Nana Mouskouri and Blow the Wind Southerly

I couldn't find another version of Blow the Wind Southerly I really liked, but I kept coming across references to this singer and the English folk tune. I finally found a sample clip at Amazon, and I liked what I could hear of it, very, very much. See what you think.



I hadn't heard of her, or if I had, the knowledge hadn't remained with me, but this is my fault. She's a highly acclaimed singer who has been making beautiful music over several decades.

She's also had a very interesting life:

Mouskouri had displayed exceptional musical talent from the age of 6. However, her sister, Jenny, initially appeared to be the more gifted of the two. In fact, due to a congenital deformity, Mouskouri has only one functioning vocal cord. This unusual condition accounts for her unique voice, both speaking and singing.[2]

Mouskouri's childhood was stamped by the German Nazi occupation of Greece. Her father became part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Athens. Mouskouri began singing lessons at age 12. Despite the flaw in her vocal cords, Mouskouri took singing lessons regularly. As a child, she listened to radio broadcasts of singers such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Édith Piaf.

In 1950, she was accepted at the Conservatoire. She studied classical music with an emphasis on singing opera. After eight years at the Conservatoire, Mouskouri was encouraged by her friends to experiment with jazz music. She soon began singing with her friends' jazz group at night and they even managed to get a radio slot. However, when Mouskouri's Conservatory professor found out about Mouskouri's involvement with a genre of music that he considered to be absolutely worthless, he flew into a fury and prevented her from sitting for her end-of-year exams.[citation needed] Mouskouri left the Conservatoire and began performing at the Zaki club in Athens.

CA withholdings tax up 10% as of ...now

As if working people in California didn’t have a tough enough time, they are about to see their paychecks get a little lighter, courtesy of their political class in Sacramento. In order to help close a budget shortfall, the state will increase withholding from paychecks by 10%, in essence forcing every working person in California to make an interest-free loan to the state:

Read the rest at Hot Air. REALLY good stuff.

Update because I have a spot more time: The LATimes (link in the Hot Air article) suggests that taxpayers think of it as

a forced, interest-free loan: You’ll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.

But I like Ed's take better (it is also more economically sound and accurate):

Think of it as theft. Most Californians won’t be as sanguine about getting their tax refunds next April, not after watching the IOUs go out this summer from Sacramento. What happens when April rolls around and the state still doesn’t have the cash? Do they confiscate the refunds and promise to pay them back in 2011?

So far as I know, there is nothing illegal about changing your withholdings, and if you live in the Politicians Piggy Bank of California, here's how:

Go to this website, increase your withholding exemptions enough to offset this government theft.
Print it out and have your employer make the changes ASAP. Different states have different rules, so you need to find out what yours are to be sure you're not subjecting yourself to some sort of penalty. But don't let them get away with this. Why do you think they stopped at ten percent? Out of the goodness of their hearts? Their keen moral vision? Some innate sense of self-denial?

Not at all. They just figured this is all you'd stand for. Let it go and in a few years they'll do it again, only for more.

On the strapless wedding dress

I've been stomping on toes all over the place, so I might as well let you all know that I have never, ever liked strapless gowns, and especially not strapless wedding gowns.

They are not modest, not even a little bit. Please do not send me photographs of you, your sister, your daughter, your best friend, or your cousin's step-mother's aunt in a sleeveless wedding gown to prove to me that there are versions that can be modest. You will not convince me, and so you will be annoyed with me. More than you are now, I mean.

I do not understand why it's considered attractive and elegant to be wed in a dress worn the same way you wear your towel after a shower.

Very, very few women really are at their best in this style of gown, anyway. Really. It is not a flattering style. I promise you, it really isn't, unless you are quite a young Miss, you have the figure of a willowy and slender grecian statue, and the poise and posture of a dryad, as well as the skin of a newly picked peach. In other words, a Debutante, which is, socially speaking, who should be wearing such a gown, and even then, my objections on the basis of modesty remain.

It is also not an elegant style. Armpits are not elegant. They are armpits.


People have argued with me about this for years, but I am about to be vindicated:

Ivanka Trump chose sleeves for her wedding dress, and you've just got to see what the NYTimes fashion editor and other Fashionistas are saying about it.

The fashion editor: "We’re so used to seeing brides in strapless dresses that Ms. Trump’s gown made a fresh statement."

Actually, the EC made a 'fresh statement' last year, and the HG made one this year.=) Friends of theirs made similar fresh statements over the last several years.

And Vera Wang, the designer who had to add the sleeves in the month before the Trump wedding (the bride had converted to her husband's religion of Orthodox [Jew? the article presumes we know]) says:

“She was actually very much about being covered and I seized on the chance to do a dress that wasn’t naked and very Hollywood.”

... Did she think Ms. Trump might start a trend with her sleeves? “She might very,” Ms. Wang said. “Nothing would make me happier. I’ve been doing strapless dresses for 15 years. It’s tiring.”

'Naked and very Hollywood.' Why is that our model for elegance and sophistication?

This trend was old and tired the same year it came out- and three years ago Sylvia Rubin was writing this in the San Francisco Gate fashion pages:

Why do brides covet strapless gowns with an intensity that defies reason, given that this is one of the more difficult silhouettes to wear well? It's not that women don't instinctively know the hazards -- the too-stiff bodice, the tugging, the back fat -- but they cling to the fantasy that it will work out anyway, like dreaming that your betrothed will always pick up his socks.

And she had a lot more to say (really, read the whole thing). She says the penchant for the unflattering strapless gown is based on red carpet, hollywood starlets, and gossip magazines and their glossy, retouched photographs of models who have to stand perfectly still so the gowns are not wrinkled, the pouches of fat are not bulging around the stomach and arm pits and shoulder blades.

"Strapless gowns should be outlawed,'' declares Meg Smith of Napa, one of the Bay Area's most sought-after wedding photographers (www.megsmith.com). "Because even the dresses by the best designers often do not fit properly. They're either too big and the bodice is like a shelf sticking out inches away from the body, or they're too tight and you get that extra layer of flesh just bulging out.''

Then there's all that readjusting. "The brides do this thing where they grab the top of the dress with their thumbs, pull it up and then do this hip shaking thing,'' Smith says. This activity does not a good picture make. And besides, she continues, "strapless gowns are boring.'' Through her lens, Smith says she'd rather see a dress with a beautiful sash or intricate lace or embroidery. "A strapless gown is not very playful, individual or different.''

And there's more:

If you want to get technical about it, say the top etiquette experts, a strapless gown is not considered proper attire for a religious ceremony. The most formal wedding gowns -- those worn by royals -- are never strapless. So many women want to feel and look like a princess, but in real life, princesses cover up, either by royal protocol or personal preference and deference to history.

After all, says etiquette expert Letitia Baldrige, a bride is supposed to look beautiful, not like a babe, when she walks down the aisle.

"Until 10 years ago, strapless gowns were worn only by 'racy' traditionless brides,'' Baldridge writes via e-mail. "If a young woman wants to make a statement of appropriateness and pride for being married in a religious ceremony in a house of worship, she will wear a dress that is not too low, and she will cover up her arms. ... When you're being married in a nightclub for the third time, who needs to be appropriately dressed?''

But I have saved the best for last. The wonderful Miss Manners writes:

That brides now wear debutante dresses is symbolically baffling to Miss Manners. True, this is only one of many bridal choices that she finds incomprehensible, quite aside from the bridegrooms. Why do brides want to schedule so many hours, even days, of activities that their guests end up crying to go home? Why do they serve elaborate desserts right before everybody is obliged to eat wedding cake? And why are they now wearing the sleeveless, often strapless, white ball dresses traditionally associated with ladies who are out looking for husbands rather than those who have found them?
[...]
Having admitted to such laxness, why is Miss Manners now balking at the bare-shouldered wedding dress? Because its symbolic message troubles her. She has discounted the symbolic associations with youth and innocence, but she is unwilling to let go of the symbolic evocation of solemnity.
A ball dress is a party dress, perfectly suitable for the celebrations that follow a wedding ceremony, but not for a momentously important sacrament or ritual (and easily attainable, by means of removing a jacket). This is expressed by formality, a fact which is almost universally recognized by the choice of clothes that are indeed formal, but merry-making-formal, rather than ceremonial-formal.
The wedding ceremony, which is not "about" the couple, as many mistakenly proclaim, but about their assuming socially sanctioned duties and obligations, requires a certain amount of awed modesty. One is not showing oneself off to society at that point but entering into one of its most cherished states.

Unfortunately, they are wearing those dresses in a religious ceremony because they think nothing of skipping off to church in skin baring and skimpy attire the rest of the time. We have altered our standards for elegance to the level of Hollywood, and Hollywood glamour is a sham glam, cheap and tawdry.

I am so glad to be on nearly the same side as Miss Manners in this matter.=)But for those of you for whom Miss Manners or your own good sense isn't good enough, In Style also gives us all permission to wear sleeves now that Ivanka has:

nspried by Grace Kelly, Ivanka Trump commissioned designer Vera Wang to create her dream wedding dress for her October nuptials in New Jersey. The result? A stunning lace and tulle gown—with sleeves!

Now brides-to-be can use Trump as their inspiration and opt for something other than strapless on their big day. Check out our picks, hot off the fall 2010 bridal runways!

Learning to Cut Your Losses

The Equuschick has been considering this concept for quite some time,even before marriage, but The Pirate has made her think of these things again.

Every business understand the concept of cutting the losses. Losses are of course not the goal, much time and energy is spent minimizing these losses and if you have too much of them your business is soon out of business so the minimizing of them is an undertaking most serious.

But they key word here is minimizing. Every business manager understands that the best that can be done is that losses in certain areas will be minimized. They cannot be eradicated. The expectation that losses are going to occur is in fact usually built into and accounted for in a sound business plan. What they lose in this area they plan to make up for in another, they understand that they will lose something here or there. The business manager accepts this and keeps his ship afloat by compensating for the losses there or here. But he accepts the losses. He cuts them, compensates if possible, minimizes them at all times, and moves on. No business manager is ashamed of this, he makes no attempt to hide it and he is not frowned upon by other business managers.

But The Equuschick has noticed that for some particular reason those managers of the most fundamental and necessary institution of all that we call the Family, for some reason and for some time now many of those managers have forgotten the stark business reality of having to cut one's losses.

In the home of all places, we attempt to operate our business as if losses can (and ought to be) eradicated completely by really good managers.

Stress and inefficiency are the result as these poor frazzled managers run about trying to keep their houses pristine, their tables always well-laden with cheap but nutritious and delicious meals, their children happy and well-behaved and educated, and well, you probably get what The Equuschick is driving at.

Let us cultivate a sounder business mind than that. Losses in the household are going to be a part of life, perhaps we should build a business plan that accounts for that reality.

Every home is different, just as every business is different. What one home manager has to cut as a loss may be another's biggest success, but as long as the ships of both still float who really cares?

A home with a very large income may be able to cut some losses to save time in the kitchen in ways that a household with a smaller income could not afford, but perhaps the latter home manager teaches her kids accounting. Perhaps some food goes bad because of a hectic week, clearly this is a loss that should be minimized and prevented whenever possible but it is a loss that will occur.

The Equuschick's house at the moment is really a total loss. The sink is full of dishes and the floors are filthy and the bed is unmade and the fridge (she'll just risk shock and outrage by saying it) is disgusting and unsanitary. The only reason laundry is caught up with is because The Equuschick's husband is The Most Amazing Man in the World, Ever, The End.

She could be bothered by it, and sometimes she is. But mostly she cuts it as a loss and keeps her ship afloat by nurturing The Pirate because he is a very long-term investment while the dishes in the sink are most definitely short-term. Perhaps somewhere in the world there is a woman who nurtures her little Pirate and keeps the house clean but she didn't spend last night on the couch with her husband watching a movie and The Equuschick did.

The Equuschick did because her relationship with her husband is not a relationship she's at all willing to part with as a loss. In every business there are some non-negotiables. It seems to The Equuschick that in the business of family management, the relationship between the husband and the wife is actually the most valuable investment of all. This is not to discount the investment of offspring, but the well-being of the offspring in many ways depend on the well-being of the marriage.

The Pirate will not remember much from six weeks, but he will know and care very much at six years whether or not his parents are good friends. So The Equuschick is unwilling to cut time with Shasta as a loss. She'll cut some losses in other ways, she'll learn to build it into her business plan.


Life is like juggling. Sometimes you'll drop a ball. Suppose then we build that into our business proposals and plans and stop acting like it is something to be ashamed of?

Is it unethical to take a business's 'unlimited, lifetime guarantee' at face value?

In a word, no, it isn't unethical.

Over on my weekly Frugal Hacks post, I wrote about how sometimes it pays to buy a product new, especially when buying from a business that backs up its products with a lifetime, unconditional guarantee. This is how we buy the HM's shoes, because he goes through them so quickly that otherwise he'd be forking out money for an expensive pair of shoes every six months or so. Most businesses offer conditional guarantees- 90 days, or only new in the box, or they specify returns only for a defect in workmanship.

But there are a handful of businesses that offer a far better guarantee. A lot of people, for reasons I have had a hard time understanding, think it's somehow unethical to take an business's word for it that they mean it when they offer an unconditional lifetime guarantee, and a couple of people have written to say so over at Frugal Hacks. I can live with people disagreeing with me (although I do not enjoy being called a liar or a thief), but I do like to understand where they are coming from, and I have a very hard time understanding what's so unethical or even complicated to understand about the fact that there is a difference between a limited guarantee and an unlimited guarantee.

You see, more than once I have seen somebody appear to aver that they understand the original intent of the guarantee better than the business itself- they will say that returning a product that you have worn out for replacement is somehow violating the 'original intent' of the business.

Let's take Land's End as an example. Lands' End has done everything they can to make it clear that their guarantee means what it says and has no hidden exceptions. In fact, these businesses use their unlimited guarantees as part of their marketing, because it works successfully for them. Consider this comment at Frugal Hacks, from Aubrey:

Years ago, when we moved from Chicago to San Antonio, we were terribly poor with no job yet. My husband had been a Bible school student and had a large supply of Lands End Wool “Year-Rounder” pants. “Year-Rounders” were not made to be worn in South Texas! My husband had few clothes and no money.
I called LE and spoke to a rep. I told her honestly that some of the pants were getting threadbare but all were unwearable here. She said “This is the exact reason we have this kind of guarantee. We know you will come back to us to buy more clothes.” She told me to box them ALL up and they would send him a check or gift card!
4 years after buying 8 pairs of pants, we had a check for all of them with which we bought him jeans and polos from their catalog. They won customers for life.

Indeed. It was because of their guarantees that we first bought shoes from LL Bean and stockings for little girls from Lands' End, and it is also because of they way they fulfill that guarantee that we bought the HG's college backpack and a couple of other items from Lands' End- purchases we never would have made without our other very positive experiences with them.



Consider this page from Lands End:

The Lands’ End guarantee has always been an unconditional one. It reads: “If you’re not satisfied with any item, simply return it to us at any time for an exchange or refund of its purchase price.” We mean every word of it. Whatever. Whenever. Always. But to make sure this is perfectly clear, we’ve decided to simplify it further. Guaranteed. Period.®


I'd like to return this taxi, please.
As you’d expect, over the years our guarantee has been put to the test. We’ve been given countless opportunities to demonstrate our commitment to customer satisfaction and our willingness to stand behind the products we sell – though none more demonstrative than the return and refund of an original London taxi.

Featured on the cover of our 1984 holiday catalog, the taxi was purchased for $19,000 by a Kansas native as a gift for her husband (an avid car collector). In 2005, her husband contacted Lands’ End and expressed interest in returning the car for a full refund. Of course, we obliged – because whether your purchase includes a tote or a taxi, your satisfaction is Guaranteed. Period.®

I do not think there is anything wrong with not having a lifetime, unconditional guarantee, either. That works better for other businesses. But it's just false to aver that when a business has a guarantee such as Lands' End does that it is somehow unethical to make use of the guarantee they plainly offer, and clearly use to successfully market their business. You do not know better than they do what they meant by their guarantee. Businesses do not stay in business for long if they cannot be clear about the terms of their relationship with their customers.

They have smart people working for them, and they have lawyers who check over the legal language. If they do not wish to cover their products with an unlimited, lifetime guarantee, than they do not use those terms. If you read other businesses' guarantees you can see the difference- a business might use the term 'expected lifetime of the product' or guaranteed against all defects in workmanship, or they will specify a time limit, or require a receipt, original packaging, and guarantee against failure under 'normal use.' There are all kinds of limited guarantees- and there is nothing wrong with them, either.

But certain businesses go further. Some businesses don't put limitations on their guarantees, and they do this deliberately. What would be unethical is a business using such a guarantee if they didn't mean it, but that seems to be what those who object to making use of such a guarantee think is happening, but oddly, they don't have a problem with that.

I suspect that part of the reason for these harsh judgments about the ethics of a family who takes a business guarantee at its word (but no such harshness directed toward the business that these people clearly take for granted is lying or at best being misleading about its guarantee) is the lack of clarity in language these days. People do not understand that a company does not have to use the words 'lifetime' and 'unconditional' if they don't mean it. But there's more to it than that.

It also occurs to me that these objections to recognizing a lifetime guarantee means exactly what it says and not less are actually a reflection of just how conditioned we have been by our disposable, consumerist and materialistic culture that has trained us to accept the concept of planned failure as a reasonable business model.

Our grandparents and great-grandparents expected things to last- and they did. We expect things to be disposable, and they are, and we somehow have come to believe it is even unreasonable to expect products to last more than a few months. We have been successfully brainwashed by marketing campaigns and business models founded not on value and worth of the product itself, but on planned failure. Another word for that is Planned Obselescence:

Marketing practice whereby products are designed to become out of date long before they actually need replacement. Planned obsolescence capitalizes on such things as material wear-out, style changes, or functional changes and is said by its critics to increase waste, resource shortages, and environmental pollution. However, advocates of planned obsolescence consider it a means of satisfying changing consumer demands.

LL Bean, Lands End, and other such companies were founded in an older time and on a very different premise. Consider this policy from Lands End UK:

"We deplore the waste implicit in disposable fashion and our clothes come with a lifetime guarantee. So, if your favourite Lands' End piece should need mending, we are now offering to repair rather than just replace or refund it. We want to do our part to reduce the mountain of clothing sent to landfill each year. This is what we mean by sustainable fashion."

Back when people believed in integrity, both as a business model and a personal commitment, they also believed in the integrity of their products. That's why those older, established businesses made the guarantee they do (and it's no coincidence that most of these companies are New England companies, either, with their long history of thrift and Yankee parsimony), and it's why they still stand by their products. Forever, if that's what their guarantee says.

How bad is our disposable culture? I come from a family who never throws anything away. I own some dresses and hats that are 80 years old and they are still in good condition- the dresses were stored poorly, in an old abandoned farmhouse without climate control, so they have a few spots where a moth got to them, but the seams, the fabric, the integrity of the materials, otherwise have held up perfectly. My children use them for dress up clothes, and I actually wear the hats to church. They have no holes, no tears, no loose seams, no deteriorating edges. They are in astonishing condition and wear better than some other hats I purchased new just a few years ago.

I have some thumbtacks that are, seriously at least thirty years old and they are incredibly sturdy and dependable. They do not bend as easily as newer thumbtacks do, and recently when I was taking a poster down, the new thumbtacks bent, the colored tops popped off, and they lost their shape. That was the only thing they'd ever been used on. The older ones have been used many times and are still sharp, firm, and solid because they were solidly built with better workmanship and better materials to begin with.


Today's comparable junk is flimsy and clearly intended to be disposable. Worse, we take it for granted that this is reasonable and acceptable, so much so that we assume it's unreasonable to believe a lifetime guarantee means just that.

I have aprons that are well used even though they are over sixty years old and they still have no holes in them. People once could wear and rewear the coat that had taken Grandmother through finishing school or her first year of marriage, and the only evidence of that was the change in style, not the deterioration of the product. Products were once made to last a lifetime. The Sears blender in my kitchen, one that works better than most blenders today, is actually over thirty years old because things were once made to last.

The HG and Strider will be starting housekeeping using the same dining room chairs that my grandparents owned 70 years ago. These are the chairs my mother gave me when my husband and I set up housekeeping. We have used them in our dining room with our children and hundreds of houseguests over the 27 years of our marriage. They are still sturdy, intact, and solid (although they are knicked in a few places where children have been careless with their cutlery). Other chairs we purchased new have come and gone, their legs snapped or collapsed, their seats broken, or they simply became too rickety for anything but firewood.

The 'coffee table' in my living room is the trunk my grandmother used to go off to college with. I took it with me when I left for college some fifty years later. Now over three quarters of a century later than when my grandmama was in college, it has survived umpteen moves, salt water climates, storage in a shed with no climate control, bird droppings, mice, and more- the finish looks a little rougher than it once did, but the trunk itself is still sturdy, strong, and in sound condition- the lock is broken because we broke it deliberately when the key was lost- and breaking that lock was hard to do.

What ought to astonish us is not how well these plain wooden chairs or the old back trunk have lasted, but how short the lifespan is for a dining room chair or a piece of luggage today.

Once we as a culture expected things to last. A pair of shoes that lasted anybody only six months would have been a thing of shame to a business. We did not shrug our shoulders and accept it as the way things are when a chair broke before it was a couple of years old. Our great grandmothers stored their old clothes in trunks in the attic because they knew the fabric would last and could be remade into something else later- or the fashion would come back around.=)

There have always been businesses that knew they could make quicker money by making products that did not last, requiring people to replace them more often, but once upon a time customers knew the difference. Somehow, we have been trained to think that the reasonable lifetime of a product is shorter and shorter, and that it's really impossible to make an item that actually does last a lifetime.

The Science of Eating and Vintage Cookery

(repost)

One of the things that I have noticed in looking at old food ads, especially in old cookbooks published to advertise brand-name products for gelatin, corn syrup, corn starch, and so forth, is how much they stress 'purity.' IN an ad for corn syrup posted here yesterday, we read the claim that it is 'purer than honey.' There had been legitimate issues over the contamination of the food supply, sick animals used for bologna, toxic chemicals used to brighten the colors in candy and dried fruits, tuberculosis in the milk supply, products adulterated with sawdust and fillers that put more money in the manufacturer's pockets, but added nothing to the product and may have been injurious to the consumer's health (hmm. This sounds ominously familiar, doesn't it?).

In 1919 Alfred Watterson McCann wrote a book he titled The Science of Eating: How to Insure Stamina, Endurance, Vigor, Strength and Health in INfancy, Youth, and Age, where he condemns manufacturers for greedily disregarding concerns about health and nutrition, and addresses, among other things, the need for clean, unadulterated foods and the need for some understanding of what 'pure' food really is. He says:

As late as April 1918 the United States Public Health Service called attention to one of the many preventable ravages of food folly. There may be plenty of milk or eggs or meat, said the government, but if you prefer to live mainly on cereals, starchy foods, and sweets, pellagra will result. This warning will not be heeded because the people cannot understand it. They do not know what the government means by cereals, for the reason that 90 per cent of the cereals now prepared for human consumption in no manner resemble physiologically the cereals provided by Mother Nature. The government's phrase 'starchy foods and sweets' has no meaning for the plain people who do not know that pure starch or pure sugar are not found in nature Pure starch and pure sugar are laboratory refinements from which the impurities essential to life have been removed.

Read The Science of Eating: How to Insure Stamina, Endurance, Vigor, Strength and ...By Alfred Watterson McCann

"Our Washington authorities," he complains, "although they have occasionally spoken in plain terms, do not now refer to the menace of refined cereals, of improved starches, of denatured sweets and fats, of patent wheat flour, of de-germinated corn flour, of polished rice, of demineralised corn starch and potato starch, of robbed rye flour, of pearled barley, of refined sugar, or of any of the other manipulated foods sold in beautifully decorated packages that attack the vitality" of every man, woman, and child who partake of them.

In an article published in the Journal of the A. M. A. McCann's discussions of food problems in our country's food supplies were characterized as 'wild,' and his ideas on therapy as 'hopeless.' I don't know much about his ideas on therapeutics, but so far his ideas on food have been vindicated.

Where there are but 150,000 cases of pellagra there are millions of cases of malnutrition which, though they do not reach the pellagra stage, are nevertheless symptoms of the great national folly which commercial science encourages and defends.

"The increased price of food is responsible," says Dr. Baker, "for the 216,000 children of New York City now suffering from undernourishment."

"It is most important," says the United States Public Health Service, "that at least three glasses (one and one-half pints) and preferably more milk be taken daily." The irony of these comments is solemn.

The importance of eggs, fresh vegetables and fresh fruits is emphasised as in the past has been emphasised the importance of whole grain foods, whole wheat bread, whole corn bread, natural brown rice. But what are the facts?

High prices do not keep these "offsetting" foods out of the hands of the poor. They are not offered to the poor at any price. Yet the government itself tells us that among the poor the symptoms of malnutrition are mostly prevalent.

On page 484, No. 14, Volume 33 of the Public Health Reports issued by the United States Public Health Service, are found these words:

"The unbalanced diet composed mainly of biscuits, corn bread, grits, hominy, rice, gravy and syrup with only a few vegetables develops disease."

Why such foods develop disease, and why all other similar foods, of which these are but typical, develop disease, will be explained here in the government's own phrases, although they are phrases rarely acted upon by the individual and never by the food manufacturer.

Yet as we saw in the government recommended diet for children as published in 1929, there was a shocking shortage of fresh fruits or vegetables of any sort, and an over-reliance on breads.

Take a peek at some of our vintage cookbooks and other treasures here.

NEA head gets his literary history chillingly wrong

Rocco Landesman in a recent speech:

“There is a new president and a new NEA...." “This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.”

From Jonah Goldberg, who notes:

Let us pause to reflect on Landesman’s odd — by which I mean absurd — historical analysis. Obama has written two books, one good, the other a plodding concatenation of political clichés and bromides. Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs, published by Mark Twain, were a literary triumph. Woodrow Wilson wrote many books of great import but of less literary worth. JFK won a Pulitzer for one of his books — the one he didn’t write, alas. But Richard Nixon wrote plenty, as did Herbert Hoover, including two definitive texts, one on mining, the other on fishing.

Oh, and Lincoln never wrote any books.

Goldberg names some other great and powerful leaders who have also written well- and lived since Julius Caesar. Thomas Jefferson is one of them. Winston Churchill is another.

Is Landesman that ignorant, or is there a more insidious reason for choosing an ancient Roman dictator as his comparison for Obama?

David Gibson on Guitar, Blow the Wind Southerly

Also Early One Morning and the haunting The Water is Wide.

Accompanied by ocean waves- very soothing.

Can we have some transparency on the Health Care Bill?

Candidate Barack Obama made a big deal about government transparency and giving citizens ample opportunity to read pieces of legislation before they're voted on.

With this in mind, all 40 Republican Senators signed a letter sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday demanding the new healthcare reform proposal be published on the Internet so that ALL Americans can "learn how the federal government is spending their money."

Sounds good to me.

Actually, Obama did ask businesses to overreport 'jobs saved or created'

I should have known better than to trust the AP on this one. From Ace, who actually read the reporting documents and requirements on stimulus funds:

Two big points I want to make:

First of all, that Florida day care center that claimed Spendulus money "saved or created" 129 jobs when in fact the money they got was simply used to give all existing employees raises?

That's not a "mistake."

When the WH demanded that those who received Spendulus money "report" back on how many jobs were "saved or created," they insisted upon a nonsensical rule: If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee's salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job "saved or created." If he's a new employee, that job was created. If he's an existing employee, that job was saved.

For $1.

Yes, $1. Because the nonsensical rules the White House told these people to count "saved or created" jobs by simply stated: If any employee's salary is paid, in whole or in part (any part!), count that as a job "saved or created" by the spending.

And then report that number back to us.

Note that the White House's rules do not seek to discover which jobs really were "saved or created." To come to that conclusion, one would need a set of more rigorous rules -- which excluded some jobs from the "saved or created" category, rather than attempting to include them all under that rubric.

His second big point? Click through the link.=)

How Music Works

The Pentatonic Scale, by Howard Goodall

Really dim criminals

I mean... really, really dim. You gotta see this.

As Ace says:

"... villains usually wear masks they can take off after a heist.

See, they didn't get that part. The point of a mask is that you look different during the crime, and then you can also look different after the crime again."

When it's frugal to buy new

That is the subject of my Frugal Hacks post this week. Click on over and say howdy.

Questions, I get questions....

Question: Do you frequently use the Amazon.com gift cards from Swagbucks? I have collected three so far, but haven't redeemed any yet. Will Amazon.com let me use more than one at a time?

Answer: Yes, Amazon will let you redeem them all at once. In fact, I don't let my swagbucks gift cards accumulate- every time I get an Amazon gift certificate code from Swagbucks I go to Amazon and add it so it's all there when I am ready to order. Right now my total there (from swagbucks and affiliate links) is around seventy dollars.

Go to Amazon, click on 'your account,' then look in the payment section for the link that says "Apply a Gift Certificate/Card to Your Account." for some reason I always have to sign in again here, which is annoying but minor, so sign in again, apply your code from swagbucks, and if you have more, apply those, too.
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Question: What do you think of the language arts program at Queen Homeschooling?

Answer: I haven't seen it so I cannot comment. Sorry.=)
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Question: How did everybody like Where the Wild Things Are

Answer: They hated it, thought it depressing, bleak, dysfunctional, and annoying. Pip damns it with faint praise by saying, "It wasn't that bad." However, Strider and the HG did see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and they thought it was sweet and very well done.

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What's that hot chocolate recipe you post nearly every fall?

Here it is. Here's a dairy free version using coconut milk.

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Does it hurt your feelings that I laugh when you write about your father?

No, it makes me happy. What can't be cured must be endured, and we might as well endure it with a smile on our faces. He's not hurt by it, so we might as well laugh. A merry heart and all that.

Yesterday, by the way, he walked in the house at some point- I don't know exactly when, I was in the sunroom playing with my plants, and suddenly, there he was at the door of the room. He must have noticed the startled look on my face because his reply to my "Oh! Hi, Dad!" was "Well, I didn't sneak in. I just walked in, but I wasn't being sneaky." He then explained to Jenny that the people he bought his bike helmet from had not told him how to use it and it wasn't working because he couldn't get it to stay on or set right on his head.
She looked at it and and patiently suggested, "What if we unbuckle it before we put it on? I think that might work better."

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Regarding this post, a single friend who is in a shiny new relationship asks How often does the temporary disillusionment never happen at all?

Answer: I don't know. I don't really remember ever meeting anybody married longer than five years that did not know something of this experience, and I am afraid if I did meet somebody who claimed it had never happened to them, I would smile, but secretly disbelieve them.

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

Don't you think children should not be paid for chores because they need to learn that ordinary responsibilities are things that just have to be done, not things you get rewarded for?

I think it's both. Currently at our house there are chores everybody just has to do without being paid. There are additional optional chores or tasks that receive payment. For every blog post, for example, I pay .50 (I figure that's fair since we do take advertising now to pay other household bills, and it's sort of a profit-sharing thing going on. The Equuschick gets more.=)) You see how eager my children are to blog these days.

I also do not pay for the 'optional for payment' tasks if the regular chores aren't done for that day. So by bedtime if the Boy hasn't emptied the trashcans, swept the floor, and done his share of dishes and clutter patrols, it doesn't matter if he washed windows, cleaned mirrors, and dusted extra bookcases, too. I won't pay for those chores if he neglected his regular, unpaid chores to do them.

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

How much do I get paid for raking up leaves?

Nothing. I like the leaves all over the yard, and you only rake them up because you wanted a pile to jump in and because you hoped to wheedle more money out of me.
------------------------------------------------

Why are you so mean?

It's a gift.

David Holness sings Blow the Wind Southerly

I like this one best because it's the least intimidating- he sings well, but not at so highly polished a pitch that the average jane or joe would be too abashed to sing along.

You can find the musical score, with variations for different instruments, along with lyrics here.

Economics Stuff and Nonsense

3.5 percent growth this quarter, compared to 7.2 percent growth in a different quarter with a different President. Guess the media coverage.

Ace prophesies the return of the prosperity montage? What's that? Click through.

This government program resulted in so much fraud and abuse that Congress naturally wants to extend it.

And the Cash for Clunkers program? Guess how much that cost taxpayers per car?

Who We Are, and Contact Info

I'm cleaning up the side-bar a bit, trying to consolidate stuff to make room for some other stuff I like better, and it occurred to me I could put the information for three long sections of the side-bar here and then just leave a link to it in the side bar.

CONTACT INFO: you can reach of any of us at heartkeepercommonroom, it's a gmail account so the usual dot com stuff applies. If it's private for a specific one of us, say so in the subject line. We are honorable peeps and don't read each other's emails (except I would check the emails from strangers to the minor children)

Who: Retired Air Force, Homeschooling family who have finally settled down on property inherited from the DHM's favorite uncle, whom we miss dreadfully.

Two parents, married forever and only to one another.
Seven Progeny.
Son-in-law, other son-in-law.
Adorable new grandbaby (as of 9/09)
The dogs. A horse. Outdoor cat. Various other critters and livestock come and go.

What: chatting about education, cooking, crafting, politics, literature, leadership (as HM has time), music, frugal living, adoption, formerly the problems of living in a 1200 square foot house with only one bathroom (now we luxuriate in a house three times larger with four bathrooms which ought to embarrass me but still delights me), animals, vegetables, minerals, cabbages, and kings, and whatever strikes our fancy.

Where: Here at the Common Room

When: all day, every day.

Why: Because we like to.

Well, that was the initial reason, and it is still a strong reason. I (the DHM) wouldn't do this if I didn't enjoy it so much. But now it also helps pay for music lessons and to put gas in our van, as well as provide the occasional family treat through ads, through sales here, here, and through affiliate links to Amazon, swagbucks prizes, and so forth.

Favorite links migrate about the page- depends on when we last edited the template, and how badly we botched the edit.
Want more? See the 2/11/05 archives.

Contact any of us at: heartkeepercommonroom
at
gmail
dot
com

Bloggers:

Headmaster- Married to the DHM since 1982, Retired from 20 years in the Air Force in 2003, now manages small chain of grocery stores.
Headmistress, zookeeper: Married to the HM since 1982. Sahm mom, homeschooling mom, writer, eclectic and disorganized.
TheHistoryGirl, born in 1983, graduated from University with degree in history in 2009, married Strider in October of 2009
Equuschick Born in 1984, worked at local animal shelter, married Shasta (whom she met when she was 8 years old) in November 2008, had their first child in September of 2009.
JennyAnyDots Born in 1989, our seamstress.
Pipsqueak Born in 1990, our photographer and quiet prankster


Supporting Characters (Cast)

The Cherub: our 3rd daughter, born in 1987, joined our family in 1992, she has multiple disabilities and functions at about the level of a two year old.

The FYG: our 6th daughter, born in 1996

The BOY, FYB: our 7th child and only boy because God wanted me to swallow my pride and have to explain to everybody, forever, that NO, we weren't 'trying for a boy,' it just happened that way, born in 1998

Shasta: The Equuschick's hubby, born in 1983 I used to babysit him and he has long been one of my favorite people. He sings, he plays guitar, he makes us laugh. He grew up, joined the Army, went to Iraq, lost his hearing, lost his bearings, moved to Texas, came to visit us a few times over the years, one day started coming to visit the EC instead, found his bearings and came out here to marry his best friend in November of '08.

The Pirate: Their adorable son, born in September of '09.

Strider: The HG's hubby, born in 1983- He helped us move in five years ago when he hardly knew us because he's just that kind of guy. Plays the piano, composes his own music, sings, fixes things, and makes us laugh. He and she were friends for five years and then one day in May he said, "Hello!?" and a few days later she said, "Hi!" and the next October they were wed- the approximately 200 wedding guests witnessed their first kiss.

Tea Chemist (TC): College grad girlfriend of the HG's and then all of us, who lived with us for the summer and whom we love dearly.

Granny Tea: The DHM's Mom, ageless and timeless, who has always allowed the grand-daughters to dress her up in ridiculous outfits for outlandish Tea Parties, and whose maiden name begins with T.

G-pa: The DHM's Dad, born shortly after the ark landed, who, sadly, has dementia, but we don't let that depress us.

Blynken ('04) and Nod ('06)- our unofficial godsons, 5 and 3 as of November '09. We met their mother, a single parent, on a Sunday night in 2006 when she was living in a women's shelter, and on Monday night my family kept Blynken here while I stayed at the hospital with her while Nod was born. I got to hold him first. They came home with us for the first week and we helped them move into their new apartment. They've spent two of the last three holidays with us. The boys come and visit us most weekends For at least half of every month (if not more). They call me Ti-ti, short for Auntie, but Blynken started telling people we were his god-parents because we talk about God all the time at our house.  His mother pulled him out of public school in February and told her Social Worker it was because I would be homeschooling him.  The social worker told me, and that is how I knew that she wanted me to homeschool him.  Fortunately, I'd already been doing that.

Collectively we like music, books, Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, Wendell Berry, P.G. Wodehouse, Lenka, Doc Watson, Mozart, movies, flowers, photography, legos, Star Wars, sewing, baking, feasting, word games, each other, singing, hospitality, living frugally and joyfully, but not necessarily in that order. We live in a large house in the country with cork floors, a corn boiler for radiant heat flooring, in a sheltered niche behind a hill and surrounded by trees for additional protection from the elements.

We buy most of our stuff from thrift shops or yard sales. We dislike mindless commercialism. We are mostly green and crunchy and we are mostly conservative, but we aren't crunchy cons.
We are pro-life. Some of us are registered libertarians, some of us Republican, and I think we have a couple Independents. We don't like socialism or taking other people's money, in spite of the fact that my father was a communist when I was a child. We do believe in personal charity.

We are human, which means we are also messy, a mass of internal contradictions, far from perfect, sometimes grouchy, often curmudgeonly, but we always strive to be better. At least on our good days.

Obama's 30,000 Jobs Claim Off By Thousands

According to an AP story the created or saved jobs number is off by at least 5,000, maybe more- no evidence that the President himself is responsible for the inflated numbers. It's a question of the businesses who reported what they had done with the stimulus money lying, exaggerating, or who knows what. One that created 4,000 jobs only added a thousand, one that claimed to have created hundreds of new jobs hadn't created any, one that claimed to have 'saved' hundreds of new jobs actually used the money to give raises to existing employees.
And it turns out a fairly high number of 'created' jobs were temporary jobs lasting five weeks or less.

And speaking of jobs, Lora K mentioned this link in a comment to another post. The Bureau of Labor Stats keeps track of what they call "Alternative measures of labor underutilization"

"Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers" for Sept. of 2008 was 10.6 percent. For Sept of 2009 it was 17 percent.

Here are some jobs that may be saved by government funding- Congressional jobs. They've used taxpayer money to pay for the Science Foundation to research how to make politicians more popular and re-electable.

The economy did grow 3.5 percent in the third quarter. BBC News says a large part of that was the cash for clunkers program, so it may not continue next quarter, but predicting economics is witchcraft at best, so maybe it's on the rise.

Dry Bones

Heather in Ohio sent me this link, and I couldn't resist this song, even though we have more Blow the Wind Southerly videos coming up.



The Delta Rhythm Boys sing Dry Bones, and they are smooth, so smooth. I love this.

Media blows it again...

Multiple Layers of Painstaking Fact-Checking Oversight: Newspaper Claims Scalia Says He Would Dissent in Brown v. Board of Ed., Which Banished "Separate but Equal" Schooling
—Ace

He actually said he would have dissented in Plessey v. Fergussen.

The case that blessed the separate but equal doctrine.

Sort of important to get the name of the case down correctly.

Questions they are ignoring about ACORN in order to pursue that all important coverage of the 'balloon boy.'

What would you do?

Update 11/03: Over the course of November 2 and 3, we have had three, no, at least four, very gracious apologies from Keith, another Shoplet representative, one by phone, three by email. On November 2 they completed the transaction returning the final 7.88 of the 30.00 overcharge, and called the HG and emailed me apologizing and asking what else they could do to make us happy. On the 3rd they delivered a FULL refund plus a five percent discount. That means they deposited the final 12.49 back to the HG's account, returning both the overcharge and the legitimate charge she had paid, AND issued me two other coupons, one for 30 dollars and one for a 5 percent discount (they do have to be used on separate orders if I understand correctly). That is more than I asked for, and considerably more than the HG said it would take to make her happy.

Here is the short version::

Back in May, Shoplet.com gave me a coupon code for 30.00 in exchange for one month of advertising. This October they accepted the code in an order, gave me an invoice with the discount marked on it, but then charged the bank account for the full amount- sans discount. Then they refused to honor their code, tried to foist me off with a 2 dollar credit, made excuse after excuse, tried to fob us off with a 20 dollar credit (after approximately ten email exchanges) and THEN, finally sort of claimed this would be made it right (first deducting the previously promised five percent discount) ONLY because I reminded them that I was a blogger and the 30 dollar credit was for advertising [the bank account has yet to actually show that they have made things right]. THEN they responded with something like "Oh, gee, if you had only told us you were a blogger who had advertised for us, then OF COURSE we would have honored our coupon, but you never mentioned that before so we had no idea." [Udate: although Keisha the Service Rep told me she'd deposited the remaining amount, it has yet to show up in the bank account]

No, I do not know why it makes a difference, either. Shoplet.com had the code. Shoplet.com knew the amount it was for. Shoplet.com refused to honour it until they learned that I was a blogger. What that means for unhappy customers who are NOT bloggers, I will leave you to imagine.

What it looks like to me is that Shoplet.com may or may not honor its commitments to others based largely on whether or not they might look bad. Do I mention the name of the business or not? [Consensus is yes, so I have updated the post to reflect that].

Here's the long story: I participated in an arrangement with Shoplet.com where I let them advertise on my site for one month in exchange for a coupon code for thirty dollars. I set it aside to save it for the wedding. Their prices were not the best, but for the thirty dollar coupon code it seemed worth trying- so we attempted to use it around three weeks ago.

The order went slightly over that, but that was okay, because the HG didn't mind paying 12 dollars and change for the surplus and the coupon was good for one time only- we would lose any unspent portion. Although Shoplet.com's invoice recognized the code as being worth 30 dollars, and the total on the invoice reflected the 30 dollar discount, Shoplet.com actually charged the HG's account the full amount, ignoring the discount (and consequently putting her account into a pending overdraft status just a few days before the wedding. Way to go, Shoplet).

But accidents happen, right? Right.
So she contacted her bank and Shoplet.com, and her bank agreed to hold on overdraft charges, and Shoplet.com ignored her. So I contacted Shoplet.com, and they ignored me.

Then I got an automatic 'how'd you like us, would you recommend us to your friends for a ten percent discount' form, and I filled out the form explaining just how very, very much I liked having my daughter's account overdrawn by their error days before a wedding, and how thrilled I was to have my coupon code ignored (and I included the code in that note, as I did with more than one of the emails I sent them) and just how likely I was to recommend a business that would do that to us and not even bother to reply to repeated emails. I believe I was more sad than outraged at this point.

Here is Shoplet.com's reply from their service rep Keisha:

I have followed up on this and please be assured that lack of communication on our end wasn’t intentional. We may have been experiencing technical difficulties at the times of your inquiries. We will make the manual adjustment for the correct charge and apply the 5% discount for this order for you.

So maybe that's the truth and there were technical difficulties. It happens. Were the rest of their communications models of truthfulness and integrity that would merit my believing that? Let's see.

Note that Shoplet.com's customer service rep Keisha promised to 'make the manual adjustment for the correct charge AND apply the five percent discount,' so everything should have ended there- but Keisha did not make that promised adjustment for the correct charge. All Keisha did was merely to credit our account with $2.12.

That's right- instead of crediting us with the corrected charge as promised, which would have been a reduction of thirty dollars, Shoplet.com gave us two dollars and twelve cents and expected us to be happy about that. Cos yeah, two dollars (and let's not forget the twelve cents) is totally a reasonable exchange for thirty in some universe somewhere I am sure. Just not mine.

Naturally, I wasn't very happy about that, so I wrote again. I pointed out that we expected the full credit in addition to the five percent apology discount, and we also expected Shoplet.com to notify the bank that this was their fault.

Keisha told me Shoplet.com had given me 2.12 (which, hello? I knew), ignored the part about the thirty dollars they owed me, and said she could only notify the bank if we initiated a three way conference call. This was hogwash, however I am a charitable person and recognize that this may have been ignorance rather than dishonesty. However, I informed them that we'd already talked to the bank and all Shoplet.com had to do was use the same contact information they had used to overdraft the account, AND the same information they used to credit the bank account with a whopping 2 dollars (and twelve cents) to notify the bank they were withdrawing the thirty dollar claim.

No answer. I sent another email or two recapping the situation, asking why on earth it took this many communications to get them to fix their error, and giving them the promo code again and again and asking them to make good. No answer.

After some more days had passed and she had returned from her honeymoon, the HG checked the bank and found that Shoplet.com had figured out how to credit her account after all. For twenty dollars this time. So now we are up to being credited with 22.12 instead of the 30 dollars they owed us, and 2.12 of that is allegedly an apology for inconveniencing us. I do see the amusing side of assessing the cost of Shoplet.com inconveniencing us at 2.12 even while Shoplet.com and their incompetent service Rep. CONTINUED to inconvenience us. I wondered if this was the usual modus operandi- a sort of war of attrition where Shoplet drags out the process so much that most cheated customers simply give up and go away.

No, I have no idea why Shoplet (and Keisha) chose not to credit us with the full amount that they had agreed to pay for advertising, they never said.

So two days ago I wrote this:

I received a 30 dollar credit for advertising Shoplet.com on my blog (which gets nearly a thousand visitors a day on weekdays). I advertised exactly as required, but you have repeatedly failed to honor that credit.

At this point, after repeated requests (most of which you didn't even respond to), you have given us a 20 dollar credit instead of a thirty dollar credit, so you have not honored your agreement.

Instead of honoring your agreement and honoring the 30 dollar credit you gave me for advertising your business, you tried to foist me off with a 2 dollar credit. It is insulting to be told that a 2 dollar credit is an adequate replacement for the 30 dollars which you actually owed me for work provided.

When I insisted that you honor your agreement and give me the 30 dollar credit that was supposed to be payment for the advertising your received on my blog, you have now substituted a 20 dollar credit.

You have, throughout this transaction, done business with us as though you never expect to do business with us again, and you are making this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Please stop being so dishonest with me. You gave me a thirty dollar credit for advertising your business on my blog. That should be worth thirty dollars, not twenty. I should not have to waste so much of my time writing your repeated emails in an attempt to get you to do what you have promised to do. I have a thirty dollar credit, and it is not remotely unreasonable to expect you to apply that FULL AMOUNT to our order, not 66 percent of it.

And I included the previous emails, which means that I also included the coupon code, and here is Shoplet.com's customer service rep Keisha's very surprising, and eyebrow lifting reply:

Please be advised that you did not state from the beginning that the credit owed to you was due to advertising on your blog. You never mentioned this until today. Due to not having this information, we issued credits to rectify your displeasure with your transaction with us. Had it been known that there was a special arrangement for a coupon for you to receive $30.00 off on your order with us, we would have honored that much sooner. If you can, please provide the coupon code that was given to you to use with this order so that the correct amount may be credited to you. This will end the confusion and hopefully make amends for the mistake that was made on your order. Thank you and have a great day.

Why does it matter that the coupon code was for advertising Shoplet on the blog for one month in May? I don't know, but I can certainly guess, and so can you. I cannot think of any admirable reason why it is that there was no interest expressed in honoring the full amount of the code (which they knew all along) until they learned I had a blog.

I was annoyed before, but NOW? Well, here's what you could have seen if you had a window to my life at that moment: my hair is on fire, my fingernails are melting, and my eyes are shooting lethal glass shards every where I look. The curtains are in shreds, my clothes look like the Incredible Hulk wore them last, and I can roast my own marshmallows just by walking past the bag. The Progeny can bring me a cold cup of coffee and it will heat to near boiling just because it's mine. I am, as the FYG likes to growl out instead of saying irked, 'ehrrrrged,' so I write yet again:

The Promotional Code is listed in the original order. If it could only be honored if we also mentioned the reason we had the code, why was this requirement not mentioned anywhere in the order form or in any of YOUR emails to me? Why is there not even an option on the order form to explain that the promotional code is for advertising? Why should it matter WHY I had a code which should have resulted in a credit of thirty dollars to my order? Where does it state that the promotional code is conditional upon you knowing that we have it for advertising? You now want to tell me that it is MY fault you have failed to honor your commitments? I don't think so. This could have been resolved in the very first email exchange with you simply honoring the promotional code, but in continuing to dig in your heels and blame your customer for your own errors, you only solidify the bad feelings your company has created.

The promotional code is also included in most of the emails I have already sent to you. Do you really meant to tell me that the ONLY reason your business is willing to make this right and honor the promotional code is because I am a blogger who participated in your advertising campaign? If I were not a blogger, your business simply couldn't be bothered with the tedious details of honoring its own promises?

I fail to see that the fact that I received the promotional code for advertising is in any way relevant to the fact that I did have a promotional code - and you knew it- and you have consistently failed to honor that code, instead foisting off a two dollar credit as a substitute for the thirty dollars you owed me. We included the code with the order, and although the original invoice gave us a total which included the 30 deduction for the promotional code, you actually billed the account for the full amount, and now you want to tell your customers your mistake is the customer's fault for not mentioning something is irrelevant in any case. Even if the reason we had the code mattered, I would have assumed your own records would have indicated that the particular promotion code we used was for payment for advertising.

But why does it matter? Only because you are now worried that more people will now know that you don't bother to honor your own promises than you first realized? Are you seriously wanting to promote your business as one that honors its commitments only to those who may be presumed to have a wider audience than the average customer? Is that the sort of reputation you want? "This business will only honor its commitments if you're a blogger, but if you're a regular customer with no wider audience, they don't feel it's important to keep their promises to you?"


The promotional code, which we provided in the original order (so you could have checked this for yourself) and in more than one communication from me (so you could have discovered this from reading those emails), is [redacted] .
The amount was for 30.00.

Again, you had that code from the very beginning. This could have, and should have, been solved by simply honoring it in the first place, or given that we all make mistakes, simply apologizing and honoring it instead of making excuses and blaming your customers for your failures over a series of frustrating emails that served no purpose other than wasting my time and confirming that your business is not much interested in integrity or customer service- unless the customer is a blogger, which really should not have mattered at all. EVERY customer should be a valued customer who is treated with respect and honesty.

Well, either Shoplet's Keisha the customer service (and there is a misnomer) rep realized how bad her comment had sounded, or she could feel the flames coming through the email (which I typed, remember, as my fingernails were melting), so she tried again:

No one is looking to cast blame on anyone and I apologize if that is the impression that you’re under. While you did provide the coupon number, you didn’t state that this was a courtesy extended to you for advertising us on your site. I was under the impression that the coupon was for something else hence the $20.00 credit that you received versus the $30.00 you should have received. I’m trying to explain to you where MY mistake was. The 5% off coupon which gave the $2.00 credit was added for the inconvenience of everything regarding this order. Please let’s not jump to any other conclusions besides the fact that I would very much like to rectify where we went wrong with this order. I can apply the additional $10 credit to this order so that you would have only been charged what should have been charged from the start and the 5% off that was issued in the amount of $2.12. Please advise on how you’d like to proceed with this. Thank you and have a great day.

Okay, at this point we are basically at somewhere around a dozen email exchanges plus the customer service form where I am asking, pleading, and demanding that Shoplet make this right and honor the thirty dollar code and stop wasting my time with additional and unnecessary emails- so does anybody believe Keisha seriously needs me to tell her whether or not I actually want the additional ten dollars Shoplet has stiffed me for? Really? Does she think we have just developed such a warm rapport that I want her to keep the ten bucks and we'll just eat it?

No, of course she does not think that. She's either in a job that is over her pay grade or she is just being obstructive because of that friendly rapport we've developed. And, again, NOWHERE does it state, nor does it make sense, that Shoplet need to know that I am a blogger who advertised for them in order for them to honor the thirty dollar coupon they provided (and if they needed to know this, one presumes their own records would track this through the code they offered). One honors ones promotional codes, period. At least, if one runs ones business with integrity.

You know what else? Giving me a thirty dollar code for advertising on my blog is NOT a 'courtesy.' It is a payment for services rendered. I don't think much of the 2 dollars (and twelve cents) as a payment for the inconvenience, either.


And those glass shards shooting out of my eyes? They are now flaming shards. The coffee in my cup? It made a hissing noise and evaporated. So did the dog when I looked at him.

So I responded again:

Since the promotional code was always for 30.00, I fail to understand where in this process it makes any sense at all to Shoplet to instead give us NOthing, and then give us only 2.00 after several complaints, and then only 20.00 after more complaints, and only honor the full amount once you discovered I was a blogger. I do not understand why it matters that the promotional code was given to me for advertising or for some other reason- the promotional code was plainly for a discount of 30 dollars as Shoplet was well aware since this is the discount amount that was shown on the initial invoice (the one [business name redacted] disregarded in order to charge the account for the full amount, not giving us any discount at all). Your mistake was NOT in not knowing that I had the code for advertising. It was in completely ignoring the promotional code and failing to honor it after repeated emails and then compounding this 'mistake' by making excuses that are mendacious and disingenuous.

Obviously, I want the full promotional code amount of 30.00 applied to the bank account which you erroniously [sic- it's hard to see straight when your eyes are shooting flaming shards of glass] overcharged. This is what I have asked for in every single exchange we have had, which would mean, yes, of course I want you to apply the additional ten dollars to this order. I don't see why an additional email from me is required for you to finally make this good.

This has been the most frustrating and aggravating business transaction I think I have ever had. You could have made it right at any point with a simple "you are right, I am sorry, here is your credit for the full amount," particuarly [sic... those flaming shards again] since you obviously DID KNOW the full amount since it is in the original invoice, in your records, and in my emails.

I will be checking with the bank every hour to see if you have finally made good on the promotional code in full (and seriously? 2.12 is supposed to make up for this treatment? That's not even minimum wage for the amount of my time you have wasted).

Two hours later the 'customer service' (service here is apparently a euphemism for words I won't allow myself to say) rep emailed me to say she had [finally] credited the account- not for ten dollars, which is what was still owed, but for 7.88.

Yes, she's so interested in customer service and in honoring Shoplet's commitments that she actually reneged on the promised five percent discount, petulantly deducting it from the total Shoplet owed us.

I hope that 2 dollars (and 12 cents) was worth it to her. It's a shame Shoplet apparently doesn't have any actual work for their customer service rep to do other than lie to their customers and make promises she won't keep.

That's just the way it is sometimes. Some businesses like to do business with their customers as though they expect them to return for future transactions, and some businesses, it seems, prefer to treat their customers as though they will never be coming back again and they do what they can to insure this outcome. Maybe they're counting on a government bailout to rescue them, because they sure aren't including a loyal and satisifed customer base in their business model.

I am glad we finally got our full thirty dollars back. [Udate: although the business rep told me that as of Wednesday late afternoon she'd deposited the remaining amount, it has yet to show up in the bank account as of Thursday morning] I don't know if it would be best to just drop it now, or if it would be more fair to other consumers to name the business. [Clearly, we decided on naming names]

Me? My flashpoint is shortlived. While I have no intention of doing business with Shoplet ever again, I am seriously amused at this point. It tickles my admittedly obnoxious sense of humour immensely to think of this chick getting paid minimum wage or whatever to do nothing but annoy Shoplet customers and it tickles me even more to imagine what kind of job satisfaction one gets by petulantly revoking a whopping 2.12 promised discount (for 'inconveniencing the customer you continue to deliberately inconvenience). That's comedy gold. Jon Stuart or Lily Tomlin could do great stuff with that. Can't you just picture it?

(see here for more)

Patricia Hammond and Ellen Smith sing Blow the Wind Southerly

Harp and soprano:

Pretty. Tinkly. Harps always muddle my standards, because I ought to think this one is still a bit too polished, but I am afraid all my principles have floated off on heavenly harp notes.

My underground fort report files number1!!

Filed by the FYB. Grammar and punctuation fixed by the DHM

The tools you will need to build a underground fort are simple, but you might need other tools at later times [and thus do we see that the trait of starting a project so that you get to buy a new toy tool begins early- DHM].

You will need a shovel, a rake, 2 or 3 buckets of any size, a small gardening shovel, a pickax, and that is all the tools you will need.

Now, the shape of the fort is your choice, but what I want you to focus on until my next file come out is to get the tools, and then draw an outline of what you want the shape of your fort to be. Then dig your outline with your shovel. It should be about your own hand length deep.



Next Wednesday I’ll have up file 2, have fun

Egad

The Boy has outgrown three complete pant sizes in about 9 months, and that third size only just fits him. So if this trend continues, he'll be in the next size up in a matter of weeks.

He's 11, and the next size up is the last size there is in boy's pants. Since his trend thus far has been to shoot up rather than out, we'll either have to dress my yard stick son in over-alls, or duct tape all his britches to him.

The Left's Long Love Affair With Communism

A very good read at Reason.

Why Congressmen Don't Want to Read Their Bills

Read the whole thing.

Why He Won't Go To Berlin

HotAir's Ed Morrissey:

Michael Barone finds it odd that Barack Obama can go to Oslo and Copenhagen for mainly personal reasons, but somehow can’t find the time to travel to Berlin to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — the climax of the Cold War and the West’s triumph.

He thinks it's because he's embarrassed by some pro-Soviet sentiments expressed in his college days.

Even though I disagree with him on Global Warming, I find it odd that he can go to Copenhagen for an Olympics Pitch for his hometown, but not Copenhagen for the UN's Climate Change Conference.

Ed has a theory about his absence from the Berlin Wall event that applies just as well to the failure to go to the Climate Change conference in Berlin:

I think the answer is simpler: Berlin won’t be about Obama. It will honor previous generations of stalwarts against an evil empire that Academia defended for decades. Whether Obama joined them in that effort as a student is not material; after all, there is a time and a place for foolishness, and that’s college. It’s not that Obama doesn’t think that the fall of the wall is a good thing, but that it has nothing to do with him, and is therefore irrelevant.

Make Your Own...

 Updated to add: If you've been using Cashbaq, it's time to switch to ebates.  They have been around longer and they picked up the outstanding amounts owed to Cashbaq's customers! Sign up and start saving money now!

Make your own caramels- yummm. You can eat them as is, or use the recipe for caramel apples.

Make your own crib mobile (or mobile for a room). These are really lovely, but they are the kind of thing that is really more for mom than for baby- the baby in the crib is not going to see what you see. If I were making a mobile, I'd take an embroidery hoop, some string and some paper plates. I'd past fabric, paper in bold patterns, or I'd draw them, onto the entire paper plate. Then I'd run string (fishing line? floss?) through the plate as though it were a large button, one stitch in, one stitch out, and tie it to the hoop so that the plate was hanging flat over the baby and he could see the whole thing, not just the side. Find a safe way to attach it overhead and out of baby's reach (a hook in the ceiling?).

Make your own Quiet Books for baby- these are fabric books with activities (tie a shoe, button on a flower, etc). Granny Tea made us one once that has a little net from an onion bag and fish to put in and out, Josephs coat to fasten and unfasten, little lambs attached with velcro to count and more. I used little books for kids I babysat, back in the dark ages, using the cards that came in packages of nylon stockings, magazine pictures, and clear contact paper. I made little books for my own children using small photo albums (grandma's brag books) from thrift shops- I put in pictures of family members, familiar places, and art prints, and I could change the pictures out from time to time.

Lip Balm- basically just enough beeswax and almond oil combined to rub on smoothly. Olive oil would probably work as well, but not smell quite the same.=)

Frugal Fun at my house: So yesterday I signed in at Cashbaq, where you get five dollars added to your account just for joining, and then you get money back in your account for shopping at various places. Until the end of the month, Restaurant.com is offering 25.00 gift certificates for only ten dollars- but if you use the code TREATS with your order, it's only 2.00, and with Cashbaq, they'll add .50 back into your account, making it 1.50 for a 25.00 gift certificate.

Now, one of the drawbacks with Restaurant.com's certificates is that the restaurants generally have a minimum order required, and it's quite a bit more than the 25.00 gift certificate. But with a little searching, I found a couple decent restaurants within 40 miles of us (remember, we live in a cultural by-water) with a 35.00 minimum, so we can eat out for 11.50 (the 1.50 cost of the certificate, and the ten dollars we have to pay over that certificate) while getting a 35.00 meal- I bought one for the HM for our anniversary.

But that's not all- I was then offered another 25.00 restaurant certifcate, FREE, for trying out any one of several offers- these offers were mostly free, so long as you remember to cancel membership within the specified time.

Restaurant.com also allows you to look at the menus of the restaurants, and the one we chose is reasonably priced, so we could go out with another couple for a fun evening, still keep our cost down to 35.00, and divide the ten dollar tab between us- making our cost for that meal only five dollars. Or we could give the certificate and a ten dollar bill to somebody else as a gift. So I went and looked at the deals and...

The two that looked best to me were a postage company and a music downloads.

Stamps.com would provide five dollars in free postage in addition to a free one month trial period where you could purchase and print out postage online, mailing items from home instead of the post office- very appealing to me, living in the country as I do while selling books and other items online.

The other was a free subscription to a music downloading group with 25 free songs of your choice to download- I liked this one because I have a lot of daughters who like songs to download- and Christmas is coming up, and all those free songs will make nice Christmas presents. It also came with a free downloadable book from Audible.com.

So, two seventy dollar meals, 25 songs and a book OR five dollars in stamps and a free short term membership for buying more from home. Not bad for 1.50 up front and another ten dollars each of the two times we go out to eat- or possibly less if we split the cost with another couple

A Picture Is Not Always Worth a Thousand Words

The Baby Einstein story reminded me of this post from a couple years ago, so I've adapted and revamped it a bit:

There are things pictures can do for us educationally, but there are more things pictures cannot do. Pictures can be ambiguous, confusing, and deceptive, especially without context. Words provide context and explanations. We need words.


The material that that follows largely comes comes from the book Education's Smoking Gun by Reginald G. Damerell, who discovered, as he tried to work within a field which specialized in something called 'visual literacy,' that pictures were not the effective communication tools he (and others) had assumed.

Damerell worked successfully in advertising in New York, and then he left it to accept a professorship teaching at Amherst. His field was supposed to be teaching future teachers how to use 'multi-media,' particularly television and film, in educating children. Eventually he would write this book, which is subtitled, "How Teachers Colleges Have Destroyed Education in America."

When he got to Amherst he had high expectations, but his experiences there were a huge disappointment. Within his field he kept hearing the phrase 'visual literacy,' but for a long time he could not get anybody to tell him what it was and what it meant. He was told to 'read the literature,' which, if you think on it, is a surprising direction considering the phrase- why couldn't they just communicate the idea with a few pictures? At any rate, he continued to search for a definition for the phrase, and he finally traced it back to its surprising origins. John L. Debes is usually credited as the creator of the term - and he was a 'marketing executive of Eastman Kodak.' Yes, that Kodak. So it turns out that the whole idea that we learn better with pictures than without is the result of a wildly successful advertising campaign for a picture producing company. Suckers.

There is, of course, a place for learning through pictures, which Damerell acknowledges. In World War II our citizen soldiers needed to learn to quickly identify and distinguish our planes and ships from enemy planes and ships. Damerell says "aircraft recognition charts and posters were a major type of visual aid. They presented, for example, the side-by-side silhouettes of American and Japanese fighter planes, making the differences between them discernible... other instructional aids included cutaway drawings of engines, and charts for all the various kinds of rope knots... Visual aids contributed so greatly to instructing servicemen that Fleet Admiral Chester N. Nimitz called their development "one of the educational achievements of the Second World War."

As a side note, this, I think, is where pictures are useful- teaching things that are visual in nature- identifying flowers, birds, trees, animals, airplanes, and so forth. Spelling, I think, is a very visual skill, and JennyAnyDots does better with plenty of pictures in her sewing directions (although I do better with crafts explained by plenty of text). Had educationists limited their work to fields that are by nature visual, well, Dammerell wouldn't have had a book to write for one thing.

At any rate, given a roughly disparate lot of soldiers of varying backgrounds and educational levels, the military managed to teach them all how to identify friend and foe and they did this rapidly and efficiently. This great educational achievement occurred in spite of the fact that 'educationist technology... barely existed... and contributed no personnel to this achievement.' Rather than 'educationists' having any part in this phenomenally successful educative effort, educationists latched on to the successful program after the fact- sort of like parasites looking for a mature and healthy host. Those particular visual aids, developed without trained educationists, were so successful that after the war and entire educationist field grew up around that success. Education schools basically created a new specialty within the field of education.

They were not very successful at improving education, but as Richard Mitchell has said, the educationist bureaucracy isn't really about educating children, it's about self perpetuation, and here the new visual media educationists were very successful. Towards this end, they succeeded in convincing the rest of us that they were doing important educational work and that we learn better by seeing, leading us to assume that television is a more effective teaching tool than a good book. However, says Damerell, "The members of the specialty failed to distinguish between two very different kinds of information- the purely visual and the incidentally visual." So yes, if you wish to learn about the difference between two planes, tanks, fish, constellations, or birds, those differences are largely visual and you will learn better with pictures (although you still need some words, at least in your head, to make sense of what you are seeing). And note here that pictures are really useful when comparing and contrasting two different innately visual things. But "The skills and knowledge taught in schools and colleges... are chiefly abstract. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the disciplines based on them, are only incidentally visual."

Damerell has more information on how and why this didn't work. He believes the primary accomplishment in this field has been to convince us that television (Videos, DVDs, computer animation) is an effective educational medium in spite of all evidence to the contrary. It would be too long to reproduce it all here. That's why he put it in a book.=)

He suggests,

"Children brought up on television probably know less about things visual than their counterparts of pretelevision days. They know less because they are less literate. What is seen largely depends on what is known behind the eyes; and most of what we know comes from language."

And this, I think is why Baby Einstein videos are a prime example of wonderfully brilliant and successful marketing of a product that would actually do the opposite of what it was sold to do.

As early as 1935, Damarell says- even before televisions were actually sold on the market- there were warnings. That's when this was penned:

"Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our minds to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things, one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks." (Arnheim)

I could write at length (and have in previous older posts) about the damage this may well do to the developing brain. Damerell talks about that, and he also brings up a more basic point- pictures usually just do not teach what we think they do.

In order to demonstrate to his students that pictures did not teach what they thought they did, Damerell had half of the students in a class put together slide shows of individual images they intended to communicate certain concepts. Then he showed the rest of the class other student's work and had them guess at what the pictures were intended to communicate. The guesses were varied, chaotic, and bore little resemblance to the intentions of the designers. Using pictures to communicate concepts that are not inately visual to begin is largely a guessing game, and inasmuch as it is possible at all, it is largely only because of the words used by the thinking brain to make sense of it all.

Demerell noted that often what students intended to communicate was so different from what they actually communicated that their visual aides were detrimental to learning. JUnk Male and his wife Harmony observed that with the Baby Einstein videos. I found that to be true with a recent set of flash cards accompanied by music that we checked out from the library. The math facts on the flash cards were presented in reverse order to those sung on the tape (for instance, the card might say 8 X 7, but the song on the tape was for 7 X 8- the answers may be the same, but it was confusing to the children to hear one number while seeing another. Demerell believes that because we don't really understand *how* television/film/video works, we actually end up teaching the wrong things in many so-called educational films.

My husband's great grandmother was a single mother before the World Wars. Too proud to live 'on the town,' as she called the local charity systems in place, and too proud to go home to the parents who had told her not to marry the rolling stone she'd fallen for, for a time she supported herself and her child by picking cotton, milking cows for a dairy farmer, and picking other crops when the work was available. She says she took her baby with her and set him in his carriage in a shady spot at the end of her rows of cotton (or other crops)- and she tied an apple over his carriage to give him something to look at (besides the leaves in the trees).

We moderns need baby swings and mobiles that play electronic music and infant seats that vibrate and music boxes that flash pictures on the walls and a complete set of DVDs that flash pictures at the rate, roughly, of between 18 and 24 frames of movement per second (or 60). We consider this an improvement over the apple over the carriage, but is it really? What if the baby brain does not consider this an improvement? Is this really what the brain of a baby is designed to process?

When we are playing with the baby or toddler and we pick up an acorn and say, "Look, this acorn fell from the oak tree," and the baby says, "Teeee," most parents respond with delight, enthusiasm, and some correction- 'No,' we might say, 'This is an acorn. There' and we will point, or carry the child over to the tree, "that is a tree." If a baby picks up a sock and says 'shoe,' we laugh lovingly and say, "No, silly, it's a sock. This is a shoe, and this is the foot that goes in it," and we smother the dear little foot with kisses.


And this is another problem with the Baby Einstein videos as 'educational' products. Babies learn language through warm, loving, responsive interaction with real people- ideally their parents. Movies for babies are neither responsive nor truely interactive. They can never be warm and loving. They do not 'teach' anything useful or real, and they cannot kiss your baby's toes.