$2.19 a Gallon

That's what I paid for a gallon of milk at Kroger last week.

And that is very wrong. That's probably the same (maybe less) than what we as Americans were paying in the 1980s.

Have you been paying attention? Do you have any idea what has been going on with the price of milk over the course of the last year or so? The market has crashed and now family farmers across the country are getting burned.

It's a big fat complicated issue and I hope to return to it and fill in the blanks for you, especially since I spent a fair amount of time in August talking to struggling farmers.

Here's a bit more (very basic) information on the matter and what is being done to help farmers.

And yes, they do need a stimulus; we need them to receive some kind of financial help. Maintaining the American agricultural industry should be a priority for all Americans. After all, do you want to be drinking milk from China? Because I can say with absolute certainty that I do not.

Getting All Worked Up ... Over Yard Signs

This article was originally written in the spring of 2008, just as the presidential primaries were heating up. This article, in print in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer, prompted me to post it. (For some reason, the article seems to be available online only at NKY.com.)
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I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. I think most people would categorize it as an argument.

*Jane* lives down the street from me, on the same cul-de-sac, in a 65-house subdivision within the 275 loop.

Jane shared with me that she and another neighbor had recently had a conversation in which they agreed that they hoped this year the no-political-signs rule would be enforced, because all those signs make the neighborhood look “cluttered and trashy.”

Sigh.

Needless to say, this is a subject on which Jane and I do not share a common opinion.

Yes, I knew there were so-called “protective” covenants when I moved here. And I expressed my concerns to my husband. I believe I said “I hope no one tries to tell me what color I can or cannot paint my front door, ‘cause baby, that ain’t gonna fly.”

What I didn’t know was that I was moving into Stepford.

Proponents of Homeowners Associations (HOAs) say they exist to protect and even increase the property values of all residents. On an intellectual level I sort of get that. But in practice many of the rules seem rather petty. Some seem overly intrusive or invasive. And some seem like they should be illegal.

I should have been able to foresee the unhappiness I, a dyed-in-the-wool, independent-minded, life-long New Yorker, would face living somewhere where the few people who attend the annual HOA meeting work really hard to get a by-law passed that would require all homeowners to purchase identical $400 mailboxes.

I did a little research to see what other people have to say about their associations. Some people love them. Little wonder, others hate them.

Some association covenants forbid satellite TV dishes. Some forbid birdfeeders.

One family I read about was contacted by their HOA and told that their dog’s crate (kept in their house) was not an “approved” crate. If they didn’t get an approved crate, they would be fined $50 each time someone from the HOA saw the crate? So how did the HOA learn of the nonconformance? The family’s neighbors explained that HOA members routinely walk the neighborhood looking into people’s windows.

My friend Marj’s HOA requires that she bring the morning paper (yes, she goes old school, reading her news in print form) in no later than 8 a.m. or face a fine. Always the contrarian, she fought back, albeit in a rather passive-aggressive manner: Marj collected a week’s worth of papers and hung them from the tree in her front yard, fine-be-damned.

And then there are the ever popular anti-clothesline rules, seemingly some of the most common rules out there in association-land.

Last year in my neighborhood, the children of one family planted a few (maybe five?)
stalks of corn in the front yard. I must have walked my dog past that yard 100 times that summer. I thought the corn was cool. So did Tracy, my friend who lived directly across the street from the supposed eyesore. Come time for the annual meeting however and the corn was all the buzz.

One woman, so incensed by such a tacky sight, cited the following rule: “No fence or wall of any kind, specifically including the use of hedge or other growing plants as a fence, shall be erected.”

A fence? Really? Maybe if something else was getting erected at home, she wouldn’t be such a petty bitch.

To this day I find it incredible that someone could get so worked up over … corn.

In another part of the country and during that region’s drought, one village restricted lawn watering. Violators could face a $250 fine issued by the local police department. But residents who abided by the law were issued fines of $100 by their HOA because the lawns were turning an unsightly yellow color. And therefore, I guess, lowering property taxes …

Another “green” issue arose in Scarsdale, NY when a neighborhood group attempted to block the installation of solar panels on a home. The group argued the panels “would clearly be an eyesore in our lovely neighborhood.” The owners won the right to install the panels after they went to court to fight the foolishness.

One home in Virginia had really nice landscaping, so nice it won a citywide home beautification award. A nice plaque touting the accomplishment was given to the winner to display in the yard for 30 days. The homeowners association found a rule that no signs were permitted in the yards except real estate signs. The homeowner was forced to remove the plaque.

Which brings me back to my political-sign discourse. This is what my covenants state: “No sign of any kind shall be displayed to the public view on any lot except one professional sign … advertising the property for sale or rent.”

I yelled at Jane, or so she recalls, arguing that such a rule is unequivocally
illegal. I don’t care about the rules, because the First Amendment, the No. 1 rule in the United States, obviously supersedes our neighborhood rules, I ranted. There have been several lawsuits throughout the country concerning this very issue, one right in Mariemont as a matter of fact, and my right to express myself politically through an 18 inch-by-12 inch sign will win out.

I felt very smug knowing my first amendment law so well.

But then I researched online – I wanted to have all my ducks in a row should I need to wage battle to ensure the freedom to post signs in my yard. And I found out, through firstamendmentcenter.org that the First Amendment “generally protects people only from government interference with speech.”

Apparently, I really did forfeit my rights when I signed on the dotted line.

After thinking long and hard, I cannot fathom that Americans would begrudge their fellow countrymen the right to post a political yard sign. I don’t think it will be enforced in my neighborhood. I’m hoping it won’t be enforced.

And if it is enforced, sure, I’ll push back – it’s in my blood; I can’t help myself.

But first I appeal to everyone out there: Do you really want to be the king of people, the kind of society that would willingly and wantonly prohibit the exercise of free speech, that tenet that out democracy is based upon?

Whatever your reasoning, please think before you answer. You never know when you might need to take a stand.

*Jane is a pseudonym meant to protect me from my friend’s wrath should she stumble upon this article.

Creation Museum: Whole Lot of Hooey Going On or Beacon of Support in Uncertain Times?

The Creation Museum, located in Petersburg, Ky., attracts a lot of attention. Some people think it’s all a lot of hooey while others look to it as a beacon of support in uncertain times. I fall firmly into the first group. But still I couldn’t help but wonder, what goes on there, what exactly is the message, and is there anything for me there? So I decided to explore. And while I might not have had any life changing revelations, I might have learned a thing or two …

I really didn’t think I’d ever go to the Creation Museum. In fact, I’d spent the last few years avoiding it, the way I avoid crazy people in public places. But at the same time I was curious. Didn’t I need to know what was going on there? Didn’t I need to know what crazy lies and twisted half truths were being promoted in an effort to discredit the obvious and reasonable truths set forth by science? And with that mentality in hand (it’s the same reasoning I use to justify why I listen to people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio – I like to keep up to date on the idiotic things they say), I set off to visit the roughly two-year-old Evangelical theme park.

What I knew about the center before I got there was fairly limited. I didn’t want any significant research to taint my first impressions. What I did know was that there would be dinosaurs. A lot of dinosaurs. My longtime friend Mike, an atheist of the first degree, had often pontificated on the ridiculousness of museum creator Ken Ham’s insistence that man and dinosaur not only existed together but that man had domesticated and used dinosaurs as beasts of burden. (Ham, an Australian, is also the founder and president of the fundamentalist Christian ministry, Answers in Genesis.) Mike had – more more than once – proclaimed that the strong emphasis on dinosaurs by Ham and company was merely a ruse to engage children in the cult of creationism. Mike was never quite sure if this qualified as a stroke of brilliance or an act of malfeasance.

I also knew that the Creation Museum purported to attract visitors from not only throughout the nation but also throughout the world. How Ham decided on rural Kentucky as the perfect destination for this life affirming center is a mystery to me. Yes, despite living in the Tri-state area for nearly six years, I’ll admit it: I still hold in my mind a somewhat unflattering image of Kentuckians as hillbilly rubes. So, maybe based on that impression, I should be able to understand why Ham chose Kentucky. But logically, Kentucky seems so far from anywhere. Ham explained to an Australian reporter in 2007 that "Australia's not really the place to build such a facility if you're going to reach the world. Really,” he said, “America is." Ham says that two-thirds of the American population live within 600 miles of Petersburg, and I say, really? Are you sure you’re not making that up? And still 600 miles is a pretty long drive – the better part of 10 hours in the car, most likely with tired, cranky children.

Plus, once you get here, what else are you going to do? To my knowledge, there aren’t a great many family-friendly attractions in the area. There are some ramshackle farms and maybe an Amish market or two if you’re willing to look. But I’m guessing visitors to the Creation Museum might not be the types to rush over and spend a day at Kings Island. And anyone moderately well acquainted with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden knows there’s a pretty solid educational focus on evolution there.

So I guess what I’m saying is that patrons of the Creation Museum have to really want to go there, and I guess what I’m asking is does anyone else, anyone who is a non-believer in what Ham calls “creation science,” have a reason to go?

Bright and early on a Saturday morning, I hopped in the car and made the relatively effortless ride to Petersburg. I was greeted at the entrance to the museum center by a large metal dinosaur mounted to the front gate. Once I parked and headed into the museum – which was rather understated and unpretentious from the outside – I met two more dinosaurs, one of the wire holiday topiary variety (sorry, forgot that here the word “Christmas” is not the taboo it might be elsewhere), resplendent in green twinkly lights, and the other, a gentle giant – a brontosaurus, maybe constructed of concrete, maybe of fiberglass.

I mosey on in and plop down my $22.95 admission, and I quickly think something must be up. The largely volunteer staff must be able to identify the stink of a sinner on me. I mean, the man to my left at the ticket booth is welcomed with a hearty and heartfelt “God bless and have a blessed day,” while my sales clerk merely looks at me with disdain. She literally looks down her nose at me and barely speaks to me. Hmm, I wonder, surely I can’t have offended anyone already. I’m dressed rather conservatively, in jeans and a blouse, and I’m not sporting any tattoos or pentagrams. I choose to chalk it up to the fact that she must be having a bad day.

Oh, and those staffers? Each must supply a written statement of his or her testimony – a statement of what he or she believes regarding creation – and all must sign documents confirming they have read and can sipport the very long Answers in Genesis statement of faith before they can be hired. How's that for pre-employment vetting?

With tickets in hand, guests funnel into the museum by way of a green screen, which I deftly avoid. Had I been in the proper spirit, I could have taken home with me a souvenir photo of myself in the Garden of Eden, frolicking with the dinosaurs. I’m wondering if the Mennonite family in front of me, women in dowdy long dresses and wearing traditional white bonnets, men and boys in more contemporary clothing, are likely to purchase their photos. I also wonder if the pink flip-flops one Mennonite teen wears beneath her floral calico dress are sanctioned.

At last, I enter the museum itself. But am I’m immediately disappointed to learn there are no guides here; touring the Creation Museum is a self-guided experience, which is contrary to my expectations. I was expecting a heavy sell, full of fire-and-brimstone preaching.

Sure, my expectations in that regard turned out to be antithetical to reality. Not antithetical to my expectations, however, was the first exhibit, a scene I am sure I both scoffed and smirked at. For what to my wandering eyes should appear but a model of a small child, clad in animal skins, lying on the edge of a lake and playing with a squirrel under the shadow of not one, but two friendly dinosaurs that seem to watch protectively over him. Um, yeah, not buying it.

Now that the kids are hooked (“Mommy, mommy! Look. At. The. Dinosaurs!”), the next exhibit aims to set up the so-called scientific basis for creationism. The Grand Canyon, the exhibit emphatically promotes, was created in just four hours. Nope, not over the tens of thousands of years mainstream scientists suggest. And the fossils of dinosaurs? About 4,300 years old. They have to be, because the Earth, the moon, the stars, the universe – nothing is older than 4,300 years, and it was all created in just six 24-hour days. The book of Genesis says man and all living creatures of the earth were created by God on the sixth day. So it’s critical the museum takes a strong stance in promoting that man and dinosaurs coexisted.

“We all have the same facts. We just interpret them differently,” says Ham. It's the cruxt of creationism and it’s a point reinforced repeatedly through the museum. Believers believe in a very literal interpretation of the bible. I may have been raised with some foundation of religion in my family life, but I adapted more easily and willingly to a belief system based on science. And I say the belief that the Earth is only 4,300 years old is hooey. Neither do believers in creationism accept that the dozens of species of finches that exist are the result of evolution, nor the hundreds of breeds of dogs. No, God created them all, each and every one. He likes variety. And bacteria and DNA? Too complicated for science to effectively explain. A higher power must have had a hand in it. Also hooey, I say. Fortunately for me, I’m not the only one saying that.

“Faith is one thing,” Mark Terry, a high school science teacher from Seattle and one of 72 paleontologists who visited the museum as a group in May, told the Associated Press. “But when it comes to their science statements, they’re completely off the wall.” Another of the attendees, Derek Briggs, a Yale University paleontologist said “It’s like a theme park, but the problem is it masquerades as truth.”

Generally speaking, the vast majority of scientists accept that Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and that dinosaurs were extinct more than 65 million years before humans as they are known to be in relative “modern times” came to exist.

More than 800 of those scientists, all presiding from universities in the states closest to the museum, have signed a statement debunking the so-called facts sprinkled on signage under the legs of dinosaurs and next to dioramas of Noah’s Ark. “We … are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum,” the document reads. “Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis.”

I could go on with additional citations, but instead let’s just concede that within the scientific community there is significant opposition to the teachings of the museum.

As I move into successive rooms and exhibits, the tone begins to change: It becomes noticeably darker. There’s an emphasis on the degeneration of, well, civilization, I guess, as a result of man’s corruption of the word of God. And of course that all begins with the decision by Adam and Eve to forgo God’s word and eat from the tree. Before original sin, there was no aging (I guess without original sin there would be no Olay products?), no carnivores, no disease, no death, no natural catastrophe, no weeds, no burdensome work, no suffering … It does sound nice, idyllic, utopian.

But to show us all just how far man has fallen, the exhibits turn into room after room of wall-sized black and white photos that depict pain, death and suffering. Video shorts show a teenage girl crying on the phone to a Planned Parenthood employee about the results of a recent pregnancy test, a teenage boy partaking in Internet pornography and other youths mocking their church. Signs populate any available wall space in these areas, proclaiming “over 1.1 million marriages end in divorce in the U.S. each year,” “a person’s average first exposure to pornography is at age 11,” and “the average parent spends less than 30 minutes a day with their children.”

And? And I’ll take my faux science with a side of moral proselytizing, please.

I began to wonder, who are all these people here? Can they really all believe what this museum is presenting is the factual, historical truth? I look around. For the most part the people don’t look like freaks or googly-eyed morons. There are, as I mentioned, a good number of Mennonites out and about, sporting their Saturday finest. Several large groups, each sporting matching T-shirts – Mayfield Community Church, Boomerang Bible Camp – “Because the word of God comes back to you.” – move raptly from one exhibit to the next. A lot of people look like, well, me, or maybe my aunt or my neighbor. Everyone looks pretty normal. But yet there is something slightly abnormal about this scene, and it takes me a minute to put my finger on it. Then I figure it out: This is the quietest place on earth.

There’s no ruckus – despite all the children—no calamity, no loud noises or sudden movements. It’s like everyone here is using his or her inside voice – there’s barely a whisper. And when I really get in close and observe, I see people in what looks like deep prayer, silent reverie. One woman stands before a display that recounts all the ways God’s word has triumphed over corruption. Her right arm is folded into her chest; her left hand covers her mouth. She looks as if she is holding back tears, tears for the beauty and truth and reassurance she finds here. Three teens stand before a wall upon which headlines of the day have been pasted: “Just another school shooting,” “The battle over stem cells,” “What is marriage?” They contemplate. One boy turns around. When he sees me he says, “It’s kind of neat, isn’t it?” Two children play in a fountain, while their mothers solemnly read about the “judgment of the whole world.”

As I finish my tour, as I pass through the requisite gift shop and the cleanest, best smelling public restroom I’ve ever encountered, I come to a conclusion. It becomes obvious, in fact: This museum was built with the express purpose of giving creationists ammunition with which to defend their faith (however preposterous some of that ammunition may seem to mainstream America).

And there really is no one else here like me. These people truly are believers. And while all the fancy animatronics and professional quality videos and films were unlikely to sway me, that’s all right, because that is not the intention of the Creation Museum. Turns out it’s neither for nor about me.

The 8th Anniversary -- Share Something Relevant

I feel I’ve kept this account of September 11, 2001 and my ensuing experiences and feelings fairly unemotional. I’m still afraid to really let go for fear of what doing so could do for my psyche. Tuesday night my husband, Jay, went to bed angry, depressed and grieving after he watched a television documentary about Sept. 11. I felt for him, but I’m, let’s say, very protective of my mental health. I proceeded to block it out by watching meaningless reality (ha!) television. But then, this morning when I realized I’d need to do at least a little bit of research in order to write this, I found tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. Then, tears falling as navigated page after page of timelines on the Internet. I had to step away from the computer. I wiped tears away with the back of my hand. I sniffled, in hopes of holding back the sorrow that still lingers and will live just below the surface of my psyche forever. It didn’t work.

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One of the things that sticks out most in my mind about that day is the sky. I remember thinking I had never seen a sky so blue, so beautiful, so perfect. In fact, it should have been a beautiful day all around. It was one of those crisp but exceptional September days with which New York is occasionally blessed. I think now that somehow it seems terribly wrong that something so horrific, so tragic should happen on a day like this.

The day started off like any other. I was at work early, preparing for the day when shortly before 9 a.m. Jay, somewhat uncharacteristically, called. “Have you heard what's happened?” he said. I asked him to hold on as a colleague was waiting to be let in.

As the front door clattered and clanked its way open, Greg said, “I just heard on the radio; there’s been a plane crash.”

I rushed back to the phone. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, Jay told me. (8:45 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11, departing Boston, bound for Los Angeles)

I had a hard time processing the news – I didn’t understand. I assumed it had been a small plane and that its crash had been an accident. But how could a plane be so off course, I wondered out loud. No, he said, the plane was a jet.

He watched and provided play by play over the phone as the unimaginable happened. “Oh my god,” Jay said. “Another plane just crashed into it,” he said, watching it unfold live on television, narrated by a bewildered Matt Lauer. (9:02 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175, departing Boston, bound for Los Angeles)

The wheels and gears in my brain turned and I began to understand that this was not an accident.

Greg and I ran to a nearby electronics store. We assumed that with a wall full of televisions we’d surely be able to gain a better handle on what was happening. Closed circuit programming, however, meant we left with a poor quality transistor radio in hand.

We tuned into AM radio in time to hear the news that a third plane had crashed, this one into the Pentagon. (9:40 a.m., American Airlines, Flight 77, departing Washington DC, bound for Los Angeles)

Less than 15 minutes later, Tower 2 collapsed (9:59 a.m.).

And chaos ensued. I will never be able to imagine the fear and terror felt by the people who were trapped, those who ran, clawed, tripped, staggered and prayed for their lives as they tried to escape, down narrow, dark, ashy, crowded stairways. (And I know I will never be able to live up to the heroics of those who helped others to escape, those who ran into a dying building to save lives, those who gave up their lives willingly so as to prevent even greater bloodshed.)

In Tower 1 people resorted to leaping to their deaths from the windows of New York’s tallest building, presuming the alternative to be worse fate.

A few short minutes later there was one final plane crash – a plane crashed into a field somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. (10:07 a.m., United Airlines flight 93, departing Newark, bound for San Francisco)

Of course I didn’t know it was the final crash. I feared the attack would be ongoing attack. I didn’t know if it would end.

At 10:10 a.m. part of the Pentagon collapsed, and Tower 1 collapsed at 10:28 a.m.

The Tri-State area – Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Westchester and then some – shut down completely; stores and businesses closed their doors; parents were directed to retrieve their children from school; buses, trains and bridges shut down. Airports had already been evacuated.

And it all happened beneath a beautiful blue sky.

My world was shaken.

From my vantage point 25 miles north of Manhattan the sky remained blue, into the afternoon and then into the evening, making a picture perfect background for the fighter jets that would patrol far above.

When I arrived home around noon, having abandoned the work day, my sister Sonia met me in the backyard. Wordlessly, we hugged each other, tears coming too easily, grateful for our personal safety and the comfort of being able to be with family but still scared and unsure of what was yet to come.

Jay wasn’t home, and I panicked for a moment trying to figure out where he could have gone. When finally he turned up, he said he had given blood. The newscasters, though, said blood probably wouldn’t be in great demand and that potential donors should wait for a formal request. (Estimated units of blood donated to the New York Blood Center: 36,000. Total units of donated blood actually used: 258)

A short time later, when the fighter jets flew overhead with their high-decibel rumble, I was unsure whether I felt any safer, any more secure.

We gathered with friends and neighbors, taking to the streets and looking for reassurance that everything would be OK.

Eventually day turned into night and the taunting blue sky faded to black.

Sonia stayed the night, not wanting to spend it alone in her apartment. The images on the television – we were transfixed – portrayed an event of apocalyptic proportions. Late into the night we watched as New Yorkers escaping the city by foot, over any bridge or road possible, filled the flickering screen. We watched as cameras recorded pictures of dark, dusty streets, streets eerily quiet except for a faint but persistent and overlapping beeping sound.

(I learned weeks later that the beeping came from personal alert safety devices worn by firefighters, devices that sound automatically if a firefighter “ceases to move for more than 30 seconds,” according to MyRescueTeam.com, an online resource for rescue workers.)

The days, weeks and even years that followed passed in a blur for the zombies left in the wake of the tragedy.

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Eight years after Sept. 11, there are many incidents and instances, many people and many statistics that I still recall, that still cross my mind from time to time.


Before Sept. 11, foreign attacks didn’t happen on American soil – the 1993 garage bombing of the WTC was the exception to which we should have paid more attention. Up to that point all I knew about war, about terrorism, came from the nightly news and took place in far off lands. Images of Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war years lingered in my mind. Soon I would see on the cover of every newspaper, tabloid and magazine, and on every single news broadcast, images of America’s greatest city in tatters. My innocence and the inherent security I felt as an American is gone. I knew: It can happen here.


The potential number of casualties was debated repeatedly in the days following the attacks (some debate still remains); many sources estimated numbers greater than 5,000. There was a concern the city would not have enough body bags to accommodate the dead.

Ultimately, almost 3,000 people lost their lives that day. I say almost because to this day the exact number is still uncertain. (Bodies found “intact”: 289; Number of victims positively identified: 1,527)


Posters of the missing clung to any available scaffolding. Memorial candles burned in the streets on the fringes of the financial district. It seemed there were miles and miles of hand and computer made pleadings touting the lost and begging for help in finding them. The news showed mothers, fathers, spouses wandering dazed and confused through the streets hoping to find …? Could they be so hopeful as to believe their loved one was still alive?


By the end of the first week those people who had remained in the city, determined to not “let terrorists win,” sought escape. My sister Jill, a Manhattanite and singer who had performed at the Greatest Bar on Earth, inside Windows on the World, in the hours when Monday, Sept. 10 became Tuesday, Sept. 11, called to ask if she and a friend could come for the weekend. The smell of death, she said, had become too much to bear. Her complaint had been a common one among survivors.


The media shared images of Arabs, dancing in the streets of their native lands, reveling in the destruction of America, pleased that it was our turn to learn what it is like to like in a war zone, that America was not invincible.


And of course, unfortunately, Americans lashed out. Number of hate crimes
reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations nationwide in the year following Sept. 11: 1,714. The man who worked at the gas and convenience mart down the street, Mohammed, I think he was from Pakistan, was sincerely one of the nicest and most caring and soft-spoken people I’d ever had the pleasure to know. The look of pain and sorrow on his face in the weeks after Sept. 11 broke my heart. After Sept. 11 he looked broken, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still think of him often.


Dan Rather broke down on the set of David Letterman in front of a live audience and openly wept. Some cheered the moment as a human and patriotic while others thought a man in his position should show complete impartiality always. The incident set off debates about whether it was acceptable for news people to wear the then-popular flag pins. ABC went as far as to forbid their people from wearing the pins. Spokesman Jeffrey Schneider told the Washington Post, "Especially in a time of national crisis, the most patriotic thing journalists can do is to remain as objective as possible ... That does not mean journalists are not patriots. All of us are at a time like this. But we cannot signal how we feel about a cause, even a justified and just cause, through some sort of outward symbol."


And the country was on high alert. In the area I lived in that meant that bridges and parks over and surrounding reservoirs were closed to the public out of fear of possible biological attacks. All cars entering local airports were searched by armed National Guardsmen. And due to the fact that we lived only seven miles from Indian Point nuclear power plant, everyone had an emergency evacuation plan should the plant be targeted. Our plan was to drive east as long and far as we could and hope for the best; driving north would take us closer, and the roads and bridges running south and west would be so clogged in an emergency that surely there would be no realistic chance for escape and survival. An evacuation plan is one thing I haven’t felt I’ve needed since I moved to Ohio in 2003. It’s also one of the reasons I was so quick to accept that impending move.


My husband has a personal policy: He won’t fly on Sept. 11. Not ever. If business demands he be somewhere other than home on Sept. 11, he’ll fly the day before or drive. He doesn’t do this out of fear or superstition. He does it in deference to those who died, a ritual of sorts.


Statistics suggest 20 percent of Americans knew someone hurt or killed in the attacks. My husband and I both went to Pace University in Westchester County, N.Y., well known as a business school, churning out finance professionals by the thousands. We don’t know that we know anyone who died in the attacks. But neither do we know that we don’t. Got it?


The way he handled the days, weeks and months following the attacks made me a Rudy Giuliani fan for life. The man showed grace, class and compassion. In 2001 he attended 200 funerals related to Sept. 11.


The Clear Channel Radio group deemed 150 songs “inappropriate” to play in the days immediately following the attacks. One radio show openly discussed the list. I still have a hard time understanding why Everclear’s “Santa Monica” made that list. Must be just four words from the chorus: “watch the world die.”


In the first year after Sept. 11 more than 422,000 New Yorkers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. An August 2009 USA Today article stated that 10 percent of those people are still suffering.


A photo of United 174 slamming into Tower 2 was everywhere and the video was replayed over and over. In short order, I had had enough. I couldn’t watch it any more. This singular moment in history meant too much to America for the incessant, gratuitous coverage it received and for it to be reduced to an overwrought pop culture clip. I feared, should its exploitation continue, the image would lose its meaning, that we as Americans would become desensitized to its significance. I still fear this, and I still avoid it. I don’t want to be desensitized. It means something to me.

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And here’s where I plead. Because I think maybe, over these eight long years, we have become desensitized.

Sure, the eighth anniversary will make the news. You’ll remember it, you’ll be sad, you’ll be respectful. At least for a few minutes (I hope).

But that’s not enough.

My friend Joe agrees. “I think it sucks that ‘never forget’ has been reduced to 1 day a year,” he said in a recent Facebook post. “I suggest that instead of thinking about that day, we think about the names. I’ll give you three: James ‘J.J.’ Carson, John ‘Ice-man’ Murray, Joshua S. Vitale.

“It ain't just a bumper sticker,” Joe continued. “Honestly, as cool as this Facebook thing is, I don't give a fuck what you had for breakfast. Put the mouse down and get on with your day. You are sitting at Penn Station and need us all to know that you are bored? No. Stop. And you know who you are. Use this medium to share something relevant.”sitting at Penn St. and need us all to know that you are bored? No. Stop. And you know who you are. Use this medium to share something relevant.re sitting at Penn St. and need us all to know that you are bored? No. Stop. And you know who you are. Use this medium to share something relevant.tale. And we all know too many.

Tell me what this day means to you. Tell me what you carry with you. Tell someone else. Tell the world.

Share something relevant.

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

Take a moment to learn about a few of the people lost to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, like:

Joseph Agnello
Jeannine Marie Damiani-Jones
Jamie Lynn Fallon
Juan Garcia
Rodney Gillis
Stephen G. Hoffman
John Ogonowski
Robert Penninger
Waleska Martinez Rivera
Timothy Ray Ward

More at:

http://www.legacy.com/Sept11/Home.aspx

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/lists/by-name/index.html



Timeline data from http://www.patriotresource.com/wtc/timeline/sept11.html
Statistics and figures from http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm

Decision to Release Convicted Lockerbie Bomber Is Wrong

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Nate Beeler - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Last week Scottish officials released Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds." Al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing (co-defendant Lamin Khalifah Fhimah was found not guilty), has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has been sent back to his native Libya to live out his final days with his family (90 days, according to Scottish sources).

I've disagreed with the the idea that this man could be released all along. In fact, on Aug. 20 I posted this to my Twitter account:

"Libyan terrorist receives hero's welcome in Tripoli? What the hell were the Scottish thinking? He deserves no compassion."

In response to my tweet, a friend sent me the link to this video:

I think perhaps he thought my tweet expressed that I was unaware of the circumstances of the release. I was not unaware. And while I generally commend persons throughout the world for various acts that demonstrate compassion toward others, even I, a New York liberal at heart, am not that liberal. I find Scotland's decision to be shocking, disappointing and wrong.

270 people lost their lives as a result of the bombing, 180 of them Americans, 35 of them students at Syracuse University.

Mark Caccavo, of New York City, was a student at Syracuse at the time. He knew 23 of the 35 students who died that day, including one he describes as a very close friend and fraternity brother.

"There were 25 people silent around the television, just watching the list of names of people who were checked in on the plane," Caccavo recalled.

Silent that is, until one fraternity brother entered, excited, his spirits high. Turns out he too was returning from a semester abroad in England and was scheduled to fly on Pan Am 103. But he caught an earlier flight in hopes of attending a big party scheduled for that night. His flight landed, he collected his luggage, rented a car and never once turned on the radio. Until he entered the fraternity house, he was completely unaware of the tragedy that had befallen his friends, classmates and so many others.

The days that followed were a blur of tears, prayer and funerals. Caccavo attended as many of the funerals as he could.

"There is nothing more heartbreaking, more heartwrenching than having a parent give a child's eulogy," he said.

Of the decision to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, Caccavo said he'd prefer to see him die in jail.

"My friends are all very, very angry, and it's like all the feelings you had on that fateful day were just brought back to the surface,"he said. "The families have had to live with this horrible, horrible timeline -- It took 13 years for them to get any justice, [al-Megrahi's] only been [imprisoned] for seven years, and now he's free. I feel a great anger about that. It's such an injustice."

Caccavo also said he'd like to see [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown renounce the decision or face repercussions for his failure to intervene or influence the Scottish decision.

Unfortunately, that's unlikely. Brown has washed his hands of the matter. He stated publicly that he is "repulsed"by the hero's welcome al-Megrahi received in Libya, but that the decision to release al-Megrahi was that soley of the Scottish government.

Critics, however, counter that Brown is being disingenuous at best and at worst is flat out lying. Critics say the Scottish parliment is not entirely independent of the British parliment and that Brown could have stopped the release.

But what's done is done, and in this case the Scottish have made a decision that will continue to bring pain and outrage to the families, friends and countrymen of those lost in the bombing of Pan Am 103. There truly is no justice here.

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

*Up next: Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi will be staying in the U.S. in September, as he will at that time address the United Nations. It was rumored he would be pitching his tent (Bedouin style) in Englewood, N.J.

It has been confirmed he will not be staying in New Jersey after all. But Qaddafi will still be on American soil, location currently unknown.

It's a shame, really. This would be a fine time for the United States to draw a line in the sand.

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

U.S. Bank to exit the federal student loan business

In light of the revelation that U.S. Bank will exit the business of federally subsidized student loans, I thought it timely to post two very relevant stories I wrote a while back:

Audit: Fifth Third Violated Federal Loan Laws
Bank denies charges, points to changes in legal interpretation
Kristy Conlin The News Record
Published: Sunday, January 11, 2009

Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank is under fire for violating federal laws prohibiting the use of financial incentives to market and secure federal student loans, according to a report that comes as the result of an audit conducted by the U.S. Education Department’s Inspector General.

Representatives for Fifth Third deny any laws were violated and instead insist the transactions in question, which involve student loan originators MSA Solution, Pacific Loan Processing and Law School Financial, were for the transfer of loans, not the marketing or solicitation of loans. According to Fifth Third, the buying and selling of existing loans is a common practice.

The Education Department is recommending disciplinary action against Fifth Third. Such action could include fines, removal of federal guarantees for the loans or removal of Fifth Third from the federal loan program.

(Read the full article here or here.)

Tuition rises, loan limits idle

Kristy Conlin The News Record
Published: Thursday, May 8, 2008

The student loan market is getting harder to navigate, thanks in part to the decision by some lenders to get out of the student loan business in addition to the growth of the alternative loan market.

Alternative loans (sometimes referred to as private loans) have risen in popularity in the last seven years and often come into play when there is a gap between educational costs and traditional financial aid.

The cost of tuition nationwide has increased 30 percent in the last five years, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The limit for freshmen borrowing via federally funded loans, however, is about the same as in the 1980s, according to Connie Williams, director of student financial aid at the University of Cincinnati.

"The lending industry saw a market there," Williams said. "We do have students who have larger loans, especially in their senior year when they've used all their federal grants."

(Read the full article here or here.)

*My take: First of all, I'm surprised this story is about U.S. Bank and not Fifth Third. I think U.S. Bank's explanation, as reported in Cliff Peale's article, is disingenuous at best. Of course they'd prefer to move to the private loan business - what banker truly wouldn't want to? Doing so allows for big interest dollars in the highly lucrative private/alternative student loan business. In any event this is bad news for students, students in the Tri-State area and across the country.

*Note to big time media: This story isn't over. The surface has only been scratched. You all have some digging to do.

Much ado about nothing?

Seems this cartoon is causing a bit of a flap, especially for members and representatives of the National Organization of Women. (Thanks to Daryl Cagle and Rob Tornoe for putting the cartoon, along with commentary, on their Web site. Click here to check it out). The cartoon, by Bill Bramhall, was printed in the New York Daily News (maybe my favorite newspaper ever).

So, as you can likely figure out, the gist of the complaint is that the cartoon is sexist, as it depicts efforts by numerous people to silence Gillibrand using any means possible from corks to socks to gags to "the hook."

Bramhall says the cartoon is an editorial on the predilection of some of our esteemed senators to use more speaking time on the floor than they are are allotted. Plus, Gillibrand has apparently made something of a habit of this practice. Her failure to wrap it up in a timely manner during the Sotomayor hearings ultimately was the genesis, according to Bramhill, for the cartoon.

Marcia Pappas, NOW-NYS president, disagrees. She suggests the cartoon is one more example of a patronizing patriarchy in which women are told to "sit down and shut up."

At this point I think her perspective is a bit over the top. Heartfelt, I'm sure, but a little too politically correct, especially when taken in the context the cartoon's creator describes.

Pappas really loses me though when she goes full on crazy. That's the only way this statement can be explained: “Bramhall’s phallic symbols send a clear message that women are good for only one thing."

Call me crazy, but you have to really be looking for those so-called phallic symbols to see them.

It's not easy for me to say she's wrong about this. But she is.

I admire Pappas' efforts to defend women. I consider myself to be a feminist and I see sexism in a lot of places - women's pay vs. men's and the political status and perception of women are the two areas that cause me the greatest distress. (I'm still not over the GLARING mistreatment Hillary Clinton received during last year's primary campaign). But still ...

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon.

Hate crimes - more than just semantics

So, I've heard of holocaust deniers, Armenian genocide deniers, man-landing-on-the-moon deniers, global warming deniers and AIDS deniers, but this week I learned about a new type of denier: those who deny that Matthew Shepard's murder was a hate crime.

I guess I have Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to thank for teaching me something new.

Ultimately, her perspective of Shepard's murder as the byproduct of a drug-induced robbery is not new. The theory has been around since 2004, when ABC News ran a 20/20 feature exploring the concept. But here is what is important about the alternative theory of the crime. It has been debunked. Roundly. And by one of the assailants, who fully and completely confessed he knew Shepard's orientation and intentionally lured him into the situation that resulted in his being beaten, tied to a fence post and left for dead. "Guess what? We're not gay. You're gonna get jacked," said Aaron McKinney, one of two men serving life in prison for the crime, to a police officer. Later jailhouse letters contained additional damning testimony.

But I digress. My main gripe today is with Foxx. "The bill was named after a very unfortunate incident that happened, where a young man was killed, but we know that this young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay ... it's, it's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”



One can almost imagine the disgust in her voice.

I'd love the opportunity to share with her my disgust.

Obviously, Foxx was not going to be able to get away with this. With the media breathing down her neck and her own colleagues denouncing her statement ("Matthew Shepard's mother was in the gallery yesterday ... I'm sorry she had to be around to hear it," said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn). "And I'd tell [Foxx] that man did land on the moon and the moon wasn't made out of green cheese."). She would indeed issue an apology.

Or would she?

Well, by the letter of the law, yes, I suppose one could say she apologized. Twice even. But you know those backhanded apologies that aren't really apologies but are more like passive-aggressive insults wrapped in insincerity? Yeah, Foxx's apologies were like that.



"I am especially sorry if his grieving family was offended by my statement ... Referencing [the 20/20] media account may have been a mistake, but it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts," she said.

Wait, does it sound like she is actually sorry she hurt Shepard's family with her words or that she regurgitated an egregious lie in the halls of Congress?

Foxx followed up that non-apology with another non-apology. "Saying that the event was a hoax was a poor choice of words. I've apologized for that," she said.

That’s like when I tell my sister after an argument that I'm sorry she thinks I'm wrong. Yeah, maybe not the most sincere of apologies.

For her part, Judy Shepard is having none of it. She has responded publicly several times over the last week, including Tuesday, May 5, at an appearance at the University of Cincinnati, that she declined to accept the so-called apology. Foxx, Shepard said, was only apologizing for the words she used, not the sentiment behind them. “It was ridiculous and stupid, and she is paying for it,” Judy Shepard said of Foxx's statement.

Despite Foxx's statement, the Matthew Shepard Bill (officially The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R. 1913) passed the House, 249-175. Cincinnati-area Rep. Jean Schmidt voted against the bill, while Steve Driehaus voted for the bill.

I am certain I will never understand the hatred and fear with which some people approach homosexuality.

After all, as Judy Shepard said Tuesday, "We are who we are. We love who we love."

Swine flu renews anti-Hispanic sentiments (at least among idiots)

I knew this would happen. As soon as the swine flu began to dominate the media, I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. And no, that bit of nausea wasn't actually related to the flu. It was related to the potential for a renewed and intensified bias against Hispanics and against Mexicans specifically.

I wish I had been wrong, wish I had overreacted.

But I wasn't. And I didn't.

Any nowhere has the rhetoric been more prevalent, stronger or more vile than in the world of talk radio.

Here is just a partial list of the disgusting things that supposedly intelligent, educated, so-called professionals have said concerning the connection between the Mexican population and the spread of the swine flu (which the CDC is now requesting we call the H1N1 flu):

"Make no doubt about it: Illegal aliens are carriers of the new strain ... of flu," said the particularly vile Michael Savage last week. "And it all starts in the restaurants," where he said, you "don't know if they wipe their behinds with their hands."

Really? Wow.

Savage went on to suggest that the new flu strain may be a part of a terrorist attack. “I can't say for sure,” he said too late, as the suggestion is already out there.

(In unrelated news, the BBC is reporting that the U.K. has a list of 16 people who are banned from the country - Savage is one of them. "This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country," said Jacqui Smith, Britain's Home Secretary. Smart woman.)

Sean Hannity, during his syndicated radio show, said last week that, of course, the borders should be sealed, and that he finds it "suspicious" that the areas of the U.S. that are experiencing the greatest numbers of swine flu cases, New York, California and Texas, are among those with the highest Hispanic populations in the nation.

Boston talk-show host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants “criminaliens” and stating that hospital emergency rooms were “essentially condos for Mexicans.”

Bill Cunningham has reportedly made another on-air “dirty Mexicans” comment (and apparently he has a long history of making derogatory comments about Mexicans).

And the list could go on and on (Neal Boortz, Lou Dobbs, Michelle Malkin, Betsy Perry).

And unfortunately, there are entire nations now joining the list of the overreacting and the ignorant.

The deputy Health Minister of Israel has requested that the affliction be renamed the Mexican flu, and the government of Hong Kong has detained and isolated hundreds of Hispanics and the people who have shared either airplanes or hotels with them.

The Cincinnati Enquirer even ran a story about Hispanic children in the area being bullied and teased about having swine flu. Jason Riveiro, of the Ohio League of United Latin American Citizens, reports that multiple parents have contacted him with complaints. The comment count on the story is at 133 and still rising.

In response to all the hatred and filthy language, Liany Arroyo, director of the national Council of La Raza’s Institute for Hispanic Health, points out the obvious.

Some people, Arroyo said, have opted to exploit the virus “as a mechanism to stir fear.”

Carlos Gutierrez, associate professor of Spanish at the University of Cincinnati who teaches a class on Hispanic culture in the United States, concurs with Arroyo.

“Hannity [for example] is just another unmoral, pharisaic voice that takes advantage of the worst weaknesses and fears that people harbor,” Gutierrez said. “The pointing of geographic and ethnic fingers whenever there’s an outbreak of something is an ugly business and a very old game that borders the xenophobic, to say the least.”

A very old game indeed. Gutierrez draws a comparison to the 16th century, when the French called syphilis the “Spanish sickness, while the Spanish and Italians called it the “French evil.” Similar scenarios can be cited throughout the ensuing 500 years of world history.

But what I don’t understand is why, in this day and age, people are still using this type of rhetoric, why they would want to scare the bejeezus out of their countrymen?

It is impossible, realistically, to definitively stem the spread of any epidemic in today’s world, and really, why waste time on assigning blame (although – for another time and another article I suppose – I firmly believe it is the massive factory farming that is to blame for the swine flu) when more efforts should be put into cure and prevention?

Won’t we ever get past this? Or will we just keeping doing the same things, saying the same things, over and over again, all while expecting some different outcome?

I, for one, hope for more.

Cincy Cinco - May 3, 2009

Photo treats - Here are a couple of my favorite photos from yesterday's Cincy Cinco event at Fountain Square.

Dunking Hannity's head and holding it underwater 6 times a day, every day for a month

Just feel the urge to share this little gem with y'all ...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I think it speaks for itself.

On a side note, once upon a time, in a land far, far away and sometimes known as New York, I met Sean Hannity. I was working in the book biz and was managing a signing event. The man I met is not the same bombastic idiot who hosts the FOX program and the syndicated radio show. Basically -- act surprised -- it is basically an act. Sort of like I imagine Howard Stern to be.

Hannity was actually very gracious and relatively charming in person.

Go figure.

I guess, though, that he must believe the drivel that comes out of his mouth at least a little bit.

FYI, I'm not especially an Olbermann fan either. I kind of think he is Hannity in some weird alternate universe.

10th anniversary of one of our saddest national tragedies

Miniature crosses are displayed to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings at Clement Park April 20, 2009 in Littleton, Colorado. Columbine was the site of the then deadliest school shooting in modern United States history. (Marc Piscotty, Getty Images)






It’s been ten full years since Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire and murdered 12 students and one teacher and injured 23 more people before taking their own lives.

Ten years and it feels like yesterday.

Ten years and it feels like a lifetime ago.

It’s weird. I still remember that day so clearly. My sister and I were transfixed by the television coverage. It seems like the coverage went on for weeks. Nothing but death, destruction, analysis, experts, victims, rinse, repeat.

The massacre happened, experts said in the weeks that followed April 20, 1999, because the boys were obsessed with violent movies like Natural Born Killers. It happened because the boys played Grand Theft Auto. It happened because the boys had absentee parents, parents so wrapped up in their own lives that they had no idea their boys were collecting guns and ammunition and building bombs in the garage. It happened because the boys were bullied for years and years on end. It happened because the boys, one, maybe both, were crazy, crazy and depressed and suicidal, undiagnosed, overmedicated, under-medicated. They probably listened to Nine Inch Nails. Or maybe Marilyn Manson made them do it.

Every few years the case would hit the news and my senses, my memories of that day would be reawakened.

So naturally I’m kind of surprised I was caught as off guard as I was Monday morning when the deluge of new information, revelations and opinions hit the airwaves, the newspapers and the blogosphere. I had no idea there was a major anniversary coming up.

Ultimately, what’s especially unnerving to me today is that despite the new round of analysis, the new search for reason and meaning, there is nothing new. It seems that many out there are still trying to answer the why, still trying to make sense of it. Many of the old theories have been abandoned, and people are left to blame that most intangible but faithful cause for all the bad things that happen in the world: evil.

Leonard Pitts, for example, is one of those people.

In his column he says there is no reason for the massacre other than the evil of the killers. Klebold and Harris, Pitts says, “unleashed hell … a firestorm.”

Pitts goes on, in essence to say that what Klebold and Harris did was so heinous, the two boys so devoid of any redemptive value, that evil is all that is left.

“I will not begrudge you if you seek the rhyme or reason in what those boys did, but as for me, I will give them not an hour of my one and only life trying to comprehend their incomprehensible deed,” Pitts said.

He uses evil as an excuse to dismiss any discussion that might lead to understanding, that might help us all to help someone else so as to avoid another Columbine.

I know, naïve, right? In light of what happened at Virginia Tech, that one-room school house in Pennsylvania, the immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y. and every other act of seemingly inexplicable violence to have occurred since Columbine and those that have yet to occur but certainly will, it must sound quaint of me.

I’m just not willing to accept that a little red man with horns and a tail and who lives among fire and brimstone made anyone do anything. While I believe there are plenty of acts that are evil, I’m not sure I believe that people are born innately evil.

That, apparently, is what Pitts believes.

To me, intellectually, that doesn't make sense.

But I still need an explanation. I need to know that these people are damaged beyond belief, that they are crazy, out of their minds with depression, pain, mental illness coursing through their veins.

I need for there to be a diagnosis.

I'll even concede that just because we can put a name on it doesn’t mean that we can cure it. And don't get me wrong: It certainly doesn't excuse any behavior.

It just is what it is. And it deserves more of our time, not less.

100 movies to see before you die ...

So I just checked out Yahoo's recent list of 100 movies to see before you die.

Yeah, not my usual style for this blog - no taxes, no gloom and doom economy stories. I thought I'd lighten it up a little bit.

Now, I like to consider myself a movie connoisseur, and I like to think I watch more movies than the average person. I also know that I have very specific tastes when it comes to movies. For example, I don't do war or violence, I find most dramas to be *yawn* boring, and I love low-brow comedies (I went into reviewing the list not expecting to find Old School included - drats).

But lately, I've been more open to watching movies I'd normally judge to be outside of my comfort zone - thanks largely to Professor Enrique Giordano and his excellent class on Latin American Film, I have two new favorites to add to my own personal best films list, Machuca, and Amores Perros.

So here goes. I'm highlighting many of the films Yahoo included on the list, and I'm dividing them into groups.

MOVIES I'VE SEEN

Do the Right Thing


I saw Do the Right Thing on the list and gasped; it's one of my all time favorites. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and make it a point. Best viewed on a swelteringly hot day.

Other "I've seen it" highlights:

Blue Velvet
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Die Hard
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Shawshank Redemption
The Usual Suspects
The Wizard of Oz

In total, of the 100, I've only seen ... 28.

MOVIES MOST PEOPLE HAVE SEEN ... BUT NOT ME

Pulp Fiction


Nope, never saw it, not all the way through. I tried several times and fell asleep every single time.

Others I think most people have seen, at least most movie fans:

Alien
Blade Runner
The Godfather (Parts I and II)
Lord of the Rings
Raging Bull
Titanic

MOVIES ON MY LIST TO SEE

All About Eve


I'll try to check these out as soon as I have tons and tons of free time, like when I'm laid up at home or unemployed (maybe sooner than I think if I don't find a job shortly after graduation).

All About Eve is on the list because I have a thing for Bette Davis. The queen of movie mean, no one does it quite like Bette did.

Have you seen any of these?

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Casablanca
Chinatown
Nosferatu
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

MOVIES I'VE NEVER HEARD OF

Blow-Up


Looks campy, looks like fun. But I've never heard of it.

I've also never heard of:

400 Blows
Grand Illusion
Wild Strawberries
Wings of Desire
The World of Apu

MOVIES I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN EVER SEEING

Annie Hall


With the exception of Match Point, I HATE Woody Allen movies. Just don't get them, don't find them to be even remotely entertaining.

Many of the other movies in this category are very old, some are movies I don't think will translate well in 2009, some I can't for the life of me figure out why they're on the list, and some just aren't my bag, baby:

Bringing Up Baby
Duck Soup
Gold Finger
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Some Like it Hot (I LOVE Jack Lemmon, but I love him best with Walter Matthau.)
Terminator 2 (2? Why 2?)

And yeah, I think they missed a few, but we'll save that matter for another time.

What about you? Like the list? Abhor it? Where do you weigh in on the titles included? How about those that failed to make the cut?

I have seen the future of newspapers ...

Okay, so this weekend I went to the Region 4 Society of Professional Journalists Conference in Columbus, OH. (My paper, The News Record, won second place, all-around best non-daily college paper, btw; make sure you check it out here http://www.newsrecord.org/ if you haven't already.) Obviously, there were tons of newspaper people there and talk of the future of newspapers was the constant buzz.

Now, lots of people have lots of ideas. Some think print newspapers will be extinct within 10 years. Some think the government should bail out the industry. Some are working furiously to find just the right formula to satiate both readers and advertisers. But aside from cutting sections or shifting focus, aside from changing formats or emphasizing interactivity, aside from pie-in-the sky (or are they?) print-at-home concepts, not much has changed as far as innovation goes.

But then the managing editor of The Detroit News, Walter Middlebrook, spoke about the changes his paper, along with joint operating agreement partner The Detroit Free Press had just implemented earlier in the week.

You see, those two papers made significant changes to their subscription delivery program by reducing home delivery to just three days a week (I think The Detroit News is delivering, if I remember correctly, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; it is a six-day-a-week publication). The two are the first major metro papers to make such a move.

David Hunke, publisher of the Free Press and CEO of the Detroit Media Partnership, told CNN in December 2008 that the action was in response to the ailing economy and the changing tastes of tech-savvy consumers. He expected the newspapers would face about a 9 percent reduction in their workforces under the plan, but stressed that no layoffs were planned for newsroom staffs.

Basically, readers of these two dailies will have four options on non-delivery days:

• Skip the day's newspaper
• Buy a copy off newsstands
• Get news from the papers' free Web sites
• Or, perhaps most intriguingly, subscribe to the e-edition

The e-edition is the new (ish?) wrinkle in all of this. Guaranteed to be in your email box no later than 5:30 a.m., the e-edition is your daily paper in electronic form. It is an assemblance of click and drag PDFs. You can turn the pages using your mouse, and if you want to zoom in and read a particular article, you just roll over it. It is like the very pages my staff and I prepare three nights a week. But instead of sending them to press, they are posted directly online, utilizing a few more bells and whistles intended to improve readability and, presumably, online experience.

As I said, this just launched last week. It's much too early to judge success or failure, but it is fascinating. Will this quell those who can't stand the idea of losing the form of the traditional newspaper? How about those who find many newspaper Web sites to be non-navigable or non-intuitive? You still can't take an e-edition into the bathroom with you, and coffee and the newspaper in bed in the morning won't feel quite the same either.

There is one other option Middlebrook said The News is considering. An device known as the Plastic Logic e-Reader is being bandied about as a potential light-weight, portable, electronic delivery method.

The popular Kindle has been mentioned as a possibility by other newspaper publishers, and sure the field will surely only continue to grow.

I think the idea of the essentially all PDF e-edition is one of the better options I've heard. I'm a purist: I like to hold the paper in in my hands and fold it as I see fit. There is a great amount of intimacy in my personal history with newspapers, dating back all those years ago when I traded sections with my dad over the breakfast table. But I'm in the business and being a part of this business is bigger to me than the paper it is printed on.

Newspapers must adapt. And so must their fans.

What do you think? Will you miss all that paper and ink when it's gone? Would you prefer newspaper get a bailout before GM? Are you happy to see them both go the way of the dodo bird? Are you already online only? What feedback do you want to share with the industry? I'd love to know your thoughts on the matter.

Residents of the state of New York: Congratulations; you just dodged a bullet.

Photo courtesy of : √oхέƒx™|flickr

Last week, on March 11, New York Governor David Paterson and legislative leaders withdrew plans for a host of controversial and highly unpopular taxes that would have resulted in approximately $1.3 billion in new taxes for the year beginning July 1 .

Paterson suggested the state, which faces a record $14.2 billion deficit, could finally afford to drop the proposed taxes because of money the state will receive as part of the federal stimulus package.

Paterson first presented in December what some people thought is a unique plan to aid in closing the historic state budget gap. Others have called the plan “an attack on personal freedom.”

What the plan proposed was an addition to, or in some cases an expansion of, excise taxes, known popularly as sin taxes.

Paterson wanted the state to increase or add sales taxes to, among other items, sporting event tickets, movie tickets, theater tickets, alcohol (beer, wine and liquor), Internet downloads, taxis, satellite and cable TV, cigars, massages and soft drinks that contain sugar. (See more details of the original tax plan.)

And surprisingly, it’s that last one, sugar-laden soft drinks, that caused the largest outcry among New York’s citizens. San Fransisco considered a similar tax:



The $404 million the soda tax would have raised would be used to fund public health programs, including programs aimed at preventing or reducing the incidence of obesity.

"We are in the midst of a new public health epidemic: childhood obesity," Paterson said in December.



Paterson expected such a tax to reduce the sales of sugar-laden beverages by about 5 percent and the statistics he cited in making his proposal are alarming: One in four children under the age of 18 is obese, and in economically challenged areas, that number may rise to one in three. Only 17 years ago, the obesity rate in New York was about 10 percent -- that's a pretty remarkable jump.

But from the moment the words were out of his mouth, New Yorkers were all over the matter, expressing an almost universal disapproval for what became known as the fat tax.

“Any new tax is a bad tax, particularly in this state where we are taxed to death (highest tax rate in the nation when all taxes are taken into consideration), said Dave Barmen, a small business owner from Upstate New York. “And if you think the revenue from the tax will go to what it's supposedly earmarked for, it's highly unlikely.”

Barmen also attacked the core purpose of the proposed tax – decreasing obesity and related health issues.

“All these laws that restrict personal freedom are antithetical to the whole purpose of this democratic experiment we call the United States,” he said, citing seat belt, helmet, hand-free cell phone and gambling statutes as unfair and unpatriotic. “It's one thing to have laws that protect people from harm inflicted by others ... it's idiotic to have laws that protect us from our own selves.”

And plenty of people agree with Barmen, judging from discourse throughout the blogosphere.

Even people who agree something needs to be done to squelch obesity, and childhood obesity in particular, believe taxing the matter away is neither necessary nor productive.

“Educate children on nutrition. Make home [economics] a mandatory class and make healthy eating the core focus,” one New Yorker suggested. “Because you will not stop people from drinking soda with an 18 percent tax.”

The idea of an 18 percent tax not being enough to deter unwanted behavior is also supported by a sizable segment of the population.

“I think the tax would have to be much higher to have a significant impact,” one blog poster said. “While some may switch to diet, an 18 percent increase is only about a 25 cent increase in total price on a two liter. I think people will pay for it: they are too addicted to their sugar and caffeine not to.”

Beth Walter Honadle is a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. She specializes in public policy research and says the issue must be looked at from two perspectives.

Excluding tax income as the sole or even primary impetus for the soda tax, that leaves two objectives for the proposed but now aborted implementation: to less the consumption of soft drinks and/or to decrease obesity rates.

Honadle offered as alternatives to taxation educational programs, subsidization of healthier alternatives and on outright ban on the sale of sugared soft drinks.

Although, “We all know how well Prohibition worked out,” she said.

She said that if decreasing obesity is the ultimate goal and government feels it wants or needs to intervene, that intervention could take the form of building more pedestrian-friendly areas, building more bike lanes, requiring more physical education in schools and requiring employers to provide recreational facilities.

But all those things cost money, and doesn’t that just put us right back where we started?