Facebook mentality

It's amazing to me how creepily puerile our civic discourse has become. Today, former unconfirmedbythesenate ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told a gathering of conservatives that maybe the Soviet Union would nuke an American city. Then he suggested "Chicago"--and all the conservatives cheered and laughed.

This follows closely on the California mayor's postcard showing watermelons growing on the White House lawn and the NY Post's vile chimpanzee cartoon.

I signed up with Facebook last summer just for fun. About a week later, I noticed that the communicative style of Facebookers included lots of teen-age style insults: "Crocs make you look like a dumb ass." So I inactivated my membership. I reactivated it this week when someone sent me a Facebook message, but I've discovered the twisted remarks are still plentiful. For example, I saw this message "99 things you should have heard of by now...unless you're a loser, or old, or something...."

Or "Take our IQ test"...and below that, "Two people in (my state) think you're dumb."

Is this how people talk to each other now? Is this why adults in responsible public positions are talking like demented adolescents? Katie Couric's "There's the white guy."

It sounds like pure Facebook mentality to me.

The Colors Game....

In my numerous years, I've spent considerable time on buses. The ones in Minneapolis provided LONG, BORING rides and even longer and more boring (also FREEZING) waits at the bus stop. To occupy my mind (I couldn't read because I'd fall asleep and miss my stop--annoying here, but a major tragedy there), I'd play the colors game. I'd look around for the first RED thing I could see, then YELLOW, then ORANGE, then GREEN, then BLUE, then PURPLE, etc. And by the time I found something orange or purple, I'd be at my destination.

I played it today as I walked to Whole Foods. Not a bad walk--maybe two miles--and as the day was lovely and warm, I took pictures of what I saw.

Unfortunately, I never got a photo of the blue sky, cuz every time I stopped for a red light and looked around, I never found just the perfect spot of blue before the light changed and I had to keep moving.

RED: a whole building!


ORANGE: I don't know what this is. If I ever see the gardener, I'll ask.


YELLOW: wonderful pansies, the tough little flower that blooms all winter here.


PURPLE: Johnny Jump-ups, newly planted between clumps of pansies.


GREEN: Somebody painted green bricks by the doorway of an electrical repair shop. I loved the jaunty hue.


BLUE: That's me cuz I didn't capture any.

Don't like the stimulus? Don't accept the $$

Bob Cesca hit the nail on the head in his HuffPost column, "Sean Hannity's Ridiculous War against Socialism."

Cesca says, among other things,

I'm calling upon Sean Hannity to use his prime time television program as a platform to rally Republican politicians, cable news hacks and citizens alike to refuse delivery of not just recovery bill spending, but all so-called "socialist" government programs. Send it all back. End American socialism now! But if the money somehow gets through Hannity's blockade and steams its way to socialist Republican governors like Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger (embracing "economic girly man" status), and if those jobs are created anyway, Sean Hannity ought to heroically command his viewers in these states to not accept those jobs. They're socialist jobs, after all.

You tell 'em, Cesca! Gene Robinson of the WashPost said pretty much the same thing last night on Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Robinson said he'd start believing the GOP as soon as he hears the first "No thanks" when a Senator who voted AGAINST the stimulus said he or she would tell the people in his or her state NOT TO ACCEPT THE MONEY.

When pigs fly.....

How can anyone believe the GOP? Even Pat Robertson finally said something sensible when he criticized Limbaugh's "I hope Obama fails" pronouncement. Robertson said, "That's a terrible thing to say." Yup. It is. And the GOP are terrible, horrible representatives of the people who elected them, many of whom now are suffering in the economic maelstrom. Not only that, they don't give a doggone about the country.

Sunday Comix

Here's a Valentine for all my readers

My friend Lida came over today to have lunch and work on her new book (#7, I think). Lida says she loves being 88 but can't wait till she can say she's 90. Why is she still creating after her long, fruitful career as a photographer, writer, and artist? It's her nature: she's curious, alert, engaged in life. The "statement" she loves is a sentence from a review in the Washington Post praising her work. She loves it the way she loves all praise and encouragement. It feeds her remarkable energy.

back to the future....

Time Goes By has been ruminating out loud for a number of years on getting old, and yesterday, she tackled the LANGUAGE associated with, er, senescence. In her post, "Five years of blogging about age: Language," she promises that if someone like me gets mugged, the resulting newspaper article will say something like, “The mugger got away with 70-year-old Jane Doe’s handbag, but the elderly woman was unharmed.” When I read that, I laughed out loud. "Elderly?" The hell you say! (Actually, if someone like me gets mugged in DC, there probably won't be any newspaper article at all except maybe for a line item in the little neighborhood paper's "police report" column: "Georgia Ave NW, 4800 block: woman, 72, held up at gunpoint, 2 a.m.)

I've been doing a lot of walking this month, and it's changed the whole rhythm of my life. I almost feel transported back to the streets of Fargo, North Dakota, where I grew up. In the 1940s, when I was in grade school, nobody drove a car unless they had a demonstrated need (doctors, for example) and permission to do so. Just about everyone had a family auto in their garage, but the wheels were off, and the thing sat on blocks of concrete to hold it above the dirt floor. There were buses, but they ran maybe once an hour and went in only two directions--from downtown and back again. I not only never SAW a taxi, I'd never heard of one. So we walked everywhere--or rode our bikes, or skated, in the ice-covered streets. Our neighbor Rex even had a horse and cutter that he got around in, and he'd give us a ride if he was going the same way. I didn't like it. It was fast and scary, and the runners screeched on the pavement when they hit a bare patch in the ice.

I'm discovering that life changes shape dramatically when you go by "shank's mare," as my mother-in-law used to say. I don't have as much leisure time, but my days have begun to feel very leisurely. I have time for maybe two or three things instead of half a dozen, and yet at the end of the day, I'm spent and content. And I'm realizing that even at my advanced age, there's still that very independent 3-year-old lurking inside me. Elderly, my left foot! Who ever tells you this kind of stuff about, um, getting old?

Friday cleanup

How was our week? I took a look around the 'net, especially in Daily Kos:

Cenk Uygur's diary on the bankers' visit to Congress. Hey...the Congress Critters (as Kay calls 'em) removed the cap on the bankers' salaries after they hauled them in and gave them a good scolding?!

Barbara Morrill aka BarbinMD's diary "Where were the economists?" Here's proof of the kind of pap we're getting as media consumers.

Truthout.org, which I love, delivers to my inbox several times a day. Here's one interesting Truthout.org offering this past week: ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry's "The GOP's Jihad on Obama"

Now it's the weekend....time to clean this place, take another long walk, and get ready for a dinner guest. Living here in Petworth is reminding me of life in Fargo in the 1940s--that is, we walked just about everywhere, no matter the weather. The distance from my apartment here to the Giant Store just off 14th St on Monroe St NW or the new Yes! Organic Market a few blocks further down 14th at V St NW, feels about the same distance as the trip my mother and i took several times a week to Grondahl's grocery store.

Don't read, don't buy; don't turn it on , don't watch....

So the News Corp has lost over $6 billion this year....and the NYTimes has sustained deep losses in advertising revenue. Is it possible that at least some of this is due to readers and viewers becoming more discerning in their choices of what to read or watch? Are they getting fed up with the neocon ideology?

From here, it feels as if the media are going all out to recapture their losses by attacking President Obama and by linking any progress in Washington to the Republicans. The Washington Post today had an article about the stimulus' making it through the Senate. The photo showed TWO Republicans and ONE Democrat--as if the Repugs have not been dragging their feet in serious numbers--and the headline trumpeted "Bipartisan deal eases way for stimulus package in Senate." That may be true, but it gives more credit to the Repugs than they deserve.

The WaPo is actually ADDING to its mostly conservative columnists. They hired Bill Kristol after he was recently dumped by the NYT. The February 9 edition of New York magazine says in "Who's Right for the Times" on p. 11, "It's hard to imagine that Kristol's presence expanded the paper's readership by a single person." Imagination, however, may be leading the WaPo astray on this. They may think the average US citizen is not totally fed up with what the neocons have wrought over the past eight years. They may imagine they have not gone far enough to the right.

Happy Birthday, Dad - repost

[NOTE: I posted this two years ago, but I like it, so here it is again. I always get Dad's birthday mixed up with my h.s. boyfriend's, whose birthday was yesterday, Feb. 3.]


Tomorrow will be the 115th anniversary of the birth of my father, Francis Thomas Dwyer. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 5, 1894, and he died at Shoreham, Minnesota, on January 3, 1968, a night of bitter cold. (It was -41 degrees in Bismarck the following morning when I dropped off the girls with our neighbor Iris and took the train to Detroit Lakes for his funeral. Tom was not yet born.)

Here are some of the photos I have of Dad. There are more, but they're not organized, to put it mildly. These are the framed photos I have in the den.

First is the earliest photo I have (maybe anyone has) of Dad. He's maybe a year to 18 months. Notice his lovely blonde ringlets. Dad's hair was blondish until he was 13, when it turned black. It stayed curly, although he always combed it flat so that it wouldn't curl.

The bright-eyed girl is my Aunt Ellen, who was a year and a half older than Dad.



The next photo shows Dad with Ellen and little Edgar in the middle. Dad was the oldest boy in their family of seven children: Ellen, Francis, Edgar, Rose, Ann, and Mary. The seventh child, Theresa (Susan says "Mary"), died as an infant, and she followed Francis.



Here's a photo of Grandma and Grandpa and their lovely family of teenagers. It's the only photo I have of the whole group, and the only one I have of my grandmother. The two boys, Edgar and Francis, are in the back row. In the middle row are Ellen (soon to become Sister Mary Mark, I.H.M. (Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, Michigan), Mary, Ann, and Rose. Grandma was teaching school in Cherokee, Iowa, when Grandpa came back from Iowa Normal School in Cedar Falls with a teaching certificate. His father had wanted him to stay home and work the farm, but he did not want to be a farmer. He ran away from home at age 15 and worked his way through college in Cedar Falls and then Valparaiso College in Valparaiso, Indiana. (Grandma and Grandpa actually met at Valparaiso where they were both students.) Arriving back home, he taught school during the day, studied for the law at night, and presumably courted Grandma at the same time. Soon he applied for admission to the University of Michigan law school, was accepted, married Grandma, the lovely Alicia Hogan, and moved to Ann Arbor. Ellen was born the day Grandpa graduated from the U of M with his law degree.

The following picture is of the St. Thomas Parish baseball team of 1912. My dad is in the middle of the back row wearing his Shaker knit sweater, and my grandfather is on the end at the right. He was now a lawyer in private practice in Ann Arbor and coach of the team. Grandpa at various times also was the city attorney for Ann Arbor and the bishop's lawyer as well. Right after Grandpa's graduation from the U of M, he taught law there, also. The two guys on either side of my dad, Leo and Everett, were his pals growing up, and I remember him talking about their baseball exploits and canoeing trips on the river. Dad played shortstop or second base, I forget which, and shortly after this, he won a baseball scholarship to the University of Michigan.



His graduation photo is next, but I'm not sure which graduation this was taken for, high school or college. I thought I remembered Mom saying this was his U of M graduation photo, but Susan said it's his high school photo. He looks older than high school in this one, and certainly older than he does in the family photo.





The U.S. Army appropriated him after he graduated from the U. of M. with a degree in English, and they stationed him for the duration of WWI in Newport News, Virginia, as a typing clerk. Mom took this photo of him on the farm in Iowa when he was home on furlough. Mom met Dad while he was still in college. Grandpa used to send Dad back to Iowa during his summer vacations to help Grandpa's two old maid sisters, Nora and Ellen, who wound up running the farm after all the boys in the family defected or proved incapable of managing the place. Mom taught school with Aunt Nora, who was eager to introduce her handsome nephew to her bright, bubbly co-worker. Dad wrote home after the introduction, "I've met the liveliest girl in town."



Fast-forward to the 50s....Grandpa is dead, and Dad bought a lake cottage on Lake Sallie with his inheritance. Here he is out back of the cottage by our 1947 green DeSoto, which he bought when I was in 8th grade. It boasted the forerunner of automatic transmission. When you started out, you'd step on the gas until you got to maybe 15-18 mph, then you'd let up on the gas, the car would shift itself--Ka-KLUNK!--and you'd be at driving speed.

Dad always wore khakis from L.L. Bean on the weekends, plus a yellow terry cloth longsleeved t-shirt like he has on in the picture. He carried his Pall Malls in the pocket in front. On his feet, he wore old wingtips that were too scuffed to wear to work. And he usually wore a cap like this.

The smoke from his Pall Malls was deadly, and when we drove to the lake every Friday night after Dad got off work, Mom and I would beg him to open the window a little wider so we could breathe. He always did, but ever afterward, I could tell Pall Mall smoke from any other cigarette's. It was tarry and raw, and it stunk upwind.

The big house behind Dad belonged to Jack and Babe Maloney, parents of my growing-up playmates at the lake, Michael and Marcia. It used to be the main house of a resort, and our cottage was one of the little rental places. It had a living room, a bedroom, and a porch on two sides...the kitchen on the side, and a big round table & chairs plus a big squeaky spring bed in front.

Here are Dad and Gene getting ready to put the dock in for the summer. Dad is pulling something out from under the front porch, where he stored the dock over the winter. Part of the dock is stacked to the right. The trees are not yet in leaf, but the snow is gone, so it must be the end of May. I took these little photos with my 8th grade graduation present camera. I wish I'd taken hundreds more.



Last photo: "Brothers of the Brush" - Fargo's Diamond Jubilee, 1950. Dad, like most other men in town, grew a beard for the Centennial celebration. He sent a copy of this photo to Aunt Mary Barnes, I think, and on the back, though the ink has almost completely faded, he wrote "Is this Pop Hogan or a duke's mixture? With love, Francis"



Love to you, Francis. You were my best pal as a kid. You took me everywhere with you: fishing, hunting, even bowling at night during the winter when the NW Bell team had league bowling--you'd park me at the bar with a glass of 7Up while you rolled up one great game after another. You were a natural athlete and a lover of the outdoors. Your temper scared me to death when I was little, but I learned that yelling back would shut you up good. I only did it once, actually, because I was so appalled to see you silenced like that. Thanks for giving me life and a share of your unique spirit....

Mark Morford on the new Boy Scout

I like to post humor...it's the best way to publish bad news, for one thing. Today's post features the SF Chronicle's Mark Morford on the joys of his youthful membership in the Boy Scouts and what he envisions today to introduce survival skills (like, archery) to feckless youth. The bad news? You think that banning gay scout leaders was a sign of moral integrity? Read what the Boy Scouts are doing to raise money now that their membership has fallen off....

Goodbye and Good Luck, Daschles!

In case you need any further background on WHY Tom Daschle withdrew as the HHS nominee, here's Glenn Greenwald's Sunday post from Salon.com.

I especially loved the quote from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibi:

In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger.

You don't know the half of it!

This morning, I decided to see whether Groundhog Day is another one of those holidays, like Halloween or Christmas, with roots--not in modern day phenomena like the Punxatawny, Pa., TV station's weather forecast but further back--in ancient times.

I'm very happy to report that I hit PAYDIRT. Yes, this day does have ancient roots, going at least as far back to 542 A.D. But please click the link and read this fascinating article.

Among the scientific and historical nuggets I mined from "Weather Doctor's Almanac for 1998, Celebrating Groundhog Day," I learned that the beginning of February marks the start of Solar Spring! Hooray!

In my youth (long before Bill Murray was born), we never celebrated the groundhog's first venture from his burrow (yup, HIS burrow...the Weather Doctor says female groundhogs don't come out of hibernation for quite a while yet).

We observed February 2 as Candlemas Day--the day whose most salient liturgical point was the long line of sneezing, snuffling, bundled-up children waiting to kneel two at a time at the communion rail to get our throats blessed after morning Mass. A couple of the nuns would stand at the ends of the front pews to make sure our throats were free and clear--the layers of scarves unwrapped, the topmost coat, sweater, and shirt buttons undone--so Father Walsh or Father Branconniere could stick the "X" arrangement of two candles against our necks and recite the blessing. The blessing invoked St. Blaise, patron saint of sore throats. The idea was that this actually worked, and I apologize for not researching any scientific proof.

If the blessing didn't take, however, (often) our mothers would paint our throats with MERCUROCHROME!! Mercurochrome was a sure-fire cure, but omg...that was MERCURY they were swabbing on our tonsils! Last I tried, I couldn't even BUY mercurochrome any more at the local pill, nostrum, greeting card, and whatnot emporium known as CVS. The PTB (Powers That Be) have decided dabbing mercury on our cuts is too dangerous.

It's a wonder we survived. Of course, all weather is local, which means so are all weather prognostications. Despite all the nonsense about "six weeks left of winter," etc., Groundhog Day in North Dakota was only halfway through the danger zone of the ND winter. We still had to get through February AND March, when the worst blizzards came, plus April and May, too. I have a photo of my old yellow Chrysler almost completely buried in the May Day blizzard of 1967, but of course, I can't find it now in the gazillion photos unearthed during moving....

For My Devoted Readers in the Frozen North...

It's that time again: Time for

THE DIARY OF A MINNESOTA SNOW SHOVELER

December 8: 6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow
of the season, and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours
by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It
looked like a Grandma Moses print, so romantic we felt like newlyweds
again. I love snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a
fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World?

Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time
in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the
sidewalks. This afternoon the snow plow came along and covered up the
sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a
perfect life.

December 12: The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such
a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll
definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be
awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll
never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such
a nice man. I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14: Snow, lovely snow! 8" last night. The
temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so.
The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway
and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this
afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to
do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this
way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15: 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a
4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels.
Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the
electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

December 16: Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on
the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife
laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

December 17: Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy
to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile
the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and
try not to irritate her.

Guess I should've bought a wood stove but won't admit it
to her. God! I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing
to death in my own living room.

December 20: Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of
the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Goddam
snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but
they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying.
Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow
blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think
they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and
bill me. I think he's lying.

December 22: Bob was right about a white Christmas because
13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold it
probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up
to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got
undressed, pissed and dressed again I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob
who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter; but he says
he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.

December 23: Only 2" of snow today. And it warmed up to 0.
The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning.
What is she...nuts??? Why didn't she tell me to do that a month
ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.

December 24: 6". Snow packed so hard by snowplow,
l broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch
the son of a bitch who drives that snowplow, I'll drag him through the
snow by his balls. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to
finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at 100 miles an hour
and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me
to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was
busy watching for the goddam snowplow.

December 25: Merry Christmas. 20 more inches of the
goddamed slop tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood
boil. God I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking
for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says
I have a bad attitude. I think she's an idiot. If I have to watch
"It's a Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to kill her.

December 26: Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever
move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27: Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes
froze.

December 28: Warmed up to above -50. Still snowed in.
THE BITCH is driving me crazy!!!

December 29: 10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel
the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard.
How dumb does he think I am?

December 30: Roof caved in. The snow plow driver is suing
me for a million dollars for the bump on his head. The wife went
home to her mother. 9" predicted.

December 31: Set fire to what's left of the house. No
more shoveling.

January 8: I feel so good. I just love those little white
pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?

"Snow" day

Today's "snow day" wasn't like years ago, when a blizzard would shut down the whole state, and after it got dark, we'd come in* and do jigsaw puzzles or play Sorry.

*It could have been 20 degrees below zero with a 20 mph wind blowing, but we all played OUTSIDE! Maybe it was instinct, but one of the first things we'd do was dig a cave (we called it our "igloo") in one of the huge mounds of snow created when someone (yeah, we did that, too) shoveled the sidewalk. We'd make this igloo big enough to hold 3 or 4 kids in snowsuits (remember Ralphie in "The Christmas Story"?), and then we'd crawl into it and sit there, resting or packing snow balls. It was nice and warm in there. Had we paid attention in science class, we'd have known that the temperature of snow is something like 31 degrees ABOVE zero. So while the blizzard (yes, an actual blizzard by meteorological standards) raged outside, we were cozy warm and sweating a bit in all the layers of clothing forced on us by our mothers.

My "snow" day here just meant that I stayed indoors and mostly went through more of these effing boxes. I found all kinds of things I'm glad I didn't throw out. Like my Grandpa Dwyer's billfold--the one with Grandma Dwyer's photograph in it. She's holding, l. to r., my cousin Bill and my brother Paul in her lap. It must have been taken not too long before she died of a heart attack on the 4th of July. A year at most, maybe even a few days or weeks. I don't know...I wasn't around then.

Anyway, here she is with those two bonny boys. Bill graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and went on to be one of the original faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy (nuclear engineering). Paul grew up to be an executive for AT&T and after he retired, he was a consultant in the Middle and Far East as other countries set up modern telephone systems. He was the only one of my brothers, all much older than I, who ever had the time or inclination to play with me voluntarily when I was a toddler. Thanks, Paul.

There was nothing else in the billfold...I wonder where Grandpa's GROCERY LIST went?
A pound of bacon, two pounds of coffee, a loaf of bread, a can of tomatoes....I can't remember what all else was on it, but I do remember the total: $4.39.

Are we there yet???!!!

It's exasperating, reading the papers these days. Since the NYTimes sent Kristol away, I've been looking at their rag, also the WashPost. Not every day, but whenever I see one lying around in Starbucks. The impatience and badmouthing of President Obama's progress is breathtaking. This cartoon from Rob Rogers in the Post Gazette says it all.

It's here!

Here is my first homemade movie: "Snow falling, 1/27/09."

I looked out the window at 5 a.m., but there was nothing to see but the usual snowless street. Next time I looked was at 8:30 a.m., when Cathy called and said, "You can't walk this morning...it's snowing." Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the miniblind, and left the sash shut tight cuz it was C O L D. Well, Clement C. Moore said it better, but the excitement was the same.

It ain't Paris, and it's Georgia Avenue NW, not the Champs d'Elysee. It won't win an Oscar for in the Ultra Short Documentary category, and it shows the gritty view from my sun porch window, but the traffic sounds aren't too bad (no buses, usually 2-3 at a time, idling right smack dab under under the window), and you can SEE THE SNOW FALLING!!

My stars and garters!!!

First Snow Flakes!!

We had our first snow flakes here this afternoon. I saw half a dozen fall when I went down for the mail, but by the time I ran upstairs for my camera and back down again, they were gone. Cathy says we're supposed to get more tonight. Gee!!

Hope I can get a picture!

Real Science Comes to Washington

Salon's lead-off article this morning, "Real Science Comes to Washington" points out the natural catastrophe we're facing from manmade global warming. Here's what it says in the first three paragraphs:

(What we need to do:)

The greatest task of the Obama administration -- and the next 10 presidents -- is to avoid catastrophic global warming. The latest science warns that the unstable West Antarctic ice sheet has been warming significantly since the 1950s, the rate of Greenland summer ice loss tripled last year, and the planet as a whole lost 2 trillion tons of ice in the last five years. The best mid-range estimate for sea level rise by the year 2100 is 5 feet, much higher than U.N. scientists projected just two years ago.

(Does President Obama understand this:)

Fortunately, Obama clearly gets it. He devoted more of his inaugural address to clean energy and global warming than even the strongest advocate could have imagined, asserting, "We will work tirelessly to ... roll back the specter of a warming planet." More important, he has assembled a team with unmatched knowledge and commitment to solve the climate problem.

(The biggest obstacles are the media, major opinion makers, and the GOP:)

But the path toward a carbon-reduced future will not be an easy one. President Obama will be challenged by a lack of awareness by the media and major opinion makers, who still don't grasp the scope of the problem, and by the majority of GOP politicians who refuse to accept the dire facts of climate science. If Obama is going to lead this country and the world in the fight to preserve a livable climate, he will be forced to do so in a partisan fashion. That task can't be underestimated. But it's a huge relief to see the energy team that Obama has assembled for the battle.

Please read the whole post (click link in the first line) and give thanks that the President of the United States has at least gotten serious. The second page of the article is subtitled "Overcoming Eight Years of Disinformation," and it details the efforts of (guess who?) the Washington Post and the New York Times to continue to GET IT ALL WRONG.

Note to my fellow peace marchers of the past eight years: Now is not the time to relax. Bush is gone, but the media and the right wing remain. Let's keep marching!!

Daily Kos's "Health Care Friday"

Daily Kos has another home run with today's post:

Health Care Friday
by DemFromCT
Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 06:50:03 AM PST

* WSJ says pediatrician Richard Besser will be the new acting CDC Director. Besser was interviewed as part of a pandemic flu exercise post here, for some background.

* New human cases of H5N1 in China raise concern.

China faces a "grim" situation in preventing and controlling human cases of bird flu, the health minister said, after announcing four human infections in the last two weeks and three deaths.

China also says don't worry. Commentary from revere at Effect Measure at ScienceBlogs (the reveres will be interviewed for Flu and You - Part III, coming on Sunday Kos.)
* CDC weekly flu update

* From the Gates Foundation:

Global Health Community Commits Over $630 Million in Aggressive Push for Polio Eradication

Rotary International, Gates Foundation, United Kingdom, and Germany pledge critically needed funds and urge donor and endemic country governments to help end crippling childhood disease.

NY Times on the story.
* From a Physicians for Human Rights press release:

According to a press release issued today from the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, the mother of Arash and Kamiar Alaei recently broke her silence in an interview with Iranian news media. The press release stated that the mother told Rooz Online [link] that her sons had been held for 63 days in solitary confinement and that she feared that they might be tortured to coerce false confessions on camera.

More from the LA Times.
* The Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) and the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) make the case for more funding for infectious diseases in the stimulus package.

IDSA strongly supports infectious diseases programs that are funded under the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. The House stimulus bill allocates "35 million in new funding for programs funded under the Center, but href=" billion infusion of resources would ensure that the national response to HIV, tuberculosis, STDs and viral hepatitis is adequate.

* Kaiser Family Foundation:

Medicaid enrollment in a number of states grew by 5% to 10% in the last 12 months as the economic recession continued and more people lost their jobs and employer-sponsored health insurance, the New York Times reports. In a nationwide survey by the Times, 16 of the 40 states that responded had experienced at least a 5% increase in enrollment over the past 12 months that data was available, and the growth rate has at least doubled in many states compared with the previous year.

The pressure on state budgets is enormous. Health reform (i.e. health finance reform, even more than access and quality reform, the other legs of the tripod) is an integral part of the economic picture.
* NY Times:

One in seven Americans under age 65 went without prescribed medicines in 2007 as drug costs spiraled upward in the United States, a nonprofit research group said on Thursday.

* What's up with Texas, anyway?

With President Barack Obama a strong supporter and bipartisan Senate support precluding the possibility of a filibuster, many GOP members of Congress who had previously opposed the [SCHIP] program joined the majority. Among them were Florida’s Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Alaska’s Don Young, all of whom faced tough re-election campaigns against Democrats who used their SCHIP opposition as an issue. Their near-death election experiences apparently provoked a legislative conversion.

No such rethinking of previous partisan positions was evident in the Texas delegation, where 20 Republicans voted against the SCHIP bill. The state leads the nation in percentage of uninsured children, with Harris County having the largest rate of unprotected youngsters.

It's their political funeral.
* DrSteveB reviews recent health care books.

This diary suggests 5 best readings, for the general public and would-be policy wonks, regarding our current health care system and changes to come, and the recent books by our new HHS Secretary, health reform czar, and former senate majority leader Tom Daschle, and by Ezekiel (and brother of Rahm) Emanuel.

* Autism may not be from vaccines, and the longitudinal children's study may take years and not provide answers for autism, but we still need to know more.

Autism tops Barack Obama's medical to-do list, according to the new president's website. Whitehouse.gov launched at 12:01 pm yesterday, even before the new president had taken his oath of office on the Capitol's West Front. Autism is the only disorder or disease mentioned explicitly in Obama's 24-point agenda. Heart disease and cancer don't get the call. Neither does diabetes, or other chronic diseases. But there are four hefty bullet points addressing autism. Obama called for:
1. Increased funding for research, treatment, screenings, public awareness and support services for autism spectrum disorders.
2. "Life-long services" for people with autism spectrum disorders, as children and as adults. Many parents struggle to find and pay for screening and treatments for their children, but there is even less coverage and capacity for adults with autism-based impairments
3. More funding for the 2006 Combating Autism Act, as well as improving state and federal autism programs.
4. Universal screening for all infants for autism disorders, as well as re-screening for all 2-year-olds. This is the biggie; children are currently screened only if parents or pediatricians voice a concern, so too many children aren't diagnosed until they enter elementary school. The earlier treatment starts, the more effective it is, and a national screening program would help reduce the number of kids falling through the cracks. It would also be a huge undertaking, at a time when both government and privately insured health care is foundering.

Thanks be for all the smart bloggers out there, posting what it would take me months to find out on my own. Cheers

GOP attack machine up and running - UPDATED

Daily Kos has a good post today, too. Read it and weep or gnash your teeth or throw a shoe at the radio!

The GOP Attack Machine Kicks Into Gear
by Jed L
Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 06:04:11 PM PST

It's as easy to see as 1-2-3:

1. Rush Limbaugh tells his radio audience that he wants Obama to fail.

2. Within four hours of Barack Obama's inauguration, FOX was pimping the Republican talking point that the Dow took the biggest dive of any inaugural day in history, mentioning it on at least ten separate occasions. (The talking point is technically true, but misleading. It ignores the fact that in percentage terms, the Dow dropped by about the same amount as it did on Ronald Reagan's inaugural day. More importantly, the drop had no more to do with Obama than the fact that on Wednesday, the Dow climbed by more points than it has on the first full day in office of any President in U.S. history.)

3. On Wednesday alone, Republicans stalled Secretary of State Clinton's confirmation until late in the day, lambasted Timothy Geithner for having screwed up his taxes a few years ago, even though he's subsequently paid back everything that was due, and blocked a vote on Eric Holder's nomination to be Attorney General.

President Obama has steadfastly extended his hand to these very same Republicans. He's tried in good faith to work with them. He's given them every opportunity to be a productive part of this government, even though they were battered in the November elections.

But so far, the GOP is refusing the President's olive branch. Instead of signing up to help turn this country around, they are playing the same old petty partisan games that led to their defeat in 2008.

They might be making the mistake of misinterpreting President Obama's gestures as signs of weakness. They might think that he doesn't have the heart for conflict.

If that's what they believe, and they insist on continuing on their destructive path, then they are making a grave mistake. They have no idea what's coming. If they thought 2008 was bad, just wait until 2010.

Smart Republicans understand that now is the time to jump on board the train. Trouble for the GOP is, not that many of them are all that smart.

After all, these are the same jokers who got us into this mess in the first place.

Didn't Rush Limbaugh see "Bambi" as a kid? You know, "Thumper, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

UPDATE:
Kay Dennison and Peggy reminded me about Al Franken's wonderful book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Check it out HERE!!