Lift Up Your Hearts!

I don't expect my resolve to last long, but I'm going to attempt to put a gag on Li'l Writer Guy.  I love to write, and there's always a large backlog of issues, large and small, on which my mind is constantly spewing forth essay fragments.  Crafting them into some coherent form and publishing the result usually offers some relief, but recent political and philosophical discussions (of which what is published is but the tip of the iceberg) have instead left me enervated.

When I consider the long hours it takes to get my thoughts into shareable form, hours that have much more pressing needs tugging insistently at their sleeves, I'm thinking Li'l Writer Guy needs to spend some time with the Carthusian monks.

Like it or not, our country has placed itself under the threats I mentioned in Part I, and I can only hope that the mitigating factors of Part II will enable me to say, at the end of four years, "That wasn't so bad."  Regardless, although I believe the results of this election will make life more difficult, the important things do not change.  Here's some of what I believe we need to do in the coming years.

Who is the "we" in the following ruminations?  Mostly I'm speaking for myself, to myself, but often there will be a more general application, anyone who wishes to come along for the ride is welcome.

Part III — How We Can Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
       while in a foreign land? 
Psalm 137:1-4

First of all, we pick ourselves up with as much dignity as we have remaining and give respect and support to our new leaders.  "Fear God, honor the king" (I Peter 2:17) applies in a democracy, too.  Humor has an important place in discourse, but mean-spirited mockery does not.  I may have crossed the line with my "Obamanation" comment in Part I—at least two of my respected readers think so—though I'm not convinced it's inappropriate, given the messianic adulation accorded Obama by many of his followers.  Still, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the abuse heaped on George W. Bush, just as I was when it was Bill Clinton on the receiving end, and will accord Barack Obama the respect due the President of the United States, as well as that due a human being created in the image of God.

We pray for Barack Obama, and for all "who bear the authority of government."  If the Apostle Paul could write, per I Timothy 2:1-2, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made....for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness," while living under the Roman Emperor Nero, we can do the same living under an elected president who is not likely to include among his alternative energy polices the burning of living, human torches.

We attempt to live our lives in the best, most honest, most noble, and most loving way possible.  Back to I Peter again (2:15-16): "[I]t is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.  Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God."  The Republicans would do well to remember that scandal and wrong-doing among office holders has done more than anything else to bring them down.   Granted, it's not fair that the Democrats mostly get a pass for their equal or greater sins—although it's actually a compliment that better behavior is expected of Republicans—but the reality is that Republicans were hurt badly first by misbehavior and even more by not visiting swift and sure justice upon the miscreants.  To live purely and act rightly, with justice and love and in quiet confidence, will win more hearts than the most reasoned argument.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.  Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone....  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  (Romans 12:17-18, 21)

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.  (Philippians 2:14-15)

[L]et your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5:16).

We attend to the wisdom of the serpent as well as the harmlessness of the dove.  Now is not the time to retreat from the political process, but to be all the more involved that we might be alert to dangers that threaten what we hold dear, and to how we might best meet those threats. History has proven that when we are caught unaware we react hastily, badly, and often ineffectively.

We don't flee to the hills, or to another country (as many threatened after losing the 2000 and 2004 elections), or withdraw from the system in sulky silence.  It's not time, yet, for "those who are in Judea to flee to the mountains."  If we feel like exiles in our own land, it is time to remember what God said to his people at the time of another exile: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.  Increase in number there; do not decrease.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:5-7).  We continue to live our lives wisely and without fear.  The administration may have changed, but the basic rules of life have not.  There's still the Big Ten—don't steal, don't murder, don't mess with someone else's spouse, and all the rest—and the sound-bite version provided by Jesus:  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, [and] love your neighbor as yourself."

Many of us are accustomed to feeling alienated from the general American culture; it may even be easier—or at least clearer—when there's no pretense that "our guys" are in charge.  Whether it's financial responsibility, ethical behavior, or wise decision-making, in a democracy the citizens get no better from their government than the majority lives out in their lives.   True progress, then, requires that we balance a deliberate counter-cultural structuring of our own lives, families, and communities with a creative engagement of the larger culture.  That is how we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land.

Part II — Some Mitigating Factors

As I said in Part I, the prospect of the next four years under Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress disturbs me greatly.  The following are some of the reasons why the outcome of the election might not matter as much as I fear.

• The President of the United States never has as much power as we fear—or he would like.  Presidents acquire both credit and blame they don't deserve, for events set in motion long before they took office, or determined by forces over which they have no control.  Their campaign promises may tell us about their philosophies and their hopes (or they may not), but presidents by and large are at the mercy of legislators, judges, the press, public opinion, and a host of natural phenomena and international situations beyond their purview.  This is a good thing.


• I have yet to find a strong positive correlation between a president's apparent potential and his performance.  Ronald Reagan was an actor, once uttered the infamous statement, "A tree's a tree; how many of them to you need to look at?" and his wife consulted horoscopes, yet his presidency encompassed some of the best years in my experience, both domestically and internationally.  Bill Clinton's sexual proclivities made a mockery of the office, he lied under oath, and he threatened to take the country on a far-leftward swing complete with nationalized medical care, yet if you look at reality rather than rhetoric you could make a case that George W. Bush was the more liberal president.  True, some of Clinton's success came from riding on the coattails of what was accomplished under Reagan, and his administration is probably to blame for some of the conditions that led to our problems with al-Qaeda, and certainly much of the reason he was not the Liberal success many had hoped for lies in Republican opposition in the Legislature—still, the point is that his time in office was not the unmitigated disaster many—including me—had feared.  Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, are stellar examples of how good men, with strong morals and a determination to do the right thing in all of life, from the bedroom to the war room, can still be really lousy presidents.  I may yet look back on an Obama presidency and say, "This wasn't as bad as I had expected."  I doubt it, but you never know.


• George W. Bush did not want to spend most of his presidency embroiled in a war, and whoever wins today's election did not want to spend most of his presidency weighed down by economic woes, but such realities arise and force presidents to set aside their own agendas.  Unfortunately, they can also be a smokescreen through which really bad policies are slipped past our distracted eyes, so vigilance is still the order of the day.  Our next president must deal not only with the troubling economic situation at home and abroad, but may face political and military challenges most of us would rather not contemplate.  Any hopes that our only significant threat comes from Islamic terrorists and rogue dictators of minor countries are foolish at best.  Russia is beginning to flex its muscles in a way more frightening than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and as for China—J. R. R. Tolkien said it best:  It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.  We attempt to elect the best person for the job, yet the job rarely turns out to be what we expect.  Sometimes presidents rise above themselves when the occasion demands.


• One of the advantages of being a Christian is knowing that God's plans can never be thwarted, not by the President of the United States and not even by the Supreme Court.  The election results may make our paths more difficult, but they won't change the ultimate direction, and God will be with us through each turning.  But that is the subject of Part III.

If I'm going to make a political post before Election Day, I'd better move quickly.  This won't have as much as I want to say, nor as much careful crafting as I want to put into it, but it will still be too long and take too much time.  It will be in three parts, reflecting my three conflicting and complementing moods as I contemplate the next four years.

Part I — Why This Election Is So Threatening

It is far too tempting to begin this section with a slight alteration of Mark 13:14.

When you see 'the Obomanation that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

I don't actually think that an Obama presidency would be the end of the world, but this was too good to pass up.  And I do believe my friend—a calm, rational, wise friend, not given to radical statements—who said the other day, "The world as we know it is about to change drastically."  She did not mean for the good.  Those whose rallying cry is "Change!" would do well to remember that derivatives can be negative as well as positive.

Why am I so worried about an Obama presidency?  First, let me state that if there were a solid Republican majority in both the House and the Senate, with every prospect for a super majority of Republicans in the Senate, I would probably support the Democratic candidate for president:  no party should have that kind of control over both the Executive and the Legislative branches.  We all—Democrats, Republicans, and Others—are fallen human beings and without effective checks and balances (especially checks) on our actions, we are likely to make bad decisions.  Add conditions of confusion, fear, and anger, and we can expect very bad decisions.  Thus I find the perfect storm of financial and political chaos with a Democratic President, House, and Senate frightening indeed.  If you think the panic after the September 11 attacks caused us to accept significant compromises to our freedoms, just wait till you see what the combination of an activist government and financial insecurity will do.

For several elections now, one of the primary determiners of my choice has been the possibility of openings on the Supreme Court.  I'd love to be able to believe that the Supreme Court Justices are above politics and look at the Constitution objectively, without regard to their own social, political, and religious beliefs, but I know better.  Leery as I am about having both the Presidency and the Legislature strongly on the Left side of the political spectrum, when I think about a Leftist Judiciary completing the triumvirate I see Category 5 damage coming that may never be undone.  I suspect there are several Liberal judges who have been hanging on by their fingernails just waiting for the Democrats to be able to control the nomination and confirmation of their replacements.  Skewing the Supreme Court in the direction of further judicial activism and greater regard for social engineering than for the Constitution they are interpreting will do more damage to America than anything else our president and legislators can do.  Elected officials and parties can be voted out; Supreme Court justices and their decisions are out of our hands.

On the other issues of concern I can barely touch, for each is worth a post (or several) in itself.  Foreign policy?  Whoever wins this election is in for a rough ride.  Obama may find himself in what appears to be a honeymoon for a while, but he's neither experienced nor stalwart enough to avoid being at a substantial disadvantage in the diplomacy game and weakening our country significantly.  Believe me, I'm not saying Bush is doing well—anyone who can "look into Putin's soul" and not see the KGB ought to leave the negotiations to someone with better eyesight—but I fear we are about to go from bad to worse.  Domestically?  Whether it's economics, education, health care, or any other issue in which freedom of choice is our best hope, we are looking at disastrous policies ahead.  Our country is experiencing a strong slide towards socialism and I'm afraid a McCain presidency can't stop it, but he might slow it enough for us to get our bearings again, while with Obama I see wild careering in that direction.  The Democrats claim to be the party for "choice," but just as with "change," we must look beyond the mantra.  Although many homeschoolers and home birthing families are Democrats and vote accordingly, the party itself appears committed to creating, supporting, and enforcing educational and medical near-monopolies.  While I believe that there are some functions that governments do best, making life decisions for individuals and families is not one of them. I mention these topics specifically because they are close to my heart and I know more than most about them, but the general principles, policies, and attitudes apply widely.

It is now Election Day itself, and I'm splitting off Part II and Part III so I can get this posted.  I'll close Part I with an observation.  I've said before (for example here, and here) that one thing that frightens me about Barack Obama is that he is so charismatic he might actually accomplish some of his goals.  Lately I've come to realize that the danger goes beyond that.  What I'm hearing from so many of Obama's followers has gone far beyond what they like about his ideas to an open adulation of the man himself.  Adolf Hitler was before my time, and I don't know enough about Chinese and Islamic cultures to understand the attractions of Chairman Mao or the Ayatollah Khomeini, but I'm old enough to remember the adoration inspired by John F. Kennedy and later Robert Kennedy.  No, I'm not saying that Obama is another Hitler!  But we would do well to remember that we are in no way morally superior to the Germans of Hitler's day who responded to political humiliation and a severe economic crisis by embracing a charismatic leader who made them feel better about themselves.  If Barack Obama is elected today, as I believe he will be, we would all do well to keep our eyes wide open and consider well the probable effects of his policies and proposed actions rather than being swept away by rhetoric.  Come to think of it, that's a wise idea no matter who wins the election.

Yesterday we capped a busy day (at church till mid-afternoon for a special event, followed by—oh, joy!—flu shots) with our second Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra concert of the year.  I'm greatly enjoying Chris Wilkins' approach to concert programming:  he chooses a good blend of old and new, familiar and unknown, comfortable and challenging.  Well, just barely challenging, but that's okay; I prefer my musical challenges on a smaller scale and with explanation, as with Bernard Rands' Memo 8, which came to mind when I was pondering "challenging."  That was one of my favorite Eastman concert experiences, and I would love to hear it performed again, but I don't see that happening; even a Google search nets little, and my favorite oboist has gone Medieval—not that I mind that!  Ah, well—I have my recording.  But I digress greatly.

Last night's concert showed Wilkins' programming strengths and his willingness to venture into non-traditional concert territory. The theme was Abraham Lincoln, and the program a collaboration with the Orange County History Center.

First I must say that there were several oboe solos during the evening, and I am much encouraged about our new Principal Oboe, Jamie Strefeler.  I wasn't particularly impressed at the opening concert, in addition to being shocked at the loss of Jared Houser, whose sound I love.  But last night was pleasing indeed.

The program opened with seven movements from Ernst Bacon's Ford's Theatre; A Few Glimpses of Easter Week 1865.  Bacon was a contemporary of Virgil Thompson and Aaron Copland; both the composer and the work were unknown to me, but the music was enjoyable and worth hearing again.  Speaking of repetition, I wasn't looking forward that much to hearing the second work, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.  Not that I don't love Beethoven's Fifth, but it is heard so frequently that one tends to have only the best performances in one's mind, and thus it's too easy to be critical.  Nonetheless, the OPO did a creditable job, and it really was enjoyable.  Are you wondering what Beethoven has to do with Abraham Lincoln?  So was I.  It turns out that this symphony was born just a few months before Lincoln, and its themes are appropriate to the struggles and turmoil of Lincoln's time.

Side note:  Although the volume was sometimes impressive, as it should be for such a piece, it was not painful, so I don't know what was going on with my ears at the last concert.

Did I mention pain?  Alas, that was my first impression of the second half of the program, which is sad because it was a very cool production, and most of it was great.  They performed four works in succession, as movements of a single piece (i.e. no applause in between):  Jay Ungar's Ashokan Farewell, Stella Sung's Lincoln's Battle (commissioned by the OPO for this concert), the CIVIL warS: Interlude No. 1 by Philip Glass, and Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait.  The last two works were accompanied by large-screen photographs of the era arranged by photochoreographer James Westwater.  Porter was distracted a bit by being pretty certain some of the photos were Matthew Brady's fakes, and I spent more time thinking about my own 19th century ancestors than Lincoln, but the music/art combination was still effective.

Back to the pain.  I've loved Ashokan Farewell since I first heard it on Ken Burns' Civil War PBS production, I loved it when Janet performed it on violin back in her Suzuki days, and I love it every time my mp3 player randomly chooses to play the free download I found too long ago to remember.  I was not able to find that source again, but you can hear part of the original Ashokan Farewell here, and some of the lovely Harpsong version here.  In each case, click on the arrow to the left of the title.  This is the melody I—and I daresay most of the audience—know and love; this is what Porter was expecting, (albeit in an orchestral version) when he leaned over to me, just prior to the first notes, and whispered how much he was looking forward to hearing it.

Alas.  That is not what we heard.  I was surprised, even shocked, by the intensity of my reaction.  Normally I'm pretty easy to please in a concert, tend not to notice any but the most blatant flaws, and dislike criticism of a performance because it diminishes my own enjoyment.  But this hurt.  It set my teeth on edge and formed a tight knot in my stomach that wasn't eased until several notes into the next piece.  I'm not saying that concertmaster Tamas Kocsis was wrong in his interpretation.  Ungar describes Ashokan Farewell as "in the style of a Scottish lament," and I know that part of the art and musicianship of Celtic music is in the ornamentation and in taking a tune and doing different things with it.  I may be totally wrong in my objections.  But to me, this felt like bait and switch.  As if I went to a concert expecting Handel's Messiah and found it set to a salsa rhythm.  It just felt wrong; the style didn't fit with the sense I have of the piece.  Things got better when the orchestra joined in, but that was not sufficient to dispel the shock.

Fortunately, Stella Sung never disappoints.  I first encountered her music when the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra played her Orlando Suite in 1997 and am always excited when I see one of her compositions on the program.  Because of the subject matter, Lincoln's Battle is darker and more difficult, but was still a relief after Ashokan Farewell.  The Philip Glass piece was also new to me, but definitely a pleasure to listen to, and Copland's Lincoln Portrait is always powerful.

And thanks to the return of Standard Time, we were able to attend the concert and still get to bed by 10:00.  :)

I've been an adotive Red Sox fan for more than 30 years now, and duly celebrated when they won their long-awaited World Series title, and when they did it again.  But I'm from Philadelphia (among other places), and the only major league game I've ever seen live and in person was with the Philadelphia Phillies.  That was back in the Connie Mack Stadium days, which incidentally makes it fun for me that one of Florida's Congressmen is also Connie Mack, grandson of the original Philadelphia manager.  I wonder if he suffered conflicting loyalties in the recent World Series.

Had it been a Red Sox - Phillies battle, loyalties here—and in at least one other household in our family—would, indeed, have been conflicted.  But it wasn't, and my identity with Florida is not enough to extend to Tampa Bay if they're going against the Phillies.  Not that I watched any of the games myself, though I read that the final game so was exciting I almost wish I had.

Congratulations, Phillies, and our favorite Phillies fans!  Enjoy the moment!

To all those following and praying for Heather, Jon, and Judy Wilson:  Judy's trial resumes this afternoon.  I'm no longer there to continue my blow-by-blow commentary, but I'll pass on the news as I am able.  Jon is now scheduled to appear as a defense witness, so prayers for him and his testimony would be appreciated.   (I find it bizaare that he was ping-ponged that way—he was originally scheduled, like Heather, as a witness for the prosecution—but my prosecuting attorney friends don't.  Facts are facts, and you use whomever you need to establish them.)

There may even be a verdict today, so prayers for the judge would also be a very good thing!

I spent several of my formative years in the City of Soft-Pretzel-y-Love.  Not the fancy, cheese-filled mall variety, or the bake-at-home frozen blandness, but the soft, chewy, salty Philadelphia Pretzel, preferably from a germ-laden street vendor's cart and drizzled, of course, with mustard.  Nothing ever tastes as good as memory makes it, so for over thirty years I have been making do.

Enter Facebook.  Bear with me here, it's a convoluted story.

It all began, for me, when Janet joined Facebook.  I no longer remember what brought her, reluctantly, to that point, but she had so much fun re-connecting with old friends that she persuaded me to join as well.  The connecting-with-old-friends bit only works if one's friends are also on Facebook, which is much less likely for folks of my age, but nonetheless I've made a few enjoyable connections.  As a whole I find the Facebook package more annoying than not, but can put up with it for the few gems it tosses my way.

Like the inspiration for this post.  This summer I met a friend of my son-in-law-to-be.  Enjoyable as our time together was, we are far apart both generationally and geographically, and in the old days the chances of her sharing a recipe with me would have been nil.  But she is on Facebook, and graciously accepted my "friend request," the result of which is that when she posted a video on pretzel-making, I found it.  There are actually two in the series:

It is a very good thing we do not have cable television.  Put me in front of a food channel and I might not move all day.  Other shows by this guy are proving a major temptation getting in the way of progress this week.  "This guy" is Alton Brown, and his show, Good Eats, is on the Food Network (whatever that is).  Some related links:  One set of shows on YouTube, another set of shows on YouTube, and the fan page.  (I spent a fair amount of time trying to determine the legality or lack thereof of having the shows posted on YouTube, without success, but they've been there for quite awhile without being removed, and one of the posters runs the fan site and knows the chef, so I'm feeling free to enjoy them unless convinced otherwise.)

After all the preliminaries...ta da!  What I Did Yesterday:  I made the pretzels!  It was easy!  Dark brown, shiny, chewy, and exceedingly delicious, with or without mustard.

 

Did I say they were good?  I mean really, really good.  Even without the umibacillus vendorophilus.

Many people travel on business.  It's not an easy life, and different people have different strategies for coping with the stress and boredom.  Some appreciate the opportunity to explore new cities; some enjoy the perks of nicer hotels, restaurants, and even golf courses than they would otherwise be able to afford; some accumulate airline and hotel points and use them to provide their families with otherwise unreachable opportunities.  There are also those who take advantage of the relative anonymity and distance from home and family to indulge in wanton behavior.

Some businessmen, however, wax poetic.  Don't miss this offering from our favorite thduggie.

The European Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Chinese activist Hu Jia.  I'm embarrassed to say I know very little about his work, but the fact the the Europeans defied Chinese pressure to ignore him is enough for me to cheer about.

Read more here.

The life of a travelling businessman is not easy, but rain brings rainbows, at least if you look from a favorable angle.  My recent trip to Phoenix was such a rainbow. You'd think that an introvert like me would not be eager to leave home so soon after having been away for a month, but this was the time that was available—and it turned out to be perfect.

Fly Southwest airlines in the middle of the week, and you can get away with forgetting to print your boarding pass until four hours after check-in opens, as I did once and still got a boarding slot in the A-30's.  Fridays, however, are filled with savvy businessmen anxious to return home; Porter still snagged an A-30's number for me, but had to check in during the first couple of minutes to do so.  Due to his many flights on Southwest, his own A-list number is guaranteed.  Southwest is currently my favorite airline, they having so far been able to resist charging for normal luggage, drinks, and snacks.  Little things, I know, but their value in generating positive feelings toward the airline is disproportionate to the cost, at least in my case.  Conversely, I feel a lot worse about USAirways than their extra charges would actually merit.

Be that as it may, I enjoyed the flight, as I usually do.  You can tell I'm still a novice flyer:  I love observing the ground and the clouds; I love having an extended time when I can pull out my World of Puzzles magazine without any guilt feelings.  Well, not many anyway.  I know there's work I can do sitting in an airplane, but I generally give myself permission to ignore it when I'm flying.  After four hours in my seat, however, I could see why these little perks don't have the same thrill for those who fly frequently on business.

Our flight landed about 7 p.m., but as Arizona is a "free" state—refusing submission to Daylight Saving Time—my first ride through Phoenix was in the dark.  Despite the darkness, navigation to our hotel in Tucson was a piece of cake, thanks to the Hertz NeverLost GPS system in our rental car.  We had come prepared with physical maps from AAA and Google Maps printouts, and indeed they were also useful at different points during the week, but the NeverLost was a very helpful—not to mention fun—toy.

Porter had chosen to stay in Tucson to give us a head start on the drive to Saturday's destination:  Chiricahua National Monument.  One doesn't normally associate Holiday Inns with luxury, or at least I don't, but having frequent-stayer status hath its privileges, and we had a nice little suite—not that we had time to enjoy it much.  Jet-lag was making its presence known, and we had a big day planned for the morrow.

We've lived in Florida over 20 years and have had a few interesting animal encounters, like the time we were driving home from choir rehearsal and had to stop while an alligator crossed the road ahead of us.  Usually, though, it's pretty tame around here, once you get accustomed to lizards in the house, palmetto bugs (aka cockroaches on steroids), and spiders half the size of your hand.

There is a small part not far from our house that hosts a suprising variety of flora and fauna for its size.  From pileated woodpeckers to herons and sandhill cranes, from squirrels to gopher tortoises, you never know what you'll encounter on the jogging trail.  Once I even met a red fox.

I try to walk every day for about an hour, and at my pace four times around the jogging trail runs just five minutes over that, so since I had to be out in the car anyway, that's where I decided to walk today.  It was on my second lap that I had The Encounter:  wending its way across the trail just a few feet in front of my striding legs was my first ever, in-the-wild, live-as-it-could be coral snake!

Pencil-thin and about a foot long—perhaps he was a youngster—he was minding his own business and slithered off into the woods on the other side of the trail, so I did not let his presence deter me from completing my circuits.  On returning home, however, I hastened to google "coral snake" to prove my memory, which has been confused ever since I realized that the old jingle, "Red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black, friend of Jack" (and variations thereon) could easily be reworked to say just the opposite.  It's like when I thought I was clever to remember how to get to the public parking lot near St. Luke's Cathedral in Orlando:  Turn at the first president.  Easy enough; one turns on Washington Street.  But then I realized that when driving one actually encounters Jefferson Street before Washington, so in another sense that is the first president, and I remained confused until I had made the trip often enough to remember to turn on Washington without any clever memory aids.

In the future, I don't think I'll be needing rhymes to help me tell the difference between a coral snake and the harmless scarlet king snake or milk snake.  Those equal-sized red and black stripes separated by narrow yellow bands will be hard to forget.  I've seen coral snakes in zoos before, but that is not the same thing as a personal encounter, and adrenaline sharpens memory.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recently doubled its recommendation of vitamin D intake for children, from 200 IU to 400 IU per day.  Not only is vitamin D important in the prevention of ricketts, but there is increasing evidence that its deficiency can promote type 2 diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.  Some doctors think 400 IU may not be enough.

This recommendation is all well and good, but I draw the line at this:  Breastfed and partially breastfed infants should be supplemented with 400 IU a day of vitamin D beginning in the first few days of life.  The reason?  [B]ecause of vitamin D deficiencies in the maternal diet, which affect the vitamin D in a mother’s milk, it is important that breastfed infants receive supplements of vitamin D.

There's a point there.  If the nursing mother isn't getting enough vitamin D, one or both of the pair will suffer.  And I suppose the widespread recommendation of supplementation is the best a group like the AAP can do to address a general problem.  But I would be more inclined to address the real problem by making sure the mother is properly nourished, and in ways as natural as possible rather than through artificial supplements.

How can one acquire 400 IU of vitamin D?  A teaspoon of cod liver oil will get you more that, but if you want more palatable sources, 3.5 ounces of cooked salmon have 360 IU, the same amount of cooked mackeral has 345, 1.75 ounces of sardines in oil have 350, and 6 ounces of tuna canned in oil have 200.

Then there's my favorite source:  playing outside in the sun.  It doesn't take much, although the amount is variable, depending on latitude, time of year, and cloud cover.  The factors that affect UV radiation exposure and research to date on the amount of sun exposure needed to maintain adequate vitamin D levels make it difficult to provide general guidelines. It has been suggested, for example, that approximately 5-30 minutes of sun exposure between 10 AM and 3 PM at least twice a week to the face, arms, legs, or back without sunscreen usually lead to sufficient vitamin D synthesis.

There you go:  permission granted to play outside a few minutes several times a week.  Maybe schools should re-institute a sound recess policy.  Northern children would need longer playtimes, however.  The UV energy above 42 degrees north latitude (a line approximately between the northern border of California and Boston) is insufficient for cutaneous vitamin D synthesis from November through February; in far northern latitudes, this reduced intensity lasts for up to 6 months. Latitudes below 34 degrees north (a line between Los Angeles and Columbia, South Carolina) allow for cutaneous production of vitamin D throughout the year.  [Pardon the source's obvious prejudice against the southern hemisphere.]

Did you note the clever design here?  The northern climes, in which sun exposure is insufficient for at least part of the year to produce adequate levels of vitamin D, have the cold-water fish whose oils are high in that vitamin.  How efficient is that?  It's another indication to me that the system was designed to work, and since babies were designed to subsist solely on mother's milk for at least the first several months of life, it makes much more sense to me for the mother to make sure she gets plenty of vitamin D herself, and to take her baby outside with her now and then, than to give artificial supplements.

Legal disclaimer:  I'm a grandmother, not a doctor.  This is my opinion, not medical advice.  Check with your own doctor, do your own research, and use your own common sense.  [No, I'm not paranoid about the recent lawsuits against bloggers...not really....]

While waiting at the computer, and feeling a little nostalgic for Basel, I found this, which I post for those who wish to see a bit of where they will be in a few months.  Be sure to show Jonathan the Hammering Man.  If I don't look at the feet I can imagine the runner is Janet.  :)

I love to cook, but that's something I keep forgetting.  Maybe I need an audience; it hardly seems worth the time and effort when I'm eating alone, and even when I'm not we're usually so busy it hardly seems reasonable to spend much time cooking.  But Porter keeps talking about how this is the best restaurant in town, so it seems only fair to work towards making that a reality.  On Saturday, we had some of our favorite company over for dinner—the best kind to cook for, because they're always appreciative and don't mind being guinea pigs for whatever I want to try out.

Earlier this summer, my nephew had feasted us on Hazelnut-Crusted Chicken with Raspberry Sauce, a Bon Appétit recipe from Epicurious.com.  The taste was even more amazing than this beautiful presentation (click on picture for larger view):

It was a recipe I knew I had to add to my repertoire, so that's what I served.  Sort of.  Well, actually, that was the starting point, but I never can resist changing things along the way.  One of our guests doesn't eat meat, so I used salmon instead of chicken.  I had the store take the skin off the filet, then sliced it into pieces about two inches wide.  I could have bought hazelnuts, but had pecans in stock, and I used raspberry balsamic vinegar instead of white wine vinegar, canola oil instead of safflower, Cherchies' Champagne Mustard instead of honey mustard, Penzeys' Florida Seasoned Pepper for half the black pepper—you get the picture.  And because it was fish, I baked it for about 20 minutes instead of frying it first.

Despite all the changes, the end result was still really, really good.  I'm going to go raid the leftovers now....