Yesterday, we got lucky...

...because in the middle of the afternoon the wind shifted and the smoke disappeared. (We have forest fires not too horribly far away.)

I'd reached the point I was wearing a wet bandana over my nose while at home (possibly overkill, but, boy, did it feel good to breath moist, clean air for a change) and was mulling where to head if matters got worse. The smoke had made it into the house. There didn't seem to be anywhere to get away from it. (I tried to think of buildings around here that might be really well sealed, with good air filtration systems, that might be open to the public, but decided I don't know of any. By all means, educate me if you know of one.) People stopping by the Bookstation (our gas station cum bookstore) were telling about taking detours because of road closures caused by fires, or of waiting for pilot cars to take them through fire areas. It didn't sound like there were smoke-free areas anywhere within easy driving distance, even if you could get through. And then the wind shifted.

Today, so far, we have a cool, clear breeze. There are clouds that look like the sort to drop a bit of rain. There's no rain so far, but it feels like rain. Now, I'd planned to mow the lawn today if it wasn't too smoky, and rain would quash that idea. That's OK. The mowing can wait. I'd love to have some rain, especially if some of it wandered over one forest fire or another around here.

Smoke gets in your eyes...

...when it's wildfire season. Our home isn't in any danger, but off and on you have to know there are mountains just outside town, because it's kind of hard to see them through the haze. And breathing can make you cough and sniffle. This morning we found out that friends of ours who live in the country have a splendid view of the Shake Table fire from their deck. Not what you want to hear. They should be all right, the way the fire is moving, etc., but still, definitely not the sort of show you want to watch from your own yard.

Some of the neighboring communities have light dustings of ash, and flakes of it coming down. Not pleasant. We're just enough farther away we haven't had that. Yet, anyway.

And, yes, my husband has lung problems. And, yes, we have the house closed up and the A/C on. So far so good on that front.

Shake Table Complex Wildland Fire InciWeb webpage
Sharp's Ridge Wildland Fire InciWeb webpage
InciWeb Oregon Incidents webpage
NIFC National Fire News

Book note: Dreams of the Heart: The Autobiography of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of Nicaragua

Dreams of the Heart

I haven't had a chance to read this, but it got traded in at our bookstore the other day and it looks interesting. From the publisher (courtesy Barnes & Noble):

When Violeta Chamorro defeated Daniel Ortega in 1990 to become president of Nicaragua, despite a knee injury that put her on crutches for the entire campaign, most observers were shocked. Ortega's party, the Sandinistas, controlled the country, except for the Catholic Church and Mrs. Chamorro's newspaper, La Prensa, which, virtually alone, predicted the outcome accurately. After the election, many doubted that the Sandinistas would permit Mrs. Chamorro to take office, but she did, thanks in no small part to her own canny political instincts in reaching out to the Sandinistas rather than retaliating against them for causing a decade of oppression and poverty. After six years in office she has brought her country back from ruin, ending a civil war and revitalizing an economy that had become the second worst in the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps most remarkable of all, Mrs. Chamorro had never held office before, and from childhood had had no other aspiration than to raise a family. Although written by a sitting president, this is a memoir like no other - intensely personal and deeply moving. President Chamorro explains that her lack of political experience left her to govern by the model she knew best, raising a family. Her own children were politically divided, like her country, and she tried to keep communication open among them. She did the same for what she calls her family of Nicaragua, reconciling left and right whenever possible, trying to put past political turmoil behind her. Devoted to the memory of her martyred husband, committed to her religious faith and her faith in democracy, Violeta Chamorro has ruled from the heart and led her country from disaster to recovery.

The book was published in 1996, and is currently out of print. As of post time, there were quite a few used copies available, plus, of course, your library might be able to help you if you'd like to check it out.

Related reading: Background notes from U.S. State Department for the Republic of Nicaragua.

Book note: The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

So, a friend lent me a copy of this book and asked me to read it. I looked at the jacket copy and the blurbs, and tried to decline. The jacket copy, blurbs, and other promotional writing make it look like the book is aimed at people who worship global warming and/or hang out in far-left blogland but think of themself as intellectual. I figure the book is not going to be worth my time. But the friend insists. So I read it.

I think the folks in charge of marketing this book are missing the boat, driving off conservatives like that. Not that I think it's entirely a conservative-friendly book. But that's the thing. It's not a liberal-friendly book, either, not by a long stretch. By the time you've read the whole book, there's been something to cause umbrage to practically everybody out there. OK, maybe umbrage is the wrong word, but it's close. This book isn't what I thought it would be; it's not a screed and it's not written to fit some template. It's part history book, part science book, part journalism, part amateur philosophizing, part 'what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation'-type adventures, part cookery book, written by a journalist who reads deeply and widely, is willing to talk listen to a wide variety of people, and who is also willing to change his mind based on the evidence. Some of it is a little strange, but there's not as much strangeness as I expected. And it's interesting.

In a nutshell, author Michael Pollan looks around at food, wonders exactly where it comes from before it gets to his table, and tries to find out. Of course, if you're like me, you'd just as soon not think too minutely about how beef and chicken and breakfast cereal, etc., get to your table, but, well, it's not a bad thing for grown-ups to face up to now and then, is it? Especially if there are some things about the system that might be changed for the better? Pollan takes on all comers, I must say. (PETA included.) If he doesn't understand something, he's willing to get close enough to try to understand it. (Example. He's never shot a gun, but decides to find out what it's like to go hunting, so devotes months to the project. What he finds out surprises him. And me, for that matter.)

Fair warning: There are some bits I wish had been bowdlerized, but they are few and far between. I wouldn't hand this to the kids and it doesn't quite pass my "Grandma" test - if my grandmother were still alive, I wouldn't hand her this, mostly because of a few body-part references.

The author and I have our differences, here and there. For instance, he says that he can't see why humans would have abandoned the relatively healthy hunter-gatherer lifestyle for agriculture unless they'd killed off what they'd been hunting/gathering. I disagree. While I'm sure some bands did overhunt or overharvest, and while I'll grant that farming launched some public health issues right from the beginning (epidemics from crowding together and accumulated waste, new diseases incubated in domestic animals), I can think of lots of reasons people who were hunter-gatherers might settle down in one place instead. People tend to be territorial, for one thing; even hunters protect their hunting grounds. That somebody figured that a home base might be more easily defended than a whole region seems a possibility. That somebody got tired of carrying Grandpa around on his back might have been a factor here or there, now and then. Plus, people like to build things. (Including forts, I think.) Also, some people just naturally like to have stockpiles. For that matter, I suspect many a farm was started by a fellow who got tired of hearing, "Must we move already? I just got the camp set up the way I like it." ;)

But I quibble. It's an interesting, if sometimes stomach-churning, book, and I think it addresses some issues that probably ought to be addressed. Our food supply is a vital interest. If we're not smart about it, we court disaster. It's also, at times, an unexpectedly funny book, written by a middle-aged guy out to explore both the world and his inner self. And there are some sometimes-priceless descriptions of different subcultures in today's America. A unique offering. I can't recommend it without reservations, but I can recommend it.

A footnote: Pollan will carefully build up a case sometimes so he can then illustrate why it doesn't hold together as well as its advocates like to think it does. If you jump to conclusions, you're likely to find yourself mistaken. I found that whenever I was getting ready to gnash my teeth, the cure usually was to simply keep reading.

When reporters are 'converted' at gunpoint

I haven't posted on the kidnapping of Fox News's Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig for several reasons, not least because the curious lack of coverage by Fox News suggested to me that there was a lot going on behind the scenes that wouldn't be helped by me adding my wildly speculative two cents worth from the sidelines. It's my understanding that hostage takers fall into different groups when it comes to publicity: those who like the public to get aroused and screaming because it amplifies their deed and makes killing a specific hostage more useful (so to speak), and those who are afraid of public outcry, because they know it hurts their cause. Since these kidnappers didn't seem to care that their neighbors and leaders were screaming that they were hurting the Palestinian cause, I figured Centanni and Wiig were in big, big trouble.

Thank goodness they got free. But, of course, now they're marked men. Having been 'converted' at gunpoint, they are under the threat of death if any jihadist gets it into his head that they're not being good enough Muslims. File that bit of info under "Why We Must Fight."

If you've been wondering about the widely-reported comments they made at their first news conference about how they hope their kidnapping doesn't scare off any other journalists because the Palestinian people are such nice, misunderstood folks, I would like to make a couple of points. First, I'm sure there are Palestinians and then there are Palestinians. I've lived places in the United States, for Pete's sake, where bullies gained power and the citizenry hadn't a clue how to get itself free for a while. This is not to excuse what the Palestinians have done over the last decades, but to admit that there are likely some nice people trapped alongside and under the bullies. Second, excuse me, but that press conference was made while they were still under Palestinian control. As in armed guards and terrorists standing beside them while they spoke, in Gaza, at a Palestinian Authority sponsored media event. I think we may safely excuse them for saying whatever they needed to to get out of the situation alive. Yes?

Why the rest of the media played along the way it did is another question, but from here on out I will take anything either man says about the Middle East or Islam with a handful of salt, because, after all, they are under threat of death if any crazy jihadist gets it into his head that they aren't being good enough Muslims by his own lights.

County fair, part two

Whew. The sea of humanity, auto, and horse I swam through this morning proved to be the biggest set of waves all day. I guess I caught people transferring from Main Street back to the fairgrounds after a parade. But it's still been a busy day, and fun. Just watching the kids skipping down the street to the big show is a treat, in and of itself.

I finally got around to getting my American Legion fundraiser hamburger this evening. No county fair is complete without one, in my book. :)

Tonight, the rodeo announcers were courting trouble. As I finished up a little yardwork (if you missed my previous post, I can listen to the rodeo announcers at home because the volume is very high at the fairgrounds), I heard a bad joke about Canada and curling, which was bad enough - but then one of the announcers tried making fun of a local guy for having a first name that is given to ladies as well as men. Local-man-with-girl's-name being a very well known fellow with a lot of friends, many of them cowboys, I suspect this was not altogether a wise thing to do. There were two announcers in the booth, trying to outjoke one another, and the second guy must have caught the vibes from the audience and/or contestants because he did a quick and obvious change of subject. Heh. It was getting dark and I came in about then, so I don't know what happened from there on out. Sorry. (I know. I know. I'm just too easily entertained.)

Aside: I'm having computer/Internet problems again, plus I'm working on an offline project that involves a lot of typing. If blogging is light or nonexistent for a while, assume I'm either temporarily offline, or am trying to avoid bodily damage from too much typing all at once.

County fair

I live in a small town, one in which it is entirely possible most days to go outside and look both ways and catch the street empty. Not today. I live across the street and one door over from the post office, and on my post office run today I had to swim through people and vehicles and even adjust my pace to avoid bumping into a horse and rider. This has been county fair week, and today is the big day, of course, because it's the weekend and more people have time off.

If I go outside to the street, I can look down it and see the fairgrounds. Our street, in fact, leads to the main entrance. So, you understand, not all of town is as busy as outside my front door. But, still.

Not everything about the fair is good. The yahoos in charge of the PA system for the rodeo grounds and grandstand apparently assume people are deaf - and then proceed to do their best to make them that way. Even from where we live, the noise has sometimes been astonishing. The lemonade part of that equation, however, is that I need never actually buy a concert ticket. I can just sit at home and listen, just fine. I wouldn't dare sit any closer anyway. Yikes. My husband talked to a fair board member about it last night, and she told him that it wasn't as loud in the grandstands as three blocks away because the air is different this year and is channeling sounds differently. Uh, huh. I'd give her a physics textbook if I thought it would do any good. But then, again, she's been on duty daily, on scene; I think she's approaching exhaustion or burnout or something. (Or maybe all the noise has scrambled her brain?)

Last night, we had drunks wandering past at all hours. That doesn't happen much anymore, not since we got the new police chief. But, knock wood, all I heard last night were people who were loud, but not fighting. Many of these folks, I'm guessing, are individuals who don't get together with certain friends except once a year, at fairtime, and aren't remotely smart about handling the excitement. (Don't laugh. There are people I don't seem to run into except once a year, at the fair. When you live in a very rural area, big events can cause that sort of thing. I, however, don't do the bar scene or other such nonsense. It makes a difference, I think, if you teach yourself to have fun without intoxicants, yes?)

And then there are the crooks who come to town to take advantage of all the chaos, chief among them some of the folks who work for the carnival that comes to town and sets up at the fairgrounds for the duration. We catch carnies shoplifting every year. We catch them trying to scam clerks by all manner of cons. While I am sure there are honest carnival workers somewhere in the world, and possibly even at this carnival, what we get are the guys who like to steal people blind if they can get away with it. I have grown to seriously distrust carnies, I'm afraid.

But on the whole the fair is a good thing, I think. It promotes healthy competition - well, mostly healthy competition. You don't want to get between some of the old ladies around here and the blue ribbon she thinks is hers! Trust me on this.

Now, add to this the fact that some hunting season or another is just opening - and therefore the county is thick with hunters coming in from out of the area - and we are talking busy days just now.

Speaking of which... Gotta run.

County fair, part two

Book note: A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School (American Girl Library Series)

See Dr. Helen: Tips for Middle School Girls for Helen Smith's recommendation for the following book. She's also asking readers to drop notes in her comments section if they know of other good books for middle schoolers and/or their parents.


Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School: Everything You Need to Know about Juggling More Homework, More Teachers, and More Friends!

The Saturday Review of Books...

...is where bloggers link to a book review they've done in the last week. Join the fun here.

Pluto demoted

The International Astronomical Union has come up with a new definition for "planet," one which leaves Pluto off the roster. From William J. Kole, AP, as published at ABC News:

...The decision by the IAU, the official arbiter of heavenly objects, restricts membership in the elite cosmic club to the eight classical planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Pluto and objects like it will be known as "dwarf planets," which raised some thorny questions about semantics: If a raincoat is still a coat, and a cell phone is still a phone, why isn't a dwarf planet still a planet?

NASA said Pluto's downgrade would not affect its $700 million New Horizons spacecraft mission, which this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

But mission head Alan Stern said he was "embarrassed" by Pluto's undoing and predicted that Thursday's vote would not end the debate. Although 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations attended the conference, only about 300 showed up to vote.

"It's a sloppy definition. It's bad science," he said. "It ain't over."

Under the new rules, two of the three objects that came tantalizingly close to planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, has nicknamed "Xena." The third object, Pluto's largest moon, Charon, isn't in line for any special designation...

Read the whole article

Some observations for Men of God

Anthony Esolen says "Ministers who want to be jus’ folks should take heed," and gives some reasons why.

Even if you're not interested in why he proposes priests should be readily identifiable as such, read the piece for the story of the actor on location in France, who wandered off the set for a walk in the countryside, dressed as a priest. That the actor is one of my favorites has nothing to do with why I'm suggesting this... Well, not much, anyway. :)

Boy Scouts rescue 18-month-old from river

From KOTA Territory News and the Associated Press:

OMAHA, Neb. A troop of Boy Scouts on a camping trip to earn merit badges ended up saving an 18-month-old girl's life.

About five members of the Omaha St. Cecilia's Troop 100 were swimming in the Platte River at Two Rivers State Recreation Area on Saturday.

Eleven-year-old Christian Nanson spotted the girl floating face-down in the water and yelled to nine-year-old John Fitzgerald to help. The boys grabbed the girl out of the water while other Scouts found a cell phone to call for help and directed rescuers.

Douglas County Sheriff's Deputy David Brock said the girl was treated for hypothermia and released from the hospital today. She had been with her family before she slipped away from her mother, chasing after some dogs.

hat tip: seattlepi.com/Associated Press, via OpinionJournal

Nice save

My husband ran into a friend of ours tonight, just back from a family reunion and teaching at a church camp. She said that she seriously embarrassed one of her daughters at the camp, but that it came out all right in the end. She said that she (the mother) did something in front of her daughter's class that mortified her daughter - and the other kids jumped on the daughter, teasing her and asking her why she was so embarrassed.

This mom has a lot of experience with kids, and she came up with a snappy comeback. She looked at the other kids and asked them point blank whether, if their mother had done what she'd just done in front of a group of kids, they thought they'd be embarrassed?

Well, yeah.

End of teasing.

Unexpected lesson taught.

This lady says she has no idea what made her try that. She says that after you're a mother for a while stuff like that just pops out of your mouth now and then.

The Common Room's Guide to The Quick Interview

This post is for anybody who has to screen applicants for a job. Or for anybody looking for a job. Or for anybody who thinks "Moby Dick" is a good response to "Who is your favorite author?"

Before you question The Headmaster's program, may I suggest that you think back to which jobs you liked going to and which you didn't, and then ponder how much of what made a job a joy or an ordeal depended upon the good/bad attitudes of the other people who worked there? I've learned to appreciate bosses who don't try to yoke me with slackers/jokers/malcontents. How about you?

To read, or not to read; that is the question...

There's a discussion going on over at La Shawn Barber's blog about the importance of reading the classics of Western Civilization.

Barbaro update

Follow the link to Barbaro and Dr. Richardson on The Early Show (August 23, 2006) for a 7:39-minute video from CBS, in which the vet explains how things have been going, and the race horse proves he's got a great appetite. :)

Remember, Gentlemen, there is a lady present

So, I have a used book I'm trying to get ready to sell, and I'm flipping through it to see if any of the pages are marked or mussed, and I see this (page 230):

In a small room at Michigan State Prison hangs the picture of an attractive woman with an overhead banner bearing this message: "Remember, Gentlemen, there is a lady present." The picture is of Dorothy Carnegie, and the room is where Dale Carnegie classes are held for inmates of the prison. Prison classrooms are the only places Carnegie classes are held where iron bars on the windows and guards at the door make it impossible for fear-stricken students to take to their heels.

Of all the special classes given by Dale Carnegie & Associates and their sponsors, none have been more successful and more eagerly received than those given to prisoners. In 1960 some fifteen hundred inmates of thirty-one penal institutions in the United States and Canada completed work in forty-eight classes. More than seven thousand prisoners have participated since the prison program was initiated in Hawaii in 1950 by J. Edwin Whitlow, the Carnegie sponsor there...

From Talking Your Way to Success - the story of the Dale Carnegie Course, William Longgood, Association Press, New York, 1962. The copyright is held by the National Board of Young Men's Christian Associations. This is a third printing, from 1973.

Now, if I just knew if any of the fourteen people who signed the ffep of this book are famous...

Addition: I just realized I used an abbreviation that isn't commonly known outside my field. Oops. Sorry. ffep means front free-endpaper (or first free-endpaper). It's that first, usually blank, page you see when you lift the cover.

Don't let this make you go and do something crazy, but...

A guy bought a vintage race car on EBay for $26,912. Not exactly chump change. But, as Ben Stewart notes at the Automotive Blog at Popular Mechanics:

...Well underneath the cracking Devin body was Ferrari chassis #0202 belonging to a 1952 Ferrari 340 America with a Vignale Spider body. It’s one of the most valuable Ferraris in existence.

Once fully restored, which [Tom] Shaughnessy plans to do himself, the Ferrari could bring nearly $2.8-million...

So, if some long-lost relative shows up at your doorstep asking to snoop around your garage or barn, you know, just for old times' sake... ;)

Trivia: Electric guitars were invented when?

Electric guitars were first sold during the Great Depression. True or false?

Answer.

About THOMAS

I just came across THOMAS, a website of The Library of Congress named for Thomas Jefferson and dedicated to providing the public with federal legislative information. It looks like it might be useful. For a quick overview, go here.