I still miss "Seinfeld"!

Via: Online Schools

We are a family that still quotes lines from "Seinfeld."   Not sure what that says about our family.

An inexpensive Valentine's Day gift

I know, I know.  We just had Christmas.  But, like it or not, Valentine's Day is just under a month away.  It's never too early to begin thinking about it.  Of course, the people that need to be thinking about it are those people from Mars who will wait until the last minute. Still.

This year try something a little different.  Give a gift of rainbows. A prism can make a big splash.  Really.  Prettily wrapped in a small box and given with all the tenderness of a piece of jewelry, you could add a loving handwritten note telling your loved one that you always want her or him to have rainbows.  And all you need to add is sunshine.

Take a look at my page on Videojug:

A gift that says wow!

Scissors-And-Paste

I have a calendar by Jeffery Kacirk called "Forgotten English."   I really enjoy it because there is a new "forgotten" word everyday.  For instance, today's word is "assishness."  Actually I think I have used this word in the 21st century, in fact just last night.

My example:  The report on Oklahoma City's Channel 9 last night stating that the recent mass shooting in Tucson could increase gun sales reflects the fact that a large segment of our society has reached a new level of assishness.   Assishness was originally found in a 1611 book by John Florio and also sir James Murray's New English Dictionary published in 1888.  It means stupidity or blockishness.

But, once again, I've gone off topic.  Yesterday's word is the one I wish to focus on.  The word(s) is(are) "scissors-and-paste."  In 1769 the Reverend James Granger published the Biographical History of England.  The book had blank areas which readers could add pictures and text of their own, making this book to be one of the first interactive examples of media.  Apparently the practice became so widespread that by 1889, the New York Tribune began printing pictures of celebrities separately with blank pages on the back so that the "Grangerites" could use them without cutting up readable print.

Of course, I  had to Google the Reverend James Granger and found a whole web site devoted to him.  He was an avid print collector and an Anglican vicar of Shiplake, near Oxford, England.  He is considered to be the spiritual father of present day historical picture libraries.

We carry on Grangerism in our own ways today by scrapbooking.  Another more advanced application and perhaps truer to Grangerism is the crafting of altered books.  This video below is one I found on YouTube and it is an excellent example of an altered book and what an altered book is.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that "scissors-and-paste" has carried over into our computer age with "cut-and-paste."  The more things change the more things stay the same.

Just when I think I've seen everything - Red Neck Bank

In today's Oklahoman on the front page of the business section was an article about Red Neck Bank. Red Neck Bank is an Internet subsidiary of Bank of the Wichitas.  The Bank of the Wichitas is a familiar site in this part of our flyover state.  It's owned by the Huckaby family and headquartered in Snyder, Oklahoma.  Snyder is west of us in Kiowa County.  The article said that Red Neck Bank has customers in all fifty states.

The bank's pull is its humor, and yes, the main page on its site is funny.  To log in, you click on an outhouse and there is a gigantic mule on the page.  Click on the mule's mouth and it whinnies.  The page is interactive with sound.  Hee-haw!  Oh, and the on-line bank's motto?  "Where bankin's funner."

And where does Oklahoma rank in funding per student in education?  49th.  Surprised?  I'm not because I live in a state where "bankin's funner."

Yes, we could have no bananas!

Mike Peed has an interesting eye-opening article in the January 10, 2011 The New Yorker about a blight that is affecting our beloved bananas.  I didn't know this until I read his article but all of us who buy bananas at the grocery store in the United States are eating one kind of banana: the Cavendish; in 2008 we Americans ate 7.6 billion pounds of them.  (And I have to say I never really thought about what type of banana I was eating until today.  So shame on me.  I linger over the apples though -- should I try Gala or Fuji or possibly Winesap -- but I just grab a bunch of bananas and off I go.)


The article opens with the author visiting Robert Borsato, a fruit farmer in the Northern Territory of Australia.  In the late 1990s Mr. Borsato thought Humpty Doo looked like an excellent place to grow bananas.  And as I write this post, I checked Darwin's  weather report for today and see that they are under a flood warning.  (Oh, Australia, I hope you don't wash away.)

Borsato's banana crops began suffering long before the widespread flooding of 2011, however.  His Cavendish crop was being decimated by a soil-borne fungus called Tropical Race Four.  This fungus goes around the world wiping out the Cavendishes.  Scientists believe that it is only a matter of time before Tropical Race Four fungus will make it to our hemisphere.

If can get your hands on a copy of that New Yorker, I urge you to read the article.  We take the banana for granted.  It's our go to food for toddlers, a handy in-between meals snack, a great source of potassium and other nutrients.  We slice bananas and put them on our cereals, blend them into smoothies, even dip them into chocolate.

What would we do without that familiar fruit that, held just right, looks like it's smiling at us?

I have posted a recipe for a delicious dish of  bananas and quinoa on Videojug.

Link: Bananas and Quinoa for Breakfast

End Gun Violence and Violent Rhetoric

I refer you to my previous posting: The only reason a gun exists is to kill.

And I encourage you to visit this web site, The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and, if not become a member, at least read the information.

I believe in freedom of speech.  I love words.  But as a society we must start doing a better job of choosing words to express what we feel.  Tone down the violent talk. 

Keep in mind that media commentators are being paid to do what they do.  I once knew a radio personality who told me that  he easily could do any radio show -- religious, right wing, left wing  -- if he was paid enough.  This admission was an eye opener for me.  Take everything with a grain of salt.  Read widely, listen to various reports from different sectors of our society.

Pay attention to the sponsors of the different shows that you watch and listen to.  The money is coming from the sponsors for these people to be on air.

Remember, as a commentator is whipping you  into a frenzy, that he or she is sitting  in a studio or perhaps a room at their home while broadcasting.  As soon as that camera stops running, he or she will go grab a bite to eat, run errands, play golf, take a trip, visit a friend . . ..  These people are regular human beings just like you. 

The only difference is that they have your ear for 30 minutes or an hour.  Take that into consideration.  These people are no more intelligent than you are.  Don't let them whip you into a frenzy.  Think about what is being said.  Consider it.  Study it.  You will realize that most of their words are hot air spoken to fill space between the commercials.

The delivery of our information through various media becomes more intimate every day.  Be wary of this for it is a false intimacy. 

Commentators and hosts of shows get paid to do what they do and the American people are falling for it.  Shame on all of us.

Encourage your children to linger longer at the sink.

The holiday season  is over and now 'tis the Big Time Party Season for the germs.  During November and December, families traveled to visit cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends . . . and now everyone is back to their routines of school and work.  And colds and other viruses are on the move.  (Hopefully, everyone has had their flu and pneumonia vaccinations and  young children are up to date on their vaccinations.)

We all know we need to wash our hands more often.  In cold weather, that prospect isn't very appealing, but, still it needs to be done. 

At this link on Videojug I've posted ideas for encouraging your children to linger longer at the sink.

How to get your kids to wash their hands.

And, during this winter season, it's a good  idea to have hand lotion on hand to keep your and your little ones' hands moisturized.

Rainbow Trees

It's difficult to get through January, isn't it?  We should change January to "JustGetThroughIt."  A day with sunshine in January is truly a wonderful day.  It's on those days we should be ready with a rainbow tree so we can have rainbows dancing in our house.

Here's how you can have a rainbow tree:

A rainbow tree for your house.

Shooting in Tucson

Giffords shot in Tucson

I refer you to my recent posting:   The only reason a gun exists is to kill

I ask you.  Is this what we want for our country?  Everytime I think we cannot sink any lower, something happens to prove that, yes, indeed, we can.

We've become so immune to mass killings that this afternoon, while trying to find additional information about the Tucson shootings, I could only find something Telemundo.  It was sports as usual on all the other networks.

Chickasha Wal-Mart has Quinoa

Yea!!!  The Wal-Mart in Chickasha has started carrying quinoa grain.   It's on the same aisle as the rice. Now if Wal-Mart would only start carrying quinoa flour, I'd be in "Quinoa Heaven." I had been ordering it through Amazon, but it's nice to see that this super food has made it into the hinterlands and you know it's arrived, if you find it on an aisle at Wal-Mart!

If you haven't cooked with quinoa, you need to.  It's a great way to introduce a nutritious food into your diet. According to Claire Burnett and Laurie Scanlin, featured in Quinoa 365 by sisters Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming, quinoa was once regarded more valuable than gold by the indigenous peoples of the Andean Mountain regions of Peru and Bolivia.  Quinoa was so valuable to the people that when the Spanish came in the 1500s, they set out to destroy all the fields of quinoa in order to control the culture.  (Sound familiar re: the  United States and the Native Americans?)  But this isn't a political lament.

Quinoa is a complete protein and gluten-free.  Quinoa is rich in vitamins E, B2 and B6, folic acid, potassium, calcium, biotin, iron, copper, magnesium, manganese and chloride.  It's a food worth getting to know well.

Below is a link to my recipe for Quinoa Medley posted on Videojug.com.

Quinoa Medley

Jump start 2011 with a new food.  Try it, you'll like it!

The only reason a gun exists is to kill.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The second amendment to the United State Constitution was proposed September 25, 1789; it was ratified December 15, 1791.

These twenty-seven words continue to be misinterpreted into the 21st century.   I am alarmed by how many states are leaning toward and adopting carry weapon laws.  And, on  January 6, 2011, New Hampshire legislators were given the right to carry handguns onto New Hampshire's House floor . . . they just can't flash them.
(Now that's a mental picture!)

And,  here, in my part of Oklahoma, on a relatively quiet country road, we have a neighbor down the road that drives around looking for his dog with a revolver sitting on his passenger seat and another neighbor, during last year's ice storm, that walked around his front yard with a visible holstered revolver.  I don't feel any safer knowing these guys are carrying guns.  Instead, I find it alarming.

In 1780, the estimated colonial population of the United States was 2,780,400. (Source for colonial population.)

In 2010, the population of the United States was 308,745,538.  (Source: US population as of 2010)

When the second amendment was written, much of the North American continent was still unsettled. I'll not deny the rights of settlers to maintain weapons to kill for food supply and protection, but the second amendment clearly sets out that the right to keep and bear arms is for a well regulated Militia, not for the entire population to have guns. The United States is settled now and all of our states do have National Guards as well as state guards. 

Our founding fathers never envisioned over 308,745,538 of us, living in close quarters, running around with handguns or semi-automatic weapons. 

Forget those fictional "death panels" that have been bandied about by conservative pundits over the past year.  The United States already has a culture of death.  Everyone is afraid of everyone else and unfortunately we all have the right to keep and bear arms.

Passions run high and triggers are easy to pull. 

The only reason a gun exists is to kill.

Link to a cause I support:

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

A $6,000 Handbag

The January 3, 2011 The New Yorker has an interesting article "Just Have Less" by John Colapinto about designer Tomas Maier of Bottega Veneta.  The profile drew me in even though I am not and will never be in that class (yes, there are classes in this democracy known as the USA) of people that can afford (or desire) a $6,000 handbag.  I am fascinated, however, by the personalities of the people that create these products. (Martha Stewart has two of these bags, one in black and one in brown.  Think of that the next time you are watching her show and she's showing you how to make doodads out of things lying around the house.)

An anti-label man, Maier's $6,000 bag, the Cabat, is made with a northern Italian leather weaving technique known as intrecciato.  It sounds like an intricate and difficult craft.  Still, $6,000?

However, kudos to Tomas Maier for the following statement:  "At Botega, we pay our artisans in Vicenze properly, with benefits, and excellent working conditions."

Perhaps there would be more $6,000 bags if the USA didn't export its work to other countries where workers there are paid very minimally. 

What would the products we purchase at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, JC Penneys (yes, I'm of the class that  frequent those stores) . . . what would the products cost if we were to factor in a living, fair wage, with benefits, for the people who make these things for us?  It's something to think about.

And, as Maier pointed out, consumers in the USA ". . . have simply been trained to want too much stuff."

We buy lots of poorly made things.  We go for quantity over quality.  And, while $6,000 still seems like a very steep, outrageous price to pay for a handbag, I do understand Tomas Maier's logic.  Thank you, Mr. Colapinto, for an engaging article about an interesting man in a  puzzling industry.

Two places which I frequently visit that do pay fair wages and make wonderful clothing and accessories are:

Deva Lifewear and MarketPlace: Handwork of India

Reasonably priced clothing without the guilt of wondering if what you are wearing was made in a sweatshop.
Check them out!

Happy New Year!