William Kruidenier

Should the Department of Education Be Abolished?

2012-01-29T18:26:00.003-05:00

In the three-plus decades since the Department of Education was established in 1980, the decline in American education compared to other nations is well-known. One wonders what good the Department serves.

Charles Murray (B.A., Harvard; Ph.D, M.I.T.), a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, makes a strong case for the abolition of the Department of Education, using three tests: Constitutionality, whether there are problems with the American education system that can only be fixed at the federal level, and track record. He says the Department fails on all three counts.

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of Imprimis, the free monthly print publication of Hillsdale College. If you aren't one of the 2.1 million monthly readers of Imprimis, you can subscribe here. Charles Murray's article is online here.

"Your truffles or your wife!"

2012-01-28T11:28:00.003-05:00

Those of a certain age will remember the famous Jack Benny skit where the notoriously tightwad comedian was approached by a mugger who demanded, "Your money or your life!" Benny replied, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!"

In his book Provence A-Z, Peter Mayle tells a story that reminded me of the Benny skit, with a twist: "Your truffles or your wife!"

A Provence landowner's property had been frequented by a truffle poacher in the dead of night, relieving the landowner of thousands of dollars worth of the incredibly valuable fungi. One dark night, the landowner ventured into his forest with shotgun and flashlight and caught the poacher—along with his wife and trained truffle-sniffing dog—red-handed. Encouraged by the shotgun muzzle in his ribs, the poacher confessed to having stolen many kilos of truffles from the man's property. But he had money at home which he would gladly return with if they could agree on an amount. They agreed on 100,000 francs, and the poacher left, leaving his wife as a hostage until he returned.

Of course, the poacher never returned and was never seen in the region again. And the landowner realized his mistake. He should have demanded that the poacher leave his dog as hostage instead of his wife since, in Provence, a truffle-finding dog is worth its weight in gold.

How Does Your Country Grow?

2012-01-23T11:26:00.003-05:00

COMPONENT SETTINGS FOR JANUARY 2012

In the U.S. . . .

One birth every 8 seconds

One death every 12 seconds

One international migrant (net) every 46 seconds

Net gain of one person every 17 seconds

(From U.S. Census Bureau)

Makes Me Want to Get an iPad

2012-01-22T13:17:00.003-05:00

Posted by Al and Amy Pettaway (note that Al and Amy's cat, Olson, is named for legendary guitar maker James Olson). Interesting that the dog, then later the cat, tried to "look under" the iPad. They were pawing around the edge of the device as if to want to raise it up to get to the fish which must be under the surface:

The Beauty of Books

2012-01-22T12:09:00.002-05:00

Because I work at home and travel very little, I have no need at present for a digital book reader. Even if I needed one, I would regret having to use it, though I recognize their utility. There's still something I resist about the sudden transformation of books from works of craft and art and utility to utility alone. To wit . . .

Because I was captivated by the Swedish movie versions of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series of novels (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), I decided I wanted to read the books themselves to see the author's original version of the stories. (Ten volumes were planned, with only three finished and published before Larsson died suddenly.)

The American publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., issued a nice four-volume boxed set just before Christmas—the three novels plus a fourth Afterword volume containing correspondence from the author as he wrote the stories and had them published. I wasn't enamored of the Knopf edition, but was attracted to the British edition—unfortunately now out of print. But I found a bookseller in San Francisco who had a still-shrink-wrapped boxed set from the British publisher, MacLehose Press, an imprint of Quercus. The British edition was typically understated compared to the American Knopf edition. So I bought them.

It's not hard to see why many people prefer to own finely printed and bound volumes compared to digital editions. The pictures below remind me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry asks George why he bothered keeping copies of books once he's read them. This is part of the reason why:

This gold dragon—highlighting the "Dragon Tattoo" motif—is imprinted on the side of the slipcase:

Even the thread used to sew the signatures together is beautiful! But—evidence that these are still mass-produced volumes: insufficient sanding of the edges (left) and a bubble of glue (right). But the picture shows the signatures of which books are made—the individual mini-books that are printed, then bound together to create the volume—nineteen signatures in this volume:

Fifteen in this one:

The British edition (unlike the Knopf edition) also came with a wall poster containing images of 36 different covers of the novels created by foreign publishers. More than 65 million copies of the novels have been published in hard copy, and well over a million copies for the Kindle have been purchased:

Not only are books beautiful themselves, repositories of books are as well. For Christmas, my son David gave me a gorgeous volume titled The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World (Abrams, 2003). It contains breathtaking large-format photos of some of the most beautiful and thoughtful "buildings" constructed throughout history to store the collected knowledge and art of man.

This is a foldout spread of the Great Hall in The Abbey Library of Saint Gall in Switzerland:

And a closer look at two of the panels:

I sent David the following reflections after my first perusal of this book:

1. In the non-American libraries, where collections are much older, imagine the labor that went into the binding BY HAND of these millions of volumes. Even though the printing press came online around 1455, books were still bound by hand, right? And not just the binding, but the gilding and lettering on the spines, etc. The man-hours represented by the binding of millions of volumes is staggering -- all for the preservation of knowledge.

2. Again, in the non-American libraries, I was struck by the admixture of art and literature. Libraries could have been sterile warehouses with shelves -- just a place to catalog and store books. But they were stored in the equivalent of palaces and cathedrals. The libraries themselves represent the height of art, sculpture, and architecture of their day. It speaks well for how books (and manuscripts and music scores and important papers) were viewed -- on a plane with royalty and deity, so ornate and thoughtful were their places of storage.

3. The contrast between American and European libraries. I think only two American libraries are featured -- the Library of Congress and the Boston Athanaeum. Purely from the perspective of the photos of the books on the shelves, the American library books are smaller, newer, less ornate than the books in the European libraries. That's obvious and easy to explain, of course -- America is a younger nation, etc. But it must also say something about the intellectual history of the two cultures -- our libraries look "lighter" than the European libraries. More than once, in looking at some of the European libraries, I thought, "That's what the library at the Biltmore House (Asheville) looks like." . . . It's because George Vanderbilt basically imported books from Europe (as he did furniture, tapestries, art, etc for the house) that it looks so much like a European library.

Solomon had it right: "Of making many books there is no end" (Ecc. 12:12). And it's a shame that they (save one) will wilt before the renovating flames yet to come. The destruction of the great Library at Alexandria in 48 B.C. (thanks, Julius Caesar), where much of the accumulated knowledge or the world was stored, is a warning to all who would hold books too tightly.

But while we have them, they are a pleasure to have and hold.

The Role of the Home in Making Practical Men

2012-01-22T11:20:00.003-05:00

"A distinguished American writer says: 'The training and improvement of the physical, intellectual, social, and moral powers and sentiments of the youth of our country require something more than the school-house, academy, college, and university. The young mind should receive judicious training in the field, in the garden, in the barn, in the workshop, in the parlor, in the kitchen—in a word, around the hearthstone at home. Whatever intellectual attainments your son may have acquired, he is unfit to go forth into society if he has not had thrown around him the genial and purifying influences of parents, sisters, brothers, and the man-saving influence of the family government. The nation must look for virtue, wisdom, and strength to the education that controls and shapes the home policy of the family circle. There can be no love of country where there is no love of home. Patriotism, true and genuine, the only kind worthy of the name, derives its mighty strength from fountains that gush out around the hearthstone; and those who forget to cherish the household interests will soon learn to look with indifference upon the interests of their common country. We must cultivate the roots, not the tops. We must make the family government, the school, the farm, the church, the shop, the agricultural fairs, the laboratories of our future greatness. We must educate our sons to be farmers, artisans, architects, engineers, geologists, botanists, chemists—in a word, practical men. Their eyes must be turned from Washington to their States, counties, townships, districts, homes.'"

The originator of these words is identified only as "a distinguished American writer," quoted by Edmund Morris in his circa 1867 book, Farming for Boys. (Italics in the original.) The book is being serialized in Small Farmer's Journal. This quote is from Part VI, Chapter XIV, of the book reproduced in SFJ, Winter 2012, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 34-38.

When I read this quote I was struck by the absence of such a worldview in modern literature. I read a lot, and these words jumped out at me as being from a different era. But regardless of era, they convey a settled way of thinking about life that is missing from postmodern thinking: the source of true education, the purpose of the home, how boys learn to be men, the intended distant influence of Washington, and others. Some will rail against pre-modern (1867) writing that excludes "girls" from the focus of training in the home. Note that this is a book titled Farming for Boys. If this author's point was to outline a system of industry for boys, the outline of a similarly vigorous industry for girls could be gleaned from Proverbs 31:10-31.

Chillun'

2012-01-20T13:20:00.002-05:00

Ran across this sweet photo of two of my children the other day—Stephen and younger sister, Elizabeth. They were both participating in a wedding (early-mid 1980's) and were snapped by the wedding photographer. I only had the hard copy 8x10, and scanning it reduced a bit of the color—but not the soft effect the photographer used.

Citizen Legislators

2012-01-19T13:44:00.003-05:00

On January 12, Representative Tim Johnson of Illinois issued a press release announcing the introduction of the Citizen Legislator Act in Congress. His goal is to return the Congress to the idea of citizen, rather than professional, legislators. The following are key elements of his bill:

Limits days in session to five per month or 60 business days per session.
Halves the salary of Representatives and Senators.
Permits members to have jobs outside of Congress so long as they do not derive their income as a result of the privilege of their office, such as speaking tours, lobbying, consulting, etc.
Allows members to choose benefit plans to reflect their lower salaries and allows them to opt out completely for a private option.
Cuts member office allowances, committee and leadership budgets in half.
Prohibits any grandfathering out of the new salary requirements and benefit packages for current members.
Cuts member salaries an additional 10 percent for every five business days Congress exceeds 60 business days in a session.

Given the fact that our current legislators would be voting to reduce their own pocketbooks, perks, and power if they voted for this bill, the chances are slim it will make it out of committee. And given the fact that life in 2012 is a lot more complicated than in the 1780's, Johnson's specific recommendations may be unrealistic. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. After all, anything would be an improvement over the Congress we have now. (Read more about the Act at Rep. Johnson's web site.)

Apple Trailers Speed Boost

2012-01-19T11:44:00.003-05:00

I'm a big fan of the Apple movie trailers web site for keeping up with new movie releases. Each trailer has three streaming options (format sizes) plus four download options. The three streaming options are Automatic (smallest format), 480p (next largest format), and 720p (largest streaming format).

Traditionally, I have always used the 480p format since the 720p format took too long to stream an adequate buffer before play would begin. But a week or so ago I noticed that the 480p stream had slowed to a crawl; it was basically unusable. I had to revert to the small Automatic option just to watch a trailer without waiting forever for the stream to buffer in 480p. The problem seemed to be isolated to the Apple trailers since no other web sites suffered from slowdowns.

But today, things are different. The entire 480p stream now downloads in a few seconds, and the 720p is so fast that playback begins almost immediately. I can now watch trailers in the HUGE 720p HD format that I couldn't before.

I can only assume that the temporary slowdown was due to Apple working on the servers that deliver the streams (?). And that the huge speed boost is due to some streaming upgrade on their end. If anyone has a better explanation, let me know.

Friday 1-20-12 UPDATE: Friday evening, streaming of trailers has reverted to the former sluggish rate described above.

USSC to POTUS: "Butt out!"

2012-01-18T14:12:00.003-05:00

In a rare unanimous decision (all the more significant in this case), the U.S. Supreme Court told the President of the United States to take his hands off the internal functions of churches in America. The government claimed that a Lutheran church exercised "employment discrimination" when it terminated the services of its minister. No so, the Court said unanimously. Here is part of Chief Justice Roberts' opinion: (Link)

“Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the free exercise clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the establishment clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.”

Doing Vegan Right

2012-01-18T10:39:00.002-05:00

James McWilliams is associate professor of history at Texas State University, San Marcos, and a frequent writer on food matters—and a vegan. In this excellent The Atlantic article—"The Evidence for a Vegan Diet"—he responds to numerous recent articles by foodies who bewail their failed attempts to thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet. His point: You have to do it right. Besides the abundant scientific data supporting the benefits of a plant-based diet, stories of people who did it right and transformed their lives are powerful.

This is an excellent article. I especially love his opening paragraph:

Here is a comprehensive list of what I ate, in one form or another, on the day I wrote this:
Kale, mustard greens, carrots, celery, onions, mushrooms, quinoa, amaranth, pinto beans, beets, parsnips, turnips, yellow peas, brown rice, kimchi, purple cabbage, butternut squash, blueberries, a banana, hemp seeds, flaxseed oil, snap peas, an apple, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, pistachio nuts, garlic, broccoli, raisins, granola, avocado, polenta, salsa, a few saltines, a piece of raisin toast with apricot jam, tofu, coffee, olive oil, harisa, chickpeas, tomatoes, a small handful of chocolate chips, a couple of beers ... and a vitamin.

How to Get People to Give Blood

2012-01-17T10:05:00.002-05:00

In his delightful memoir, A Year in Provence, English author Peter Mayle tells how he and his wife gave blood in their village to help a desperately ill child. I have written in this space on my experiences giving blood to the Red Cross where I live. If the Red Cross followed the French model—at least the way they do in the town of Gordes—they'd probably get a lot more donors:

In England, the reward for a bagful of blood is a cup of tea and a biscuit. But here, after being disconnected from our tubes, we were shown to a long table manned by volunteer waiters. What would we like? Coffee, chocolate, croissants, brioches, sandwiches of ham or garlic sausage, mugs of red or rosé wine? Eat up! Drink up! Replace those corpuscles! The stomach must be served! A young male nurse was hard at work with a corkscrew, and the supervising doctor in his long white coat wished us all bon appétit. If the steadily growing pile of empty [wine] bottles behind the bar was anything to go by, the appeal for blood was an undoubted success, both clinically and socially.

Some time later, we received through the post our copy of Le Globule, the official magazine for the blood donors. Hundreds of liters had been collected that morning in Gordes, but the other statistic that interested me—the number of liters that had been drunk—was nowhere to be found, a tribute to medical discretion.

Uke Revival

2012-01-15T11:01:00.002-05:00

In the early part of the 20th century, ukuleles were everywhere, having not yet been displaced by guitars as the most popular stringed instrument. The Martin guitar company made thousands and thousands of ukes—so many that they didn't even give them serial numbers which makes the vintage models hard to date and value today. But Martin stopped making them eventually when their popularity waned.

But a genuine, power-and-fire ukulele revival is under way. Martin started making them again a few years ago and now can't keep up with orders. And with Martin cranking them out again, boutique builders are cashing in as well, and popular rock 'n roots musicians are adding them to their repertoire (Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder, Mumford and Sons, et al).

The hottest boutique uke builder right now is Mya-Moe Ukuleles in White Salmon, Washington, a husband-and-wife team (with a couple helpers) that is building drop-dead gorgeous instruments. You have to see the woods to believe them—here and keep clicking through them 600 plus ukes in the gallery.

Here's Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan doing one of her songs with her Mya-Moe:

Brevity

2012-01-13T09:12:00.009-05:00

Blaise Bascal, the French polymath, is supposed to have once written, "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter."

This counterintuitive statement illustrates what most of us know from experience (and what Strunk and White teach in The Elements of Style): It's much harder to write fewer words than more.

Put another way, writing is really rewriting and editing (cutting). I certainly violate the "less is more" principle in this blog (and conversation) but cannot afford that luxury in my work—as I have learned the hard way: A book contract once called for 80,000 words and I turned in 104,000—and was asked to cut 24,000 words. (In my defense, it was a marketing issue: The manuscript I turned in would have been more expensive to print and would have raised the cost of the book, hurting sales. Welcome to book publishing!)

For several years, I have written a series of pieces for a client that have to be exactly 130 words in length. Sometimes I turn in 129, sometimes 131—but 130 is the target. By the end of today I will have written 1,164 of these pieces, or a total of (approximately) 151,320 words. (That's enough words for a nice two-volume set on the history of something. It also demonstrates that the impressive two-volume history of something you've longed to write can be done—130 words at a time.)

Writing to an exact word count has been a great teacher. With word-count functions available in word processing software today, writing for an exact word-count target is a greatly under-utilized teaching tool. If teachers would assign their students the daily task of writing "your number one goal for today in exactly 17/23/29/31 words"—or some similar, short exercise—they would go a long way toward teaching students how to write well; how to choose, substitute, eliminate, and prioritize their words.

Just a thought.

(Delete that last line.)

Twelve Percent Less in Five Years

2012-01-10T23:12:00.002-05:00

Mark Bittman, food columnist for The New York Times, talks about the reasons for a great trend in the U.S.: meat consumption is down 12 percent in the last five years. His conclusion: It has nothing to do with availability, prices, or any other external reason. Rather, people are eating less meat because they are choosing to eat less meat. Link.

Thought for the Day 16.0

2012-01-10T10:58:00.003-05:00

From Seth Godin's blog:

One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you're in the room. Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not.

The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.

At Least I Wasn't Texting

2012-01-05T22:29:00.002-05:00

I had a two-hour drive on the freeway last night and had my camera with me so took a few time exposures of trucks passing by. Is it against the law to take pics while driving . . . yet?

Vegan Body Builders

2012-01-04T23:23:00.002-05:00

New York Times article on vegan body builders here. (Thanks, Stephen.)

National Treasures

2012-01-02T17:34:00.005-05:00

For the last several years, I have waited religiously for the broadcast of the annual Kennedy Center Honors awards ceremony. It is the best two hours of television I know of.

The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., honors five members of the artistic community—music, comedy, dance, theatre, film—in a gala ceremony that celebrates their achievements. Even if I am not already familiar with, or a fan of, each nominee's work, the 20 minutes devoted to each is an incredible, and always moving, introduction to their work. They are honored with a short movie retrospective of their work, then by performances by their peers that illustrate their achievements. It's a black tie event and the audience is filled with all manner of recognizable artists who come to honor their friends and peers.

The ceremony is held in the fall and broadcast a few weeks later on CBS. The production value is of the highest quality and a pure pleasure to watch. It is a celebration in the truest sense of the word. The productions seem to get better every year -- yet I rarely hear them mentioned by John Q. Public. I think lots of folks are missing something special. (There are tons of YouTube segments from past Kennedy Center Honors presentations.)

The 2011 awards went to saxophonist Sonny Rollins, Broadway actress Barbara Cook, singer-songwriter Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and actress Meryl Streep. There is always one representative from the "popular" music field that really gets the crowd on their feet, and this year it was Neil Diamond.

Following is the segment of this year's show honoring Diamond featuring performances by Rafael Saadiq, Jennifer Nettles, Lionel Ritchie, and Smokey Robinson. A couple of things that will help you enjoy the last song, "Sweet Caroline," that won't be immediately evident: "Sweet Caroline" is sung in the middle of the 8th inning at all Boston Red Sox home games, and it was inspired by Caroline Kennedy, the host of the honors show, when Diamond saw a picture of her when she was a little girl. You'll understand when you see it. Enjoy . . . and tune in next year! (And hats off to Meryl Streep for her engagement with every moment of the performances—not just Neil Diamond's, but all the honorees.) (There's a 2-3 second blank space in the video, but it continues.)

If You Don't Laugh out Loud at This . . .

2012-01-01T12:00:00.003-05:00

If you don't laugh at Fred Armisen's question (he of Saturday Night Live), you probably don't laugh at The New Yorker cartoons either. My first thought after reading this—after laughing out loud—is that it would make a great New Yorker cartoon. See the whole newyorker.com article here.

This week, Margaret Talbot writes about Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, the comedic masterminds behind IFC’s “Portlandia.” We sent Gabriele Stabile to photograph the pair in New York. “Fred’s apartment has wonderful northern light, beautiful views of the Upper West Side, and an unbelievable vacuum-cleaner robot,” Stabile said. “One of the publicists showed up at the shoot eight and a half months pregnant, and Fred asked, ‘Does your husband know?’ When you’re around people who are seriously funny you realize how bad your jokes are.” Here are a few outtakes from Stabile’s shoot.

Thought for the Day 15.0

2011-12-29T08:51:00.001-05:00

Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm --
which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to
be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such
quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of American farm
experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and
divide it neatly into two problems.

-Wendell Berry, farmer and author (b. 1934)

Fans and Their Objects

2011-12-23T12:49:00.004-05:00

Nobody writes better, more sensible songs—and plays a more-muscled, yet articulate, acoustic guitar—than Darrell Scott. His Kentucky holler roots feed his songs and create a knowing rapport with his fans. I would love to have been part of the audience at this intimate performance of one of his best— "It's a Great Day to Be Alive." It must be so heartening for singer-songwriters to realize that their fans know the words to their songs.

In the song above, Scott plays a lovely koa Taylor guitar, but in this one he plays one of Stefan Sobell's gorgeous acoustics. He is a fabulous guitar player!

It's No Wonder . . .

2011-12-23T10:57:00.004-05:00

It's no wonder thousands and thousands of women read Dee Drummond's blog every day (and some men, like me). She writes, and lives, "funny" and "funnier."

Why I Like FORBES

2011-12-23T09:33:00.003-05:00

I like Forbes magazine for many reasons, and have for years. The magazine is not afraid to integrate a biblical worldview into their capitalist commitments, knowing that only capitalism allows the creation of excess to fuel charitable and other non-profit efforts. (As is often said, capitalism is the worst system in the world—except for all the others.) They print a favorite Bible verse, sent in by readers, on the back page of every issue. Rich Karlgaard, the publisher, is an active churchman who often mixes his spiritual insights with his business sense in his editorial column.

And they are willing to publish articles like this: "The Christmas Conspiracy: Spending Less = Giving More" by Keith Levy—an article that champions movements like Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International:

English Christmas

2011-12-22T23:05:00.000-05:00

Amazed Again

2011-12-15T17:32:00.003-05:00

I posted this video back on February 3. I recently emailed the link to a friend (we were discussing a magic trick) and in the days following I got tons of blog visits from people that he shared the link with and who they shared the link with, etc. It really is an entertaining magic trick if you missed it back in February. Just for fun, if you like it send the link to some friends so I can see how the virus spreads over the next few days. Once people see this they seem compelled to send it to friends: "Hey, watch this!" (P.S. I saw a video on YouTube that explains how the guy does the first trick -- and here's how he does the card trick.)

THE Question of the Ages Answered: What Is the Opening Chord to "Hard Day's Night"?

2011-12-14T21:58:00.001-05:00

Best Way to Spend a Half-hour a Day

2011-12-13T11:38:00.002-05:00

Link.

A Gaggle of Angels

2011-12-10T22:44:00.005-05:00

I'm not sure what a group of angels is called—a multitude, a host, a flock, a gaggle? I kind of like gaggle so I'll go with that.

These gorgeous paintings of angels are by the wonderful artist Jane DesRosier (until recently of North Carolina, now Washington state). Actually, these are prints of her original paintings (couldn't have afforded the originals even if they'd been available). Six of them were mounted on birch plywood when I bought them from Jane, and four I mounted following her instructions. I think they are captivating—so reflective of the different personalities angels surely have.

Here's the group before I got them up on the wall:

And here are some close-ups—Jane does incredible amounts of layering and texturing; the colors are so deep. If you look closely on the third picture below you'll see a portion of Scripture text that's been layered into the paint:

And here they are grouped on the wall (I could have used some art direction here, but did the best I could):

I've posted this beautiful video of Jane in her studio before, but I'll post it again here so you can see this amazing artist at work painting "Jesus and Mother" (accompanied by Patty Griffin's song "Mary" -- gorgeous): Link. (Warning: when you land on the page, scroll immediately to the bottom of the page and turn off the music that plays automatically as it will conflict with the music in Jane's speed-painting video.

And here's another artist's (Katherine Labbe) portrait of Gritty Jane (as Jane DesRosier is known) herself—it looks a lot like her!

Thanks to God for Jane's great talent and to Jane for sharing it abundantly.

Winter Greens

2011-12-03T09:42:00.003-05:00

Stopped by the Matthews Farmers Market this morning and came home with some beautiful winter greens: two bunches of collards, a bunch of regular spinach, two bunches of Bordeaux spinach (red stems), a giant head of Romaine lettuce and a head of red leaf lettuce. The temp was in the mid-30's this morning (lower overnight), and our local organic growers are still producing this beautiful produce:

I've been fortunate to have an abundant supply of Swiss chard growing in my own front bed. These chard plants are all from seeds from a plant that went to seed last year. I picked a leaf 21" long the other day (the leaf only, not counting the stem) and 10" wide to make a wrap for lunch.

Steve Jobs: Postmortem

2011-12-02T11:25:00.003-05:00

One of America's best-known plant-based doctors, Dr. John McDougall, did a significant amount of research on Steve Jobs and the cancer that killed him, and offers some reflections on what caused his death—his vegan diet likely kept him alive longer than he might otherwise have lived, and the surgery he regretted not having sooner would not have saved him. Link.

What Are We Paying You For?

2011-11-29T16:41:00.001-05:00

How to Google

2011-11-28T10:04:00.002-05:00

Great primer on how to use Google to search for maximum advantage—including using Google to perform math functions and metric/standard conversions. Here.

Oops! Chris Matthews Has Gone off the Reservation

2011-11-20T22:58:00.001-05:00

Bicycle Friendly

2011-11-17T11:06:00.005-05:00

Here's a great idea arising from a great story:

The cycling team at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky, takes regular, long training rides on the roads surrounding the college. They were approached by some local residents who said (paraphrasing), "We like seeing the cycling team come by on their training rides and would like to support the team. We'd like them to know that if they ever need any assistance, especially in more rural areas—food or water, a phone, medical or mechanical help, directions—they are free to knock on our doors and we'll help them any way we can."

So together, they came up with the "Bicycle Friendly" sticker above. It's large—about 6" in diameter—to affix to the mailboxes of homes that are "Bicycle Friendly." When cyclists see the sticker, they know there are "friendlies" living there who will welcome the opportunity to assist them if they need help. And local businesses have gotten on the bandwagon—coffee shops, restaurants, and others who welcome cyclists are displaying the stickers on their storefronts.

In a day when cyclists are viewed as a nuisance by many folks, it's encouraging to find people who, even though they don't ride themselves, are still "Bicycle Friendly."

You can learn more about the program here, and order your own "Bicycle Friendly" stickers for your own mailbox or storefront. Ordering info is on the web site, or you can send a PayPal payment to grigsbyd@lindsey.edu. Stickers are $1 each and $1 for s/h for every 25 stickers ordered. That's obviously a break-even price, but proceeds support the Lindsey Wilson College cycling team. I've ordered some and plan to take a few by the two bike shops near me to encourage them to participate in distributing them.

They've already sold the first run of 10,000 stickers with more on order!

Needed: Economic Freedom

2011-11-16T10:01:00.002-05:00

John Mackey, CEO of Wholefoods, has a great Wall Street Journal opinion piece on the need for economic freedom in America—i.e., economic reforms that would get the American economy moving again. From his editorial:

So why is our economy barely growing and unemployment stuck at over 9%? I believe the answer is very simple: Economic freedom is declining in the U.S. In 2000, the U.S. was ranked third in the world behind only Hong Kong and Singapore in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by this newspaper and the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, we fell to ninth behind such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland.

How Apple Makes Money

2011-11-11T16:58:00.002-05:00

Apple's secret weapon for making money is to control the supply and production chain—from manufacturing to retail. A Bloomberg Businessweek article provides a jaw-dropping look at how Apple controls how its products are built, shipped, and sold. Just amazing.

When College Presidents Were Eloquent

2011-11-10T07:40:00.003-05:00

In his November 9 column, George Will discusses the financial power of college football—how teams are switching conferences, and traveling thousands of miles cross-country for games, in pursuit of ever-larger television and bowl appearance payouts. As a contrast to the current state of affairs, he cites the refusal of Andrew Dickson White, Cornell University's first president, to allow Cornell's football team to travel to Cleveland to play Michigan's team in 1873:

"I will not permit 30 men to travel 400 miles merely to agitate a bag of wind."

That's the kind of elocution one expects from a college president!

How Cats Use Computers

2011-11-09T09:28:00.002-05:00

My daughter and her cat, Trina, are bunking with me temporarily after relocating here for a new job. Here is how Trina uses my daughter's iBook—as a be-hind warmer, apparently. If Trina was a Lab, a Vizsla, a German Short-haired Pointer, a Weimaraner, or Rhodesian Ridgeback, she would have had the computer open reading Drudge, making trades, or setting up a night of poker with her pals. But not Trina. As far as she knows, the white plastic thing is a hotplate just for her. Cats.

The Ultimate Tweaker

2011-11-08T08:57:00.003-05:00

If you don't have time (or interest) to read the just-released 600-page biography of Steve Jobs, a condensed version of Job's personality is at The New Yorker here. It's a quick read, but captures the darker side of the man who many know only as conquering hero. I confess to feeling much differently about Jobs after reading the biography. Before the book, I saw him as a genius with quirks. After the book I saw him as a deeply flawed man who I wonder if I would have enjoyed knowing.

This article uses the paradigm of the English Industrial Revolution as a way to think about Jobs. He was not an inventor but a tweaker—the most obvious example being his implementation of the technologies developed at Xerox's PARC center that appeared in the first Macintosh, and which the world thought Jobs & Co. had invented: the GUI (graphical user interface), the mouse, and more. There were portable music devices and cell phones before the iPod and iPhone—but Jobs tweaked what existed and made it great. And drove people crazy in the process.

He was such a perfectionist that it took eight years for him to begin furnishing the house he and his wife bought—he insisted they discuss the "purpose of a sofa" for a long time before buying one. Same with a washer and dryer. In the hospital he rejected nearly three score nurses before he found a couple he could tolerate, also rejecting the oxygen mask and finger BP sensor because of their poor design. These and MANY other examples are in the book—and there are enough in the New Yorker article to flesh out an accurate picture of the man.

Perhaps the saddest example of his perfectionism came near the end of the life (this story is in the biography, not in the article): He only got half-way toward deciding whether there is a God or not. In one of his final interviews with his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Jobs said he wasn't sure about the existence of God. He figured there is a "50-50 chance" that God exists. Taking eight years to decide about furniture is one thing. But taking a lifetime to decide about the existence of God is a far more weighty gamble—and an unnecessary one in light of the evidence:

"But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse." (Romans 1:19-20, The Message)

I can only hope that Job's perfectionism—the demands that he made on those around him—didn't carry over to his contemplation of the existence of God right up to his final moments of life. The verse just quoted says there is enough evidence to decide. But perhaps not enough for those who demand complete compliance to their standards.

African-Americans, Diabetes, and Veganism

2011-11-07T19:38:00.002-05:00

The American Diabetes Association says that 14.7 percent of African-Americans over the age of 20 have diabetes. A new study from Loma Linda University found that vegan African-Americans have a 70 percent reduced risk of being diabetic, while lacto-ovo African-American vegetarians (those who eat dairy and eggs but not meat) have a 53 percent reduced risk of being diabetic.

With the Centers for Disease Control saying that one-third of American adults (all races) could be diabetic by 2050, you wonder why this vegan/vegetarian solution is not being shouted from the government rooftops. Can you spell m-e-a-t a-n-d d-a-i-r-y l-o-b-b-y ?

Read the article here. (Thanks, Daniel)

How to Change Your Genes

2011-11-07T09:30:00.002-05:00

Great Atlantic article summarizing some research on the effects of lifestyle on genes. In short, poor lifestyle choices (e.g., smoking) can make good genes go rogue, but people with genetic markers for, say, heart disease can greatly decrease the likelihood of the disease through things like exercise and eating more fruits and vegetables. The idea that our health and longevity are genetically predetermined and outside our control is no longer viewed as correct.

Summer Camp

2011-11-07T08:38:00.003-05:00

If you're in the market for a summer retreat in the beautiful Adirondacks of upstate New York, you'll want to check out this unbelievable offering from Sotheby's—a collection of rustic structures on 42 acres on a lake, yours for $6.5 million. If you look at it for fun (I'm obviously not in the Sotheby's market), be sure to click on the various links (Interior, Exterior, etc.) to see more pics than those on the home page. Especially stunning are the pics taken at night showing the expanse of stars (the point is made that the nighttime pics are not Photoshop'd—that's really how it looks at night). The pic I've posted here is of the outdoor fireplace. Can you see yourself sitting around this on a brisk New York night? See it here.

What the Occupiers Need

2011-11-05T23:57:00.000-04:00

(Thanks to Robert)

Viewing Jesus Wrightly

2011-11-05T08:22:00.005-04:00

Former Anglican bishop (now professor at St. Andrews University in Scotland) N.T. "Tom" Wright is probably the leading evangelical New Testament scholar working today. I've always liked his perspective—creative and biblical. He has a new book out about Jesus (Simply Jesus—A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters) and is interviewed by FOX News here. Unfortunately, FOX News videos rarely play on my Mac through Safari or Chrome, though on Firefox they work okay. Viewer beware.

Give a Turkey a Break

2011-11-02T08:49:00.005-04:00

Every year, the New York Times Well blog goes vegetarian for Thanksgiving, publishing three weeks of recipes (daily) leading up to the big day. This year's recipes started yesterday with four beautiful dishes: Coconut Butternut Squash Soup, Black Rice with Corn and Cranberries, Massaged Kale Salad with Cranberries and Cashews, and Seven-Vegetable Couscous. While they call this a "vegetarian" Thanksgiving, these first-four recipes are vegan—and the forthcoming recipes can likely easily be made vegan if there are any offending ingredients.

Vegan Endurance

2011-11-02T08:25:00.004-04:00

The Tour de France is often called the most challenging sport of endurance in the world—three weeks and 2,000+ kilometers pedaling up and down mountains while sitting on a hard, skinny seat. But last year, long-time American pro cyclist Dave Zabriskie became the first cyclist to ride the Tour as a vegan, proving that plant foods are plenty adequate for strength and endurance. In his own words:

“I started watching a few documentaries and in conjunction with that I took a food sensitivity test. I had some allergies so the first thing I did was cut meat out of my diet. Then it was dairy and the last thing was the eggs. This year I become the first pro to ride the Tour de France totally vegan. It was a change that was important to me for an environmental reason as well. There are a lot of benefits to it. Of course it was tough at times. I’d see team-mates wolfing down hamburgers but I’m over the craving part of it. Then I turned it into an animal rights issue, a cruelty issue, and I began reading up about that too. That helped to reinforce my faith in the diet. I don’t preach to my team or anyone else. It’s just a choice I made. There are some hardcore versions of veganism that say you can’t have leather products but i’m not going to start tearing the seats out of my car. But perhaps I’ll be more conscious of things I’ll buy in the future.”

Spearfishing in Heaven?

2011-10-27T10:13:00.013-04:00

I recently enjoyed reading John Eldredge's latest book, Beautiful Outlaw—Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus.

Those who have read Eldredge's previous books—especially Wild at Heart—know his perspective on spirituality to be muscular, aggressive, and humanistic in a good way—using Jesus' perfect humanity as a template for Christian spirituality, especially for men. For Eldredge, Jesus seems to be Sir Lancelot, William Wallace (Braveheart), and Tristan Ludlow (Legends of the Fall) rolled into one.

Eldredge has done us a favor in his books by reminding us that Jesus was a man and helping to restore an image of what it meant to be the Second Adam. Beautiful Outlaw spotlights the extravagant, disruptive, scandalous, cunning (Eldredge's words) nature of Jesus, along with His more familiar virtues of humility, honest, and beauty. So far, so good—until the end of the book.

In the last four pages of the book, Eldredge recounts an interview in which he was asked a question for which he wasn't prepared:

"What are you looking forward to with Jesus?"

He realized that, for all the thought he had put into his present experience with Jesus, he hadn't given a lot of thought to his future with Jesus. The question made him remember that a day is coming when he will see Jesus face-to-face and share life with Him.

For my part, when I read the interviewer's question, my first thought was, "Do you mean 'looking forward to' in the sense of the rest of my life here on earth?" or "Do you mean 'looking forward to' in the sense of the future as eternity?"

Eldredge obviously understood the question as referring to eternity, to heaven, because he cites the passage from Matthew 19:28-29 in which Jesus tells His disciples,

"In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will

rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule,

starting with the twelve tribes of Israel."

(The Message)

He goes on to emphasize the "re-creation of the world," calling it "a renewed heavens, a renewed earth":

"My friends, I hope you understand that we get the entire glorious kingdom back. Sunlight on water, songbirds in a forest; desert sands under moonlight; vineyards just before harvest—Jesus fully intends to restore the glorious world he gave us. Paradise lost; paradise regained. A hundred times over." (pp. 217-218)

In his eloquent way, Eldredge paints a picture of Eden reborn, the anticipation of which is hard to deny. But typical of Eldredge, he tends to read back into Eden romantic aspects of our fallen world, both in human and non-human dimensions. For example, will there really be deserts—"desert sands under moonlight"—in the new earth? Aren't deserts a sign of environmental disruption, hardly typical of "paradise regained"?

Quibbles aside, I was with him as he built a case for the joy of knowing, and being known by, Jesus in the "re-creation of the world." Only after painting the picture of what raced through his mind as he pondered the interviewer's question does Eldredge give us his answer—what he is looking forward to with Jesus when the world is restored to its created glory:

"Spearfishing." (p. 218)

Spearfishing?

He explained:

"I know this beautiful world will be ours again and so will Jesus, and all the time imaginable to play together. Beauty. Intimacy. Adventure. The very things we were given at the dawn of time. But honestly, more than all that, I'm just looking forward to seeing him, looking into his eyes, hugging him as Peter did on the beach and not letting go for a very long time." (p. 218, italics added)

First, credit is due for his priority of simply seeing Jesus rather than playing together. But his dream of "spearfishing" with Jesus in heaven, reflective of "the very things we were given at the dawn of time," is hugely problematic, biblically speaking.

Before saying why, I'm going to cut Eldredge some slack. The man is a hiker, a hunter, a high-mountain man—think William Wallace in High Sierra instead of Highlands plaid and Tristan Ludlow in Merrills instead of moccasins. His meal of choice is fresh meat on the bone and trout in the pan—preferably killed and cleaned with his own hands. So, not surprisingly, his idea of how to spend a day with Jesus in heaven is "spearfishing."

And that's where Eldredge gets into trouble biblically—reading the proclivities of fallen human beings back into an unfallen Eden ("the dawn of time") or forward into a recreated new earth ("the restored glorious world").

Where, in Genesis, does one find the image or idea of Adam spearing a fish, leaving a trail of blood in the water, for his food? God's prescribed diet for humankind was plants (Genesis 1:29). Yes, after the fall of humanity into sin and Eden into disrepair, a concession was made to allow man to consume animals for food (Genesis 9:1-6). But such a practice was not present at "the dawn of time."

And from where does the idea of Jesus being an enthusiast of killing animals for sport come? Jesus entered human history thousands of years past "the dawn of time" when concessionary practices were well established, such as raising animals for their by-products and pulling nets of fish from the sea. In fact, He facilitated such cultural practices by advising His disciples where to cast their nets to find a bountiful catch. He even ate a piece of fish Himself as a demonstration of His physical resurrection (and perhaps ate flesh foods on other occasions as well).

Jesus chose not to try to restore Eden in three years of ministry. Rather, He introduced the present-and-future kingdom of God in which all things (as Eldredge rightly notes) will be ultimately restored, ultimately recreated. But even though Jesus lived in the concessionary parenthesis in which we ourselves live, we don't see Him in Scripture as the blood-and-bone adventurer that Eldredge and those in the "Christian sportsman" movement want Him to be—taking pleasure in spilling the blood of animals for sport or even for food when such killing for food is neither original (Genesis 1:29) or necessary (as in today's world where plant foods are abundant).

How does the idea of "spearfishing with Jesus" fit with Isaiah's image of the future recreation?

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lied down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,

and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

(Isaiah 11:6-9)

That sounds like an Edenic setting, something to be found at the "dawn of time." And Isaiah says it will happen in the future—at least until John Eldredge and Jesus show up with their spears, bows and arrows, and guns and knives and start recreating the fall all over again on the new earth, staining soil and water with the blood of animals who were created to trust man, not fear him (Genesis 2:19-20).

Really? Something tells me Jesus won't be part of that adventure, nor will He sanction Eldredge or any other citizen of the New Jerusalem marring the eternal kingdom with behavior that is characteristic of fallen humanity.

Here's where I'll cut Eldredge a second portion of slack. What if he used "spearfishing" as a metaphor for "guys hanging out doing what guys do"? What if he used "spearfishing" as a way to say "spending time around the campfire with Jesus and a PBR, talking about life in guy terms"?

If that's what Eldredge meant, that's what he should have said. In Beautiful Outlaw and his previous books, he has established himself as a man's man who likes to hunt and fish and live in the great outdoors. So when he says he looks forward to spearfishing with Jesus in heaven, one can only assume he means shooting a barbed arrow through a defenseless fish, mortally wounding it, spilling its blood in the ocean simply because it's possible to do so.

In either case—whether Eldredge is speaking literally or metaphorically about spearfishing—it's an example of mature, thinking Christians not having a biblical theology of animals. Whether one uses hunting as a metaphor for "fun and fellowship" or a reference to a literal act, in neither case is there biblical grounds for doing so. The Bible gives no indication that animals were treated with anything less than complete respect at "the dawn of time" or will be in the restoration of all things. The fact that we treat them otherwise during the concessionary parenthesis of this age is a sign of our fallenness, not our maturity. (What Christian could be called mature who uses the concession of divorce as a way to casually and without cause dishonor the Edenic, permanent institution of marriage? The same question applies to animals. Concession does not equal creed; permission does not equal prescription.)

If you want a thought-provoking, biblically-based book on the humanity of Jesus (that doesn't diminish His divinity at the same time), read Beautiful Outlaw. Just don't make the mistake Eldredge makes of reading into your present or future life with Jesus everything that fallen man has invented for pleasure or entertainment—like the killing of animals.

God is in the process of conforming us to the true image of Jesus (Romans 8:29). We only distort and delay the process when we imagine Jesus looking in a mirror and seeing us.

The Skill of Blaming Others

2011-10-26T07:54:00.004-04:00

At a fundraiser in San Francisco yesterday, president Obama said,

"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge."

The arrogance of that statement is stunning. Imagine: in three short years—since he became president—America's people have lost their ambition, their imagination, and their willingness to dream and build big. None of it is his fault, of course. It's all our fault. For some reason, which he failed to reveal, America's entire ideological ethic has changed.

I wonder if he can't see the correlation: This so-called loss of ambition, imagination, and ability to build big has happened on his watch. (It goes without saying that there has been no loss of ambition, imagination, or ability. People are doing what is natural in the face of the unknown—consolidating in a defensive position until the enemy leaves the gates.)

More and more, the evidence is that this man is in way over his head. For his own sake (and ours), I hope his misery ends next November.

Welcome to Amerika 2

2011-10-25T16:23:00.003-04:00

In my humble opinion (and that of lots of businessmen), the number one impediment to job creation and economic growth in America is the Obama administration—period—for at least three reasons: excessive regulations, the highest corporate tax rate in the world, and uncertainty about future costs connected to ObamaCare. Businesses can't grow, and won't grow, until something is done about all three.

I have followed the story of the Gibson Guitar Company for months now. Their factory was raided in 2009 (by armed federal SWAT teams) for suspicion of breaking laws relating to the importation of certain kinds of woods used in guitars—woods that are on endangered species lists in certain countries. Gibson maintains its innocence (they have never been charged with any violation) and the countries of Madagascar and India have said Gibson violated no export laws of their countries. Yet Gibson continues to be persecuted by the federal government. This is a great example of the kind of irrelevant and unnecessary interference by the government in business.

Here's a short interview with the president of Gibson summarizing the situation:

Thought for the Day 14.0

2011-10-25T11:17:00.002-04:00

In the preface to his new book, Suicide of a Superpower—Will America Survive to 2025?, Pat Buchanan asks,

"What happened to the country we grew up in?"

The last paragraph of the Preface provides an eloquent summary of what has gone wrong:

"When the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, the people die. That is the progression. And as the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate. The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive proof that we are in the Indian summer of our civilization. Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote, 'Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.' And so it is. We are the Prodigal Sons who squandered their inheritance; but, unlike the Prodigal Son, we can't go home again."

Ron Paul: Still Making the Most Sense

2011-10-24T10:42:00.001-04:00

Ron Paul is still making a lot of good sense. Here he is on last Sunday's Meet the Press:

Remembering with Excellence

2011-10-24T09:45:00.002-04:00

It's not enough for Apple to create insanely great products (Jobs' term) -- they even do insanely great memorial services. The outdoor memorial service for Steve Jobs was great: reminiscences by Tim Cook, the new CEO, Bill Campbell, longtime board member, Johnny Ives, who designs the Apple products, and most compelling, Al Gore, Apple board member. For all of Gore's wacky politics, the man is a terrific speaker. Music by Nora Jones and Coldplay—wow! I got tears and chills listening to the Coldplay song that backed one of the early iPod commercials.

The whole service is a reminder that good and great are not enough in life—only insanely great will change the world.

You can watch the service here.

Need for Speed

2011-10-22T10:31:00.004-04:00

While watching a YouTube video, I accidentally control-clicked (Mac; right-click on PC) on the video window while it was playing and discovered a choice to view my download speed for YouTube videos for the last month compared to other local communities, my state, and the USA. As you can see from the chart below, I averaged about 13 megabytes per second download speed while watching YouTube videos—significantly higher than the other averages presented. I wonder how accurate these numbers are? With the proliferation of broad-band connections (I have Road Runner Turbo), I would think average download speeds would be higher than 4-5 megabytes per second. Knowing, however, how many homeowners use DSL to connect to the Internet, which is VERY slow compared to cable (see the "Windstream" rating in the lower-left corner—3.3 mpbs—which is a local telephone/DSL Internet provider in my area), perhaps the numbers are accurate. But my speed of 13 mbps from YouTube is still significantly less than what I get when testing my down-and-up-load speeds at sites like speakeasy.net and speedtest.net (depending on the time of day around 21-25 mbps). Understandably, downloading a video from YouTube might be slower than a clean packet download from a test site.

Watch a YouTube video and check your own download speed compared to other averages.

At least once a year . . .

2011-10-17T22:48:00.002-04:00

At least once a year, I try to spend an hour at the web site of the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio to watch videos of the acoustic artists and bands that have performed there. Blue Rock is located near Austin, Texas, and combines a high-end music production facility with a small, intimate concert venue. They keep a regular schedule of top indie and labeled acoustic artists coming through. Most are unknown to me, I'm sorry to say, but I thoroughly enjoy the professionally produced video summaries of their concerts. Well worth an hour or two of time.

Biblical Illiteracy

2011-10-17T15:28:00.004-04:00

What's wrong with this picture? (If the Wall Street occupiers don't know any more about the economy than they do about the Bible, they're in for a disappointing run.)

Touché, Warren!

2011-10-15T15:54:00.002-04:00

As a much-more-fair counter to Obama's "Buffett Rule" (forcing the wealthy to pay higher taxes), a senator and representative have introduced legislation to provide the opportunity on tax returns for any citizen to donate $1.00 or more to reduce the federal deficit. Excellent! Now, Mr. Buffett, along with all the other self-titled "patriotic millionaires" can step up and voluntarily give their money to their bleeding hearts' content. I don't know if we'd ever be told, but my bet is that none would do it.

Alas, they'll likely not have the chance since the legislation has zero chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Read the whole story here.

Amazing Design for Sustainable Food Production

2011-10-15T12:47:00.005-04:00

Back to Eden is a new film on sustainable gardening techniques. Ironically, the techniques are not new, but mirror the way nature has reproduced bountifully for eons. The subject of the film, Paul Gautschi, mixes his knowledge of the Bible with his gardening techniques, which I found quite insightful. The first half of the film is narrated by him and exposes his own work and is excellent. The third quarter is about other families that have implemented his techniques, and drags a bit (but very practical in terms of how to turn a grassy plot into the kind of garden he has built up over years). But the last quarter of the film returns to Gautschi. What this guy has implemented is truly amazing. Anyone who has ever labored with dry soil and weeds will be bowled over.

The film is available for purchase and watching for free at the film's web site (scroll down). Well worth the investment of time.

Clapton and Cordings

2011-10-14T11:55:00.004-04:00

For those who love tweed and tattersall—and who incline toward Eric Clapton—this video will have appeal. Cordings is a traditional maker of fine men's and women's clothing in the British tradition, located in London. Clapton tells the story of his lifelong love of English tradition, especially clothing—so much so that he is now a co-owner of Cordings.

I smiled all the way through this video at the thought of Eric Clapton, having survived drugs, Cream, the Sixties and Seventies, now settling into his graybeard years as a tailor—or at least a partner of tailors. And who can blame him? When you see the closeups of the tattersall shirts in this video, one's sartorial pulse is immediately quickened. And note the beautiful gussets built into each side of the back of the jacket he tries on, to allow plenty of motion for swing shooters in the field. Gotta' love the British style, if not the reasons (shooting birds). But that alone sets the British apart—the fact that they go bird shooting in tweed jackets, tattersall shirts, and wool ties.

Indian Vegan Recipes

2011-10-13T17:07:00.004-04:00

To get 21 days of vegan recipes from India, sign up for the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine's "21-Day Kickstart India" campaign. (Starts in November.)

Beautiful Bread

2011-10-13T16:33:00.002-04:00

Chad Robertson has become world famous for the bread he bakes at his Tartine Bakery in (where else?) San Francisco:

His book about bread, Tartine Bread, is available for home bakers to learn his ways.

B-12, D, and Iodine

2011-10-13T10:35:00.003-04:00

From solid vegan nutritionist Ginny Messina in an article on vitamin/mineral supplements:

But vegan diets always need to be supplemented with B12 on a regular basis (not “occasionally”) and often with vitamin D. If you don’t use iodized salt you should take a supplement of iodine. I recommend a DHA supplement as well, although the research on benefits remain conflicting.

My two cents: From what I've read, the population at large is mostly B-12 deficient which is problematic since B-12 is so critical to long-term health. No one should be adding extra iodized (regular table) salt to their food because of the negative effects of salt (hypertension, etc.). (Even sea salt should be limited.) Iodine is critical for thyroid health, but getting iodine from sea sources (kelp, dulse flakes, etc.) is far healthier than from iodized table salt. (The government mandated the addition of iodine to table salt years ago to make sure the population got iodine, a non-optional ingredient. Table salt is nothing but a delivery vehicle for the iodine which we do need. Gov: "What does every American crave to which we can iodine?" Answer: "Table salt.")

Lots of vegans STILL don't take B-12 regularly, to their detriment. Omnivores get B-12 from meat, vegans and vegetarians have to get it from other sources. Supplements are the safest, most predictable way. It's inexpensive and plentiful. (The methylcobalamin version of B-12 is supposedly better absorbed than cyanocobalamin -- look on the label for the kind. But either is better than none.)

n.b.—the presence of B-12 in meat is not an argument AGAINST plant-based diets. Animals get the bacteria that synthesizes to B-12 by eating plants in nature, and they process it well because of their extensive gut systems, getting into their flesh which humans consume. We would get the same bacteria from nature if we "grazed" plants like we were created to do (Genesis 1:29). Instead, we eat sterilized plant foods, miss the bacteria, and thus produce little B-12 of our own. (I've made this argument in this space many times before and make it again only to dispel the common myth that the presence of B-12 in meat is an argument against plant-based diets.)

(Thanks to vegan.com for the link.)

Thought for the Day 13.0

2011-10-10T09:24:00.002-04:00

1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
-- John Adams

2. If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
-- Mark Twain

3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain

4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-- Winston Churchill

5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw

6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-- G. Gordon Liddy

7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-- Frederic Bastiat, French economist(1801-1850)

11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- Ronald Reagan (1986)

12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
-- Will Rogers

13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-- P.J. O'Rourke

14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-- Voltaire (1764)

15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-- Pericles (430 B.C.)

16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-- Mark Twain (1866)

17. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-- Anonymous

18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
-- Ronald Reagan

19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-- Winston Churchill

20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-- Mark Twain

21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

22. There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress.
-- Mark Twain

23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson

25. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
-- Aesop

Five Truths:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for...another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!

(Thanks to Dan B.)

"When I was your age . . . ."

2011-10-07T10:29:00.004-04:00

I have held on to this New Yorker cartoon for over a decade. It cracks me up every time I stumble across it in my stuff as I did today. (As with all New Yorker cartoons, some people will get it, some won't.)

P.S. I searched my blog to see if I had posted this before. In any case, enjoy.

Spontaneous? Really?

2011-10-06T20:08:00.004-04:00

During a press conference this afternoon, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi had this to say about the Wall Street occupiers:

"God bless them for their spontaneity. It's independent . . . it's young, it's spontaneous, and it's focused."

Spontaneous? Really?

I heard something in the news today that led me to check the domain name registration information for two of the main web sites being used by the protestors:

occupywallstreet.org was registered on June 9

occupywallst.org was registered on July 14

Looks like somebody was planning these protests long before they spontaneously occurred.

The Leaves They Are a'Changin'

2011-10-05T21:32:00.002-04:00

Early photos (taken Oct. 5) of the leaf changes along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Western North Carolina: Mt. Mitchell, the Linville viaduct, Grandfather Mountain, etc. Just a foretaste of what's to come. Link.

Peel a Head of Garlic in 10 Seconds

2011-09-30T08:44:00.001-04:00

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.

What Happened to the Dinosaurs?

2011-09-27T21:58:00.004-04:00

And that's what happened to the dinosaurs.

(Thanks to Robert!)

I Dare You to Eat One Serving

2011-09-23T11:44:00.008-04:00

I recently learned about Liz Lovely artisan, organic, vegan cookies. They are made in the Green Mountains of Vermont, by a young couple and their small staff. And while the operation appears small, they are available in some 500 retail locations around the country (check on their site).

The article I read said they had just opened up their first hometown storefront when hurricane Irene powered through a few weeks ago and flooded their store. The article's appeal was to order some cookies just to keep their bakery going while they rebuilt their storefront. Never one to turn down a reason to buy good vegan cookies, I placed an order, which arrived promptly and well packed.

These are bad, bad (meaning good, good) cookies—seriously decadent (meaning delicious). The ingredients are fine (except the use of palm fruit oil)—vegan and mostly organic—but they are loaded with sugar and dark chocolate. (Did I mention they are delicious?) The cookies are large, so a serving size is one-half of a cookie. The sample pack I ordered had four different kinds of their cookies, each having a serving-size calorie count of 170-200 calories—for ONE-HALF of a cookie. And I defy you to eat a half of one of these babies. They are sold in packs of two cookies, meaning you could put down around 800 calories if you eat both—which you probably will. So, caveat emptor.

I won't order more (I don't suffer from sugar deficiency), but I'm happy to see a young couple doing principled work with good ingredients. Nobody could eat these on a regular basis, but for a special treat they'd be hard to beat. (You know you want to try them, so go ahead. You'll be helping them get back on their feet after the flood.)

P.S. Read their inspiring story here.

"How to Change a Lightbulb" by the U.S. Government

2011-09-20T17:21:00.004-04:00

The U.S. Government Printing Office just released the official federal guidelines on changing a lightbulb. (Not really, but who would be surprised if they did—and if it looked like this?)

So Much for Royal Values

2011-09-20T17:07:00.005-04:00

The general opinion of Prince William has been that he seems fairly thoughtful for a rich young man who's had life handed to him on a gilded platter. But the tide of public opinion has taken a hard shift. His plan to celebrate his brother Harry's recent birthday is to purchase 250 ducks, pheasants, and partridges for a shooting party in Harry's honor. As one commenter on the LondonNet site said, "Why not just toss puppies up in the air and shoot them?"

England has a long history of shooting animals for sport—men and women in tweed, tattersall, and Wellies tromping through the moors and heath blowing birds out of the sky, or chasing foxes on horses with dogs, etc. But buying 250 game birds for the express purpose of slaughtering them? Prince William ought to be ashamed.

Welcome to Amerika

2011-09-20T13:59:00.005-04:00

Adam Guerrero teaches high school math in Memphis, TN. But currently his front yard is a crime scene because he has a garden planted there. (The yellow Crime Scene tape looks like it was Photoshopped in -- but his yard is, in fact, the scene of an illegal activity.) He was cited for violating two ordinances: failure to maintain "a clean and sanitary condition free from any accumulation of rubbish or garbage," etc. This in spite of the fact that there is no such rubbish or garbage in the front yard. Bottom line, some neighbors complained which makes Mr. Guerrero a nuisance.

Not only has Mr. Guerrero been growing food ON HIS OWN PROPERTY, he's been using the garden as a teaching tool for several of his high school students who are interested in learning about gardening:

You can go HERE on the Kitchen Gardeners web site to read about this situation. He is due in court on Friday, September 23. There is a petition you can sign in his support, a Facebook page in his support you can join, and the email address of the judge hearing the complaint. (I've done all three.) Please speak out in support of this man's right to grow food in his own front yard.

9-23-11 update: Adam gets to keep his garden—and more!

The Kitchen Gardeners International web site reports that the judge was so impressed with the support from all over the world for Adam that he decided Adam can keep his front-yard garden. Plus, the city is going to make a vacant lot nearby available for him to expand his educational gardening activity. The people have been heard! :-)

What You Need to Know About Chia Seeds

2011-09-20T09:22:00.003-04:00

I've been eating chia seeds for a couple of years, having had to order them from exotic distributors. But they have hit the mainstream—I noticed they are now available in bulk at a local market (EarthFare). They supposedly contain the highest amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids of any plant food. Fooducate.com has posted a nice little summary of "what you need to know" about chia seeds.

My two cents: Chia seeds are so small (read TINY) and hard that they will not get broken down by your teeth—you'll swallow them whole, which means they might go all the way through your system without ever being broken down to release their inner goodness. Therefore (and this is true of almost all small seeds like flax, un-hulled hemp, etc.), they should be ground in a coffee-type grinder and then sprinkled in/on your food as a meal or powder. I've worked my way through lots of different coffee bean grinders and currently have two of this model which does a good job. There are so many available that it's hard to know what kind to pick, but I've been happy with the Capresso grinders.

Anyway, read the Fooducate article on chia and incorporate "the little buggers" into your diet to get the fiber and the Omega-3's. (And subscribe to Fooducate's RSS feed. They publish great stuff on food and have iPhone and Android apps that you can use at the grocery store to get the facts on foods you're interested in trying.)

Rock: It Doesn't Get Much Better than This

2011-09-17T15:05:00.010-04:00

Where to start?

Robert Palmer was the classiest rocker of his generation. It's a shame he died young (d. 2003, age 54). His best-known song, Simply Irresistible, has to be one of the best rock songs ever written. And when he performed it in his trademark suit and tie (he was British, after all), it took it to another level. The music videos for his hits (in the Eighties) revolutionized the genre. The video for Simply Irresistible is amazing, as is the shorter, revised version of it that Pepsi used for a 30-second TV commercial. Like Palmer himself, their power lies in the realm of subtle suggestion rather than overt hammering. I don't have the nerve to post them here, but his best-known music videos are available on YouTube.

The opening chorus line in SImply Irresistible is a classic: "She's so fine, there's no telling where the money went!" Ha ha! What a great line! Who cares where the money went? She's simply irresistible!

Palmer's appearance on Letterman in 1988 is a joy to watch, not just for Palmer himself but for The World's Most Dangerous Band—what Letterman's house band was called when they were at NBC (now known as Paul Schaeffer and the CBS Orchestra). The core guys in this band have been playing together since the Eighties and represent the quintessential rock band: drums (Anton Figg), guitar (Sid McGinnis—no guitar player has as much fun playing as Sid McGinnis—watch him), bass (Will Lee—ditto, a close second. Watch him clapping time during the bridge. Nobody told him to do that; it's just pure joy in playing), and keys (Paul Schaeffer). While they've added horns and a rhythm guitar since then, back then they were as tight musically as four guys could be. They're all older now, with shorter hair, and probably better musically—but pure rock doesn't get much better than this from 1988. (No wonder they've been the house band for the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame for decades.)

Pure class, musically and vocally. Here's hoping you've got good speakers:

P.S. That big square thing Letterman is holding up is a 33 1/3 long play vinyl album. (Just kidding. Most people know what "vinyl" means, but it's amazing that there are young kids today who will probably say, "What's that thing Letterman is holding?" How times change. I recently tracked down a used copy of a vinyl LP that I used to listen to on cassette tape in the late Eighties. It was from a church called Church in the City in Houston (no longer in existence)—beautiful, Jesus People style original worship music. Like most people, I no longer have a turntable, but have an audio engineer friend who has agreed to pull the tracks off the vinyl and burn them to a CD for me.)

Only in America

2011-09-16T16:22:00.004-04:00

Only in America: three Jawas and a Stormtrooper cross 42nd Street in NYC:

Harvard vs. USDA on Food Health

2011-09-16T14:33:00.004-04:00

In June of this year, I posted examples of the USDA's efforts through the years to construct a graphic portrayal of a health diet—and how their efforts have been mostly weak. Their latest version was the best effort yet, mainly because they borrowed heavily from the graphic put out by the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine—a plant-based organization.

Now Harvard has one-upped the USDA. They have put their own spin on the USDA's graphic and made it much better. Though not totally plant-based, if you read the descriptions carefully you'll see that they're playing up the good stuff and playing down the bad rather than catering to the meat and dairy industry like the USDA is required to do.

Here's the USDA graphic:

And here's how the Harvard School of Public Health tweaked it:

This is even better in some ways than the PCRM graphic, since Harvard has made the veggie quadrant much larger than the fruit quadrant (less sugar is better). And note the addition of the word "Healthy" to the protein quadrant, and the replacement of "dairy" with "water." The Harvard plate would be even better if processed oils were excluded (upper left).

It's amazing how widespread the focus on healthy eating has become, which is a good thing.

Tempting the Reaper—Beautifully

2011-09-16T13:14:00.001-04:00

New Food Documentary

2011-09-15T09:11:00.001-04:00

Ingredients is a new (2011) documentary on America's changing (slowly, for the better) food culture:

Changing History

2011-09-10T10:44:00.000-04:00

According to the American Thinker website, PBS has deleted from their copy of the transcript a historical mistake made by President Obama in his jobs-plan speech this past Thursday night. The president's error was in saying Abraham Lincoln was the founder of the Republican party. I remember hearing that and thinking it sounded unusual, but didn't check the facts. Laziness on my part, and an assumption that "surely the president's speeches are fact-checked."

The president said (from the New York Times transcript):

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party. But in the middle of a civil war . . .

What the president said after PBS deleted the historical error:

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War . . .

A good example of how history (the history of this speech) gets rewritten courtesy of PBS. (Note also PBS's error in capitalizing "Civil War" following the indefinite article "a." NYT 2, PBS 0.)

Thought for the Day 12.0

2011-09-05T13:13:00.003-04:00

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;

That not one life shall be destroyd,

Or cast as rubbish to the void,

When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;

That not a moth with vain desire

Is shrivelld in a fruitless fire,

Or but subserves anothers gain.

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall

At last far off at last, to all,

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?

An infant crying in the night:

An infant crying for the light:

And with no language but a cry.

(Lord Alfred Tennyson, "In Memoriam," section LIV)

What's Stopping Them?

2011-09-01T20:37:00.003-04:00

A new website called patrioticmillionaires.org is collecting signatures from wealthy people to petition the president to increase taxes on people who make more than one million dollars per year.

Fine. My question (asked by many others) is, "What's stopping them from writing a personal check to the government today?"

I wonder how many of them are willing to send in a big check (or have done so already) to the government on their own, privately, if they're so convinced that Washington deserves more of their money.

My guess is that none have—and none will.

They want you (if you're a millionaire) to be forced to support a profligate government that has demonstrated it has neither the will nor the capacity to manage the money we have given it. Why on earth would anyone thing they are capable of managing more?

But if you think they are, Mr. and Ms. Petition Signer, please send in your check and leave the rest of the millionaires alone.

The Insanity of War

2011-09-01T16:08:00.006-04:00

"Lord, have mercy on the beautiful, innocent children of war."

This image is borrowed without permission from Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images from the "Afghanistan: 2011" photo series at The Atlantic's "In Focus with Alan Taylor."

This horrendous scene is stunning—and depressing. NATO tanker trucks full of fuel making their way through Pakistan (our supposed ally) to Afghanistan were attacked by GUYS ON MOTORBIKES—motorbikes—and blown up. How many millions of dollars in equipment and fuel is going up in smoke because a bunch of guys in sandals on motorbikes blew them up? It's this kind of insanity that makes the average person (Southerner, at least) wonder who's in charge over there? This is really depressing. (I say that with respect for our military commanders. But neither the U.S. nor NATO can afford this kind of waste, the fog of war notwithstanding.)

This image is borrowed without permission from Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images from the "Afghanistan: 2011" photo series at The Atlantic's "In Focus with Alan Taylor."

Steve Forbes: "Obama's policies are the definition of insanity."

2011-09-01T15:58:00.002-04:00

Steve Forbes predicts Obama will be gone in January, 2013, and along with him Ben Bernanke, and that the U.S. will be back on a gold standard within five years. This is a great (and encouraging) interview from Forbes' perspective, but a terrible job by Newsmax.tv -- using a blond talking head to read questions to Forbes which one wonders if she even understands. Who is Newsmax kidding with this kind of production? I couldn't even bring myself to post it here. But if you want to hear Forbes' perspective, which is well worth listening to, you can watch it here.

Forbes is a lot like Ron Paul—his quirky personality and mannerisms kept him from being widely considered as a two-time presidential candidate. But the man, like Paul, knows his economics and history.

Food as Medicine

2011-09-01T10:27:00.003-04:00

Last Monday night, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta aired a one-hour special on heart disease, the focus being on preventing and reversing heart disease with food instead of medicine or surgery. Feature prominently was Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn who has tutored former president Clinton into a vegan lifestyle and back to health after heart surgery, then stents, failed to "fix" his heart problem. Dr. Gupta spent a year on his own study and has become a believer. If you missed the one-hour special, called "The Last Heart Attack," and want to see it all, it's available at Dr. Gupta's blog here.

This is a brief summary interview on CNN where Dr. Gupta summarizes the message of the hour-long special: heart disease can be prevented, and reversed, using food as medicine.

This additional short interview contains more of Dr. Gupta's findings from the hour-long special. Good stuff:

Jerusalem: Center of the World

2011-08-31T11:11:00.003-04:00

A preview of a 2013-release IMAX 3-D movie on Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Having stood in most of the spots shown in this movie, I got chills seeing them again and remembering why Jerusalem remains the most important piece of real estate in the world:

Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemGiantScreen on Vimeo.

Ron Paul: Smartest Guy in the Room

2011-08-29T10:56:00.004-04:00

Congressman Ron Paul was on Fox News Sunday morning answering some marshmallow questions thrown to him by Chris Wallace. Yes, the questions were easy for Paul to answer, and the 14 minutes amounted to a campaign opportunity for the Congressman. But that's a good thing. From all I know of the Congressman, I don't agree with 100% of his views on everything. But he says more that's right about the Constitution, the economy, the role of government, and the status of liberty in America than any other candidate in the race. He's not the most polished or most handsome candidate (which says something about why we should pay closer attention than we might otherwise pay), but he's definitely the most accurate on matters of substance.

For clarification, Paul uses the term "monetize the debt" near the end of the interview. This refers to the Federal Reserve Bank (headed by Bernanke) buying up the bonds that the Treasury Department (headed by Geithner) continues to issue. In the last few years, the Federal Reserve (as I understand) has bought about three-fourths of the trillions of dollars of new debt instruments issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. And where does the Federal Reserve get the money to buy the Treasury bonds? It "prints" it—creates it out of thin air. This is what's known as "monetizing the debt"—increasing the money supply to buy U.S. debt instruments. And it's this "monetizing of the debt" (increasing the money supply out of thin air) that results in inflation. I don't think the average person understands the charade that's going on at the Federal level. The right hand (the Treasury) sells new debt instruments (bonds) to continue to fund the bankrupt U.S. government and the left hand (the Fed) creates money out of nothing to buy the debt. The only reason the U.S. government stays in business is by living off new borrowed money (new debt that it borrows from itself). Ron Paul is the only candidate who continually tries to expose this bankrupt policy.

This is a great interview:

Young Entrepreneurs

2011-08-23T19:25:00.004-04:00

Occasionally, something brings to mind one of my three sons' (plural) first venture into entrepreneurship—running the summer concession stand at the neighborhood swim club to which we belonged in their grammar school years. I fronted the money to purchase cases of junk food and sodas, and they were responsible for selling the products at the pool's concession stand. We kept track of P&L figures in a notebook on the kitchen table, the goal being not so much to make a profit but to learn a bit about running a business, being responsible, keeping commitments, and other Dad-type agenda items. I can't remember how it all ended—whether I got my investment back or how much they learned or made. But it was a good exercise in . . . something (like learning that being the owner has its privileges—like "free" candy?). And they were entrepreneurs for a summer. And have each risked capital as adults in various ways and made a few dollars doing it.

Ran into a few more budding entrepreneurs lately—even younger than my sons.

While riding my bike a few days ago, I passed a house with the proverbial lemonade stand in the front yard, "girled" by three young businesswomen. It was a terrible location on a busy street in a yard totally hidden from one direction by trees, and nowhere to stop except their driveway. This is a road I always ride to the end of, then turn around and go back the same way, so I knew I'd be passing their house again. Before I arrived the second time, I stopped my bike and pulled out a couple dollars from my biker's wallet to give them when I got to their house. I declined the lemonade but told them "way to go" for running their stand. They didn't quite understand when I just gave them money but didn't take the lemonade, but when I told them just to put the money in their money box they said, "Okay!" (Never turn down money—even when the customer doesn't want the product. His loss, your gain.)

Yesterday, I heard a tentative knock on my front door. The knocker was a young guy around eight years old, accompanied by a pal and what looked like a little sister. He asked if I wanted to buy a copy (for fifty cents) of the comic book he was writing. He had finished his manuscript (he showed it to me) and was taking orders. He would make copies and deliver them the next day. "Heck yeah," said this writer to the other. "Hold on while I get fifty cents." Two quarters and a sign-up later, he had the money and I had an eight-year-old's promise. Today, the budding writer/publisher/marketer showed up with my copy of his two-page, hand-drawn, hand-written, photo-copied, black-and-white comic—about a greedy kid who learned to share and be generous. Nice theme.

Nice to see these little ones finding their skills and setting out to discover how much said skills are worth in the marketplace. More power to 'em.

My First Earthquake

2011-08-23T14:34:00.010-04:00

Because I work in my home office all day, I am immediately sensitive to differences of any sort—sounds, light, temperature, etc. Just before 2:00 EST today, I began hearing VERY slight noises like might be made if a bookcase or table were creaking back and forth—ever so slight noises. I actually got up and walked around my office trying to pinpoint the origin of the sound but couldn't. It stopped, so I returned to work.

A half-hour or so later I happened to turn on a radio and heard that a 5.9 earthquake had occurred at 1:53 p.m. just NW of Richmond, VA, about 300 miles from where I live outside Charlotte. That explains that.

I am proud to say I lived through my first (as far as I know) earthquake. Hope the folks in Virginia are okay—and that it rattled a few cages in the nearby nation's capital.

Every time the earth is shaken by an earthquake, I think of Hebrews 12:26-29:

When God spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but now he makes another promise: Once again I will shake not only the earth but the heavens also. This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain. Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire.

Update: Turns out this was serious, as everyone knows by now. This picture is of the National Cathedral in Washington, the left-hand spire of which was shaken and broken off during the quake:

A Video a Day Keeps the Doctor Away . . .

2011-08-22T09:37:00.003-04:00

I've stated before in this space that I am a big fan of Dr. Michael Greger, M.D., one of the leading plant-based docs in the world. For the last four years he has issued an annual DVD containing his summaries of the previous year's best nutritional research. He scans thousands of articles each year to locate the research that most of us would never come across.

On his new web site, NutritionFacts.org, he is making the videos available for viewing at no cost. (He previously donated all the revenue from the sale of the DVDs to charity.) Each video summarizes a certain piece of research. They are brief, usually humorous, very easy to understand, and graphically interesting. This is a terrific web site—one could do worse than viewing a video a day in pursuit of good health.

Here's the introductory video (available in HD) about Dr. Greger and his mission:

Vegetarians, Vegans, and Iron

2011-08-20T17:15:00.007-04:00

When I went to give blood today, the gentleman who took my vitals and checked my iron levels said, "You're a vegetarian, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said. "How'd you know that?"

"I've processed you before, and I remember us talking about it," he said.

"Nice of you to remember," I said. "I like to give blood regularly because it allows me to check my iron levels just to make sure I'm getting enough iron since I don't eat meat."

"Well," he said, continuing to check my vitals, "there's a lot of them that come in here and get in trouble."

"Vegetarians and vegans, you mean?" I asked.

"Yes, sir. Either they can't pass the iron test or, if they do, then they go out there to give blood and get sick—get light-headed or nauseous," he said.

"I can't tell you how much that distresses me," I said. "The truth is, too many people who don't eat meat aren't careful about what they do eat—they don't take in enough leafy greens and other iron-bearing foods to keep their iron levels up. They want to save the animals, which is good, but then they don't take care of their own health at the same time."

In all fairness, my iron levels were just barely high enough when I last gave blood. The iron reading has to be a minimum of 12.5 to give, and mine was 12.7. I was frustrated with that, but I redoubled my efforts and today it was 14.1 (14-15 is normal).

Because heavy perspiration and physical exertion deletes iron levels, I have had to be extra conscious of iron intake over the last couple months due to my lengthy bike rides 4-5 times per week where I perspire like crazy and know I probably lose iron on every ride. But I also read something recently I had read before but had not implemented—that Vitamin C aids in the absorption of iron (and things like tea block the absorption of iron). So when I fix my daily bowl of breakfast "oatmeal" (an oatmeal-based hot cereal with eight grains plus red and white quinoa and buckwheat and blackstrap molasses—most of which carry some iron), I'll drink a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice with it to get the Vitamin C mixed with the iron. And on nights when I eat lots of spinach, kale, and other greens I'll take a 1,000 milligram Vit. C tab along with the meal.

I don't know if those combinations help with absorption, but I am happy that my iron levels were fine today.

Vegetarians and vegans who can't give blood because of having low iron give the whole program a bad name, especially when it's unnecessary. We need to do better—for our own sake but also for the sake of those who would like to eat less meat but wonder if all their nutritional needs can be met with a plant-based diet. The answer is, Yes they can—if we eat healthfully.

Breakfast in Peru: Quinoa and Apples

2011-08-20T16:58:00.005-04:00

While giving blood today at the Red Cross blood drive, I had a great chat with the clinician who was drawing my blood. Carmen is originally from Peru, so of course I asked her if she ate a lot of quinoa—which she definitely does. And she told me how they fix it traditionally in Peru for breakfast: cooked with apples.

She didn't give me any measurements, but it basically involves cooking quinoa with chunks of apple, then when it's done putting it in a blender along with cinnamon and sugar and blending it until it becomes a smooth porridge, adding water or milk as needed to thin it out.

Being a pint low on blood when I got home, I decided Carmen's quinoa dish would be a perfect booster to rebuild my system. So I created my own measurements:

3/4 cup quinoa

one medium apple

Tbsp of cinnamon

Tbsp of blackstrap molasses (for iron after giving blood)

Tbsp of maple syrup

Almond milk as needed while blending to desired consistency (like oatmeal or thick porridge)

I cooked the quinoa with the chunks of apple (skin included) in the pot. When finished I poured the quinoa and apples in the Vitamix, added cinnamon, molasses, and maple syrup and blended on high. If all the water has been absorbed by the quinoa you'll need to add milk right away to allow the blending to start since it's very thick.

It was still very hot after blending, and was delicious! A really smooth, velvety consistency, and great taste (think apple pie with the apple, cinnamon, sweetener, etc.).

Carmen also told me there is a brand of spaghetti available at EarthFare made from quinoa which I'm going to look for. What a great grain!

Summer Candy

2011-08-17T11:53:00.002-04:00

Black cherry tomatoes and some-other-kind-of cherry tomatoes ready daily for pick-'n-eat treats:

Thought for the Day 11.0

2011-08-17T10:01:00.009-04:00

"Never let the lizard send an email."

I laughed out loud when I read this, of course, precisely because my lizard brain has sent some doozy emails that I wish I could take back. (And I have received emails sent by others' lizard brains.)

The quote is from Seth Godin's Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? I'm on my second read of this book and have underlined lots of pithy statements like the above.

To understand his meaning you have to read chapter xx (they aren't numbered), "The Resistance." Godin's "lizard brain" is the flip side of Steven Pressfield's "resistance" as defined in the latter's book The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. (Godin's Domino Project published a short version of The War of Art called Do the Work as a free e-book available on Amazon. It's no longer free, but Pressfield's short and long treatise on "resistance" are both worth the read.)

The lizard brain is what kicks in when resistance to creativity, starting, and shipping arises. Godin describes the lizard brain this way (p. 107 in Linchpin):

Your lizard brain, the part that the [creative force] has no control over, is working overtime to get you to shut up, sit down, and do your (day) job. It will invent stories, illnesses, emergencies, and distractions in order to keep the genius bottled up. The resistance is afraid. Afraid of what will happen to you (and to it) if the ideas get out, if your gifts are received, if the magic happens.

If we aren't aware of the existence of resistance, if we don't do battle daily with the lizard brain, then we have become overtaken by it and live in submission to it.

Why should the lizard never be allowed to send an email? Because it's usually an act of self-sabotage; an effort by the lizard to create trouble that will keep us from our true task of starting and shipping creativity to the world.

(Don't misunderstand: not all email is sent by the lizard. If we don't know the ones that are when we hit "Send," we will soon find out.)

For an 18-minute overview of how the lizard and resistance (using different terms) work in the creative process, watch this. (Rather than leaving you to watch the video in peace, I have to add this: I'm always intrigued when I hear secular, or quasi-spiritual, talks that contain ideas or explorations in thought that are more fully explicated in the Bible. There is nothing biblical about this talk, yet the spiritual sources of creativity she discusses [with a helpful overview of creativity from the Roman and Greek perspectives] could easily find a place in the outline of cosmology found in Scripture, imho. Yet many folks are unwilling to end their quest and settle into that outline, for some reason. Too simple, perhaps. As Luke said of the Athenians, "[they] spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas" [Acts 17:21].)

So 'Ya Think You Miss Anything by Watching the MSM?

2011-08-16T16:06:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Daniel for the link:

The Daily Show - Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

So 'Ya Think You Can Ride a Bike?

2011-08-16T15:40:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Robert for the link.

404: Page Not Found

2011-08-13T13:51:00.002-04:00

Everyone has gotten the dreaded "404: Page Not Found" error message when surfing the web. This is the ultimate page not found. Maybe there was something there before; maybe there will be again. But right now, there's nothing.

Life as Story

2011-08-11T14:45:00.003-04:00

Chris Seay, pastor of Ecclesia Church in Houston, speaking at the Houston TED conference. Worth a listen: (this is in HD, so crank it up if you can)

Making a Difference for Animals

2011-08-11T09:16:00.009-04:00

Great video about The Gentle Barn's efforts to restore neglected animals to a life of safety and dignity, in this case, calves that would otherwise have been left to die. Those rescued animals then become a vehicle for The Gentle Barn's "ministry" to at risk and special needs children and young people. There's a good video of the founder of The Gentle Barn on the Ellen Degeneres Show here.

The Logic of Our Leaders

2011-08-08T15:58:00.002-04:00

Crazy Diamond

2011-08-08T10:27:00.000-04:00

David Gilmour's musical creativity seems to be boundless. This version of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" is powerful. Interesting how he uses it as an off-ramp at the end of the set. I love the time change at around 2:35" -- amazing how a simple change of beat affects the feel of the song and the attitude of the listener: