blows in your hair.

They're hand-mirrors, a poem's words, holding the wept tears on your face, like a purse holds small change, or the breath that said things.

They're fishing-nets, scooping sprats and tiddlers out of a stream or the gleaming trout that startled the air when you threw it back. The words of poems are stars, dot-to-dots of the Great Bear, the Milky Way your telescope caught; or breves filled with the light of the full moon you saw from your bedroom window; or little flames like the tongues of Hallowe'en candles.

The words of poems are spells, dropping like pennies into a wishing-well, remember the far splash? They're sparklers, scrawling their silver loops and hoops on the night, again in your gloved fist on November the Fifth.

They're goldfish in their sad plastic bags at the fair, you stood there. The words of poems are coins in a poor man's hat; the claws of a lost cat.

The words of poems are who you were.

And, er.....

I got this from Yinka! Happy pigs, happy kid....

Thanks, Lu!

Saw this great video on the art of proper sneezing in a Facebook post by my niece, Lu. If we're going to have a bug, we need to learn how NOT to spread it around.

It bears repeating....

Excerpt from Boss Hog, reprinted today in Digby's Hullaballoo:

If you haven't read it yet, and I apologize for repeating this link but it really is that good, go now and read Boss Hog. You will never eat Smithfield products again:

A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield's efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That's a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations.

Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs -- anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

From Smithfield's point of view, the problem with this lifestyle is immunological. Taken together, the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. [Emphasis added.] Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines, and are doused with insecticides. Without these compounds -- oxytetracycline, draxxin, ceftiofur, tiamulin -- diseases would likely kill them. Thus factory-farm pigs remain in a state of dying until they're slaughtered. When a pig nearly ready to be slaughtered grows ill, workers sometimes shoot it up with as many drugs as necessary to get it to the slaughterhouse under its own power. As long as the pig remains ambulatory, it can be legally killed and sold as meat.

The drugs Smithfield administers to its pigs, of course, exit its hog houses in pig shit. Industrial pig waste also contains a host of other toxic substances: ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals. In addition, the waste nurses more than 100 microbial pathogens that can cause illness in humans [Emphasis added], including salmonella, cryptosporidium, streptocolli and girardia. Each gram of hog shit can contain as much as 100 million fecal coliform bacteria.

Smithfield's holding ponds -- the company calls them lagoons -- cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. The liquid in them is not brown. The interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs turn the lagoons pink.

Even light rains can cause lagoons to overflow; major floods have transformed entire counties into pig-shit bayous. To alleviate swelling lagoons, workers sometimes pump the shit out of them and spray the waste on surrounding fields, which results in what the industry daintily refers to as "overapplication." This can turn hundreds of acres -- thousands of football fields -- into shallow mud puddles of pig shit. Tree branches drip with pig shit.

Some pig-farm lagoons have polyethylene liners, which can be punctured by rocks in the ground, allowing shit to seep beneath the liners and spread and ferment. Gases from the fermentation can inflate the liner like a hot-air balloon and rise in an expanding, accelerating bubble, forcing thousands of tons of feces out of the lagoon in all directions.


The lagoons themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit.*

Smithfield has a long history of spectacular pollution. Here's an article from 1997:

One of the largest pork companies on the East Coast was fined $12.6 million - the largest water pollution fine ever- for dumping hog waste into a Chesapeake Bay tributary.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith ruled Aug. 8 that Smithfield Foods Inc. was liable for nearly 7,000 violations of the Clean Water Act since 1991. She said she wanted at least a portion of the fine to be used for Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts. The ruling resulted from an EPA lawsuit that accused Smithfield of polluting the Pagan River and destroying documents to cover it up.

And here, my friend Maria Hinojosa (our children go to the same school) of NOW goes inside a Smithfield pig processing plant in North Carolina to examine efforts to establish a union at the plant. She reports, among other things, that the stench was so awful that a member of her production crew nearly vomited. And try to put yourself in the place of those workers, spending north of 6 hours a day in that nauseating environment, slicing fat off a never-ending supply of dead pig carcasses - extremely dangerous work.

Here's an article from E Magazine in May-June 2000 entitled Factory Pig Farms Spread Filth & Disease:

"Transmission of influenza viruses from birds to mammals has probably occurred for centuries," said Dr. Robert Webster of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, speaking at the Second International Symposium on Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses. "However, increased opportunities for transmission, larger chicken and pig populations, and overall growth of human populations are associated with a higher risk of
interspecies reassortment. This situation is a possible start for a new pandemic."

While the timing of the next influenza pandemic cannot be predicted, experts agree it is inevitable. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that the next pandemic could kill between 89,000 to 207,000 people, and result in 314,000 to 734,000 hospitalizations. Infectious disease specialists say health authorities are not prepared.*



Finally, here's a a pollution locator to help you locate factory farms in your community. Frankly, I'd think just a quick sniff of the air would be enough, but this could be helpful, I suppose...

That's enough for now. Every time I hear SWINE Flu described by euphemism, I'll post more and more descriptions, videos and photos of the industrial meat industry. I'd like to encourage other bloggers to do the same.


---

*Note:It is true that the crowded, filthy, conditions of Smithfield's industrial hog farms are a perfect breeding ground for disease and viruses, including ones that infect humans. It is also true that Smithfield is an unspeakably prolific polluter. From the Rolling Stone article above:

In 1999, Luter bought a state-owned company called Animex, one of Poland's biggest hog processors. Then he began doing business through a Polish subsidiary called Prima Farms, acquiring huge moribund Communist-era hog farms and converting them into concentrated feeding operations. Pork prices in Poland were low, so Smithfield's sweeping expansion didn't make strict economic sense, except that it had the virtue of pushing small hog farmers toward bankruptcy. By 2003, Animex was operating six subsidiary companies and seven processing plants, selling nine brands of meat and taking in $338 million annually.

The usual violations occurred. Near one of Smithfield's largest plants, in Byszkowo, an enormous pool of frozen pig shit, pumped into a lagoon in winter, melted and ran into two nearby lakes. The lake water turned brown; residents in local villages got skin rashes and eye infections; the stench made it impossible to eat. A recent report to the Helsinki Commission found that Smithfield's pollution throughout Poland was damaging the country's ecosystems. Overapplication was endemic. Farmers without permits were piping liquid pig shit directly into watersheds that fed into the Baltic Sea.

It is also true that a Smithfield subsidiary was about 12 miles from La Gloria, where the first cases of the latest SWINE Flu strain occurred: some 60% of the town was affected. And it is also true that the Smithfield subsidiary in Mexico is also an incredibly disgusting polluter.

However, there is, at present, no hard evidence yet linking Smithfield Foods' practices to this SWINE Flu virus. This is important to remember: whether or not Smithfield Foods eventually gets implicated in the SWINE Flu outbreak does not change the simple fact that their business practice is unhealthy, unsanitary, unspeakably cruel to both pigs and humans, and extremely dangerous to work in.

Naw, don't call it SWINE flu....

Don'tcha wonder why they changed the name?

A couple of articles caught my eye today:

The first one actually appeared several years ago in Rolling Stone but was linked in one of today's Hullaballoo posts: "The Real Food Craze," by tristero.

The second article appears in today's MPR "News Cut":

MPR received a letter from a pork producer representative that laid bare the industry's objections to calling it swine flu:

[Please] reference the present flu virus by its appropriate name, the 2009 N1H1 flu.

Referring to the present flu virus as "swine flu" is not only damaging to MN pork producers, but demonstrates an uneducated, reckless approach, which is undoubtedly uncharacteristic of MN Public Radio.

The negative connotations to swine, unfairly made and scientifically unsupported, affect consumer confidence and therefore have a significant negative impact on pork production.

Waal, now, we can't have THAT!! Let nothing stand between a 'merkan and his/her bacon!!!!

Fasting on Mondays

I just read that many women in India observe Monday as a fast day. Whether they observe the fast in honor of Shiva, are looking for a sweetheart, or are just conscious of the need to stay slim, many consume only fruit, tea with lemon, and water--at least until sundown.

Today's Daily Om reading (on the first page of this blog) offers another way to fast: Stop kicking yourself over your past decisions, no matter how wrong-headed or painful or disastrous the outcome.

We are all human, and we all make mistakes--sometimes real whoppers.

TGIM...I'm going to clean out all the fruit in my refrigerator today and focus on the present.

Have a good Monday!

"Bye, Bea....

Bea, you were so funny! From the time you first appeared on "All in the Family" as Edith's cousin until the last episode of "Golden Girls," you were a reliable source of heart-easing hilarity.

Rest in peace...

Ice Cream Night!!

The best food idea I've read about in a long time is something I saw (FORGET WHERE--online? in a magazine? in the freebie daily newspaper?) t'other day: One brilliant mother has designated one night a week as "Ice Cream Night." The youngest child makes a list of all the ice creams and toppings they have on hand, then goes around taking orders from each member of the family.

The smart mother does not serve sweets or sodas or anything else corrupting during the rest of the week, but on Ice Cream Night, they can eat all the ice cream they want--within the limits of what's available.

I don't know (or didn't read or unconsciously blocked) whether they eat ONLY ice cream for supper one night a week, or whether it's just for dessert.

XE readers probably know how I'd vote on that question:

Yes, please....a pint of Haagen Dasz Vanilla Swiss Almond! and hold the meatloaf and broccoli.

I think I'd probably even start stocking up on things like hot fudge sauce, marshmallow creme, and lots of good nuts.

But I digress...I've gotta lose the avoir du pois

Her Other Blog

Xtreme English has had a second blog--Life Begins at 70--for a couple of years, but it's been private. She's decided to open it up to anyone to read. There are only two posts at the moment. All the rest have been taken offline in the interests of XE's privacy (mad, hysterical laughter--anyone with kids can tell you there is no such thing as privacy). Maybe she'll put them back on, and maybe she won't.

But LBA70 will be different from XE...it'll have fiction and poetry and other stuff...drawings.

Welcome to Life Begins at 70!

First Warm Weekend in Spring 2009

One of the great pleasures of living in Washington is the beauty of the place. This past weekend was the first really warm one. We took a long walk along the Mall toward Eastern Market and soaked in the sun and bright colors.


Dogwoods in blossom along walk past the Cannon House Office Building. You can barely see the redbush behind the red dogwood, but it intensifies the color.


Tulips on the front lawn of the Botanical Garden with the Native American Museum in the background.


The toy boat on the Capitol's Reflecting Pool doesn't scare this pigeon one bit.


From the sidewalk, you can see the fountains in the courtyard between the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery.


All I can say for this is that SOMEBODY tried to spruce things up at the Environmental Protection Agency, but it seems emblematic of the whole approach to the Environment over the past eight years: Don't spend any money on it, and as long as you throw a few tulips in the dirt, nobody will notice.

Vaya con diablo.....

I think Texas Governor Rick Perry has the right idea. I've thought for a long time that the best thing to do with Texas would be to give it back to Mexico. But...and this is nonnegotiable...ONLY if Mexico takes El Busho & family & friends & former employees (Condi, Cheney, Karl--that bunch) with it and KEEPS THEM THERE.

5 A Day!

Fruits and vegetables, that is. How do you get enough? EVERY DAY??

For an old woman, moderately active, I need 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables every day.

Start with breakfast:

Have a glass of juice (one serving of fruit, no matter how much you drink).

Do you usually have eggs? Include chopped veggies in your omelet--peppers, onions, spinach

Cereal? Add berries, sliced fruit, or raisins

Toast and peanut butter: Add banana slices.

Between meal snacks:

Remember that a lot of fruit and veggies are PORTABLE. An apple, a pear, a peach, a banana. Put washed veggies in a plastic baggie or container--6 baby carrots, celery sticks, cucumber slices, fresh green peas or green beans.

Lunch:

Want a sandwich? get it with tomato, lettuce, and onion slices, and have a side salad instead of fries.

Supper: How about this recipe from Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen? Note to FFVK: I like that burning sensation, too!!

IF YOU DON'T LIKE TAXES....

JUST FOR TODAY,

DON'T flush your toilet
DON'T eat anything in your refrigerator
DON'T send the little darlings off to their public school
DON'T call the police if somebody steals your car/purse/whatever
DON'T call the fire department if your house fills with smoke, and

DO send your auld mum an amount equal to her monthly Social Security check
(send it via UPS or FEDEX, too....no fair using the USPS)

All of these things:

clean water,
effortless disposal of sewage,
inspection of foods at many points between farmer brown's place and your home
free public education,
creation and maintenance of public roads
a wonderful, totally cheap postal service
police and fire departments, and
many many more benefits (you can think of lots, I'm sure)

come to us thanks to the taxes we pay to government.

Ronald Reagan may have been a nice old guy, but he was WRONG when he said "government is the problem."

taxes buy our ticket on the train of life. they pay for things we need and must do (roads, clean water, sewage systems, highways) but can't afford to pay for ALL BY OURSELVES.

Li'l Red Bucket.....

Occasionally I do something truly stupid, like turn on the water when I don't have my hearing devices plugged in. It's one of the nightmares of a deaf person. Cuz guess wot? You plug the sink, turn on the water to fill the basin to wash dishes, and then FORGET the water is running cuz you CAN'T HEAR IT, and leave the room. If you're lucky, you remember and go shut off the water. If you are NOT LUCKY, you go do something else, and by the time you wander back into the kitchen, the floor is under 2 inches of water. In an apartment building, this means the rooms under your kitchen can get flooded, too. This happened to me two weeks ago. Talk abt heart-stopping! I shut off the faucet, hauled all my towels and comforters into the kitchen to blot up the water, and called the bldg manager..."Does Ron (bldg engineer) have one of those shop vacuums that suck up water?" He did, and he was at my door with it in minutes. He not only vacuumed up the little lake, but he helped wring out the towels and bedding, which were a bit hard for me to do as swiftly and well.

Well, wot to do? I haven't had a water event like that for 16 years! Not since I drowned the little sandwich shop on the first floor of my building on its opening day. (Ah, God....that was soooooo awful.) (All together now: A deafie's life is a merry, merry life....)

Anyway, no harm done elsewhere this time, thanks be. (Ron checked.) But I immediately removed all plugs from the sinks and the bathtub. No more baths...showers only. And I bought a little red bucket for the kitchen sink. It's smaller than a dishpan, which also can block the drain, and it's very handy and cute. Helps clean up after a meal, too. I fill it with very hot soapy water before I start cooking, and toss the knives and small bowls and such in there after I'm done with them.

These horble water events would be one of the things that a care dog could help with....like barking & jumping nonstop whenever water is running in the sink or tub. Or giving me a nip if I ignore that, too. My genius dog-training niece, Lu, probably has just the technique for that.