Sunday Hymn Post

Cyberhymnal source

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

Leftovers and Frozen Pizzas

Forced into budget cuts by the tanking economy, a mother tried once a month cooking. Her family refused to eat it because....

“It’s leftovers,” dad and the kids said. “And we hate leftovers. We want food that’s prepared fresh. It’s gross to eat stuff reheated. What’s the point in her cooking this way when we don’t want to eat it?”

So a family friend went with the family to the store and asked them to pick out foods they would eat.

You won't believe what they chose.

We are a nation of spoiled brats.

Paper Lantern Christmas Tree Ornament

15 Christmas Tree Ornaments: LANTERNS Cut drawing papers 4x6 inches
Color one side of these in varying colors with crayons or paints
Fold the long edges together crease and cut strips a quarter of an inch wide and to within a half inch of the edges as shown in Fig 7
Cut one strip entirely off to use as a handle
Paste the short edges together and attach the handle as in Fig 7 Vol I SU 33 Public School Methods


Public School Methods

Just For Fun

This is funnier if you've played Nintendo games:

Can't Talk

Had our November singing last night, the cousins are in town, and it was high time I quit doing that annoying thing where I put all the winter clothes that need to be hung up on my bed every morning so that I would have to get them sorted and hung up by bedtime, only to carry them off the bed out into the living room at night when it is time for bed again.

Eight extra guests stayed the night last night after the singing (plus the two we already here for Thanksgiving week). We played several games, including a new one that's really fun and requires only paper and pencil and some time, but I'll have to post pictures of it later. Then we watched Peter Pan, and at 5:00 in the morning I cried uncle and said the guys had to go downstairs and leave the Common Room to the girls, because I couldn't stay up anymore.

I fired up the laptop at some point last night to attempt to record some of the hilarity and ongoing zingers, but I gave up the attempt, unable to keep up.


Four of the girls got up at 8:00 to clean the kitchen and make pancakes. I got up at 9:00 to crave a boon of coffee and to eat the pancakes. Other guests straggled along and by 10:00 all but one were awake and eating pancakes, too. The conversations are still amusing, but I think you have to be here. Jenny had to go to work. Pip drove over to pick up the Equuschick so she didn't have to miss out on more hilarity.

A Good time was had by all, and it still is.

Charles Rangel Writes the Tax Code, He Doesn't Have to Follow It

At least that seems to be how he views his role as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committe, which is where the tax code happens.

For peons like us, I mean. For the aristocracy like Rangel, well, the usual laws just don't apply to him. He's special:

Rangel inappropriately claimed a tax break on his D.C. townhouse by claiming it was his primary residence. The five-year charade only netted the congressman from Harlem about $1,500, which is relatively small potatoes. But it nicely dovetails with two other Rangel escapades of late: That he failed to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from his luxury beach villa in the Caribbean because he—ahem—didn't know it was income; and that he scored several rent-stabilized apartments in New York, each of which he must claim as his primary residence. Taken all together, it looks like the top tax-writer in Congress is a tax cheat.

But don't think Rangel is selfish. As the New York Times reports today, Rangel was happy to turn tricks for others. After years of going after U.S. corporations for the perfectly legal practice of offshoring, in 2007 Rangel abruptly changed course, killing a bill that would have subjected these corporations to U.S. taxes.

Among those who benefited was Eugene Isenberg, chairman of Nabors Industries, an oil-drilling company that was the poster-child for offshoring in 2002. At the time Rangel killed the bill, Mr. Isenberg pledged $1 million to the "Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service" at the City College of New York. (The House Ethics Committee already is looking into whether Rangel inappropriately solicited donations to his vanity shrine.)

And this clown was reelected.

Employee Killed In Black Friday Stampede

New York, Walmart: shoppers waiting for early deals took the doors off the hinges, trampled one worker to death, trampled a pregnant woman who subsequently had a miscarriage, and sent at least three others to the hospital for treatment.

So that they could get some stuff cheaper. Stuff.

The girls and their friends hit the Black Friday sales this morning- actually leaving the house at 2:00 AM, yes, that's the 2:00 that comes in the morning. They reported no problems, got home by lunch time, and brought back two laptops.
In their case, it was partly the comraderie of doing something insane with their friends. You're only young once, after all.

Last night while they were discussing their insane plans, Granny Tea told us that one of her co-workers brags about going to the sales and shoving and slapping people who are in her way. She thinks it's funny. She works in a field helping the disabled. We all agreed that there is nothing in this world that any of us want that badly.
At library sales I have been known to watch the sorts of book the more aggressive shoppers are looking for, and hunting them up myself and then presenting them to the push and shove types- "I saw you were collecting Ngaio Marsh, have you read any Josephine Tey? You might like them." It's not because I'm sweet. It's because I get a mischievous sense of delight at the shock in their faces.

But this.... It's ghastly. People in Mumbai India are still fighting for their lives, and Americans in the land of the free are ripping the doors off hinges and trampling fellow human beings in their race for the consumer prize of the week.

For stuff.

LEftovers

My weekly post is up at Frugal Hacks, and the subject is what to do with all those leftovers from Thanksgiving Dinner.

One recipe not included is Turkey Tetrazzini- so I'll share that here.
Basically, you cook up a batch of spaghetti (or linguini) noodles. Meanwhile reheat your turkey gravy, thinning it out a bit with some milk, and add some parmesan cheese.
Dice leftover turkey and stir it into the gravy/sauce. When the noodles are done, drain them and stir the sauce into the spaghetti.

You want measurements? CAn't do it, and it doesn't much matter, but if you have about twice as much turkey as you do parmesan cheese, and more gravy/sauce than you do turkey, that's good. But it's pretty forgiving no matter what you do.

Over at Frugal Hacks we have recipes for casseroles, enchiladas, sandwich pockets, muffins, breads, salads and more, and these are use it up recipes for using the stuffing, the cranberry sauce, the turkey, the gravy, the mashed potatoes, and even the turkey carcass. Some of them are not quite your typical leftover treatment. Check it out!

High School Administrator Addresses NEA and Explains Schools Need More Money

At an annual meeting of the NEA, IRWEN LEVISTON, superintendent of schools in St Paul, Minnesota, spoke about the condition of our high schools. Among other things he said that our high schools do not receive the funding or public support they should which results in poor science equipment, ill equipped libraries and difficulty attracting the best teachers or keeping them.

He also said that since for years the high schools have have been compelled to accept pupils who may not have been adequately taught by their previous schools, teachers, and by their parents, while also being required to graduate students who can compete at the university level, or else the school gains a reputation as a second class high school.

And yet the high schools are also required to equip their students with practical skills and knowledge in business, science, geography/social studies, history, language, public speaking, domestic sciences, and more -

Furthermore, he complains, "not a few parents are attempting to make the schools entirely responsible for the" morals and ethics the students learn, and responsible high school administrators seriously question "sort of a course in ethics applied through the few school hours of the day will safely carry high school students through the dangers that beset them outside of school hours.

Still, in spite of these difficulties and challenges, he says, "I believe the high school of today is a success," that it equips its students intellectually, in character building, and is the best place for teens to prepare for the future.
However, of course, he feels the high schools needed to be strengthened in order to adapt and perfect what we already have. And since, he says, the "high school has been widening its field of work to adapt itself to universal needs," in order to help it further those important aims, it needs more support from the community and less criticism, and, of course, more funding, direct funding.

And that was in 1902.

Hand-made paper

Using dried, dead leaves from day lily plants (there are other options, she lists them)

Spending Freeze

Not for the government (unfortunately)- but for us.


Thomas Hood wrote a delightful bit of word play on November:
No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--
No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--
No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!
No traveling at all--no locomotion--
No inkling of the way--no notion--
"No go" by land or ocean--
No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--
November!


And for Denise Trowbridge and her husband, it's No Spending- or at least, very little:

My husband and I have declared November a no-spend month. Okay, so it’s not really a no spend month. It’s more like a month-long crash diet.

We have budgeted $400 for the month of November. That’s all we have to spend. This $400 has to cover everything that isn’t a monthly recurring bill.

What doesn’t count: utilities, student loan payment, monthly transfers into our emergency fund, 401k, and 529 plan. Baby formula is also exempt. The $400 must pay for everything else: food, gasoline, entertainment, clothes, parking, and anything else we would normally buy.

Here's her one week update (November 10th):

Not shopping and not spending has had an unintended side effect. My productivity has sky-rocketed. In one week, I have knocked several things off of my to-do list, including framing four lithographs I bought 6 months ago and rearranging the guest room furniture. It’s also forced me to come to terms with my closets, which are overflowing with stuff we never wear and never use. It’s time to let all of that go. Ebay here I come.

I can see now the potential this challenge has to be life changing. Everyday, we think about what we really need and what we really don’t, and how to make as much as we can out of as little as possible. These are skills I embraced when I was young, broke, and in college. but somewhere I lost my way. I’m hoping to find my way back.

I know how she feels.

One Word Meme

Where is your mobile phone? chair
Where is your significant other? Sleeping
Your hair colour? brown
Your mother? lovable
Your father? demented
Your favourite thing? family
Your dream last night? None
Your dream goal? Debtless
The room you're in? booked
Your hobby? reading
Your fear? people
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Grandmothering
Where were you last night? home
What you're not? open
One of your wish-list items? England
Where you grew up? Everywhere
The last thing you did? kiss
What are you wearing? purple
Your TV? movies
Your pets? hairy
Your computer? slow
Your mood? practical
Missing someone? Yes
Your car? gas-guzzling
Something you're not wearing? jewelry
Favourite shop? bookstore
Your summer? Forgotten
Love someone? Yes.
Your favourite colour? Red
When is the last time you laughed? 3:00
When is the last time you cried? 3:10

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

A very happy

to you all!

Click on the pictures below to enlarge. Click on the links to go to the original sources. 1888 volume of Good Housekeeping Magazine. The Thanksgiving section runs from about page 25-39, and it's a fun read. It's also fun to compare the 1888 Thanksgiving to the sort of topics covered in the same magazine today.

Day by Day in the Primary School By Alice Maud Bridgham


Good Housekeeping


Good Housekeeping

All but the first are from the 1888 volume of Good Housekeeping Magazine. The Thanksgiving section runs from about page 25-39, and it's a fun read. It's also fun to compare the 1888 Thanksgiving to the sort of topics covered in the same magazine today.

A Brief Observation on the Idiosyncrasies of the Human Psyche

The last two days have been visited by what The Equuschick prefers to call a cold, if anything, and by what the DHM calls The Plague, and The Equushick doesn't know what Shasta calls it but he insists on the grounds of whatever it is that The Equuschick take it easy and stay on the couch and read or stay in bed and sleep.

Don't get her wrong, that is fine for a time. But if The Equuschick does it long enough her degree of self-loathing approaches a hysterical point and she gets bored and cranky.

But yesterday morning Shasta brought her orange juice in bed and also the contents of the entire medicine cabinet with strict instructions on what to take when, and assured her that the dishes had been put away and the dog taken out and laundry was done so there was really nothing to do so please, please, just stay in bed and take it easy.

The Equuschick will never know how she manged to stifle her usual sarcastic and defensive self, but she reasoned that Shasta, bless his heart, is not by nature a nurturing sort of person and she would fail miserably as a wife if she didn't let him take advantage of this opportunity and besides, there may come a time when she really will be incapacitated for a time and it won't be nice for either party if the poor man has been taught to resent the times he's served and helped so somehow she managed to be sweet and gracious.

(And she really was forced to acknowledge in spite of her best efforts to deny everything that she felt miserable.)

Believe it or not, these not so brief introductions have nothing to do with the idiosyncrasies mentioned. The point of the introductions are simply that in The Equuschick's vastly intimidating and bizarrely disorganized mental filing cabinet lies a number of thoughts on a number of subjects that may or may not come to see the light of day because some of them are simply too long and discombobulated to be written out and neatly put to rights. And even some of those that might stand up to some sort of organizational process cannot be messed with in times of sickness because the head simply Won't Stand For It.

But this little observation is brief enough and not too messy, only a little bit counter-intuitive. But it is hardly original and follows a certain train of logic and therefore it seemed to The Equuschick that today would be a good day to shake it out and air it.

You're all still with The Equuschick? Brave souls.

We have all oft heard it said to be careful what you most admire, worship, look up to...etc. Be careful what you love, in essence. You'll come to resemble it.

True enough, in some cases.

But it seems to The Equuschick as she looks at life that it can also just as accurately be said that you are for all of your life also in grave danger of becoming what you hate. In fact there is almost a frightening destiny about it.

Think of those times you were wronged that you cling too, even after all those years.

Think of that person about whom you say "I hate the way the way they do that." "I despise them for being this way." "Thank heavens I have too much sense to be like that."

Alas. We're so silly. We are becoming what we hate.

Admit it, we see it in others. The man who clings to injustices done him long ago will often become unjust. Those wounded by the selfishness of others and still seething in his hatred of the other man's selfishness will become selfish. The unforgiven will sometimes become unforgiving and those wounded by the anger of others will often become angry.

In some cases (because humanity is like that, full of choices) the opposite is true.

Why the differences? Because some learn to let go and others do not. Because some say "It has been done to me, I will do it to others." Others say "It has been done to me, I will not wish the pain on anyone."

More sadly still, others want most desperately to the be the latter kind of others and still find themselves horribly transformed into what they most despise.

Why?? Example, habit. Many reasons. But also because they cannot let go, perhaps?

Why do you become what you love? You study it. You spend time in the presence of what you love. You cling to those cherished memories of the time you spent in that most loved presence. You dwell on it, you dwell with it. You obsess.

And even the best of us do the same with what we hate at times. We obsess. We dwell on those memories and cling to them with something like idolatry. We study those we hate, so we can learn new ways to hate them.

But all we really learn is is how to be like them. And tragedy strikes and history repeats itself and years later we're stuck with ourselves, all but the very image of everything we most despise.

So The Equuschick's claim is that it isn't so much what you love or you hate (though practicing love is always superior to practicing hate), it was what you dwell on.

Be careful what you dwell on.

Again, not particularly original. But there it is.

My Room, again.

I set my little horse figurine on my window today, and enjoyed watching the shadow travel across the floor and up onto my closet door.

Calculating Meat Costs- bone-in, boneless, canned, fresh, frozen....

What you really want to look at when price comparing your meats is the cost per serving. If chicken wings are on sale for .79 a pound and boneless, skinless chicken breasts for 1.99, the novice cook would guess that chicken wings are the better buy.

But chicken wings are almost never a good buy. The only time I'd bother to have them in my house is if they were a gift, and then I'm still not sure they're worth the fuel cost to prepare them. They are a fiddly food, messy and irritating to eat, and it's nearly impossible to get all the meat off of them.

Wenchy-Poo has more- as ever, she's on anti-carcass meat crusade- I agree with her to a point- I mostly buy boneless chicken. My brother used to work at a restaurant and he bought the food as well, and he told me that bone-in was simply not really saving any money, because the bones weigh so much. I mainly like a whole carcass when it comes to turkey, because I find the turkey bones make a richer, fuller broth. Wenchy-Poo disagrees. And you know what? It's kind of like the Equuschick trying to find the perfect place for her onion chopper.

Wenchy-Poo says she gets hate-mail over this issue, which makes me weep for the human race. She shares the information (which is useful), and we are free to do what we like in our own kitchens.

Thanksgiving and Following

We're going to Granny Tea's. Guests include us, my brother's family of six, Shasta and the EC, a college chum of the girls' (already here, as school is out for fall break and she could not go home), tootlepip's daughter (a friend of the family since around 1997) who will arrive tomorrow, and the single mom and her two boys (I attended the birth of her second son and was the first one to hold him).

That's only 23, and I feel like there should be more.

Granny Tea is making:
Turkey
ham
stuffing
mashed potatoes
gravy
rolls
an olive/pickle tray

We're making:
pretzel salad
broccoli salad
green bean casserole
cranberry sauce
cranberry orange relish
( we do make both of these things- from scratch)
crockpot pumpkin custard
Mince meat pies (we do not make these from scratch)
and probably chex mix for snacking before hand, possibly snappy cheese appetizers as well
baptist wine- grape juice and ginger-ale=)
Tootlepip's girl will pitch in with a right good will, as we know from experience (she was invaluable at the wedding. Have I mentioned that we have amazing friends?)

The college chum is making a corn casserole traditional in her family and something chocolate.

The Equuschick is making crisps- apple crisp, pear crisp, pear-cranberry crisp....

I expect our single mom pal to bring a carrot dish or maybe a carrot or sweet potato pie

The only thing left for my sister-in-law is probably pumpkin pies- and she's driving four hours down from the state to the north of us and makes divine pumpkin pies, so that's a lovely thing.

The FYG has been planning a program of games, readings, coloring, and more for a couple of months. She's got a folder of things she has collected from the internet.

We may or may not do the 'what are you thankful for' thing- it tends to lead to tears. I hope Shasta brings his guitar.

Unfortunately, Pip is going to be leaving early that afternoon to go help some friends who have an auction house- they have a big sale Thursday evening, and need help in the concession stand. She'll spend the night and we'll get her home sometime on Friday.

Then Friday night, we have a singing. Lots of our regulars will be gone, since they are college students and it's fall break, but some others are coming, including at least two who are spending the night.

"YOu always have people over," says Shasta. "Seems like every time I called last year you were getting ready for company, or just had company, or were having company right then."

I guess it's what happens when somebody who likes hanging out with his friends marries somebody who likes hanging out at home and would never go anywhere else if she could help it.

Terrorist Attacks in India

Mumbai- more here.

Coordinated attacks in multiple locations, ongoing, still continuing- over the last four hours. Currently 80 dead and 200 (make that 250) wounded, but they're hardly done counting yet. They terrorists have attacked hotels and hospitals, and seem to be using emergency vehicles to move through the city. They've taken hostages, focusing on those with British or American accents.

Gateway pundit is doing round-ups and updates- the pictures are not easy to take.

I feel like the announcer at the Hindenburg disaster, wanting to wail, "Oh, the humanity!"
------------------------------

Injuries are up to 900 now. Lawhawk has more.

Evaluating Universal Preschool....

a study in contrasts. I found these two posts juxtaposed at the Tennessee Alliance for Early Education website:

Thursday, August 21, 2008

An independent study of Tennessee's Pre-Kindergarten program shows that it is working, but that more needs to be done. The study should reassure taxpayers that there is accountability for the expensive Pre-K effort. It also sets the stage for improvements.

The state hired Ohio-based Strategic Research Group to evaluate results of the three-year-old program...

The headline basically indicates the study proves they need more money for their successful program. Immediately above that article is this one:

On Tuesday, Aug. 20, the Ohio-based Strategic Research Group released its second interim report assessing the short- and long-term effects of Tennessee’s high-quality voluntary pre-K program.

The Tennessee Alliance for Early Education does not believe the findings accurately reflect the benefits provided to thousands of students each year by the state’s top-ranked pre-K program.

This morning, the Alliance released the following statement:

"The incredible demand for pre-K across the state demonstrates the broad appeal of Tennessee’s high-quality, voluntary program. The thousands of parents and children who benefit from our state’s commitment to quality early education speak volumes about the success and effectiveness of this program.

From the start, we’ve had serious reservations about the way the SRG study was put together.

According to the December ;'08 issue of Reason magazine, what the Ohio based SRG found is that

"the advantages of participating in teh program disappear by the time students reach second grade. In every case, in every subject, there was o statistical difference between the children who attended preschool and those who did not. Nor was there any advantage for low or middle-income children in particular.

And in Oklahoma,

where state-funded pre-kindergarten has been in place for 18 years- and offered universally for nearly a decade- students slipped below the national average on math and reading scores for both the fourth and eighth grades after the state began expanding its preschool program.

Four year olds don't need to be spending their days in government institutions. They need to be at home, at the park, skipping down the street, mucking about in puddles, scrambling over rocks and trees, and making mud-pies.

FLDS November 26

The 17 year old who gave birth just two months before her 17th birthday and ten days after Walther released all the kidnapped children and women has reached some sort of an agreement with the state on the DNA testing of her infant:

SAN ANGELO, Texas » A teenage member of a polygamous sect who had refused to reveal the whereabouts of her newborn reached an undisclosed agreement Tuesday with authorities seeking a DNA sample from the baby so they can find out whether the father is an adult.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther ordered that the terms of the compromise between the 17-year-old and the state be kept secret, said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the state department of Child Protective Services.

The state has a better case with this girl than they do with any other case we've seen yet- but their claims are nonsense. They are not trying to find out 'whether' the father is an adult (and if they were really worried about that, they'd have kept her in foster care until they were sure. They are looking for evidence for a criminal charge. I'm not real het up about that, but let's not join in this 'let's pretend' game.

State officials believe the girl was married to a man in FLDS when she was 14...

Right. And the girl's name as well as the name of the man (a 42 year old) are listed in the affadavits the state presented in court back in April.

I'm not going to defend him. He can take his licks, and possibly his jail time, if that's how a criminal trial turns out.

But that doesn't mean the state gets a free pass, either.

Remember how we were told how brainwashed these girls and women were, that they were 'trained' to do what they were told and never stand up for themselves, making them vulnerable to victimization? The state's expert testified that their respect for authority put them at risk for abuse.
Sounds like it:

The girl initially pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked whether the baby stayed with her at her given address in San Antonio, but after consultation with Ellis, she answered that the child at one time did stay with her at that location but was not there anymore.

The girl told Dolezal the baby is out of state.

"I don't know right now" the exact whereabouts of the child, she said. "She is traveling."

When Dolezal asked where the infant was being taken, the girl shut down.

"I refuse to answer that question," she said, and when pressed on why she refused, she said: "I just don't want anyone to know where she is."

Ellis then consulted with the girl again, and the attorney quietly told Walther the girl knew the potential repercussions of refusing to answer a question when instructed to by the court.

"Ma'am, the court instructs you to answer the question," Walther said.

"I refuse to answer," the girl replied.

Walther recessed the court and called the attorneys into her chambers, where - as she has been known to do, especially during this case - she tersely ordered both sides to reach an agreement. Soon after, she left the courthouse.

According to that story, CPS filed a motion earlier this month alleging the girl was married at 14 to an older man, so, again, they aren't trying to 'find out' who the father of the baby is. They were pretty sure they knew who the adult father of this 16 year old girl's baby was when they let her go back into the FLDS fold- ten days before she gave birth.

Odd that this brainwashed, cowed, unable to think for herself girl is able to tell Judge Walthers "I refuse to answer," isn't it?
-----------------------------------------

Thanks to FLDS.WS- I missed this earlier story, which has something of an ominous ring to it. The photographer at the Salt Lake Tribune has his photos up on the internet, and this is a page from the early days of the raid- when the mothers and children were being housed at the fort and coliseum. Scroll down and read this caption:

Soon CPS will have no such problems with photographers, as they began today to move people to the local coliseum. It’s a much more secure location where we can’t see anything.

I think it was when I shot this photo that a police officer approached us and said a CPS worker was going nuts because she didn’t want us to photograph the feminine medical examination equipment being taken into the building.

(emphasis added) Think about that for a while. How could the police officer legally and constitutionally stop a free press from photographing medical equipment being carried into a building (public property, at that), and why would this be so important to CPS?
That's bad enough. But it's worse, sickeningly worse. Sore Toes and a Bleeding Heart has pulled together enough information from two or three sources to put together an account of an unauthorized exam using that equipment- on a child who did not turn two until after he was returned to his mother. His name is Willson, and his mother wrote his story and it was posted to the FLDS website:

Willson had chickenpox while in state custody. He also had an earache, and an upper-respiratory infection. At one of his follow-up medical visits, they performed a SANE examination on him as requested by his ad litem. (CPS was not even aware of this examination until after it was done. Those are only supposed to be ordered by Law Enforcement on an allegation of child abuse.) I was never even told about any of those things and did not know until I picked him up from the shelter and was given some of his medical records.

I read that when she posted, but it didn't have the impact it should have because I had no idea what a SANE exam is, and I didn't look into it.
I linked to Willson's story at some point- and I find the hollow, broken look in that little boy's eyes absolutely heart-wrenching. Sore Toes explains what a SANE exam is, and I understand why the despair in this baby's eyes. Basically, it's a head to toe exam of a very invasive sort, and you can read more at Sore Toes' and at the Texas Attorney General's website where they describe it.
Imagine strangers forcibly taking away a 21 month old child, stripping him (and this child has never even had his diaper changed in a public place), and poking all over him, looking for forensic evidence to 'collect'- and all this is done without his mother's knowledge, without the presence of anybody he loves or feels safe with.
That poor child was assaulted by representatives of our government, who were paid for their assault by tax dollars. To add to the tragedy, his father died of a heart attack just two months after Willson was returned to his home. How much did CPS induced stress have to do with that?

Are we to believe they brought in medical equipment large enough that they didn't want photographers showing it to the public to use it only one 21 month old boy? How many other children received such exams, and we haven't heard of it? Willson's mother only found out when she was given some of his medical records. Do we really think that CPS was careful to give all the parents ALL the medical records?

And there are still people who think the well over 12 million dollar cost (12m is only what they admit to, they are leaving out costs we know they incurred, making the estimated amount probably at least double) and trauma in human lives is 'worth it, if they find only one child-bride.' Is it? How many toddlers were traumatized to 'rescue' a dozen 17 year olds by putting their husbands in jail, tearing apart their community, and inflicting post traumatic stress disorder on hundreds of children?

I do not 'approve' of under-aged brides, but if you believe that teen aged girls getting pregnant by adult men is really what this whole mess was about, I have some Nigerian bank accounts I'd like to share with you for a modest fee. There are hundreds of 14 and 15 year old girls having babies- they are in the public schools, and CPS isn't interested.

And it did not have to be this way- had the state merely removed the teen-aged girls while they investigated, there probably would have been very little publicity or outcry, the courts would have likely upheld such an order for removal by Judge Walthers, and certainly there would have been far less long lasting trauma to the most defenseless members of the community. Instead, CPS chose to use a chainsaw approach in their attempt to destroy and dismember this community- and their defense has often been, "But this is how we always do things, the only difference here is in the size of the group we've removed."

I am afraid this is one of the few times CPS has told the truth in this case, and this is why we are all at risk until something is done to curb CPS' standard operating procedure which is an abuse of power, and exceedingly harmful to the children they are imagined to protect.

Thanksgiving Poetry, Stories, and Proclamation

Thanksgiving Hymnn

Games to entertain children: Make these easy little boats (takes seconds) and dub them Mayflower and Speedwell, have boat races in a dishpan.

Recitations and readings for Thanksgiving (and more Thanksgiving poems and stories)

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington
You can see a picture of the original as it appeared in a local paper of the time here.

Books I Ordered from Eighth Day Books

I had my 20 percent off coupon and free shipping, and this is what I got:

Well, a secret. Shhh. It's a Christmas present for one of the Progeny.

And:

The Quotidian Mysteries

by Kathleen Norris

Published: 1998
88p, Paper

Kathleen Norris’ most refreshing Book to date and part of a longer work in progress, The Quotidian Mysteries addresses the spiritual value derived from the performance of quotidian, or daily, tasks with equanimity and patience. The author asserts that such tasks are a necessary part of spiritual health, writing, ’’When human beings try to ’do everything at once and for all and be through with it,’ we court acedia, self-destruction and death... Modern psychology does not always know what to make of mystery, but it is in agreement with the psychology of the ancient desert monastics in recognizing that depression is often the flip side of anger.... and it manifests itself as the sloth of disobedience, a refusal to keep us in good relationship to God and to each other.’’ For readers who have been entranced by Kathleen Norris’s poetic spiritual writings and yet sometimes felt impatient with the eclecticism of her sources, this book marks a significant shift.

The topic interests me, but who could resist a book with 'quotidian' in the title?

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society

by Eugene Peterson

How much moral and ascetical theology is summed up in this title! ’’Two convictions undergirded my pastoral work,’’ Peterson writes. ’’The first conviction was that everything in the gospel is livable and that my pastoral task was to get it lived. It was not enough that I announce the gospel, explain it or whip up enthusiasm for it. I wanted it lived -- lived in detail, lived on the streets and on the job, lived in the Bedrooms and kitchens, lived through cancer and divorce, lived with children and in marriage.’’ Accordingly, we are given a sensible, deeply perceptive biblical interpretation of Psalms 120-134 (the ’’Psalms of Ascent’’), punctuated by telling historical example and personal anecdote, directed toward what it means to be a disciple. It should be read by new followers of Jesus, for it is a perfect primer; and long-time followers of Jesus, for it is a perfect reminder, of the nuts and bolts of authentic Christian living toward God.

I expect this to stomp all over my toes, as I have the attention span of a ferret on caffeine.

and;
A is for Ox: Violence, Electronic Media, and the Silencing of the Written Word

by Barry Sanders

This is an extremely wide-ranging Book which constantly provokes one to new thoughts. Sanders argues, for example, that modern street gangs are the products of a shared illiteracy, that the serious watching of TV and movies has a profound impact upon cognitive skills, and that mothers who are not home with their children risk permanently damaging their children’s linguistic skills-- with dire results. In other words, Sanders relates many of the bad things in our world to changes in orality and communication. In his own words, ’’we are witnessing a social catastrophe: the dissolution, at the deepest levels of consciousness, of that alphabetically constructed human being we have taken so much for granted that we ignore its nature and disregard its function.’’ Like Neil Postman and Walter Ong, Sanders is struggling with crucial issues unwise for us to ignore.

My friend the single mom with two boys? Her older boy was the brightest, most articulate little fellow we'd seen in a long, long time. He got sent to Headstart and we sort of lost touch for about six months and then touched bases again and.... that little guy is exactly where he was, perhaps a bit regressed, six months ago. Headstart did not do anything for him that his mother wasn't able to do for him- even when they were living in a shelter for battered women.

I've mentioned before how delayed our son was in his speech. He grunted and gestured at things at the same ages where his sisters were speaking in clear and complex sentences. Little girls his age would come inside and say, "MOther, I was swinging on the swingset in the backyard, when I lost my grip, slipped off the swing, fell to the ground, and then, to add to the indignity of it all, when I pulled myself into an upright position the swing struck me in the back of the head."
My son, experiencing the same thing, would come in and say, "Mom! Ugh [point to the swing], OFF [sign 'off'], Fall Down, UGH [gesture for the swing coming back] OWWWWW! [bopping himself in the back of the head]."
I exaggerate the little girls a bit, but the cave-child routine? That's a direct quote.

And so we took this little guy to family camp with us one year when he was two and had not yet even developed his grunting to the sophisticated level you see above. STanding in line at the chow hall he said something charming like, "Mom. Eat. Noodies! [his word for noodles]." and the woman in line behind me marveled at his advanced vocabulary.

I laughed.

"No, really!" she insisted. "He speaks incredibly well for a child of his age."

"That's not been my experience," I said carefully, as my son walked off with one of his siblings to get a bowl of noodies. "His speech is a good year behind that of four of his older sisters at the same age, and of the remaining two, one never did speak, and they both were part of an older, sibling adoption."

"Oh, no," she said authoritatively. "He's quite advanced for his age. He's more articulate than many four year olds, and I see a lot of them."

You know where she worked?

Head Start.

Homeschool Blog Awards Up

Hooray! Congratulations to all the winners, but I confess a special excitement over two in particular- Life in a Shoe won best family, and Smockity Frock won best cyber-buddy. I always feel funny telling anybody who I voted for or who I want to win- for me it crosses over from just fun into cliquishness when that happens, (again, that's FOR ME, a purely subjective thing), but now that it's over, I'll admit that I was rooting for these two (and a couple others who did not win 'best' but are still winners in my book).

Cool beans, ladies (and etc.)=)

Another Black Friday Shopping Gig

And this one is more my speed- Amazon has some pretty cool Black Friday deals up even now, and they are ongoing. No crowds, you can shop in your pjs in the middle of the night or the afternoon.

One of the things we like is this stainless steel water bottle- the 40 ounce version is on sale for half price right now. This cute 12 ounce version is 5.98- and both things are eligible for free shipping- saving you gas money, too. These make great gifts for members of your family who have to be away for lunch. The HG and HM are gnashing their teeth because they paid full price for theirs (well, the HM's was a present). They are made of food grade stainless steel, and keep water tasting fresh and clean- not plasticky. They are pretty indestructable, too- ours have been dropped, rolled around in the car and to the ground outside it, stuffed in the HG's backpack, and, in short, endured considerable abuse of the sort that would make a wimpy plastic bottle split its sides in terror.

It is pricey, and you won't find me telling you that you'll save money this way- you'd save more money keeping a plastic water bottle always filled and in your car. But we do like the stainless steel ones better, and it might be just the present that fits the ticket for that special gift.

Other coolness: Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe- 4.99

Vintage Illustration: A Fine Place to Work

The Woman's Book Dealing Practically with the Modern Conditions of Home-life, Self-support, Education, Opportunties, and Every-day Problems

Young Love

Sunday afternoon my new son-in-law waxed rhapsodic about his new wife- music to a mother's ears, naturally. He said this all in front of his wife, too, which made her a very pretty pink. He told me he is positively giddy over two things in particular (that were suitable to a Mother-in-Law's ears):

That the Equuschick makes the bed when she gets up (the second time- she gets up at 4:00 AM to makes his breakfast, then goes back to bed when he leaves for work). Up until a few months ago, his brother slept in the living room of his apartment, and a friend in a spare-room, and I gather their housekeeping habits gave Shasta high blood pressure.

That she cooks. From scratch. Things he likes (he is easy to please on this front- if his wife cooks it, he likes it). He gave himself a nasty case of food poisoning trying to cook for himself, and he is disproportionately grateful that his new wife cooks well and regularly.

"Why," he demanded of the EC, "Didn't you marry me a year ago?"

"Hmmm," she said. "Why didn't I marry you a year ago? Let's see..... who asked me to marry him a year ago? Oh. Wait. Nobody."

He acknowledged that she certainly had a valid point, and then indicated that he considers that delay on his part one of the more regrettable instances in his past.

I see his point- he certainly would have been happier with the Equuschick a year and a half ago (when he first told a friend he was going to marry her- but he hadn't yet old any of US)- but we cannot feel quite so sympathetic as we ought because we are grateful for the extra time with her.

Pens

(Originally written on November 16th)

Some (or all) of you probably know that I have EC’s room now that she has left our house. Previously, I shared a room with the HG, so it is nice that we both get our own room now. (not that we dislike each other’s company or anything.) I tried to take all my stuff from one room to another in an orderly fashion, which worked beautifully for my clothes. I mean, clothes are orderly things—-they either hang on hangers in my closet or go in my dresser. No worries there, and deciding which goes where is pretty straightforward. When I came to trying to move things from the top of my closet or the bottom dresser drawer or my desk drawers, the whole thing flopped. Miserably.

See, I am not an organized person. (That sound you’re hearing is probably my mother laughing, because that may be the biggest understatement of the year, or even the century.) Semi-annually I sort through all my stuff and try to get rid of some of it, because I do not like being a pack ratty sort of person. I think I do a pretty good job of throwing away unnecessary stuff, although SOME people probably think I do not go as far as I should (*wink*), while my dear mother might be shocked if she knew of some of the papers I had thrown out. (Thank goodness I have a horrible memory and won’t remember which ones I kept or threw out by the time she reads this post. :-D) At first I had thought of doing a different part of my room every few months, and then it would stay at least reasonable clean, and *I* would know where everything was, even if Certain Members of the Family still thought it looked like chaos. Unfortunately, like the idea of moving things in an organized fashion, this idea flopped just as badly. It “went over like a lead balloon.” Not well at all. It SEEMS perfectly reasonable, but it just did not work. If, after being hit on the head one too many times by some item, I planned to go through the top of my closet I would find some of the items on my closet shelf should be in my bottom dresser drawer, but they won't fit because half the stuff in THERE should go on my bookshelf or in my desk drawers, but there's no room because some of the stuff on my bookshelf or desk drawers should go in the closet, and when I go to put THAT away, I find I have no room there, because some of the stuff in my closet needs to go in my bottom dresser drawer, and... you get the picture.

So, as I started to move stuff into my room, the same thing happened. I *tried* to bring things in gradually, but since I had too much stuff in my closet that belonged in my dresser and bookshelf and desk and too much stuff in my dresser that belonged in my bookshelf and closet and desk, and—well, I don’t have to go on. I just couldn’t do it gradually, so the result was I brought it all in at once and dumped it on my floor. Oh, and on my bed. (Yeah, I didn’t sleep there that night.) Then, to top it all off, I realized I needed to clean my purse out as well. I know, that seems odd, but it makes sense. (Well, as much as anything I do makes sense, which would be... not much.) Occasionally I will need to put Certain Things in my purse for Special Occasions that I would not generally carry in there, and this means taking out some stuff that I normally have with me; or perhaps I have used it as an extra storage device for small-ish items. Both of these figure in this story (or monologue).


Now, before I go on, my purse is not a big purse. I am not a fan of carrying around big purses, and I would never be able to survive with a big purse, because I would forever lose things in it and never have what I needed there when I needed it. Even if I did have it in there, I wouldn’t be able to FIND it if I did need it. It’s not *tiny* purse, either, since I have to carry my Bible in there, as well. (I do have a small Bible, though.) Lest you be laboring under the impression it is one of those gargantuan Mary Poppins type things that my mother totes around, I must assure you that it is not large. A normal girl would have a bible, a notebook, a pack of gum, chapstick, wallet, cell phone, change, and a couple pens in there easily and it would be considered Quite Full Enough.

When I went to work at the polls, I put an extra book in there, besides the two books I regularly carry, and then a few days later a bag of cough drops. And lately, I have been using my purse as a storage device for pens. Yes, pens. I have a multitude of pens. Gel pens, and regular ink pens, and pens of all colors. For my birthday I think I got three different sets of fun colored pens. :) Call them legion, for they are many. :-P Because I carry my bible around in my purse, and I start my school day off with a Bible reading, I also keep my purse with me during the day. It might make more sense for you to just take the Bible out, but I assure you I would lose my Bible very quickly if I did that. I don’t do a very good job of paying attention to my surroundings, so I am apt to put things in the strangest places and not remember anything about it until I see them again. (seriously, the pencil in the hairbrush drawer?!) My purse is at least big enough that I can’t put it down an out of the way spot that I don’t regularly walk past. (Like the time I left my quote book AND my booklist on the bottom shelf of the classics, pushed far enough back that I couldn’t even see them.)

If I have my purse around, it also ends up be a receptacle for the small items I am all too prone to setting down and forgetting—- like writing utensils. Only, and here you probably already know what comes next and are laughing at me, I don’t *remember* I’ve put them in my purse, at least not until I’ve looked in all three of my notebooks, the hairbrush drawer, and on the kitchen counter, all to no avail (unless I happen to have left one there from the previous day). Sighing to myself, I go to get a new pen, and sit back down. Of course, I have left the purse on my seat, so I must move it to sit down, and when I move it everything comes back to me. It usually does. I think I would be happier if I just never remembered at all, but remembering when it is no longer useful only makes me sad and annoyed. And then, of course, the process must repeat itself once during the day. So, I end up with an abnormal amount of pens in my purse, and when the time comes that I can’t fit any PAPER in it to write on, I decide to clean out my purse.

Which brings us back to cleaning my room: I have dumped everything on the floor and found a few notebooks that really should be long in my purse, but when I open my purse to put them in, I can’t because of Ivan Denisovich and my pens. (Alright, so there were some other things in there, but I’ve forgotten what they were... ahem.) Numbers fascinate me and counting is one of my ‘things,’ so when I dumped out all my pens, I counted them.

32.

Yes, 32, and my very favorite black pen that I use all the time was not even in there. I have apparently mislaid it. (Attention family members: it’s one of the cloudy ones that K. gave me, and if you have picked it up somewhere, let me remind you that we have never had a ‘finders, keepers’ rule in this house, and it is mine. A gift from a dear friend, you understand. :-P) I had a picture of all 32 of them, but it was a bad picture because my Dear Dog Donovan wagged his tail into it, and you can’t even see all the pens. Oh well. I am sure you are all old enough to count and know what 32 pens looks like. :-)

This whole thing is rather like the book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” because when I cleaned out my purse, I found Ivan Denisovich, and when I found it, I had to finish it. (I only had 20 pages left, you understand.) And after I finished it, I had to write it down in my book journal, except I remembered I had five other books I needed to write down, too, all stacked up on my dresser. I put Ivan Denisovich on my (somewhat precarious) stack of books, and went in search of my book journal. I could not find it. Now, yesterday, Mother had me clear a lot of stuff off of the scanner, and my book journal was one of them. I knew I had put it in my room, but yesterday was also the day that I dumped EVERYTHING onto my floor, so I didn’t know where exactly I had put it. After looking half heartedly through the piles, I realized it was probably in the stacks of notebooks, diaries, finished books and books waiting to be read that I had on my dresser.

Unable to see anything clearly, however, I started to clean it off. Of course, I found many things that belonged in places elsewhere, but I just dumped them on the floor, too, since that seemed to be my mode of attack for that hour. (Donovan was very sad because there was nowhere for him to sleep near me for quite a while.) I found the book journal, on the bottom of a stack of papers, along with “The Little Minister,” which I was *oh so close* to finishing. Not as close as Ivan, about 100 pages, but I read quickly, so... I finished it. Having *finally* written down all of the books, and put my book journal where it belongs (not much hope of it staying there for very long), I went back to cleaning my room. Except, I forgot: the contents of my purse were still on the floor. Sighing heavily to D-man, I cleaned all that up, and then for a good two and a half hours worked steadily on sorting, tossing, and organizing everything. The result was... this post.

I am not yet done with my room, but I am almost done, which is good, n’est-ce pas? I actually have room for me on my bed, Donovan and his blankets on the floor, and all the stuff I didn’t have a chance to put away is neatly (to my standards, anyway) in a corner, waiting for tomorrow. I suppose I would have had time to finish it tonight, if I hadn’t written this, but I wanted to post that picture of the pens... you know, the one that I’m not posting because of Donovan. You’d have never guessed that was what started this whole ramble if I hadn’t told you, would you?

And now, I really must be off to bed. If I was a more organized person, this post would be much better written and more grammatically correct, and the incidents would flow in the order that they happened, but I'm not and it's not, so I apologize for this most disjointed of posts. Off course, if I was a more organized person, this post wouldn't even have been started in the first place, I suppose. :) I have a clean conscience about posting this regardless of its boredom-inflicting length and composition, since I don't expect most people to have read all of it, anyway. :-D

~Pipsqueak

P.S. I exaggerated my forgetfulness a *little* bit, but not by much. If you have any doubts, ask my family. It is true that I lose my pens and pencils frequently, but I do not lose them by putting them in my purse as often as I make it out to be. Even *I* do not do that more than once a day. More often I put them in different places as I walk through the house thinking about Confucius, chocolate chip cookies, crayon colors. :-D

P.P.S. And yes, I realize the solution to my whole problem of needing to clean everything at once would be to be better at putting things away, remembering where things go, and just being little bit more organized. I'm working on it, promise!

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw. When he’s finished, he’ll ask for a napkin. Then he will want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache. When he looks into the mirror, he might notice his hair needs a trim. So he will probably ask for a pair of nail scissors. When he’s finished giving himself a trim, he’ll want a broom to sweep up. He’ll start sweeping. He might get carried away and sweep every room in the house. He may even end up washing the floors as well!

If You Give a Mouse A Cookie, by Laura Joffe Numeroff

Politicians Aren't Public Servants

Neither are most other 'public servants:'

The majority of government workers serve themselves and, unlike in the free market, there is no Adam Smithian invisible hand that causes them, by doing so, to serve others. Incentives in the political system are typically distorted, so that by serving themselves, most government officials work against the interests of those they claim to serve. Someone in government who wants to help the public often comes to think of “the public” as those who make the most noise. Thus, for example, when I worked in the Reagan administration’s Department of Labor, most long-time government employees there referred to labor unions and unionized corporations as the public. What about non-union laborers and consumers? They never heard from these people and so in these government employees’ minds they were not the public. In fact, they didn’t seem to count at all.

Public Choice economists have pointed out that in the political system, the people with a disproportionate influence are members of concentrated interest groups that have a lot at stake in an existing or proposed government program. Take the U.S. government’s quotas on sugar imports. Please. Because U.S. sugar producers have so much at stake per person, they have a large voice in the process; sugar consumers (virtually all of us), though we lose only a little each, lose more in total from the restriction than sugar producers gain. Multiply the sugar-quota program by about 1,000 and you have just accounted for a huge part of what the U.S. government does. The administrators of this program and the majority of congressmen who vote for it are not serving us.

Frugality Is Individual

You have to use some common sense when looking around at frugal sites, and you have to have a good sense of who you are and what works for you, while at the same time being open-minded enough to be willing to give new, unfamiliar, or even uncomfortable things a try.

For Instance, Jennifer Derrick put together this list of ways a friend of hers could save 280 dollars a month (there's a lot more to this post, but this is the part I want to stress):

* Eliminate two fast food meals out per month for her family of four = $40
* Eliminate one sit down meal per month at a restaurant like Applebees = $40
* Cut the premium pay channels from the TV package = $20
* Direct deposit $10 per pay period into a savings account = $20
* Eliminate that extra stop at Target just to look around that always ends up with something being purchased = $20
* Husband brown bags his lunch to work twice a week instead of eating out = $50
* Use a few coupons and the loyalty card at the local grocery store = $30
* Shop around for better deals on cable, Internet, and phone and possibly bundle some services = $20
* Use a refillable mug instead of bottled water = $20

* Use the library for books and magazines and stop purchasing/subscribing = $20

Now I'm sure this is a good list for her friend, but it's not a good list for us (and Jennifer didn't make it for us).

We almost never eat out.
We don't pay anything for television because we don't have it.
We already direct deposit some money to savings.
Target? I have been to a Target once in about five years. I could eliminate a trip to the thrift shop.
My husband pretty much always brown bags it.
I shop at a discount grocery store. I've pretty much given up on coupons because they almost never have any for foods I buy, and they generally aren't any cheaper than the foods I do purchase, even with the coupon. Exception- Walgreens.

Jennifer didn't mention this, but I also do not do rebates- other people do, and they seem to save good money at this, but I have to face reality, and the reality is I cannot manage to follow up on rebates, so it's better for me never to buy anything that will only save me money if I fill out the paperwork, find the receipt and proof and purchase, an envelope, stamp, and working pen all within five minutes of each other. When this happens, we will know the SEcond Coming is Nigh.

Shop around for better deals on cable, Internet, and phone and possibly bundle some services = $20

No cable. We do spend more than others in our area on the internet- we live in a rural area where high speed service is not widely available. We have the minimum available in landline service, and my cell phone is free. The HM's phone is paid for by his boss. The Equuschick's cellphone is the responsibility of her new husband, the HG and Jenny pay for theirs on my mother's plan (which is where mine comes from, but it's free).

We mostly use refillable containers for water- though we did end up buying a case of bottled water twice in the last six weeks because we had more running around to do than usual due the wedding, and because water in our area is so utterly nasty that if I do go to a restaurant, I only order a soda with no ice, because the ice tastes and smells like eggs.

So where could we save money? I'm trying to think of ten ideas for the next month or two to see how much we can save beyond what we are already doing.

1. We could do better shutting down the computers when not in use and unplugging all the electronics when not in use to save on phantom loads.
2. I could watch our waste better, and be a better manager in my kitchen- I am embarrassed over the foods that have been tossed lately because they spoiled before we used them.
3. I could quit buying that extra Dr. Pepper when I am out and about. They do add up.
4. I could airdry at least a couple of loads of clothes each week- we do have a wooden clothes rack for that purpose.
5. I could reteach and reinforce the measurement restrictions on dish soap and other use- my youngest two children take a turn doing the dishes each day, and they are profligate with the dish soap, and I am pretty sure they are wanton with things like scouring powder and counter spray, as well. On the other hand, my son could stand to be a bit more profligate with shampoo and soap, so maybe it evens out.
6. Eliminate the thrift shop trip- OR force myself to buy only what I am SURE I can resell.
7. Stop accumulating overdue fines at the library. (Gulp. This may mean I have to stop using the library.)
8. Make some cookies, brownies, crackers, and a few other snacks from scratch and freeze them so that there is less temptation to run to the store and buy something extra when somebody drops in or when we know we are going to be running errands for a while.
9. We go to church some 45 miles south of here. That's not going to change. But we could be more diligent about doing two things while we are there- filling up the car with gas (there is one gas station there that is always at least ten cents a gallon less than at home), and shop at the even more discounted discount grocery store where I would just pick up a few standard items that are always cheapest there- rice cakes (The Cherub is allergic to so many things, this is her 'cracker' and sandwich base); cheese; cream cheese; tuna fish...
10. Prepare a brown bag lunch for Sunday afternoons on Saturday night- because we're already 45 miles from home and grocery shopping, I have been spending too much on snack items at that grocery store- it's still cheaper than eating out, but bringing a better lunch would be better still.

What about you?

Recipe and Culture from a 1918 Cooking Magazine

From American Cookery, a bound volume of cooking magazines published in 1918, comes this little tale of a young bride learning to cook from her older neighbor across the street. The neighbor says she doesn't write things down, and she gets mixed up when she tries, so the new bride needs to bring along her notebook and write things down as Anna makes them. Dorothea, the bride, laughs and says the writing is easy, it's the doing that troubles here.

"You'll learn," promised Aunt Anna placidly. "It's practice as makes perfect." And then, "You tied your pencil to your book, just as I said!" approvingly.

"With a blue cord to match my kitchen blue," nodded Dorothea, "A pencil always handy and nobody'll want to borrow it, seeing it is tied on, and forget to give it back. Isn't it queer how folks forget to give pencils back?"

Aunt Anna nodded, her eyes on the silky blue cord, "You young folks have such fun fitting up your kitchens now-a-days," she mused. "In my time we never thought of color schemes."

"Maybe the magazines didn't have such pretty suggestions," voiced the younger matron. "I saw an article about blue and white kitchens down at the library one day and I made mine to match," contentedly.

" There weren't so many magazines when I was a girl," reminisced Aunt Anna. "Print matter wasn't so common."

"But aren't you glad it is now," chirruped pretty Dorothea.

"I dunno," hesitatingly, "And then I have thought I'd like to take a magazine- a real woman's magazine or a real cooking magazine..."

Dorothea does get her recipe- it's for vegetable loaf, which is something Anna's husband calls camouflage cooking, and small lesson in substitutions, and the readers get a honey coated advertisement that goes down easy, and thus do we see the beginnings of how we became the sheep that shopping shaped.


The recipe written out:
1 cup each cold boiled beans, tomatoes, mashed potatoes, uncooked rolled oats (soaked fifteen minutes in one cup boiling water, which, er, would make them cooked, yes?)
1 egg
1 each teaspoon cooking oil and salt
dash pepper
generous teaspoon dried sage (Aunt Anna prefers sage grown at home and then dried, as it is more flavorful.
1 cup of raw sausage

Combine in bowl, form into loaf, bake.

Substitutions: you can use cooked, shredded cabbage and carrots in place of beans and potatoes. You can use two cups of bread crumbs instead of oats. And the potatoes needn't be leftover mashed potatoes, they can be diced baked potatoes. What won't do, says Aunt Anna, is substituting any other kind of meat. She says it might taste just as well, but it will completely alter the flavor of the loaf.

The recipe pasted as an image (imagine the blog as a scrapbook):

American Cookery

Carnival of Homeschooling

WELCOME!! You are visiting the something or other number Carnival of Homeschooling, and we are glad to have you. (whoops- the 152nd!)

I was hoping to announce the Homeschool Blog Awards Winners, but they seem to have had a problem with massive cheating, which boggles the mind- who would cheat to win a batch of largely Christian prizes? Is it all about the publicity? Ah, how seeking after the favor of men does distract us....



Meanwhile... let's read on- here are the entries, sprinkled about with some of my recent discoveries in vintage illustrations:



ARITHMETIC

(The Pupils' Arithmetic. Primary Book By James Charles Byrnes)

3 Moms presents Number Bonds: The Key to Teaching Math Facts posted at Happy to be at Home.

BLESSING OTHERS

Amy Smith presents Learning Through Giving posted at Kids Love Learning.

Miss Amanda presents Homeschool Memoirs: Award The CATEGORIES! posted at The Daily Planet.


Have you see A Friendly Place for Homeschool Moms? Barbara Frank Online says we should check out a great new social site for homeschool moms.

christinemoers presents National Adoption Month - Definitely, Maybe! posted at welcome to my brain . net.

COOKERY, CRAFTS, 'N COLORS

kerry.wmson presents Art Resources for Homeschoolers - November 2008 posted at A Ten O'Clock Scholar.

Annette Berlin presents Watercolor Tutorial Links posted at Craft Stew.

HappyCampers presents Breakfast For A Crowd: Ham & Eggs On Croissant posted at Reese's View Of The World.

Erin Lasky presents Frugal Scrapbooks with many uses posted at Delighting in His Richness.

(Source:Primary Education )

Blogger: Mrs. C at Homeschool and Etc. presents: "Our Day at Public School"

How to give your homeschoolers a fabulous field trip to "public school," complete with squashed sandwiches for lunch.

Heh. We did this once when my oldest two were complaining that they wanted to go to public school, but their idea about it all was terribly unrealistic.

You can vicariously enjoy A Medieval Feast over at Simply Sandy

Primary Education

JCL presents Mission Accomplished! posted at Gifted Uniquely - Homeschool Twins.

The Life Without School Community Blog answers a question from a mother-
Should I Homeschool My 16 Year Old?
"....basically boils down to this one question: How do I help my daughter succeed?"
Actually, this mother also had some confusion about the GED and a diploma- she is confusing homeschooling, which her daughter wants to do, with dropping out of high school, which she did. She fears that her daughter will experience the same closed doors that she did- but homeschooling is not dropping out and her daughter should make that clear. She can write her own diploma and take the ACT or SAT (there's no need for the GED, and, in fact, my husband, who hires people for his company, strongly discourages it. GED, as unfair as it may seem, communicates 'failure.' Telling potential employers you graduated from a small private school or a home-school does not carry the same stigma).

Primary Education

Mary Nix presents How do we combat the prevailing fear? posted at The Informed Parent.

Cristina presents Home Spun comic strip #291 posted at Home Spun Juggling.

Lynn presents Check out my articles... posted at Eclectic Education - Homeschool Blogger.



Alasandra presents Why I will not boycot ABC posted at Alasandra's Homeschool Blog.

Here's the video embed if you want to see for yourself:
Andrea presents Education Examiner: The view on homeschooling posted at Education Examiner at Examiner.com.

Laura presents Lazy Wife Syndrome posted at Practical Homeschooling.

In a post titled Common Ground at SpunkyHomeschool
Spunky asks, "Can Christian and secular homeschoolers find common ground in their desire to homeschool? Is it necessary? Spunky explores this topic given the desire by some Christian homeschoolers to define a Biblical standard for homeschooling."


ChristineMM presents I Could Be One of Them posted at The Thinking Mother.



HISTORY

Primary Education

Shannon presents Plimoth Plantation posted at Mountaineer Country.
Susan Gaissert presents Randomness and Ambiguity posted at The Expanding Life.


Just for fun:

And more fun!
LITERATURE, LANGUAGE ARTS, AND ALL THINGS BOOKISH

Primary Education
Lorraine Curry presents Homeschooling - Using the Library posted at Easy Homeschooling Blog.

Kim presents Read-Aloud and Older Children posted at Works in Progress.

And.... accouncing our new and improved Homestead House blog, where we are clearing out our shelves, listing books for sale, and occasionally posting tips, narration questions, and ideas for using books- it's a work on progress.

Public School


Primary Education

Britannica Blog presents Education: Test From a Curriculum, Not a List of Standards | Britannica Blog posted at Britannica Blog.

Title of blog: No fighting, no biting!
Title of post: more education hypocrisy
Summary: The Obamas are private school shopping in DC while appointing an education transition leader who wants to turn our public schools no-learning zones.

Kevin presents instructions for Teaching Sight Words posted at More4kids Homeschooling.



High School

Elena LaVictoire presents CLEPPING through High School posted at My Domestic Church.

Methods in our Madness

Shannon presents Unit Study Trial - Week One posted at Mountaineer Country.

Title of Post You might be a homeschooling family if...
Name of Blog Beverly’s Homeschooling Blog (About.com)
Brief summary of the post "...you have more bookcases than children and your formal dining room has been renamed The Classroom." That’s one example of the many responses since 2002. Join the fun and add your own.

Misc (what this means is I ran out of time for sorting and categorizing!)

Primary Education (source of picture)

Kim Kautzer shares a Thanksgiving Acrostic at her blog In Our Write Minds
Brief summary of the post: Have some fun writing Thanksgiving acrostic poems!



Bible Memory Tips
Alison's Writing Corner
Several fun games and activities to help with Bible memory.


Carol Topp, CPA presents Can my family's homeschool be a nonprofit? posted at HomeschoolCPA's Blog.


Tonya Power presents Accountability posted at Domestic Entropy.


See A nice thing about homeschooling at Why Homeschool

The Reluctant Homeschooler offers A routine for teaching English (at last) at The Reluctant Homeschooler "English is SUCH a critical skill to teach, and I wanted to teach it all - grammar, vocabulary, writing skills, and the classics. How could I do it all? Finally, I came up with a solution..."


Over at FaerieRebecca's Workbench take a peek at SHE Team Giveaway
The SHE Team is a group of homeschooling crafters who all sell their wares on Etsy (SHE stands for Schooling at Home Etsians). The Team is having a giveaway offering two items a day for *free* through the holidays. Her post links you to the SHE Teamblog, rules, etc.


Thanks for visiting, and don't forget to visit our Homestead House blog!

FLDS, November 25

"To date, 12 people associated with the polygamist compound in Eldorado have been indicted as part of the ongoing and continuing criminal investigation," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.

SLTrib


Meanwhile, Arizona prosecutors claim they have no intention of using any of the documents seized at the YFZ ranch in Warren Jeffs' trial. Jeffs' attorneys don't believe it:

defense attorneys Richard Wright and Michael Piccarreta note that Arizona law enforcement has been in Texas reviewing thousands of documents.

"The state has just disclosed an 'FLDS Evidence Inventory' of items received and reviewed by the state of Arizona from the Texas raids," they wrote. "The inventory itself comprises 23 pages and references thousands of documents and other items, including religious materials that are obviously constitutionally protected and other privileged communications."

They point to federal authorities' acknowledgment of a database for information sharing among several states with criminal probes into the FLDS Church and Jeffs in particular.

"Given the extraordinary extent of these coordinated prosection efforts, the court may understand the defendant's reluctance to accept the state's assurance that those efforts, designed specifically to obtain evidence against him and others, will have no bearing on the current criminal proceedings," Wright and Piccarreta wrote.

The judge said that unless a deal is struck between prosecutors and Jeffs' defense team, he may have to rule on the legality of the search in Texas.

And won't that be interesting. What if he rules that the search was illegal? There go the Bishop's records, which make up the bulk of the reason for going after the 12 men they have managed to indict. Some of those 12 men, if not all, are probably guilty of the charges against them and they may yet go free, after further state expenditures in the millions, because of the shoddy way Texas has handled this mess.

PIcaretta would like to interview anti-FLDS activist, and frankly, nutcase Flora Jessop, since it was her conversations with the hoaxer Rozita Swinton that sparked the raid on YfZ. He wants to list to recordings of those phone calls (weren't we told at some point that the calls were not recorded?). She initially agreed, but then backed out when Picaretta refused to meet a new condition she imposed:

Piccarreta said Jessop refused to proceed unless Mike Watkiss, a reporter with KTVK Channel 3 News in Phoenix, and his cameraman were allowed to record the meeting.

Piccarreta said he had never had such a demand in 34 years of criminal defense work. "That is not the purpose of an interview, to provide entertainment on television," he said.

He said the request also was inappropriate due to a courtroom ban on television cameras in Jeffs' Arizona proceedings.

You know, CPS was outraged and vindictive because Merrianne and her family wanted cameras there to record the way CPS handled returning Merrianne to state custody. So were CPS supporters- and yet in just about every instance I've seen, the same exact people who thought it was outrageous and deserving of punishment for the families victimized by CPS to insist on a camera presence, they are fawning over FLora's dishonesty- she initially agreed to this interview, remember, and only imposed the camera crew restriction at the last moment essentially going back on her word.

I'm a little confused by part of the timeline in the article. According to the article, Piccarretta wants to talk to Jessop about phone calls with a person using 'the phone linked to Swinton,' and these conversations occurred between March 22 and April 16.

However, the next paragraph says

"In calls that began March 29, the caller claimed to be a 16-year-old being abused by her husband at the sect's ranch."

And then we get this:

Jessop has said she received her first similar call on March 30. In numerous calls taped by Jessop, the caller claimed to be a young girl in Colorado City, Ariz., who was being abused by her husband. Jessop alerted authorities on April 4...

So... did the phone calls begin March 22, the 29th, or the 30th? And WHY, when confronted with an allegedly pregnant allegedly 16 year old girl allegedly bigamously married to a man allegedly beating the stuffing out of her (to the point of requiring hospitalization, according to the stories Swinton and Jessop told), did Jessop wait a minimum of FIVE days, and possibly TWELVE before alerting authorities?

Incidentally, the state has nonsuited all but 36 children- and that number includes the children of the doctor, who is only charged with a misdemeanor offense that Planned Parenthood commits every day- that of failure to report that a 16 year old is pregnant.
Only 12 men have been indicted after multiple Grand Jury meetings (a reminder: ONE afternoon a few months ago, a Grand Jury in the same county indicted fifty people on various charges, nothing to do with FLDS).

Here's a bit more on the FLDS teen who won't let Texas officials see her baby:

She gave birth in San Antonio on June 14, two months before her 17th birthday and two weeks after a Texas Supreme Court ruling returned FLDS children to their parents.

Attorney Kelly J. Ellis, who is representing the girl, did not return a telephone call from The Salt Lake Tribune.

John R. Dolezal, attorney for DFPS, said in a Nov. 14 court filing the department believes it is in the teenage mother's "best interest" to "provide her with parenting classes and related assistance in ensuring that she is able to appropriately provide for the care of her child."

So... she was 16 when she conceived. Have we seen any pregnant 13 year olds like CPS said they had? And she was, as they say, great with child when social services had her housed in a Baptist children's home, and they made no effort to keep her in custody, so they really weren't terribly interested in those parenting classes and making sure she was equipped to care for the infant she was about to give birth to.
Once more- here is an example where social services had at least enough of a case to convince most people that they had at least enough reason to hang on to this girl a little bit longer- and they didn't, demonstrating, once again, this really never was about the individual girls and children as human beings.
Willie Jessop says the girl's fear right now is that what CPS really wants is to yank her and her baby back into foster care. And right now, the only reason they have for trying to have anything to do with her at all is that she's 17 years old, unwed in the state's yes, and has an infant. Um, how many other Texas girls do you suppose fit that profile? If this were about minor girls having babies, we'd see CPS doing a lot more work in schools and indicting Planned Parenthood.


FLDS Leaders Surrender at Schleicher County Jail:

Two of Warren Jeffs' top lieutentants surrendered themselves Monday at the Schleicher County Jail after being indicted on November 12, 2008. Merril Jessop, and Wendell Neilson were escorted to the jail by Texas Rangers along with their attorney and FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop. Merril Jessop, 72, is charged with Conducting an Unlawful Marriage Ceremony Involving a Minor, while Wendell Neilson, 68, faces chages for 3 counts of felony Bigamy, 3rd degree felonies. Leroy Steed, 42, also surrendered himself, he is charged with 2 counts of Bigamy and a charge of Sexual Assualt of a Child. Steed was arrested during the YFZ Raid and charged with Tampering or Fabricating Evidence with Intent to Impair, a 3rd degree felony.

The three men all posted bond and were released. Merril Jessop is free on $30,000 surety bond. Wendel Neilson was released on $30,000 surety bond while Leroy Steed posted a $120,000 surety bond.

So here's a list of indictments:

Dr. Lloyd Hammon Barlow - Failure to report Child Abuse, 3 counts

Keith William Dutson, Jr. - Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count

Michael George Emack - Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count; Bigamy, 1 count

Abram Harker Jeffs - Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count; Bigamy, 1 count

Lehi Barlow Jeffs - Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count; Bigamy, 1 count

Warren Steed Jeffs - Sexual Assautl of a Child, 1 count; Bigamy, 1 count; Aggravated Sexual Assault of a child; 1 count

Raymond Merril Jessop, Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count; Bigamy, 1 count

Leroy Merril Jessop, Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count; Bigamy, 1 count

Allan Eugene Keate - Sexual Assault of a child, 1 count

Fredrick Merril Jessop - Conducting anlawful Marriage Ceremony of a Minor Child - 1 count

Wendell Loy Nielson - Bigamy, 3 counts

Lehi Johnson Steed - Sexual Assualt of a Child, 1 count; Bigamy, 2 counts; Tampering with Evidence, 1 count

Those interested can compare that to the information on the Bishop's List- noting that these 'sexual assault of a child' indictments are mostly about 16 year old brides- the legalities are one thing, and I don't approve of 'child-brides,' but let's not pretend this is as outrageous as CPS would like to claim. Angie Voss insisted every household on the ranch was involved in underaged marriage, and that every child was at immediate risk because of the religious views held by those at the ranch.

Over four hundred children kidnapped by the state and 26 adult women dishonestly held as children- all those children have been returned except one, and around 35 children have been returned to their parents but CPS is still keeping them on the books with court oversight. 12 men indicted- one of them already in jail for the last couple of years- and an incomplete cost of over 12 millions dollars so far.

This is not one of the great moments of Texas law enforcement or social services. I hope and pray those children and their mothers are recovering from their ordeal.

Make a cute coupon organizer

When I've done coupons, my coupon organizer is a batch of envelopes that the junk mail came in all taped together to make a coupon file folder. I cut the stand up tabs out of the envelope flap and reinforce with tape. It's extremely functional, totally free (except the tape), and I like it.

But this version is a sweet gift for a friend who's a frugal wannabe, or for a bridal shower.

Check Back in the Morning for the....

Carnival of Homeschooling!

Thanksgiving Decorations and Crafts

Using Fimo or Sculpey dough, make a Thanksgiving dinner for the dollhouse

Use fruit and printable hymns to make pretty place cards- then eat the fruit and sing the hymns.

Hollow out some small pumpkins for tea lights.

My Room

I've been gradually working into EC's old room these last couple weeks, and this is the set up for my stuffed animals. They used to be tossed wherever onto my bed, but I got tired of losing them, so hopefully this will work out a little better. It is at the end of my bed, and I keep my letter writing stuff right underneath it. There is just enough room for me to sit on the floor (hence the blankets down there) between it and the bed, and it is a comfortable place for writing or reading.
The shelf itself used to be the top of the bookshelf for Mamadah's cookbooks. It was too tall for where she wanted it, though, so we cut off the top. I took it for a shelf for my shoes inside my closet a while back, but decided it wasn't really working there.
Sorry for the bad angle of the picture, but it was the best one I could get. My dresser is on one side on it and sticks out too far for me to get a good side view, and the bed is too close to get a frontal shot.

Blog Gender Analyzer

We guess http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (57%), however it's quite gender neutral.

City Orders Church to Stop Helping Homeless

City officials have ordered 22 New York churches to stop providing beds to homeless people.

With temperatures well below freezing early Saturday, the churches must obey a city rule requiring faith-based shelters to be open at least five days a week -- or not at all.

Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves as a link with the city, said he had to tell the churches they no longer qualify.

He said hundreds of people now won't have a place to sleep.

The Department of Homeless Services said the city offers other shelters with the capacity to accept all those who have been sleeping in the churches. The city had 8,000 beds waiting.

More here

My title is based on the original link I found (sorry, I misplaced it), and it sounds pretty awful, yes? Who does the city think it is, telling churches how to practice their faith?

There's not enough information to be positive, but I suspect that isn't what's happening. The point about faith-based shelters indicates that the churches are receiving money from the state to run their shelters, in which case, the state does have the right to set some rules, and the word 'qualify' indicates that in fact, what churches are being told are that rules for what they must do to get civic funding will be enforced. If they want funding for their work with the homeless, they have to be there to help the homeless five days out of seven. They can't put people up only for the weekend, and then expect a government hand-out.

I am open to correction, but I don't think that the city is telling them they cannot put up the homeless one night a week if that's what the church wants to do, but only that they can't keep receiving government funds as faith based homeless shelters unless they are providing beds five days a week.

More on Black Friday Deals

IF, and only IF, you already have a particular purchase(es) in mind, you might find something useful in this list of Black Friday bargains.

In my case, I am to be spared the horrors of Black Friday shopping again this year, after all. Tootlepip's daughter is spending Thanksgiving with us, on the condition that the her friend the HG will go Black Friday shopping with her, as it's apparently something special she enjoyed doing with her mother when she lived at home. I am only a recreational shopper at bookstores and thrift-shops. So if we find the laptop we want, we'll send our specifications along with the girls and let THEM brave the crowds.*

*You have to understand that when I go to the museum, if there are five other cars in the parking lot, that's a crowd. If there's a school bus, I leave.

The Anti-Mormon Fallout from Proposition 8 In California

The Mormon church in particular is being targets- gay activists have set fire to Mormon scriptures and left them on temple steps (cowards, they won't do this to Muslim mosques, and they won't do this in the black community, even though Black voters had more to do with Prop. 8 than Mormon voters), envelopes of a suspicious white powder have been sent to LDS headquarters, .

Churches oppose same-sex marriage in part because it represents an implicit threat to freedom of conscience and belief. California already had one of the broadest civil-unions laws in the country. There was little in the way of government-sanctioned privileges that a state-issued marriage license would confer. But the drive for same-sex marriage is in practice about legislating moral conformity — demanding that everybody recognize homosexual relationships in the same way, regardless of their own beliefs. Freedom of conscience, or diversity of belief, is the last thing the homosexual lobby will tolerate: In New Mexico, a state civil-rights commission fined an evangelical wedding photographer $6,637 for politely declining to photograph a gay commitment ceremony. In California, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against two San Diego fertility doctors who refused to give in-vitro fertilization to a lesbian owing to their religious beliefs, even though they had referred her to another doctor. And just this week, evangelical dating site eHarmony, which hadn’t previously provided same-sex matchmaking services, announced it had been browbeaten into doing so by New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights and the threat of litigation. The first 10,000 same-sex eHarmony registrants will receive a free six-month subscription. “That’s one of the things I asked for,” crowed Eric McKinley, who brought the charges against eHarmony.

Where do they go from here? Gay activists are already using the legal system to try to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon church. If you believe that churches and synagogues, priests and rabbis won’t eventually be sued for their statements on sexuality, you’re kidding yourself.

More here.

In the history of the world, marriage has never been between members of the same gender. Never. They don't just want to destroy religious liberty, they wish redefine reality. And this is not simply about wanting to be with the person you believe you love.

Somebody asked me how I would feel if somehow the state suddenly made my marriage to my husband null and void and declared that we could not legally be married. Let's set aside for a moment the fact that this isn't the same thing at all, since the state would be doing exactly what the militant gay (special) rights activists are seeking- redefining marriage. So it's not a valid comparison, but I'll play, anyway.

I am married to my husband, in our eyes, in God's eyes, and in our children's eyes, and the state can't change that. They can remove civic recognition, and that would be irritating and inconvenient, but they can't stop us from living together as a family, and I would not suddenly feel unmarried just because the state said I didn't have a valid marriage. So I would be seriously displeased with the state if it redefined marriage, because redefining the millennium old basic units of human relationships is not something the state has the authority to do. It would not change my relationship with my husband.


(Obligatory disclaimer- I am not Mormon. I am not impressed by vast segments of Mormon doctrine.)

INdian Schools and The Problems with Government Charity

IN 1902, the National Education Association had their annual meeting. One of the topics of discussion was how to civilize the Indian children in their Indian schools. Indeed, it was a matter of first principles for the NEA:

Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the ... Annual Meeting By National Educational Association (U.S.). Meeting

There are numerous discussions about what to do with the Indians throughout the pages of this tome. This one caught my interest:

Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the ... Annual Meeting By National Educational Association (U.S.). Meeting

Notes on my history paper

Professor's notes that make a history student smile:
"nice transition!"

"great quote!

"As always, the writing is good."

~~~
Notes that make a student cringe:
""this glosses over a much more complex process." (on a couple of sentences about the conquest of Mexico)

~~~
Notes that make a student sigh and trek it back to the library:
"do you want to substantiate that assertion?"
(ah, the power of a rhetorical question)

And when a prof says this is the beginning of a very good paper, this means that Major Editing is on the horizon and that sanity levels will begin dipping soon.

Bailing Out the Big Three

Mitch Albom shares what he would say if he had the floor at the auto rescue talks. He writes eloquently, but I do not find this at all a compelling argument for bailing out GM and company. I do, however, find it a very compelling argument for why we should impeach Congress, initiate term limits, and force Congress to telecommute instead of hanging out in D.C. becoming increasingly out of touch with the common man and indulging in overmuch bonding with lobbyists.

Being Poor

When last we met our hero, he was working two jobs trying to support his growing family, and yes, it was growing. Our HG was on the way, although we didn't know that's who she was then.

Up until that point we had been sleeping on the floor- because our bed was one of the items we sold. I couldn't sleep on the floor anymore. It was too painful for me (I have a very bad back). There was one store in town that would give credit to people like us, so we went there and bought a bed. All we wanted was the frame, the box springs and the mattress, but the salesman saw what idiots he had with him, so he convinced us somehow that it would be cheaper to buy a headboard, too. I think he told us that the only mattresses we could buy separately would cost more than the mattresses that included headboards. He was lying. But we just counted it as a blessing that we had such a kind, thoughtful salesman. And when we signed on the dotted line we counted it as a blessing that places like this existed to give poor people like us credit.

It took us years to get out from underneath that payment. I once figured it all out, and by the time we paid off that bed we had forked over enough in monthly payments to buy three or four beds, maybe more.

We really did need a bed. We did not need to buy a bed that way. We could have gone to our family or our church family and asked if somebody had a secondhand bed to loan or sell us. We could have asked family or friends for a loan that did not have such exorbitant interest rates. The problem is that those things involved the one thing we consistently refused to do- admitting that we needed help. We had made 'mistakes' (the nice word we use for being fools and sinning) I had no intention of going to them with my hand out because I fully expected to receive lectures along with actual help. The reason I did not want to hear those things was my own pride.*

So we got deeper into debt, our obligations in every area grew, and now we were going to be responsible for another human being- and we still would not ask for help.
I thought getting pregnant was about the worst thing that had ever happened to me, and it was the best. I was blind, so blind. Because I could see no light at the end of our tunnel, I thought there was only darkness ahead. But I could not see the light because I had lived too long in darkness and my eyes were not accustomed to seeing things through faith. I was a Christian. I believed. I loved the Lord. But I did not yet have enough faith to comfort me in what I foolishly thought was a fiery trial.

Thanks be to Heaven that quite often God listens to our prayers and knows what we secretly wish in the darkest corners of our murky, cobwebby little hearts and says, in effect, "Don't be so stupid. You have no idea what I have planned for you."

So, in spite of my early misgivings and fears I began to fall in love with the little person who was inside my womb, kicking me, hiccupping through the last three months of my pregnancy so that I could not ever, ever forget that she was there, even if I wanted to. I played classical music for her, putting headphones on my belly. To this day she is more moved by music than any of us. I talked to her and sang to her. I kept up with doctor visits and kept a journal of everything I ate so I could be sure I got enough iron rich and high protein foods.

The moment she was born I finished 'falling in love' and was utterly ravished by mother-love. I held her in my arms and could not imagine life without her. She was perfect, just perfect- like all our children.=) I could not put her down. I could not bear to leave her with anybody else. I was the most besotted mother in the history of the world. My children have read letters I wrote to family members during her early months, and they just howl with laughter at how foolish I was over that baby. I knew she was the most beautiful baby in the world, and I actually felt sorry for other mothers who had to see my incredible little armful of perfection and then go home and see how very inferior their own babies were. My mother gently tried to tell me that all mothers think their babies are superior, that God puts that in nearly every mother's heart. I think she meant for me to realize that I was included in that, but I only understand that the other mothers did not realize how much better my baby was than theirs because God had done them a favor and clouded their vision. I was so glad that God was so kind and good as to blind other mothers to the perfection of my infant and the inferiority of their own.=)

That's kind of funny, but the truth is that underneath that laugh at myself is the constant knowledge of how I actually wished I was not going to be blessed with this taste of Heavenly glories. I wish I could perform surgery on myself and cut out the memory of those moments when I cried because God was giving me a baby I did not think I was ready for yet. I would perform that surgery without anesthetic. Once more, my wish is not the best thing, because this horrible memory serves as a constant reminder that the blessings of God are so much more marvelous than the wishes we imagine we want, and a reminder that there are much, much worse things than being poor in the pocket-book.

We thought we needed to get out of debt first and become more financially stable before we had children. But having children is actually what motivated us to take the steps necessary for us to become financially stable. I don't mean that this was a 'good reason' to have a child, I mean that all our best plans and wisdom cannot possibly equal God's own plans for us. I have a brilliant friend who told me once that she thinks it is inadequate to say that when God shuts a door he opens a window. We need to understand that when God shuts a door, unbeknown to us, it's usually an outhouse door we were trying to enter, and when he opens a window- OH! What a window He opens! It is the most beautiful stained glass, jewel-toned, brilliantly shining, diamond framed, ruby studded, glorious window we could imagine, and usually it's even better than that.

We love all our children with passion and joy, but there is a special gratefulness for our firstborn because we thought having a baby was a tragedy while going into debt for years for a stupid bed was a blessing, and through her we learned about God's blessings being a beautiful, shining stained glass window. Because of her, we have opened our lives to other blessings, both by birth and adoption, even when other people thought we couldn't afford it.

I have a couple more posts on this period of our lives, but I think this one is probably the most important. Being poverty stricken was not the worst thing that could happen to us. We look back on those days with some nostalgia and even affection. No, we do not want to be so poor we only have two eggs to eat ever again- but if it happened, I hope we would know better than to despair. Looking back on that period of our lives we see that repeatedly, things we thought were blessings were curses, and things we thought were curses were incredible blessings- blessings that have only increased and made our lives more and more lovely because of the lovely people that are in them.

The next time God closes the door for you, look for the beautiful window He's offering. Go through it with joy.

Part one

Part two


*It is not anybody's fault that ours that we ended up in the situation we were in, or that we were too stiffnecked to seek help. However, I have been asked recently how those on the other side of this economic divide (which now includes us) who wish to help the poor might go about it. I have a couple more posts coming up where I share some ideas I've had on this issue, but one thought I have is that we might examine ourselves to see how approachable we are. Nobody should feel like they have wink at sin, nor were we entitled to anybody else's money. And very probably much of our diffidence about going to others for help was entirely OUR problem. Still, if you are in a position to help others today and you're looking for ways to help, begin by being approachable, not harsh- remembering 2 Timothy 2:24, "4 But it behooveth the servant of the Lord to chide not [to not chide]; but to be mild to all men, able to teach, patient," (that's the Wycliffe translation).

Sunday Hymn Post

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
Holy his will abideth;
I will be still whate'er he doth;
And follow where he guideth:
He is my God: though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to him I leave it all.

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path;
I know he will not leave me:
I take, content, what he hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait his day.

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking:
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet am I not forsaken;
My Father's care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to him I leave it all.

Midi File

Annie's Spending Spree, Sweet Children's Book, and An Exciting Discovery

I am going through a bunch of books trying to decide what to keep, what to sell, and what to take to the thrift shop. I need the space.

HEre's one I could not part with after all, and it's too sweet not to share. Annie's Spending Spree isn't going to be in anybody's top one hundred picture books to keep, but I don't have to limit myself to one hundred, so here it stays. It's sort of timely in today's economic crisis, as well.

This is a picture book published in 1957, though from the pictures it looks like it's set a few years earlier. Annie is a little girl. The day before her birthday, while she and her 'fairy grandmother' are having coffee and streusel cake under the grape arbor in the back yard, her grandmother (who isn't really a fairy, Annie just calls her that) gives her a dollar.

Annie's going to have ice-cream at her party- and the illustration shows her with an old hand cranked ice cream maker, a large bag of pure green mountain licks salt, a bucket of block ice and a mallet for crushing it.

Annie has never seen a dollar bill before. Her grandmother explains that it's the same as two half-dollars, four quarters, ten dimes, twenty nickels or one hundred pennies. Annie is breath-taken at so much wealth.

She goes to the general store, drools over the great variety (cinnamon sticks, clove sticks, peppermint drops, gumdrops, leaf candy, candy hearts, molasses taffies, chocolate kisses and more) and asks for 100 pieces of penny candy. The store-keeper tells her she'll get a terrible tummy ache.

She looks at the toys (nickel pinwheels, dime dogs and dolls, .25 goldfish, fifty cent parakeets, and fairy tale books for a dollar). She chooses one hundred penny balloons. The store-keeper tells her she'll float away. She chooses 20 pinwheels, and he says they'll do the same thing. She chooses ten dolls for ten cents each, and he tells her they'd be too much to care for, all needing new Easter Dresses, pillows, beds, and pajamas at the same time. She chooses four gold fish, and he points out that she can't get the bowl with the castle at the bottom and will have no way to carry them home.

She finally chooses the two parakeets, and carries them home in their cage.

The next day the store-keeper comes to her birthday party, bringing balloons, pinwheels, poppers, candy hearts, and a doll. They have sandwiches- three chicken sandwiches, three ham on rye, and three of currant jelly, ice-cream, cake, and a birthday song (which the parakeets join)- and that's the end.

It's a sweet and simple picture book, but with this little book you could have a good discussion of inflation and rising costs (as well as wages- Annie's never seen a dollar, but most little girls her age get an allowance larger than that, and it probably took a day's work to earn that dollar), math (how many dolls can she buy at ten cents each? What if they were .20 cents each? A quarter? If she buys a doll, five balloons, and a popper, what will her change be?), making ice-cream the old fashioned way, and comparing and contrasting Annie's birthday party to their own- maybe more.

It's a sweet little book- Nancy Dingman Watson wrote it, Aldren W. Watson illustrated it, and it's dedicated to Ann Bauer Dingman, Annie's Fairy Grandmother.

And here's a really exciting discovery: Nancy and Aldren Watson are the parents of Clyde and Wendy Watson, sisters who authored one of my favorite children's poetry books, Catch Me and Kiss Me, and Say It Again! (they also did Father Foxes Penny Rhymes) Nancy and Aldren had seven children. Clyde says that one of her fondest memories is of her mother nursing one of the babies while scribbling away at one of her stories with her free hand.

Here's bit more biographical background from somebody who was renting a cottage from the family last year. Sadly, Nancy and Aldren divorced at some point. That's always so disappointing (yes, I know it's none of my concern, really, but it still saddens me). And here's some more biographical background filled in on a webpage about another of their artistic children.

Favorite Playthings

While browsing Life in a Shoe (Kim nearly always makes me laugh), I saw that I missed a Works for Me issue on favorite toys- the keepers.

Ah, well. I'm a third culture kid, so I hang back and watch from the outskirts and take a while to warm up, so it's okay that I'm just sharing my ideas THREE WEEKS LATER, right?

I would have to say that, hands down, the playpretty all my Progeny played with the most and the longest would be the dress-up box. This is a wicker trunk (sometimes a rubbermaid tote) of dress up clothes picked up at the thrift shop and yard sales. I look for glamour for the girls, hats, uniforms, sashes, belts, and similar accessories for the boys. Pieces of uniforms... gold.

But what they really, really like from the dress up box is yardage. Two to four yards of fabric that they can drap, wrap, cape, or flap however they like. In fact, they like this stuff so much that one year it is what Pip requested for her birthday, so we went to the fabric store and bought two yards of this, three yards of that, and another three yards of something else. That was ten years ago, and those lengths of fabric have remained a favorite with our children and visiting children through three states and four houses.

One of them in particular is very cool- it's a dark sort of mesh fabric covered in sequens. What makes it totally awesome is that when you put it over your head, you can see out perfectly well, but onlookers only see the sequens, so it looks very ominous and anonymous. Drape this over your head and put a hat on to hold it in place and you have a very dramatic and kind of scarily cool look- dwa dwa diddy, diddy dum, dum, din- you can see out but they can't see in.

Ahem. At least, that's what I've been told.=)

The dollhouse- even the boy likes this IF we provide him with boyish things for it- boy dolls with weapons and tools, for instance. Animals. Toy hardware. pieces to put together (and take apart). It helps if we set this on a small bench so that it's at eye level for a child comfortably seated on teh floor in front of it.

Matchbox cars and hotwheels. Duh.

Baby dolls. Also stacks of old bandanas to be folded and tied into handkerchief dolls

Wooden blocks, and more wooden blocks, and more wooden blocks.

The Equuschick remembers enjoying playing with small horses- toys that fit in her hands, particularly on car trips.

Leggoes- for the boy. I know some girls like them, too, but mind mostly did not. I have owned leggoes since the HG was about three years old. But none of the girls were ever very much interested in them. In fact, so little were they interested that when we moved out of Colorado, I very nearly purged them with a bunch of other stuff we got rid of for the move. The boy was around five, and he hadn't shown much interest. They ended up in a box in storage while we lived in the little house with one bathroom. I pulled them out when we moved into this house, and they have been out and about ever since. What a narrow escape we had.

The HG says I must mention bunk beds, as they could hang sheets down from the sides to make private spaces, and the bunk beds could then be covered wagons, cabins, caves, cars on a train, and more.

Obama's Foreign Policy

Is Progressive Foreign Policy Dead on Arrival?

It will be some time before we know the full extent of Obama's ambitions on domestic policy, but progressives are sure to feature prominently in any debate over health care, energy, banking, etc. In the realm of foreign policy, however, progressives seem already to have been marginalized, or dismissed entirely.

Barack Obama's national security team is beginning to take shape and there is not a progressive in sight. Assuming the leaks and rumors are true, Hillary will be at State, Jones will serve as national security adviser, Brennan will head the CIA, Gates will stay on at Defense, and Obama will be taking counsel from Scowcroft all the while. These people are not progressives (except Clinton on domestic policy); they are generally considered to be in the realist camp, with the possible exception of Clinton, a liberal internationalist. Jones, Gates and Scowcroft aren't even Democrats.

None of this is surprising. Obama never seemed to take progressives very seriously on foreign policy.

MIchael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard

FLDS November 22

(edited to add the link) From Brook's polygamy blog at the SLTRIB comes this excerpt about the multiple pregnant teens that the state claimed to have in custody:

Three teenagers were pregnant and subsequently gave birth.

1. Pamela Jessop Jeffs, who was 18 when she gave birth to her second child this summer.

2. Suzanne Johnson, who was 17 when she gave birth to her second child this summer.

3. This girl, who was 16 when she gave birth to her first child on June 14.

Louisa Jessop gave birth while in state custody, too, but she is 22.

Please note that these are a.ll the pregnant teens Angie Voss saw, and she didn't bother to find out who the fathers were before she removed over 450 children from the FLDS on the basis that she saw a 'pervasive' pattern of abuse. This is a better record than any Texas public school, but Angie Voss isn't investigating those communities.

When the State Supreme Court ruled that Judge Walthers acted improperly when she approved the removal and continued stay in foster care of over 450 children (and adult women the state insisted were teens), they did leave open the possibility that she could keep the teenaged girls in custody.
She didn't. She sent them all back home, including the youngest of these three girls- the only one who really presents at least a reasonable doubt that CPS might want to investigate. June 14th is immediately after the Judge sent the children home. It would not have been unreasonable or shocking or outside her legal boundaries for the Judge to keep this one very pregnant 16 year old girl in foster care, at least until she saw a valid wedding license or made sure the girl had good medical care and they checked the DNA of the baby. Of all the 450+ people Judge Walthers had in her control, this is the only one that presented anything like a possibly valid reason to continue to hold her. Judge Walthers upheld CPS ceasing custody of Louisa's baby on the basis that he was a 'minor child of a minor child' even though she and everybody else involved knew perfectly well that Louisa was an adult. So why didn't she keep this girl, who actually WAS a minor child about to give birth, the only one of the children it actually made any sense at all to keep, in custody?

Who knows? According to this story:

A girl alleged to have been married to an adult at age 14 has become the new focus of the state's investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at a Schleicher County polygamist compound.

In a brief hearing Thursday, the girl's attorney told 51st District Judge Barbara Walther her client was not present, torpedoing a planned hearing on a motion by the state's Child Protective Services agency that would have compelled the girl to produce her newborn child for DNA testing.

"My client is not willing to appear voluntarily," said Kelly J. Ellis, the San Angelo attorney appointed to represent the girl.

Walther rescheduled the hearing for Tuesday, ordering the girl, her mother and the newborn all to be present.

According to the CPS motion, the girl gave birth June 14, just after Walther returned 439 children to their parents at the order of the Texas Supreme Court. The higher court ruled Walther should not have allowed the state to take emergency custody of all the children after its April raid on the YFZ Ranch northeast of Eldorado.

Court documents do not list the exact age of the girl, nor do documents released in the course of the seven-month case provide any immediate indication of how old she is or reference to her parents, Sarah Barlow and Joseph Steed.

I want to be clear here- I am not saying that the girl is or isn't abused. I am merely pointing out that if this was ever really about the children, of all the children the state kidnapped, this is the one they could have made the best case for keeping, and the judge did not bother. Poor Merriane, who is back in state custody, doesn't have a child, and can't possibly see her adult husband because he has been locked away in jail for a very long time.

Cost of the raid so far, over 12 million dollars. And that doesn't include attorney's fees.
Of course, that doesn't begin to account for the human cost- the infants forcibly weaned and yanked from their mother's arms, the toddler traumatized by their abrupt separation from their parents and their siblings, the preschoolers who cried themselves to sleep at night, the children who may never trust a police officer again, and the women who will never, ever go to the state for help even if they need it for fear of what it will do to their entire community, given the state's obvious preference for chainsaws where a pair of tweezers would do.

Where we are:

Since the raid, in which CPS seized 439 children in the largest custody case in U.S. history, the agency has sought the dismissal of 402 children while determining an additional 26 alleged children were actually adults. Six children have been placed in state custody, with one of those removed from her parents' care.

A report on the agency's investigation since the raid is expected to be finished by the end of the month, said spokesman Patrick Crimmins.

The dismissals do not necessarily mean CPS determined no abuse was present in a situation, Crimmins said.

"We don't believe that court oversight is necessary," he said. "There still could be some contact with CPS separate from court oversight."

Texas CPS has shown itself to be incompetent and ill equipped to be involved with any FLDS children, with or without court oversight.

Being Poor, Part 2

(this is an edited and updated version of a series I did a few years ago. This is part 2. Part one is here. I thought of posting them again when reading Amy's excellent series on how they got out of debt. This is NOT in any way a rebuttal- her advice is fantastic. This is more of a 'what you life looks like when you don't follow Amy's model' and also, I hope, encouraging to those who, like us, did not start out the right way, and want to do better anyway)
Scroll down to bottom for some recipes we used to save money at the grocery store

So, when last we met in this story, our hymn humming social worker wanted to know how we were managing to survive on the nonexistent income that we had, and we wanted to know where our next meal was coming from.

We told the social worker that quite honestly, we did not know how we'd been getting by. We'd sold some things, but we had nothing left to sell. Family had helped some, but we did not want to ask them to help more- this was not entirely honest. Family had helped some, but we had not asked, and we did not want to ask. We were ashamed and too proud to ask them, so we preferred to go with our hands out to the anonymous state. But we did not explain this to our case-worker.

We just explained that we didn't want to be a burden to our family, and all our resources were used up and we did not know what to do next. He nodded his head and explained that ordinarily when somebody applied for food stamps, paperwork had to be processed and then we would have to wait to get something in the mail telling us whether or not we were approved. However, since we were in such sad shape, he was authorized to give us some vouchers that we could use that afternoon to go get some food. He was really a very nice man. We had a pleasant conversation and somehow it came out that he went to church nearby, and he was very pleased when we told him that we were Christians.

While we visited with him another client came in to talk to another case worker. The client was very upset- she had five children and was living in her car, and she didn't feel that she was getting the help she needed. Her children were actually in the car at that moment- and she'd parked in a no-parking zone directly in front of the building so she could see them at all times.

She was loud, she was crying, she was distressed and not altogether rational. The person working with her was calm, compassionate, friendly, and soothing, trying to assure her that some of her fears were not realistic. I felt sorry for her, and I felt guilty, too, since we were using resources that maybe could have gone to help her or more people like her, and we were not as badly off as she was.
But I still put the foodstamps in my purse.

I wish I could remember how much we received in food stamps, but I just don't. It was the maximum possible to a family of two. I cannot recall the amount, but I know I felt rich. We were able to eat very well on those vouchers. Not only could we afford meat, but we were able to have company over from time to time. We served soups, stews, and stir fries and not steak, but we did not mind. I was even able to afford snack items. I was bewildered when I would read that food stamp allotments were not enough to feed a family. We had no trouble covering our grocery bills, with some left over for discretionary spending, and add that to the WIC vouchers I started getting, and we ate shockingly well.

YOu can't use food stamps for anything except food. They have switched the program now to some sort of charge card like deal. Back then, we got vouchers, monopoly money. They really couldn't keep track of how much I spent or where. Your change was supposed to be in more food stamps, but your change was for less than a dollar, then you received your change back in regular coins. So we learned quickly to carefully calculate or grocery bill to be just a few pennies over an even dollar amount, and by saving this change we had enough to buy things like laundry soap, deodorant, toothpaste, toiletpaper, soap, and similar items not covered by our food stamps.

I am told that now, with the card system, they do keep track of how much you spend and if you don't spend it, they reduce the amount down to what you're spending. I don't know if you have to underspend for a specified length of time, or if just one month of underspending reduces your food stamp amount. I do know that this is the same sort of bureaucratic idiocy behind the government bail-out- fiscal irresponsibility is rewarded, fiscal responsibility is punished.

But back to our story. I was still deeply embarrassed to be on foodstamps. I had to walk to do the grocery shopping since we had no car. There was only one grocery store within walking distance. At least two people who worked there also went to church with us. I would carefully time my trips when I thought they would not be there, or I would make sure I chose a cash register as far away from them as possible so they would not see me pay with food stamps. Several times my plans failed, though, and one of them would relieve my cashier. Every single time that happened, I would leave the line, telling them I'd forgotten something. I would wander the store until they were no longer at the cash register. At least once I just walked home again without my groceries, so humiliated was I to be on any form of welfare.

The Headmaster was able to get two part-time minimum wage jobs, and he put in as many hours as possible. One of his jobs was driving the truck for the owner of the newspaper recycling bins around town. He would drive the truck since the owner had lost his license, and together they would collect the papers, bundle them, and take them to the recycling place. Often people would toss magazines and books in those bins, mistakenly thinking as long as it was printed matter it could be recycled.

The owner had been throwing them out. The Headmaster brought those home to me, one of the perks of his job. Most of the magazines were women's magazines, brim full of recipes, nutritional information, decorating and craft ideas.

I learned to make loaves of bread shaped like teddy bears, and those sold regularly through Granny Tea's colleagues. I learned to make some Asian tasting dishes using sphaghetti noodles, and I learned to make my own salad dressing, saving us even more money. I studied those magazines, searching for every idea that might bring in another dollar or save us another penny. I carefully tore out all the ideas I thought I would use. I pasted recipes into an old photo album. I still use them. I've posted several of them to this blog over the last four years or so.


The HM's other job was at a convenience store, and it didn't have any perks like that, except it really helped pay the bills. His last week on the job he was robbed at gunpoint, making it a more dangerous job than his 20 years in the military, but I digress.

Keep in mind that during this time, we were living without electricity. In our case this mainly meant we had no heat, but we lived in central California, no lights (we used a camping lantern my husband had from his single days), and no refrigerator. We used an icechest (also from my husband's days as a single man). Our hot water was supplied by the apartment complex, and our stove was gas. I just had to light it with a match. We had no electricity because we were scrimping to save up for the deposit.

Between these jobs, my careful grocery shopping, bread-baking, babysitting, the occasional twenty dollar bill from my mother, and largely by the grace of God we finally saved enough money to make the deposit to turn on our electricity.

In a glorious cosmic joke, it turned out that no deposit was required. We'd just assumed we'd need a deposit because we'd needed a deposit before, on our first apartment. But we had to make a deposit on our first apartment because neither of us had utilities in our own names before. When we moved to a cheaper apartment to save money, if we'd asked them to just transfer our bill to the new address, they would have done that without charging the deposit fee.

So for at least three months we rose with the sun and went to bed by candlelight, lived out of an ice chest, and scraped and pinched pennies and saved penny by painful penny for a deposit we didn't even need. We did not know this because we never asked. We could have had electricity all along.
------------------

Interested in some of those money-saving recipes? Here's a few:

Thai Style Pork Noodle Toss (the noodles are spaghetti noodles)

Turkey Picadillo (ground turkey, canned tomatoes, etc); One Pan Dandy (a less piquant version made with ground beef)

Chop Suey

Red flannel hash (canned corned beef hash, beets (optional, but then it won't be red), potatoes)

Cabbage and potatoes

Biscuit mix from scratch

a vegetable and egg pie with a biscuit crust

Potatoes a dozen ways.

Fried rice, because we could vary it with whatever leftovers we had.
Omelettes, because two eggs go much further in an omelette than they do in scrambled eggs, and the filling is based on whatever leftovers you have- a tablespoon of fresh spinach leaves and a tablespoon of grated cheese makes a very creditable omelette filling.

More recipes later

René Magritte

Today is, according to google.com, the 110th birthday of René Magritte, who was a famous surrealist painter. One of his most famous paintings is the one of a man in a bowler hat with his face obscured by an apple. I personally like best the one featured in his wikipedia entry: it is a painting of a pipe, and underneath it says (in French) "This is not a pipe."

Oh, Frabjous Joy, Calloo, Callay

And hip, hip, Hooray!!!!

Here's the deal. I am a slovenly housekeeper. And disorganized. And discombobulated. And harried. And forgetful. And full of sentence fragments.

Through the month of September and October I wrote out the beginnings of a year's list of school stuff for Pip and the youngest two lot. In a notebook. A black spiral bound notebook. They followed it every day.

Up until the week before the wedding, I had things pretty organized- including my notebook. After that.... things fall apart, the center does not hold, and neither do I.

Because we were skipping around quite a bit in several of our books, this was tedious, detailed, time consuming work. I had pages and pages of obscurely written notes like:

Th. 19 578-583 SWB N1; TL BL1 231-236 N1
And

T 2- 238-246 SWB; SHW ch3; TL N2 ;Ps 11-15 ; GGS 282-284; Heritage 34 (w/y2); ML 64-68

I know that looks cryptic, but it's really not- the initials stand for books, usually, except N is for narrate, and the number after it is for pages, and TL is for timeline work, and the y2 is not some cryptic disaster warning, but a note that Pip is to read that book with the Youngest 2.

Oh.

Okay, so maybe that is a cryptic disaster warning.

And I had these notes of the hopping, skipping and jumping we are to do through our books laid out through the end of January.

And I was so totally going to type it out and put it in a note to myself on the family blog (which only the family reads because it's private), except, well, there was that wedding thing. And then the 20 or so houseguests. And then the week I spent comatose after the wedding. So then I finished my recovery coma and went to get my black spiral bound notebook from the totebag of school stuff in my closet.

That sucking sound was my head imploding when it wasn't there.

So then I got out the totebag of books I'm reading or going to read, thinking maybe I put it there.

That whimpering noise? That was me in the beginnings of a total panic.

And then I got out the totebag of various odds and ends of stuff I didn't have time to put away before company got here, and, oh, hyperventilating now, it wasn't there, either.

And then I got out the totebag of bits and pieces of wedding stuff- ribbons, tape, scissors, calligraphy pens, scraps of decorative papers, pictures cut from magazines, etc, etc- and you know it wasn't there, either.

And then I looked them all again, plus a couple of bags of my Christmas stash just in case (No, I do not have a large closet. I have a FULL closet, but not a large one). I rummaged through my dresser drawer (which is also in my closet). I looked through the school bookshelves. I looked all over the computer table.

I cried. I did actually put my hands in my hair and pull- not hard enough to yank any out (I can't spare the hair), but hard enough to hurt. I considered pounding my head on the wall, but my head was already aching and it hasn't stopped all week.

This process of looking and looking again took this entire week, as I first started looking on Sunday afternoon.

Every day this week my new son-in-law stopped by and asked me how I was, and every day this week I mournfully said, "oh.... fine" in my very best Eeyore voice, and he, the eternal optimist and Saint of Good Cheer second only to that morning person and all around optimist that I married said, "Only fine?" And that was the very best I could do and it was actually a grotesque exaggeration because I wasn't fine, I was miserable. I was a failure, an abject and total disaster as a mother, as a homeschooler, as a housewife, as a human being, as an earthly organism, as a carbon lifeform... you get the picture.

And today, today, today, today, my very favorite Progeny (I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but right here and now as of this particular moment in time, I have one. It will be another one tomorrow, but right NOW my personal hero is...)
JennyAnyDots brought me this spiral bound notebook and asked, "Is this what you've been looking for?"

And it was, it was, it was!!! I fell upon her neck and dampened it with grateful tears. I clutched my black spiral bound notebook to my thankful bosom. I sighed prayers of thanksgiving. I felt that I might, perhaps, not be a complete and total abject failure.

"Where was it?" I asked.

In the lime green folder of recipes we're using this month. In the kitchen. With cookbooks.

Of course. I should have thought of that.

Oh, and the the notebook isn't black. It's blue, with a thin black border. But it IS my missing notebook.

Some other time I might just post a list of all the things I found this week during my frantic searches, but right now my notebook and I need some bonding time. Alone.

Cooking Lesson and Frugal Christmas Gift: My Modification of the Chocolate Cake in a Mug Recipe

Get out one of the soup mugs (we have one with roses on it, and one with cherries on it- they are bigger than the rest)

Get out these ingredients:

Flour

Sugar

Cocoa powder

salt

Egg

Cream (because we have a surplus of cream just now, and deficit of milk, but milk is what the recipe originally called for)

Oil

Chocolate chips

Hazelnut or orange extract, Or Cherry jam (this is my innovation, and it makes a moister, richer cake)

Put in the mug:

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons baking cocoa

Pinch salt

Stir well. Now add:

1 egg
3 tablespoons milk or cream
3 tablespoons oil

Small splash of orange or hazelnut extract., OR 2 teaspoons of cherry jam

Stir well (especially be sure to blend the egg)

Add:
3 tablespoons chocolate chips

Stir, then scrape sides of the cup so that there are not streaks of batter running down the edges or along the edge inside the cup.

Put this in the microwave and cook for three minutes. It might rise above the cup, but that’s okay.

Let it cool for about a minute.

Top with some frosting (pantry) or chocolate syrup from the fridge and bring it to me with a fork. You can make yourself one, too- after I get mine.=)

Put everything away and wipe up any spills on counters and floor.

Most significant modifications:

Directions are written for a beginning cook to make.... for me
Chocolate chips are not optional
jam as an alternative flavoring
my font is pretty

It also seems to me this would make a fun and frugal homemade Christmas gift- a cooking kit for one- nice for the single gal, the budding cook, the guy on his own, the harried mother who needs a secret stash of woman vitamins, the college student

Find a pretty mug* (thrift shop, yard sale, dollar store), and a ziplock bag I would put in a ziplock bag:

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons baking cocoa
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon powdered milk
3 tablespoons of chocolate chips

Tie the bag up with a bow, label it "The Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake Mix in the World," or "Emergency Chocolate Cake Mix, for those days when you have GOT to have an instant infusion of chocolate," or something more clever- and put it in a pretty mug with these directions:



Put the contents of this bag in your mug, along with:

1 egg
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons oil
dash of vanilla (optional)

Stir well

Put this in the microwave and cook for three minutes. It might rise above the cup, but that’s okay.
Let it cool for about a minute. Eat it as is, or drizzle with chocolate syrup if you have it.


Then include directions for making it from scratch from start to finish, and this note:

Why is this the most dangerous chocolate cake in the world? Because now you are only three minutes away from a delicious, warm, chunk of soothing chocolate cake!

Write or type the directions out on pretty paper, fold them in booklet form, punch a hole through a corner, tie it to the mug with a ribbon, and wrap it all up in clear plastic wrap and more ribbons.


*Some people won't want a pretty mug, of course, gear your mug to the tastes of the recipient

Sarah Palin Pardons Turkey, MSNBC IS a Turkey

Apparently, the folks at MSNBC are completely unaware that their meat comes from animals. Which are killed so they can eat them. Psst. Brace yourselves. Thanksgiving turkeys? They were once alive.




Query- is Schuster a vegetarian? Cos if killing the food we eat is too shocking a business to him, he certainly should be.

Funniest moment: When Governor Palin says that she'll probably come into some criticism for even this little episode- and then she is.

The media has absolutely no sense of irony.

The FYB's Self- Assessment

Granny Tea is hosting a DAR tea this afternoon, and she called to ask me if anybody here would like to help her eat the leftovers afterward.

I passed on the message, and the Boy asked me what DAR was. I explained it was the Daughters of the American Revolution.

"Oh," he said. "So it's just daughters, and not handsome young scalawags?"

Granny Tea, of course, when phoned to ask, said that of course, we had to have at least one handsome young scalawag.

Bits and Pieces

My weekly post is up at FrugalHacks.

Voting ends soon Homeschool Blog Awards, so if you haven't voted already, hurry on over there.


We're hosting the next homeschooling carnival.

You can submit entries through Why Homeschool, our hsing carnival founders or submit an entry through this form at Blog Carnival- using that form is easiest for the host and the sender.


I got a kick out of this. I, too, have a compost bin made from pallets. And I disliked the taste of powdered milk in my younger years, although I haven't tried it again since.

I am so glad Cindy is blogging again.

It is a mess of a lot easier to ban music from the home than practice and learn discernment. The problem with substituting elimination for discernment is that it leads to pride. There is the opposite problem of substituting liberty for discernment. This also leads to pride.

Pride and judgmental ism are at both ends of the spectrum, yes, they are. Some of the folks who can be the harshest, most judgmental folk I know are in the camp of liberty and toleration. And some of the other meanest coots I know? They're on the opposite side of the issue, whatever the issue is.

Here's a video tutorial on plastic fusing, something that looks interesting, particularly because you use stuff like plastic bags from the grocery store.
I got it from ChicaSchmica, who has a couple posts of pictures of fused plastic projects.

And for what it's worth, in case anybody is wondering, I think chances are good our new 'friend' who keeps talking about the liberal illuminati is a troll, posting in a fashion to fit his or her own stereotypes about what he or she assumes I believe, but I don't believe in the Illuminati, left or right.
If knowitall/mnotaro were for real, I think there'd be a bit more variety in the comments instead of the somewhat tedious one note song. But I could be wrong. It would hardly be the first time. What I am not wrong about is that this is getting kind of boring.

Being Poor

(edited repost)

Amy at Amy's Humble Musings is writing about how they became debt free. Very good stuff. I can't write that story, because we are no longer debt-free. But I have written before about how we lived when we had no money, and I thought it was a good time to revisit those posts.

Over two decades ago the DHM and the HM married. At the time we both had reasonable jobs, but within a month or two we both lost our jobs. It was the midst of the Reagan Recession, the HM's employer died and his wife disbanded the business, the DHM's employer was a whole 'nother story that shall never be fully told.

Having played like crickets instead of saved like ants, we had no money in the bank. Zero. We had lived from paycheck to paycheck, and so, overnight, we were broke. Not just broke, but destitute.

We sold our stereo and some pieces of furniture. I baked bread and my mother sold it at work. The HM sold his truck and we walked everywhere we went. My dad loaned the Headmaster a mo-ped. We babysat. We picked up coins in the street in order to do laundry. We moved to a smaller and cheaper apartment. We didn't have the money to pay the deposit for utilities, so we did without electricity and used the ice chest for a fridge. We had a camping lantern for evening light, and we had a gas cooktop for cooking. Fortunately, we lived in a temperate climate.

The Headmaster was able to pick up two minimum wage jobs, and we managed as best we could, although we would not tell our friends and family just how bad things were. I think they assumed we'd been less profligate than we were.

We were friendly to the apartment full of migrant farm workers next door, and I remembered a few words of polite Spanish from my school days. They would bring home a box of vegetables periodically which supplemented our food supply nicely.
I was pregnant.

There came a day when we had two eggs in the house, and no prospects of more money or food until the next day. When it was time to cook them, I dropped one on the floor and broke it. It didn't just break- it splattered all over the floor so I couldn't even scrape it up and cook it. I sat on the floor and sobbed. The Headmaster hugged me and joked, "Well, you know what they say! No use crying over spilled eggs! I was not comforted.

I let my husband talk me into applying for food-stamps. This was something I never expected to do in my life, and I was deeply ashamed. I felt horrible going into the office, I felt humiliated about receiving state aid. However, humiliating that was, it was preferable to me and my pride than to actually tell my parents or our church just how broke we really were.

The social worker who did our paperwork hummed Amazing Grace while he wrote down our information and did his calculations. When he finished, he looked at us and asked in amazement, "This is impossible. How on earth have you made it this long on this tiny income? What else are you doing?"

I could not tell him. We kept careful records during that time- at least, as careful as we could. Of course, not much money was coming in, so it wasn't very much of a burden to sit down and keep the family books.

We tithed all through this period. About twice a month my mother would come by and quietly leave a twenty dollar bill on the counter. Two dollars of that went back into the collection plate. The rest was most often our grocery money. If we so much as found a dime in the street, we picked it up, wrote it down in our book, and made a note that we needed to add one cent to our weekly offering at church. I do not share this to brag about ourselves, and we certainly did not do it out of legalism.

I would like to offer an experience that runs counter to our cultural norms. I am sure that nobody at our church or in our extended family expected us to give anything under these circumstances, but we did and I would counsel anybody in the same situation to continue to give a percentage of their income. Incidentally, you can find quite a bit of change in the street if you don't have a car so you must walk everywhere you go.

Later I would look back on our little bookkeeping records and note with surprise that we always spent more money than we had coming in, yet we were not in debt. I cannot say where the extra money came from. We paid our bills, and, until that fateful moment of the broken egg, we put food on the table, although that food was largely potatoes, onions, legumes, and beans, taters, and onions, with some spuds and dried beans for variety.

Meanwhile, our hymn humming social worker wanted to know how we were managing to survive on the income that we had, and we wanted to know where our next meal was coming from.

To be continued....

The Extinction of the Great Auk

The story of the rediscovered pygmy Tarsier- previously the 'last sighting of this primate alive was in 1921 when live specimens were collected and processed for a museum collection,' reminded me of another story- that of the Great Auk.

I'll get to that in a moment, but let's look at that statement again- 'collected and processed for a museum collection?' PROCESSED? Is that their delicate, euphemistic way of telling us that the scientists hunted these little critters to apparent distinction? I suspect so.

Consider the story of the great auk...

Hunted to the brink, and only the brink, of extinction by egg collectors, naturalists, local islanders looking for food, and sportsmen, the Great Auks flocked to a rocky island called Gerifuglasker, Geirfugl Island. They were far enough away from fishermen and hungry peasants. However, an 1830 volcanic eruption sank their rocky outcropping into the sea.

"At this point, the museum directors of the world awoke to the fact that a species that once had numbered in the millions was virtually extinct. ... there were hardly an specimens of the great auk in tehir collections- no skeletons, no stuffed birds, no eggs. John Tradescant, the Englishman who had left a stuffed dodo to Oxford, had also owned a stuffed great auk, and there was another specimen in a Belgian collection. Otherwise there was practically nothing. Frantically, the museums sent out word that they needed great auks.

"Now begins one of the most bitterly ironic tales of any creature's extinction. It turned out that about fifty great auks had survived the sinking of Geirfuglasker. While the island was going down, these birds had managed to take refuge on a much smaller island nearby, called Eldey.

Did the museum directors imediately see to it that the last fifty auks were rounded up and placed under protection to keep the species alive?

No.

What they wanted was something to go in display cases. They wanted stuffed birds, adn were willing to pay good prices for them. Fabulous sums were ofered for the complete skin of a great auk or for a skeleton or for an unbroken egg.

To the people of that part of Iceland, it was an attractive business deal. It was fairly easy to row over to Eldey, Kill a great auk without damaging it unduly, and collect a handsome fee from some eager museum representative. Between 1830 and 1844 one bird after another was hunted down, until just two were left.

On June 4, 1844, three fishermen named Jon Brandson, Sigurdr Islefsson, and Ketil Ketilsson made a trip to Eldey. They had been hired by an Iselandic bird collector named Carl Siemsen, who wanted auk specimens John Brandsson found an auk and killed it. Sigurdr Islefson found another and did the same. Ketil Ketilsoon had to return emtpy-handed, because his two companions had just completed the extinction of the great auk.

...the foolishness of the museum directors brought down the final curtain. Each one wanted to have an auk to display, and none paid any heed to the fate of the species.

It turned out that the criminal destruction of the auks of Eldey by the museum men was not only stupid but needless. In 1863 an American businessman began to mind guano- bird droppings used for fertilizer on Penguin Island, Newfoundland. When an excavation was made, a cache of frozen great auks was found, man of them fully preserved in layers of peat. More than a hundred of these birds were recovered, enough to supply all the museums that had paid fancy prices to have the world's last great auks killed.

From The Auk, the Dodo, and the Oryx, Vanished and Vanishing Creatures, by Robert Silverberg, illustrated by J. Hnizdovsky

Silverberg claims this is the only instance of a creature being wiped out by the intellectuals who supposedly should be interested in its preservation as a living speciment, but, clearly, he was mistaken.

Free Dr. Pepper

Guns 'n Roses is one of the few bands, if not the only, band of their type that hires a sign language interpreter for their concerts, or at least they did. I know this because my sign language teacher in Portland, Oregon, back in the day when you and I were young Maggie was the guy they hired when they performed in Portland.

They've been working on an album called Chinese Democracy since 1997 and finally released it.

And what does that have to do with a free Dr. Pepper? 12:01 AM on Sunday head over to Dr. Pepper's website and start downloading coupons for a free 20 ounce soda- the coupons are good through the end of February '09

Last March the company promised everybody in America a free coke (in Dr. Pepper flavor) if Guns'n Roses finally released their Chinese Democracy album by the end of 2008. It's been in the works since 1994, and it goes on sale Sunday.

More:

1. On the Nov. 23, 2008 release date, go to http://www.drpepper.com
2. Register your information to receive a coupon for one free 20-oz. Dr Pepper.
3. When your coupon arrives, redeem it wherever Dr Pepper is sold.
4. Drink your Dr Pepper slowly to experience all 23 flavors. Dr's orders.

Coupons will be available for 24 hours, starting at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on Nov. 23, 2008. Allow 4-6 weeks for coupon to arrive. Coupons will expire on Feb. 28, 2009. Limit one coupon per person. Full terms and
conditions available at http://www.drpepper.com .

This week I...

... finished a 21 page draft titled, "'Coyning Christians' and Printing Words: The Use of Indigenous Languages in Puritan New England and Colonial New Spain." This feels very good.

... took what has been the worst exam so far of my college career. O Statistics, how I hate thee. I'm still feeling a bit nauseous over the exam.

... met with one of the professors for my honors thesis paper. She told me my main faculty mentor was very impressed with the work I'd done so far. Flattering, but now I've got to move on to the next step.

... was so upset by my stats exam that I forgot to turn in my time sheet for note taking. Oops.

... finished re-reading "The Four Story Mistake" by Elizabeth Enright because I was in need of a soothing book (and that was even before the exam).

...started reading "Darwin's Black Box" because science was actually sounding more appealing than history (I think that's what happens when you write 20+ pp in a week-end as an undergrad).

...made Thanksgiving plans with friends. I love this holiday! :-D

...watched Fireproof with The Girl. We had a lovely evening out together, even if it was freezing cold and our post-movie excitement was the fun of heading out to Wal-Mart to pick up things I needed for my room.

Thanksgiving Desserts

Considering: The Food Networks Brown Bag Apple Pie

Crockpot Pumpkin Pie Pudding

15-oz. can of solid pack pumpkin
12-oz. can evaporated milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk baking mix (such as Jiffy)
2 eggs beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Whipped Cream or Cool Whip

Mix together all ingredients except the whipped cream or cool whip.
Pour into a greased slow cooker. Cover and cook on low 6-7 hours.
Serve topped with whipped cream or cool whip
4-6 servings

Almond Joy cake

Mauritania in the News

The Eu considers measures:

PARIS (AFP) — The European Union will consider "appropriate measures" to punish Mauritania after it failed to take sufficient steps toward restoring constitutional rule, the French foreign ministry said Thursday.

The move to impose sanctions came as a one-month deadline set by the European Union for Mauritania's ruling junta to free deposed president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi expired, with no sign of a breakthrough.

Blogger 'The FLY' discusses its strategic importance:

...analysts and pundits often ignore the relative calm of a handful of strategic countries around the globe. These nations have an impact on both the physical and economic security of the world, yet few know of their importance - and in some cases, their very existence.

One such nation is Mauritania, an impoverished desert backwater on Africa's northwest coast. Mauritania's population consists of Arabs, as well as several different Berber and West African ethnic groups. With almost no arable land, Mauritania is entirely reliant upon foreign food aid. In the last few years, Mauritania has discovered potential petroleum resources off its coast, but exploitation of these resources has been limited thus far. In addition, Mauritania has recently seen more than its fair share of political turmoil. Mauritania's widespread poverty, combined with the Islamic beliefs of its population, make it a target not only for attacks from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but also for radicalization and recruitment.

REad the rest for an interesting historical overview.

Wikipedia:

officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest. It is named after the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast.

The civilian government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d'état.

The flag, geographical information, peoples, religion, and other general such info as you would find in an up to date atlas here.

And an interesting bit of trivia- for Mauritanian women, fat is in. In fact, it's so much in, that at one time parents went to great lengths to ensure that their daughters put on that lovely roly-poly figure that communicated wealth and beauty- they force fed their girls on diets of camel's milk and

Much older information, just because I am enchanted by the title of the book (click to enlarge):

Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge By Charles Knight

Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge By Charles Knight

Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge By Charles Knight

FLDS, November 19

New Indictments:

It said one person was indicted for conducting an unlawful marriage, while two others face multiple bigamy charges. One of the bigamy defendants also faces a charge of tampering with physical evidence.
Jeffs was indicted on a first-degree felony charge of aggravated sexual assault. He has been named in two previous indictments.
Names of the other defendants will not be released until they surrender to authorities or are arrested.
The Schleicher County Grand Jury, which met Wednesday in Eldorado, has so far indicted 12 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on charges related to underage marriages. Of those, 11 men faces charges that include sexual assault and bigamy; one man was indicted on a misdemeanor charge of failure to report child abuse.
The grand jury is scheduled to meet again in December but Sheriff David Doran said that session may not be necessary.
The indictments have followed an April raid of the sect's ranch and the temporary removal of 439 children. Child welfare cases related to 37 children remain pending

Americans Don't Know Civics

Disturbing.

Hailey Poutre

We blogged about 11 year old Hailey Poutre in 2006. Her step-father and/or adoptive mother (biological aunt)allegedly beat her into a coma, and the misnamed child protective services sought to have her removed from life support so they could charge the adults with murder. They said she had no hope of recovery. Read that whole post, if you will- because CPS had a long history of ruining Hailey's life through their meddling.

Here she is today (I'm not embedding the video because it shows footage of Hailey when she arrived at the hospital and it would be extremely disturbing to my younger readers).


The adoptive mother/biological aunt committed suicide after apparently murdering her own mother. The step-father is on trial, and he claims his wife told him the girl inflicted her many injuries on herself and he never abused her.

For Those Who Asked-

Here are the vows that so offended certain guests at the wedding. Alas, for those poor folks who have nothing better to do than take offense at other people's business.


Groom

I, _____, take you, ______, to be my wedded wife. With deepest joy I receive you into my life that together we may be one. As is Christ to His body, the church, so I will be to you a loving and faithful husband. Always will I perform my headship over you even as Christ does over me, knowing that His Lordship is one of the holiest desires for my life. I promise you my deepest love, my fullest devotion, my tenderest care. I promise I will live first unto God rather than others or even you. I promise that I will lead our lives into a life of faith and hope in Christ Jesus. Ever honoring God's guidance by His spirit through the Word, And so throughout life, no matter what may lie ahead of us, I pledge to you my life as a loving and faithful husband.


Bride
I, _____, take you, ______, to be my wedded husband. With deepest joy I come into my new life with you. As you have pledged to me your life and love, so I too happily give you my life, and in confidence submit myself to your headship as to the Lord. As is the church in her relationship to Christ, so I will be to you. _____, I will live first unto our God and then unto you, loving you, obeying you, caring for you and ever seeking to please you. God has prepared me for you and so I will ever strengthen, help, comfort, and encourage you. Therefore, throughout life, no matter what may be ahead of us, I pledge to you my life as an obedient and faithful wife.

When the Government 'Creates' Jobs:

With all of the talk of how charismatic Barack Obama is, or of his oratory ability—and especially given his recent presidential victory—it is time to engage in a deeper economic critique of Obama's actual policies. Once we see the true effects of his policies and the incentives they create, we will see that his leadership skills and abilities make him more of a threat to freedom than if he were less articulate.

In this article we will start with a small part of Obama's program to "create" jobs, with the aim of tackling poverty.

read the rest.

Joy Behar Gives Her Opinion On Homeschoolers

If you're like me, you're all, "Joy who?" and then somebody says, "She's on The View." So you say, "The what?" and look out the window trying to see why she's mucking up your view, and then somebody else says, "that silly talk show with Oprah Whoopie, Barbara Walters, that token conservative, and then the Joy person."

Oh. That woman. She says homeschoolers are demented.

And so if you're like me, you're all curious and everything and you want to know, "Why should I care what she thinks?" and then somebody says, "Thinks?" And somebody else says, "Anybody who cares what Joy Behar thinks is demented."

And that's five minutes of your life that just went swirling away from you. Gone. Just like that.

More on Michelle's blog

PIrates

In my more outspoken youth (which is kind of a scary thought), I noted that many of those same people who objected to 'wicked' or 'evil' costumes at hallowe'en would let their kids dress up as pirates, and when they would explain to me that, say, a Grim Reaper or Mummy costume was wicked and celebrated evil, and they only did fun pretend stuff like pirates and whatever else they did, I would cheerfully explain that yeah, dressing up as part of a gang of rapist thieves, looters, kidnappers, and murderers was certainly a much sweeter costume than, say, a Frankenstein, who, after all, was made that way.

I am so much fun at parties and stuff. You have no idea. And we don't even do Hallowe'en.

And yes, we enjoyed the Pirates of the Caribbean, and talk like a pirate day is funny, and the girls even dressed up like pirates to go to a Pirates of the Caribbean party with friends on an opening night, and the Pirates of Penzance is our favorite Gilbert and Sullivan. But still.

Pirates are very, very real, and they are increasingly a problem. A horrible problem. Thanks to Ace who passed on this link to a blog that covers maritime security issues and so keeps up with the issue of piracy off the Somali coast and beyond.

Here's an interesting article that looks at the Somalian piracy from the viewpoint of the local Somalians who live in pirate sponsored boomtowns.

They just captures a massive Saudi-owned oil tanker.

Bush's Last Acts in Office....

One of them, at least, is to strengthen the laws protecting pro-life health care workers from having to participate in abortions. Obama has promised Planned Parenthood that one of his first acts will be the FOCA, which will require Catholic hospitals to provide abortions or close operations. This in turn will mean hundreds, if not thousands, of communities will lose their only hospitals.

The Freedom of Choice Act that Obama is promising has everything to do with denying medical providers any freedom of choice at all- it's about:

forcing hospitals and clinics who offer OB/GYN services and accept Medicare and other federal funding to provide abortions. The Freedom of Choice Act completely federalizes the issue of abortion, making Congress the sole arbiter of restrictions — which FOCA explicitly repeals entirely. It also repeats the canard that abortion isn’t available in 87% of the country (despite which 22% of all pregnancies in the US end in abortion) and that FOCA intends to rectify that. How? The only option available would be a requirement that all OB/GYN clinics and hospitals provide abortions on request.

The Catholic Church runs almost a thousand health care facilities and treated over 90 million patients in 2007. They have already said that passage of FOCA would likely force them to close down most or all of these facilities in order to avoid being forced to provide abortions. The Bush rules attempt to prevent that from happening. The incoming Obama administration will be forced to repeal them before imposing FOCA, a not insurmountable obstacle but one which will make their intention to force OB/GYN providers to become abortionists plain.

Obama's 'freedom of choice' act is the equivilant of the fugitive slave act. When I am pregnant, I choose not to see a doctor who performs abortions. I want a doctor who believes my baby is a human being whose life is worth saving, not one in the morally ambiguous position of killing some babies for convenience and letter others live if the mother wants them to. Obama's Freedom of Choice Act would deny women like me the right to choose health care from doctors they trust and who share their commitment to life.

Good for Bush.

Why Gold Makes Better Currency Than Potatoes

I posted the 'Gold and Potatoes' quote from Making Money even though I totally disagree with it because it is a very articulate (and amusing) and clear explanation of that particular view of currency. But it's wrong. And our friend David B posted a clear explanation of why that doesn't work in the comments:

Totally ignores the subjectivity of value and the fact that units of an item are valued at the margin (i.e., the next unit is worth less than the previous ... after you had enough potatoes to live on on the island, you might like some gold to entertain yourself or romance the local ladies with, or you might want something else. Eventually the value of additional potatoes is negative: you can't eat them all, and some of them are going to spoil, and in the meantime they incur storage costs, and when they spoil they will incur disposal costs!)

It's true that you can't eat gold and you can eat potatoes, but you can buy plenty of other stuff to eat with gold, and anyway, life is more than food for the body.

Potatoes are perishable- so what happens in a potato based economy when the potato blight hits? Hint: Ireland has NEVER regained the population they lost in their potato famine. What happens when the mice get into your potato cellar, or a flood, or a fire occurs?

Potatoes are perishable, requiring specific storage conditions- so when the person selling the books you want has filled his root cellar with potatoes and has no more places he can store them, and he doesn't want to be bothered with the hassle of becoming a potato broker. Because potatoes are perishable, being a potato broker puts the guy with the potatoes at a distinct disadvantage- you have to get those surplus potatoes off your hands before they spoil. So if the other guy doesn't need or want your potatoes, you need to come up with something else of value to him that you can trade for books, music, tablecloths, thread, needles, tables, chairs, dishes, milk, cheese, jars, wheels, knives, firewood, etc.

Some form of currency that combines the advantages of being durable, portable, being easy to store, and has a somewhat steadier demand than something like potatoes will always have the advantage over food or other perishables used as money.
Sometimes something perishable will take the market by storm (the Dutch tulip bulb bubble, for instance), and suddenly be worth more to buyers than buckets of gold or or other currency, but it is a bubble, and it will burst.

Every culture in the world leaves a food based currency as soon as they can afford to. Until they do, their entire lives are centered around the desperate business of finding enough food to survive each day.

They don't have time for great works of art, literature, concerts, symphonies, philosophy- or silly games, or the computer, or other trivialities.

Meanwhile, here's what happens when people like Moist have tampered with the currency so that all it is now based on is a game of 'let's pretend,' ie, let's pretend these pieces of paper and monopoly coins are actually worth something and use them as a method of exchange, even though they have no inherent value of their own and are entirely dependent upon the reputation and actions of the government to maintain their current value:'

Fed Projects Deep Recession

November 20, 2008

"Businesses cut prices at a record rate and builders started fewer new homes last month than anytime on record, according to new government data, as the outlook for the economy continues to dim. The data helped spur another terrible day for the stock market, as did a projection of more hard times ahead by leaders of the Federal Reserve. A serious recession now appears all but assured." (Washington Post, Thursday)

The price of government intervention.

FEE Timely Classic
"Keynesian Budgets Threaten Recovery" by Hans F. Sennholz

Another Cemetery Picture

I used the timer setting for this picture, and I like how it turned out. I don't often use the timer, so I'm not used to it. Sadly, it's now too cold to go about barefoot.

Yesterday was a Dealing With Dementia Day

Monday: Dad called me and asked if anybody was going into town because he needed to go into town to fax some papers. My dad has dementia and I am quite sure he has no business that requires faxing that my mother wouldn't take care of herself. And nobody was going into town. So I did what a self-respecting first born child would do, and called my mama to tattle. ask if there really was a need for us to take him into town for her. She said no, and called him to ask what needed faxing.

He said, "I don't want to tell you, because you'll start talking and then I'll get upset."

We did not go to town.

Tuesday is Mom's day off, and Dad didn't want to talk to her about what he wanted to Fax or show it to her, and he said they didn't need to go.

Wednesday: Dad calls me, says, "It's my last chance," and the phone disconnects. I call back and get the answering machine. I am deciding to go get my shoes on and head next door when the phone rings again. It's Dad.

"I was using the cell phone but it was left outside all night so it stopped working. I need somebody to take me into town to fax something, and I have to go today and it's a chance to make a lot of money if I can just get this information sent to them."

Me: What is it, Dad?

Dad: A chance for me to get some money, and that's all you need to know. I am just asking for a ride, and it won't hurt you and it has nothing to do with you, and if I had my license I could go myself. In fact, if the truck didn't have a flat tire, I would just go in myself by the back roads.

Me: But, Dad, Mom offered to take you on her day off, and you didn't want her to know what it was all about. If it was that important, couldn't you have gone yesterday when she offered to take you?

Dad: Look. You don't have to go call your mom every time I ask you to do something. I don't want to talk to her about it because she'll just say it's a scam. She says everything is a scam. And I don't want to talk to you about it because you're just like her, everything is a scam. I just want you to take me to town and don't talk to your mother about it.

Me: Dad, you have to tell me more if you want me to take you to town.

Dad: Well, it's just this thing. And I only have til five p.m. today. And I have to send them some information, and it has an account number and everything, and then they'll put money in my account, and it looks completely legit to me. And then there's a Master Card and Visa I can get, but I would probably just get a Master Card.

He tells me more, but I can't duplicate it here because it's too disjointed to remember. It's definitely not something he needs to be doing. He's not supposed to have credit cards, anyway.

Me: Dad (very carefully, because he gets mad at everything I say now), it sounds like a scam.

Dad: No way, no how, not like any scam I ever heard, I think it's real, and you always think it's a scam [actually, we've never had this conversation before. The only thing that comes close is that I did tell him I through lottery tickets were a waste of money, but that was probably 20 years ago]. And it wouldn't hurt you to drive me into town and let me fax this, it has nothing to do with you. [true, but it would hurt my mother and their finances], and I would drive myself by the backroads but the truck has a flat tire. I want to go to Harvey's and fax it, and Harvey will know if it's a scam or not. So I am just going to call him and ask and see what he says!

Me: That sounds like a good idea. Why don't you do that?

Dad, very irritated with me: You know, it's not my fault, all this. I didn't cause this to happen. I didn't do it.

Me (I think he's talking about not having his own license and being dependent on others now, but I'm not sure), as gently as possible: I know, Dad. But it's not really my fault, either.

Dad: Well, I am going to call Harvey. That's what I am going to do so that's settled. [he's quite miffed, and the kids can hear his voice over the phone].

What do I do? I call my mother, of course. While I am talking to her, he calls her on another line, and says it's not a scam, she always thinks everything is a scam (that's because he's very susceptible to scams), and he needs to fax these papers to Australia today. Then he apparently calls Harvey. (I am not sure who Harvey is, to tell the truth).

Australia?

Then he calls me: "I just talked to Harvey, and he knows all about these things and I trust him more than anybody else on this stuff, and I read the papers to him over the phone and he says it's a scam."

He tells me this as though I have been trying to arm wrestle him for the papers so I can fax them in and get all the money myself.

Me: He did, huh? That's interesting.

Dad: I believe him because he knows what he's talking about. He's a really smart guy and he knows what he's talking about.

Me (the motion sick feeling of taking a very long fall down an unpleasant rabbit hole has subsided and left my primary defense mechanism, amusement, in its place. I can't help myself. I admit it wasn't very politic of me, and my mother agrees, but I mildly say): So..... he said exactly the same thing Mom and I said about it?

It's entirely possible he could here the smile in my voice.

Dad: Do not start anything. Just don't start it. Do not start in again. Just don't.

Me: Okay, Dad. I'm sorry.

Dad: I wasn't talking to you. That was to myself. And quit calling your mother.
---------------------------------

I will say this about dementia- it's very selective, like some people's hearing problems. He forgot the Equuschick was getting married- demanding of my mother, on the day of the wedding, "We're going back to the community center for a wedding, whose wedding? Why didn't anybody tell me she was getting married?!"
He forgets to turn off the water.
He forgets my husband's name.
He forgets my husband works.
He forgets too many things to list here.

He did not forget that he wanted to Fax those documents. He held on to that information longer than he retained the news of his new grandson-in-law. He did not forget that I call my mother to tattle whenever he calls me to ask for something he's not supposed to do, and I think he never will.

I know that whatever this particular scam is, wherever he got it from, the senders probably have no idea that he has dementia. But somehow, I doubt that matters to them. I think there's a special place in hell reserved for them anyway.

-------------------------
And after typing out all of the above yesterday, Dad called and asked if we had any kerosene. I asked him what kind he meant, because I did have some for kerosene lamps. He said no, that was the wrong stuff. He wanted some that came in a crinkly package, although it didn't spill out of that crinkly package, and he needed it for keeping the burn pile burning, and would I be offended if he came over and looked for some in our garage.

Offended? No. Terrified? Yes. But I was reasonably sure we didn't have what he was looking for, so I said no, I'd not be offended and he could come look. Then I put my head in my hands, held my breath, and silently prayed.

He walked over, went into the garage and started looking through a bookcase of books we are selling. Then he looked over the stack of Christmas and Thanksgiving decorations (totes stacked higher than my head, three deep. We are seriously into Christmas decorating). The FYG helpfully (I wish she wouldn't) told him that she didn't think we'd have it there, but it might be over on her Daddy's shelves with his tools and things. This deeply irritated him, and he demanded to know why on earth it would be over there with tools, it wasn't a tool and had nothing to do with tools and that made no sense at all and what a silly thing it would be to keep kerosene in that crinkly package that wouldn't spill even though it was a crinkly package with tools. What nonsense.

She shrugged her shoulders and left him to his fruitless search. He left without saying good-bye. The FYG watched through the living room window as he stalked off. I was afraid to look.

"Does he have anything in his hands?" I asked.

"No," she said.

I started breathing again.

The Cause of Inflation

Most people think that rising prices are inflation. In fact, they are only the result of inflation. Inflation is actually:

the process whereby government expands a nation’s money supply and thereby erodes the value of each monetary unit—dollar, peso, pound, franc, or whatever. It shows up in the form of rising prices, which most people confuse with the inflation itself. The distinction is important because, as economist Percy Greaves once explained so eloquently, “Changing the definition changes the responsibility.”

Define inflation as rising prices and, like Jimmy Carter, you’ll think that oil sheiks, credit cards, and private businesses are the culprits, and price controls are the answer. Define inflation in the classic fashion as an increase in the supply of money, with rising prices as a consequence, and you then have to ask the revealing question, “Who increases the money supply?” Only one entity can do that legally; all others are called “counterfeiters” and go to jail.

Most economists worth their salt have long argued that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary matter. As one of them put it, rising prices no more cause inflation than wet streets cause rain. The monetary authorities inflate and then prices rise, in that order, and if the people’s confidence in that money dissipates, the price hikes will be astronomical. Now that prices in the United States are going up at their fastest pace in more than 25 years, a little history lesson is in order.

This is another problem with Moist Von Lipwig's brilliant idea (see yesterday's posts)- if the government doesn't have to tie the amount of currency it prints to anything of intrinsic value that it actually owns, then there's no reason the government won't just print up more money when it wants to bribe taxpayers. And this way lies the fate of the Confederate Dollar, the Zimbabwean dollar, and the German currency just before WWII.

Today’s slow-motion dollar depreciation, with prices rising at persistent but mere single-digit rates, is just a limited version of the same process. Government spends, runs deficits, and pays some of its bills through the inflation tax. How long it can go on is a matter of speculation, but trillions in national debt and politicians who make misers of drunken sailors and get elected by promising even more are not factors that should encourage us.

Inflation is very much with us but it must end someday. A currency’s value is not bottomless. Its erosion must cease either because government stops its reckless printing or prints until it wrecks the money. But surely, which way it concludes will depend in large measure on whether its victims come to understand what it is and where it comes from.

Highly recommended reading (I can't recommend this resource highly enough): Richard Maybury's Whatever Happened to Penny Candy

The Bluestocking Field Guide to Maybury's book

The Equuschick Drops Briefly In

Greetings! Sorry to have been so out of touch with you all, The Equuschick just got back from Florida Saturday night (where it was 85 and sunny, but I'm not bitter about coming back to the midwest) and The Equuschick doesn't have internet at the new house yet.

But here she is, having dropped in on her unsuspecting family so that she could check on her horse and her e-mail.

Thank-you all so much for your kind thoughts, congratulations, wishes and prayers! The Equuschick is indeed blessed in her friends.

The Equuschick does have a post in her head that is titled something like The Many Married Adventures of Shasta & The Equuschick and it will be all about the fun people that they met and building sand castles at the beach and how Shasta and The Equuschick navigate.

Shasta navigates by looking at maps and throwing them out, and occasionally asking for directions and then deciding half-way through that he has a better idea. Since The Equuschick's idea of how to use a map is to smack him with it (she repented!), she wasn't much help.

But they had a good time and it was a learning experience and they feel Officially Married and besides, the nice thing about knowing each-other fifteen years is that The Equuschick and Shasta are quite comfortable and at home arguing with each-other.

Interesting note about this meeting fun people thing, The Equuschick never meets any fun people when she goes anywhere because she never speaks to anyone if she can help it and she avoids all eye contact at all times. The Equuschick will admit that life is much more memorable when you go about it Shasta's way, which is to make direct eye contact and conversation with everyone on the bus and she is sad to think of the conversations with strangers she probably misses when she goes places by herself.

So, anyway. Pictures later, lately she has been working on unpacking.

This took a while at first, because since this is the first time The Equuschick has ever set up her own house she has been haunted and distracted by that lethal voice that whispers in the ear of every woman "You don't know what you're doing! One day someone who Really Knows What They're Doing will come visit and tell you that you did it wrong."

But when that starts The Equuschick shakes her head and says sweet and uplifting things to herself like "There is no wrong way, dummy."

After all, it isn't like we're talking about Moral Laws here. We're talking about where in the kitchen is the best place for an onion chopper.

If The Equuschick really wanted to, she reminds herself, she could keep her onion chopper in the washer. Haha!

That would be perhaps be weird, but it would not be wrong. Take that, you little voice.

Being fortified by these thoughts, The Equuschick is able to throw off the shackles of centuries of repression and do whatever she wants. It is more fun that way.

Terry Pratchett

Making Money seems to be online.

Moist Von Lipwig tries out his new idea...

You may want to read here first. Basically, having whipped the post office into shape while also creating a minor sensation with his penny stamps (used as currency at times), Moist Von Lipwig has been put in charge of the banks in the city of Ankh Morpek, and he is moving the city from the gold standard to fiat currency:

WHERE DO YOU TEST a bankable idea? Not in a bank, that was certain. You needed to test it where people paid far more attention to money, and juggled their finances in a world of constant risk where a split-second decision meant the difference between triumphant profit or ignominious loss. Generically it was known as the real world, but one of its proprietary names was Tenth Egg Street.
[he chooses a costume shop]

Today he bought a pot of glue and a large jar of fine gold sprinkles, because he could see a use for them.

'That will be thirty-five pence, Mr Lipwig,' said Mr Proust. 'Any new stamps coming along?'

'One or two, Jack,' said Moist. 'How's Ethel? And little Roger,' he added, after only a moment's shuffle through the files in his head.

'Very well, thank you for asking. Can I get you anything else?' Proust added hopefully, in case Moist might have a sudden recollection that life would be considerably improved by the purchase of a dozen false noses.

Moist glanced at the array of masks, scary rubber hands and joke noses, and considered his needs satisfied. 'Only my change, Jack,' he said, and carefully laid one of his new creations on the counter. 'Just give me half a dollar.'

Proust stared at it as if it might explode or vent some mind-altering gas. 'What's this, sir?'

'A note for a dollar. A dollar bill. It's the latest thing.'

'Do I have to sign it or anything?'

'No. That's the interesting bit. It's a dollar. It can be anyone's.'

'I'd like it to be mine, thank you!'

'It is, now,' said Moist. 'But you can use it to buy things.'

'There's no gold in it,' said the shopkeeper, picking it up and holding it away from his body, just in case.

'Well, if I paid in pennies and shillings there would be no gold in them either, right? As it is, you're fifteen pence ahead, and that's a good place to be, agreed? And that note is worth a dollar. If you take it along to my bank, they'll give you a dollar for it.'

'But I've already got a dollar! Er, haven't I?' Proust added.

'Good man! So why not go out in the street and spend it right now? Come on, I want to see how it works.'

'Is this like the stamps, Mr Lipwig?' said Proust, clutching for something he could understand. 'People sometimes pay me in stamps, me doing a lot of mail-order—'

'Yes! Yes! Exactly! Think of it as a big stamp. Look, I'll tell you what, this is an introductory offer. Spend that dollar and I'll give you another bill for a dollar, so that you'll still have a dollar. So what are you risking?'

'Only if this is, like, one of the first dollar bills, right… well, my lad bought some of the first stamps you did, right, and now they're worth a mint, so if I hang on to it, it'll be worth money some day—'

'It's worth money now? Moist wailed. That was the trouble with slow people. Give him a fool any day. Slow people took some time to catch up, but when they did they rolled right over you.

'Yes, but, see,' and here the shopkeeper grinned what he probably thought was an artful grin that in fact made him look like Mr Fusspot halfway through a toffee, 'you're a sly one with them stamps, Mr Lipwig, bringin' out different ones all the time. My granny says if it's true a man's got enough iron in his blood to make a nail then you've got enough brass in your neck to make a doorknob, no offence meant, she speaks her mind does my granny—'

'I've made the mail run on time, haven't I?'

'Oh, yes, Gran says you may be a Slippery Jim but you get things done, no doubt about it—'

'Right! Let's spend a damn dollar, then, shall we?' Is it some kind of duplex magical power I have, he wondered, that lets old ladies see right through me but like what they see?

And thus Mr Proust decided to hazard his dollar in the shop next door, on an ounce of Jolly Sailor pipe tobacco, some mints and a copy of What Novelty?. And Mr 'Natty' Poleforth, once the exercise was explained, accepted the note and took it across the road to Mr Drayman the butcher, who cautiously accepted it, after having things set out fair and square for him, in payment for some sausages and also gave Moist a bone 'for your little doggie'. It was more than likely that Mr Fusspot had never seen a real bone before. He circled it carefully, waiting for it to squeak.

Tenth Egg Street was a street of small traders, who sold small things in small quantities for small sums on small profits. In a street like that, you had to be small-minded. It wasn't the place for big ideas. You had to look at the detail. These were men who saw far more farthings than dollars.

Some of the other shopkeepers were already pulling down the shutters and closing up for the day. Drawn by the Ankh-Morporkian's instinct for something interesting, the traders drifted over to see what was going on. They all knew one another. They all dealt with one another. And everyone knew Moist von Lipwig, the man in the gold suit. The notes were examined with much care and solemn discussion.

'It's just an IOU or marker, really.'

'All right, but supposing you needed the money?'

'But, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't the IOU the money?'

'All right then, who owes it to you?'

'Er… Jack here, because… No, hang on… it is the money, right?'

Moist grinned as the discussion wobbled back and forth. Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms, in the dark and based on [manure]. But these were men who counted every half-farthing and slept at night with the cash box under their bed. They'd weigh out flour and raisins and hundreds-and-thousands with their eyes ferociously focused on the scale's pointer, because they were men who lived in the margins. If he could get the idea of paper money past them then he was home and, if not dry, then at least merely Moist.

'So you think these could catch on?' he said, during a lull.

The consensus was, yes, they could, but they should look 'fancier', in the words of Natty Poleforth: 'You know, with more fancy lettering and similar.'

Moist agreed, and handed over a note to every man, as a souvenir. It was worth it.

'And if it all goes wahoonie-shaped,' said Mr Proust, 'you've still got the gold, right? Locked up down there in the cellar?'

'Oh, yes, you've got to have the gold,' said Mr Drayman.

There was a general murmur of agreement, and Moist felt his spirits slump.

'But I thought we'd all agreed that you don't need the gold?' he said. In fact they hadn't, but it was worth a try.

'Ah, yes, but it's got to be there somewhere,' said Mr Drayman.

'It keeps banks honest,' said Mr Poleforth, in that tone of plonking certainty that is the hallmark of that most knowledgeable of beings, The Man In The Pub.

'But I thought you understood,' said Moist. 'You don't need the gold!'

'Right, sir, right,' said Poleforth soothingly. 'Just so long as it's there.'

'Er, do you happen to know why it has to be there?' said Moist.

'Keeps banks honest,' said Poleforth, on the basis that truth is achieved by repetition. And, with nods all round, this was the feeling of Tenth Egg Street. So long as the gold was somewhere, it kept banks honest and everything was okay. Moist felt humbled by such faith. If the gold was somewhere, herons would no longer eat frogs, either. But in fact there was no power in the world that could keep a bank honest if it didn't want to be.

Still, not a bad start to his first day, even so. He could build on it.

(Making Money, by Terry Pratchett)

No. The reason the gold needed to be in the vaults was because it has tangible worth in every civilized society- it can be taken from one place to another and, its value moves with it. Lipwig's system is based entirely on a smaller group of people agreeing that something else, something more portable, but also more easily forged or otherwise tampered with, is a valuable currency. Let the people lose their faith in that shared belief, and the system falls apart. Let the people in another country and culture decide that they do not care for those fancy slips of paper as currency, and there's no foreign trade.

Gold as a standard of value may seem equally irrational, but the thing is, pretty much everybody in the world agrees that gold has value, and it has for centuries, which makes it a much more reliable standard than a fuzzy "Let's all agree to call this pretty piece of paper one dollar, and this one ten dollars just because we say so."

One of my next projects:

Using this old dress of the Cherub's as pattern for a lovely new one!



Wish me luck! :)

Leftover oatmeal

This money-saving recipe comes from one of my great-grandmother's many cookbooks, this one on saving money on the grocery bill is from around 1940.

Oatmeal or cornmeal mush are two of the most inexpensive breakfasts you can make, and they also make some of the most unpleasant leftovers, unless you add them to quick breads or muffins.

Sift together:
2 cups sifted flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 t. salt

Stir in 1 well beaten egg
2/3 cup cold, leftover oatmeal
1 cup of milk
2 tablespoons melted butter or shortening

Stir only enough to moisten flour- lumps are fine. Spoon into greased muffin tins (2/3 full); bake at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes. Makes 12.

Add cinnamon and chopped apple for variety, or, if you like your oatmeal unsweetened, add a bit of grated cheese to the batter.

You can have these for breakfast the day after you've had oatmeal, or you can make them for snacks or tea.

Another frugal snack my children used to love is melba toast- I sliced home-made bread into slices about three inches long and one or two inches tall, and then put them on a cookie sheet in the oven on low for a long time- bread was done when golden and fairly hard.

I've also made extra pancakes (you can use leftover oatmeal or rice in pancakes as well) for breakfast, and then the children spread leftover pancakes with peanut butter for snacking on later in the day.

A Sporting Bet

Investigating the role the media played in how Obama got elected, John Ziegler commissioned a Zogby Poll, asked Obama voters questions about the four candidates and which of the two parties has been in control of Congress for the last two years.

He also interviewed a few for the camera. We shared the video here and some results of the poll here.

Not surprisingly, he's come under a considerable amount of heat, with very little light, and he answers his critics here.

One of the criticisms is that he McCain's supporters are probably just as dumb and uninformed. That depends, of course, on whether they got their information from the mainstream media or elsewhere, which was the point of the poll. Here's Ziegler's response to that:

I only polled Obama voters because I was trying to test the media's impact on the election. Since Obama won, it would be pointless (not to mention twice as expensive) to poll McCain voters.

On Fox News Monday night I challenged anyone to commission the same poll of McCain voters and if McCain voters as badly, or worse, I will pay their expenses. If not, they have to pay mine. One serious inquiry has been made, but I doubt they will have the guts to follow through. Gee, I wonder why.

His whole article is pretty interesting, and I hope somebody takes him up on the bet. But I'm not holding my breath, either.

More at HotAir as well.

Another extinct critter discovered

And I am sure several of our Progeny will want one. These are unbelievably cute, and they look so much like baby grimlins that if it were April 1, I should believe this was a joke.

They are called pygmy tarsiers.

Richard Lyddeker wrote about one species in his 1903 book Mostly Mammals, Zoological Essays: Zoological Essays:

But the most curious of all the mammals of the island is a species of tarsier, small creatures with enormous goggle eyes, slender, lanky limbs, and toes terminating in suckers- distantly related to the lemurs. Now these tarsiers are strictly limited to the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Celebes, and Mindanao together with some of the neighbouring islets and are totally unknown to the eastward of the Molucca Sea.
Mostly Mammals, Zoological Essays Zoological Essays By Richard Lydekker

The last time scientists observed a living pygmy tarsier is about 85 years ago, when one was collected for a musuem. I believe it did not survive.

Give the People a Show

After giving his interview, where his mouth ran ahead of him, Moist van Lupwig retires to his office with the chairman of the bank. I should explain that the chairman is a pug dog who inherited 51 percent of the bank shares. Most takes care of him.

So he and the dog are in his office, and Moist is thinking about what he's said:

Desert island. Desert island. I know I think best when I'm under pressure, but what exactly did I mean?

On a desert island gold is worthless. Food gets you through times of no gold much better than gold gets you through times of no food. If it comes to that, gold is worthless in a goldmine, too. The medium of exchange in a goldmine is the pickaxe.

Hmm. Moist stared at the bill. What does it need to make it worth ten thousand dollars? The seal and signature of Cosmo, that's what. Everyone knows he's good for it. Good for nothing but money, the b-.

Banks use these all the time, he thought. Any bank in the Plains would give me the cash, withholding a commission, of course, because banks skim you top and bottom. Still, it's much easier than lugging bags of coins around. Of course, I'd have to sign it too, otherwise it wouldn't be secure.

I mean, if it was blank after 'pay', anyone could use it.

Desert island, desert island… On a desert island a bag of vegetables is worth more than gold, in the city gold is more valuable than the bag of vegetables.

This is a sort of equation, yes? Where's the value?

He stared.

It's in the city itself. The city says: in exchange for that gold, you will have all these things. The city is the magician, the alchemist in reverse. It turns worthless gold into… everything.

How much is Ankh-Morpork worth? Add it all up! The buildings, the streets, the people, the skills, the art in the galleries, the guilds, the laws, the libraries… Billions? No. No money would be enough.

The city was one big gold bar. What did you need to back the currency? You just needed the city. The city says a dollar is worth a dollar.

It was a dream, but Moist was good at selling dreams. And if you could sell the dream to enough people, no one dared wake up.

In a little rack on the desk are an ink pad and two rubber stamps, showing the city's coat of arms and the seal of the bank. But in Moist's eyes, there is a haze of gold around these simple things, too. They have value.

'Mr Fusspot?' said Moist. The dog sat up in his tray, looking expectant.

Moist pushed his sleeves back and flexed his fingers.

'Shall we make some money, Mr Chairman?' he said.

The chairman expressed unconditional agreement by means of going 'woof!'

'Pay The Bearer The Sum Of One Dollar,' Moist wrote on a piece of crisp bank paper.

He stamped the paper with both the stamps, and gave the result a long critical look. It needed something more. You had to give people a show. The eye was everything.

It needed… a touch of gravitas, like the bank itself. Who'd bank in a wooden hut?

Hmm.

Ah, yes. It was all about the city, right? Underneath he wrote, in large ornate letters:

AD URBEM PERTINET

And, in smaller letters, after some thought:

'Promitto fore ut possessori postulanti nummum unum solvent, an apte satisfaciam.

Signed Moist von Lipwig pp The Chairman.

'Excuse me, Mr Chairman,' he said, and lifted the dog up. It was the work of a moment to press a front paw on the damp pad and leave a neat little footprint beside the signature.

Moist went through this a dozen or more times, tucked five of the resulting bills under the blotter and took the rest of the new money, and the chairman, for walkies.

From Making Money by Terry Pratchett

It's a little disturbing that this seems to be a pretty accurate reflection of our own attitude towards money.

Black Friday Ads

Our own family traditions for 'Black Friday' include never stepping foot inside a store, but staying home to visit and play games instead. However, this year, the HG's laptop screen went gentle into that good night right when she had a deadline to meet for a paper, and she's in the market for a new one. She managed to complete her paper on time.

Black Friday ads are already out in many cases- 'leaked' by the retailers themselves. See here.

Here

and here, just for starters.

Donovan Dog

Donovan, waiting for me to let him inside and feed him yesterday morning.

Self-Esteem

Interesting little article on the ego inflation of the Millennials or Generation Y teens.

New Proverb: Failure Breeds Bail-outs

I really like Victor David Hanson. Here are two gems from a recent post of his musings:

1) There has to be an end to these serial bailouts—financial, the insurance companies, now cars, next cities and states, and soon mortgage holders (we will de facto punish those who struggle to pay their mortgages on time on homes with negative equity, but reward with reductions those who are late or don’t?).

Aside from the fact we are broke and are $10 trillion in debt (a large aside), there is an existential problem here. Without a concept of failure, there can be no success. If we always offer the excuse “too big to fail” to save corporations and firms that were run into the ground by greedy or stupid CEOs, brokers, and traders, or that defaulters always were victims rather than occasionally foolish or even sly (e.g., 2nd and 3rd mortgages taken out for consumer purchases, or as efforts to flip houses), then nothing changes. Learning, as Aeschylus says, comes from pain. All our childhood admonitions from “failure breeds to success” to “try, try again” are rendered null and void. We don’t want to live in a T-ball limbo where there is neither success nor failure, but just an endless slog in between.

And:

Thoughts on a recession

I remember the recession of the early 1980s well and it was not pretty. In 1979 I applied for an academic job and was told there were 4 tenure-track openings nationwide in my field and 150 active candidates with Classics PhDs competing for them. When I then turned to farming, the first crop loan I co-signed on was in fall 1980 and taken out at an interest rate of 16%. By 1983 the price of raisins had fallen from $1,400 a ton to $480 in a single year. The local raisin cooperative went broke, and renounced their capital debt to their own members (we lost $70,000) whose vineyards had just plunged in value from $15,000 an acre to $4,000.

Things, in other words, when one measures inflation, interest rates, and unemployment, were far worse then than now. I used to wonder why my grandfather had saved two barrels of used, rusted bent and worthless vineyard staples in the back of the barn amid rat nests and spider webs, salvaged from an old vineyard that was uprooted in the 1950s. By 1983 I was reusing them all to mend vineyard wire. We may get to that, but so far we are not in such a mess yet, despite the Great Depression/FDR rhetoric.

But even more importantly, there are already self-correcting mechanisms under way. Oil has crashed like no period in history. Gas is below $2 a gallon and getting even cheaper. The country is already saving over $1 billion a day in imported fuel costs from its former highs and that affects everything from transportation to manufacturing.

Talk about stimuluses—if such a $2 gallon savings from previous highs continues, the average commuter may save $1500 a year.

Gold and Potatoes

From Making Money, by Terry Pratchett- Moist is a former/current con-man who has completed the revitalizing of the post office and is now in charge of the banking sytem. His mouth runs off ahead of him during an interview::

The notebook was instantly flipped open, and Moist's tongue began to gallop. He couldn't stop it. It would have been nice if it had talked to him first. Taking over his brain, it said: 'Deadly serious! I am recommending to Lord Vetinari that we sell it all to the dwarfs. We do not need it. It's a commodity and nothing more.'

'But what's worth more than gold?'

'Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren't you worth more than that?'

Sacharissa looked momentarily flustered, to Moist's glee. 'Well, in a manner of speaking—'

'The only manner of speaking worth talking about,' said Moist flatly. 'The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where's the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Is it all about the gleam? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!'

'Surely not!'

'If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?'

'Yes, but a desert island isn't Ankh-Morpork!'

'And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It's just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you've got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you'll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.'

'Can I assume for a moment that you don't intend to put us on the potato standard?' said Sacharissa sharply.

Moist smiled. 'No, it won't be that. But in a few days I shall be giving away money. It doesn't like to stand still, you know. It likes to get out and make new friends.' The bit of Moist's brain that was trying to keep up with his mouth thought: I wish I could make notes about this, I'm not sure I can remember it all.