Lift Up Your Hearts!

This isn't a review of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. I haven't read the book, and am not sure I have the stomach to. But I found Steve Garber's review (thanks to Tom Grosh) and it's well worth reading. It's a little long, so whet your appetite with his conversation with two young women about the book.

One of them found the story of Charlotte's freshman year at college to be frighteningly realistic, while the other recalled plenty of on-campus exceptions to the sex-drug-and-alcohol party crowd: first and second generation Americans, goal-driven students intent on getting into graduate school, people immersed in their field of study, and communities of faith.

I don't know about the book, but the review is simultaneously horrifying and hopeful.

From this article on a Scottish study of the health benefits of drinking cider, I learned the following critical difference between what we in the U. S. and Canada call cider and what you get if you order the drink of that name elsewhere:

What is Cider?

It is an alcoholic drink made from apples which are first crushed and then fermented. In the USA and some some parts of Canada it is known as 'hard cider' - in those parts, the term 'cider' can often mean non-alcoholic apple juice. In the rest of the English-speaking world 'cider' refers only to the alcoholic drink.

Cider usually has an alcoholic content of 5% or more. It is generally stronger than beer. The British are the greatest cider drinkers in the world. In the UK it is available in many forms, such as sweet, medium or dry.

Not to mention the fact that the writer of the article has no idea that in the United States, at least in the Northeast, real cider—unpasteurized, unfiltered, varietal—is one of the most delicious drinks in the world. "Non-alcoholic apple juice"? You might as well describe Everest as "a mountain" or Shakespeare as "a playwright." True, as far as it goes, but it misses nearly everything important.

One recent morning I suddenly realized the theme from the Addams Family television show was running through my head. What brought about this bizarre occurance I have no idea. As far as I remember, I have not heard the song in some 40 years, and I even remembered some of the lyrics.

Be that as it may, it sparked a few thoughts about the evolution of the television experience. Regardless of how macabre Charles Addams' original cartoons, or the more modern stories of the Addams Family, may have been, the 1960's television show was more funny than disturbing. And that was about as deviant as television shows got back then. If most of the shows of that era can be accused of showing life as unrealistically innocent, today's stories (be they television shows, movies, or books) depict life as unrealistically foul, freakish, and frightening. Both approaches may be in error, but I know which is more likely to promote hopeful individuals and a healthy society.

We stopped at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant on our way through North Carolina. There we were delighted to order the bison burger, described in their online menu as "range-fed bison cooked just the way you like it."

Not in North Carolina. When we ordered ours rare, the waiter apologized, citing a state law mandating all burgers be cooked to nothing less than medium.

I might be tempted to appreciate the state's attempt to protect us from the dangers of our modern agricultural and meat processing and delivery practices, were it not for the shocking discovery that North Carolina still allows smoking in its restaurants!

The bison burger tasted good anyway.

Here's a cool interactive flash tool for tracking not only Ernesto but any other tropical storm that might be around, such as the Pacific's Ioke, which yesterday has winds of 160 mph and gusts of 195 mph!

Okay, I'm grateful no hurricanes threatened while we were out of town. Really I am. But it's good to be home, and I'd really rather Ernesto not be on the welcoming committee. Nor do I want him to be one of Porter's new co-workers in New Orleans.

I already gave away much of last year's "hurricane food"—the local food pantry specifically wants the canned stew and such we'd normally only eat as emergency rations. I've been replacing it gradually with new stock, but perhaps I'd better accelerate the process. And add to the stock of ice in our freezer, which as dwindled a bit, though we still have plenty in the form of water-filled, frozen milk jugs. I think everything else is in order.

But I hope not to have to prove it.

You have to bear in mind that the study was done in Britain, and was funded by the Tea Council, but it's still nice to hear more evidence of the health benefits of tea.

The actual research article in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, at least according to this abstract, is less effusive than the popular press version, but it hints at possible benefits in the areas of colorectal cancer, bone density, and dental health. Much clearer evidence associates drinking three or more cups of tea per day with a significant decrease in coronary heart disease risk.

However, the best news as far as I am concerned was learning that tea is as good for hydration as water is. Apparently the idea that tea dehydrates you is just a myth! That misconception never stopped me from drinking tea, but it did make me feel somewhat guilty, so I feel better now. The facts also conform to my experience; it was hard to believe I wasn't being hydrated when it sure felt as if I was, even if that did contradict conventional wisdom.

When I have a problem, I'm always amazed at how often a simple Internet search will reveal other with the same problem and very often a solution. But sometimes not. The negative results fall into two catgories: either I'm having a genuinely rare difficulty, or I haven't found the right combination of search terms to narrow the results down to something relevant.

I don't know which was the case with our recent Firefox problem, but I couldn't find any help, so I'm posting this in case it might help someone else.

Invisible Firefox, Firefox opens invisbly, invisble window, can't maximize window, perpetually minimized window, can't see open application window. Maybe that's enough search terms, at least for someone who thinks as I do.

You may have guessed the problem. Suddenly Firefox started operating in stealth mode on our laptop. It would appear to be opening, and would show up as a taskbar button, but appeared to be perpetually minimized. But in reality it was maximized ("maximize" was greyed out when I right-clicked) but invisible.

I won't detail everything I tried, but it was an interesting puzzle and I did find some interesting things, including that the program was still running and would respond to keyboard controls, even though I couldn't see what I was doing. That way I was able to bring up the bookmarks manager and export the bookmarks, which provided a measure of relief.

Doing a system restore did not work; the process was unable to complete for any of the three restore points I tried.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox, but even that was not enough.

After I discovered that uninstall doesn't delete your profile, I repeated the uninstall, then changed the names of the old files to force the reinstall to create a new profile, and that did the trick: the Firefox window was visible once more.

Clearly something about the profile had become corrupted, because when I switched back to the old profile (by modifying the profiles.ini file), the problem returned. I had planned to add pieces of the old profile back in a bit at a time to try to discover the source of the problem, but then decided I didn't want to spend any more time on the project; it was faster and easier just to import the old bookmarks into the new profile, set up our customizations again, and deal with the loss of a few cookies and remembered passwords

If this story has a moral, it is the same moral as in all computing tales: backup, backup, backup.

Today's Orlando Sentinel has a good essay on Christian involvement in political issues by Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland Community Church. We visited Northand a few times, including when they were still meeting in a partially-coverted roller skating rink. ("I knew him when....") For many reasons it's not the church for us, but there's no doubt they do good work.

A few points from the article:

• [B]etween the liberal's panic of a Christian lockstep toward theocracy on the left, and the fundamentalist's paranoia about America's persecution of Christians on the right, a growing number of conservative Christians believe we can be more constructive in our political involvement. Intent on dousing the fire in the morning, many of us see a need for more positive approaches and expansion to more oft-mentioned biblical issues.


• [W]e must change our tone. Fear and anger get immediate, but usually destructive, results. Ideas compete; radicals attack. Let's stick to discussions of solutions rather than accusations of those who disagree with us.


• [W]e must desire more than political gain (and be linked to biblical values rather than a political party). Winning at the ballot box can mask the need to be more personally responsible for our neighbor.


• [W]e must quit slinging slogans and propose our biblical ideals in an intellectually credible way....Governments don't need more special-interest lobbyists; they need more groups that can work with them in creating solutions.


• Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). In this country, our government ("Caesar") doesn't just expect taxes; it expects participation—input, service, and political involvement from every citizen, including the Christians. Public service should be a normal part of every Christian's spiritual responsibility.

Okay, the latest airport security problem is not in the least bit funny. But sometimes you have to see the humorous side to stay sane, especially when you have loved ones planning to fly in the next few days.

All liquids and gels are presently banned from carry-on luggage at U. S. Airports. Exceptions are being made for certain medications and for pre-mixed baby formula, which will be allowed after inspection. After getting the word, parents at the Orlando International Airport (and no doubt elsewere) were frantically preparing bottles of formula and hoping they wouldn't spoil on the trip, since they couldn't bring bottled water on board.

How nice to have your baby's food with you at all times, handy, pre-mixed, with no fear of spoilage, and in a form that can't be consigned to checked baggage.

It was nice of the Transportation Security Administration to reassure us on that last point, however (emphasis mine).

Exception: Baby formula, breast milk, or juice if a baby or small child is traveling; prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket; and insulin and essential other non-prescription medicines

I'm guessing they're referring to expressed breast milk in a bottle...but still...it makes one think....

Imagine this scenario: After two devastating miscarriages you get pregnant, and you, your husband, and your children begin to dare to hope again. Then at five and a half weeks you have stomach pains and go to the doctor just to be sure. They do an ultrasound and tell you: No heartbeat, baby is dead, check into the hospital for a D&C to get all cleaned out. Numbly, you comply, and go home to grieve with your family.

Three weeks later you return to the doctor because you still feel pregnant. Another ultrasound: Oops, guess we made a mistake, baby is fine and growing well. Sorry about that.

That's what happened to Julie Brown, in Scotland. Thrilled of course that her baby is alive, she's naturally worried, having undergone a violent, invasive procedure, with anesthesia, pain medication, and antibiotics, and stopped taking normal pregnancy precautions (like folic acid supplements), not to mention having subjected the baby to a flood of stress (distress) hormones, all during the very critical first trimester of pregnancy.

So I'm not surprised she is "considering legal action." What does surprise me is the attitude of some commentators that she should just get over it, be happy she still has her baby, and understand that mistakes will happen. Huh? I deplore the lawsuit-happy culture more than most, and fully appreciate that in life there will be mistakes, and accidents, and troubles, and risks. But this isn't just a little mistake, it's a HUGE error. It indicates something is wrong, not with one particular ultrasound reading, but with the larger system that obviously doesn't have enough checks and balances where life and death matters are concerned. It's the equivalent of declaring a patient dead and wheeling him off to the morgue, only to have him sit up and start talking three days later.

It's also one more indictment of the industrialized, technological, interventionist approach to obstetrics we have come to consider normal.

Serendipity. Searching for one thing and finding another. And another. The Internet is a beachcomber's delight. While researching my Johari Window post, I found information on Duen Hsi Yen's commentary, which led me to his article on education, which in turn took me to another of his sites, which was chosen in May of 1999 as the Natural Child Project's Parenting Site of the Month. Investigating the Natural Child Project site led in turn to this month's honored parenting resource, Parents for Barefoot Children.

(This is beginning to sound like something from A Fly Went By: "The fly ran away in fear of the frog, who ran from the cat, who ran from the dog. The dog ran away in fear of the pig, who ran from the cow, she was so big!")

I don't know when I first rediscovered what every child knows about the joys of barefoot living. I do remember the first time I thought consciously of what shoes can do to feet besides protect them. In one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, the dectective concludes that a footprint belongs to a native of a primitive culture, because the shape of the foot and the toeprints revealed a foot that had never been confined to a shoe.

That impressed me, but I never really questioned my footwear until I developed an affliction of the skin of my feet. No doctor ever came up with a definitive diagnosis, though that did not stop them from suggesting various medications, which either worked or didn't according to some random factor I never discerned. What unequivocally did work I discovered myself: shedding my shoes. If I kept my feet unshod whenever I could, they obliged me by enduring occasional imprisonment with good grace.

Since then I've been happy to remove my shoes when entering a home, and I've noticed in recent years many people are discovering that shoes left at the door don't bring dirt into the house. In this we are only a few thousand years behind the entire country of Japan.

Naturally an organization calling itself Parents for Barefoot Children (PFBC) intrigued me. So, too, did the Society for Barefoot Living, which (no surprise) I found through a link from the PFBC site. The latter takes barefooting a lot further than I thought possible. Along the way I learned several new things, from the many health benefits of walking sans shoes to the surprising legality of driving barefoot.

Although I am in sympathy with both organizations, especially when it comes to children's feet, two issues concern me that I have not seen addressed. The more trivial (though still important) one is that if one goes barefoot everywere, one has nothing to take off that will leave the dirt at the door of the house. Perhaps we should reinstate the Biblical custom of footwashing for guests!

What bothers me most is the chemical soup to which we would expose our feet by walking barefoot most of the time. The barefooting advocates address the issues of dirt, bacteria, and parasites, but what I worry about is what is laid down on our roads, sidewalks, business floors, and even public parks by automobile exhaust and tires, chemical spills, cleansers and polishing materials, herbicides, insecticides, and the other fallout from a modern industrial society. Everything from heavy metals to toxic organic compounds lies in wait to be absorbed through innocent skin, a special worry in the case of children. I don't want this to be a problem; I hope research will reveal an escape clause that will assure me it isn't harmful. But the issue needs to be addressed, not ignored.

The joys of free and unfettered childhood feet should not be yet another casualty of modern times!

I like supporting small companies and local businesses, including local incarnations of chain stores. Browsing the nearby Borders, scanning the shelves, leafing through physcial books held in my own hands—this experience has a satisfaction that online shopping cannot match, and I know that if I buy all my books online, I risk losing the local experience forever.

Nonetheless, it appears I have unusual tastes in books, music, and other areas, because what is on display at the local store is too often not what I want, and what I want must be ordered. That's where I draw the line: if it must be ordered, I'll do it myself, thank you. That's when I'm especially thankful for Amazon.com and other online retailers.

I usually find what I'm looking for, and it's hard to beat Amazon's free shipping on orders of $25 or more. Still, you can't assume you're getting a good deal, even with free shipping.

Today I discovered Amazon's Gourmet Foods section, and was surprised and pleased that my search on "Boyajian" turned up several items. I discovered the Boyajian folks when we lived in Norwood, Massachusetts, and I passed their headquarters (since moved) and small store as I walked to the train station. They have many good products, but I absolutely fell in love with the citrus oils. Lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit (alas, discontinued!), and the fabulous tangerine—these cold-pressed, natural essences put the power of citrus peel or zest into any recipe with ease. The flavors are extremely powerful and even a one-ounce bottle lasts a long time. I use them in dozens of ways, from stir-fry dishes to baked goods to drinks such as hot cocoa, Bay Punch, and Lime Daleys. [End commercial. No, I'm not getting paid by Boyajian. I really like their products.]

Because I have bought online directly from Boyajian (after both we and their store moved), I was able to tell that Amazon's prices are much higher than Boyajian's. This surprised me; I haven't noticed a similar problem with their books and CD's. I did a little investigating and here's what I found: A five-ounce bottle of Boyajian Lime Oil from Amazon costs $18.25, with free shipping if you buy something else to get the total up to $25. Directly from Boyajian, the same bottle of Lime Oil costs $11.50, plus $6.75 shipping. Hmmm, $11.50 plus $6.75 equals...$18.25! So much for free shipping! And at Boyajian you can get two bottles of Lime Oil for the same $6.75 charge.

Caveat emptor!

Let me make clear up front that I'm glad our grandchildren are on schedule for most of the currently-recommended childhood vaccinations. I can be pleased with that because their parents have taken the time to research the issues, and decide which vaccines they think are worth the risk, and which are not, and are willing to pay the extra costs—in money and time—to spread the vaccinations out rather than subject their children to the assault on the immune system caused by receiving many vaccines on the same day. Moreover, the children are breastfed, which helps their immune systems deal with the vaccines.

Vaccines have prevented much suffering and death, and they do work; witness the frightening polio outbreaks in Africa when immunication efforts were hindered by Muslim clerics skeptical of both the vaccines and the good will of the vaccinators. But they are far from risk-free, and the government and the medical community are doing parents a disservice by pushing vaccinations as if they were entirely safe and absolutely essential for their children's health.

"Informed consent" does not mean handing your patient a long form, full of legal and medical terms, to sign on the day of vaccination, along with another sheet describing possible side effects. It means addressing the issue far in advance, with both pros and cons, admitting controversy and uncertainty, and pointing the parents to sources of further information.

Parents, too, have the responsibility of seeking out information on their own, to be better prepared to discuss the issue with their physicians. My doctor may have forgotten more about medicine than I'll ever know, but no doctor knows everything, and the best ones are always open to new information, carefully and respectfully presented.

Above all, avoid jumping on bandwagons. Don't vaccinate just because your doctor expects you to, and don't avoid vaccination just because that's what your friends are doing. Just as there are risks to vaccinating, and actions we can take to mitigate those risks, there are also risks to not vaccinating, and precautions that can help protect the unvaccinated child. One helpful, and reasonably balanced, resource is Aviva Jill Romm's Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives.

One of the hazards of being unvaccinated is catching a "childhood disease" later in life, when the body is often less able to handle it. One example made the news today, in this WebMD report on an outbreak of measles in 2005, the largest in the United States in a decade. A 17-year-old girl caught the disease in Romania and passed it to members of her church when she returned. Thirty-two of the 34 who caught the disease had never been vaccinated.

The story fails its readers by not reporting how the measles sufferers fared. Do the parents regret their decision not to vaccinate? I had measles as a child, and it was a relatively minor affair, easier for me than chicken pox, which itched like crazy. There can be serious complications, however; were there any in this epidemic, or was it relatively mild? That's important information.

Because 20 of the cases were homeschooled children, Amy Parker of the Centers for Disease Control stresses the importance of promoting immunization among homeschoolers. If she means educating people about the risks and benefits of vaccination, I'm all for it. But buried in the article is this chilling statement:

Proof of measles vaccination is required for children entering school, but West Virginia is the only state in the U.S. with a similar requirement for homeschooled kids.

This should frighten every homeschooler in the country. Requiring immunizations for admission to public schools is understandable, as long as certain exemptions are allowed, because of problems inherent in the confining of large populations to small spaces for long periods of time. But what is the concern that causes the West Virginia government to want to impose immunization on homeschoolers as well? If it's the fear that a homeschooler taking a public school class might pass a disease on to fellow students, how can that occur if the rest of the students have been vaccinated?

It appears the source is actually worse than that, and should frighten everyone, not just homeschoolers. There are those in the West Virginia government (and elsewhere!) who believe the primary responsibilities and rights when it comes to raising children belong not to the parents, but to the state. If the state decides universal vaccination is desirable, parents should have no choice but to go along.

The Internet is a wonderful tool for finding information; it is less useful when it comes to updates to that information. In 2004 the West Virginia legislature attempted to pass a bill expanding the immuization requirements and exacting severe penalties for noncompliance. Whether the bill succeeded or not I was unable to determine. If it did, it was apparently weakened, because the requriements I found through the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources mandate fewer vaccines and impose smaller penalties. Nonetheless, it's chilling enough. State Code 16-3-4 deals with "compulsory immunization of school children" but apparently they mean all children of "school age," not just children in the public schools.

Any parent or guardian who refuses to permit his or her child to be immunized against diphtheria, polio, rubeola, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough, who cannot give satisfactory proof that the child or person has been immunized against diphtheria, polio, rubeola, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough previously, or a certificate from a reputable physician showing that immunization for any or all is impossible or improper, or sufficient reason why any or all immunizations should not be done, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and except as herein otherwise provided, shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars for each offense.

Unlike every other state except Mississippi, West Virginia makes no provision for religious or philosophical exemptions to its immunization laws.

UPDATE:  Please see the first comment, below.

I mentioned in the last post that I am cleaning the kitchen. (You can tell how easy this project is by how many blog posts I've written today. Writing is my favorite form of break.) So...I just threw out some spices with expiration dates in the early 1980's. Yes, I tasted them, and no, they weren't worth keeping. We hauled those spice jars from New York to Florida, from Florida to Massachusetts, from Massachusetts back to Florida again...but enough is enough!