The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Joy:

I've read about teaching a small child that cars are dangerous by putting a bag of sticks in the street and then letting the child see what happens to the sticks when they're run over.

Do people here who've had experience with children think it would work?

Not with children too young to make the association reliably. With older children, yes. Which is the group most likely to run out into the street, though?

20% for taxes
33% for taxes and healthcare--this is just me but "me" paying a family premium, not an individual one. Also it has been a particularly bad year for me as far as medical expenses in that my insurance coverage got a lot worse at the same time that my gall bladder did.

We pay a little over $600 a month for health and dental insurance for a family of 4. Employer subsidized. My employer recently switched us from HMO to high deductible plan without reducing the premium.

Child A developed eosinophilic esophagitis. Gastro and allergist visits, testing, medication, and other routine /unexpected medical needs (such as a sprained neck and injured shoulder) at the beginning of the year caused us to spend ~ $1000 out of pocket, much of which did not go toward our deductible (copays and prescription costs apparently don't count).

Husband needed a dental implant. The damage, after insurance paid, was over $800.

I recently had an infected gall bladder. Dr. visit (my primary care dr thought this needed a gastroenterologist, apparently), $30 copay, hospital bill, $11,000+ of which I get to pay $2,300+. I still have the surgery to remove said organ to go later this summer, my share of which will probably run another four figures.

Child A will need braces soon. I shudder.

And just think, I am lucky to have insurance in the good old US *sigh*

Speaking of weird cultural mishmashes, here in Maryland there is a pizza place that got bought out by an Indian carryout--both cusines comfortably housed now in the same restaurant, although the smell in the restaurant, while yummy, is confusing. Metro Dhaba and Il Forno pizzeria restaurant.

Re: library books not being a major source of infection. Given that most Americans read 1-2 books a YEAR, I wouldn't expect them to. I (like many here) read 100-300 books a year, many from the library. My husband has this idea that library books are crawling with germs. I think it's rare for a library book to be returned while a germ is still living on it--people may get out of a sickbed to go to work or vacation, but not go on a trip to the library.

So, seriously, what I'm wondering is how long these little germies will live on library books. Is leaving the book in the bookbag after checking them out for a day or two before reading them going to leave me with a safe book?

Since we are supposed to stock up on broth, jello, water, food, and tylenol...will no one think of the books?

The difference between a cold and the flu: I can function with a cold (though not necessarily *happily*); with the flu, I'm flat in bed for the week. The problem is for me that their prodromal stages are exactly alike and *exactly* the same as a mild allergy attack (sudden onset of lots of uncontrollable sneezing, plenty of energy) so I can inadvertently infect a lot of people well before I realize I'm ill if I'm not careful. It usually takes about 12 hours to progress to where I can tell if I have the flu.

I still can't always tell the difference between a cold and lingering allergy attack.

There was a local family here who had jimsonweed poisoning after a large extended family dinner. Apparently the jimsonweed invaded their mint garden and the older person who harvested the mint wasn't paying attention or was unable to tell the difference.

When a younger person at this big family dinner who didn't have the affected dish (a potato stew) noticed that almost everyone else including the older people were acting "like they were high on pot" thought something amiss and called 9-1-1. Everyone recovered in a few days, but they had to be hospitalized.

I've been trying to smack this one down on christianforums for some time. Usually it's done in the cowardly way where they say that Obama reminds them of the Nicolae character in the Left Behind books; when you call them on it, they say, "I didn't say he was the antichrist, I just said he reminded me of a character in a book." But the damage is done. A lot will also say they find him "scary" but I haven't been able to tell yet whether that is a euphemism for "I fear he is the antichrist" or "he's black."

By "its emergence" above I mean the emergence of a modern/critical/"liberal" approach to the text. Not the emergence of fundamentalism, as in Islam it's obviously already emerged.

Re: This type of movement doesn't wipe out fundamentalism. But it does make things more comfortable for the non-fundamentalists, and give them room to grow.

In Christianity, interestingly enough, fundamentalism emerged as the traditionalist's reaction to the liberal movement. Its emergence in Islam is likely to be as polarizing.

Serge @172 - it's Gur Znggre bs Oevgnva in a nutshell and goes by many titles, one of my favorite being Gur Bapr naq Shgher Xvat

I remember the Carter/Ford election in 1976 and all the bicentennial hoopla.

I remember, also, and more vaguely, something about an "energy crisis." It might have been in 1973.

I was born in 1970.

Well, now I know that the mystery potato casserole my sister-in-law made today is really Mormon Funeral Potatoes. Learn something new every time I read here.

Went to sister-in-law's house and she wanted to eat at 4. We were hungry so she put the food in early. About 5 minutes before food due out of the oven, the power went out. Our food was done enough but we smelled some of the neighbors firing up their grills. The power was still off when we left around 7 pm. It was out for the whole town. We all felt really bad for those who were planning to eat after 3.

On the other hand, the power outage gave us non-TV time to play the piano and sing (we got the Christmas carols out, because, hey! it's Thanksgiving! and apparently Santa Claus is in town because we did see that on the TV before the power went out) and do my 6-yo's weird "puppet show" about the first Thanksgiving (did you know the Pilgrims came to this country because the King of England told them to eat their raw food? And that the Mayflower was full of umbrellas? ... neither did I...

I generally won't drive in the snow unless the actual roads are clear, now that I have clearance to work at home on "snow days." Getting out of the parking space (especially after being plowed in) is usually a bigger challenge, especially if there has been significant enough icing to make a total clearing of the tires impossible. Last year spent about 2 hours assisting husband, neighbor, and own car out of parking spaces.

I have one of those little gadgets that allows you to charge up a cell phone with 2 AA batteries. The charge lasts about a day. A car charger never comes amiss, either--and you can use it when the power's out.

Living reasonably close to DC for 37 years, I've always operated under the assumption that a crisis will either be instantaneously fatal or merely annoying. So far so good, although after various panics over the years I have a small stash of stale stuff I've never touched.

I'm not entirely convinced that HCFS is more bad for you than any other kind of processed sugar that is loaded in large proportions into foods where you neither need nor expect it. Which is a badness in itself, but not the chemical evil from the dark lagoon.

I think "eat stuff that your ancestors would recognize as food" and that more plants, and more colorful plants at that, is a good rule of thumb for those without insulin disorders (since they need to be more careful). Of course in this day and age that often means cooking your own food which can be an enormous time-suck for a working parent.

How very, very sad. His work got me back into fantasy reading when I was about to leave--and "The Eye of the World" was the first book I read while driving (stoplights only!). My condolences to his friends and family.

Why Democrats have not impeached Bush can be summed up in 2 words:

President Cheney.

I was at Bill Clinton's first inauguration.

God, it was cold and boring.

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