Guilt by association

Breaking news: Barack Obama has a supporter who drank beer mixed with lemonade back when she was a college kid, and debated the possibility that violent methods might be necessary and justifiable to end a war and provoke positive societal change. We discussed major issues of the day from every conceivable viewpoint because that was the purpose of higher education back in the Seventies. It is still the purpose of higher education, and don't forget it! True, we discussed it in unheated apartments while wearing goofy clothes and eating carob chips. We were young. There is a tendency, if not a statistical assertion, that college students change their minds and behaviors after graduation! I haven't knowingly eaten carob chips for a quarter century.

Our philosophy professor used to host "Large General Parties". He invited everyone interesting he knew, and they invited everyone interesting they knew. He filled his refrigerator with quart bottles of cheap beer and pitchers of lemonade. Everyone added lemonade to their paper cups of beer. At one of these parties a sociology professor showed a film about the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. It was probably the 1976 film, "Underground" about Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. None of the people at those large general parties became domestic terrorists. Nearly all of us got jobs, got married, had kids, and don't want to relive the Viet Nam Era. We mostly worked to improve our neighborhoods, our kids' schools, and the environment. We changed our minds sometimes, and had a tendency to stay informed about current events. We kept listening to philosophers while finding the most appropriate and practical way to live in the real world.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Adler Planetarium

There's always a point in the campaign debates where I just can't take it anymore. Tuesday it was the third time McCain referred to the Zeiss planetarium projector as an "overhead projector". Whether McCain can't discern the difference, or if he is that disingenuous with the American people, it's alarming and annoying. I wanted to Ralph Cramden him to the moon!

Saturday's workshop about teaching "stress-free" preschool might have been stretching the truth a bit, too. Teaching preschool has built-in stress. The presenter was terrific, and she used a real overhead projector with transparencies.

The Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago are some of my very favorite places. The Adler was the first planetarium in the western hemisphere. Every forty years or so, the projector that displays the stars on the dome wears out.

This is not the night sky. It's my rust-dyeing experiment. The rust results weren't dramatic, so I tie-dyed the ochre fabric with RIT black, then discharged the fabric with a mist spray of bleach. Think I'll dress as a black hole for Halloween.




© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Small Hadron Kitchen Collider

Recently received some granite counter-top samples from a remodeling friend who knows I'm incapable of throwing such stuff away. The granite squares have been surprisingly useful as teeny-tiny trivits, and particle colliders.



I gotta say that after a long day with preschoolers, it is very satisfying to smash a clove or two of garlic between cool, smooth, palm-sized blocks of stone. Haiiii-JYAH!!! Splat!



Saturday the CPR instructor explained that there is nothing to be done for a broken toe except to tape it to the next toe and hobble on about life. If you happen to be a karate student or even a black belt, don't whine to your wife about your broken toe. That only gets sympathy the first time. If your wife happens to be at home with three small children while you are off kicking and breaking boards with your foot for fun, you should probably send her a dozen roses and never ever mention your foot pain. Speaking from experience here...

We moved to Texas in 1990. The Superconducting Super Collider being built underground near Waxahachie was big news. I was vaguely concerned about a Big Bang occurring so close to my home, but the day-to-day realities of parenting three boys were more atom-smashing than particle physics.

The boys needed to get to school on time with their lunchboxes, homework, permission slips, and those darn fund-raising order forms each morning. They needed to have their clothes on right-side out, eat a healthy breakfast, and take their asthma/allergy medicines.

Getting to school on time is so important. If you are late you miss the announcements and instructions, and also the settling-down-to-learn part of the morning. This was brought home to me during a truly comic day in sixth grade.

At Eastridge Elementary my sixth grade classroom windows looked out toward "L" Street. Two of my classmates, Ron and Dave, lived across the street from the school. They liked to shoot hoops on the driveway as long as possible before crossing the street for school.

When the first school bell rang, many students entered the school and sat down at their desks. As usual, we looked out the window at Ron and Dave shooting baskets across the street. The second bell rang, meaning students better hustle so they won't be tardy. Ron and Dave were still playing basketball, but they were known for cutting it close.

The tardy bell rang. The school day began. The roll was taken along with the lunch count. The sixth graders should have been sharing "current events", but we were all too mesmerized by the suspenseful drama taking place outside the window.

• How long would Dave and Ron keep shooting baskets?
• Would Ron's mom come outside and yell at them?
• When would they realize that bell they heard was the tardy bell, not the first bell?
• How stupid would they look when the realization kicked in?
• How silly would they feel when they found we were all watching their personal blooper?

By now the entire fifth grade had figured it out too, and was staring out the window. Slowly, the awareness spread down the classrooms on the north side of the school to the fourth, third, and second graders. The awakening was everything we were hoping.

Suddenly dim lightbulbs flickered over the heads of the pair. Ron's mom appeared, hollering. Can you say "skedaddle" boys and girls??? Darryl and his other brother Darryl hitched up their overalls and came tearing across the street and into the school. They even bumped into each other while scrambling for their lunch boxes. Hinckley and Hadley were very, VERY tardy. The show was over.

It was a powerful, cinematic moment, right up there with "Gone With The Wind"-- like watching Harold Edgerton's strobe photography of a bullet hitting an apple--or seeing the Jellystone Ranger nab Yogi and Boo-Boo.

"Some think this Hadron project will create a black hole that will suck in the Earth." I read that in the "Points" section of Sunday's Dallas Morning News. A scientist who worked on both the Superconducting Super Collider project and the Large Hadron Collider answers:

It is not possible for the LHC to create a massive black hole. Massive black holes, which swallow everthing near them and are created by gravitational collapse, require enormous mass. Not even the sun's entire mass would be sufficient. Some theories speculate that the collisions at the LHC could produce miniature black holes. Even if they are produced, they will evaporate immediately. There is no possibility of gravitational collapse.

That's okay. There's no possibility of real science being heeded in a McCain-Palin administration, either. Just dress that moose, feed him a Pop-Tart and send him out to shoot baskets. The whole school is watching

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Ike warnings

Perhaps it is fortuitous that we are waiting this weekend to see what an Ike will bring. "Ike" should call to mind a warning this election year. A hurricane named "Ike" can remind us that much of tv weathercasting is hype designed to get all of us a tad hysterical. An earlier Ike warning would alert us to look behind the facades and sound bites of both campaigns to examine their real strategies for the serious problems we are facing in our families, communities, nation, and world.

I'm insulted that the campaigns have regressed to pigs and pitbulls, with or without cosmetic products. It's like being trapped in a high school pep rally watching cheerleader skits and the chanting adoration of the jocks. Could we please, as individuals and as a nation, grow up?

The earlier Ike warned us that "only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing" of government and business interests for the security, peace, liberty, and democratic process to flourish. President Eisenhower was speaking about the dangerous influence of the military-industrial complex at his farewell address in January of 1961, but his warning applies to every aspect of our national life today.

The real "change" that must come about in this election is not a buzzword, but an electorate demanding more from it's politicians than it does from the grocery check-out aisle magazines. We must show that we can understand ideas, ask difficult questions, and recognize the difference between a "reality show" and reality. We must show our understanding that we as a nation are playing for keeps.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Hockey mom

She's smart, over-worked, over-extended, sarcastic, and from a small, chilly town. Her kids offer challenges to her best parenting techniques, test her patience, push the limits, have special needs, and pull at her heartstrings. She makes great loose-meat sandwiches. But does that really qualify Roseanne Conner to be the vice president of the United States?


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Sarkozy envy

There are many reasons why John McCain picked the young former beauty queen governor of Alaska to be his running mate. My theory is that the presumptive GOP nominee didn't want to be bested by that Frenchee Nicolas Sarkozy on "Dancing with the Stars". Cyd, Leslie, Adele, Gwen, and Ginger weren't available.

Tonight I'm wishing Ann Richards was still around just to hear her dancing convention thoughts: Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels. I think Ann would be reminding us look past the purdy smiles, tap shoes, and cummerbunds to figure out which candidates can go past dancing up the walls of the box to thinking outside it.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

1968

Two words on the radio news hit me--Recreate 68. Why would I want to recreate the scariest year I can remember?

Becoming a teenager is a universal acne festival of junior high anxiety. Ask around. If you can find a person who would like to relive being thirteen years old, I'll be amazed. Most people I know believe Hell, if there is one, is being trapped in junior high for all eternity.

Becoming a teenager in 1968 compounded the personal angst and turmoil with a sense that the world was also going straight to Hell. Do not pass Go with your handbasket. Do not collect $200. Only Walter Cronkite kept the whole world from total conflagration.

• From January 1968 on each evening's CBS news about the Tet Offensive was bad.
• In March the appearance of segregationists presidential candidate George Wallace led to rioting in Omaha.
• Three weeks before I turned thirteen, Martin Luther King was assassinated.
• Five weeks after my birthday, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
• Another two months, and Soviet tanks were rolling into Prague.
• Then the next week protests and rioting began at the Chicago Democratic Convention.

The Omaha riots brought racial tension closer to my little world than ever before. When an Omaha Central High School basket ballplayer was arrested just three days before the 1968 state tournament for suspected possession of gasoline bombs, the Nebraska School Activities Association moved the Class A tournament from Omaha to Lincoln. The tournament has remained in Lincoln for forty years. I'm endebted to Prairie Bluestem for the citation confirming my hazy memories of that time.

1968--I hadn't figured out the secret of life. I could barely manage the combination for my hall locker at Millard Lefler Junior High. The whole thing was going up in shattered glass and smoke.

I began attending the youth group supper meetings at my church in the late winter of 1968. In fact, I learned about Martin Luther King's murder from the church custodian who chatted as he mopped the foyer before one of those suppers. Waiting with me was Phoebe. She befriended me, and showed me the routine for the group meetings, for which my shy and nerdy self was grateful. I'd never met anyone like Phoebe. She was different, but nice.

The other church group kids soon informed me that Phoebe was a "feeb," and a "retard," and taught me to shun her. Guilt for my rejection of Phoebe mixed with my desperate need for peer acceptance to amp up my anxiety. In the forty years since, I pray we have all become more tolerant and compassionate, and slower to use insulting labels.

From a different viewpoint, one might understand 1968 as a year full of hope, promise, change, and empowerment. At thirteen I didn't understand the hippies in San Francisco any more than the Soviet tanks in Prague or Mayor Daley's Chicago. I didn't fit in with the youth group kids who could play "Sunshine of Your Love" on the church organ after choir practice.

What of the "Recreate 68" on the radio news? From the Recreate 68 coalition's website:

The 1960s were a time of profound, positives [sic] social and political change in this country. The civil rights movement ended legal segregation and broke down barriers to the full participation of African Americans in American life (still yet to be fully achieved). Other movements followed that achieved the same for women and for other oppressed communities of color. That in 2008 the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for President are an African American man and a woman¬something unimaginable at the start of the 60s¬is a direct result of the changes brought about in that decade.

Those changes were eventually codified in law. But they were brought about not by political “leaders,” but by mass movements of people who demanded that America live up to its own democratic rhetoric, by grassroots movements that forced the system to respond to their demands, and opened up new political space for ordinary people to participate in the decisions that affected their lives.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Back to school--Voter registration!

My sons all have new addresses this fall. They need to make sure they have re-registered to vote long before the November presidential election. So many things to remember when you relocate, guys, but this is very important!

All public libraries are required to have voter registration forms available. If you want to vote in your home community instead of your campus community, you'll need to investigate absentee voting procedures. These differ in each state. Advance preparations are required.

Your mom knows you have certain procrastination tendencies. Please don't delay, as states have different deadlines for registering. November gets here faster than we can imagine. Check out the appropriate website for more information.

Ohio

New Mexico

Chicago

All Fifty States

You may need to attach copies of identification documents with your application that show your current address. The first time you vote you'll have to show specific forms of identification at your polling place on Election Day. Forms of ID for might be a current, valid photo ID, a current utility bill, bank statement, government check or document, or paycheck that shows both your name and address. Filling out a post office change of address form is a good start. Even better, please directly inform your bank and other entities of your new address.

Postal Service online Change of Address

It would be really nice if you gave your mom a call or email letting her know you've taken care of registering to vote. She'll be really pleased.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Nibbling away the plus signs that make up a dull day

The classroom rabbit appeared in a dream eating all the green plus and equal signs the students use for addition manipulatives. It was an extremely vivid dream, to the point that I believed it really happened, and checked the math center the next day. Norton nibbles on the occasional shoe or pant leg, but addition isn't really his cup of tea.

Like many of Phil Gramm's whiners, I feel like the plus signs have been eaten in my household budget, and the equal signs are showing tooth marks. My Albertson's is selling the store brand of milk for $4.99/gallon. I won't carry on, as you can probably sing along with different words to the same song.

Time Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run,
you missed the starting gun.

Pink Floyd (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Peeps on a raft, a bus, or light rail

It isn't polite to eavesdrop, but there we all are riding mass transit to save gas money, and Peeps all around us are conducting their lives very loudly by cellphone. Last week I rode the train home from work with a rowdy group discussing their court-appointed lawyers, their Peeps, and their parties.

Sure, they weren't really talking about marshmallow Easter chick treats, but it did give me some funny images of Peeps in court, on the witness stand, in the jury box, and rising for objections. I even imagined a black-robed Supreme Peep Court.

Next train ride, I start imagining all the passengers as marshmallow chicks. I was trying hard not to appear too interested as the lady Peeps ahead of me told a series of escalating stories on the theme of husbands who lose stuff. The best story by far involved a husband losing his set of car keys when they were moving out of their house. The husband and wife Peeps searched everywhere in the house and yard, but to no avail. Six months later the new owners of the house found the car keys under the bin that catches the automatic ice-maker cubes in the freezer.

Excuse me, Peeps, but aren't you supposed to defrost and turn off the ice-maker when you move out? I'm probably crazy, but I don't think I could use the ice cubes automatically made during the tenure of the previous owner, except on a sprained ankle. Still, it's a new location to search for lost items.

When the next President is sworn in, don't you think the White House refrigerator/freezer should start fresh with an empty and clean ice-cube catcher? It would be a good time to replace the baking soda box for odor control, too! The next Prez should have Peeps who can see to this.

Rode the bus one morning with an agitated man cussing out someone for not having his Cadillac repaired and returned to him. I got the feeling the negligent person was a relative or in-law. I loved this line; "Do you think I go to work at 10:30 P.M., and fix Greyhounds all night so I can RIDE A *#@*%">* BUS HOME???!!!" This man really needs some Peep to return his personal vehicle in working order. He might need some soothing pink Peepto Bismal for his indigestion.

Peeps On a Raft is a microwave adventure celebrated annually at my former place of employment. Much like making Smores without the campfire, Peeps On a Raft requires graham crackers, Hershey bars, and marshmallow chicks. When you nuke a Peep sitting atop a cracker-and-Hersheys raft on the revolving surface of the microwave oven, the marshmallow chick expands and twirls in a most entertaining way, much like an orating Presidential candidate--or two.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Country pickin' fingers

Don't park your double-wide in the Rose Garden, Bill. You weren't a horrible President, especially compared with Dubya. Nothing you and Monica did under the desk was any worse than what millions of good old boys and girls do in offices, Ford F-150s, and tacky motels every day. I just don't want another Tag Team Clinton mud-wrestling administration.

Should Hillary become the Democratic nominee by some weird twist of soap operatic amnesia fate, I will root for her greased pig in the 4-H grandstand against McCain's Hundred Years' War hog. But even then, Bill, please don't set your trailer up on cement blocks out there by that reflector pool!

I'll fix your flat tire Merle
Don't ya get your sweet country pickin' fingers all covered with erl
Cause you're a honky, I know, but Merle you got soul
And I'll fix your flat tire Merle

So, Bill, just set your Lazy Boy recliner out there on the lawn of your library and amp up the Pure Prairie League song. Leave the busted out washing machine on the porch. Don't make me cross state lines to explain it any clearer!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Flies in the worm bin, what'll I do?

Flies in the worm bin, what'll I do?
Flies in the worm bin, what'll I do?
Skip to my Lou my darlin'!


It's really just a few very small flying insects with hard-shell brown bodies, so I don't know if it's going to be a problem. Tiny white specks are appearing on the walls of the bin, and again, I haven't a clue.

Specks in the worm bin, haven't a clue
Specks in the worm bin, haven't a clue
Specks in the worm bin, haven't a clue
Skip to my Lou my darlin'!

The worms have stopped congregating in the high-rise handles of the worm bin, even on weekends. That several of them were forced to resign from public office because of those elite encounters has been much in the press. It's a bit too personal for me to discuss the whole "stand by your worm" phenomenon.

Now worms are opting for a more populist hoedown sort of elbow-swinging social life, clearly courting the evangelical vote:

Deep in the worm bin, what do they do?
Deep in the worm bin, what do they do?
Deep in the worm bin, what do they do?
Skip to my Lou my darlin'!

Yes, the worms are participating in the very old tradition of the American play party. "Skip to My Lou" is a play party song:

What did young people do for diversion and socialization in communities that banned most dancing and considered the fiddle to be the devil's instrument? The American play party was the fundamentalist's answer. Here the singing was a cappella, the dancers followed prescribed steps, and arm and elbow swings would be the only touching.

Little students are singing "Skip to My Lou" as they rehearse for their spring music festival of American folk songs. Play parties died out in the 1950s, but the tradition lives on in children's folk songs. I haven't found a copy of Waltz the Hall: The American Play Party, by Alan L. Spurgeon. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. ISBN1-57806-742-1, but I have put it on the worms' wish list!

Skip a little further, this will never do. We still have to consider the state of baby names. The popularity list for 2007 is a bit less scary than most years, except for the Simple Simon Metapimen rhymin' boys' names--Aiden, Caden, Braden, Jayden--soon to be followed by Afraiden, Maiden, Trade-in, and eBaydon. If your suggestion sounds like an ad campaign starring Keano Reeves for the tuxedo-rental store in that decaying shopping mall in your built-out suburb, maybe you should let your spouse choose the baby's name.

Boys' names
1. Aiden
2. Ethan
3. Jacob
4. Jayden
5. Caden
6. Noah
7. Jackson
8. Jack
9. Logan
10. Matthew
11. Ryan
12. Nicholas
13. Michael
14. Connor
15. Brayden
16. Dylan
17. Caleb
18. Joshua
19. Andrew
20. Tyler

(I've taught boys named all except Jayden and Caden. Aiden, Caden, Jayden, and Brayden will drive art teachers to an early grave with potential alternate spellings to write in the upper left-hand corner of students' artwork!)

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Grocery do-overs and makeovers

I live in a hotly-contested battleground state for grocery store wars. Why Hillary and Barack didn't stake out positions in the fresh produce or international cheese displays to shake hands, give out tasty samples, and dispense buzzwords about a greener economy mystifies me. Why has neither candidate addressed the inconvenient obstacles impeding use of canvas totebags instead of plastic store bags in the self-check lanes?

My medium-size Albertsons is in the midst of a makeover. The aisles are widening, and the shelves are getting shorter. The effect is more airy and inviting than when I personally get shorter and wider. Kitty litter is losing display space to Australian wines. I like my smaller store, and appreciate not needing hiking boots as I do in the enormous natural/foodie/gourmet Central Market and Whole Foods stores. Plus, it's right on my way home from work. I [used to] know where everything is, so even a major buy is a fifteen minute experience.

My nearest Kroger just finished a designer restyling to entice more natural/foodie/gourmet shoppers. I'm a simple person. My idea of a grocery store perk is watching the mist machines in the fresh produce department while pretending I'm in the rainforest. A trip to Kroger takes a minimum of forty minutes.

I don't know why Michigan and Florida need to have primary do-overs. "Do-over" is such a playground word! Concentrating on the explanation gives me a headache. I need to put my head under the rainforest mist machine, along with all the other cabbage heads.

As a person living alone most of the time, a head of red cabbage is a long-term investment. I've made endless salads for my school lunches with purple color accents. Cooked pork and cabbage in the wok twice. Made a veggie crockpot soup. Enjoyed polska keilbasa with cabbage and caraway seeds. Took a lovely cobalt violet leaf for the class rabbit to nibble almost every day while pondering how to paint it.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Caucus disgust #1

When I am in charge of the world, you will have to vote in your own party's primary. I guess I'll let registered Independents choose which primary ballot to vote.

Every four years the governors of the fifty states, the territories, and the D of C will do one-potato-two-potato for the chance to draw a date out of a hat for that state's primary election. Caucuses will not be allowed. I believe I'll have the current president do the one-potatoing-two-potatoing, and I think it should be televised. It would be at least as exciting to watch as those professional sports drafts.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Hill and Bill and the heavies

Not a good weekend here at the old homestead. Woke up Saturday, and spent the next seven hours in an intestinal nightmare. Then I shivered and napped for another eight hours except for three calls from the Clinton campaign. Ate a baked potato. Slept another eight hours. Woke up Sunday with a calm stomach, but weak knees, sore abdomen, and pinchy twinges in my back, not to mention three more calls from the Clinton campaign. Ate another baked potato.

I believe strongly in the healing power of a baked potato for most of what ails me. Wish I believed as strongly in any candidate for public office. I was beginning to believe Hillary had called down a curse upon me after I cast my early ballot after the luncheon Friday afternoon. My brain was set on High Foggy all Saturday. Everything seemed like a bad community playhouse production of the Wizard of Oz. That Yellow Brick Road is just your intestine, Mama, and dang if those flying monkeys didn't get inside it!

Turned out six of the seven school staff members at our annual luncheon Friday had the same churning gut weekend. I'm not sure if they voted, but I bet Hillary and Bill kept their phone ringing. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It's just Bill [and his little dog Toto]. And please pass the soothing pink Pepto Bismal.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Neapolitan Sky

This evening's storm was short, but a doozy. The electricity went off twice, so the LEDs are blinking their irritation. Walked outside afterward. The sky to the north above the Walgreens store's red neon glowed as a dessert delight. A little bit neapolitan ice cream, a big blast of patriotic bomb pop, and a just-washed fresh fruit parfait, completely harmonious, but each competing for the spotlight. If I were the slightest bit meteorological, I'd say that the ions were tingling.

Just above the Walgreen's the sky was a cut glass trifle bowl of homestyle vanilla ice cream scoops just the teensiest bit melty. The next layer was a thin band sometimes watermelon pink, but changing to raspberry sorbet the next glance in my rearview mirror. On top was the widest band of tingling velvet blue frosted with lavendar like a close-up photo of a blueberry, or a lush, gorgeous, itchy mohair sweater designed by Mark Rothko.

Here in Dallas, we are really tired of television weather personalities talking about "upper level lows". To separate the problems, I'm tired of the weather allegedly produced by "upper level lows", and I'm sick of weather personalities on television news programs. The weather segment of the news keeps expanding to fill in for the absence of actual news reporting. Now we have to hear about "dry lines" and be broadcast live from somebody's backyard picnic.

Top Ten List of what I want from my local weather report:

10. An honest family guy writing with chalk on a blackboard map who can pronounce city and county names correctly. Bowtie optional
9. One brief report of somewhere in the world having a hideous weather calamity so I can say, "Thank heavens I don't live in _________."
8. That the phrase, "ask your doctor if _______ is right for you," doesn't arrive in any of the sponsoring commercials.
7. A Doppler radar map in purdy colors.
6. An air quality/allergy/ozone report summarized as "Don't inhale."
5. Rainfall total for the month
4. Expected overnight low temp
3. The current temperature
2. Do I need to take cover for the approaching tornado right now?
1. Will it be a school snow day in the morning?

I became a cloud watcher in the summer of 1973 at Ten Mile Lake near Hackensack, Minnesota. After my first airplane flight I spent a couple extremely rainy weeks at a friend's cabin on the lake. The days of rains chained together, braided with the Senate Watergate hearings and Johnny Miller's win at the U.S. Open on the black and white tv screen.

Never mastered the names for the clouds, or any of the science. It's only as a painter that I'm interested. The painter, and the kid sitting in the grass eating a ten cent bomb pop.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Privacy matters

Way back in my childhood, right after the dinosaurs died out, there was a Nebraska elected official who had his office door taken off its hinges to symbolize openness in government. It might have been Norbert Tiemann, as I doubt it was Frank Morrison or James Exon. Growing up in a one-bathroom house, I didn't know much about privacy or political wheely-dealing behind closed doors. We had some basic rules for bathroom sharing:

1. Don't flush the toilet while someone is showering or they will be scalded.
2. Three squares of toilet paper is enough for all but the most extreme situations.
3. The red plastic drinking cup is for the person with strep throat only.
4. Grownups get really crabby when they have to use the plunger.
5. You darn well better learn to roll your hair on those big rollers with Dippity-Do fast enough so your whole family isn't lined up to use the bathroom. Otherwise, just plan to wear your hair short and straight your whole life.
5. If you shave your legs, you better clean the bathtub with Comet or burn in hellfire forever.
6. Cowboys of the Old West ate dried apricots to stay regular.
7. If a thermometer breaks, it's very fun to play with the beads of mercury on the linoleum tiles.
8. Thirty minutes of piano practice a day cures constipation.

There were also some arcane rules for operating the exhaust fan. It was okay to "play school" while sitting on the toilet, teaching imaginary students lined up on the edge of the bathtub. It was not a good idea to drop your pitch pipe in the toilet. It was not okay to crawl down through the laundry chute to the basement to spy on the grownup's New Years Eve party. You could eavesdrop through the clothes chute, just not crawl through.

These days, the bathroom is as open as that governor's office. We took the door off the hinges so Dad could maneuver his walker more efficiently. If you need a door removed, I know how. I am woman. Hear me roar. Hear me remove bathroom doors. Helen Reddy's playing with mercury on the floor.

In Utah in '78 I had to use a gas station restroom that had no door. We were on our way to Canyonlands National Park. At Dad's house, everyday is a doorless trip to Canyonlands. Please don't flush when I'm in the shower.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Flying Non-Stop

Thank heaven our Governor GoodHair has finally simplified all the air travel issues plaguing us in North Texas. Governor Rick Perry sat next to San Antonio megachurch evangelist preacher, Reverend John Hagee, on a red-carpet red-state stage on the Sunday before Election Day. "If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket," Mr. Hagee said during a service interspersed with religious and patriotic videos. Perry said afterwards he didn't hear anything he would take exception to.

It's unclear if the Governor sat at the left hand or the right hand of the inerrant Rev. Hagee. It's also unclear if those of us going to hell in a handbasket can use the overhead carry-on bins, or have to check our luggage. Yes, I know, you can't take it with you, but the luggage restrictions for the unbaptized and unsaved are as blurry as the fine print on the repeal of the Wright Amendment! Here we got all excited about flying out of Love Field on Southwest Airlines with one-stop ticketing. Now we don't even get to wander the halls of the purgatory motel looking for the ice machine to fill up our plastic bucket.

What will be the color-coded terrorist threat level for passengers winding their way through the maze of ropes at the security checks at DFW Airport? Seems like folks destined to burn in hell forever should get to take moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, aloe vera lotion, chapstick, and lots of bottled water. Will seating be Southwest Airline cattle-call style or assigned?

Whenever I think of Texas Governor Rick Perry, weighty issues like salvation, border patrol, or school accountability are not on my mind. Instead I ponder his hair and wonder if it is fake anything or real Dynel.

Dy·nel (dī-nĕl') is a registered trademark product from Union Carbide, a copolymer of vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile employed in making fire-resistant, insect-resistant, easily dyed textile fiber. The Dynel advertising slogan ("It's not fake anything. It's real Dynel") is just one of the memorable slogans created by Jane Trahey in the 1960's. Ms. Trahey was best known for Blackglama's "What Becomes a Legend Most?" campaign, and for Danskin Inc.'s "Danskins Are Not Just for Dancing."


With the travel destination and mode determined, it is alway wise for the tourist to pick up a phrase book of the local idioms:

Hell

O.E. hel, helle "nether world, abode of the dead, infernal regions," from P.Gmc. *khaljo (cf. O.Fris. helle, O.N. hel, Ger. Hölle, Goth. halja "hell") "the underworld," lit. "concealed place," from PIE *kel- "to cover, conceal, save" (see cell). The Eng. word may be in part from O.N. Hel (from P.Gmc. *khalija "one who covers up or hides something"), in Norse mythology Loki's daughter, who rules over the evil dead in Niflheim, the lowest of all worlds (nifl "mist"), a death aspect of the three-fold goddess. Transfer of a pagan concept and word to a Christian idiom, used in the K.J.V. for O.T. Heb. Sheol, N.T. Gk. Hades, Gehenna. Used figuratively for "any bad experience" since at least 1374. As an expression of disgust, etc., first recorded 1678. Hell-bent is from 1835. Hell-raiser is from 1914 (to raise hell is from 1896); hellacious is 1930s college slang. Expression Hell in a handbasket is c.1941, perhaps a revision of earlier heaven in a handbasket (c.1913), with a sense of "easy passage" to whichever destination. Expression hell of a _____ is attested from 1776. Hell or high water is apparently a variation of between the devil and the deep blue sea. To wish someone would go to hell is in Shakespeare (1596). Snowball's chance in hell "no chance" is from 1931; till hell freezes over "never" is from 1919. To ride hell for leather is from 1889, originally with reference to riding on horseback. Hell on wheels is from 1843. Online Etymology Dictionary

Monday's vocabulary homework

Today's words are:

bay
futon
rut

The children are frustrated and chewing their #2 pencils. Eraser shreds cling to the stomachs and sleeves of their shirts. The kids are learning to use the guide words in the dictionary to locate their vocabulary word. They copy the definition and use the word in a sentence, of course. We've all been there. We've all lived through it. Some of us perfected our penmanship enough so picky and prickly old maid schoolmarms* could see we wrote bay and not buy. It would be pretty surreal to be stuck in a rut buying futons, like a bad discount furniture store version of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. The Curse of the Evil Dinette Sets, with wolves baying at the moon...

Rut was giving one boy trouble. Monday before last, the two of us danced around the silent e rule when he insisted that rap was pronounced rape. Yikes. He copied the definition of rut today, but didn't understand the meaning well enough to use the word in a sentence. I wasn't getting anywhere talking about grooves in roads, so I switched to soccer field damage when games are played in the mud. (I was really thankful he didn't read the next definition of rut about the cyclically recurring condition of sexual excitement and reproductive activity in male mammals, such as deer.)

The boy told me his soccer team was playing the Hawks tonight. His team, the Raptors, must defend against this "hard-charging team". I asked him if he knew that hawks are raptors. Well, of course not. To him "Raptors" are those velociraptor dinosaurs menacing around the kitchen in Jurassic Park. I didn't even mention F-22 Raptor fighter planes!


Another boy was struggling with the definition of "bay". Much as I wanted to, I did not say, "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." Two of my favorite hobbies are watching hawks and using the dictionary. How wonderful it would be to transmit some of that joy to a new generation! I wish I could give each child a sprinkling of dictionary fairy dust and the RDA of vitamin silent E!

*So are campaign managers spinsters?

Pen Pals

Got a letter from Al Gore in the mail today. It didn't include an autographed 8x10 glossy from "An Inconvenient Truth".

Al wanted me to send money to the Democratic National Committee to gird up its loins and rattle its sabres against an "Administration that has abused its power and shown breathtaking disrespect for the law."

I hearby send Al a backatcha notice that the Democratic Party can't do the job. The best it can do is pathetic cariacature of a Ghost Dance from the 1890's Sioux. No amount of warpaint and feathers on Hillary will change that.

Dear Al,

You need someone with a vision. Someone with a plan. Someone who can tell lobbyists to put their bribes where the sun don't shine. You need to read yesterday's op-ed by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN in the New York Times, "Seeds for a Geo-Green Party":

The recent focus of the Republican-led Congress on divisive diversions, like gay marriage and flag burning, coupled with the unveiling of Unity '08, an Internet-based third party that plans to select its presidential candidate through online voting, has intensified the chatter that a third party, and maybe even a fourth, will emerge in the 2008 election.

Up to now, though, most of that talk has been about how a third party might galvanize voters, using the Web, rather than what it would actually galvanize them to do. I'd like to toss out an idea in the hopes that some enterprising politician or group of citizens — or Unity '08 — will develop it. It's the concept I call "Geo-Green."

What might a Geo-Green third party platform look like? Its centerpiece would be a $1 a gallon gasoline tax, called "The Patriot Tax," which would be phased in over a year. People earning less than $50,000 a year, and those with unusual driving needs, would get a reduction on their payroll taxes as an offset.

The billions of dollars raised by the Patriot Tax would go first to shore up Social Security, second to subsidize clean mass transit in and between every major American city, third to reduce the deficit, and fourth to massively increase energy research by the National Science Foundation and the Energy and Defense Departments' research arms.

Most important, though, the Patriot Tax would increase the price of gasoline to a level that would ensure that many of the most promising alternatives — ethanol, biodiesel, coal gasification, solar energy, nuclear energy and wind — would all be economically competitive with oil and thereby reduce both our dependence on crude and our emissions of greenhouse gases.

In short: the Geo-Green party could claim that it has a plan for shoring up America's energy security, environmental security, economic security and Social Security with one move.
It could also claim that — however the Iraq war ends — the Geo-Green party has a strategy for advancing political and economic reform in the Arab-Muslim world, without another war. By stimulating all these alternatives to oil, we would gradually bring down the price, possibly as low as $25 to $30 a barrel. That, better than anything else, would force regimes like those in Iran, Sudan, Egypt, Angola, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to open up. Countries don't reform when you tell them they should. They reform when they tell themselves they must — and only when the price of oil goes down will they tell themselves they must.

Moreover, by making America the leader in promoting clean power, the Geo-Greens would be offering a credible plan for recouping a lot of America's lost prestige in the world — prestige it lost when the Bush team trashed Kyoto. This would put America in a much better position to galvanize allies to combat jihadism.

Last, Geo-Greenism could be the foundation of a new American patriotism and educational renaissance. Under the banner "Green is the New Red, White and Blue," the Geo-Green party would seek to inspire young Americans to study math, science and engineering to help make America not only energy independent but also the dominant player in what will be the dominant industry of the 21st century: clean power and green technology.

Frankly, I wish we did not need a third party. I wish the Democrats would adopt a Geo-Green agenda as their own. (Republicans never would.) But if not, I hope it will become the soul of a third party.

Historically, third parties arise in America when they seize a neglected issue and demonstrate that there is a real constituency for it," said Micah Sifry, author of "Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America." "They win by forcing that issue into the mainstream — even if the party itself is later forgotten. Conditions certainly seem ripe for such a third-party bid today."
But rather than artificially splitting the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, Mr. Sifry added, "a successful third party has to get in front of both — with an agenda that inspires hope and with leadership that inspires trust. Fear of a dark future isn't the best motivator; hope for a better one is."

That's Geo-Greenism. To be sure, Geo-Greenism is not a complete philosophy on par with liberalism or conservatism. But it can be paired with either of them to make them more relevant to the biggest challenges of our time. Even if Geo-Greenism couldn't attract enough voters to win an election, it might attract a big enough following to frighten both Democrats and Republicans into finally doing the right things.

Al! You movie star hunk-o-burning, burning, melting-Greenland-ice! Al, baby! Get real, kiss Tipper, and dive decisively off the Democratic raft. It's time to steer a new ship!