My Art Portfolio III

My Art Portfolio II

My Art Portfolio I

O-bama O-bama Oh!

I found this tidbit at MSN about my favorite Prez. It may be nonsensical to drive traffic from a low-volume site like mine to a high-volume site like MSN, but who cares? I liked the article. I don't like the Gipper and I might not like the author. I'm left like Marx, but I appreciate this coming from the moderate right. I even find myself agreeing with the main point. http://www.newsweek.com/id/232167/page/1

Man, I really love the Prez. I hope he does a super job and I get to help put him up on Mount Rushmore. I could help place a chalk line and someone else could blow the dynamite. Then my stint would be over and the guys who won the bid would come back and shoo me off the stage. Or the next gushing Obama fan would come up with chalk in hand. Something like that. Can you dig?

Letter to Hippie Camp

You'll see what I'm up to. I wrote:

Hi Patrick. I don't know if you remember me from 2003 summer workshop. I'm trying to make an acceptable foundation for a 10 x 10 square (must be square; will explain later if you like) cob structure in a very wet environment. When I computed the cost of a perimeter foundation it was in four digits of expense -- not doable for me. But when I figured the cost of four little pylons the cost came within reach -- about $200. It was suggested that I use wide steel spanners to span the pylons and support the heavy cob walls. But I don't even know how heavy cob walls are or how strong steel is supposed to be. What am I up against?

My Letter to Shirley

Dear Shirley,

Thank you for all your research on behalf of consumers! I, too, am tired of money doing all the talking. In my blog, icantcomplain2.blogspot.com, I reference your article http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/oil.htm . What I would love is to have the full set of footnotes for this article. Would you oblige?

What I would love just as much is to know whether my safflower oil is safe. It came in a translucent bottle at room temperature but it is expeller pressed and low-temperature processed (manufacturer said so in his email,) preserved with natural tocopherols and now stored in my dresser drawer. Just how trans-fatty is it likely to be or to become? (How I wish I had become a chemist.)

Hey, Shirley, you know what would be awesome? You could write "Dietary Fats for Dummies." You would get a groundswell of plugs from the blogosphere and have a sleeper best-seller. Because dieters like me are feeling our ignorance and just don't know what to do. Yours is the most practical advice I've found to date and it still leaves me wanting more.

Thanks again for everything.

Sincerely,
Kitty Lane

I didn't explicitly ask whether I could post her footnotes (my oversight,) but I can't imagine she would send them and not want them posted.

Just Because it's the Party Line

Before they invented the merry-go-round, people believed you could restore a lady's honor by knocking the other guy off his horse with a pole -- just because it was the party line. It happens in our century too because people don't question conventional so-called wisdom as much as responsibility demands. And so it is with the medical establishment's assertions that saturated fats are bad for you. Too many patients buy the party line without question or answer.

To digress, it's a little strange that in general doctors don't purport to know more than 8 credits' worth of nutrition (slightly less than the average diet diva?) but people still consult them for dietary concerns and related disorders.

But some people do challenge the party line when it comes to dietary fat. And let me tell you, they make a much more convincing case than the other side does. I'm glad it's a case the media is finally embracing. This piece comes partially annotated http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/oil.htm and is very informative. Even as it stands I thought it worthy to share. Still, a few more footnotes wouldn't hurt.

Having read it, I'm concerned because my safflower oil with all its vulnerable unsaturated molecules comes in a transparent bottle stored and sold at room temperature. Recommended intake levels for the kind of fat you hope it is are way too high for the kind of fat it may have become. This is an article I will keep handy, read repeatedly and discuss with knowledgeable merchants and manufacturers. I'm also asking these guys for the full set of footnotes.

brain dump

Man, I really wanted to post my Heisenberg paper from college on this blog, but blogspot apparently won't accept a pdf imbed. The challenge is to translate from pdf to jpeg via gimp, then see if a file as large as that resulting will be accepted by blogspot. A challenge that will have to wait.

Regarding Mayor Sheila Dixon -- I felt strongly that someone who did all that work should keep her pension, and she did. There is justice in the world. I wish also that everyone had kept his pension. There is injustice too.

Flying a desk has not caused me to put on weight. If anything, I've lost a few ounces since August.

The DNC has sent a survey. I hope I will find time to address it. By the way, I think the Steeler's Wheel song is about their 1968 convention. Also, while I digress, I think that "Saturday in the Park" by Chicago is about the French Revolution. Think about it -- They thought it was the fourth of July, but somebody knew it was a certain date in Thermidor or something like that.

There are items in my brain that refuse to be dumped right now. I'm just not ready to talk about them. But what else can I dump out right now?

I knew a serial killer, but I believe I've known worse people than she. Her victims are dead. They don't suffer. Killing them was passionate, honest and direct, even if it was really, really wrong. But now think of all the offenders who don't break the law but who hurt people worse, more deviously, less obviously -- and leave them alive to suffer the memory. I don't feel as badly toward the serial killer as I do toward the cruel, the disrespectful, the bullies, the relation aggressors, the oppressors, the verbal abusers, and those who actively promulgate a social pecking order -- who don't even seem to think of themselves as criminals. Think about it. Wouldn't you share time with a killer before you exposed yourself to the company of those other thugs? These are only meant to be my own feelings impressions. Only God knows the truth. I also realize that if a killer takes out a sinner before the latter comes to God for salvation that that could ultimately be unimaginably horrible; but it's probably not the intention of the killer.

I am in a loud environment that is not of my own making. I need to get back to my own environment. Now, my sister can have the house for now. What I need is a simple, cheap foundation beneath a cob box for me to sleep in. TV sucks because it's loud and it dominates the environment.