Lift Up Your Hearts!

I really have little right to complain about Windows Media Player as I'm only in the beginning stages of trying to understand it.  Jon and Heather gave me a great gift recently:  a 40G mp3 player which I plan to integrate into our stereo system as an N-disk CD changer, where N is a very large number.  How lazy can you get?  But I know I will take much better advantage of our large CD collection when I don't have to go to all the bother of actually replacing the CD in the player.  This gift was a delightful surprise, not only because it's something I've been thinking about for a long time but hadn't done anything about, but especially because I didn't have to do the shopping.  :)

To my even greater delight, Jon altered the firmware so that I can see the device on my computer directly through Windows Explorer (which, to show my age, I occasionally call "File Manager") instead of through the mediation of Windows Media Player.  But I like WMP for playing CD's, so I decided to try to figure out how to use its Library feature.

I haven't tried hard enough to give up yet.  But I'm allowing myself to indulge in a grumble:  Why does it have to be so non-intuitive?  I know I've been spoiled.  One used to need to read the manual thoroughly before being able to use software; now the interface is usually so accommodating it takes special effort even to find a manual.  I've been able to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft applications pretty much out of the box, so I was expecting more of Media Player.

What I can't get my head around is how it is organized, and how it works.  It scans my computer for audio files automatically, thereby picking up all sorts of files I don't want in the Library, but won't allow me to add a specific file manually.  If I drag a file from Explorer into WMP, I can't add it directly to the library—it just plays.  Somehow the act of playing automatically adds things to the Library, but what a strange way to accomplish a simple task.  When I change data from within WMP it seems to change the file sometimes, but not others.  I changed the name of an album in WMP, but that change did not affect the name I saw in Explorer, and vice versa.  I tried deleting the album from the Library, then adding it again, hoping it would pick up the right name, but that only worked if I checked the option, "Add files previously deleted from Library"—and that picked up the old file name, not the new.  And there are other identifiers, such as "genre," which are somehow associated with the file itself—if I copy it manually to the mp3 player, not using the WMP Sync function, the data is there—but I haven't yet figured a way to access (and change) it from Explorer.  I think I'd rather use WMP—it has some nice editing features—but don't want to spend a lot of time making changes only to see them undone when I rearrange my files, which is what happened once already.

Oh well, I'm not asking for answers here; I'm going to stumble along in my usual way—though I've already found out that the Help file answers questions I don't have more than questions I do, such as "How can you make something that should be as simple as changing a file and make it so complicated?"  No doubt once I'm familiar with the system I'll laugh at my baby steps, but right now it's rather like the first stages of learning Japanese, when I could hardly distinguish one sound from another.  I need a "Press 1 for English" button.

With my interest in both children and education you knew it wouldn't be long before I commented on the latest "Baby Einstein" controversy.  A study (based on telephone surveys) published in The Journal of Pediatrics found that babies between eight and sixteen months experienced a significant decrease in language development for every hour spent per day viewing baby videos.

Now those who ridicule parents' attempts to enrich their children's early educational enviroments are having an I-told-you-so field day, and those who profit from the business are crying foul.  The responses that bother me most, however, are those of the defenders of baby videos.  They are giving answers to the wrong questions, and reassurances for the wrong concerns.

Commentators rushing to the defense of parents readily cede the ground of infant stimulation and assure us that it doesn't really matter what the videos do or don't do to our children; all parents need a break now and then and letting a video entertain your baby is a perfectly good way to achieve that goal, just another form of baby swing, bouncer or other device designed to give parents a little distance from the demands of parenthood.

I don't deny the need of parents for some respite, though I may disagree on what constitutes a good approach to the problem. But that's hardly the main issue here; I don't think it would even make the top ten of my questions, which include:

• When is an infant's visual system sufficiently developed to make sense of the image on a television screen, which is not the same as seeing a physical object?


• What effect does this unnatural visual experience have on the baby's developing eyes and brain? 


• What type of video experience did the babies have?  Are all baby videos equally bad?


• What is the effect of small amounts of video exposure, say less than 15 minutes per day in the context of a great deal of other experiences and personal interaction—a more likely situation in a household where parents are not looking for an electronic babysitter but are actively trying to enrich their baby's learning experience?  The study rated the effect in terms of hours of video exposure per day—I can't even imagine how a parent could set his child in front of a television screen for that much time and think it to be a good thing.


• What is the best use of a baby's time when it comes to mental development?  Is watching a video better than sitting in a dark room but worse than crawling for a toy?  Is being carried in a sling, close to Mom, still better?  Would the opportunity to see a very short video (content is still another question) plus plenty of time for crawling plus lots of time being carried around best of all?

I've never had a Baby Einstein video, never bought one for nephews or grandchildren, and as far as I know never seen one.  I certainly have no vested interest in them.  But if we're going to discuss such important issues as babies' mental development, let's consider the critical questions and not be sidetracked by defending business interests and assuaging parental guilt feelings.

I acknowledge that sometimes the government is better than the market at accomplishing good things.  In the classic example, Company A might want to reduce its emission of pollutants, but knows that if it does it will no longer be competitive with Company B.  Company B might be in the same position.  But if the government requires all companies to make the reduction, none is left at a competitive disadvantage.

Nonetheless, I believe the market can often do a better job, being more flexible.  Take low-flow shower heads, for example.  I'm all for saving water, but I'd rather choose the method.  I'm a quick shower person: get in, do the job, get out.  Low-flow shower heads frustrate me, because I have to go more slowly—and I suspect thus use at least as much water as before.  I would much rather be able to purchase a high-flow shower head for my house, and save water in other ways.  What we don't spend watering our lawn would probably supply a small city.

What inspired these thoughts was not only my frustration at trying to wash my hair while we were on vacation, but an article by David P. Gushee in the July 2007 issue of Christianity Today:  Old-Fashioned Creation Care.  It's a good article about Gushee's rediscovery of his grandparents' values—hard work, modesty in consumption, consistent giving, frugality in spending, saving for the future, and squeezing every last drop of value out of your possessions—in the context of his concern for proper care of God's creation.

Yet when I look at what his family is doing to live more simply and use less energy, I am yet more convinced that these must be personal, individual commitments, not something mandated from on high.  Take these two, for example:

• We are making a gradual transition to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which cost more on the front end but use less energy and last longer.


• We have set the summer thermostat to 75 and the winter thermostat to 65.

I hear talk of making the use of those fluorescent bulbs mandatory, and I groan.  Maybe the technology will improve, but I saw them in use on our trip to Europe, and throughly disliked them.  We even had one here for a while, and I was very glad when it finally died so we could go back to an incandescent light.  It may save energy, but I found myself much more likely to leave it on instead of turning it off when I left the room, because I couldn't stand the delay between flipping the switch and seeing light.  As I said, I'm a get in, get the job done, and get out type of person, and waiting at the door to the garage for the light to decide to turn on was maddening.  Worse, it was harder for my old eyes to see in the dim flourescent light, and the colors were all wrong.  If they can come up with an energy-efficient lightbulb that more accurately mimics natural sunlight, and turns on when I flip the switch, I'll be happy to switch, but until then I'll fight the idea.

Because there are other ways to save energy!  Reading about Gushee's thermostat settings made me realize why I was actually cold at two of the places we stayed on our recent trip, despite sweltering outside temperatures (104 degrees in North Carolina!).  If 75 degrees is an environmentally-responsible A/C setting, then we are going 'way above and beyond.  When we first moved to Florida we had the thermostat set at 88 degrees.   After all, that's when we had been able to endure in New York, where we didn't even have a pool in which to refresh ourselves.  That didn't last long—in New York it cools down at night and the clothes don't mildew in the closet.  But even though we've been getting wimpier and have gradually lowered the thermostat over the years, if we ever let it dip below 80 degrees it's a temporary indulgence, usually brought on by the fact that all the computer equipment in my office makes it a lot hotter than 80 degrees in the place I spend much of my time.

So I figure what we save in A/C use makes up for our light bulb preference.  Others might make the opposite choice.  As much as possible, we should have such options, and the market generally does a good job of providing both choices and incentive.  Yes, we keep our house temperature (summer and winter) at something other than completely comfortable as part of being environmentally responsible, but I can't deny that saving money is also a motivating factor.   If there really is a compelling government interest in encouraging us to ditch our incandescent bulbs and our high-flow shower heads, I'd far rather see the price rise than have them unavailable.

Let people choose their own shades of green; a colorful palette will encourage voluntary compliance, and will probably be healthier and more helpful in the long run.

I have a friend who is a faithful e-mail forwarder.  I don't mind, because she is pretty much the only one who sends me the dusty sweepings of cyber space, and occasionally she finds some gems.  One of her recent offerings was not treasure, however, but fool's gold.

Note that the words of the e-mail, the majority of which I reproduce below, do not belong to my friend.  She gets credit for providing blog-post inspiration, not for the embarassing sentiments.

Today I picked up at Bank of America several of the new $1.00 coins with the picture of George Washington on it. To my shock and dismay the words, "In God We Trust", are not on this coin!

A quick search of the other coin denominations in my collection confirmed that every one contained these faithful words. The new George Washington $1.00 coin is the first money ever issued by the USA in modern history without the words "In God We Trust". By omitting these words, our politically correct, secularist leaders made a conscientious decision that either; 1) God does not exist, or 2) that God exists, but can no longer be trusted.

Who originally put 'In God We Trust' onto our currency?

My bet is that it was one of the Presidents on these coins.

All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!!

I am personally offended and fed up with the denigration of God and Christianity in my country. I am certain George Washington would never have agreed to his picture on the coin if it any way diminished faith in God.

What can we do to show our displeasure? First of all, let's boycott the coin. Do not ask for it at banks. If it is given to you in change ask for dollar bills instead and tell the person why. Write your Senators stating your displeasure.

Finally, if you agree, pass this e-mail on to others. Collectively, we must send a strong message to those secularists who are trying to remove God from our culture. If we do this, some 300 million $1.00 coins will back up and rot in the supply chain! To God be the glory!

Together we can force them out of circulation. Please send to all on you mail list !!!

You had better believe I don't want one !!!!!!!

Sigh.  I could give free rein to my Inner Conspiracy-Theorist and say it's all Ted Kennedy's fault.  Having experienced the higher-level coinage of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and the European Union, I wish the United States had the sense to supplant (not just supplement) the dollar bill with dollar coins.  (And maybe the $2 and $5 bills while we're at it.)  But the mountain of paper used to print dollar bills comes from Massachusetts, where the Crane Paper Company has a stranglehold monopoly on the business.  The $1 bill has a lifespan of under two years and represents about 45% of the U. S. currency production, so it's no surprise that Massachusetts politicians don't like dollar coins.

However, as I've always maintained, there's no point in invoking conspiracy theories when plain human ignorance can provide sufficient explanation.  What makes this e-mail so embarassing is not just the hype but the ignorance:  "In God We Trust" IS on the new dollar coins.

I'll send a dollar coin to the first nephew who e-mails to tell me where the motto can be found.  If you do find one of the new coins WITHOUT the motto, please send it to me.  It's worth a lot more than $1.... 

Facts about $1 notes

The history of "In God We Trust" on U. S. money

As one who habitually indulges in catastrophism, I appreciated this essay by John Stackhouse on why people don't get back to us right away when we communicate.  I'm not usually upset when people don't answer e-mails immediately, because if everyone answered e-mails immediately, we'd get sucked into in a destructive vortex.  However, I confess to what might be an inordinate desire for blog comments; my hope for many of my posts is that they will be discussion-starters, and with any of them it's nice to know that someone is at least reading my offerings.  What's more, there are certain blogs I check frequently, looking for information, commentary, and discussion, and it's hard not to be disappointed when nothing new is forthcoming. (I'm not just referring to my own family's blogs, though of course they are the most important and most eagerly sought-after.)

My resigned sigh of "Everyone is too busy actually living life to write about it" is much more accurate than my joking, "Nobody loves me."    Perhaps the most useful response, however, is to remember the times I'm slow at responding to e-mails, or fail to make a comment on a post I like, or to acknowledge a comment on my own blog—as well as the days I allow to pass without providing a new post for my own readers.  In my own case I know there are good reasons for my lack of communication.  Okay, so some of the reasons aren't really all that good—but none is malicious.

Assuming the best rather than the worst sounds like a far happier and healthier approach to all of life.

Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology), by Mitchell Stevens (Princeton University Press, 2001)

I've forgotten what led me to find Kingdom of Children, but from the reviews on amazon.com I knew I had to read it.  I have been trying to explain to our own family some of the homeschooling controversies of the late 80's and early 90's, and why I emerged with prejudices against certain people and organizations they are even now encountering, such as the Home School Legal Defense Association, even though we were members, and Josh Harris—though the latter is a case of visiting the sins of the father on the son, which I realize is unfair.  If they want to understand, this book would be a good starting point.  They won't get enough information to know much of the whys and wherefors of my concerns—the author is too objective, too nice for that—but they will get a general picture of the history of the era.

As anyone who has read my other reviews will know, I frequently find the beginnings of books frustrating but by the end find they have redeemed themselves—or at least I've found something of value worth keeping, even if it's not the main thrust of the book.  Kingdom of Children is in many ways the opposite.  As Stevens was setting the historical background, I was impressed with his research and his objective understanding of the complexities of the homeschooling world in those days.  If he had stopped there, I would have recommended the book unreservedly.  But Stevens is not a historian, he's a sociologist, and I found the sociological aspects of the book boring and even ludicrous in places.

His idea that homeschooling of all forms represents a peculiar emphasis on the importance of individual souls (rather than the collective "society," I assume) is a bit frightening, and his view that it requires an enormous sacrifice betrays a complete lack of understanding of the most important part of the movement—and of parenting in general.  The author seems truly mystified as to why families would sacrifice extra income, and women their "careers," to be at home rearing their children at all, much less for the many years required by homeschooling.  He talks about the modern emphasis on "self," and extends that to increased parental emphasis on the importance of tuning a child's education to his individual needs, rather than accepting a collective approach to education.  He views the renewed emphasis among some people on the importance of homemaking and childrearing as women's desperate attempts to console themselves for the loss of their careers and "liberation."

In other words, he has no clue. 

On the one hand, I was happy to read through his history and recognize the issues and debates that troubled us in those years, especially the HR6 controversy.  I could recognize myself and others; I knew most of the names and movements.  As I had hoped, he explains the issues and sequences of events better than I could.  I was disappointed, however, to see that he has missed a large segment of the picture.

I suppose it is natural for a sociologist to view people through the lens of the groups with which they align themselves.  I was happy to see that he recognizes considerable overlap between the two major branches of homeschooling in those days, which he calls "the inclusives" and "the believers."  What he fails to appreciate, however, is the many homeschoolers who were not "joiners," but preferred to take ideas from all factions and craft their own way without finding it necessary to give allegiance to a particular view or organization.  He does make it abundantly clear that this is not the road to political power, and I'm not downplaying the significance of politics and power in our lives.  As Pericles said, "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."  However, I have deep suspicians that politcal power usually comes at the expense of family power, and equally that family power is the more important of the two. 

And that's a distinction that transcends any particular educational choice.

Our laptop has been used in a docking station for months, and today I took it out to use it independently.  No go.  I could not log on.  Do you have any idea how maddening it is when Windows keeps asking, "Did you forget your password?" when you know for certain you did not?

I tried all the obvious things—CapsLock on?  NumLock on?  Making sure they were both off had no effect; I still couldn't log on.  I'm writing the saga so that (1) I won't forget, and (2) it might help someone else as clueless as me.

Next step:  put it back in the docking station.  Worked fine.  (See, I told you I didn't forget the password.)  Took it out again.  Didn't work.

Tried the old Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the old-fashioned logon screen.  Still didn't work, but this enabled me to type into the username blank and actually see what I was typing, instead of a bunch of asterisks.  Turns out one of my password characters is a letter on the number pad part of the keyboard, and even though the light indicated that NumLock was off, the keyboard was producing numbers, not letters.

Okay, problem diagnosed.  Now what?  A Google search, of course.  The first suggestions were to take the keyboard apart and clean it.  Not only was I not up for that, but I didn't have high expectations of it working, since the key obviously toggled the indicator light on and off—just not the actual function.

The next several suggestions were to meddle with the BIOS.  I don't think so!

Finally, I found one that said to hold the shift key down while pressing and releasing the NumLock key.  Presto!  Problem solved.  I don't know what it actually did, but it worked, and for the moment  that's good enough for me.  I hope writing the story here eventually helps someone else.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Stephan's suggestion, I now have a permanent solution rather than one that has to be renewed every time I reboot:  At the user login prompt, type Shift/NumLock, then turn the machine off before doing anything else.

Back in the 70's I sometimes thought computing was half voodoo.  Now it's up to 90%.

I need Porter.

I'm not in this case referring to the fact that he has a good job and my employable skills are a quarter century out of date.

Nor to the fact that when I say I'd be lost without him, I mean that literally.  Oh, I can navigate pretty well and even find my car in the parking lot if I put my mind to it.  The trouble is, my mind is usually elsewhere entirely.

Nor because it's wonderful to have someone around who can work on the roof without getting all faint-hearted and weak-kneed.

I'm not even talking about emotional support; the security of knowing someone cares if I'm late coming home; arms to comfort and a shoulder to cry on; tender words of respect and encouragement; a friendly presence in the house, and on the other side of the bed.

Not even love.

I love him for all of these, but what I really need Porter for his efforts to pull me out of my ruts.  In a grumpier mood I call these distractions.

Inspired by my daughter's mother-in-law (there must be a better way to say that), I'm making a list of things I want to do before I die.  This is an interesting exercise, though like most forms of exercise better started at an earlier age. But while writing the list is a new idea, I've had an unwritten, mental list for years that tends to consume my life.  "Workaholic" is not a term usually used to describe someone whose last paycheck was 27 years ago, but it's not inappropriate.  When you're over 50 and the list of what you want to do before you die keeps getting longer, a feeling of urgency is justified.

Recently, Porter attended a class that kept him out of town for two weeks.  Certainly I missed him!  But the time was not without advantages.  Figuring eight hours for sleep, and another for meals, phone calls, and miscellaneous, that left me with a 15-hour work day!

I cut my meals down to two a day, which turned out to be remarkably easy.  People talk about skipping breakfast and/or lunch, but I've never been able to do that without significant sacrifice.  I'm always hungry for breakfast and lunch.  But with no one to cook for, I learned that skipping dinner is a piece of cake.  (Figuratively speaking, of course.)  By eating a late lunch I discovered the remarkable liberation of finishing the final meal of the day and still having seven or eight hours before bedtime—what's normally considered a full work day.

Except for church on Sunday, the only time I left home was as part of my exercise routine.  It being summertime, most of my away-from-home commitments were curtailed, and best of all I did absolutely no shopping.

Fifteen hours a day of work.  I completed two major projects, made significant progress on several others, and developed and established some important personal habits.  Yet I had more energy than usual at the end of the day, not less.  It was utter bliss.

It was also a fool's paradise.  It only worked because everything else worked.  Porter's salary continued to be paid, no appliances broke down, I stayed healthy, there were no family crises to deal with, no hurricanes came our way; there were none of the events—happy or sad—in which being alone is really hard.  I'm deeply grateful.

Even in the absence of problems, however, it's not a sustainable lifestyle.  One cannot just write; one must take time out to live life and thus have something to write about.  Creating photo albums is not possible without the events that make up the photos.  (Though, frankly, my backlog is of sufficient size to take me well into old age, I fear.)  Most of all, the point of most of my projects is to share with or benefit other people in some way, so cutting myself off from those very people to work on the projects makes only short-term, occasional sense.  (Not that I was cut off during those two weeks, being blessed with e-mail, inexpensive phone service, and friends and family who make a point of keeping in contact.  Porter calls at least once, often twice a day when he is on the road, God bless him!  That's why I can spend two weeks alone without being in the least lonely.)

Enter Porter.  As far as I can tell, his primary love language is Quality Time.  He loves to do things, he loves to do things together, and he particularly loves doing things that involve going somewhere away from home.  All of which Interrupts My Work.

It also makes my work worthwhile, so I recognize it as a gift and a blessing.  There's a reason God designed us to require other people in our lives.  It doesn't have to be a husband; in fact, we really need many kinds and sorts of people.  But a spouse is definitely an asset in this context.

Which brings me to the other point of this post:  The Concert Surprise.  We're regular patrons of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, but we didn't sign up for their Sounds of Summer series this year because of our irregular schedule.  When he discovered that we would actually be home for one recently, Porter wanted to go.

Sounds Of Summer II
Italia “La Più Bella”
Thursday, July 5, 2007 7:00 PM
Created by Daniel Flick

This musical feast is sure to satisfy the tastes of all Italian Music Lovers. Works of the classic Italian masters, Corelli, Tartini, Vivaldi, and Boccherini, are accompanied by Italian folk music favorites ranging in flavor from “la Sole alla Luna” or as we say in English, from “the Sun to The Moon.” These works are brought to life on traditional Italian instruments including Mandolin, Accordion, Classical Guitar, String Quartet and Soprano.

It sounded interesting, but had I been alone I would not have attended.  Too many other projects would have taken higher priority.  But I went, because anything done with Porter automatically acquires very high priority along with considerably increased interest.

Yes, it was an enjoyable concert.  But the part that was the most fun was opening up the program to discover that one of the two above-mentioned Sopranos was our friend, Ashley Locheed!  We've been enjoying Ashley's performances since she was a freshman in college, but lately her career path has taken her into venues we don't usually frequent and hours at which we'd rather be asleep, so this was a treat.

It pays to get out of the house every once in a while.

Although I find highly objectionable the way most laboring mothers and their newborns are treated in America today, I'm still in favor of most newborn screening.  It did hurt to hear my grandchildren's cries as they received the heel stick required to get blood for the testing, but it was over quickly and their mommy was able to soothe them immediately.  The advantage of discovering or ruling out certain devastating, but treatable, conditions is worth the small trauma.  I'm not happy about the idea that such screening is often mandatory, but the idea itself is a good one.

So I was naturally interested in reading this article on the March of Dimes' call for still more newborn testing.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, not knowing anything about many of the conditions they want to include.  What inspired me to write was another example of the futility of trying to get more than general information out of a news report, even one with hyperlinks.

The article includes this comment:

The conditions involved in newborn screening are rare, but can be very severe. These tests are important because each of the 29 conditions on the March of Dimes list is either curable or highly treatable as long as it is found within 48 hours after birth.

Yet if you follow the link to see what they have to say about Pennsylvania, you'll find the following:

Screening Requirements
Required by law on all infants, with a second test required if initial screen is done prior to 36 hrs.

So, to be effective the tests must be completed and the results known by 48 hours after birth, yet if the test is performed prior to 36 hours it must be repeated.  That sounds to me as if babies born in Pennsylvania must be screened twice, which I'm sure is not the case.  No wonder the article includes the disclaimer, "It's very important for parents to ask their doctor."

It's not news to most of my readers that I loathe shopping.

If I know exactly what I want and can head directly to the store and immediately zero in on the item, purchase it without hassle, and be pleased with it when I get home, then I don't mind so much and the experience is even somewhat satisfying. You know how many times this happens over the course of a lifetime.

Shopping at amazon.com isn't so bad, because (1) I can take all the time I want to make up my mind without making multiple trips to the store, (2) no sales clerk ever hassles me, and most of all (3) I'm buying books. I'd rather buy a book in a local store where I can actually hold it in my hands and get to know it better first. A bookstore is one of the very few shops where I can enjoy browsing, and maybe coming upon something good I didn't know about before I walked in. But the sad truth is that bookstores rarely have what I'm looking to purchase, and what good does it do for the clerk to cheerily assure me he'd be happy to order the book for me? I can do that myself—and usually do.

Shopping at Whole Foods can be a treat, too. I think that's about it, though.

Basically, I find most stores to be creepy. The constant assault on my senses from all the attempts to get customers to buy, buy, buy—not to mention the almost ubiquitous piped-in music, often at objectionably high volumes—makes me want to get the job done and out as fast as possible. Sometimes the sheer volume of choice—and, let's face it, the sheer volume of junk—makes my skin crawl. I know; I'm weird. Most people seem to enjoy the experience.

My wardrobe (or lack thereof) is sufficient evidence of how much I like to go shopping for clothes. Furniture? Our house is generally furnished in Generous Relative Hand-me-down Style—not because we can't afford anything else, but because anything else would require actual shopping.

Appliances? That's my current nemesis. I'm the kind of person who would rather make toast in the oven than replace the toaster oven that finally gave out after many years of good service. I lived for three years without a mixer rather than shop for a new one; the only reason I have one now is that Janet and Porter took matters into their own hands and bought me one for Christmas. Really, mixing things by hand—even egg whites—is much easier than shopping.

Our refrigerator was bought used for our tenants when we rented out the house while we were in Boston. It's been making funny noises for years. The stove and the freezer are working fine, but I'm steeling myself for the day they must be replaced, because they're each 30 years old, and would be considerably harder than a mixer to live without. The dishwasher doesn't owe us anything, because it's about 20 years old, but it hasn't cleaned very well since we returned from Boston.  Must be the tenants' fault.

So we've been looking at appliances. I really wouldn't mind shopping if I could find something I liked! But all the reviews are at best mixed, and often negative. Large appliances are now expected to last five or at most ten years, not thirty. Toaster ovens of all sorts have a disconcerting tendency to burst into flames at random times, even when not in use.

We paid $26 to join the online version of Consumer Reports, but so far have been disappointed. The dishwashers they reviewed are mostly not the ones I find available, and in any case their results are skewed by giving an unreasonably high priority to how quiet the machine runs. Quiet is good, but nowhere near as important as effective, efficient, and convenient. Their toaster oven reviews weren't much help, either—again, they mostly tested models I don't find in the stores.

Eventually we did get a new toaster oven, because Porter dragged me out of the house one day, determined that I should have one as a birthday present. I finally convinced myself that if someone had just given me a toaster oven, I would have found it fine and used it gratefully, so I stopped worrying so much and just picked one. I would gladly have spent more money to get what I wanted, but since I found nothing good, we chose a Euro-Pro at Best Buy that cost us, after a 12% discount and a $5 coupon, about $28. That's only $2 more than the Consumer Reports membership. And guess what? It makes toast! And otherwise seems to perform like a reasonable toaster oven. We did take the precaution of adding a switch to the cord, however, so it's easy to disconnect the appliance from the power. Reading the instruction manual, I was glad to discover that the manufacturer had recognized and addressed the issue of spontaneous toaster oven combustion: It is clearly stated, in several places, that one must always unplug the appliance after each use! So if your toaster oven burns up, it's not because of faulty manufacturing—apparently the machines are designed that way.

...when you take a shower with the water set all the way to "cold" and it's still too warm by the time you've finished washing your hair.

Last Saturday we returned to the Van Fleet Trail and rode the second third, from the Bay Lake Trailhead to the Green Pond Road Trailhead, another round trip of about 20 miles.

As we were riding on the straight, flat, paved trail in the middle of nowhere, no motor vehicles to worry about and almost no other bicyclists, I laughed a little at our habit of wearing bike helmets.  When we began the practice, wearing a helmet was awkward and several times we forgot to put them on; now it's nearly as automatic as buckling our seatbelts in the car.  But a trail like this is safer than just pedaling down our very safe, isolated, residential street.

Or so we thought.

Along the way we met another couple of very fit and active bicyclists about our age.   The wife was building herself back up after a very bad accident on that very trail.  She was tooling along at about 18 miles per hour when suddenly a raccoon charged out of the grass and banged headlong into her front wheel.  What happened to the raccoon after he sped off across the trail they never learned, but she crashed full force into the pavement, splitting her helmet wide open.  She regained consciousness after about five minutes and the ambulance came about half an hour later.  (It shouldn't have taken so long, but they had trouble finding a 911 operator who had any idea where the Van Fleet Trail was.  Pretty odd, considering Google finds it immediately.)  She's doing fine now, but was in the hospital for three days.  From the state of her helmet, I imagine the outcome would have been quite different had her head hit the pavement unprotected.

One interesting wildlife note:  On the return trip we saw nearly two dozen tortoises, including a few big ol' granddaddies.  Going in the other direction we had seen not a one.

Television has long been called the "idiot box," but here is more evidence that being a couch potato harms the brain as well as the body.  Unfortunately, in this case reading is just as bad as watching TV.

The Swedish experiment was actually about depression.  Previous studies have shown that the hippocamus region of the human brain shrinks in depressed people.  In this study, exercise was shown to have a significant anti-depressant effect in rats, and promoted dramatic neuron growth in the hippocampus.  (If you, like me, wonder how on earth they can tell if a rat is depressed, read the article.)

As usual, the study raises more questions.  How does this apply to humans?  Is the effect noticable in both young and old?  Is it physical activity, per se, that makes the difference, or are some types of exercise more valuable than others?

Most intriguing of all:  The study was about depression, but the hippocampus is also involved in learning and memory.  What effect, then, does exercise (or lack thereof) have on our general intellectual abilities?  Since the days when most people earned their daily bread through physical labor, have our sedentary lives taken away a significant portion of the intellectual growth gained by increased access to books and schooling?

When I mentioned this article to Porter, his first question was, if this is so, why the generalization of the "dumb jock"?  Perhaps the kind of exercise really does matter.  Maybe running, being a natural human motion, builds brain cells better than say, tennis.  Maybe the average intellectual ability among athletes is brought down significantly by those sports that involve massive blows to the head.

The sedentary lives of most American children are harming their brains as well as their bodies.  Blame television, video games, long hours in school/day care, urban apartment and suburban homes with small lots, or crime rates and parental fears that keep children close to home—any and all of the above.  Our kids need to get moving!  Until there is more data, I would favor the more natural forms of movement such as crawling and creeping for babies, and walking and running for older kids, and swimming for everyone (except that I worry about the high chlorine level in public pools), and only add organized sports on top of a good program of the above.  But that's a personal preference; I imagine that for most children any exercise will help.

Moreover, we adults need to get moving, too!  If we're worried about our children's intellectual development, they have equal right to worry out their parents' intellectual decline.  If exercise now will help keep our minds sharp as we age, we owe it to our kids as well as ourselves to get off the couch (or out of the computer chair).

I'm extrapolating here, of course.  This particular study was just about depression.  But I'm all for non-pharmaceutical solutions, and in this case running was as effective as anti-depressant medication.  We'll be happier, and we might become smarter.  What are we waiting for?

So just what kind of people are we dealing with here?  According to this article, the eight suspects in Britain's recent failed terrorist attacks are doctors.  I can almost understand the desperate suicide bomber recruited from a population of uneducated, poor, and hopeless young men.  But doctors?  Those whose training and profession are supposed to be about relieving suffering and saving lives? 

Well, there were doctors who served Hitler.  The scariest attitude in the world is one that dehumanizes other people.  Be it Jews in Nazi Germany, natives in colonial days, slaves, unborn babies, or "infidels" of any stripe—once we convince ourselves that a group of people is less than human, we find it all too easy to justify the most hideous and inhumane actions.

I can rarely resist passing on good news like this.  Most reports of the benefits of chocolate, especially dark chocolate, come with all sorts of caveats that the harm done by the fat and sugar might negate the benefits of the polyphenols.  This German study, however, showed that a mere 6.3 gram daily dose of dark chocolate (another article said it was 50% cacao) had no negative effects yet resulted in a clinically significant drop in blood pressure among patients with blood pressures in the range of 130/85 to 160/100.

It's good to know my daughter is looking after my health, having given me for my birthday a 100 gram bar of 72% cacao "extra dunkle Schokolade" Swiss chocolate.  Let's see, at that dosage it should last me about 15 days....   Right!